"Yes… well, I did my best. In my defense, I have to say that I attempted to convince Betty B that the story was of little interest to anyone, but she despises Missy-"
"Despised," said Gina, correcting him. She glanced at Thorpe. "The poor woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver a couple of nights ago. It was just so sad."
"Almost makes me believe in God," muttered Meachum. He looked at Thorpe, sniffed. "That was in poor taste. I apologize, but the column was very bad for business. I've been doing damage control for the last two days. It just seemed like a good idea to give things time to settle down."
"A very good idea," said Gina.
"Can we make an appointment to discuss some art when I get back, Frank?" said Meachum. "I'll be back in the gallery on the fifteenth."
"I'll see you then."
Meachum forced a handshake on him. He probably thought that sealed the deal. "Is that what you came here for? Forgive my manners- I didn't even ask."
Thorpe turned to Gina. "Have a good trip." He walked quickly toward the front door. "I hate this song," said Mellon.
"We're not here for a concert," said Pinto as Hellfire Sonata boomed out from the other side of the door, the lead guitar from Iron Church howling. He racked the pump Mosburg.
As if on cue, the door to the master bathroom slid open and Weezer stepped out in a reek of chemicals, a fat cracker wearing bib overalls and rubber gloves, swim goggles pushed back onto his forehead, a black war-surplus rubber respirator dangling around his neck. He jerked back when he saw them, then came at them. "What the fuck are you doing in my house?" he demanded, shouting to be heard over the music.
Mellon started laughing. "You look like a deep-sea diver."
"Hey, Captain Nemo, we came to pick up the load," said Pinto.
Weezer slid the door shut behind him. It was quieter now. "Do you morons know who I work for?"
"You're one of Clark's cookers." Pinto sniffed. "Smells like fresh crank, too."
Weezer didn't back down. "When Vlad and Arturo get done with you, there won't be hardly anything left." The respirator bounced under his chin as he spoke. "Two flushes and you'll be sent down the sewer with the rest of the turds."
Mellon cocked both barrels of his sawed-off gun.
"I had guns pulled on me before." Weezer spit on the floor, looked at Pinto. "You and your sidekick should take off now, while you still have a chance."
"My sidekick," said Pinto. "I like that."
"Knock that off, Pinto," said Mellon. "I ain't nobody's sidekick."
"No harm done." Weezer slowly turned his back on them, slid the door open. The music pounded around them. "I'm going to go back to work, and let you two be on your way. We'll just call this whole thing a misunder-"
Mellon unloaded both barrels into Weezer's back, hurled him into the bathroom. He looked at Pinto, waved at the smoke and spray. "I truly do hate that song."
22
Thorpe heard Hathaway coming a block away, the full-size Ford 4?4 pulling into the parking lot, bouncing over the speed bumps, glass packs trumpeting as Hathaway pumped the accelerator. The metallic blue truck was tricked out with oversize blackwalls, gold-flecked chrome wheels, and matching chrome bed rails, bumpers, and mirrors. A decal beside the gas tank showed a cartoon bad boy pissing onto a Chevy insignia. He revved the engine again as Thorpe opened the door.
"Subtle ride, Danny," said Thorpe, stepping up into the cab. It smelled of weed.
Hathaway peeled out of the parking lot before Thorpe was completely inside. Thorpe banged his head, hanging on with one hand as Hathaway cackled, gave it more gas.
"I missed you, too, asshole," said Thorpe, buckling himself in. At the small of his back, he felt the 9-mm semiauto clipped to his belt. He had been carrying since he talked to Ray Bishop and found out who Clark and Missy really were.
"You really missed me, you would have got in touch sooner." Hathaway downshifted, the fingers of his right hand caging the devil's-head floor shift knob. Lean and hard as a roofing nail, he wore a WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? tank top, shorts, and huaraches. Hathaway had been in Thorpe's four-man Delta Force squad. He was much younger than Thorpe, moody and high-strung, the only member other than Thorpe to survive. After their courts-martial, Thorpe had gotten Billy to take him into the shop, but the pace of operations was too slow for Hathaway, and his drug habit had flared up. When Billy cut him loose, Hathaway had hired on with the DEA, which always needed deep-cover field agents, and a minor drug problem was part of the job description. Hathaway had flourished at DEA; he could have moved inside to a desk, could have run his own string of informants, but he preferred the street, and the excuse it gave him to play the part.
They cruised the outskirts of Little Saigon, a community of recent Southeast Asian immigrants who had transformed the former white-bread inland slum into a bustling high-density community of minimalls and backyard vegetable gardens. The street signs were all bilingual now, and most of the high school valedictorians had last names that were unpronounceable to the older residents.
"You talked to Billy lately?" asked Hathaway, watching a couple of pretty Vietnamese girls in shorts and crop tops. "Fucker won't even return my calls."
"What's the matter, you tired of your job?"
"Too much paperwork." Hathaway sniffed. "I hear Billy's gone into business for himself. Maybe you could put in a good word for me."
"It would be a waste of a word."
Hathaway smiled, his teeth white and shiny as fresh dice. Hathaway might let everything else go, but he was fastidious about his oral hygiene. Thorpe remembered the two of them dug into the tree line of a Colombian mountainside, hunkered down for almost a week, waiting to spring an ambush, wet and cold the whole time. Thorpe had shivered and kept quiet, while Hathaway had chewed sugarless Dentyne and jabbered about dental caries and gingivitis and the need to floss after every meal, until Thorpe had threatened to knock his incisors out.
Thorpe checked the side-view mirror. "You said you could fill me in about the local meth scene."
"You have to admire Vietnamese people." Hathaway nodded at an old man sweeping the sidewalk in front of a noodle shop. "They have discipline, a sense of order. You drive down the street in Santa Ana, there's trash all over the sidewalk. Huntington Beach is even worse. Surfers, Frank, they want the ocean pristine, but you walk into one of their cribs, you better wear your hip waders. The Vietnamese, they're not afraid of soap and water."
Thorpe checked the side-view mirror again. It was the day after Gina and Douglas Meachum had left for Hawaii. Thorpe wondered how the second honeymoon was going, wondered if Meachum had called the blonde yet, waiting until Gina was in the shower. Maybe he had learned his lesson. Learned it without Thorpe's help. Thorpe had twelve days to make sure that they were safe when they came back home. Time enough. If Thorpe got lucky again, the Engineer would be at the screening of Shock Waves tonight. He was out there in cyberspace, circling in the darkness; the smell of blood and money kept him close, but it might be the Engineer's love of oddball movies that forced him into a mistake. A man's passions were always his weakness.
"Asian women, they are the absolute best." Hathaway slowed, checked out a slim, well-dressed woman stepping out of a black Lexus. "No tits, though. If the Vietnamese had tits, I'd marry the whole country."
"Let's talk meth, Danny."
"What's your interest in the wonderful world of speed?"
"There's a married couple distributing chemicals out of Newport-"
"Clark the shark? He and Missy are the only ones who fit that description." Hathaway waited for confirmation, shrugged. "Clark moves high-quality meth, and designer pharmaceuticals he comes up with himself. Himself. Only does about fifteen, twenty million dollars a year, but the man's a regular Thomas Alva Edison… if Edison'd been a dope fiend." He looked at Thorpe. "You don't want to mess with him."