Choice point, none of the options good.
I found nothing.
Just the Seville, all four tires slashed flat, hood open, distributor cap gone. Tire tracks- two sets, both deep and heavily treaded- said the pickup and another working vehicle had departed.
The nearest house was a quarter mile up the road. I could barely make out yellow windows.
I was bloodstained and bloodied, one side of my face scraped raw, and my burnt hand hurt like hell. One look and the residents would probably bolt their doors and call the police.
Which was fine with me.
I almost made it before the rumble sounded.
Big engine, heading my way from Highway 150. Loud enough- close enough- for visibility- but no headlights.
I ran into the bushes, crouched behind a flurry of ferns, watched as the black Suburban sped past and slowed fifty feet before the entrance to Bill and Aimee's property.
It came to a halt. Rolled forward, twenty feet, stopped again.
A man got out. Big, very big.
Then another, slightly smaller but not by much. He gave some kind of hand signal, and the two of them pulled out weapons and hurried toward the entrance.
Anyone at the wheel? The Suburban's tinted windows augmented the night and made it impossible to tell. Now I knew that a run for the neighbors' house would be risky and wrong: Coury's shooting of Bill resonated in my head. Coury had pulled the trigger, but I'd been the angel of death, couldn't justify extending the combat to more innocents.
I crouched and waited. Tried to read my watch, but the crystal was shattered and the hands had been snapped off.
I counted off seconds. Had reached three thousand two hundred when the pair of big men returned.
"Shit," said the shorter one. "Goddammit."
I stood, and said, " Milo, don't shoot me."
CHAPTER 45
Aimee and Bert sat in the third row of the Suburban. Aimee clutched Bert's sleeve. Bert's eyes lacked focus.
I got in next to Milo, in the second row.
At the wheel was Stevie the Samoan, the bounty hunter Georgie Nemerov called Yokuzuna. Next to him sat Red Yaakov, crew-cut head nearly brushing the roof.
"How'd you find us?" I said.
"The Seville car got tagged, and I got hold of the tagger."
"Tagged?"
"Satellite locating device."
"One of Coury's car gadgets?"
His hand on my shoulder was eloquent: We'll talk later.
Stevie drove to Highway 150 and pulled over just short of the 33 intersection, into a tree-shaded turnaround where three vehicles sat. Toward the rear, half-hidden by the night, was the pickup truck, front end facing the road, still loaded with fertilizer. A few feet away was a dark Lexus sedan. Another black SUV- a Chevy Tahoe- blocked both other vehicles.
Stevie dimmed his lights, and two men stepped from behind the Tahoe. A muscular, shaved-head Hispanic wearing a black muscle T-shirt, baggy black cargo pants and a big, leather chest holster, and Georgie Nemerov in a sport coat, open-necked white shirt, rumpled slacks.
The muscular man's T-shirt read: BAIL ENFORCEMENT AGENT in big white letters. He and Nemerov approached the Suburban. Milo lowered his window, and Nemerov peered in, saw me, raised an eyebrow.
"Where's Coury?"
Milo said, "With his ancestors."
Nemerov tongued the inside of his cheek. "You couldn't save him for me?"
"It was over by the time we got there, Georgie."
Nemerov's eyebrow arched higher as he turned to me. "I'm impressed, Doc. Want a job? The hours are long and the pay sucks."
"Yeah," said Yaakov, "but de people you got to meet are deezgusting."
Stevie laughed. Nemerov's smile widened reluctantly. "I guess results are what counts."
"Was there anyone else?" I said. "Besides Coury?"
"Sure," said Nemerov. "Two other party animals."
"Brad Larner," said Milo. "That Lexus is his. He and Coury arrived in it, Larner was driving. He was parked near the house, waiting for Coury, when we spotted him behind the truck. Dr. Harrison and Caroline were tied up in the truck bed. Another guy was at the wheel."
"Who?"
Nemerov said, "Paragon of virtue named Emmet Cortez, I wrote a few tickets for him before he went away on manslaughter. Worked in the auto industry."
"Painting hot rods," I said.
"Chroming wheels." Nemerov's grin was sudden, mirthless, icy. "Now he's in that big garage in the sky."
"Rendered inorganic," said Stevie.
"Steel organic," said Yaakov. "Long as deyr someting left, he steel organic, right, Georgie."
"You're being technical," said Stevie.
"Let's change the subject," said Nemerov.
CHAPTER 46
"Pancakes," said Milo.
It was 10 A.M., the next morning, and we were at a coffee shop on Wilshire near Crescent Heights, a place where old people and gaunt young men pretending to write screenplays congregated. One half mile west of the Cossack brothers' offices, but that hadn't been what drew us there.
We'd both been up all night, had returned to L.A. at 6 A.M., stopped at my house to shower and shave.
"Don't wanna wake Rick," he'd explained.
"Isn't Rick up by now?"
"Why complicate things?"
He'd emerged from the guest bathroom, toweling his head and squinting. Wearing last night's clothes but looking frighteningly chipper. "Breakfast," he proclaimed. "I know the place, they make these big, monster flappers with crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips."
"That's kid food," I said.
"Maturity is highly overrated. I used to go there all the time, believe me, Alex, this is what you need."
"Used to go there?"
"Back when I wasn't watching my figure. Our endocrine systems are shot so we need sugar- my maternal grandfather ate pancakes every day, washed them down with three cups of coffee sweeter than cola, and he lived till ninety-eight. Woulda gone on a few more years, but he tumbled down a flight of stairs while ogling a woman." He pushed an errant thatch of black hair out of his face. "Unlikely to be my fate, but there are always variants."
"You're uncommonly optimistic," I said.
"Pancakes," he said. "C'mon, let's get going."
I changed into fresh clothing, thinking about Aimee and Bert, all the unanswered questions.
Thinking about Robin. She'd called last night, from Denver, left a message at 11 P.M. I phoned back at 6:30, figuring to leave a message at her hotel, but the tour had moved on to Albuquerque.
Now, here we were, facing two stacks of peanut butter hotcakes the size of frypans. Breakfast that smelled eerily of Thai food. I corroded my gut with coffee, watched him douse his stack with maple syrup and begin sawing into it, then took hold of the syrup pitcher in my unburnt hand. The ER doctor at Oxnard Hospital had pronounced the burn "first-degree plus. A little deeper and you would've made second." As if I'd missed a goal. He'd administered salve and a bandage, swabbed my face with Neosporin, wrote me a scrip for antibiotics, and told me to avoid getting myself dirty.
Everyone at the hospital knew Bert Harrison. He and Aimee were given a private room near the emergency admissions desk, where they stayed for two hours. Milo and I had waited. Finally, Bert came out, and said, "We're going to be here for a while. Go home."
"You're sure?" I said.
"Very sure." He pressed my hand between both of his, gave a hard squeeze, returned to the room.
Georgie Nemerov and his crew drove us to the spot at the entrance to Ojai where Milo had left his rental Dodge, then disappeared.
Milo had joined up with the bounty hunters, formulated a plan.
Lots of questions…
I tipped the pitcher, followed the syrup's drizzle, watched it pool and spread, picked up my fork. Milo 's cell phone chirped. He clicked in, said, "Yeah?" Listened for a while, hung up, stuffed his face with a wad of pancake. Melted chocolate frosted his lips.