Still burned by Tim's concession, Bear said, "Like the hitchhiker you gang-raped through August? And September? And October?"
"Shit fool, that ain't gang rape. That's training. The boys downstairs are havin' a group splash with Wristwatch Annie. You don't hear her complaining."
"That's because her mouth's full," Tim said.
Uncle Pete laughed. "See, there it is. A little humor never hurt no one. Plus, if we gang-raped that broad, where's the charges? Well? Shit, we did her a favor. Opened her up some. Know what I think? I think you citizens are jealous. Drivin' around in your cages, you never get the gurgle in your groin, the wind off your face. And you cops? Shit, you get paid to watch us have fun. I got my slags here all day long. And when I get home, I still knock a few out with my main deed."
"Christ," Bear said. "Don't you have a TV?"
Uncle Pete cocked his head, deciding whether to laugh. "We have our own world, we make our own rules, and we live and die by them. Just like you. Except you live and die by other people's rules."
"And your rules involve pissing on each other's jackets and collecting wing patches for going down on dead women," Bear said. "Where do I sign up?"
"Yeah, we do that shit now and then, just to freak the citizens. P fuckin' R. Don't underestimate the power of intimidation." Pete ruffled the poodle's topknot. "But we stopped making pledges get fucked by Hound Dog here, though."
"Well, that's an institutional advance," Tim said.
"We make the pledges do useful shit now."
Tim thought of Guerrera's claim that Sinners had to kill someone to join the club and wondered if that was the "useful shit" Uncle Pete was referring to.
"The name of the game now is class. I got a house on the hill. I only bike on runs and funerals anymore. Got me a blue onyx pearl Lexus coupe with cruise control, Paris rims, ivory interior-hell, it's even got a sat-nav system. Thing practically drives for me. We don't hang up in the small time. Fuck the white-power shit. We're color-blind. All we see is green." He offered Guerrera an accommodating grin. "That's how we cut in on the other outlaw gangs. We're younger and meaner. We don't believe in shit but the backs of our jackets and cold, hard cash."
"That how you cut in on the Cholos?"
"The Cholos, shit, they're not a blip on our radar. Those motherfuckers are all show and no go."
"Chooch Millan, too? I heard he's no show and no go now."
The poodle came up on all fours, and Uncle Pete scratched his belly until he hunched and phantom-scratched with a hind leg. "We're done now. You want more, you go get that warrant and I call my lawyer and we do the dance."
Tim walked over and turned off the digital recorder on the bureau. He picked up the Z-shaped piece of metal and approached Uncle Pete. Bear and Guerrera looked tense, unsure. The poodle bared its teeth at Tim, but-standard or not-it was still a poodle.
"We both know that the weapon used on the prison break and to kill Chooch Millan was an AR-15. We both know that this"-Tim flipped the piece of metal and caught it-"is an illegal drop-in autosear that converts the gun to full auto. We also know that our lab can't link this sear to those bullets. Probably wasn't even this sear that was used. But we could haul you in, give you major static, as you say." Tim leaned closer. "You spew your own brand of propaganda, but to us you're an ordinary murderer. I'm not interested in a two-bits weapon charge. I want your ass."
He pressed the autosear into Uncle Pete's fleshy chest and let it fall into his lap.
Uncle Pete returned Tim's glare, but then a smile crept across his wide face, making his rope beard bob. He started clapping. "Good stuff, Trouble. I like your delivery."
Tim headed out, with Guerrera after and Bear bringing up the rear.
Uncle Pete called after them, "I'm gonna hold you to that no-helmet deal for the funeral ride. I got your word?"
"You have my word."
"All right, Trouble. Get it to my lawyer by the A.M. We're riding at noon."
The woman awaited them in the hall and led them downstairs. Tim peeled off at the front door despite her protests. A few of the bikers muscled up to him, but he ignored them, finding the girl with the swollen eye on the couch. A tattoo on her skinny arm read SINNER PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. She, too, had four fingers on the left hand, the knuckle wound still bearing stitches.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
"You all right?"
"I'm fine, Heat. Get the fuck out of my face."
"Okay." Tim rose from his crouch. "Best of luck with your budding romance."
He joined Bear and Guerrera at the door, and they stepped out, blinking into the light.
Chapter 6
Dray was stretched out on the couch when Tim finally got home, her special-order sheriff's-deputy pants unbuttoned around the eight-months heft in her belly. She looked up when he came in through the kitchen, and her cheeks were wet. He dumped his files on the table and stepped over the couch back, sitting high so he could cradle her.
"Goddamnit, I liked Frankie. How's Janice holding up?"
"Jim said not good."
"These are the risks we take." She was trying to firm up her face, play it tough as she'd learned from four older brothers and eight years as the sole female sheriff's deputy at the Moorpark Station, but her lips kept trembling, and her voice, when she spoke again, came out hoarse. "I want to blame him. I want to know Frankie made a mistake. That he did the wrong thing. That it's not that easy for our chips to get cashed in. I keep picturing Janice getting that phone call…"
She rested her head on his thigh, and he stroked her hair for a few minutes. Melissa Yueh, KCOM's ever-animated star anchor, proceeded with muted vigor, images and rolling tickers providing largely inaccurate tidbits about the prison break. As usual, Tim and Dray had spoken a few times throughout the day, so she knew the real version.
Dray thumbed down her zipper with a groan and slid a hand over the bulge, Al Bundy style. Her muscular frame accommodated the baby well. She carried the weight mostly in her midsection, though in the past month her toned arms and legs had swollen and softened, which Tim remembered from the last go-around and adored. Dray hated it.
"You ate?" he asked.
"In excess. You?"
"Not since breakfast."
He noticed her scowling and followed her gaze to the TV. Dana Lake, a component of that bizarre Los Angeles order of substars-the celebrity attorneys-sat in a swivel chair, fielding questions from Yueh about her two escaped clients. Dana was in the press constantly, representing everyone from the Westwood Rapist to an al-Jihad shoe bomber taken down at LAX. With her porcelain skin, precise features, and rich chestnut hair, she was stunning. She should have been beautiful, too, but she lost something in the summing of her parts. Despite her overwhelmingly apparent femininity, something about her was off-putting. Too hard a jawline, perhaps, or too severe a set to her mouth. Her face was like a beautiful mask, hardened from shaping itself pleasingly against its will. She rested her forearms on the news desk, squaring her shoulders and showing off the lines of her impeccably tailored suit.
"I hate this broad," Dray said. "She's been making the rounds all night. Larry King introduced her as 'the flashy female lawyer who never wears the same suit twice.' As if that's something admirable. Besides, what does she do with the suits when she's done? Is there some exchange program for anorexics?"
"She donates them to the needy."
Dray snickered, still wiping her cheeks. "Yeah. I'm sure the homeless are using her DKNY silk to stave off the holiday chill." She glanced at the field files piled up on the kitchen table, then thumbed Tim's Marshals star dangling from the leather tag at his belt. "Of course, now they want you back on the Warrant Squad."