A Better Goodbye (36 page)

“Is what's in this thing worth dying for?” Nick asked. “Maybe getting Jenny killed, too? Tell me. I want to know how much you value life.”

Barry remained silent, as if he were afraid he'd choke on what he would say.

“I had a manager like you once, when I was fighting,” Nick said. “The only thing he ever cared about was the money. So here . . . ” Nick thrust the briefcase back at Barry. “Take what you'd get us killed for. But I'm keeping the case. We clear on that? The case is mine.”

Barry started working on its combination lock.

“Faster,” Nick said.

At last, hands shaking, Barry slid a plain four-by-six manila envelope from the briefcase, then gave it back to Nick.

“Now get out,” Nick said.

Jenny opened the door and stepped onto the curb so Barry could exit. “Fuck me,” he muttered as he stalked off toward the Blue Plate. When Jenny jumped back in the pickup, she called after him: “Tell your wife I said hello.”

Traffic was a motherfucker. Seemed like it messed with DuPree every inch of the way. He hadn't expected Wilshire to be worth a damn, but Olympic should have been better. That was how he remembered it from the last time he'd been fool enough to try driving at rush hour. Besides, at a quarter to seven, he'd thought rush hour would be easing up. He knew how wrong he was as he crawled along with the rest of the fools, all that muscle under his Beemer's hood and no room for flexing it, not even in that little stretch through Century City with only one light. Nas was doing “Life's a Bitch” on the Blaupunkt and DuPree was telling himself,
Yeah, no shit,
and wishing he had some weed. Nothing to do but slam his fist on the steering wheel and promise himself he'd take it out on Barry and that bitch Coco. In the passenger seat, Blanco looked at him like he was crazy.

When DuPree finally turned onto Purdue—after taking what felt like a goddamn hour just to get past the 405—it was almost seven-thirty and he thought for sure they'd blown it. But he went into a slow crawl just the same, eyeballing every car jammed along the curb on both sides of the street. When he paused at the Missouri intersection and looked both ways, there it was on the left: Barry's Rolls.

He speed-dialed his man Scottie: “Get your ass over here. We got him.”

Now DuPree had to find a parking place and wait, him and Blanco. If Barry came out before Scottie showed, no problem. DuPree had his Glock; he could take care of business himself. He just wanted to get situated with a good view of the Rolls and the building where Barry was undoubtedly enjoying some of that fine Oriental pussy. Ten minutes later, DuPree was still driving and looking, thinking good parking places were as hard to find as a break in the motherfucking traffic.

They drove down Beloit, with the parking lot that was the 405 on one side of them and apartment buildings and an occasional single-family home on the other—bare-bones shelter for people simply trying to survive another day in L.A. Jenny felt like she was being reminded just how hard survival was every time Nick checked his rearview mirror or braced himself at an intersection. Once or twice Jenny tried to see what he saw, but mostly she kept her eyes straight ahead and wondered what was waiting in the gathering night.

When Nick hung a U-turn and parked between a tatty convertible and a pickup that had been converted to a camper, she shifted anxiously. She wanted to run, she wanted to stay with Nick as her protector, she just wanted to come out of this alive.

“Jenny?” he said. “You got anybody you can call?”

“Call?”

She expected them to be out on the street by now, racing toward a hiding place, fleeing DuPree and Scott and the guns Nick said they had. Instead, she was sitting here trying to figure out what he was talking about.

“Friends or somebody,” he said. “People you could stay with.”

“Like, hide.”

“Like that, yeah. Somebody that doesn't have anything to do with all this.”

She couldn't help smiling. “You mean that doesn't know I'm a—”

“You're Jenny, okay? Just Jenny.”

Even though she'd told him to call her by her real name, it felt strange to hear him say it. And then she felt something else, absolution maybe, or forgiveness, though she hadn't sought it. He was letting her know that Coco no longer existed for him either. Now she was a girl he had just met, a fresh face no matter how her secret life had collided with his. But there was no time to unspool all the words she would have needed to thank him for his kindness, his bravery. All she could do was nod before she dug her cell phone from her purse.

“Let me call around,” she said.

Nick opened his door.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To talk to them.” He nodded at three men in work clothes by a worn-out truck across the street. “Make your call.”

She watched him trot toward the men as she dialed Maria and got her voicemail. No surprise there. No time to wait, either. She dialed Rachel, got another voicemail, and felt fear clutch at her stomach. Her hands shook as she dialed a third number, thinking,
Be home, Sara, please be home.
And Sara was, instantly deciding that they should grab dinner at Babalu, where they served this incredible banana cream pie, not that Jenny ever ate dessert. “We'll see,” Jenny said.

She climbed out of the pickup and walked across the street, wondering if this was how it felt to be inside a video game. The first thing she heard was one of the men telling Nick, “
Sí
. Is no problem.” The speaker was the eldest of three Mexicans, easily twice the age of the other two. When the guys with him saw Jenny, they grinned and whispered to each other in Spanish.

Nick turned to her and said, “Did you get hold of somebody?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. My friends will take you there.”

“I thought you were taking care of me,” Jenny said.

“I am.”

She shot a glance at the young Mexicans that said she didn't believe him.

Their elder statesman read it instantly. “You'll be safe,” he said. “Your friend helps us, now we help him. To where are you going?”

“Santa Monica,” she said.

The elder Mexican opened the door to his truck and motioned for Jenny to climb in. But before she could let herself do that, she had to ask Nick, “What about you?”

“I'm home,” he said.

He pointed at a shabby building that looked like it had been laid on the block sideways. The door to his apartment must have been down the narrow walk on the north side. It was half grown over with untended oleanders that rendered the two lights out front all but useless. If there were more lights in the rear, Jenny couldn't see them.

“Is there someplace for you to hide?” she asked.

“Worry about yourself,” Nick said.

“But how will I know you're all right?”

“I'll figure that out later.”

“You don't have to do this, you know.”

“Just get going.”

Jenny wanted to kiss him more than she had ever wanted to kiss anyone in her life, but she couldn't even hug him or offer a simple thank you. He was already hurrying toward his apartment with Barry's briefcase in his left hand, and there was nothing she could do but get in the truck. As they drove away, she was still looking back, wanting another glimpse of Nick and hating the idea that he had been swallowed by darkness.

So far Scott loved everything about his new gig as a criminal: DuPree buzzing all the apartments until somebody let them in, then going to Coco's place on the first floor and not even knocking, just kicking the fucking door in. DuPree had his gun out and Blanco by his side when he checked the closets and behind the shower curtain. Nobody home, but he did find out the teakettle was still warm. Scott should have known enough to check it after playing so many cops on TV, but it was DuPree who did, and said Barry and Coco must have just split. And then he said knock it off when Scott looked like he was ready to trash the little bitch's computer and fuck up her books. Anybody else and Scott would have been pissed, but DuPree was strictly business, a real pro. Scott told himself to remember it all—and to pull his gun next time. DuPree needed somebody who had his back.

On the way out of the building, DuPree scared the shit out of a woman across the hall when she looked to see who was making the noise. Just said, “Boo,” real soft and put on his penitentiary face. Maybe Blanco helped too. Whatever, she shut her door in a big fucking hurry—and the man was just getting warmed up for when they sniffed around Barry's Rolls. It was blocking half the entrance to the apartment garage across the street, like fucking Barry had abandoned it and taken off on foot.

They asked each other why a guy with enough brains to make the money he had would be so goddamn dumb. Shit, almost eight, rush hour had to be over by now, and you never wanted to be a pedestrian in L.A., particularly when there was somebody looking to rob your ass.

The answer appeared in the form of a woman who came out of the building over the garage yelling, “Is this your car? Is it? You tell me right now.” She looked like she taught school or sold clothes at Macy's, middle-aged, plain, probably no man in her life, but she wasn't going to let herself get pushed around. Didn't give a shit about any damn pit bull either. She said this was the second time the entrance had been blocked since she came home, and she was fed up. The first time there were two men with an Asian girl maybe half their age, God knew what that was all about, the three of them going off in a dreadful old truck and leaving the Rolls behind. Except the woman called the Rolls “this car,” as though it meant no more to her than Blanco did.

“We'll take care of everything,” DuPree told her, sounding as calm and rational as the therapists Scott had when he could afford them.

“You will?” the woman said.

“Yes, ma'am,” DuPree said, and kicked in one of the Rolls' taillights.

“Oh my,” the woman said.

“Maybe you shouldn't get involved,” DuPree said, still using his voice of reason.

“I think you're right,” the woman said, backing away as if he were a cobra.

Scott watched with the kind of awe he was sure Steve McQueen would have been too cool to feel. But fuck McQueen, he'd never been part of something like this, DuPree laying out how Nick had somehow figured out pretty much everything. “I'll bet that treacherous fucking Sierra told him,” Scott said. But DuPree refused to be sidetracked. He stuck to the subject, theorizing about Nick and his sorry pickup and how he'd used it to help Barry and Coco get away. Scott kept agreeing with him until his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and then, doing his best to sound cool, said, “We have lift off.”

“What the hell you talking about?” DuPree said.

“It's him.”

“Your boxer man? Give me that.” DuPree jerked the cell out of Scott's hand and didn't bother saying hello to Nick. “You finally give up on this running away bullshit?”

Whatever Nick said back made DuPree smile.