“Barnes.” Manny was on the line. “You got somethin’ I want, and I got somethin’ to trade for it.”
“I’m listening, Manny,” I said.
“You know where Shit Creek is?”
He was talking about the creek that ran along part of the Hollow, the lower area of Frick Park. When I was a kid, we all called the creek Shit Creek because of the smell of the water. I never found out what caused the odor, which was cleaned up years ago, and I never really knew the actual name of the creek, either.
“Yeah, I know where it is,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Be there in thirty minutes, down by that parking lot next to the old ball field. Bring the disc and nothin’ and nobody else. When I get there, I wanna see you standin’ next to your car, hands in the air, one of them holdin’ that disc. I see anything don’t look kosher, the broad’s dead.” Then he hung up.
* * *
On the drive over to the park, I spent a couple of minutes berating myself for not thinking about Rachel, but then I stopped. Getting mad at myself wasn’t going to help Rachel Pendleton. Instead, I concentrated on Manny and our upcoming get-together at Shit Creek. There were all kinds of flaws in his plan, but this was Manny. Straight and direct. Right at ya. Right now, he wanted two things: the disc, and me dead. Getting me somewhere where he could get the disc and kill me was all that mattered to him. Once we were all at the park, he’d kill me and then Rachel. If he could.
I planned to resist.
Chapter 45
The place where Manny intended to kill me was perfect for that purpose. The area called the Hollow is over a mile long and more than three-hundred feet wide at most places. At one end of the Hollow is a softball field that hasn’t been used for at least a decade, since the city installed several new fields in another section of the park. When I got there at a little before seven that evening, there was no one around. People used to picnic down here, but after a spate of muggings and sexual attacks and one murder a few years back, all of the picnic areas were relocated to the upper level of the park, which is more accessible, anyway. I parked the 4Runner near one side of the parking lot, which was filled with cracks and potholes and bunches of weeds growing here and there. I got out and leaned on the front fender of my Toyota and waited for Manny.
He arrived just a few minutes later, driving a white Buick LeSabre down one of the many roads leading into the Hollow. He stopped about thirty feet from me and got out of the car, pulling Rachel out behind him on the driver’s side. He held her close to him, with his gun pointed at her temple. She looked scared to death, and I didn’t blame her.
“Okay, asshole,” Manny said to me. “Walk over here and hand me the disc.
About twenty-five feet beyond the spot where I’d parked was a dense stand of trees, and out of the middle of them stepped Denny, wearing a beautiful brown two-piece suit, gun in hand.
“Manny,” he said, “I’m Detective Dennis Wilcox, and at this minute, there’s a gun sighted on your head. Release your weapon, let it drop right down to the ground. Do it now.”
Manny looked at me and shouted, “You was supposed to come alone. You lied!”
I shrugged and said, “What can I say? I’m just a dickhead private eye, remember?”
“Do it now, Manny,” Denny said again.
Manny’s eyes looked wild and were darting all over the place.
“I ain’t gonna go to jail,” he said. “I been there, and I ain’t goin’ again. And I don’t believe you about that gun, and even if I did, it wouldn’t matter. I tole you, I ain’t goin’ back to jail.”
“Officer Ramirez,” shouted Denny, “are you in position?”
“Yes, sir,” came a female voice from the woods on the hillside behind Dennis.
“A cunt?” screamed Manny. “You think some cunt’s gonna shoot me? Fuck that!” And he moved his gun from Rachel’s temple and pointed it at me and the left side of his head exploded as I was reaching for the .38 on my right hip.
Denny and I got to Manny’s body at the same time. While Denny took the gun out of Manny’s hand and felt for the pulse that wasn’t there, I turned to Rachel Pendleton. One side of her face was splattered with blood, and she was shaking and sobbing. I put my arm around her and led her a few feet away. A tall, slender, very attractive black woman wearing a cocktail dress and tennis shoes walked out of the woods carrying a long-barreled pistol with a scope. She went over and stood looking down at Manny for a minute.
“Cunt, huh?” she said, and then turned and walked over to where Rachel and I were standing. She took Rachel’s arm and walked her towards my car, talking softly to her all the while.
I went over and stood next to Denny.
“Juanita’s the best shooter on the force,” he said.
“How’d you get her here so fast?” I asked.
“We happened to be together when you called.”
That explained the suit and the cocktail dress.
“She always go for the casual look as far as footwear is concerned?” I asked.
Denny grinned and said, “Lucky for you she keeps a pair of Nikes in the trunk of her car.” Then he glanced at the body lying on the ground between us.
“Guess that’s the last bit of residual stupidity old Manny’ll be leaving behind,” he said.
Chapter 46
“And this thing all began a few years ago when Chaney and Cox decided to move their offices downtown?”
It was a warm Sunday evening in the middle of May, and Laura and I were sitting on the
