“Well, we just didn’t wantcha to think it was anything personal.”
They didn’t find much to talk about after that. Norris turned right off Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica onto Seventh Street. He put the big machine up to thirty-five to make the lights and actually made most of them. They went through a business district that turned into an area of three-and four-story apartment houses, fairly new, with SORRY, NO VACANCY signs out in front of most of them. Seventh also had some very nice eucalyptus trees along that stretch, but they disappeared when the area of one-family houses began.
At San Vicente Boulevard, Norris stopped for the light. But when it turned green, instead of turning right he went straight ahead as Seventh became East Channel Road.
For a few moments McBride didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Solly lives in Brentwood.”
“That’s right,” Egidio said. He had turned his swivel chair back around so that he was again facing the front.
“This isn’t the way to Brentwood.” McBride’s voice was flat and even a little sad.
“That’s right,” Egidio said, and swung around in the swivel chair. He held the automatic in his right hand. With only a glance McBride automatically classified it: a.45 Colt automatic, service issue. A lot of gun.
“Well, shit,” McBride said.
Egidio shook his head — a small, commiserative shake. “It’s the way things work out sometimes, Eddie.”
“Just business, huh?”
“That’s right,” Egidio said. “Just business.”
“You better get him to give you the map now,” Icky Norris said as he twisted the Winnebago around the sweeping curves that led down Santa Monica Canyon to the Pacific Coast Highway.
“Yeah, we don’t want any holes in the map,” Egidio said, and then chuckled at his own little joke.
McBride pulled up his shirt so that he could get to the envelope. But before he could touch it, Egidio said, “Don’t touch your belt buckle, Eddie. Don’t try for the knife. In fact, just take it out real nice and easy, like they say in all those dumb cop shows.”
“Now?” McBride said.
“Yeah, now. Real slow.”
McBride did something to his belt and the buckle came away. It formed the handle for a wicked, 4½-inch stiletto. He handed it carefully, buckle first, to Egidio. Without removing his eyes from McBride, Egidio handed the knife to Icky Norris, who grinned at it and laid it on the shelf in front of the steering wheel.
“I told you he had one of those mothers,” Norris said. “Shit, everybody in Nam used to have one, especially those fuckin’ jar-heads.”
“Now the envelope, Eddie,” Egidio said.
McBride peeled the tape away from his skin and handed the envelope over just as carefully as he had handed the knife. Then he pulled his shirt down, slumped back on to the bench, and stared out the window. They were on the Pacific Coast Highway, heading north.
Nobody spoke until they reached the Getty Museum, and then Icky Norris said, “We sure gonna have us one pretty sunset.” McBride looked, but Egidio didn’t.
Instead, Egidio decided to lecture McBride. “You know what the trouble with guys like you is, Eddie?”
“What?”
“You don’t get nothing steady. I mean, guys like you come back from the war and you don’t try to get yourself lined up with something steady. You try to make cute deals, and shit, you ain’t smart enough to make a living doing that. Now, Icky here, he was over in Vietnam, weren’t you, Icky?”
“Sixty-four to ’65,” Norris said. “Hell of a time.”
“But when he came back, he lined himself up with Solly. He didn’t run around trying to pull off any half-ass deals. He got hisself something steady.”
“Breaking thumbs,” McBride said.
“Ain’t no use talkin’ to him,” Icky Norris said. “Hell, he know it all.”
“Yeah,” Egidio said. “You’re probably right. Try to give somebody a little good advice and what do they hand you back — smart ass, that’s what.”
Nobody spoke for the next dozen miles, not until they were passing through the heart of Malibu.
“That Durant guy,” Egidio said. “He lives out here, don’t he?”
“Farther out,” McBride said.
There was more silence until they passed Pepperdine University, whose somewhat futuristic campus belied its fundamentalist underpinnings. “You know where you’ve seen all those buildings before?” Icky Norris said.
“What we’re looking at?” Egidio said, not taking his eyes off McBride.
“Pepperdine University.”
“I’ve seen it when I’ve come by here before.”
“Nah, I mean where you seen it on TV.”
“Where?”
“The Six Million Dollar Man. You watch that, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I watch that all the time.” Egidio thought about it. “By God, you know, you’re right, Icky.”
“Course I’m right.”
A mile or so past Pepperdine University, Norris turned the camper right into Latigo Canyon Road, a narrow strip of blacktop that snaked its way up and back into the mountains. A highway sign with a long, wiggling black line on it read, NEXT 9 MILES.
Most of that nine miles was uphill, one curve after another. After three or four miles the houses ran out and there was nothing but the blacktop road and the sheer drop-off into the canyon below. The sun had gone down behind the mountains, but it was not quite dark. McBride picked his time carefully.
It was on a particularly treacherous curve, a blind one. He took a deep breath and yelled it: “Look out for that fuckin’ car!”
Icky Norris hit the brakes. Despite himself, Egidio turned away from McBride, then caught himself and started turning back. But McBride was already squatting beneath the sink. He had the door to the cabinet open, and the bottle of gasoline was in his left hand. His right hand was digging into his pants pocket.
He came up fast in one smooth motion, cracking the top off the bottle of gasoline with a sharp, rising blow on the sink. He yelled, because it made his thumb hurt. But he kept his movement going, even as Egidio brought up the automatic. The gasoline, nearly a pint of it, sloshed over Egidio’s ace and head and into his eyes. He yelled.
McBride’s right hand came up out of his pants pocket. It held a Zippo lighter, the one with the Marine Corps emblem on it. Its top was already open. McBride was thumbing its wheel as it came out of his pants pocket. The lighter caught, and he tossed it against Egidio’s gasoline-drench shirt.
The flames shot up, igniting the film of gasoline that still covered his face and bald head. Tony Egg screamed, dropped the automatic, clawed at his eyes, and slapped at the flames.
Icky Norris finally stopped the camper, slamming on its brakes. The camper skidded dangerously close to the sheer drop-off at the left edge of the road. Norris glanced back, swiveling his head quickly, trying to see what needed his attention more, Egidio or the camper. He decided on the camper. It was a mistake.
McBride snatched up the.45, thumbed off the safety, and shot Icky Norris in the back of the head. Most of the left side of Norris’ head smeared itself over the windshield, already cobwebbed by the.45 round. Norris slumped down over the wheel, and his foot slipped off the brake. The camper started creeping toward the long drop down.
McBride moved quickly. He scrambled over the still smoking Egidio, who, with the flames finally out, had drawn himself up into a tight, quivering, screaming ball on the floor. As he stepped on Egidio’s head, McBride thought it all looked strangely familiar, and then he remembered some burn victims he had seen in Vietnam. They had all scrunched themselves into tight little balls like that.
McBride fought with the door latch and hurt his broken thumb again. The motor home was still moving, five, perhaps ten, miles per hour, a dead man’s foot on its accelerator. The door finally came open. McBride jumped.