She whispered. “Did they get your dad too?”

“What do you mean?”

“I never made it to the house. They zoomed up as I was walking down the street. I saw you in the car. They already had you.”

“You never got inside? Did you see the cops inside the house at all?”

“No. Do you think?”

My heart soared at the prospect. Were the cops that naïve to pick her up before she made it to where she was going? If they were so hot after the kids, they were fools for making the scoop when they did. “Robby just wanted to rub my nose in it by showing me he had you. He jumped the gun to make a point.”

“That means your dad and the—” She lowered her voice to faint whisper, “and the kids are still in the house and okay. Can that be true? Is that possible?”

“Then what are they holding you on? What’s going on?” I choked on the lump in my throat. “Dad’s okay. Dad made it out.” One of the heavy rocks lying on my chest just floated off.

Mack, behind me, tugged on the back part of my chain. “Come on, man, we been back here too long already.”

I leaned down and kissed Marie, my tongue overpowering hers. I wanted to consume all of her.

They pulled us apart, my body cooler from her absence. “I love you, Marie. Always remember I love you.”

“Please don’t say it that way.”

“Don’t you worry. You won’t be in long. I promise.”

Overcome with emotion, she couldn’t talk anymore. She wept and gulped at air. The female deputy put her in a wrist lock and tugged her along in the opposite direction. Mack gave up tugging on my chain and waited behind me until Marie was out of sight, then I let them move me to the car. I should’ve been ashamed at what I’d done to her. Instead I was furious. More furious than I ever remember being. Furious at Robby Wicks. He was the one who had done this. He was the one responsible. No matter what happened, I was going to make him pay.

Chapter Forty-One

Mack steered the car toward 124th Street. I sat in the passenger side of the front seat, Fong right behind me, a gun resting easy in his lap. Mack periodically stole a glance at me. “You going to be all right?”

I said nothing and continued to fume.

“Hey, man, you hear me? You going to be all right? I don’t need you going supernova on me.”

I didn’t look at him. “You’re right. He is an Apache.”

In the backseat, Fong chuckled.

When the heat, the anger finally bled off, and I could see straight, I realized that we were headed down Wilmington from Imperial Highway. “Hey, pull in here. Stop in at Martin Luther King.”

“Bullshit, you said 124th. That’s what you said. You’re trying to dick with us. It won’t happen.”

I calmly said, without making eye contact, “This could save us a trip. I saw him crash his car over on Long Beach Boulevard. A real slobber knocker. He’s probably still in the hospital. We can go to 124th, but we might be coming right back here.”

“This is bullshit.” Mack whipped the steering wheel hard. The maneuver tossed Fong and me hard against the doors. The Chevy squealed into the parking lot of Killer King. Mack stopped in front of the ER, parked in the law-enforcement only slot, put it in park, and shut her down. He turned, “If he’s in here, what makes you think he’s going to tell you where this Ruben the Cuban is?”

“Q-Ball and I go way back. I served paper on his pad twice. Both times he felt the barrel of my .357 across the top of his head. He sees me in these chains, though, he’s just going to laugh.”

“I’m not going to fall for that one. The chains stay on.”

The automatic double doors to the ER hissed open when we walked in. No one paid much attention to a black man in chains. Crooks came in to be treated all the time. We went past the waiting area, past the treatment rooms, and down a long hallway, to the backside of admittance. Fong, as promised, stayed back, his hand in his jacket pocket. Mack leaned over the high counter, flashed his gold sheriff star, and whispered, then nodded as the receptionist looked up the information on the computer.

Fong and I waited.

Mack came back over a little more at ease. “You called it right. He’s here, fifth floor, 513. Come on, let’s take the elevator over here.”

We waited for the elevator car, watching the round lights above the top edge count down. The car stopped on two. We waited some more.

Mack said, “Wicks told me a story about how you trailed a car’s broke radiator on foot for five miles. The car killed a little girl. Said he never seen anything like it.”

I said nothing. The light on two went off as the car came down.

Mack said, “It’s one of the first times Wicks wasn’t talking about himself. He said he had to pull you off the shitbag or you’d have kicked him to death.”

“I never heard that,” Fong said.

I looked straight ahead. “That was another time. Someone else’s life.”

The door opened. The car was three times the size of normal elevators. An orderly pushed out a gurney with a white-haired old woman under a thin sheet covering an emaciated frame with two IV bags hanging from an IV tree. We stepped aside, then into the car. The door closed.

Mack said, “Five miles on a summer night, in a hot wool uniform. That true? That the way it was?”

“No, it might have been two miles at best.”

The lights went up the panel as we rose.

On our floor, Mack went straight to the room, hesitated at the closed door thinking something through, then led the way in. Q-Ball lay on a hospital bed one arm and one leg plastered and suspended from ropes. A jagged line across the top of his forehead pinched together with black sutures would leave a bad scar. The accident was worse than I’d thought.

He made Mack for a cop right off said, “Get the fuck outta here, I’m not gonna tell ya shit.” He saw me, flinched, and grimaced with pain. His eyes went wide as he tried to get farther away. Until he saw the waist chains and shackles. His face relaxed into a smile that turned into a laugh. “Dey finally got yo number, huh, Dee-tective Johnson. Dey gonna put you where you belong.”

Mack went over to the side of the bed. “We just want one thing from you.”

“You kin kiss my black ass. I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”

Mack looked back over his shoulder to Fong who took his cue, went to the door and stood close so no one could open it and come in. The other two beds were empty, one looked slept in, the patient out for tests.

“I ain’t gonna buy yo hardass shit. Not in a hospital with all these witnesses.”

I said, “All we want to know is where Ruben is.”

He looked from Mack then back to me. “I tolt ya. You’re not gettin’ a motherfuckin’ thing. Get the fuck outta my room ’fore I call the nurse and have ’em toss you out on yo dumb cracker asses.” He reached for the hand buzzer for the nurse.

Mack was quicker, grabbed it, yanked it from the wall.

“Big man, yo cain’t scare me.”

Mack stepped in close, his hands moving in.

“Wait,” I said. “You can get in trouble for torturing his ass. I can’t. Take these off.”

Fear flashed on Q’s face, then quickly changed back. “Sure, you’re right. I’m gonna fall for that bullshit.”

Mack looked me in the eye. He was unconvinced, thought it was a bad idea. I waited him out. He finally looked back at Fong who said nothing. Q made Mack’s decision for him. He pulled back his good leg and kicked Mack in the hip. Mack took two steps forward, spun, and was going after him. I intervened, bumped him with my chest. “No, do it my way.”

Q put his head back and laughed. “You’re gamin’ me, Johnson. He cain’t take dem cuffs off not when yo out on a pass. I know, I bin dere.”

Mack reached into his tight jeans pocket, came out with the key. Fong, still over by the door, brought his gun out of his coat pocket held it down at his side. Q saw all of it.