“OKAY, I DON’T understand, we’re still going to the pier right?” my nephew asked.
“Yes, you are. Gimme your car keys.”
He didn’t argue and handed over his keys. “It’s that beat-up gray Toyota Corolla, right over there. Where are you going? What’s the matter? Tell me what’s going on.”
“The task force got greedy,” I said. “They wanted to close their case the fast, simple way. They jumped the gun and hit the motel. They came up empty and didn’t get the kids. Now that crazy woman with her sniper knows the cops are onto her. That’s information they didn’t have before. They’re gonna change up their game based on that information.”
“How do you know that?”
I started walking toward the Toyota. “Because given the same information, that’s what I’d do.”
He followed along with Mack and Barbara in tow. “You still haven’t told me where you’re going.”
I stopped. “You have to play this thing out. You have to go to the pier just like the plan and show yourself.” I looked at Mack. “You have your own counter-snipers set up, right?”
He nodded. “Trust me, we’re good.”
“This is really bullshit, Mack, and you know it.” I took a step over, poked him in the chest. “You better take good care of my nephew.”
Barbara shoved in between us and stuck her own finger up in my face. “Don’t you dare talk to him like that.”
I took a breath and tried to calm down. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m sorry, Mack. You’re not the one that screwed this up.”
“Uncle, where are you going?”
“To get your children back.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No, kid, you can’t, you have to play this thing out. These people have to see you on the pier. It’ll give me the time I’ll need.”
I turned to Mack. “I need a gun.”
Before Mack could reply, Bruno reached behind and pulled a blue-steel automatic from his rear waistband. “Take mine.”
I took it from him. “After this is over, we’re gonna talk about your illegal gun possession.” The gun, a Sig Sauer model 226, fit in my hand like an old friend, the same as a hammer would a carpenter. I pulled the mag and checked the slide to make sure a round sat in the chamber. I picked my shirt up and stuck it in my waist-band, the metal cold against my belly.
“See what I mean,” Barbara said. “No good’s going to come from you having that gun.”
Barbara leaned up and kissed Mack on the cheek. “I’m going with Bruno.”
“What? Just like that, you jump ship?”
“If something happens to him,” she said, “do you want to be the one to have to tell Marie about it?”
“You’re right. Go.”
Barbara and I headed for the car, with Mack and my nephew close behind, going to another car.
Mack said, “Keep in touch by cell.”
Barbara grabbed my sleeve. “Come on, let’s take mine.” I veered toward the Honda and tossed Bruno’s keys back to him.
“Not the Honda, this one.” She keyed the fob, and the door locks popped on the black Dodge Charger.
I went around the other side and said over the top of the car, “Now, see, I would’ve thought you’d be driving—”
“I never took you for being gender biased. This is my car, so get over yourself.” She got in and started it up. “Where we goin’?”
“Head toward Inglewood.”
I punched an address—913 South Prairie Avenue, Inglewood—into the onboard GPS.
Barbara watched as she drove, and she drove fast. The big engine rumbled. “What’s that address have to do with this?”
“When I first talked with these people, they tried to set this location as the place for the hostage exchange. Then I changed it to the pier to take away some of their advantage.”
“What makes you think this location’s gonna have anything to do with it now?”
“Two things. First, Mack said the task force followed these guys to a motel in Inglewood by Hollywood Park. Look …” I pointed at the GPS screen “Hollywood Park isn’t that far from this address.”
“Okay, and second?”
“The woman I spoke to on the pier came off as a solid professional, ice cold, and a psycho for sure, but still in complete control at all times. I don’t think she was bluffing about anything. She said she had us all covered with a sniper.”
“So then you think this location isn’t where the kids are, but it’s a location close enough to the kids and close enough to cover the exchange in the parking lot with a sniper, right?”
“It’s just an educated guess. Robby would call it a WAG.”
Invoking Robby’s name around Barbara didn’t sit right. It came attached with a big dollop of guilt.
“Yeah,” she said, “It’s definitely a wild-ass guess, but I’ll buy it. What else do we got?” She put her foot on the accelerator and the muscle car shoved me back in the seat.
“We’ll have to get there and find this place before the meet on the pier goes down,” she said. “What do you think’s going to happen at the pier? Why do you think the kids will be at this place in Inglewood and not at the pier?”
“Like I said, it’s just a hunch. If I were in their shoes, and knew the cops hit the motel I used to be in, then I’d also know that the cops were going to be all over the meet at the pier. They won’t risk taking the kids there. The kids are evidence that proves kidnapping.”
“So you think they’re going to go through with the meet because, why?”
“They might not show at all. Or they just might lay back and see how the game plays out, how many cops and what kind of cops—county, state, or federal. Information is king, and these guys really know how to use it to their benefit. They have their ace in the hole. They have Noble, who can give them the diamonds, if they push him to push his son. That’s what I think’s gonna happen if we don’t get lucky and find this place first. That’s the only reason why I think Noble’s still alive.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we drove past Hollywood Park, or at least where Hollywood Park used to be. I couldn’t believe it; the racetrack, a large part of history in the Los Angeles area for the last seventy-five years, no longer existed. I moved to Central America for a couple of years and the world kept on moving along, continuing to evolve, stopping for no one and destroying historical landmarks.
Many years ago, in happier times, Dad took Noble and me to Hollywood Park to watch the horses run. Dad knew a guy who’d let us in through the paddock. A wondrous time of family and friendship, and chili dogs with onion rings and chocolate malts. I’d never lose those great memories, even if the racetrack had disappeared.
I’d also, after my childhood visit, returned once, later in life, chasing the murderer Dewayne Simpkins. Robby and I traced him to the racetrack, where he liked to burn money betting on the ponies—money he attained selling rock cocaine as a midlevel dealer.
“What happened to the track?”
“Boy, you’ve been out of touch. They closed it and mowed it down. There’s going to be houses, a shopping center, and a park. Two hundred and sixty acres of prime real estate. They’re going to leave the casino, though, and renovate it.
“Remember that night Robby shot Simpkins right there at the track? Right in the middle of the crowd, no concern at all for his backdrop. Jesus, what a dick. Remember that one?”
“Yes, I do.”
She let her eyes leave the road to look over. “That’s right, you were there.” She looked back. “That night, Robby celebrated, drank too much tequila, cooked shark steaks on the barbeque. He always cooked shark steaks after a kill. You weren’t there that night at that barbeque. And you were always there, at least for most of those shark nights.” She paused, checked the road, and said, “Some of those shark nights were yours.” She looked from the road back to me, expecting a reaction.
“You wanna know what he said that night?” she asked. “He said, ‘I gunned that poor slob Simpkins. He died in a dead heat. Dead from the heat, get it?’ The bastard actually laughed at his own stupid joke over the death of a human being.” She shivered. “What a fool I was. What the hell was I thinking? What does that say about me staying so long with that callous, cynical son of a bitch?”
Barbara was obviously dealing with her own ghosts.
I didn’t want to defend Robby, not to Barbara. I wanted the conversation just to die all on its own. But that night at Hollywood Park, Simpkins got the drop on me right in the middle of all the folks waiting in the lines at the windows to make their last-minute bets. Simpkins felt no moral obligation for innocent bystanders.
Simpkins grew up in my neighborhood, a bully for sure, but we’d played together just the same.
That night, I spotted him first. He recognized me, knew I’d joined up with the cops. Knew I’d come looking for him for the brutal murder of his girlfriend. I froze for just a second. Not long, just for one second, enough time to remember in a flash our childhood together, the warm days on the swings and then later on the basketball courts. I hesitated long enough for him to grin and pull his gun. I didn’t drop the hammer on him, Robby did. Even so, I still felt obligated to make the notification to his parents, one of the hardest things I’d ever done. No shark for me that night.