He starts across Ramos in the near-silence of early morning, headed home. Wonders if it was the bourbon that saw that cat, but knows he was real just like El Diablo was real, and Luis Verdad and Magdalena.
Suddenly, bright light flares and tires squeal on asphalt behind him and Gale looks back over his shoulder and breaks into a run, the gray pickup coming at him fast.
He scrambles onto the sidewalk, the nearly silent truck missing him by inches. Hurdles a four-foot wall, hits the grass, and rolls, banging face-first into a massive oak tree.
Stands and finds his balance, draws his gun. The gray truck is already out of sight, its electric engine offering no noise to follow.
Gale clambers back over the wall and charges up the sidewalk.
The truck is so quiet that Gale has to guess where the damned thing went. His gut tells him it’s the same gray Rivian he’d seen from Geronima’s darkened living room.
Which means that whoever’s in the truck followed him here from Geronima’s place.
Which means they could be heading there right now, figuring on Gale’s return.
By the time he makes it to Acjacheme Court, Gale is breathing hard and his war scars are burning and he’s tasting blood, but he’s relieved that the Rivian is nowhere to be seen.
He hunkers in a hedge of white oleander. Holsters his gun, then rests his hands on his knees, breathing in and breathing out, eyes on Geronima’s house.
He looks out through the hedge, also relieved to see no lights on and knowing that high-strung Hulk will go ballistic if he hears anything unordinary out here.
Calls in an APB for a gray pickup truck, a Rivian, California plates, last seen on Ramos Street in San Juan Capistrano, fucker tried to kill me.
Uses his phone light to inspect the rear undercarriage of his Explorer; removes the magnetized Vigilant tracker, its red indicator light blipping, clamped to the steel chassis. Careful not to deactivate it, he slides it into his coat pocket.
Gale feels tricked and stupid and angry with himself.
Back in the driver’s seat he sets his gun in one cupholder and the tracker in the other. Looks out at the Mills residence in the first, salt-and-pepper light of morning.
Text message to Mendez:
They tried to kill me here in San Juan a few minutes ago. A Rivian pickup truck, quiet and fast. I jumped a wall and off it went. Your APB alerts are probably going off by now, so know I’m alive and well.
Daniela calls immediately.
“You see the driver?”
“Just reflection.”
“Jeffs?”
“Only a guess.”
“Hired by Steve and Curtis again?”
“Jeffs doesn’t profit from me dead any other way that I can see.”
“You stay up late drinking with Geronima?”
“Moderately.”
“Did you make it home?”
“I’m outside Geronima’s house. Found a tracker on my Explorer, so he saw I was here. I’m thinking he might circle back for another shot.”
“I’m on my way.”
“No. I’m getting her out of here now. The adrenaline and bourbon have worn off and I’m clear in the head. Got my trusty Colt, nine in the magazine, one in the chamber.”
“Squeeze, don’t pull.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I worry about you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He knocks on Geronima’s front door, Hulk shrieking inside. Through the door’s side window, Gale sees a light come on and the dog stops barking.
Geronima, Hulk in her arms, opens the door.
“They tried to kill me at the mission. You’re not safe here and neither am I. I’ll tell you about it on the road. We need to go.”
“You’ve got blood on your face and clothes.”
“Just got skinned up a little. Get dressed, get ready, and we’ll go.”
“Hulk, too?”
“Bring the dog.”
“Bring him where?”
“I’ve got an idea.”
A moment later they’re on their way to the Hilton Garden Inn in Dana Point.
Gale checks in using one of his Vice squad undercover IDs and a Navy Federal Credit Union credit card bearing the name Luis Verdad.
36
Two hours of restless sleep later, Daniela Mendez is following Jesse’s old but spiffy-clean silver Corolla from a safe distance, her TeenShield app stuck inside his phone like a virus, secretly tracking him from home, through Tustin, then into Barrio Dogtown in Santa Ana.
Jesse’s first stop is the little stucco house on Edgar Place, where he went inside with Lulu and his gaming duffel and a case of Modelo and didn’t come out for an hour.
Daniela pulls up well short of the house, turns off the engine, and waits. Sees the candy apple red Chevelle lowrider, the magnolia tree surrounded by fallen blossoms, the brown lawns, the graffiti on the walls and curbs.
Jesse gets out, dressed in his new cholo finest: white singlet, black Dickies work shorts, knee-high white socks, and black high-top Converse All Stars. She’d found it all on the floor of his cluttered closet, still in the Walmart bags and boxes, no real attempt to hide them.
Worst of all, notes Daniela — Jesse has shaved his beautiful hair sometime after she kissed him good night and the time his alarm woke her up just over an hour ago. He must have been quiet about that, sneaking the electric shaver she got him for his fifteenth birthday out to their little garage so as not to wake her.
Now, skinny and tall with his bald, dark-whiskered head, Jesse looks like a cartoon character in cholo clothes, dressed up for a show on TV.
How can he not see this?
How can he cut off all that beautiful, black, wavy hair?
How can he try to show off those attempted muscles in his cute, spindly arms?
Although, to be honest, they are growing some, the muscles. Also in the back of his closet: Muscle Milk protein drinks guaranteed to pump him up.
Lulu’s got on lavender short shorts and a tight T-shirt the same brown as her skin and a white straw fedora with pink Day of the Dead skulls painted on. She leads the way to the front door, which opens well before they get there.
Through her binoculars Daniela recognizes fat Flaco Benitez from Bowl Me Over, smiling at them.
Less than five minutes later, the three of them come back out, Flaco carrying the boxed Raptor TX-395 camera drone, smiling again and chattering away.
He puts the drone in the trunk, then gets into the car, his weight rocking it as he drops into the passenger seat. Lulu sits in back.
Then down Civic Center Drive toward the Sheriff’s Department, just a short drive from Flaco’s place.
Daniela watches from three cars back as Jesse passes the Corner Market on Raitt Street, where Cesar Chavez and Ted Kennedy spoke about civil rights and labor.
Then Jesse swings into the El Salvador Park parking lot and they get out. Daniela remembers Father Malone telling her first-grade class about the famous gang truce that took place at El Salvador Park in the early nineties. She was six. Tall, handsome young Tim Malone — active in reaching out to gang-culture youth — said this truce was made with the help of God in heaven. Tim had helped bring some of the combatants together to hash out the truce.
Daniela thinks of Father Tim — so idealistic and full of saintly spirit back then — now unwilling to even make eye contact with their own son.
Which would be the first he’s looked into his son’s eyes since Jesse was seven days old.
God, she loves them.
Swallows so hard it hurts.
She finds a good place along the street, gets out her binoculars. Glasses Jesse leaning over his car trunk for the drone and, as he does this, Flaco rubs Lulu’s butt. She swats his hand and hops flirtatiously away.