“I need to go, David.” David nodded, and Jacob rose, then made his way to the door.
“Be careful,” David said, then Jacob left them.
“He seems edgy,” Turnbull said.
David shrugged. “The pressure he’s under every day is very hard on him. But he’s helped us tremendously. He got you your hard drive. There is a great deal of suspicion within the PBI. When they discovered it was gone, he was suspected and interrogated, along with dozens of others.”
“Seems like he got through it. When do I get the hard drive?”
“On your way out of town. It’s too dangerous for you to carry it around more than necessary. You stop by here after you get Amanda and we will go get it and give it to you. It’s nearby, but only Abraham knows exactly where. Not even I know. Not even Jacob knows. It’s more secure that way.”
“Come back here? I don’t like going out the way I came in. It’s dangerous.”
“As I said, carrying it with you around is dangerous. You get caught, it’s gone. Come back here and we’ll give it to you after you get the girl. Assuming she wants to be gotten.”
“She does,” said Junior.
“Maybe,” said Turnbull.
“She’s not his girlfriend or his whore. He’s making her do it,” said Junior.
David looked at Turnbull, who rolled his eyes out of Junior’s eye-line.
“Of course she’s not,” David replied patiently.
“UCLA is in the Westside Sector. How do we get in there?”
Somewhere outside, blocks away, there was another crashing noise, more yelling, and what sounded like gunshots. It subsided.
“What are the privilege levels on your identification papers?”
“Sevens,” replied Turnbull.
“I would not chance it. You’ll need passes.”
“From you?
“I know someone. He’ll have your car too. I have to send a runner – we have no cell phones here for obvious reasons – but this man is very efficient. He’s full service for people like you.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Thursday. Then Friday you do what you have to do.”
“We’ll be coming back here on the Sabbath then. You can help us on the Sabbath?”
“We can. After all, the Lord understands that sometimes we must be a little flexible.”
David and Abraham saw them off at the gate to the complex, hanging back for the little group was out of sight of prying eyes along the street. They had their instructions to the three kilometer walk west to their next rendezvous; Turnbull and Junior had ensured that they looked derelict enough to be mistaken for just two more transients wandering through the unfashionable part of Los Angeles.
“Thank you,” said Turnbull.
“Our pleasure,” said David. “And be sure to forget us if you happen to end up meeting our friends from the PBI.”
“I have no intention of getting caught,” Turnbull said. “At least not while I have a bullet left.”
“I think you’ll appreciate Mr. Jackson,” David said. “He and his group seem to feel much the same way. He’ll have your car and be able to outfit you with papers for Friday. But he will want his money. He’s very business-focused.”
“If you can’t make some money while you’re having a revolution, then what’s the point?”
David smiled.
“Now, the hard drive,” Turnbull said. “How do we get it?”
“You are right about not coming back here,” David said.
“We might be followed. We might be in a hurry. A big hurry.”
“Abraham will have it, but you won’t rendezvous here. About a half kilometer west is an old, empty fast food restaurant. I believe it was a Del Taco – obviously I was not a customer, but I remember it was very popular before. He will be there starting at five o’clock Friday evening until dawn waiting for you. He will have it.”
“Sorry about spoiling your Sabbath, kid.” Abraham smiled.
“Good luck to you. And when you get home, please make sure our mutual friends remember their commitment to bring us out. This is no place for our children to grow up.” He tousled his son’s hair beneath the kippah.
“I’ll make sure they remember. Thank you.”
Junior led the way through the gate and onto the street. They took a right, walking north on the cracking sidewalk past abandoned cars, dying trees, and boarded-up homes.
There was a low stucco retaining wall holding up a patch of dead grass. Someone sprayed “FUCK USA” on it in black, and someone else crossed out the “SA” in red.
No one was walking on the street, though a few blocks south they could see buses passing east-west on Sunset. A 20-year old Ford sedan passed them heading north. What was probably a Toyota headed east a block ahead.
“I always feel like I’m being watched here,” Junior whispered as they turned west and drove on. He glanced around. No cameras here, at least none he could see.
“Maybe you are being watched,” Turnbull said, eyes darting around the street. Still empty, except there was one old lady walking aimlessly a couple blocks ahead. They kept going. “Do you notice the total lack of assholes?”
“Yeah,” replied Junior.
“There’s usually a higher shithead per block ratio around here. Or maybe they’re all still sleeping off last night. Let’s go.”
After some walking, the old Del Taco came into view – you could still read in less-faded paint where the neon words had been pried off the side of the building. None of the glass had survived, and the inside was pillaged. Even from outside, you could see that, ironically, someone had tried to set fire to a fryer. A red picnic table sat empty out front, the benches broken. There was a parking lot around back and an empty cinderblock enclosure where the long-lost dumpster would have been kept. Both warily surveyed the empty husk of the fast food restaurant as they passed it by, but not too obviously – it would not pay to show too much interest in their rally point if they were being surveilled.
Two more blocks and they came to an alley running north toward the hills. Turnbull grabbed Junior and pulled him in.
“Run,” he said, and sprinted north as fast as his pack would let him. Junior followed.
They took the next left, pumping their arms and legs past a long wooden fence line that was bedecked with tattered posters lauding revolutionary heroes for having turned in all manner of spies, denialists, racists, transphobes, and whatever “cispigs” were. The fence gave way to a three story red brick building, or rather, the empty shell of one. A street side door was off its hinge and Turnbull darted in. They plowed down a long hallway, past mostly empty but sometimes occupied rooms, breathing in great lungfuls of the fetid, urine-tinged air. The few inhabitants they passed simply stared at them dumbly for a moment, then returned to their sordid business.
They burst out the other side through another broken door, moving south toward Sunset through a narrow alley. Junior glanced behind them – nothing, no one.
Turnbull led him on several more zigs and zags, until they were along Sunset at the edge of a large parking lot anchored by an old Ralphs supermarket that was now a “People’s Food Center.” The lot was bereft of cars, but full of people. They were gathering around the front entrance not in the usual sullen yet orderly queue, but in a milling, seething semi-circle.
“Come on,” Turnbull said, leading junior toward the crowd.
A thin, reedy voice rose above the angry murmur. “The rations have changed. Series B is half of what it was yesterday. That’s how it is. It isn’t my decision!”
“Fuck you, man. I want my rice!” someone yelled. Turnbull and Junior wended their way into the crowd; they could feel the unrest.