Lock shook his hand and left him to get back to his job. It wasn’t one that he envied.
‘Good luck,’ said Marquez.
‘You too,’ Lock shouted back as he jogged to his car, keen to get to Ty and see with his own eyes that he was safe. If the NLR were serious about their threat, they’d probably know that Ty was the easiest target of all right now. A stationary one.
Lock sipped at his coffee, the windows down, the Pacific roaring away on his right as he navigated the single-lane road out of Crescent City. On a sunny day it was a breathtaking drive, but night was closing in and his sole focus was getting to San Francisco.
The rental car didn’t help matters, its tires losing traction as Lock threw the vehicle into tight bends and pulled back out on to the straights. He hunched over the wheel, fatigue engrained in his bones.
Signs flashed by outside at irregular intervals. An invitation to view the world’s tallest tree. To drive through a hollowed-out redwood. To view an exhibit dedicated to Sasquatch, the legendary California Bigfoot — half man, half beast.
The miles ticked down, every minute bringing him closer to the place where it had all started nearly a week ago now, when he met Ty in San Francisco. As he got within striking distance he started to relax a little. Even the place names of the small towns he passed through seemed more genteel, less threatening. Cloverdale. Windsor. Roseland.
He stopped for gas at a Chevron station on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, aware of figures in the shadows as he filled up. A couple of bikers pulled in behind him and he ducked back in the car, tucking the SIG into his jeans and covering it with his jacket. He didn’t want to be ambushed, but equally he didn’t want to take a bullet from an overly paranoid gas station attendant who’d spotted the gun and thought he was going to rob them. But the bikers didn’t even glance in his direction as they grabbed a couple of six-packs from the fridge and made their way back out.
The traffic thickened as he neared the city, and soon he was pulling up to a toll booth on the Golden Gate Bridge. He’d made it into the city without incident.
Fifteen minutes later, as he rounded the corridor in the hospital, heading for Ty’s room, Lock guessed that things weren’t about to stay that way. Four cops and a couple of medical staff were clustered round what Lock guessed was the door leading into Ty’s room. For a moment Lock froze, fearing the worst, then he saw Ty’s head above the melee. He was fully dressed and engaged in a heated discussion with one of the cops.
‘Sir, we’re under orders to make sure that you stay safe,’ the cop was saying.
‘You think I can’t take care of myself? Is that what you’re saying?’ came Ty’s belligerent reply. Like Lock, Ty had what the Marine Corps had designated a ‘problem with authority’, which had only deepened now that he’d entered civilian life.
At least Coburn had been as good as his word, thought Lock, as Ty spotted him.
‘Hey, Ryan, can you explain to these good people that I’d like to leave now?’ Ty said, pushing his way through the cluster of bodies.
Lock felt a rush of relief at seeing his friend, one of the few people he was able to trust without question.
‘Are you sure you’re well enough to leave?’ he asked Ty.
‘Man, have you looked at your own damn self in the mirror?’
One of the medical staff, a young resident in his mid-twenties, touched Lock’s arm. ‘You don’t look great.’
He smiled. ‘I’ve had about four hours’ sleep in the last twenty-four.’
‘I can relate to that,’ said the resident.
‘And how do you cope?’
‘Coffee and, if it’s really bad, a shot of B12.’
‘Then hook me up,’ Lock said. He nodded at Ty. ‘Is he really well enough to leave?’
‘As long as he’s at home taking it easy, he should be fine.’
Lock clasped Ty’s good shoulder. ‘I’ll make sure of it,’ he said.
Together they had a fighting chance of finding Reaper and his posse. But to do that, Lock knew they had to go back to the source.
47
After a long drive and a few more snatched hours of sleep in the car, Lock and Ty pulled up next to the former Prager residence out in Lancaster. It lay in a street of foreclosed houses with yellowing, weed-infested lawns and boarded-up windows. Even amid such generalized misery and misfortune, the house gave out a vibe all of its own. Lock, however, was more concerned with the fact that Ty had insisted on them taking his car. Given that a place like Lancaster was prime territory for white supremacist skinhead gangs, and therefore, by extension, for the Nazi Low Riders, a purple classic car was not an ideal choice.
On the drive there they had debated their next move. Lock had admitted to Ty that although there were a lot of threads, nothing pulled them all together. He therefore felt it was best to go back to the beginning, back to Prager’s investigation. Ty wasn’t sure it was the right thing to be doing, but equally he wasn’t sure what else they could do, so he’d agreed to go with Lock’s hazy outline.
Next door to where the Pragers lived, a woman was packing her kids into the car. She kept on glancing over at their car.
‘I’ll go talk to her,’ Lock said. ‘You keep the pimp-mobile running in case she thinks you’re a white slaver.’
Ty flipped him the bird as the woman slammed the rear passenger door on the two kids and hurried to get in herself.
‘Ma’am? Excuse me?’ Lock jogged the last few yards towards her. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Why can’t you people just leave us alone?’ she shouted. ‘We don’t have any money!’
Clearly, the much-vaunted economic recovery had not made it as far as Lancaster just yet.
Lock noticed the lack of a For Sale sign in her yard. He put up his hands. ‘Ma’am, I just wanted to ask you aboutyour former neighbors.’
‘Even better,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘A reporter.’
‘No, ma’am, I’m trying to understand a few things about what happened to them.’
‘You’re a private investigator?’
Lock stopped, deciding to tell the truth. ‘Aaron was my godson. I hadn’t seen his mom or dad for a few years after they moved out west.’
The woman reached in and turned on the engine so the kids could get the benefit of the air con, then she took a step towards Lock. ‘I’m sorry. I thought…’
‘It’s OK. I’d be suspicious under the circumstances as well.’
‘I’m not sure how I can help you though.’
‘You lived next door to them.’
‘Yes, but that’s kind of it.’
‘I heard that Aaron fell in with a bad crowd.’
‘Not exactly difficult round here.’ She sighed.
‘Kids at school?’
‘Maybe a few of them. There’s a couple of those skinhead gangs round here. I think he started hanging out with one of them.’
‘You know which one?’
‘I don’t know the names. But I could tell you where they like to hang out. There’s a McDonald’s down on Challenger Way, I’ve seen ’em there.’
‘What about Mrs Prager — Janet?’
‘I only really got to know her before… They said her husband was an undercover agent?’
‘That’s right. For the ATF.’
