I lost sight of Ruben and stopped to listen for him, tried to still my rapid breath. Ruben was no fool. He quit running and now walked, hood rat silent running. The odds of catching him just diminished greatly if he no longer panicked. I went on down between the houses and into the weed-infested dirt easement that ran parallel to the street, and fought the urge to run in any direction just to be doing something. Ruben, the little weasel, jeopardized any chance I had for a deal. I waited and listened. Nothing. Fifty-fifty chance, I went right, heading south. Prey will always run downhill. This wasn’t San Fran with the hills. It was South Central Los Angeles, flat as a floodplain all the way to the ocean. But maybe Ruben’s survival instinct dragged him south. I walked faster and faster until I broke into a jog. Ruben could’ve ducked back into any one of the yards on either side of the easement, just like I had when I’d crawled in with Manny and Moe.
On the other side of the houses, a car raced, the engine winding out, tires skidding. Mack picked up Fong and was trying to set up a makeshift perimeter, a useless deployment with only one man on the perimeter especially with no bird in the air. Mack couldn’t call for air support, not for an escaped inmate that he’d helped escape.
I came to the first perpendicular street, walked over to an ancient maple, stood in the shadow back by an overgrown hibiscus that smelled honey sweet and reminded me of my Marie. The thought left a hollow feeling in my chest.
Mack drove up the street, turned, and squealed around the corner. Nothing moved, not even the ghetto wolves that prowled at night in packs, looking for smaller dogs or inexperienced cats. The denizens somehow smelled danger afoot and crawled under their rocks.
I gave in to the fact we’d screwed it up and lost Ruben. It happened that way sometimes. Had we deployed an entire Violent Crimes Team around Shawntay’s house, this wouldn’t have happened. You went with what you had. A crackhead wasn’t hard to track down. We’d just missed him.
Headlights came north again from two streets down. I recognized the sound of the engine and stepped out into the street with my hands up, waving him down. Mack skidded to a stop. He jumped out, his hands balled in tight fists. He didn’t slow as he came on. I stood up straight, closed my eyes waiting for the blow to mash my mouth, shatter my teeth.
He came right up into my face, “You lost him? What the hell’s the matter with you? You were right on his ass.”
I opened my eyes, his baby blues inches from mine. My mouth all on its own dropped open.
“Get your dumbass back in the car, skillet.” He turned and went back to the driver’s side, got in, and slammed the door. I walked stiffly to the passenger side, thinking about the bullet graze and how my knees started to complain about the second-story leap and how Mack was one difficult person to read.
I got in. He put the car in gear and chirped the tires. Two blocks over, he pulled to the side. Fong came out of the shadows from his position of ambush, got in, and closed the door. He slapped the back of my head. “How’d you lose him?”
If it wasn’t happening to me, it might’ve been comical. I said, “Hit me again, asshole.” I pointed a finger at him. When he didn’t move, I said, “I heard Mack tell you to take the one-two side, the side Ruben bailed on.”
Mack answered for him, “There was a cedar plank fence. He was trying to get around. It was my fault. I should’ve waited until he was in position before taking the door.”
“Right,” I said, “And cappin’ my ass was just for fun?” I stuck my hand under my shirt and gently probed my shoulder. There was a narrow furrow no wider than a pencil, sticky with coagulated blood. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. When you chase a crackhead, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Mack snickered, “Those were just warning shots to try and get Ruben to hit the dirt so you could grab him.”
“My achin’ ass, warning shots.”
“You took us to him once, you can do it again. Where to?”
I sat back in the seat, let the adrenaline of the chase start to bleed off, and there it was, clear as day. The answer bubbled up like I’d wanted the name Kendrick to. It was hell getting old. The Thin Man’s name was Alan Cole. “Alan Cole.”
“What?”
“Go on down here and turn on Willowbrook.”
“Who’s Alan Cole?”
“The kid in front of Shawntay’s. The alley I caught him in was behind Huggies off of Willowbrook. It’s closed down now. A bar Ruben and Cole used to frequent. Cole had an old beat-up Bulldog .44. After I got it back to the station and got a good look at it, I didn’t think it would even fire. He took his ass whuppin’ without a peep.”
Mack turned down Willowbrook. Huggies, two stories on the right, boarded up with weather-warped sheets of plywood painted over and over with gang graffiti stood dark against a brighter skyline.
“So your thinkin’,” Fong said, “that this Cole might’ve been at the pad visiting Ruben?”
“Not necessarily. Cole just kick-started my memory. It’s worth a check.”
Mack spun the car around. “This is close, but I don’t think he’d have time to get here yet. I’m going to set up down the street and code five. You give us the layout of the inside.”
“You walk in the front there’s a long narrow bar, real long because that’s all there is. The bar goes clear back to the rear door of the place. There’s one row of tables against the wall on the left with very little elbow room in between. The entire place is probably twenty, twenty-five-feet wide. Toward the back there’s like this loft with stairs, but it was private, an office maybe. No one ever went up there.”
“Windows?” Mack asked.
“As I remember, only on the front. The back’s got a solid steel door.”
Fong leaned forward. “The windows in the front are boarded up, so if he’s using the place as a hidey-hole, it has to be from the back. It’ll be real easy to check to see if there’s any access. We could be wasting our time.”
I closed my eyes and conjured up an image of the alley from all the times I prowled it at night with headlights off. “There’s a steel ladder to the roof.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Willowbrook, a wide boulevard with the metro rail running down the center, hardly twitched, the asphalt void of all but a few vehicles. Trees on both sides, ancient majestic peppers, had stood guard for the last century. A shadow darted from the peppers across the first street. All of us saw it at the same time and tensed. We simultaneously eased our doors open. The inside dome light had been deactivated as in all the Violent Crimes vehicles. Nobody closed their doors all the way. Mack whispered, “Let him get inside. We’ll have him cornered. Fong and I will take the back. Skillet, you take the front.”
This time they played it smart. The front was boarded up with little chance of any action there. We moved directly across the street to the sidewalk and tried to stay in the shadows. I brought up the rear. Up close, I could see the plywood bolted into the cinder block with heavy lag bolts and fat washers so that the night people could not penetrate without a bulldozer against it. No need for me to stay at the front. Mack and Fong went around the side. I followed. They knew, understood the dynamic, and didn’t say anything. We now moved and acted like a team.
Moonlight reflected off the white paint on the walls. Chipped, peeling paint surrounding a long faded ad for Jeri Curl lit up the side of the building in an eerie, lunar glow. We moved silently to the area where the shadowy figure disappeared. The shadow could’ve been anyone. We came to an indentation in the wall, a door I didn’t known about. The only door not boarded up. Mack and Fong pulled their guns. Mack held up his and pointed to me and then at the side of the door. I nodded. They moved off. I took up my position hyperaware of my empty-handed vulnerability. Against the white painted wall, I looked like a fly in milk.