The Replacements (15 page)

I looked at Barbara, her expression stunned, as I described the house.

“That's Montclair, that's back in
my
city.”

A new chief of police, and the kidnapping again pointed back to her jurisdiction. Not good.

Mack grabbed my foot and shook. “Come on, old man, there's plenty of time to rest when you're dead.” Another maxim left over from Robby. Like a bad omen, Robby's ghost tainted this entire caper.

“Jonas is going to be long gone from the Kadota address, and he won't have left the smallest crumb to follow,” I said. “Haven't you two been listening? He's planned this whole thing out to a gnat's ass. He's had two years to do it. Your time would be better served figuring out why the two years.”

“All right, but I'm still going,” said Mack. “You get some sleep. I'll be back.”

I again closed my eyes and waved my hand in the air. Wet smacking filled the silence as Mack and Barbara kissed and whispered. Seconds later, the door opened and closed as they left.

I rolled over and tried to sleep. No good.

I picked up the phone and dialed Tara, the name for our house in Costa Rica. Dad had named our rental home Tara after the plantation in
Gone with the Wind
. He thought the house and grounds were huge, the largest he'd ever seen. Of course, not as large as a plantation, but a huge house on a landscaped acre could fool an old man from South Central Los Angeles.

The call to Costa Rica went through surprisingly easy. Technology. The phone on the other end rang.

Someone picked up and said, “Hello?”

“Dad, where's Marie?” I checked my watch and computed the time difference. Marie should have been home for two hours.

“You okay, son? Everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure is. I won't be much longer. I've got everything in hand here, don't you worry about me. Where's Marie?”

“I don't know what you're up to, son, and I'm sorry you felt you couldn't trust me to tell me about it.”

“There just wasn't a lot of time, Dad.”

“And, you thought I'd try and talk you out of it.”

“There is that.”

“Damn right, ‘there is that.' I taught you better, son.”

“I said I was sorry.” I wanted to tell him that
he
had not told me about
his
illness, but that wouldn't have been fair, not with what he now faced. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Some crazy old white man came by here today looking for you.”

Jake Donaldson. I tried to restrain my anxiety. “What did he say? What did he want?”

“Said he was comin' back tonight and you had better be home or, and I quote, ‘there'll be hell to pay.'”

“When? What time did he say he was coming back?”

“Long about now, I suspect. Yep, right about now.” Dad must have checked his watch.

I tried to think. What could I do? I couldn't do anything from where I stood. I wanted to scream. “Listen, Dad, have you seen any men, any other men hanging around out front?”

“No, can't say that I have.” His tone changed to firm, aggressive. “Why? What's going on? Does this have to do with you going back?”

“Dad, that man that came over today, he's a little off the deep end, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course I do. I saw that in him. I worked as a mail carrier for forty years, don't forget, and I learned a thing or two about people. Where do you think ‘going postal' came from? Huh?”

“This guy's dangerous. He has priors for violence. Where's Marie? Is Marie okay?”

“I'll show that rude son of a buck violence if that's what he wants to bring. I have the kids' ball bat right here.”

The door chime rang in the background. “Bet that's the son of a buck now.”

“Dad?”

“Don't you worry, son. I'll be nice right up until the moment when he decides he wants to hurt my kids, then, God help him.”

“Dad, don't you open that door.” In the background, the sound indicated he was moving, walking across the tile pavers toward the door.

“Don't be silly. We lived in one of the worst parts of LA for years. This isn't a big deal, son, least not one I can't handle.”

“Dad, he's killed two people already!” The noise of him moving stopped.

“
What in the hell's he coming here for
?”

Now I'd gone and done it. When Dad got mad he didn't always think logically. “Dad, wait, don't open the door, please.”

The door creaked open. Dad said, “Get off my property you son of a—”

Boom. Boom.

Gunshots.

“Dad?”

“DAD?”

Yelling in the background. More guns went off, this time more distant.

Scuffling.

Moaning.

“Dad? Talk to me. Dad?”

Someone else picked up the phone. “Hello? Who is this?”

“Is my father okay?”

“Hold on.” The man spoke with a slight Spanish accent, Costa Rican. In the background, the man's voice more distant. “Sir, are you shot? Have you been shot?”

I couldn't breathe. I wanted to run, to do something, but stood there helpless.

The man came back on the phone, “Yes, he appears to be fine. We will have him checked out with the medics. To whom am I speaking?”

“Oh, thank God. I am the man's son. Are you the men working for Ansel Tomkins?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“What just happened there?”

“I must apologize for our slow response. We had no reason to believe the man who came to visit would pull a gun. But he did, he pulled a large pistol. My partner, José Rivera, shot him from across the street. This wounded man ran through the house, out the back and over the fence. I don't know how he accomplished this feat, as he appeared to be elderly, and then you add the gunshot wound. This was quite remarkable. He left a blood trail.”

This man, cool and calm, handled himself and spoke like no professional I had ever worked with, not one who had just been in a shooting. The money I gave Ansel bought the best. I shouldn't have ever questioned Ansel's integrity.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. Are you sure my father is okay? Can you put him on?”

“Yes, one moment, please.”

“Hello?”

“Dad, are you okay?”

“Yes, of course, what a silly question. That son of a buck pulled a gun. Didn't say a word, just pulled it out. He was gonna shoot me in the face. I saw it in his eyes. I never met the man before today, and he was just going to shoot me for answering my own damn door.”

Anger rose in Dad's tone as he regained his composure.

“I clubbed him over the head with the ball bat, but he fell forward into me. He should have fallen away from me. I think someone from the street shot him in the back.” Dad's voice grew distant as he asked the man standing by him, protecting him, protecting the children. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Dad, where's Marie. Is Marie okay?”

Back into the phone, he said, “How should I know? She's on her way to see you. To help you. I don't feel so well.” He let out a groan. In all the time I had lived with him, he'd never showed pain or discomfort. He always hid his ailing, looked at it as a personal trial. This was bad.

“What? Wait, are you sure about Marie?” Sirens came over the phone and made hearing difficult.

“I have to go, son, it's getting busy here. Call me back later.”

“Where did Marie say she was going to meet me?”

Dad clicked off. I whispered to no one, “Take care of yourself, Dad.”

Why had Marie felt a need to come help? How did she think she'd help out? And the bigger question, how did she think she would contact me? I tried to control my breathing and laid down. The sudden adrenaline overload made my body quake.

I closed my eyes. Marie wasn't a fugitive. I didn't think she was, anyway. She was wanted for questioning, but, as far as I knew, there wasn't a warrant for her. She could get on any regular airliner and enter the US with her passport. She would be okay. Sure, she would. But how would she find me? I hadn't told her where I was staying.

Mack. She'd call Mack. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, grabbed the phone, and dialed.

Mack picked up right away. “Thought you'd be asleep.”

“Where are you?”

“Why?”

“Did Marie call you?”

Silence.

“You're picking her up at the airport, aren't you?”

“Now, Bruno, you know Marie better than I do. I didn't want to be on her bad side. She told me not to tell you. She wanted it to be a surprise.”

“What kind of an idiot are you? Can't you see how this complicates matters?”

“Don't call me an idiot. And of course I do. She didn't ask me, she told me she was coming.
She
told
me
. What was I going to do, huh?”

“All right, all right, put her up in a nice hotel. I'll deal with her when I have time.”

“When you have time? All you're doing now, good buddy, is
catching some Zs, and waiting for tomorrow night. Right, Bruno? That's right, isn't it, Bruno? You're not going out in public, that's crazy. You need to stay put.”

“Yeah, well, that sleeping thing just changed. I need to get this caper done and over so we can get home. Dad's alone with the kids and shit's happening down there.”

“What moves do you have to make? There aren't any. We have to wait for that phone call tomorrow night to set up a meet with this asshole. Bruno, whatta you got going? You're not going to do something crazy, like rob a bank? Bruno?”

“Just do me a favor. Get Marie to a nice hotel, okay?”

“Can't do it, old buddy. Tell me what you're going to do.”

I clicked off.

The answer I'd been mulling over, how to come up with the money, chose that moment to flutter down out of the gauzy fatigue.

Of course, how simple
.

I shimmied into my pants, put on shoes, grabbed my shirt, and headed for the door. I went back for the two cell phones and the Glock under the pillow. I needed the gun. What I needed more was to slow down and think. When fatigued, I made too many mistakes. I stuck the dirk in my sock and the derringer in my back pocket.

My mind automatically shifted to the problem at hand. If Mack drove to LAX to pick up Marie, the fifty-minute drive there added to the fifty-minute drive back—that's if she waited at the curb when he got there—gave me an hour and forty minutes. Plenty of time to do what needed to be done and get away. I stopped at the door. But if Marie flew into Ontario, that was fifteen minutes there and fifteen back.

I opened the door to darkness. Where had the time gone? When you wanted time to slowly ooze through your fingers it never obliged, and when you wanted time to hurry on past it—

Out in the parking lot, a Yellow Cab pulled up and stopped. Marie stepped out. She saw me. Her face broke into a huge smile.

I'd been cut short on my plan. At the moment, I didn't care one whit. I caught her contagious smile and smiled back. Hers glowed warm with affection. We had not been apart one day in the last nine months. I had missed her terribly, and didn't realize how much until I saw that smile. I met her halfway, picked her up, and twirled her around. I kissed her long and deep.

I set her down and held on.

She looked up with her green eyes telling me how much she
loved me. “What?” she said. “Did you stop off at the deli to get a turd sandwich? Because your breath smells like it.”

Her way of saying she was mad for flying thousands of miles to save my ass, but at the same time didn't want to scold me.

“Hey,” I said, “I'm the one that should be mad. You were supposed to stay home with the kids and take care of Dad.”

She socked me in the shoulder and smiled. “Things like these are fluid, you have to roll with it.” Words I'd given her in the past, ricocheting back.

“I guess I have to quit telling you the details of my old capers and how they worked.”

“You better not. And the kids are fine, and so is your dad.”

“When's the last time you talked to them?”

“Why? What's happened?” She'd read my tone.

“Nothing. Everything's fine.”

Wu walked up. “Hey, Leon, how come you're not out working, chasin' down leads on the third kid?”

He must have been out of the information loop. He hadn't heard about or seen the mall cam video where I grabbed Jonas. Or that the shot-callers in the FBI wanted the blunder kept under wraps. The well-being of the children stood in the balance. Sure, that had to be the reason, or he would have thrown down on me and taken me into custody. This time luck had landed firmly on my side of the fence. I had to be more careful. I should've visually cleared the parking lot before going out. I wouldn't get many more chances. I leaned over Marie and fought the urge to turn around. Without the ball cap and glasses, Wu might recognize me anyway. “Just taking a break to be with my girl,” I said.