We hit the ground in a dog pile. Mack on the bottom. The gasoline reek strongest now. If Ruben flicked the lighter, whether it lit or not, the spark would be enough to barbeque us all. I fumbled. Looking, feeling for Ruben’s hand that held the lighter. Mack yelled, “Get off. Get off.”
I couldn’t find Ruben’s hand and out of desperation decided to go to knuckles. I slugged Ruben in the head again and again. Bare hands against thick skull. I wanted to ring his bell to daze him, make him forget the day of the week, forget his own name.
Mack grunted. Mack bench-pressed the both of us off him, tossed us aside. Mack stood, backed away, fear bright on his face. He yelled something unintelligible twice, then came in fast with a heavy boot and punted Ruben in the face. Ruben’s teeth skittered against the wall of Huggies.
Mack pulled back and booted him again. Ruben had gone still. I held no love for Ruben, the way he killed five other undeserving folks. Four years ago I might’ve been right there with Mack, meting out a little curbside justice, but I’d learned my lesson and changed for the better. Being inside, seeing the end result, changed me. I laid across Ruben and covered him as best I could. Mack didn’t pull back on his last kick. It glanced off my back. “Hey, hey, enough. The man’s down. The man’s down.”
Fong ran up, not knowing what happened, put his shoulder into Mack and shoved him away. My breath came hard. “Give me your cuffs.” Fong tossed them to me. I climbed off of Ruben, pulled his arms behind him, and cuffed him. I rolled to my feet, stood as I tried to catch my breath.
Fong finally smelled the gas and guessed what happened. He leaned down and picked up the Bic lighter. “Son of a bitch. Don’t tell me he tried to torch you?”
Mack turned and walked away, the emotions of the event too much for him. He didn’t want us to witness it. I couldn’t blame him.
Fong reached into his pocket, tossed me the car keys. “Here, bring the car up to the mouth of this little alley so we can load this piece of shit.”
I hesitated; I was Ruben’s only advocate. If I left him alone, no telling what these angry BMFs might do.
Fong scowled. “Get your ass movin’, we ain’t got all night.” I walked backward toward Willowbrook until it became too hazardous with all the debris. I turned and walked slowly, listening for the telltale sounds of an ass beating. At the street, I turned back and looked. Ruben still lay facedown on the ground, unmoving. Fong and Mack had their backs to me. Fong had his hand on Mack’s shoulder, in close, whispering to him. Mack was more shaken than I had thought. I ran for the car to get back as soon as I could.
I opened the door and started up. I could run for it, be in Mexico in three hours, home free. Then I realized Fong, the guy who’d wanted to store me in the trunk, was the one who’d trusted me, tossed me the keys. I put it in gear and skidded up to the opening between the buildings, held my breath when I looked. Fong and Mack each held a shoulder, hands under Ruben’s arms, dragging him to the car. It was over.
They opened the back door and tossed him in, an empty sack of useless humanity. Fong opened the driver’s door, “Get out, skillet, I’m driving.”
Mack walked by me, grabbed the driver’s door before Fong closed it, “Don’t call him skillet.” They both stared a long time at one another. Fong nodded. “Okay. I got it.”
Mack said, “Get out, I’m driving.”
“Johnson, you ride up front.”
Fong didn’t protest. He got in the back, shoved Ruben over.
Most of the gas had already evaporated off Mack. The sour smell of barf emanated from him. Something else went missing, snuffed out in near flambé experience, something gone from his eyes. I’d seen it often in prison. That little extra spark that kept a man upright, head held high, went missing. Before now Mack had burned too bright, the odds swung in his favor. It would return. If it didn’t, well, I’d ask Mr. Cho if he needed somebody to run his counter.
Chapter Forty-Five
Fong recovered, slapped Mack on the back, “We got him, bro. We did it. This is the guy. It’s got to be, the way he went after you, used the same MO, the can of gas, the lighter, we got him. Can’t wait to see the look on that asshole Wicks’s face. Let’s call him.” Fong opened his cell phone, scrolled, tapped the number, and put it to his ear. “Damn. Voice mail.”
In a few short hours the BMFs would gather, and over a case of beer, celebrate the taking of big game.
“That lets me out, right?” I said, “You can pull over here and put me afoot. That’d be okay by me.”
Mack took his vacant eyes off the road for a second, turned. I read sadness and contrition, but I also saw his confidence ebbing back.
“Don’t think so, Johnson. You still have to answer for Bressler.”
“I told you the truth about torching those people and I’m telling you the truth about Bressler.” I wanted to add that he owed me for the little tussle back there where I kept him from becoming a Fourth of July sparkler.
Fong fumbled around in back. He shoved Ruben the Cuban from side to side searching his pockets, a prebooking search as it were, pulling out everything in his pockets, a legal search acceptable in court. He handed the items over the seat, three books of matches with Theo’s Bar on the covers, a can of butane refill for cigarette lighters, some empty Ziploc baggies with residue, a moldering wallet chocked full of moldering papers, a fat key ring with old unused antiquated keys, and five cheap cigarette lighters, all blue.
I opened the wallet, damp, still warm from his body heat, and pulled out the papers. The newest addition to the mess, a yellow copy I recognized as a booking application to Los Angeles County Jail. I unfolded it and saw John Edward Ruben-stein had recently been arrested for under the influence of a controlled substance and had only just been let out on a promise-to-appear citation.
“You better have a look at this.” I handed it over to Mack as he steered us toward Century Sheriff’s Station on Alameda.
“Can’t you see I’m driving?” His anger bled through. Transference from what happened, anger at displaying fear.
Ruben the Cuban moaned as he came around.
I took it back, “When did that last guy get torched, two nights ago? This says our friend here was in custody at the time of the last burning.”
Mack yanked on the wheel, steered the car over to the curb by a vacant manufacturing building, the street dark, the streetlights all shot out. Fong reached over the seat and snatched the paper from my hand.
Every second I stayed in custody, I found it harder to breathe. Every second that passed brought us that much closer to being found out, the kids discovered, and put back in a system that let them down the first time and would do worse the second. Only because they now knew the way life was really supposed to be. It made my heart ache at the thought.
As the car slowed, I again thought about jamming out the door. I knew the area and could lose them, no problem. That left Marie holding the bag, something I could never do. At the same time, I wished for a couple of hours of freedom to pay Jumbo a little visit, make him rue the day he ever heard my name, talk to him old BMF-style.
Fong said, “What? It can’t be.” He checked the wrinkled booking slip, flipped it over, not believing it genuine. “Okay then, what? What’s it mean?”
Mack took it from him. “It means we got a copycat, that’s what it means.”
Mack possessed that innate sense needed to vault the gigantic chasm from mediocre detective to outstanding. He sprung from a family of law enforcement and probably came by it genetically. He handed it back to me, his eyes asking my opinion.
I said, “There are only two reasons for a copycat.”