weren’t together. We weren’t anything. I didn’t have any right to get upset with what she was doing in her personal life, yet my gut felt like it was filled with jagged stones.
I took the I-8 westbound exchange behind the old Sports Arena and past Sea World, exiting at West Mission Bay Drive, and headed into Mission Beach as I thought about my anger. I wasn’t ready to admit that Liz was over me. I’d imagined our relationship as one of those like you see on television, where the couple is apart until no one can take it any longer and then they end up back together. You just have that feeling that two people are supposed to be together.
I had that feeling about Liz and me, but she apparently didn’t watch the same shows.
I parked the Jeep in the alley outside my house and walked the five blocks up Mission to the SandDune. My legs were stiff and heavy and the walk helped bring them back to life. The bar was half filled; a quiet buzz of conversation mixed with the overhead television monitors.
I slid onto the first stool and waved at Marsha behind the bar. She was wearing a tight black T-shirt cut just above her navel and her blond hair hung straight to her shoulders.
She strolled over and winced. “Who danced on your face?”
“Guy with big feet,” I said, leaning against the bar, breathing harder than I would’ve liked. “Shot of Cuervo and Red Trolley on the back.”
She nodded and pulled the bottle of tequila from below the counter. She turned up a shot glass in front of me and filled it with the liquor.
“Gonna be here awhile?” she asked, pushing the small glass toward me.
“That’s my intent,” I said.
She produced a bottle of the beer, flipped the top off, and set it next to the tequila. “Okay. I’ll be back in a bit.”
I turned my attention to one of the monitors above the bar and watched the Padres play another meaningless game late in the year, trying to shut the image of Liz and Mike out of my thoughts.
It was two beers and an hour later before Marsha wandered back to me.
“You feel as bad as you look?” she asked, throwing her towel into a bin behind the counter.
“Not until people start telling me how bad I look.”
She laughed and nodded. “Right. Sorry.”
“No problem. I’m getting used to it.”
She leaned on the bar. “Guy was in here earlier, looking for you.”
I sat up a little straighter. “Really?”
“Yeah. About an hour before you rolled in.”
Images of Lonnie and Mo fired through my head. I turned around and did a quick scan of the room. No one with a shaved head.
I turned back to Marsha. “Get a name?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
I could feel the hair on my neck come to attention. “What did he look like?”
“Black guy,” she said. “Maybe twenty or so. About your size. Lots of gold on him, wearing a Raiders jersey and a Dodgers cap.”
I relaxed a little at her description, realizing it hadn’t been Lonnie or Mo. “Say what he wanted?”
“No,” she said, pushing herself off the bar. “Came in, asked Marco if he knew you, Marco pointed him in my direction, I told him I hadn’t seen you today.”
Her description reminded me of Deacon Moreno, the kid that Rolovich had complained about at the apartment complex. If it had been him, I wasn’t sure why he’d be looking for me, but I was immediately uncomfortable with the idea that he knew to find me at the SandDune.
I stood up from the stool. “Thanks, Marsha.” I fished some money out of my pocket and slid it across the bar. “He comes back, give me a buzz, alright?”
She scooped up the money. “No problem.”
I walked out of the SandDune into the cool evening air. Mission Boulevard was heavy with traffic, cars crawling at a snail’s pace, but no one seeming to mind. The late summer tourists walked slowly down the street, pointing and smiling at nothing in particular.
A Toyota Camry with a thumping bass coming from the interior broke out of the line of traffic and pulled to the curb in front of me.
I stepped back and reached around my waist, touching the butt of my gun for reassurance.
The passenger window dropped and the volume of the music went down with it. A kid, about eighteen, with skin the color of black licorice leaned out. He didn’t match the photo Rolovich had shown me.
“Yo,” he said, exposing a gold tooth in the middle of his mouth. “How we get to Garnet?”
I tried to glance around him, but couldn’t see the other face behind the wheel. “About two miles up to the north. Same direction you’re going.”
He leaned on the window, a thick chain around his neck jangling against the inside of the door. “This way? You sure, dude?”
“Yeah.”
His tongue snaked out the corner of his mouth and he nodded slowly. “Cool.” He lifted his chin as a way of saying thanks, then leaned back in the car. He turned to the driver, said something, and then turned back to me. “Good thing we found you standing out here. Makes things easy, know what I’m saying?” He winked and the window and the volume of the music both went up.
The wink didn’t fit as I watched the Camry pull away from the curb, back into the northbound traffic, my heart beating faster than I would’ve liked. I took a step forward, trying to get an eye on the receding license plate, when I saw the red Escalade coming on the southbound side of Mission.
The back window on the driver’s side slid down and two gun barrels poked their heads out like a pair of twin cobras.
The kid in the Camry had done his job and served me up on a platter.
I dropped to the sidewalk, my already aching body taking another jolt, and hit the concrete, the first wave of bullets whistling above my head. Tires squealed, people screamed, and glass shattered as the guns fired into the front window of the SandDune. I ignored the throbbing in my ribs and rolled to the curb, trying to avoid the falling glass and taking cover next to the parked cars on the street.
The gunshots stopped as quickly as they’d started. An engine roared and as I moved to my knees and drew my gun, the Escalade tore down the middle of Mission and jerked left onto Mission Bay at the roller coaster, disappearing around the corner.
It was quiet for a moment and then a cacophony of confusion and fearful voices filled the air.
I looked in through the entrance of the SandDune. People were starting to stand back up inside, eyes wide with terror and shock. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it didn’t look like anyone was hurt. Marsha was on the phone, probably calling the police.
I stood up awkwardly, my muscles screaming in pain and my gun hanging impotently in my right hand. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, pieces of the painted glass that had spelled out the bar’s name crunching beneath my shoes. Sirens wailed in the distance.
I took a deep breath.
I didn’t know where Linc Pluto was.
I didn’t know who shot Rachel outside her apartment.
I didn’t know why Lonnie and Mo had killed Peter Pluto.
And I didn’t know who had just tracked me down in my own neighborhood and tried to ventilate my body with bullets.
But as I stood there amid the gunsmoke, burnt rubber, and chaos, with my stomach in knots and my thoughts speeding through my brain on a conveyor belt, I did know one thing.
It was time to go on the offensive.
Twelve
