“Excuse me, sir, but I have one final request.”
The warden held up his hand and stopped the guards.
“Oh?”
“If not for my need to learn your ways, you wouldn’t have put Slane with the boy last night, and he wouldn’t have been in a position to cry out. I was the one who objected. Send me down instead of the boy. I’m the one who stands to gain more from learning your ways.”
The room could not have been more still. But by the look in the warden’s eyes, Danny wondered if Pape had anticipated this, wanted this. He was a master chess player, one step ahead at every turn.
“The boy paid his price last night,” Danny said. “I haven’t.”
“The boy wasn’t hurt.”
“Not his body, but you’ve crushed his spirit.”
The warden nodded. “The next time it’ll be more than his spirit. But since you insist…” The warden nodded at Bostich. “Take the priest deep.”
12
I SPENT TWO more hours with Keith before he ducked out to run some errands. I’d shown him my kit, and, unless I’d completely misread him, he was impressed. Not with what I had, but with my knowledge of knives and guns. Naturally, I felt obligated to show him how each should be used. Sure, I didn’t look as natural as Danny or Keith, but, to use Keith’s words, I would get the job done.
He asked why I thought I needed all of it. The gun, he understood. The knives, sure, although the Bowie was a behemoth in my hands. The pepper spray, even the handcuffs—who doesn’t have a pair of handcuffs, right?
But the wire was a different matter. I told him it had come as part of a detective kit I’d ordered online. Truth be told, I don’t know why I thought I needed a wire. It’s not like I had any plans to run up behind a robber and strangle him until he dropped what was in his hands.
When I told Keith this, he smiled and shook his head. “No, but you’d be surprised how effective it can be in a tight spot. I’d say you take the folding knife, and the wire, nothing else.”
“The wire?”
“You can’t pack a gun, they’ll just take it from you. If they search you, they may find the knife, but the wire, they’ll never find. Not unless they strip search you.”
“Hide it where?”
“Around your hips. Under your jeans. If everything else fails and you still have use of your arms, you get to it and you get it around their neck from behind. Then you hang on for your life.”
Made sense. The knife went in my right pocket—I had to give them at least something to find.
The plan was simple: I would play the naive damsel in distress, willing to do anything to save her man behind bars. Keith would approach from a side street and park his Ford Ranger in an alley one block away. If things went wrong, I would push the small reset button on a black wristwatch he’d given me. A page would be sent to his iPhone, which was tracking mine through its GPS. If things went terribly wrong, I had the wire and the knife.
I had a pair of short black leather Harley boots with inch-thick soles that I’d bought two years earlier, thinking they looked cute. After wearing them for a week whenever I went out, I decided they were too heavy and I hadn’t worn them since. I also had a black leather Harley vest I’d bought with the boots. Over a cropped red tank top I looked quite the biker chick. A skinny one with a white belly.
The Rough Riders bar was located on the Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach. It was a fairly typical bar from what I could tell by its website, trying hard to appear inviting to nonbikers without alienating bikers.
I parked my Toyota in the small parking lot on the north side of Rough Riders at 9:55 and called Keith.
“I’m here.”
“Good. You’re sure you’re up for this?”
“Does it matter? My palms are slimy, what does that tell you?”
“It’s not too late to—”
“Of course it is. We both know I don’t have a choice.”
He said nothing.
“I can handle myself, right? I’ve been in worse situations, believe me. Just be ready to bail me out.”
“I’m right here, Renee. Anything happens, you page me.”
“What if they take my watch?”
“We don’t even know there will be a they. You just go straight to the phones and find whatever he’s left for you. Then get out. I’ll meet you at Brady’s Diner as planned. That’s all that’s going to happen.”
“What if they want me to do something crazy?”
“We’ve been over this. Anything illegal and you get to the bathroom and get me on the phone.”
“What if they’re listening to my phone right now?”
“Renee…”
“I know, too many what-ifs.”
“We
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know. But it’s a comforting thought. Just get in and get out. If I haven’t heard from you in fifteen minutes, I’m coming in.”
My questions were only my way of coping. We’d gone over all the details a dozen times already.
“Okay, I’m going.”
“Renee…”
“Yeah?”
“Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“No. I think you’re probably smarter than me. But the kind of people who would be connected to Randell are scum. Resist the temptation to set them straight. They also tend to have hair triggers.”
“Okay. I gotta go now.”
“Be careful.”
“You’re repeating yourself,” I said, then disconnected.
It was 9:59 when I stepped up to the door with the large red and blue neon sign that said Rough Riders. Seven bikes were parked out front, at least a few of them Harleys. The sidewalk was empty except for an older man with a cane who hobbled away with his back to me.
I pushed the door open to the sound of Guns N’ Roses playing “Sweet Child of Mine” and stepped into the dimly lit establishment. The bar was to my left. Two bartenders served six or seven meaty guys and one woman seated on bar stools. A dozen tables with oak chairs sat on a well-worn wooden floor that ran up to a small dance floor. A railing separated the main bar from a brown-carpeted lounge that had two pool tables and a couple couches. The walls were lined with beer lights and biker paraphernalia.
All of this I saw at a glance.
That and the fact that the floor needed to be scrubbed and swept, that the poor lighting failed to hide stains on the walls from one too many thrown beer bottles, that a bad shampoo had failed to remove all the spill spots on the carpet. I was walking into bacteria heaven.
Two things I didn’t immediately see: One was the public phone. It was probably by the bathrooms around the bar. The second was the people, because I hadn’t come to meet the people, only get to the phone as quickly and quietly as possible.
But then my eyes took in the patrons and I found myself returning stares. Not one or two, but a dozen of the thirty or forty people in the bar, looking at the skinny white biker chick with the black leather vest who’d just
