Dead Ringer (23 page)

* * *

A bead of sweat ran from behind Maggie’s left ear, down her neck. It tickled and itched at the same time. Her senses were all aware. She was running on overdrive. Her lips were dry. She licked them, but there was no moisture on her tongue. Sweat trickled under her arms. She shifted her weight. Her right heel rubbed against the tub. It squeaked.

* * *

Horace froze. There was someone in the house. His first instinct had been right. Oh shit! He hadn’t checked the living room. Someone could be asleep on the sofa.

He went cat-quick through the hallway, gun ready. In the living room, he pointed it at the sofa, a perfect place for falling asleep while watching television. But like the bedroom, there was nobody there.

* * *

Maggie heard the intruder rush down the hall. She tightened her finger on the trigger, expecting him to come crashing through the bathroom door, but he ran past instead.

Her nerves were lit, the fuse was short, but her hands were steady on the gun. Thank God for Nick and that endless practice on the range. She’d learned how to conquer her fear of the weapon, to hold it still and sure no matter how much her stomach was churning. And it was churning now.

* * *

Gordon heard the ceiling creak as footsteps moved fast through the hallway above. They stopped in the living room. He looked up. The intruder was right on top of him. He aimed the thirty-eight toward the ceiling, almost as if he were going to fire through it, like those action heroes do in the movies. He was breathing fast, panting like a tired dog, and he hadn’t strained a muscle. He was in shape, swam a hundred laps at the Olympic pool every morning, but he was ringing with sweat now. Not so cool, he thought, but then he was thirteen years out of the FBI. He was a sixty year old man, who’d been living a quiet life in the Shore for the last ten years.

He’d dealt with death during two tours of duty in Vietnam and during his twenty year tour with the Bureau, but now he was what he was. A quiet man, a reader, a chess player. He’d gotten lazy over the years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fired the gun, but he still remembered how.

* * *

Horace shook his head. He felt like an idiot. A stupid high school jerk. He was as jumpy as he was on his first date at a drive-in movie. He sighed. Steamy windows, long blonde hair swirling around pink tipped breasts. He smiled at the memory. High school was the best time of his life. It had all been downhill after that. Then he met Striker and things started to pick up.

He was somebody now. He drove a new van, had an airplane, a zillion channels on the TV. He dressed well, ate at good restaurants. He felt good when he left the house.

He slipped the Beretta into the shoulder holster, looked down, saw the condolence cards on the coffee table. He picked up a couple, dropped them. He still had to piss like a race horse. He started for the bathroom.

* * *

Maggie heard him coming. She steadied herself, licked her dry lips again.

She’d expected him to pass by the bathroom as he had twice before, but all of a sudden the door was pushed in and the light came on.

“
What?” he said when he saw her. It was Ferret Face.

She pulled the trigger, again and again and again.

* * *

Horace knew he’d done a stupid thing the second he turned the light on, then he caught a quick glimpse of a dark haired woman with Margo Kenyon’s face. Another one, he thought, registering the gun. Then something hit him in the side, spun him around. He was slammed out of the bathroom as if he’d been hit by a train, picked up and smashed into the wall. He slumped to the floor amid a hail of gunfire, rapid explosions that took away his hearing as bullets tore through the plaster above.

He curled up like a baby as everything turned to black.

Chapter Fifteen

Maggie ran out the front door, grip over her shoulder, gun in her left hand. She crossed the porch, leapt down the steps to the sidewalk.

“
Freeze!” Gordon’s voice rang out through the night.

Maggie turned, Gordon was on the porch, in the shooter’s position, feet spread, arms extended, both hands on a pistol.

“
Gordon, it’s me!”

“
Maggie?”

“
Yeah.” She put her right index finger to her lips, the sign for silence. Sirens in the distance broke the quiet of the night. “I need a ride outta here!” she said.

“
I’ll get my keys.”

“
Hurry!” Maggie said.

Seconds later Gordon slammed the door after himself, leapt from the porch. “It’s not locked.”

Maggie jumped in the passenger seat of his old Ford as Gordon slid behind the wheel. “Drive!”

“
Whatever you say!” Gordon keyed the ignition, stepped on the gas. The tires screeched, the car shot forward. The Ford was more than it looked. Close as Maggie was to Gordon, she’d never ridden in his car. The Shore was a beach community, they walked everywhere.

He slid the car around a corner, drove like a man possessed. The Shore had stop signs on every other street. He ran them all. Suddenly, he hung a right, slowed down, drove normally, turned on Ocean and headed toward downtown Long Beach.

“
So, you’re alive.”

“
Yeah.” Maggie pulled the flight bag off her shoulder, stuffed the gun into it, then tossed it in the back. “The guy from the other night, the one with the ferret face. I just shot him.”

“
Annie Oakley,” Gordon said.

“
I guess,” Maggie said. Then, “We have to go to Huntington Beach.”

“
Gotta make a short stop first.” Gordon pulled a pack of cigarettes from the visor above his head, tapped one out on the wheel, pushed in the cigarette lighter.

“
You don’t smoke.”

“
Only when I drive.” Gordon lit the cigarette, sucked in the smoke, exhaled. He looked at her, smiled. “Tell me about the hair.” Gordon took another drag on the cigarette. They were out of the Shore now, in Long Beach. Gordon moved the car into the left lane, signaled when they approached the freeway, took the on ramp.

“
I don’t know where to start.”

“
Start from when you left the Whale and keep going till you get to where we are now. Take your time, we’ve got a ride ahead of us.”

Maggie wanted to ask where they were going, but she didn’t. Gordon had a right to know. She told him. It didn’t take so long, just till Gordon turned onto the San Diego Freeway, headed toward the airport.

“
Sit back, relax. I’ll let you know when we get there,” he said.

More than anybody, Maggie trusted Gordon. She closed her eyes, she was so tired. She opened them when Gordon glided the car off the freeway. She wasn’t familiar with the area, Imperial or Roosevelt, up by the airport. Inglewood maybe. She was about to say something, but Gordon turned into a warehouse complex. One of those places where you store your stuff when you have nowhere else.

He guided the car to a post in front of a sliding gate, stuck his hand out the open window, punched some numbers on a keypad. The gate creaked open, the wheels needed oil. He drove past a row of warehouses with roll up garage doors and stopped when he came to the last one in the line of the first complex.

“
Wait here. This won’t take long.” He got out of the car.

Maggie watched as he turned the dial on a combination lock. He missed the combination the first time. It was dark, after all. He tried again, pulled the lock open, took it off, pulled up the door.

He went inside, rolled the door down after himself. Maggie saw light creep out from underneath, heard noise, like he was moving boxes around. She looked around the warehouse complex. Dark. Spooky. She was in either the bad part of West L.A. or Inglewood. Gangbanger territory. She didn’t belong here, especially at night.

She hunched down in the seat, even though there was no one to see her. Every few seconds a car went by on the street back by the sliding gate, but none stopped. She sighed, no one was coming in after her. Besides, she had the gun. She reached into the back, got the grip and got the Sigma out.

She ejected the clip, racked the slide and pumped out the one in the chamber. She emptied the clip, counted out ten rounds. The gun held sixteen, plus one in the chamber. She’d fired off seven at Nighthyde. She thumbed the rounds back into the clip, shoved the clip back in, then chambered a round. Loaded again, she sat up, gun in her left hand, ready for action.

She heard the creaking sound behind her, looked out the rear window. The gate was opening. A car cruised in. Slow. The headlights went off as soon as the car passed the gate. Whoever they were, they didn’t want to be seen. Maggie ran her thumb along the butt of the Sigma. She’d shot a man tonight. She didn’t want to do it again.

The car motored toward her. It was one of those gangbanger cars, lowered, darkened windows. It slowed to a crawl. Maggie felt her skin creep as it got closer. For a second she felt like slinking down in the seat, but she tossed off the thought. There were no other cars in the complex. If whoever was in that car was going to check out Gordon’s car, they’d see her, even if she scrunched down.

The car came closer. A Toyota, similar to the car she’d seen leaving the police station earlier. Kids out enjoying a hot night. She’d waved to them, got a thumbs up in return. Somehow, she didn’t think the kids in this car were going to be as friendly.

The car slowed even more as it approached, came along side, stopped. Maggie scooted over behind the wheel. The window was down. The Toyota’s passenger window came down. She was facing a black youth, seventeen or twenty, she couldn’t be sure. He was wearing the red bandanna of the Bloods. He smiled, he had a gold tooth. Top, left front. He ran his tongue across it. Maggie had never seen anything so sinister in real life.

“
Hey sister, what’cha doin’ out alone on such a dark night?”

“
I’m not alone,” Maggie said.

“
Don’t see no one.” The kid was smirking.

“
I have my nine millimeter friend with me and I’ve already killed one man tonight.” She brought the gun up to the window, pointed it at the gold tooth. “So, kissing your sweet ass goodbye would be like icing on the cake.”

“
Hey, we don’t want no trouble.” All of a sudden the kid’s attitude went away.

“
Well, you found it.” She was shaking inside, but determined not to back down.

“
You ain’t the only one with a piece,” the kid said.

“
No, I suppose not.” She smiled at the kid. “So, should we start shooting now?”

“
Leave the bitch,” the driver said.

“
You one lucky lady,” the kid said.

“
Luck is my middle name.”

“
Yeah,” the kid smiled back as the roll-up door opened. The kid took one look at Gordon framed by the light coming from the inside of the warehouse and rolled up his window. The car eased away.

Maggie froze when she saw him. He was holding a pump action shotgun in his hands, ready to use it.

“
What was that about?” he said.

“
Nothing, just some kids,” Maggie said.

“
Wearing Blood colors,” Gordon said.

“
Kids gotta have friends,” Maggie said. “Maybe with a little direction they’ll grow up to be fine young men.”

“
And maybe not.” Gordon opened the back door, tossed the shotgun onto the back seat.

“
Yeah, maybe not,” Maggie said.

“
I got some more stuff.” He went back into the warehouse, came out with a couple of boxes. He put them into the back as well.

Maggie was torn between watching him and the kids in the Toyota. They stopped in front of a roll-up door in the next building.

“
Probably where they stash their drugs.” Gordon got in, started the car. “Good spot. Centrally located, safe from the cops.”

“
What do you mean?” Maggie said.

“
They’d need a warrant to bust into one of these places,” he said. The gate opened automatically as they approached. You needed the code to get in, anybody could get out. He looked in the mirror, turned and looked out the back window. “Yeah, the kid who went into the warehouse is coming out already.”

Gordon drove out of the complex. The Toyota came up behind. Gordon turned left toward the freeway. The Toyota turned right toward the hood.

“
What’s in the boxes?” Maggie asked.

“
Stuff from a former life,” Gordon said.

“
Former life?”

“
I was in the FBI.”

“
They let you keep shit like that pump action in back?”

“
Twenty years, you acquire stuff like that.”

“
So, what else you got?”

“
A couple kevlar vests, some Glocks, a twenty-two throw-down, some other stuff.”

“
So, what’d you leave back in the warehouse, a tank?”

“
No, it’s mostly Ricky’s things from before we were together. He had this horrid furniture. I like classy stuff.”

Maggie nodded, he did like classy stuff. His apartment was tastefully furnished with restored antiques. Anyone would think he was wealthy if they saw his furniture. And it went with the image of a sophisticated gay man. The shotgun and the stuff in the boxes in back, did not.