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  “Stop right now,” she commanded, going stone cold and hard all of a sudden, aiming the stubby barrels of the sawed-off dead at him with both trembling hands.

  He did, about ten feet away. His right ear was half torn off, dangling by a flap of skin. He could barely stand. His eyes glared at her like the headlights of the now-dead van.

  “My brother. My homies,” Chatter mumbled through broken teeth. “This ain’t cool. I deserve to win.”

  He began to lift his .44 Magnum but Carmel let go with both barrels, the recoil wrenching her wrists up and almost twisting the butt from her hands, the kick making her stumble backwards a couple of steps.

  The muzzle flash was a lot brighter than she thought it would be; it blinded her for a few seconds and she stood there blinking until her vision cleared. Then she looked down and saw what a sawed-off shotgun does to a human body at point blank range.

  Carmel could hear Speedy stirring in the car. He finally fumbled his way out and came to join her. He was swaying a bit, and blinking. But he was back in the game again, and they stood together looking down at what was left of Chatter.

  Carmel suddenly realized that she was glad that she was alive, and that Chatter and his crew were dead instead of her. The thought shamed and exhilarated her at the same time, even though she knew she’d done exactly what Speedy would have wanted her to do under the circumstances. She shivered and clutched her coat shut – either against the wind blowing up the canyon, or against the knowledge that she’d just ended a human life.

  “My wrists hurt,” she said.

  Speedy nodded. “That can happen with a sawed-off if you’re not careful. You did good girl – hell, it was you or him. First times always a bitch though.”

  He looked up and down the road. “Let’s check the others, then we need to be away from here before anyone comes.”

  Carmel followed him back to the curve and they looked over the edge. The van lay belly up at the bottom of the gully about fifty feet down. They could hear the tick of cooling metal and a couple of minor rockslides tumbling down the slope. Nothing else.

  Carmel didn’t think this particular bunch would trouble anyone again.

  They walked back to the car. Carmel watched as Speedy dragged Chatter’s body to the drop-off and rolled Chatter over the edge to join his friends in whatever repose they could attain down there.

  “You knew him very well?” Carmel asked.

  “We came up together,” Speedy said.

  Chapter 41

  “Bob’s dead and I can’t find Willy,” Speedy said, holding the ice pack to the swelling knot on his forehead. “You’re going to drive, cuz I might be coming out of the house with more holes in me than I went in with.”

  “You take a lot for granted,” Carmel said.

  She grimaced. She felt just like a lobster in a pot where the water had been slowly heated until it was at full boil. She hated Speedy a little for pushing it further than tonight’s events had already taken her.

  But was she really that upset, that dismayed? She was still giddy and excited as if drunk from having survived. She’d been part of outwitting and defeating men who’d been trying to murder her, a game that was wilder than any she’d ever played before.

  And how could she really be mad at Speedy? Sharing this kill had bound them more tightly together than she ever could have imagined.

  ”I need you Carmel,” Speedy said, interpreting her ambivalence as resistance, his voice a little brassy as if not all that happy to be making the confession. “You happy now, happy to hear it? I fucking need you, girl.”

  Speedy continued fervently, persuasively. “The target’s hot and we’ve been drawing too much attention. It has to be tonight. I didn’t want to tell you before, didn’t want you to get involved at all. But you’re already in it up to your neck Carmel. This part can’t be any harder. This one last thing, then we’re out of sight, in the wind.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “This is for us, and the money’s gone if we don’t tap it now.”

  Carmel was still simultaneously thrilled and chilled at the same time. She felt the high that Speedy must feel living the Thug Life, even if she simultaneously felt like she was being dragged off by a rip-tide into the dark, with no idea just where this current of events would spit her out.

  It wasn’t Speedy’s fault that the Life was so seductive. Pushing away from this right now would mean pushing Speedy away as well. Her only chance to keep him was to go along a little bit longer.

  Carmel nodded and Speedy nodded back, seemingly in satisfaction at her acquiescence. But he removed his hands from her shoulders with guilty quickness and his gaze avoided hers.

  They went back one more time to Willy’s old squat off San Pablo, where they’d been heading before Chatter so rudely interrupted them. Speedy drove the Valiant and Carmel drove the Vega; one for the getaway, one for the trade-out if they left the crime scene hot.

  Down in the basement Ghost heard a high-powered car chugging up to park in front of the house, and another car crunching gravel along the side driveway before stopping in the middle of the backyard. He put the duct tape gag back in place across Little Willy’s mouth, gave Willy a meaningful look, and stepped over to blow out the candle.

  Ghost carefully removed the two-by-four bracing the door, and tugged the plywood open an inch or so. Behind him, Ghost heard Little Willy squirming around a little, acting sneaky and testing the tape binding him to the stool.

  But Ghost ignored his continued defiance for the moment: Looking up the basement steps from the safe friendly darkness of the sunken basement, he saw the driver’s door of the Valiant open and Speedy step out.

  Speedy’s back was turned, and Ghost took advantage to silently open the plywood door the rest of the way and step back into the darkness, staying close enough to still able to see Speedy.

  Speedy stood next to the car and looked all around the backyard, then peered down into the basement – he squinted but was unable to see through the doorway very far. For a few seconds he even thought of going down there to see if Little Willy had been around, maybe see if the little loser had come here to filch his rock cocaine out of that shit bucket.

  Ghost looked right back at him, invisibly yearning toward Speedy from the dark, willing for him to come down those steps.

  Speedy looked back along the side driveway at something in the direction of the street, and trotted out of Ghost’s field of vision. Ghost heard an unseen car door slam and then the car in front pulled away.

  Ghost looked up the back steps at that Valiant parked on the lawn, and worked his brain even harder than usual. Since Speedy had to be coming back for that car, Ghost didn’t really need Little Willy now – he had only gone through the motions of continuing to ask Willy’s assistance in order to end the little man more mercifully, give Willy one last gesture of friendship.

  Little Willy wasn’t turning out to be nearly as entertaining as Ghost had imagined he’d be – Willy’d been just a means to an end anyway, a possible route toward Speedy. It was time to wrap things up with anticlimactic, inconsequential Willy before Speedy came back.

  But Ghost wasn’t the only one who’d seen Speedy’s visit to the house.

  Speedy had been on Officer Louis’s mind more and more lately. Louis was swinging around Speedy’s old haunts, keeping an eye peeled for the ex-con so as to have another little heart-to-heart, maybe clear the air some.

  Officer Louis had just made the corner to do another drive-by on Willy’s squat, when Louis saw Speedy climb into the Vega and drive away. Louis drove slowly past the house, eyeballing it with interest.

  Down the side driveway in the backyard, Louis saw the rear bumper of Bob’s Valiant barely sticking out past the corner of the house. Officer Louis stopped to idle his cruiser in the street for a moment, looking at the Valiant, considering the ‘probable cause’ for trespassing that stashed car represented. Then Louis slowly drove away, thinking hard.

  Back down in the ba
sement, Ghost stood behind Little Willy and tugged off the duct tape covering Willy’s mouth. Ghost bent over and pressed his cheek against Willy’s, his chest pressed just as firmly to Willy’s back.

  “Are you ready to make noise?” Ghost asked, almost absently. “Most break all the way when I do the things I’m going to do to you.” His interest rose, however, when he felt Willy stifle a whimper.

  Ghost frowned, still feeling the hesitation that had kept him from doing anything . . . extreme to Willy this whole time. “Willy. Please don’t irritate me for nothing. Now I know Speedy’s coming back.”

  Ghost walked around and studied Willy’s bruised and swollen face from the front. Willy hadn’t even flinched during the beating; after seeing the knife, the little man had known this was only foreplay.

  “You can save yourself the suffering,” Ghost said. “Help me take him, he belongs to me. He’s not yours anymore.”

  But Little Willy only shook his head as if in denial of Ghost’s not unreasonable request.

  “I won’t turn on him,” Willy moaned as if against his own will, more acknowledging a horrified realization to himself than making any kind of declaration to Ghost. In point of fact, Little Willy seemed as appalled by his own continued pointless resistance as Ghost was confused by it.

  “Speedy needs me,” Willy said, his voice almost incredulous. “He needs me more than I ever needed him.”

  “No!” Ghost roared, expressing emotion for the first time in Willy’s acquaintance with him.

  Anger rippled through Ghost’s body and Little Willy closed his eyes, hoping that Ghost was pissed enough to finish it now. But when Willy opened his eyes Ghost was actually smiling at him.

  “Speedy has no use for you,” Ghost said in a kindly voice. “It’s me he can’t live without.”

  Now it was Willy’s turn to feel rage, though his expression didn’t change. Willy studied Ghost, hating him, yearning for his destruction.

  Little Willy envisioned Speedy showing up right now, kicking in the plywood door and coming in guns blazing to save the day . . .

  Willy’s eyes widened. Speedy was the key.

  Speedy was fast, but Ghost was faster. Speedy was wary, but Ghost would loom from the dark on Speedy’s blind side to snatch him up like an alien monster. And Willy had brought Ghost into Speedy’s life . . .

  “You’re right, he does need you more than me,” Willy said. “There’s no point pretending.”

  “What are you saying now?” Ghost asked, leaning in incredulously.

  “Speedy’s always known. He’s wondering why you’re taking so long, he’s getting mad.”

  Now Ghost whirled to pace back and forth a few times, unable to contain himself. “Getting mad. No. Mad? Can’t let it happen.”

  He stopped to face Little Willy, uncertainty leaking past the mask. “It’s not your fault you’re not Speedy. Make up for that. Tell me what I need to do not to blow it.”

  Little Willy closed his eyes. “Do I have to suffer?”

  “No. You are right, we are friends. I like you for the rats. I like you for not being easy. Help me understand, and I will put you down gently.”

  “Okay,” Willy said, opening his eyes and looking at Ghost with his weakest, most harmless expression. “Speedy has had to pretend this whole time. You know why.”

  “Of course,” Ghost said with impatience. “He had to fool the Others.”

  “The ‘others.’ Yes.” Willy did his best to construct a gestalt from the few paltry, ragged threads he’d been given; he was grateful his brain didn’t pick this particular moment to start misfiring. “The ‘others’ can’t know you and Speedy are getting together. It would ruin all their plans.”

  “I see now.” Ghost commenced pacing back and forth again. “Go on.”

  “So you have to act like its nothing special. Don’t be overly aggressive. You need to take your time. Speedy wants it as much as you do.”

  “I knew he did. I knew.”

  “Don’t just do it. Let Speedy know you’re there. Talk with him. Right?”

  “Right,” Ghost said.

  Willy smiled. “Speedy won’t fight you or resist. You’re safe with him so you can relax. I swear it on our friendship.”

  “It is good, to have a friend,” Ghost said with a nod of finality. Then he stepped up to Willy with kindness in his hand.

  Chapter 42

  As they made the final approach Speedy willed himself through the mindset he knew he’d need going in single-o on this gig.

  Carmel swerved to the curb one house over from Beau’s. It was a crap park job; she was at an angle with the butt end of the car sticking out into traffic a little, but she didn’t care.

  “I’ve got to pee,” Carmel said.

  She was having too much opportunity to think here. The voices of her intuition were screaming but she was trying to turn down the volume on them; doing her best to ignore all the distressing possible snapshot futures they were intimidating her with.

  “That’s the adrenaline,” Speedy said, his voice a million miles away. He turned to look dead at her. “If you went potty, you’d just have to go again in a minute. You’ll get used to it. Next time it won’t bother you.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “Sure,” Speedy said.

  “We don’t have to do this. We can just drive away.”

  She had a point there, Speedy admitted to himself. Did he even still need to do this?

  The money had always mainly been Speedy’s scorecard for a heist as much as anything else. But this time leaving empty handed wouldn’t just be defeat; it would mean a big fat zero up north for him and Carmel.

  Speedy imagined doing just as Carmel suggested, heading for Humboldt broke and forgetting this whole thing. He envisioned the endless succession of menial jobs, any kids they might have growing to ‘maturity’ in squalor, and the dreams slowly dying from Carmel’s face to leave disillusion and despair.

  Fat Bob was dead, Little Willy was gone, and here sat Carmel trying to talk him out of it. But the bastards in that house had to die, didn’t they? For Alvin and Remo, and for profiting from Philip’s death?

  Who was he kidding? He thought with an internal sneer. Alvin and Remo had been big boys; they’d known the risks of the Life. Speedy didn’t have to worry about helping Bob anymore, Willy had gone weak sister and didn’t deserve any consideration, and Philip wasn’t coming back to Louis no matter what Speedy did tonight.

  “You can do this without Bob and Willy?” Carmel asked.

  “You really think I can’t?” Speedy asked in reply. He was smiling inside, knowing that Carmel was just weighing the odds now, resigned to the fact it was actually going to happen. He’d won again.

  Both of them stared at the front of Beau’s like it was the center of the universe.

  “If you go in there, you won’t want to be with me anymore,” Carmel blurted, as if it were her most important objection. “I see it happening like watching a videotape, all right?”

  But Speedy just sat bemused, finally able to tune out her fears: Here he was, his main worry being coming back out that door at all – and Carmel was more interested in what it meant for their relationship.

  Speedy looked down at the three ski masks on the floor at his feet: one each for Little Willy, for Fat Bob, and for him. He picked one up before tossing it back down onto the pile: he wanted these fuckers to see his face.

  Speedy gave the Thompson one last intimate stroke in foreplay and got out the car. The wool blanket was draped over the machine gun, not really fooling anyone who saw her silhouette but at least modestly concealing her private parts from public view.

  Before he started up the porch steps, Speedy stopped and turned to study Carmel’s pallid oval of a face, pointing at him through the windshield. She looked fine as hell to him, doing her best to appear brave for his sake.

  It was time to prove in to her.

  Speedy slouched up to Beau’s house, his mind carefully blan
k, trying for that old psychic silence on this final approach. He put a drunken reel into his movements as he stumbled up the porch steps and pounded heavily at the door.

  “Michelle,” he slurred hoarsely, going for the exact same game as previously. “Michelle.” It felt good knowing he didn’t have to worry about Oso here at least.

  The door flew open to reveal the smaller guard from before, the one that had put such effort into kicking Speedy off the porch. Speedy saw the little guard’s eyes widen as Speedy let the blanket slip to the ground and aimed in on him with the Thompson – the chump seemed surprised that he wasn’t dealing with a drunk this time.

  There was something in the little guard’s hand. He was raising it to point at Speedy.

  Speedy sprayed a burst from the Thompson up into his face from point blank range. The results weren’t pretty.

  The guard’s head pretty much disintegrated in an air-flower of meat mist and bloody red chunks. Speedy got a mental freeze-frame of one of the man’s eyeballs, miraculously intact in midair with an asteroid-belt halo of tumbling teeth orbiting it – the eye looked sad somehow.

  The rounds stitched holes in the ancient lathe-and-plaster ceiling and white powder sifted down to frost them both, making the guard resemble a headless snowman (although the ragged stump of the little guard’s neck stained his plaster frosting instantly red).

  Speedy stepped over the headless body into the house, impatiently wiping the dust from his eyes with the back of his hand as he took a quick look behind him.

  Carmel still sat pale-faced at the steering wheel, but the neighborhood was still unaware, or pretending to be. At least, there were no witnesses or cops in sight yet.

  As Speedy kicked the door shut behind him with a thrust of his heel and started past the door guard’s corpse and into the front room, the other, bigger guard skidded sideways into the wide archway leading to the back room. He had a pump shotgun in his hands, and he racked it as he came into view.