– What are you going to do with the dog, Terry?
– Take her home.
– She should be at the pound.
– She’s better off with me.
– What if something happens to her on your watch? Londell threatened you. He’s crazy enough to do something.
– Don’t worry about Londell. He’ll appreciate this when he cools down.
– If he cools down.
“We lean against our prowl car and watch the tow truck driver hoist the Nissan onto the ramp, then raise the ramp and the car onto the back of the truck. Finally the heavy contraption roars slowly onto Twentieth Street and we’re alone on the dark edge of town.
– I did it and it’s over and I feel better, says Terry.
– You did what?
– I told the truth. All of it.
– This talk of confession doesn’t amuse me, Terry. It goddamned bothers me is what it does.
– I walked out into the hills a few nights ago and I told the sky, Coleman. That’s all. It needed to be said.
– Did you record it?
– No.
– Was Laurel with you?
– Of course not.
– Was anyone?
– Yeah. God himself was there. His Son was there and the Holy Ghost, too. It’s okay, Coleman. The truth has been told. The past has no power over me now. I’m free.
– Terry.
– What?
– Nothing.
– I’ll never do anything like that again.
“For a while we stay there, leaning against the cruiser, me with my arms crossed and Laws with his hands folded together in front of him. We both look up at the stars.
– Shift is about over, Terry.
– See you back at the station, Cole.
“I watch Laws’s truck bounce onto Twentieth Street. I feel betrayed and alone and empty. I walk into the desert a few hundred yards, out where the streetlights and strip mall lights mean almost nothing, and I wonder how one man can look at the sky and stars and see God, and another sees only sky and stars.
“Who was the fool there-Terry or me? Both of us? All I could really say was that I had badly misread Laws. The same square-jawed decency that had made it possible for Terry to carry on a secret criminal life had grown into weakness, shame, guilt, and a craving for penance and forgiveness. Terry’s weakness had led him to God instead of the Devil. This had surprised me. I had been wrong.”
“Three hours later, son of a bitch if Terry doesn’t call, just as I’m turning onto Laguna Canyon Road. I know why he’s calling even before he speaks. I know what he’s going to say.
– She got away, says Laws.
– Of course she did, Terry. That’s what scared dogs do.
– We were fine all the way to my house. I parked in the driveway. Blanco was barking from inside. Delilah heard it and she bristled up like she was being dropped into the pit. She went for my arm. It really hurts. Deep punctures and the skin is light purple and green already. I got her off and she hit the ground running. Way into the hills. Laurel got a dish towel around my arm and I got my flashlight and went after Delilah. It’s black up there, man. I couldn’t find her. I heard the coyotes yapping. That’s going to be one helluva fight if they attack her.”
– Use lots of rubbing alcohol, Terry. Really get it clean.
– Laurel scrubbed it out like a stained coffee cup. Goddamn, it hurts.
– Okay, Terry, don’t worry. We’re going to figure it out.
– I’m not worried about Dwayne. But I am worried about Delilah.
– Don’t worry about Dwayne or Delilah.
– And, Coleman, what I said? About what I did in the hills a few nights ago? I’ll never do anything like that again.
– You’ve told me twice that you won’t do it again. Why twice, Terry?
– It helps me believe in myself.
“So, Bradley, there I am, talking to a partner who must repeat himself in order to believe in himself. This is the partner I’ve chosen. I feel as if I have a thousand pounds of rusted iron inside me. For a moment I think about cashing out, just selling the properties and disappearing to Fort Lauderdale or Dallas or Boulder. But you know something? I’m a native son, born in this great state, and I didn’t want to surrender my turf to Terry Laws or El fucking Tigre or anybody else. I belong here. Here is where I’m going to live and die.
– Take care of your arm, Terry.
– I’m thinking I might have to miss El Do this Friday. Because of the bite. And miss some patrol shifts for a while.
– Come back when you’re ready. I can cover you south of the border.
– Can you cover me for two or maybe three Fridays?
– Okay.
– And all the rest of them, after that? You wouldn’t have to split anything with me ever again! No. I’m kidding. That’s some other guy talking. You know the real me. You know what I’m made of, Cole.
– Yes, I do.
37
Friday evening -time to go fishing, time to build a dream-was cool and eager to be dark. A cold Aleutian storm was set to hit by midnight and the air felt brittle.
Hood followed Draper’s M5 east on Venice Boulevard to the 10 to the 5 to the 710, the same route as before into the heart of Cudahy and Hector Avalos’s former kingdom.
Again he parked well away from the warehouse. He settled into the seat of his rented Charger and watched the stationary, unflashing red X on the laptop map. Evening turned to night without a sunset, just a failure of light behind the advancing clouds.
Ninety minutes after he parked, the X started flashing again and a moment later Draper’s car crossed the avenue a block ahead. Hood waited, then followed him to Interstate 5, the same way he’d gone before.
The Friday night traffic was light into Orange County. There was no accident this time, so they sailed through Santa Ana and down into Irvine and past Laguna, invisibly linked. Draper exited on Palizada in San Clemente, just as he had the last time, and he drove through the same fast-food place, and for all Hood knew he got the same thing to eat.
On the dark fast run through Camp Pendleton, Hood settled in five cars behind him, then fell back a few, then moved over and closer for a few miles. He watched the red X. He looked out at the Pacific to his right, black and shiny as obsidian. He thought of Ariel Reed.
Then, with a bright shower of sparks, the M5 veered sharply out of the fast lane, cut across three more lanes and barreled onto the shoulder.
Hood sped past and worked his way to the right shoulder a mile south of where the M5 had pulled off. He checked the screen. The X wasn’t flashing or moving. Through the back window of the Charger he could see the M5, flashers on, parked on the shoulder a mile behind, near the top of a slight rise.
Hood’s first thought was a blowout and the exposed wheel sparking on the freeway. But the M5 hadn’t hobbled off. It looked fine, except for the sparks spraying out from beneath the back end. His second thought was road debris-a muffler or hubcap or body trim or something metallic that had fallen from another vehicle and caught underneath the car. And if Draper got under the car to look for damage or dislodge something caught there, Hood thought, he could see the transponder.
He got out of the car and stood looking back up the freeway. The cars and trucks roared past in an endless speeding river. He got the Night Hunter binoculars from the front seat and steadied them on the roof of the Charger. At first he didn’t see Draper, just the M5. Then Draper rose into view near the driver’s side of his car, annoyedly brushing off one shoulder of his leather bomber jacket. He walked around to the other side and dropped out of sight again. A moment later he stood, holding what looked like a long strip of body molding. It was bent and dented and shiny. Hood watched him chuck it onto the shoulder and smack his hands together and climb back into the car.
Then Draper’s emergency lights went off and the M5 moved forward on the shoulder, signaling a merge into the right lane. Hood pulled into the slow lane and puttered along at about fifty for a minute or so, keeping an eye on the X and the rearview. The X gained on him and Draper raced past in the middle lane, sparkless and fast, apparently making up for lost time.