Eleven years later he found the car for sale on a lot in Azusa for fourteen hundred dollars. It had one hundred and ninety thousand miles on it. The orange painting on the windshield read: “EXTR A CLEAN.” Lupercio had placed his finger in the pit in the door, which looked exactly as he remembered it. He tried to reason how this car had gone from Salvador to the United States. He couldn’t. Just like the car’s effect on him all those years ago, its appearance here went beyond reason. It was a miracle.
Late that night he came back and stole it. The first thing he did was have the dent fixed. There was no way to tell that the door had ever been anything but perfect.
Two years later when he was becoming more prosperous Lupercio had actually purchased another such Lincoln-same year and model. It was a dark forest green. He had hoped to double his pride and his luck. But the second car carried no history and no magic at all, though it ran well and looked good. He gave it to Consuelo.
Lupercio had just pulled the Lincoln back into the garage when his cell phone rang. He saw from the call number that it was the call he’d been waiting for. El Toro.
The Bull.
17
I finally get Hood to leave Laguna ahead of me. My legs buzz as I hustle him out the door, and by his expression I can see that I’ve shaved fifty points off his IQ. Don’t worry-it’s temporary.
I confirmed something about Hood today that I suspected: he has a secret. I don’t know what it is. But I know from the way his heart beat against my ribs after the second time-or maybe it was the third, what a blur-that he’s got a secret. It’s big and unhappy and it hurts him to carry it. I love men with secrets. I’m going to figure his out.
Hood is also adorable but I can’t let him see my truck because he’ll wonder how a yellow Z06 Corvette turned into a black F-150 pickup truck pretty much overnight.
So, far back in the long-term parking lot for John Wayne Airport, I find a shiny, almost new Mustang GT for my drive up to L.A. I park beside it, glove up, remove my cold plates from the pickup truck and slide them into my satchel. I strip off the ’Stang plates, and put them in the pickup bed, then fill out one of my photocopied dealer registration slips. I shim my way into the Mustang-no alarm, nice, and I’m figuring no LoJack either, because Mustang buyers are often bargain hunters and LoJack is expensive. Even if the car has LoJack, it won’t start transmitting until the Mustang is reported stolen. And based on the long-term parking and the car’s lack of dust, I’m willing to gamble that I’m good for a few hours. Which gives me plenty of time to get this thing to a LoJack-proof metal building with no windows. I know exactly where to find one.
I tape the registration to the inside of the windshield. There: pretty woman, new car, no plates yet from DMV. The Mustang has black leather, a five-speed manual, three hundred mighty horses under the hood, premium sound. It’ll do 143 miles per hour. The leather smells like heaven, and when I match the ignition leads to the screwdriver, the engine growls to life with a vibration that goes straight through my feet and up my legs to where Hood just was. Mmm. The horses idle as I load in my bags and the backpack, then touch the flank of the black pickup with the back of my hand and say thanks.
Halfway to L.A. Hood calls and tells me to check into the Residence Inn in Torrance. It’s not where they’re going to set up for Lupercio-that will happen tomorrow-it’s just a safe place for tonight. Twenty minutes later I let myself into the room, eat the pillow mint, put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, then drive the Mustang across town and check into the airport Marriott. The place is so busy nobody will notice me. I can self-park. I don’t have to worry about Hood showing up, wagging his tail. I put the diamonds in the room safe. I’m ready in thirty minutes.
I’ve got work to do.
When I was a girl, my first job was for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Bakersfield. I told them I was sixteen and looked it, but I was barely fourteen. Back then girls were front store-filling orders and taking money-and boys worked back store doing the prep and cooking. I fell seriously in love for the third time in my life then, with a cook named Don. He was an older man, actually-nineteen-and he had a great smile and a nice touch with the chicken and coleslaw. When it was slow, I’d hang out in the back with him and the guys, watch them slide across the slippery floor from the stoves to the cooling racks with the huge pots filled with boiling grease and chicken parts. You wouldn’t believe how slippery a floor can get when it’s layered with grease and flour and eleven secret herbs and spices. One big slip backward and a pot would end up dumping on someone’s face, but Don and his buds just careened around the kitchen like ice skaters, hefting the pots onto and off of the burners right on time, slamming and locking down the lids. Then when the chicken was cooked, they’d reach over the pot and release the pressure valves, which would explode in a deafening hiss as the steam shot all the way to the ceiling, and of course there was the story of the valve that broke off and went through the cook’s head, killing him right on the spot, and Don said it was true, but you know, he might have just been trying to impress me.
Ruby was the manager, and she was usually in a good mood even though her sons were in Tehachapi Prison and her husband had a bad heart. She’d go out and get us Taco Bell for our dinner because we all ate so much K FC we got tired of it, though I still think their original recipe chicken and coleslaw are particularly good. Anyway, Ruby rocked, and knew I was fourteen, but then corporate KFC sent us Victor and Ruby trained him and we tolerated his little yellow smile. He set his hand on my fanny once and I let it go, then he did it again a few days later and I turned and slapped him once hard, but none of it mattered because corporate fired Ruby like we knew they would and Victor became the new manager. When they announced it, the whole crew quit and took Ruby out for steaks and too many drinks at the TGIF, and it really was a Friday and we really were thanking God we didn’t have to work for that prick Victor.
So I rob KFCs pretty much every chance I get.
This one is down in Long Beach. I’ve cased it three different times. I like the parking lot out back and the fact that the entrance is on the side, not facing the main street. No drive-through, which means at least one less set of eyes on you, and no pain-in-the-ass Joe Heroes already saddled up for a chase. I like the quick access to the boulevard and an on-ramp for the 405 a quarter mile east. Two signals, no U-turns necessary. The nearest police substation is two miles away. Fast-food outlets aren’t wired into the cop houses like banks are, and the FBI sure doesn’t come after you, so if you time it right you’re good for eight hundred, maybe a thousand, maybe two thousand bucks. I can use two thousand bucks but I’m doing KFC a favor, too-I truly hope the shortfall will cause corporate to be just a little more careful about who they accept into the management program instead of blowing money on guys like Victor.
It’s dusk now. Most of the dinner business has been done because this is a working-class neighborhood and these people eat on time and get to bed early. They’re more likely to pay cash than to use a card. In the parking lot I check my wig and put on my gloves, then slide Cañonita into one side pocket of my black leather vest and my crystal studded mask into the other. I breathe deeply, check my look in the mirror one more time. I can feel Allison Murrieta being born inside me. I can understand her thoughts and hear her voice and I ignore the last little whispers from departing Suzanne. I’ll come back to her. I see Allison now. I see as Allison now.