The Next President (21 page)

Jenny put the phone down and thrust her fist victoriously into the air.

She’d done it. The president never would have called Del—and made him angry enough to change his mind—unless he was afraid Jenny would go public with his… masculine shortcoming.

With a smile on her lips and giving no thought to the lateness of the hour, Jenny resumed her work. Then a thought crossed her mind and she quickly noted it in the margin of the page: Remember. Get DeVito to lay off J. D. Cade.

J. D. Cade’s plan for two other members of the Rawley protection detail was set in motion when he pulled his Lexus out of the garage at the Refuge at 11:30 P.M. As on the preceding night, the streets of Santa Monica Canyon were devoid of traffic, and most of the lights in the houses he passed were out. The neighborhood had retired for the night.

He drove without haste through the quiet streets, but not so slowly as to arouse the suspicions of anyone who might be following him—and he definitely hoped that Roth and Danby were following him. But by the time he turned north on Pacific Coast Highway he’d failed to see any other vehicle behind him.

Either the goddamn minders weren’t watching him or the bug they’d stuck on the Lexus had a range that allowed them to remain out of sight. He had to assume the latter. If he just turned around and went back to the Refuge, and the two crew cuts were tracking him electronically, they’d know he was playing some kind of game with them. On the other hand, if he kept going and the minders weren’t following him, he’d suffer nothing worse than a pointless drive up the coast.

Not that it was a bad night for a drive. Far from it. The air was pleasantly cool and the sky was brilliantly clear. A nearly full moon hung amidst a thick field of diamond-bright stars. He came to a point in the highway where the infinite black void of the ocean seemed so close at hand he could imagine that he’d just become a space traveler, heading for all those bright lights in the heavens and leaving a violent world behind.

Oncoming headlights destroyed the illusion. J. D. put his eyes back on the road and then checked his rearview mirror to look at the traffic behind him.

There was only a handful of cars and he knew that number would diminish the farther out of town he went. Checking the mirror at regular intervals, he tried to see if any of the drivers behind him seemed purposeful in their pursuit.

One of them, in a Porsche, eliminated himself quickly as he zoomed past J. D. In a matter of seconds the sports car disappeared from view.

Other cars turned off at Cross Creek Road and Webb Way, and as J. D. climbed the long incline approaching Pepperdine University, he could see only two sets of headlights far behind him. Then one car made a right at the Trancas Canyon Road Turnoff.

Now, with no other vehicles left to cover for them, J. D. could feel in his bones that he had the minders behind him. Roth and Danby were going to fall into his trap. He made a conscious effort not to let himself get too excited, but he wanted to exult. The moment when he’d have his first opportunity to strike back for what had been done to him and Evan and Pickpocket was almost at hand.

Better still, payback shouldn’t compromise him. Roth and Danby were about to perish in a natural disaster. Burying his bomb under a layer of dirt meant it shouldn’t leave obvious scorch marks on the rocks it dislodged. The plastic bottle he’d used to hold the gunpowder should be obliterated and the few scraps that might remain from the detonator should be flung great distances. With any luck, they’d land in the ocean. But more important, there should be no reason for anyone to suspect a bomb had gone off. Rock slides just happened. The warning signs said so.

His next step was to increase the minders’ sense of urgency. Up until then, he’d been carefully observing the speed limit, but now he floored the accelerator There was some risk he might be stopped for speeding, but the Porsche that had flashed by him should have flushed out any CHiP or county mountie who’d been lying in wait. IfJ. D. saw flashing lights ahead, he’d be forewarned.

Meanwhile, Roth and Danby would see that J. D. was hauling ass. They wouldn’t know if he’d spotted them on his tail or had some other reason to run. But J. D. was willing to bet they’d take up the chase. No doubt about it if Roth was driving.

J. D.‘s heart was racing even faster than the Lexus. He was pleased that no oncoming traffic passed him as he streaked along PCH. A road abandoned to all but him and his prey was what he wanted, what he had to have. His adrenaline rush seemed to carry him to his destination at the scenic overlook with magical speed.

He skidded to a stop a foot short of the drop-off into the ocean. He opened his door and plucked Roth and Danby’s bug from the console next to him, where he’d put it before leaving the Refuge. He laid it on the pavement.

Then he whipped the Lexus off the overlook and around the bend in the

highway. Stopping fifty feet away, he snugged the car up against the slope of the mountainside and turned off the lights.

Seconds later a gray sedan appeared, Roth behind the wheel. He and Danby had followed the script J. D. had written for them. They’d raced to catch up with him and their bug had led them right out onto the overlook.

Only J. D.‘s car wasn’t there. Wasn’t where the bug said it should be. Roth killed the engine and the two crew cuts jumped out of their car to look for an explanation.

That was whenJ. D. should have detonated the bomb. But he wanted to wait until they were back inside their vehicle, where they wouldn’t have any chance to run or dive into the ocean. In the next instant, events made waiting seem to be a mistake.

Headlights appeared. A car was coming down the highway, heading toward L.A. One cockeyed beam swept across Roth and Danby on the overlook.

They shielded their eyes against the glare, Danby looking startled, Roth pissed. The car, a beater carrying what looked to J. D. like a family of migrant workers, passed the point where the Lexus was stopped. A woman in the front seat pointed at Roth and Danby, perceived them as some sort of threat, and urged the driver to get away from there.

J. D. fervently seconded the motion.

“Hurry up, goddammit!”

But the driver refused to take his rattletrap around the bend at anything faster than a crawl.

On the overlook, Roth and Danby were having a debate over the top of their car. Roth summed up his argument by getting back in behind the wheel and slamming his door. Danby must have wanted to stay and look around, but when Roth turned the engine on, Danby knew it was time to get in or be left behind.

J. D. saw the migrants’ car disappear inch by inch around the bend in the road. Backup lights flared as Roth shifted the minders’ sedan into reverse.

J. D. prayed that the driver of the beater would pick up speed now that he had a straightaway in front of him… but he waited an extra second—until Roth had turned his wheels to take up the pursuit—before he pulled out onto the road and sent the radio signal to the detonator.

There was a deep, muffled boom. Then, for a second, nothing seemed to happen. J. D. was rolling again, but Roth was frozen in place, stunned that J. D. had been right there all along and he hadn’t noticed. The crewcut’s stupefaction was broken by a huge groaning rumble that sounded as if the whole mountainside was about to come crashing down.

One last look in his rearview mirror showed J. D. the horror on Roth’s

and Danby’s faces. Their car was moving now, trying to escape the thundering onslaught. For a moment J. D. saw headlights behind him, but then the lights were extinguished by an immense, expanding cloud of choking dust and flying rocks.

J. D. had to take the long way back to the Refuge, but nobody followed him.

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Dingle’s made Stratford Willie’s look like the Stork Club, but the joint was jumping when Evan and Blair pulled up just after midnight.

A freestanding wooden structure with an illuminated gravel lot out front, Dingle’s faded red paint had chipped off to the extent that the remaining flecks made the building look like it had the measles. The window at the front had been replaced with a sheet of plywood, as had the upper half of the front door. The establishment’s name had been spray-painted in neon green.

Evan let Blair lead the way through the entrance. They were noticed immediately by a table of bikers who looked as if their evolutionary climb had stopped well short ofH. sapiens.

“Sonofabitch, the Girl Scouts sellin’ cookies again?” one of the bikers asked.

“Had me a sissy up at Stateville looked like him.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the nice ass.”

A wave of raucous laughter washed over Evan and Blair as they made their way to the bar. Blair brought out Deena’s sketch.

“I’m Ivar McCray’s cousin,” he told the grinning bartender, whose teeth were as green as the sign outside.

“We’re looking for the man in this picture. Fella named Bob, down to Metropolis, told us he saw Ivar with him in here. Can you help us out?”

Evan admired how calm Blair’s voice was.

“What’s v’our name?” the bartender asked.

“Blair McCray.”

“Blair?” came a mocking voice from behind them.

“Why, that’s pintier than Nancy.”

The Kentucky cop turned to look at the big-mouthed biker. He was the same bearded, shaved-scalp hulk who’d been reminiscing about his days in the state pen. Blair walked over to him, held out the sketch, and asked, “Have you seen this man? Can you help us find him?”

“I’ll help you find my dick is what I’ll help you do.”

As the biker’s audience guffawed at his wit, Evan scanned the pack of outlaws, gauging which one was likely to be the first to join the fight—a fight he was absolutely certain was only seconds away from beginning. After he’d made his selection, and offered a silent prayer for his and Blair’s deliverance, he looked for the next two most eager combatants.

Blair continued in a quiet voice.

“You keep talking about sissies and asses and dicks and all that. Makes me wonder if my friend and I haven’t made a mistake.”

“Oh, you made a mistake, all right. A big, bad, hairy-assed mistake.”

“See, there you go again,” Blair told him.

“The way you talk, it makes me wonder if this is a gay bar.”

It took only a heartbeat for Blair’s meaning to register in the biker’s piggy little eyes. As he heaved his outsized body to its feet, Blair hit the outlaw on the way up, hit him with a left hand that audibly crushed the man’s cheek, jawbone, and nose.

Evan had guessed correctly. The biker he’d chosen as the first to jump in reached his hand into a jacket pocket. He never got the chance to bring it out. Evan kicked him in the crotch, and when the man’s knees buckled, he kicked him again on the point of his chin.

Spinning to meet the next anticipated line of attack, he saw that the guy he’d thought would be the second to join the fray was actually sneaking away, but number three had pulled a knife that Jim Bowie would have admired, and he appeared to have every intention of burying it in Blair McCray back, the Kentucky lawman being occupied throwing punches at two other bikers.

Evan plucked a beer bottle off the bar and flung it at the biker with the knife. It caught him smack on the side of the head and shattered. Which served only to get the bikers attention, and redirect the point of his blade at Evan’s belly.

Suddenly the light over Evan’s head dimmed, as if a black cloud had passed in front of the sun. He instinctively ducked, and the light

returned as the bartender, who’d been about to jump on him from atop the bar, went sailing past to impale his leg on the Bowie knife and knock down the biker wielding it. Then somebody tagged Evan with a good shot to the right side of his head. The blow knocked him back into the bar and he held on for a second to keep his feet. He threw punches without ever clearly seeing a tar get. Left-left-right, the combination he’d been taught at the YMCA. The first punch missed, but the next two landed with satisfying impacts.

Evan was still trying to clear his vision when somebody grabbed him from behind. Somebody who was at least as big as Gorbachev the bear and smelled worse. Before the monster could lift Evan clear of the floor and crush the life out of him, he stamped hard on his assailant’s foot. A bellow of pain accompanied his release… and then somebody fired a gun.

In the enclosed space, even with the din of the brawl, the gunshot sounded like a howitzer going off. Evan backed up against the bar, wondering if he was about to be shot or if Blair McCray already had been. He blinked furiously, trying to see what was happening, and finally out of his left eye he saw a wrathful Deena Nokes holding a smoking gun in her hand. At that moment he couldn’t recall a woman ever looking better to him.

“That was a warning shot,” Deena said in a room suddenly gone quiet.

“Next one’ll go square between somebody’s worthless eyes.”

A biker started to speak, until Deena pointed her weapon at him.

“The one thing I got to live for,” she said, “is finding my Ivar’s killer. These two are helping me. Anybody fucks with them fucks with me. Fuck with me, I’ll shoot you dead.”

Deena looked at Evan and Blair and with a jerk other head indicated that it was time to go.

They didn’t have to be told twice. Hopping nimbly over fallen bodies, they bade Dingle’s farewell.

Deena had left her Harley next to Blair’s pickup. She was telling the two men she’d give them an escort to the interstate when a biker mama came running out of Dingle’s.

The woman was small and pale with stringy peroxide blonde hair. She said her name was LuAnne and pleaded with the threesome to take her with them. She said that when her man, Wendell, came to, he was going to be crazy mean, starting a fight with a citizen and then getting busted up.

Blair McCray started to offer the woman a ride, but Deena told him to shut up.

“How do we know that sonofabitch didn’t send you out here to spy on us?

Maybe we take you home and then you call up and tell him and his friends where we are.”