Then Dean came in.
“What the fuck,” he said.
Doreen jumped up immediately. She was a little slow on her feet, though.
The balding man was laughing.
“Just a little kiss, Dean. That’s all, man. You don’t mind if your brother gets a little kiss from his future sister- in-law.”
“Get the fuck in our room, Dorrie,” Dean said.
“Oh come on, baby,” she said. “It wasn’t nuthin’.”
I felt something brush against my ankle. When I looked down I expected to see a cat but instead it was a rat standing on its back legs, baring uneven yellow fangs.
I know I made some kind of sound but luckily Dean and his brother’s cursing drowned it out.
They argued for a minute or more and then took it out of the room with Doreen trailing after.
I tossed the money bag into a corner and then ran for all I was worth.
Mouse was listening to the radio when I got there. He was lost in the soul of Otis Redding and I couldn’t stop from breathing like a spent dog.
“WE COULD JUST CALL THE POLICE,” I was saying. We were still parked down the block.
“Ain’t LAPD’s case,” Mouse argued. “They ain’t gonna come runnin’ on a phone call. And even if they do come they’ll stop at the front door and that’ll be that. No, Easy. My way is the only way and you know it.”
I finally agreed. Mouse was crazy and unread but he was smart in spite of that.
I DROVE DOWN THE STREET going about thirty. Mouse, who was sitting in the backseat, lowered his window. When we got in front of the bikers’ house, he opened fire with his cannon like .41. He shot all six chambers and reloaded with amazing precision while I made a U-turn at the end of the block. He opened fire again on our return route. On our third pass a man was standing out in front of the house holding a rifle or maybe a shotgun.
“Don’t kill him, Raymond!” I shouted as my friend opened fire.
The rifleman fired too, blowing out the rear window.
“I hit him!” Mouse declared. “In the leg, Easy. In the leg.”
The next time we went down the block the man was crawling toward the house. Gunfire flared from the windows and our stolen Chrysler was hit with a few slugs.
I threw a bundle of money onto the lawn.
Mouse was laughing.
“One more time,” he said.
“No,” I told him. “If that don’t do it then nuthin’ will.”
I DROVE SEVENTEEN blocks north to the nearly vacant parking lot of a Safeway supermarket. We left the wounded Chrysler there and went on foot to my car, which was four blocks farther on.
Then we came to the hard part.
I drove back down to Venice, to the street where we had played cowboys and Indians. The police were there arresting the occupants of the house. I saw them put Doreen into the back of a squad car.
“… THERE WAS A VIOLENT shootout in Venice last night,” the radio announcer was saying at 5:15 the next morning. I was on my way to work. “When the police arrived at the scene they discovered a bundle of cash in a Wells-Fargo wrapper. Inside the house police found a number of unregistered handguns and more evidence from the armored car robbery that occurred in Santa Maria last week. Arrested were Anthony Gleason, who was wounded in the shootout, Mickey Lannerman, Doreen Fitz, and Arnold Wilson. A fifth suspect, Dean Lannerman, is believed to have fled the scene on foot. Police sources have informed us that the escaped Lannerman and Miss Fitz are now prime suspects in the armored car robbery. Lannerman is considered armed and dangerous …”
The announcer went on to explain that the weapon that might have been used in the robbery-murder was also found at the scene. There was also some speculation that Lannerman and Fitz might have had something to do with the murder of an associate of theirs, a man named Myermann.
I made a U-turn in the middle of Central Avenue headed for Santa Barbara.
I stopped to call EttaMae’s number. Luckily she answered.
“What you want, Easy?”
“I need Mama Jo’s number.”
“She ain’t got no phone.”
“Then I need her address.”
“Why?”
“I think somethin’ me and Raymond did might come back on her. I need to get there fast, Etta.”
“You want me to get Raymond up? He knows the way.”
“I got a map. I’ll find my own way.”
She hesitated and then gave me what I needed.
I drove along the Pacific Coast Highway part of the way, then followed the map to a dirt road that led up into a forest of pine.
Walking down toward the house I was brought back to an earlier time, a time in the swamplands of eastern Texas. The trees, the smell of soil, insects buzzing around my head, even the fever I’d felt in the primeval wood returned.
