They ordered iced tea. Nina looked out over the harbor. Across the water, the Paradise Yacht Club was visible.
“Long way from Marshport,” she said.
“Pretty far from L.A., too,” Jesse said.
“That where you’re from?”
“It’s where I worked before I came here,” Jesse said.
“Cop?”
“Yes.”
“Why’d you leave?” Nina said.
“They fired me for drinking.”
“Ah,” Nina said. “Another good reason not to drink at lunch.”
Jesse nodded.
“What do you know about Latino gangs in Marshport,” Jesse said.
“A lot. It’s part of my job.”
“What exactly is your job?” Jesse said.
“Do-gooder,” she said. “Like you.”
“I just do this for the perks,” Jesse said.
“Perks?”
“Yeah, I can park where I want and I get to carry a gun.”
Nina smiled.
“That’s why you rode the bus with the kids and walked them into school,” she said.
“Did you see my gun?” Jesse said.
Nina laughed this time.
“Okay, what do you want to know about the gangs?” she said.
“Just one,” Jesse said. “Horn Street.”
“Oh, my,” Nina said. “The Horn Street Boys. That’s Esteban Carty.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Twelve, fifteen kids, hang out in an abandoned garage down at the end of Horn Street. Actually, small world, one of them has a little brother at the Crowne estate project. Esteban is the, I don’t know what to call him exactly, the driving force in the gang, I guess. His enforcer is a man name Puerco. Pig or Hog in English, and the name tells you mostly what you need to know. He is a fearsome psychopath. Even the cops are afraid of Puerco.”
Jesse smiled.
“What?” Nina said.
“They don’t have to be scared of him anymore,” Jesse said.
“Something happened to Puerco?”
“He got killed a few days ago,” Jesse said.
“Puerco?”
“Yep.”
“God,” Nina said, “I’d like to see the man who could kill Puerco.”
“Anybody can kill anybody,” Jesse said. “It’s just a matter of what you’re willing to do.”
“You ever kill anyone?” Nina said.
“Yes.”
They were quiet for a moment.
Then Nina said, “Esteban Carty has been on his own since he was little. I don’t know what he had for family. Maybe none, ever. He’s like a feral child grown up.”
“So he’s probably not bound by societal convention,” Jesse said.
“Oh, God, no,” Nina said. “That’s what the gang is for.”
“Any thoughts on what kind of boyfriend he’d make for a fourteen-year-old girl?” Jesse said.
She shook her head.
“Outside my purview,” she said. “I’m neither a shrink nor a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“But you’re female and you know something about Esteban,” Jesse said. “Puts you two up on me.”
“I believe that one of the rules of the Horn Street Boys is that girlfriends have sex with everyone in the gang,” Nina said. “All for one and one for all.”
“Great for building camaraderie,” Jesse said.
28.
They were naked together on the bare mattress of a rusted daybed against the wall opposite the big-screen TV in the garage at the foot of Horn Street.
“Esteban,” Amber said, “what if somebody comes in?”
“Who’s gonna come in ’cept Horn Street Boys?” Esteban said.
“But they’ll see us.”
“Won’t be seeing nothing they ain’t seen,” Esteban said.
“I know,” she said. “I’m just kind of not used to doing it like this, you know, like out in the open?”
“You moved in here. You’re one of us now,” Esteban said, and pressed on.
When it was over, she said, “I bet you’ve done a lot of girls on this couch.”
“A lot,” Esteban said.
“Anyone as hot as me?” she said.
“No, no, baby, you’re the hottest.”
There was no sound of Spanish in his voice. She wished there were. It would be more romantic. She wasn’t sure he even spoke Spanish beyond a few phrases.
“So who’s this dude, shot Puerco?” Esteban said.
“Wilson Cromartie,” she said. “He calls himself Crow and he says he’s an Apache Indian.”
“I don’t give a fuck he’s a martian, you know? What’s he want with you?”
“My daddy hired him to bring me home.”
“Your daddy?”
“Yes,” Amber said. “Daddy hired this guy to find me and my old lady, and kill the old lady, and bring me home.”
“What’s your daddy’s name?”
“Louis Francisco,” Amber said.
“That your real name?” Esteban said.
“Yes. Amber. Is that a sappy name? Amber Francisco.”
“Yeah. Where’s Daddy live?”
“Miami,” Amber said. “He’s very rich.”
Esteban nodded.
“What’s he do?”
“I don’t know. He’s in a bunch of businesses.”
“You like him?” Esteban said.
“Hell, no,” Amber said. “He’s in on all kinds of shady shit, you know? And he sends me to the fucking convent school. You know? Nuns. Jesus!”
Esteban nodded.
“And he wants your old lady killed?”
“Yeah.”
A couple of Horn Street Boys came into the garage. Amber rolled over onto her stomach. Neither of them paid any attention to her. They got beer from the refrigerator, sat down on a couple of rickety lawn chairs, picked up the remote from the floor, and turned on a soap opera. Amber hated soap operas. Her mother used to watch them in the big, empty house and drink beer until she fell asleep on the couch. Amber wished they’d shut it off. She wished she had her clothes on. She wished things were different.
“I think I should talk to your old man,” Esteban said.
29.
Crow was sitting under the small pavilion at Paradise Beach, talking on his cell phone. The day was eighty-five and clear. The tide was in. The ocean covered most of the beach, and the waves rolled in quietly, without animosity.
“I’m not going to kill your wife, Louis,” Crow said. “And I’m not going to bring your daughter down to Miami.”
“You sonovabitch, Crow,” Louis Francisco said at the other end of the connection. “I paid you a lot of money.”
“To find them,” Crow said. “I found them.”
“You want to survive this, Crow, you do what I told you.”
“Nope.”
“If I have to come up there, by God…”
“Probably ought to,” Crow said.
“Then I will,” Louis Francisco said. “And I won’t be coming alone.”
The outrage was gone from his voice, Crow noticed. He seemed calm now. He was doing business he understood.
“I’ll be here,” Crow said, and turned off the cell phone.
He sat for a time looking at the ocean. He liked the ocean. There were young women on the narrow beach, in small bathing suits. He liked them, too. He stood and walked along the top of the beach and onto the causeway that led to Paradise Neck. He stopped halfway across, leaning on the wall, looking at the ocean, breathing in the clean smell of it. It would take Francisco a couple days to organize his invasion. He wondered what the cop would do with that. Stone was a cop, and this was a small town. But Stone wasn’t a small-town cop. It interested Crow, how far Jesse would go. Crow was pretty sure Jesse would stick when it came down to it, that Crow could count on him. And he knew that Jesse’s cops were loyal to him. The big kid, Suitcase, looked like he could handle himself. And Crow loved the feisty little female cop.
He turned and rested his back against the seawall and looked in at Paradise Harbor. Might be time to call on Marcy Campbell, too. She was good-looking, and, he was pretty sure, she was ready. He smiled. Women forgave him a lot. He watched the harbor-master’s boat moving about among the tall pleasure boats riding their mooring, sails stowed, people having lunch on the afterdeck. He looked at his watch. Maybe he should have lunch. Daisy Dyke’s? No, that would be iced tea. At the Gray Gull, he could have a couple of drinks with his lunch and then go home and take a nap. He straightened and flexed his shoulders a little to loosen them, and began to walk back to the beach where his car was parked. He felt really good.