Last Shot (2006) (45 page)

"No way, pal. This is a big find." DeSquire lowered his voice. "Someone's looking to make chief, get his mug in front of the flashing bulbs. I wouldn't mind bumping up to supervisory deputy myself. Why you want a lid on it anyways?"

"If Walker Jameson doesn't know, I'd prefer to keep him chasing after a ghost."

One-handing the wheel at high noon, Bear shot Tim an unamused glance across the meat of his shoulder. "Kinda like us?"

When Bear's boot hit the lock assembly, the entire motel shuddered. The door flew open, knob punching through the drywall. A thin, bald guy leapt off the bed like a goosed cat and crashed to the base of the wall, clutching his wife-beater undershirt at his chest. Bear hauled him up and threw him onto the bed, but the mattress was so bouncy he soared off the other side. Tim frisked him on the floor and sat him on a chair as Bear cleared the closet and bathroom. A Dodgers game blared on in the background until Bear, die-hard Giants fan, smacked the power button, zapping Gagne and the pitcher's mound into blackness. Aside from a pair of sneakers by the door and the open laptop on the opposite twin, the room was empty. Tim stared at the floating aphorism on the screen saver--If we'd have known it would be this much trouble, we would've picked our own damn cotton--and resisted an urge to ping-pong the shitheel off the bed a second time.

"You're on Walker Jameson's trail?" Tim said.

The guy scratched his bald pate, fingers flickering as if over piano keys. "Dunno."

Bear looked from the abandoned sneakers--huge and floppy, size thirteens at least--to the lanky guy in the chair. Normal-size feet.

"Wait a minute," Bear said, "this ain't Caden."

The phone shuddered in Tim's pocket, and he opened it to watch a booking photo download on the small screen. Caden Burke was a hulking man, six-three by the markers behind him. His thick chest dwarfed the neckboard. He had a mouth like a seam, no lips, and a pronounced chin that gave the effect that his face was folded around the black slit.

"Hell, no, I ain't Caden. My name's Phil Xavier. I'm just the fucking driver."

"So where's Caden?" Bear stood over Xavier. "Where is he?"

Tim said, "You'd better tell us everything you know, right now, or we'll nail your ass for conspiracy to commit murder." Xavier bunched his mouth, biting the insides of his lips. Tim leaned over him. "Right now, this moment, this is one of those decisions you don't want to spend twenty years rethinking at Lompoc."

Sweat streaked down the sides of Xavier's head just behind the ears, lending a sheen to the inked shamrock low on his skull. The tattoo was still scabby--Xavier was a newbie, which meant he wasn't so far in he couldn't see a way out. "And if I tell you?"

Tim made an on-the-spot call for expediency's sake. "Hey, you're just the driver, right?"

Xavier cleared his throat nervously. "Caden's the guy, like I said. I just drive. But I heard him making calls on the way out, pieced together a thing or two."

Bear: "Like?"

"After the escape, Jameson made some underground calls checking out a hitter named the Piper. It trickled back to us--we'd put it on the street we wanted any word on Walker Jameson. Turns out the Piper's dead. Jameson found out someone snaked his commission."

"Does Jameson know who? Maybe someone gave him a name?"

Xavier's eyes shifted. "He might have gotten a name, sure, but not us."

"What did you get?"

"A time and place."

"For what?"

"Where Jameson could find the guy."

"The time?"

Xavier pulsed his hands into fists, working out tension. "Right now."

"Where?"

"You guys gonna hurt Caden?"

"If he's going after Jameson, we're probably going to save his life."

"You don't know Caden." Xavier had one of those nervous smiles where the lips touched at the middle but gapped at the sides.

Bear palmed Xavier's head, his massive hands enclosing either side, and forced eye contact. "Where?"

"I swear I don't know. Caden looked something up and took off outta here."

"Looked something up? In what?"

But Tim was already across the room at the laptop. The odious screen saver vanished when he hit the space bar. Explorer was open to Yahoo!'s TV page, the schedule highlighting the Dodgers-Marlins game. Tim clicked the browser's back button, passing a baseball stats page and a news story before a Mapquest page started to load, slowed by the phone-line connection. As the driving directions popped on-screen, one line at a time, Tim tracked them impatiently with his finger.

Caden's route ended at Game.

Chapter
65

Tim had called for backup, but there was no way he and Bear were going to wait. A few minutes past seven, and already the wetlands had come alive with night noise, all order of chirping and scratching insects lending their sounds to the ashy air. A flurry of dusty moths beat against themselves and the lamp by the awning.

The Game lounge was in full swing, its well-heeled clientele drinking and groping happily at the bar. The mood chilled at the sight of Bear prodding Xavier in cuffs through the door. No sign of Walker or Caden. Bear stormed to the back office. The counter was being run by a man with ruddy cheeks and a Scarface T-shirt, the S faded off, probably when his mom did his laundry.

"Hey, Carface," Bear said, slapping his badge across the laid-open Paintball 2 Xtremes magazine. "Who's in the preserve? Right now." Bear snapped his fingers in front of the guy's face to jerk his focus from their handcuffed sidekick.

"A...uh, handful of guys. And Afternoon D-Lite."

"How many guys?"

"I think three."

"You think?" Tim pointed to equipment hanging from pegs near the lockers. "Can you count the missing vests?"

"They brought their own." The worker flipped a binder out from the row and showed Tim three names, none of which meant anything to him.

Xavier spit on the floor. "How 'bout I sit down?"

Bear said, "Believe me, your presence at this moment is no fucking treat for us either."

A movement caught Tim's eye through the side window--Wes Dieter pulling up to his marked space by the entrance. Dressed in pseudo-combat gear, he climbed out of his Cutlass Supreme.

Tim turned back to the worker. "Have you seen this guy?" A head shake at Walker's picture. "How about him?" Tim snapped open his phone and showed the photograph of Caden.

"Yeah, that guy was here a minute ago. At the bar, maybe?"

Tim scanned the lounge again, and then his eyes pulled to the gauze curtain. He said to Bear, "He's in the preserve. Hunting."

Bear unsnapped his holster strap. "Or waiting."

Tim said, "Could he have snuck in without your seeing?"

"Shit, I don't know," the worker said. "I guess someone could cut the net anywhere at the perimeter and slip through, they really wanted to."

Which Walker may well have done earlier to set up for Tess's killer. Tim said, "Let me see the schedule for the rest of the night. Now."

The worker fumbled at the computer. Wes entered to a stir, exchanging high fives with a few zealous clients. He cued to the tense vibe, spotted Tim, Bear, and Xavier, and approached. "Hey guys, what's the 411 here?"

Tim said, "We think whoever killed Tess Jameson is on the premises. We were told he had an appointment here, right now." He didn't add that Tess's murderer might have drawn Walker Jameson on site for the kill, or that an Aryan Brotherhood hit man, in turn, was pursuing Walker.

"I see." Wes rocked on his heels, then said, "Hey, Kenny, I need you to unload the paintball units from my backseat." He aimed his key chain at the window, and, outside, the soft top on his convertible retracted, a custom feature that must have cost thousands. "I'll help these gents."

Kenny offered an annoyed look, then headed out.

Wes said in a fierce whisper. "I thought we had a deal. You can't be hauling perps through here."

Tim said, "We need tonight's schedule."

Wes fought a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed sweat from his forehead but made no move toward the computer. "Come on, guys. Come back after hours, I'll get you whatever you need. But you're freaking my clients. Again."

Outside, Kenny waited for the sluggish soft top to accordion out of his way, then hefted a crate from Wes's car. Wes crossed his arms, ready to cause a scene. Bear shoved past him, stepping around the counter. The tabby stuck her head up from the Cutlass's passenger seat, then jumped up onto the hood, her orange coat rippling.

Wes shook his head at Bear's rudeness, then said, "The schedule's on the clipboard by the preserve entrance." He went to get it, mumbling.

The cat padded across the front of the Cutlass, her breath wisping, then curled at the end of the hood above the warmth of the engine.

The oversize hood ornament.

Bear looked up from the monitor, brow twisted with consternation. "This says the next appointment's a hunt-off. Metal Jacket and--"

The clues aligned at once, pulling together in the instant Tim's hand dove for his Smith & Wesson. The low-rider--the Cutlass with the top peeled back. Wes's own words--I'm a computer guy at heart. He'd posed as the Piper in one of the chat rooms--ones that guys like us can't even find--and snaked the contract. The hit itself--highly competent but not meticulous, the imperfect work of a well-read and -practiced wannabe.

Before Bear could utter his name, Wes Dieter slipped through the gauze, disappearing into the green-tinted shadows of the preserve. The four-time course champion, trying for a getaway but inadvertently heading into the lion's den. Given the recent fallout from Tess's murder, Tim had to assume that a real gun lurked in one of Wes's innumerable holsters and cargo pockets.

Bear seized Xavier, steering him for the door. Tim ran for the curtain, shouting over his shoulder, "Clear the whole building! When backup gets here, have them seal off the preserve's perimeter!"

He slipped through, dropping low on a knee, his revolver clutched tight in both hands. A muddy trail went a few feet before splitting in three directions. Fronds fluttered. Cottonwood, sagebrush, willow, and coyote bush broke his sight line. A coarse cawing. The silhouette of a great white egret scanned across the roof of the black netting, strobe-flickering against the dark gray sky beyond. The netting encasing the fifteen-acre preserve brought a kind of night-within-night. Tim eased forward, boots shoving into the mud, then stepped off the trail. He turned down the volume on his radio, cutting himself off from his backup. Noises all around.

Tim melded into the imported foliage, listening for the sounds of human movement--headlong progress through brush, metallic clinks, leaves whispering across fabric. He and Walker were like sharks squaring off in a kiddy pool.

Advancing on hands and knees could help him reduce his noise signature, but it would also slow him down. Since concealment options were copious, there was no need to maintain a low-to-ground profile. He was within an enclosed space with three potentially armed men, all of them killers, all of them hunting and being hunted. Time was of the essence if he wanted to play a role in the outcome. And prevent the naked corpse of a well-siliconed woman from making tomorrow's page one. To strike the balance between caution and pursuit, he opted for a slow upright patrol, stop-move-stop.

He paused, getting down on a knee in the tules to listen and feel the air.

Walker likely didn't know that Tim and Caden were present. If he had come, he'd set up to wait for the Piper. If Tim had some luck, Walker didn't realize yet that that meant this nickel-badge-wearing keyboard jockey. What would be the best tactical spot from which to observe, and execute a shot? Tim would have chosen the highest ground. A rise in the northwest quadrant seemed the best bet. Tim started to forge in that direction, through the dark heart of the preserve. If he heard anyone moving, odds were it was Caden, Wes, the girl, or one of the paintballers. Tim's first priority would be to reach the nonsuspects and direct them to safety. Then he'd try to latch on to Caden and trail and outflank him for an ambush, or stalk Wes until he drew Walker from cover.

Someone large lumbered up the trail to Tim's right, and he whipped his gun over, waiting to see who appeared. An excessively camoed man with a beer gut charged around the bend, slipping to a halt. He smiled at Tim, raised his paintball gun. "Pow." His eyes changed when he took in Tim's expression and the steel gleam of the Smith & Wesson. Tim flicked his barrel toward the exit to keep the guy moving; he was only too happy to comply.

In the blackness up ahead, a woman shouted, "Who the hell are you?" She yelped, and Tim ducked into the foliage. A few moments later, she ran past, naked and screaming, Afternoon no longer D-Lited.

To his left he heard two bodies startle in the leaves, then move for the exit also, the panicked movements and shouted directives telling him they were the last two paintballers. Bear could deal with them and the girl once they spilled through the curtain.

Moving briskly, Tim closed in on the area of foliage in which the regulars had stumbled upon an uninvited guest. The band of dense, shoulder-high bush crossed the base of the slope where Tim thought Walker might be bedded down. Tim steered clear of the loose rocks composing the waterfall's base, picking quiet footholds around the mud wallow. Another theme-park addition, a camouflaged heavy bag, creaked on its chain, its sway more than the net-blocked wind could have generated. Someone had shouldered it on his way past.