Payton took her feet; Rennell cracked open the front door. Jittery and silent, they edged out the door in the cool night air.
No cars.
They dumped her on the sidewalk while Eddie fumbled for the trunk key. When they dropped her inside the trunk, he smelled the pee.
* * *
Payton told him to drive down the hill to India Basin, pull into Shoreline Park.
Payton sat beside him, Rennell in back. When they entered the darkened park, Payton signaled Eddie to stop.
They looked around. To the left rose the stacks of a massive power plant; another car was parked close to the water. Through the windshield, Eddie saw a small orange cylinder inside, the glow of what was probably a joint passing from hand to hand.
'Not here,' Payton said tightly.
For a moment, he started chattering about the warehouse district of Potrero Hill. Then Eddie reminded him of the homeless who camped out there.
All at once, it seemed, Payton remembered the tallow plant.
* * *
They turned down an unmarked road past the shadowy forms of warehouses. Through the driver's-side window, cracked open to help him keep from vomiting, Eddie caught the stench of burning fat and animal remnants. No one else would be here.
Silent, Eddie clamped his jaw against his own fear and nausea.
On the spit of land where the road ended was a construction site, sand and gravel sitting in piles like burial mounds. To the left was a channel of brackish water. The wreck of an old barge was grounded there, next to a neglected wooden pier, which stuck from weeds and sand into the water. Across the channel was an outpost of the Port of San Francisco, the black skeletons of loading cranes towering above. Eddie heard no sounds at all.
'Get her out,' Payton directed.
Eddie sat there like he was paralyzed. Only when Payton opened the car door and barked something more did Eddie force himself into the chill, toxic air.
Curtly, Payton nodded toward the trunk. He seemed to have come down off his high.
With renewed dread, Eddie opened the trunk.
The child was still curled stiffly, her posture frozen. 'You do it,' Payton told his brother.
To Eddie, the order carried the edge of reproof. In silence, Rennell lifted the dead child.
Payton angled his head toward the channel. 'Out there.'
Rennell started toward the water's edge. Following, Eddie thought his lumbering shape resembled that of a monster in a horror film. Their feet crunched stunted shrubbery.
They reached the sand at the edge of the channel. 'Dump her in the water,' Payton said.
Corpse cradled in his arms, Rennell walked to the pier, testing it with his weight.
The beams creaked. Shaking his head, Rennell backed off.
'In the water,' Payton repeated. 'We want her away from here.'
Like an automaton, Rennell stepped out into the channel.
Right away, Eddie saw that its current was swift—Rennell staggered sideways, clutching at the nearest piling, the girl's body tucked beneath one massive arm. He righted himself, then began edging farther out, to where the ruined wood tumbled into the water.
Almost gently, he laid the body on the surface of the channel.
At once the current began sweeping her away. The last Eddie saw of Thuy Sen was strands of long black hair, swirling away in dark, moonlit water.
Surprising tears sprung to his eyes. 'Let's get high,' he heard Payton say.
* * *
'He was shook up,' Fleet finished now. 'Don't think he meant to do it. Don't even know if he did do it.' He puffed his cheeks and exhaled. 'Whatever, you got to feel sorry for her.'
You're a real humanitarian, Monk thought. In his flattest voice, he asked, 'The brothers like doing nine-year- olds?'
Fleet moved his shoulders. 'They were high, man—do crazy things when you're high.'
'That all you know?' Ainsworth asked.
Fleet turned to him. 'It is,' he said fervently. 'I swear it.'
'So you wouldn't mind taking a lie detector.'
Fleet faced Monk again. 'You want me to?' he asked.
Not really, Monk thought—they didn't need a murky polygraph. With a shrug, he said, 'Up to you, Eddie.'
Fleet seemed to consider this. 'Yeah,' he said finally, 'I guess it's okay.'
