My dance with Frankie Balls and his thugs outside the courtroom had shaken me. They weren’t going to forget, and why should they? I was easy money. And then there was Detective Rosa Abalos and her fishing expedition to hook me and put me in the tank for Walter’s death. The cop and the gangster put years of worry on me, but I walked out of Anna’s office a younger man.
Clear the charges against me, kill the priest, and take my payoff to some secret hideaway where I could live a better life far from Frankie and Rosa and all my other troubles.
After lunch, I drove up Bel Air Road, following the winding street past the estates and houses nestled in the hillside. The sky was a deep azure, striking against the rich greens of the tropical gardens.
I parked the Range Rover at the head of the trail near Joseph Persico’s house and hiked up the mountain to my place of penance. I looked down on his beautifully designed contemporary villa, set in its perfectly landscaped grounds complete with citrus trees, high cedars, and flowers and plants of every kind, and thought about the paradise it might have been if it wasn’t for me and my recklessness. There might have been grandchildren one day, scattered around the garden, losing themselves in its many nooks as they played hide-and-seek like so many windup toys.
I told myself not to dwell on such things. The past and all the infinite futures it might have spawned were gone. There was just now and what was to come, and in this moment of potential, I wanted Joseph Persico’s blessing. I wanted him to know that I was doing everything for Skye, for the children she might birth, and that from the death of another would come life. I wanted absolution for killing a priest, and as I stood beneath the unblemished sky, I was struck by the thought that no one, neither priest nor pope, should be able to use their position to conceal their crimes. Grateful for the revelation, I nodded my appreciation toward the reclusive man in his huge house and walked back to my car. I drove the short distance to Laurel Canyon and home, where I shed my courtroom clothes and ran a bath.
I pulled myself out of the water, cleaned and reborn, and put on a pair of black jeans and a black T-shirt. I took the gun I’d found outside my house the night Jim had shot at Cutter and Curse and went to my car.
I wish I could say I felt trepidation at what I was about to do, but there was no doubt in my mind. Not the slightest hesitation. The priest was an abuser and had no more right to live than any evil creature. I’d killed Walter and Farah for less. This death would be like a vaccination. I would inoculate society against Gibson’s poison, and I just wanted to get it over with quickly.
I followed Topanga Canyon Road up from the shimmering ocean through the high mountains. Gibson didn’t have a mansion. Google Earth and Street View told me he lived in a 1950s rectangular home built out of faded aluminum panels on a lot off Deerhill Trail. I stayed clear of his street and instead drove along Cheney Drive, not named after the trigger-happy former vice president, but taken from the family that used to own the ranch in the nearby mountains. I followed the road to the end and parked at the head of a deserted trail. I took a pair of black leather gloves from the compartment, climbed out, and concealed the pistol in my waistband.
Twilight was on its way, leaving the paths through the rugged terrain clear of joggers and walkers. I’d used Google Earth to memorize the route from the trailhead to Gibson’s place and started my journey over the mountain. I felt more like the military man of old, planning and executing my operation.
The stars glittered overhead and lights from distant homes dotted the valley by the time I turned off the trail and made my way across a short stretch of scrub to the low fence that marked the start of Gibson’s yard.
He had a lovely place. Way smaller than the surrounding properties, but better than anything I could have ever dreamed of as a high-flying engineer. Had the Church bought his silence?
I climbed the fence into a neat garden and walked through an orchard of citrus trees toward the aluminum bungalow. The property was too far inland to have an ocean view, but it was still paradise high above the city in the mountains, close to the stars and heaven beyond.
The lights were on inside, and I could see Gibson in the back of the house. He was standing before an easel, concentrating and painting his next work.
Anger surged through me. I’d made a mistake, run someone off the road, and hadn’t been able to function as a normal human because of the guilt I’d experienced—and here was this monster, painting, untroubled by his conscience.
I crept toward the house, confident the contrast between the darkness outside and the light inside would blind him to my presence. I reached for the pistol and held it tightly. My heart raced out of habit, but I was experienced now, and Gibson deserved what was coming.
I slowed as I reached his porch and inched toward the glass door that led into his artist’s studio.
I was close. Too close. He must have seen a flicker in the glass, because I registered his head turn toward me and his puzzled look. I moved from slow to fast motion, reached for the door, and was grateful the handle gave when I turned it.
“Who are you?” he asked as I stepped inside. “What are you doing here?”
He registered the gun and his eyes widened.
“Take anything you want.”
“You’re going to pay, old man. You’re going to pay for what you’ve done.”
His confusion deepened. Was he really so detached from the consequences of his actions? Or just playing stupid?
“What I’ve done? What do you mean, what I’ve done?”
“The kids, old man. You should have known better. You were a priest.”
He raised his hands and pleaded, and my stomach turned a little more at the sight of his feigned innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve got the wrong person. Please. Please don’t do this. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
If I hadn’t known better, I might have believed him, but instead the stench of his bullshit only sickened me. I thrust the pistol forward, and he started weeping.
“Please,” he spluttered. “Please. Our father who art in heaven…”
I was no believer, but I couldn’t bear the sound of this evil one praying to a godly force to save him. I shot him twice in the head and his eyes went blank as he fell.
As I turned to leave, I caught sight of what he’d been working on. It was an oil painting of a young girl with her back to me, sitting on a swing, staring out over a high horizon that was unmistakably somewhere in these mountains. The Pacific glinted in the distance. All around the easel were reference photographs of the little girl, and Gibson was in some of them. She was a relative, perhaps? Or the child of a friend who had no idea of his wickedness.
It was a beautiful image, but I was relieved for the girl.
She would no longer be in harm’s way.