CHINATOWN/SILVERLAKE/NORTH HOLLYWOOD
Nate sprinted across the street. He had the soda can in his fist. Gunshots bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-banged out of the alley. Crazy screams on the street. He reached the mouth of the alley sure he’d see his little girl dead on the ground. Knowing if it was so he’d die here too, one way or another.
But Polly stood three steps into the mouth of the alley, her back to them. The .38 in her hand smoked. A-Rod stood facing Nate. Scubby and the fresh skin pressed themselves against one of the brick walls behind them.
The inked one had a hand slapped against his neck. Blood leaked out around his palm where one of Polly’s bullets had clipped him. He moved toward Polly. He kicked her to the ground. He raised his own big-ass pistol to Polly’s head.
“Hey!” Nate yelled. He threw the soda can fastball hard. It cracked into the inked man’s face. The can sprang a leak and whooshed down the alley. The inked one’s hands covered his mangled nose. He sank onto his butt. The wound on his neck where Polly had grazed him yawned. The big-ass pistol skittered on the pavement. Nate moved in front of Polly, picked up the big-ass pistol. Hoped the damn thing wasn’t for show.
A-Rod and the young one fell back in the alley. A-Rod got behind a dumpster. The young one pointed his gun at Nate. His hand moved like he tried to pull the trigger but the gun didn’t shoot. He didn’t know enough to see the safety was on. The kid ran. The kid reached the other end of the alley and kept on going.
Scubby broke past A-Rod. He hustled past Nate and Polly out into the street. A-Rod rose up from behind the dumpster, some kind of hunting rifle from the truck bed in his hands. Fingersnaps around Nate’s head told him death had missed him by a hand’s length. Nate raised the big-ass pistol. The pistol had an extendo clip. It banged as fast as Nate’s finger could move. Gunshot echoes everywhere. Tires squealing in the street. Oh my god screams from passersby.
Nate stood in front of Polly like he could protect her, like he could stop bullets. He walked backward, pressing into her. He kept shooting. He pinned A-Rod behind the dumpster.
They cleared the mouth of the alley. He and Polly ran. Skinheads stood in the doorway of the warehouse. They stared dumb at him. He waved the pistol at them.
Weird quiet in the city now. Their feet slap-slap-slapping pavement seemed so loud. Sirens rose in the distance. Nate looked toward the car. Scubby stood waiting for them at the door of the green monster.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Nate said. He raised the pistol. The slide locked back showed that he’d emptied it.
“They’ll kill me,” Scubby said. “Just get me out of here, please, man.”
It wasn’t worth the fight. Nate pushed Polly across the driver’s seat. Scubby threw himself into the back. He smelled like fresh piss laid over dried piss. Nate jabbed the key into the ignition. It roared to life hurricane loud. His foot was already stomping the gas. The ghost of his brother cut through the sounds and insanity.
Breathe, little brother.
Nate did. He didn’t peel out. He pulled slow into the street. He craned his neck looking for cops. Listened for a chopper. He took a right. A left. Polly kept begging. Apologizing. Crying. He looked over, saw tears streaking through blood on her face.
Blood on her face.
“Where’s that blood from?” Inside he pled to whatever wasn’t cold and dead in the universe.
Please take me instead. Me for her.
“What—”
“Where’s the blood from, Polly?”
He touched her face. Showed her the blood on his fingers. Her eyes went wide.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Feel,” he said. “Feel around. You don’t always know you’ve been shot.”
She felt all over her body as Nate hit the on-ramp to the 101. The gods smiled just this much: traffic rolled on the freeway. They entered its flow smoothly.
“I’m okay,” she said again. This time it sounded like she meant it. Nate felt muscles unclench. Felt the sweat popping all over him start to do its job as the day drank it. He took Polly’s hand in his. She had the bear locked in a headlock hug. She wiped tear-snot on her sleeve.
He knew right then it was over. Me for her, he thought. A warm thought that made him cold. Me for her.
“That shit was bananas,” Scubby said from the back. Nate had forgotten he was there.
“Pick a place,” Nate told him. “And make it close.”
At Scubby’s direction, Nate pulled off the 101 at Silver Lake Boulevard. The underpass was a tent city. The people living there dirty faced and unfed. Refugees of a war only they knew about.
“You’re good here?” Nate asked.
“Good as I’ll ever be,” Scubby said. “Goddamn. They caught me slipping, no shit.”
“I see you again, I kill you,” Nate said.
“There’s a club for that,” Scubby said. “I think they meet on Tuesdays.” He nodded to Polly. “Later, wild child. Thanks for missing.”
He ducked through a tear in the chain-link and walked into the tent city. The bear waved goodbye.
They parked in front of the apartment building. Nate let the engine tick over.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” she said.
“You wanting to save that dumbass, it was a good thing,” Nate said. “But you could have died. When I heard that gun go off . . .”
“You thought I was dead. You didn’t think it was me shooting?”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“I missed.”
“You were wild,” he said. “A little handgun like that, you can’t be wild.”
“Next time I’ll be calm,” Polly said.
He was going to tell her then that there wouldn’t be a next time. But before he could, a shadow broke itself away from the side of the building. It moved toward the green monster. Just enough time for Nate to realize all the guns in the car were empty, to know it could happen this fast.