He was driving at a steady thirty-five. Down First, left along G, right into Central. They passed the viewing theatre. Another mystery corpse: YOUR LAST CHANCE TO IDENTIFY! $10 °COULD BE YOURS! Someone’s forgotten Grandma. Some runaway. Some drunk. More smoke for the chimneys. More clouds for the sky.
His throat was dry and he’d forgotten to buy any candy.
It was the big night.
They reached Los Ilusiones in less than half an hour. Creed directed him to a narrow sidestreet. He killed the engine and the lights. Latin music took over. Somebody’s radio.
Los Ilusiones was 99 per cent ghetto. It was bounded by Moon River in the east, and the suburbs of Mortlake and Rialto in the west and south respectively. It had pretty much the same kind of reputation as Rialto, only more so. A high-octane mix of racial minorities, a flair for riots and looting. Taxi-drivers wouldn’t take you there. The only whites in the area were winos and dealers, and they mostly ended up in the river. Jed wanted this part over with, and quick.
Creed leaned forwards and pointed through the windshield. ‘That’s the building.’
It was a five-storey apartment block built in a C-shape. The gap in the C faced the street. Concrete balconies ran the length of each floor. There was a courtyard below, lit by spotlights.
‘Looks like a fucking jail,’ came McGowan’s voice from the back.
‘It’s number 22,’ Creed said. ‘Second floor.’
‘You know which side?’ Jed asked him.
‘Take the stairs on the left.’
Jed stepped out of the car. He was only aware of two things now. The weight of the gun in his jacket pocket and the night air, thicker here than in the city centre, it was further from the ocean, you sometimes felt you couldn’t breathe until you found your way to the end of the land. He crossed the street. It was bright in the courtyard. Five cars. A burned-out motorbike. A drain. He turned left, walked close to the edge of the building. He sensed he was being watched, one of the balconies above, but he didn’t look up. He noticed the cars. A Mercedes. A Cadillac. This was cheap city housing, and cars like that could only mean one thing. Two things. Armed robbery and drugs. He suddenly felt he was facing impossible odds.
Once he reached the stairs he felt safer. The walls were brick low down, then pale-blue and scarred with graffiti: SEX and a phone number. He smelt meat frying, then urine, then washing powder. On the second floor he turned left. The first door he came to had lost its number. He swore under his breath. The second door said 20. That was good. It meant that number 22 would be close to the stairs. He could still feel eyes on him, they were like fingers, they poked him in the ribs, the shoulderblades, the neck, it was hard not looking round. He reached number 22 and knocked with the flap of the mailbox. He took the gun out of his pocket and held it at waist-level. That way it would be invisible to anyone watching from the other side of the building. The door opened. A man in a white vest, grey flannel pants. Ears like Vasco’s. Less fat on him, though. No rings.
Jed moved the gun one inch to the left and back again. ‘Out,’ he said. ‘Right now.’
Gorelli blinked. ‘What?’
‘You’re leaving.’ Jed grabbed Gorelli by the upper arm and spun him on to the balcony.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a face appear in the corridor. A girl in a yellow dress. Hands in the air beside her ears. Lives with his girlfriend. Girlfriend was about to scream. He slammed the door shut and shoved Gorelli along the balcony towards the stairs.
Gorelli turned. ‘What about my shoes?’
Jed shoved him again. ‘Keep moving,’ he said, ‘or I’ll blow your fucking kidneys out.’
They reached the ground and the screaming began.
‘Francisco! Francisco!’
The girl was swaying on the balcony above. Her yellow dress, her hands searching her black hair. For lice, Jed thought. Lice like Gorelli. His loyalty had come in a rush, like a drug, he had no doubts about which side he was on. They were all playing by the same rules. Gorelli, he’d won for a while, but now he was losing, and he was losing big. Jed had to hate him. It was the only way.
When Gorelli turned his face up to the balcony, Jed hit him on the shoulder with the gun. Gorelli yelped. His arm shrank, hung against his ribs. The girl on the balcony was still swaying, screaming. You want to do something about it, Jed thought, why don’t you jump?
He shoved Gorelli against the Chrysler with his gun and pulled the rear door open. He pushed Gorelli in. McGowan was still sitting in the back, Creed had moved into the front. Jed handed the gun to McGowan and climbed into the driver’s seat.
‘Nice work,’ Creed said. ‘Now drive.’
Jed let the clutch out and the Chrysler took off. He swung right and took a bite out of the kerb. The car rocked, straightened up. He beat a red light and turned right again, on to the parkway that led along the river to the bridge.
‘The Crumbles, right?’ he said.
‘Yeah, and slow down,’ Creed said. ‘We don’t want people smelling something funny.’
Jed slowed to thirty. The lights of Rialto slid by on the right. On the left: the boatyards, wire-mesh fences, metal gates. Then a stone parapet and bright white globes on poles like giant pearl hat-pins. The oily swell of the river beyond.
‘Who are you?’ Gorelli said.
‘You don’t know who we are?’ McGowan said. And then to Creed and Jed, ‘He doesn’t know who we are.’
‘He doesn’t need to know,’ Creed said. ‘Where he’s going he doesn’t need to know anything.’
‘Nothing,’ McGowan said, ‘nothing at all,’ and Jed could hear the cocaine in his laughter.
Jed glanced at Gorelli’s face in the mirror. It was grey, and strangely motionless, as if there’d been a sudden rush of concrete to his head.
‘I don’t understand,’ Gorelli said.
‘Ah,’ Jed said, ‘he doesn’t understand.’
‘I think he’s going to start crying,’ McGowan said. ‘Anyone got a Kleenex?’
Jed laughed.
‘Look,’ Gorelli said, ‘I’m sure we can come to some arrangement here.’
‘Arrangement?’ McGowan said. ‘What arrangement?’
‘We’ve already made all the arrangements,’ Creed said. ‘We’re funeral directors.’
Gorelli lunged for the door, but it was locked. McGowan clubbed him with the butt of the gun. Blood bloomed on Gorelli’s head, a dark rose appearing from nowhere, a magician’s trick. He slumped back in the seat.
‘Any time you want a headache,’ McGowan said, ‘Doctor.’
Creed turned to Jed. ‘Take the old coast road. Less traffic out there.’
Jed left the expressway at the Baker Park exit and cut down through houses of clapperboard and dull red brick. The old coast road ran parallel to the shoreline. All shale and weeds and winds that picked up speed as they swooped in off the ocean, this strip of barren land prepared you for the final desolation of the Crumbles. Baker Park faded. They passed a used-car lot, a twenty-four-hour café, a gas station, then darkness closed round the Chrysler like a fist.
After driving for about ten minutes Jed looked away to the right. The old gravel mine crouched against the sky. So still, so derelict, yet it looked capable of sudden movement. All those metal limbs and struts, all those tense right-angles. It could jump, land up fifteen miles away. It could carry fear with it, like disease. Some dead things seem more horribly alive.
Creed told him to take a right turn, down a narrow track that led towards the ocean. A gate barred the way. A notice hung on the gate and he read the words in the beam of the headlamps: DANGER. NO ENTRY WITHOUT AUTHORISATION.