It takes several minutes of texting—Maddox is not, shall we say, academically gifted—before we decide he’s on an island in something called Mallard Lake.
I set the GPS on the dashboard.
“Make a U-turn,” a female voice instructs, in a tone that suggests we’ve already disappointed her.
Solo brakes. “I don’t think it’s legal to.”
“Now make a U-turn,” the voice commands.
Solo pulls the car into a tight U-turn.
“Turn right in a hundred yards,” says the voice.
“What do we do when we get there?” I ask Aislin. “These guys, the guys after Maddox—”
“Now turn right.”
“—they’re not like people who would have guns, right?”
“Turn right in one-half mile.”
“Guns?” Aislin echoes. Like she’s never heard the word before. “They might, but—”
“Whoa,” I say.
“—what are they going to do, shoot us?” She attempts a laugh. It fails.
Aislin reaches up from the backseat and switches on the radio. It’s Rancid, singing about another East Bay night. One of my favorites, despite the fact that it’s partly about earthquakes and watching the freeways fall. (Before my time, that quake.)
Even though I like the song, I reach to switch it off. Solo stops me, snatching my wrist in midair. He’s as quick as a snake. “It’s good cover. Makes us seem like regular kids.”
He rolls down the windows. The air is damp and smells of pine.
“Now turn right,” says the voice.
The lake is close by, but you can’t see it from the road. We see it on the GPS map. It’s an isosceles triangle with a circular island in the fat end. The park isn’t busy and there are only a few cars parked here and there. But at the point where the road is closest to the lake, there are three cars, obviously hastily parked.
“That’s Maddox’s stepfather’s brother’s wife’s Ford!” Aislin cries.
The Ford, a dented tan Fusion, is boxed in by the other two cars, a tricked-out Miata and a Civic with spinners and a spoiler.
The Miata’s driver’s-side door is open. No one is inside.
Solo slows down and pulls off onto the shoulder. We are surrounded by way too many trees and way too many bushes. It’s surprisingly jungle-esque for something in the middle of San Francisco.
Our radio plays on after Solo turns off the engine. “Text your boyfriend that we’re here,” he instructs.
“He says he can’t move,” Aislin reports back.
Solo cranks the music higher. “Ask him if he hears the music.”
Maddox hears the music.
“If he hears it so do… Okay, here they come,” Solo says. There’s a look of satisfaction on his face. “Seat belts tight?”
“Why?” I ask.
Two guys, both Asian, thin, smoking cigarettes, emerge from the tangle of bushes, fallen trees, and wet grass. One is well-muscled and wearing a green leather jacket. The other, smaller, is wearing a black T-shirt. They give us a hard look. A tough-guy look. The muscular one reaches into his jacket. It’s a move intended to tell us that he’s got something in there.
Solo presses his foot on the accelerator. The car—our car, the one I’m sitting in—smashes straight into the Miata. Right into its driver’s-side door panel.
The impact jolts me hard against my shoulder belt. But it’s not enough to pop the airbag.
“Hey!” I yell. Because what else is there to yell when someone deliberately crashes a car?
Both guys stare, jaws open. A cigarette falls.
“Whoa! Sorry!” Solo says, and it’s a very convincing apology.
“What the—” Leather Jacket yells and stabs the air with his cigarette.
“Sorry, man, sorry!” Solo yells. He whips out his phone and starts dialing. “I’m all over 911. My bad. Totally my bad. But we need the cops to come so I can report it.”
“No cops,” Leather Jacket says. He shakes a no-no finger at Solo.
“Gotta have cops, bro,” Solo says. I don’t believe Solo is a guy who has ever used the word “bro” before, and I’m pretty sure he never will again. But it does the job of making him seem harmless and not very bright.
Leather Jacket pulls a gun.
I’ve never actually seen a gun in real life. I think it’s a toy. But some part of my brain is screaming something about it being real and getting shot and oh please no and I don’t want to die and no no no, even though on the outside I’m pretty sure I look calm.
“Get the hell out of here,” the thug says.
This is when I learn the useful thing about electric cars: There’s no roar of a gas engine when you stomp on the accelerator. Which is what Solo does, with the car in reverse and the wheel turned sharply.
The car jerks back so hard it’s like we’ve been hit again, and for a second some confused part of my brain half wonders if I’ve been shot. But no: no bang noise.
The front left bumper swings back hard, right into Leather Jacket.
It’s a glancing blow. Nothing like the blow that knocked my leg clean off. But there’s no such thing as a love- tap when a car hits you.
Leather Jacket is down, down hard, on his back in the grass. One leg’s beneath the car and his gun is on the grass behind his head.
He doesn’t reach for either. He tries to sit up. It’s a bad move because Solo thrusts his door open and hits him in the face with it. Down goes Leather Jacket again, and this time he’s not going to get up soon.
It all happens so fast, too fast to parse out the individual actions, a blur of flash images, sudden jerks, jolts, noises, cries, crunches, the leap-back of T-shirt.
We hear shouts. Two guys are running toward us from the direction of the still-unseen lake. T-shirt is yelling, but he doesn’t know what to do. The two new arrivals run, see their friend down on the ground, see us, slow down. If one of them has a gun, I tell myself, he would have pulled it out by now.
“Let your boyfriend know he can come out, it’s safe,” Solo instructs Aislin in an amazingly calm voice.
I turn to see if she’s okay. Her fingers are trembling as she tries to text.
The car is still in reverse. Solo eases it backward until the left front wheel encounters an obstacle. It’s Leather’s leg.
Solo says, “We’re here to pick up our friend. If you let him through, no problem. If you don’t, then I’m going to back right over your friend’s leg.”
Maddox appears. He’s soaking wet, muddy from his sneakers to his chest. Dead leaves and sticks cling to him like a halfhearted attempt at camouflage.
He’s a good-looking guy, Maddox is, in a hulky, fullback kind of way. Although right now, terrified and soggy, he just looks pathetic.
“Get in!” Aislin yells.
Solo waits until he’s buckled up. “Pull your boy out from under and call an ambulance,” he instructs the three glaring thugs.
“Everyone ready?”
Oh, we’re ready.
We pull away and Solo says, “It’s so much easier when you don’t have to worry about surveillance cameras.”
Maddox hugs Aislin like a drowning man grabbing the last life preserver. She tolerates it for a few seconds, then punches him in the chest and pushes him away.
“Hey!”
“Dumbass!” she screams.
I’m ignoring them because I can’t stop staring at Solo, who is driving away with quiet competence, merging into traffic and turning into the Sunset District.
“How did you…,” I begin, but I don’t really know how to finish the question.
