Hulk bounds from the couch again and scampers down the hall, screeching. Gale checks the street, but no cars, bikes, or pedestrians.
Geronima picks up her tiny gun and follows Hulk into a bedroom, flicking on the hall lights.
Gale moves to the security screen door and leans into the wall, gun drawn and at his side. He’s invisible from outdoors, except to someone perched on a rooftop or in a tree, with a view through the western window, as he would have been perched in Sangin or Vernon Jeffs in Bosnia.
Snorting loudly now, Hulk blasts back into the living room and jumps onto the leather chair, framed by the western window, hind legs extended from the seat, front legs braced on the chair’s back, tail straight up, stiff and still.
In his mind’s eye Gale envisions Jeffs on the rooftop across the street, putting the Barrett’s crosshairs on vigilant Hulk, just a bouncing silhouette beyond the serape blinds.
Gale smells the opium poppy scent of Sangin Valley, not the sage-and-savanna aroma of San Juan Capistrano.
Eardrums pounding, he may as well be into a twenty-hour speed-and-energy-drink jag in the rocky hills of Sangin Valley, waiting for the old man in the Cheetahs to come out from the granary.
Geronima comes back down the hall now, flicking off the lights.
“Lew... what is happening?”
“Freeze, Geronima! Down!”
Gale defaults to training, clambering on hands and knees toward Hulk, his fingers pinched hard between the gun and the floor.
He stands and with one hand hauls the growling dog to his chest, then pivots toward Geronima, ducking away from the window and into the hallway.
Gale guides Geronima with his gun hand, prodding her into the little bathroom, Hulk tight to his ribs like a football.
Closes the door and sets Hulk down, kneels, then gently pulls Geronima to her knees in front of him on the black-and-white floor tile.
He speaks in the glow of a night-light.
“He can’t see us here.”
“Who? Did you see him?”
“No, but Hulk might have. I think he might have.”
“Your nose is bleeding.”
“Hulk caught me when I picked him up.”
“Is there someone out there or not?”
Gale sees doubt and fear in Geronima’s dark eyes. A wordless interrogation.
“They could be everywhere. I don’t think so, Geronima. I really don’t know. I need to just kneel here a minute.”
She sets her gun on the floor, then Gale’s.
Holds his hands to her cheeks.
Gale feels his thighs trembling and the patches of old scar tissue tight and hot.
Hulk squeezes in close and licks his master’s ear.
Gale’s phone, Mendez on speaker:
“Jeffs just parked his Harley in the back lot of the Bear Cave,” she says. “He’s limping a little, but moving pretty damned well. On the lookout, aware. Past the dumpster now, headed for the kitchen door. The fog is back.”
“On my way.”
“Go,” says Geronima.
40
Gale circles Geronima’s neighborhood slowly, twice, attaching the suction gumball light and siren to his roof, then calls Dispatch again to get a tighter patrol around her home. He guns the Explorer onto Camino Capistrano, headed for Interstate 5 to the San Diego Freeway to Huntington Beach and the Bear Cave.
His nerves are settling and his adrenaline runs strong as he sails through the thin two A.M. traffic at ninety miles per hour, exiting onto Bolsa just as Daniela calls.
Daniela:
“He’s back on his hog now, heading toward Yorktown and home. Funny how that knee healed up so fast.”
“I’ll park close.”
Gale drives carefully up Bolsa to the traffic light.
Weaves his way through the Jeffs neighborhood on Yorktown and parks close to the house. He can barely see it through the fog. Garage closed, porch light on but no lights inside.
Daniela:
“If Vern’s heading home, he’s taking the scenic route.”
“Think he’s onto you?”
“He’s pulling into the Jack in the Box drive-through. You spend the night with Geronima again?”
“Some of it.”
“She looks at you with pride of ownership. I understand and like her. Be careful. Vern’s ordering. Good thing he’s got the saddlebag. Stand by.”
Gale to Geronima:
“You okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“What’s that sound?”
“My neighbor, Neal. Bringing in his Peterbilt from a two-week haul.”
“Why isn’t Hulk screeching?”
“Asleep.”
“Where are you?”
“Bedroom. Lights out, doors locked, Hulk on his pillow, the rose-colored semiauto under mine. Itching to kill a bad guy, Gale. Reading Blood & Heart. I will not fall asleep.”
“Careful the dog doesn’t blast off and step on the trigger. That’s happened, you know.”
“It’s under my pillow, Lew. I’m not worried about it. I’m worried about you.”
“I’m better. It’s over. I’m worried about you, too, Geronima. I like you very much and I want you to live forever.”
A pause then:
“Sweet of you, Lew. Sweet Lew Gale.”
“Signing off.”
The fog lightens. Gale contemplates the Jeffs residence, one of thousands of 1950s stucco tract homes in what was then booming postwar Orange County. By the time Gale was born, the citrus orchards and packinghouses were mostly gone, replaced by tract homes and shopping centers. Sleepy San Juan Capistrano was booming. So was the Tarlow Company. Orange County had become the OC.
Mendez again:
“White bag into the saddlebag, Lew. Looks heavy. Okay, now he’s back on the road. I have to stay way back on these neighborhood streets. Wish me luck or off he’ll go.”
“I’ve got the house, Daniela.”
“Vern has your dinner. Over and out.”
Through Gale’s windshield, pockets of fog roll across the darkness from the sea. The oil pump churns.
Down Yorktown comes a Mustang e-car.
A moment later, a lumbering 1980s Suburban.
Gale watches them closely, but his thoughts are of Geronima, and he’s trying to forget his confusion and uncertainty at her house, trying to forgive himself for it.
Who are you?
Lewis Gallego — half Acjacheme, half Anglo.
Since Sangin, half a man.
Or is it more like a quarter?
A second-class Native, unrecognized.
Unrecognizable?
Fragments of the past whirl inside him.
Fragments of fragments.
You’re dangerous, he thinks. A man sworn to protect and serve. But tonight, barely competent. Barely there. Humiliating. Hulk was better.
Vern’s black Harley Softail emerges from a ball of fog moving across Yorktown like a big tumbleweed.
He’s not moving fast but the Harley pops and growls loudly as he passes his house, then powers past Gale, slouched down in his seat.
And disappears down Yorktown.
Mendez’s black Explorer glides to a stop along the curb, facing Gale a hundred yards away from the opposite side of the street, headlights going off, and the sound of Vern’s Softail diminishing through Gale’s open window.
He flashes once; Mendez answers.
Three minutes later Vern is back, approaching his house with more velocity this time before he decelerates and turns in to his driveway.
He gloves the handlebar remote, and the garage door opens. The lights go on. He pulls in, kills the engine, and kickstands the heavy bike, swinging his right foot over and down, his left leg a little wobbly.
Then movement from the hedge of oleander on the side of the garage: something upright, taller than a monkey and thinner than a bear.