Eddie said, “Asshole fed.”
They were glaring at me when Eddie suddenly focused on something behind me, and his face sagged.
“Oh shit.”
I turned as Rudy J reached behind his desk for a baseball bat, and then the door opened.
A tough-looking Asian man in a nice suit and sunglasses swaggered in first. He had been born with a thick neck and large bones, but time in a gym gave him sharp cuts and rude angles. He grinned when he saw the baseball bat, then stepped aside as two more Asian men pushed the third brother inside ahead of them. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. They were lean and hard with no-bullshit expressions, and something told me they weren’t police officers.
The second man held the youngest brother by the upper arm, and spoke to Rudy J as if I wasn’t present, even though I was only three feet away.
“We gave you much time. Now you pay.”
He barked the words in a heavy accent, each word a separate explosion.
Rudy J dipped his head toward me. He was afraid, but he was more afraid of what they would do to his brother than what I might overhear.
“Let him the hell go. Don’t you see we got people here? We’re doing business.”
The three men glanced at me as if I had been invisible until that moment, then the man holding the kid barked a broken-English command.
“Leave now. Come back tomorrow.”
I looked from him to the brothers, and wondered what was between them. I didn’t like the way they held the kid, or the way they assumed I would leave, or how they wore suits in the hundred-degree heat.
He barked again, louder.
“Leave now.”
I said, “I’m from the government. I’m here to ruin your day.”
Now he barked in a language I didn’t understand, and the big man reached for my arm. He was heavier and probably stronger, but he didn’t have time to use his weight or strength. I rolled his hand away, stepped into him with my left foot, and brought my right knee up into his liver. He went down as Joe Pike came through the door, kicked the legs from beneath the last man, and slammed him facedown into the floor. Then Pike’s gun was out, and up, and on the talker, and so was mine. Start to finish, three-quarters of one second.
I smiled at the talker.
“Nice suit.”
He let the boy go, and the boy scurried to his brothers. Then the man said something else I didn’t understand.
Pike said, “Korean.”
The Korean didn’t look scared.
“You should go. Go now.”
Pike took small pistols off each of them, and slipped them into his pockets.
I looked at the brothers behind their desk. They didn’t look like banditos or criminal coyotes. They looked like three rabbits pinned by the headlights.
I tipped my gun toward the suits.
“Who are these people?”
Rudy J wet his lips, then shook his head. Too scared to speak.
I said, “Want to call the police?”
Rudy J shook his head again, but it wasn’t good enough for the Korean.
“They owe us money. You should not be involved.”
Rudy J said, “Man, we don’t. I told you. The Syrian took’m. I don’t know what else to say.”
He was pleading.
The big guy was moving like he might try to get up. I cocked my pistol, pointed it at his head, but spoke to the talker.
“If he gets up too fast, I’ll hurt him.”
The talker stared at me as if deciding whether to continue, then kicked the big man hard in the back, shouting in more Korean. He kicked him twice more, and then we all heard a loud buzzing. The talker reached into his pocket, came out with a vibrating cell phone, and looked outside through the glass. Everyone else looked, too.
Three men climbed from a dark gray four-door sedan. Short-sleeved Arrow shirts and ties, carrying their jackets like men who didn’t want to put them on. A lanky African-American and a bald, pale Anglo got out of the front. A trim, well-built man with crew-cut red hair climbed from the back. They moved slowly, scanning their surroundings like they were getting the lay of the land, or maybe they wanted to make sure no one was going to shoot them. It was obvious they were cops even before the black cop took a holstered snub-nose from the car and clipped it to his belt beside a badge.
Rudy J said, “That’s the police. The black guy, that’s Detective Spurlow.”
The head Korean glanced at me, then pulled his two friends to their feet as Rudy J continued.
“That bald guy is Lance. They’re the ones told us about the old man. I don’t know that other guy.”
Eddie said, “Lange. It was Lange, not Lance.”
Outside, the officers slipped into their jackets, shaking themselves because the cloth stuck to their skin.
The head Korean stepped close, and looked like he wanted to rip out my heart.
“You have guns. Give back now.”
Pike said, “Not him. Me.”
The talker glared at Pike for a moment, then smiled as if he was giving Pike a break, and swaggered out through the door. His minions followed. All three smiled as they passed the officers, climbed into a black BMW sedan, and drove out of the yard.
Pike said, “Watch.”
As they passed the Subaru, the man in the hat nodded at the men in the Beemer. A moment later, the man in the hat sat taller and started his car.
Pike trotted past the brothers and left through the rear.
The officers had gotten themselves together, and were coming our way. None of them hurried, but they didn’t have far to go.
Rudy was staring at me. His mouth worked as if he was terrified of what I might do.
I said, “Who were those guys?”
“I don’t know, man. They were in with my dad.”
He wet his lips, and glanced at the approaching officers, and I glanced at them, too.
“I’m coming back.”
I left through the front door just like the Koreans, nodded at the officers the way strangers do, and mumbled something about the heat. Spurlow nodded back and Lange ignored me, but the red-haired guy locked eyes with me and didn’t let go.
I kept walking, just a man going to his car at the end of the day, only I wasn’t. Each step was careful and measured, and with each step I hoped they wouldn’t stop me.
When I passed through the gate, Spurlow and Lange were inside, but the red-haired guy was in the door. He was watching me with eyes so narrow they looked like slits.
Joe Pike called as I reached my car.
“The Subaru climbed the first on-ramp. The Beemer is somewhere ahead.”
“Which direction?”
“L.A.”
“Find the Beemer. Follow it. I’ll stay with the brothers.”
I pulled around the corner, parked behind the taco stand, and waited for the police.
Jack and Krista: nine hours after they were taken
