“Gotta make a short stop first.” Gordon pulled a pack of cigarettes from the visor above his head, tapped one out on the wheel, pushed in the cigarette lighter.
“You don’t smoke.”
“Only when I drive.” Gordon lit the cigarette, sucked in the smoke, exhaled. He looked at her, smiled. “Tell me about the hair.” Gordon took another drag on the cigarette. They were out of the Shore now, in Long Beach. Gordon moved the car into the left lane, signaled when they approached the freeway, took the on ramp.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start from when you left the Whale and keep going till you get to where we are now. Take your time, we’ve got a ride ahead of us.”
Maggie wanted to ask where they were going, but she didn’t. Gordon had a right to know. She told him. It didn’t take so long, just till Gordon turned onto the San Diego Freeway, headed toward the airport.
“Sit back, relax. I’ll let you know when we get there,” he said.
More than anybody, Maggie trusted Gordon. She closed her eyes, she was so tired. She opened them when Gordon glided the car off the freeway. She wasn’t familiar with the area, Imperial or Roosevelt, up by the airport. Inglewood maybe. She was about to say something, but Gordon turned into a warehouse complex. One of those places where you store your stuff when you have nowhere else.
He guided the car to a post in front of a sliding gate, stuck his hand out the open window, punched some numbers on a keypad. The gate creaked open, the wheels needed oil. He drove past a row of warehouses with roll up garage doors and stopped when he came to the last one in the line of the first complex.
“Wait here. This won’t take long.” He got out of the car.
Maggie watched as he turned the dial on a combination lock. He missed the combination the first time. It was dark, after all. He tried again, pulled the lock open, took it off, pulled up the door.
He went inside, rolled the door down after himself. Maggie saw light creep out from underneath, heard noise, like he was moving boxes around. She looked around the warehouse complex. Dark. Spooky. She was in either the bad part of West L.A. or Inglewood. Gangbanger territory. She didn’t belong here, especially at night.
She hunched down in the seat, even though there was no one to see her. Every few seconds a car went by on the street back by the sliding gate, but none stopped. She sighed, no one was coming in after her. Besides, she had the gun. She reached into the back, got the grip and got the Sigma out.
She ejected the clip, racked the slide and pumped out the one in the chamber. She emptied the clip, counted out ten rounds. The gun held sixteen, plus one in the chamber. She’d fired off seven at Nighthyde. She thumbed the rounds back into the clip, shoved the clip back in, then chambered a round. Loaded again, she sat up, gun in her left hand, ready for action.
She heard the creaking sound behind her, looked out the rear window. The gate was opening. A car cruised in. Slow. The headlights went off as soon as the car passed the gate. Whoever they were, they didn’t want to be seen. Maggie ran her thumb along the butt of the Sigma. She’d shot a man tonight. She didn’t want to do it again.
The car motored toward her. It was one of those gangbanger cars, lowered, darkened windows. It slowed to a crawl. Maggie felt her skin creep as it got closer. For a second she felt like slinking down in the seat, but she tossed off the thought. There were no other cars in the complex. If whoever was in that car was going to check out Gordon’s car, they’d see her, even if she scrunched down.
The car came closer. A Toyota, similar to the car she’d seen leaving the police station earlier. Kids out enjoying a hot night. She’d waved to them, got a thumbs up in return. Somehow, she didn’t think the kids in this car were going to be as friendly.
The car slowed even more as it approached, came along side, stopped. Maggie scooted over behind the wheel. The window was down. The Toyota’s passenger window came down. She was facing a black youth, seventeen or twenty, she couldn’t be sure. He was wearing the red bandanna of the Bloods. He smiled, he had a gold tooth. Top, left front. He ran his tongue across it. Maggie had never seen anything so sinister in real life.
“Hey sister, what’cha doin’ out alone on such a dark night?”
“I’m not alone,” Maggie said.
“Don’t see no one.” The kid was smirking.
“I have my nine millimeter friend with me and I’ve already killed one man tonight.” She brought the gun up to the window, pointed it at the gold tooth. “So, kissing your sweet ass goodbye would be like icing on the cake.”
“Hey, we don’t want no trouble.” All of a sudden the kid’s attitude went away.
“Well, you found it.” She was shaking inside, but determined not to back down.
“You ain’t the only one with a piece,” the kid said.
“No, I suppose not.” She smiled at the kid. “So, should we start shooting now?”
“Leave the bitch,” the driver said.
“You one lucky lady,” the kid said.
“Luck is my middle name.”
“Yeah,” the kid smiled back as the roll-up door opened. The kid took one look at Gordon framed by the light coming from the inside of the warehouse and rolled up his window. The car eased away.
Maggie froze when she saw him. He was holding a pump action shotgun in his hands, ready to use it.
“What was that about?” he said.
“Nothing, just some kids,” Maggie said.
“Wearing Blood colors,” Gordon said.
“Kids gotta have friends,” Maggie said. “Maybe with a little direction they’ll grow up to be fine young men.”
“And maybe not.” Gordon opened the back door, tossed the shotgun onto the back seat.
“Yeah, maybe not,” Maggie said.
“I got some more stuff.” He went back into the warehouse, came out with a couple of boxes. He put them into the back as well.
Maggie was torn between watching him and the kids in the Toyota. They stopped in front of a roll-up door in the next building.
“Probably where they stash their drugs.” Gordon got in, started the car. “Good spot. Centrally located, safe from the cops.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie said.
“They’d need a warrant to bust into one of these places,” he said. The gate opened automatically as they approached. You needed the code to get in, anybody could get out. He looked in the mirror, turned and looked out the back window. “Yeah, the kid who went into the warehouse is coming out already.”
Gordon drove out of the complex. The Toyota came up behind. Gordon turned left toward the freeway. The Toyota turned right toward the hood.
“What’s in the boxes?” Maggie asked.
“Stuff from a former life,” Gordon said.
“Former life?”
“I was in the FBI.”
“They let you keep shit like that pump action in back?”
“Twenty years, you acquire stuff like that.”
“So, what else you got?”
“A couple kevlar vests, some Glocks, a twenty-two throw-down, some other stuff.”
“So, what’d you leave back in the warehouse, a tank?”
“No, it’s mostly Ricky’s things from before we were together. He had this horrid furniture. I like classy stuff.”
Maggie nodded, he did like classy stuff. His apartment was tastefully furnished with restored antiques. Anyone would think he was wealthy if they saw his furniture. And it went with the image of a sophisticated gay man. The shotgun and the stuff in the boxes in back, did not.
Gordon was the best friend she’d ever had, but she was beginning to wonder just how well she knew him.
“Police,” Gordon said. A black-and-white was just ahead, coming toward them on the other side of the street. “Scoot over here. Act like we’re lovers.”
