The Red Tiger drove one-handed, the Mossberg shotgun resting on his lap, his free hand near the trigger, the hot end of the shotgun pointed at the young Latino woman in the passenger seat.
She was bunched up, knees pulled almost into her chest, her back against the door. Eyes narrowed to slits, she glared at him. For the past hour they’d been driving west and south. Moving in entirely the wrong direction.
Princess had planned on driving east with Joker, away from LA, away from Shotcaller, away from her old life. Only now Joker was dead, executed in cold blood with two shots by the crazy asshole next to her, and all because he couldn’t grasp that ‘Let’s get out here now’ meant just that. Now. This second. Not two or three minutes later.
She shifted her glare from the barrel of the Mossberg to the man holding it. Who the hell was this guy? He wasn’t a gangster. Not like any gangster she’d ever met anyway. Or not here in California. He wasn’t a cop either.
Not a cop and not a gangster. More some kind of natural force.
He’d moved through the house like a hurricane, sweeping all before him, including her. She’d never thought she’d live to see the day where she’d be taken by a man without so much as a peep. Today had been that day.
She’d been so shaken by what he’d done to Joker she’d pretty much checked out. Like she was in a daze. It wasn’t seeing her friend murdered. It was the way it had gone down. No threats, no warnings, just two smooth trigger pulls. Five pounds of pressure per square inch, applied twice.
Whoever he was, he was on some other level. Which, going by the questions he’d been asking her, was bad news for Shotcaller and the others.
Out of nowhere, he hit the brakes, and steered the car into the breakdown lane. It bumped to a stop.
Was this it?
The road they were on now was quiet, long and straight. You could see the approach of other vehicles long before they got to you. He could have her open the door, get out, then shoot her in the back of the head and be on his way.
Part of Princess was already resigned to it ending like this. In a way it made sense that her joke of a life would finish with this kind of a punchline. Mere minutes away from the chance of a new life, a fresh start, only to die face down by the side of a highway, her brains spilling out of her skull.
The man looked at her. “Call your friends. Tell them you want to meet,” he said.
“They’re not my friends, and the next time they see me they’ll kill me.”
Slowly he raised the shotgun so it was pressed into the side of her neck. “Then give me your phone.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.” She moved her head to the side. “You mind?”
He lowered the Mossberg. She fumbled in her pocket, pulled out her cell phone, thumbed down to the number she had for Shotcaller. She hoped it still worked. Shotcaller changed his number every few weeks and Pony was usually the one who gave them the new number.
It was ringing.
He picked up almost immediately. “Why ain’t you dead yet, bitch?”
She hadn’t had any time to think about what she would say to him. She knew that if she came straight out and asked to meet he’d be suspicious, and might not go for it. Or he’d be on his guard and, no matter how much she resented the man who’d murdered Joker, she didn’t hate him any more than she hated Shotcaller. There wasn’t enough real history between them for her to have developed that kind of feeling.
She didn’t say anything. Let Shotcaller fill the silence.
“You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” She tried to gather up a lump in her throat. She needed the hitch in her voice that suggested she’d been crying or was about to.
Her sounding scared would be like throwing a bucket of blood off the coast of Catalina. All you had to do was wait for the sharks to pick it up.
“It was Joker’s idea to take the money,” she said. “I swear.”
At the other end of the call––nothing. She felt bad blaming Joker, even though it was the truth.
“But you went along with it,” said Shotcaller.
“I’ve made it right,” she said.
Shotcaller laughed. “How? How you done that?”
A deep breath. She’d already weighed what she was about to say. Now the moment had arrived, the words were harder to get out of her mouth than she’d anticipated. It wasn’t the lie that bothered her as much as the betrayal.
“I took care of him.”
She had chosen the phrase carefully. Taken care rather than killed. No one in their world would ever say ‘killed’ during a phone call. There was no ambiguity in the word.
“Bullshit.”
The disbelief was genuine. That worked for her. Shotcaller would know that there was no way she would choose to murder Joker. And, of course, he’d be correct. But then––
“You don’t believe me then go take a look for yourself. He’s at the house.”
There was a rustling sound as Shotcaller covered the phone with his hands. She could hear him barking orders at someone in the background. He was verifying what she’d said. He came back on the line. “So?” he asked coldly. “You want a medal?”
“No. I wanted to make things right between us. I don’t want to live my life always looking over my shoulder.”
Another silence.
“I have the money he took. I can bring it to you.”
Now she had laid the ground, he would go for it. If she had offered to meet straight off the bat he would have been suspicious.
He would still want her dead. She knew that much. But she needed his guard lowered, even if it was only a little.
Who knew? Maybe she could find a way to play off the two men against each other. She didn’t know how that would work. Not yet. But it had to be an option. Two stone-cold killers who both wanted the same thing. It had possibilities.
“You’ll bring it to me, huh?”
“No, meet me somewhere. Somewhere public. With people.”
He made a cooing sound. “You think I’m gonna do something to you, Princess?”
“I don’t want to take the chance.”
This was good. If she had any kind of a play she had to be close. And, crucially, Shotcaller had to be off guard. Something that wouldn’t happen if they were in a crowded public place.
“I give you my word. Come with the money, and we can talk.”
She hesitated.
“Okay,” she said. “Where?”
“I’ll text you,” he said. “But if you don’t show . . .”