Prologue
The man in the house was going to kill himself. When the man
threw his phone into the yard, Talley knew that he had
accepted his own death. After six years as a crisis
negotiator with the Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT
team, Sergeant Jeff Talley knew that people in crisis often
spoke in symbols. This symbol was clear: Talk was over.
Talley feared that the man would die by his own hand, or do
something to force the police to kill him. It was called
suicide by cop. Talley believed it to be his fault.
"Did they find his wife yet?"
"Not yet. They're still looking."
"Looking doesn't help, Murray. I gotta have something
to give this guy after what happened."
"That's not your fault."
"It is my fault. I blew it, and now this guy is
circling the drain."
Talley crouched behind an armored command vehicle with
the SWAT commander, a lieutenant named Murray Leifitz, who
was also his negotiating team supervisor. From this
position, Talley had spoken to George Donald Malik through a
dedicated crisis phone that had been cut into the house
line. Now that Malik had thrown his phone into the yard,
Talley could use the public address megaphone or do it
face-to-face. He hated the megaphone, which made his voice
harsh and depersonalized the contact. The illusion of a
personal relationship was important; the illusion of trust
was everything. Talley strapped on a kevlar vest.
Malik shouted through the broken window, his voice high
and strained.
"I'm going to kill this dog! I'm going to kill it!"
Leifitz leaned past Talley to peek at the house. This
was the first time Malik had mentioned a dog.
"What the fuck? Does he have a dog in there?"
"How do I know? I've got to try to undo some of the
damage here, okay? Ask the neighbors about the dog. Get me a
name."
"If he pops a cap, we're going in there, Jeff. That's
all there is to it."
"Just take it easy and get a name for the dog."
Leifitz scuttled backward to speak with Malik's neighbors.
George Malik was an unemployed house painter with too
much credit card debt, an unfaithful wife who flaunted her
affairs, and prostate cancer. Fourteen hours earlier, at
two-twelve that morning, he had fired one shot above the
heads of the police officers who had come to his door in
response to a disturbance complaint. He then barricaded the
door and threatened to kill himself unless his wife agreed
to speak to him. The officers who secured the area
ascertained from neighbors that Malik's wife, Elena, had
left with their only child, a nine-year-old boy named
Brendan. As detectives from Rampart Division set about
locating her, Malik threatened suicide with greater
frequency until Talley was convinced that Malik was nearing
the terminal point. When the Rampart detectives reported
what they believed to be a solid location obtained from the
wife's sister, Talley took a chance. He told Malik that his
wife had been found. That was Talley's mistake. He had
violated a cardinal rule of crisis negotiation: He had lied,
and been caught. He had made a promise that he had been
unable to deliver, and so had destroyed the illusion of
trust that he had been building. That was two hours ago, and
now word had arrived that the wife had still not been found.
"I'm gonna kill this fuckin' dog, goddamnit! This is
her goddamned dog, and I'm gonna shoot this sonofabitch
right in the head, she don't start talkin' to me!"
Talley stepped out from behind the vehicle. He had been
on the scene for eleven hours. His skin was greased with
sweat, his head throbbed, and his stomach was cramping from
too much coffee and stress. He made his voice
conversational, yet concerned.
"George, it's me, Jeff. Don't kill anything, okay? We
don't want to hear a gun go off."
"You liar! You said my wife was gonna talk to me!"
It was a small stucco house the color of dust. Two casement
windows braced the front door above a tiny porch. The door
was closed, and drapes had been pulled across the windows.
The window on the left was broken from the phone. Eight feet
to the right of the porch, a five-member SWAT Tactical Team
hunkered against the wall, waiting to breach the door. Malik
could not be seen.
"George, listen, I said that we'd found her, and I want
to explain that. I was wrong. We got our wires crossed out
here, and they gave me bad information. But we're still
looking, and when we find her, we'll have her talk to you."
"You lied before, you bastard, and now you're lying
again. You're lying to protect that bitch, and I won't have
it. I'm gonna shoot her dog and then I'm gonna blow my
brains out."
Talley waited. It was important that he appear calm and
give Malik the room to cool. People burned off stress when
they talked. If he could reduce Malik's level of stress,
they could get over the hump and still climb out of this.
"Don't shoot the dog, George. Whatever's between you and
your wife, let's not take it out on the dog. Is it your dog,
too?"
"I don't know whose fuckin' dog it is. She lied about
everything else, so she probably lied about the dog. She's a
natural born liar. Like you."
"George, c'mon. I was wrong, but I didn't lie. I made a
mistake. A liar wouldn't admit that, but I want to be
straight with you. Now, I'm a dog guy myself. What kind of
dog you got in there?"
"I don't believe you. You know right where she is, and
unless you make her talk to me, I'm gonna shoot this dog."
The depths to which people sank in the shadowed
crevasses of desperation could crush a man as easily as the
weight of water at the ocean floor. Talley had learned to
hear the pressure building in people's voices, and he heard
it now. Malik was being crushed.
"Don't give up, George. I'm sure that she'll talk to you."
"Then why won't she open her mouth? Why won't the bitch
just say something, that's all she's gotta do?"
"We'll work it out."
"Say something, goddamnit!"
"I said we'll work it out."
"Say something or I'm gonna shoot this damned dog!"
Talley took a breath, thinking. Malik's choice of words
left him confused. Talley had spoken clearly, yet Malik
acted as if he hadn't heard. Talley worried that Malik was
dissociating or approaching a psychotic break.
"George, I can't see you. Come to the window so I can
see you."
"STOP LOOKING AT ME!"
"George, please come to the window!"
Talley saw Leifitz return to the rear of the vehicle.
They were close, only a few feet apart, Leifitz under cover,
Talley exposed.
Talley spoke under his breath.
"What's the dog's name?"
Leifitz shook his head.
"They say he doesn't have a dog."
"OPEN YOUR GODDAMNED MOUTH RIGHT NOW OR I'M SHOOTING
THIS DOG!"
Something hard pounded in the center of Talley's head,
and his back felt wet. He suddenly realized that illusions
worked both ways. The Rampart detectives hadn't found
Malik's wife because Malik's wife was inside. The neighbors
were wrong. She had been inside the entire time. The wife
and the boy.
"Murray, launch the team!"
Talley shouted at Murray Leifitz just as a loud
whipcrack echoed from the house. A second shot popped even
as the Tactical Team breached the front door.
Talley ran forward, feeling weightless. Later, he would
not remember jumping onto the porch or entering through the
door. Malik's lifeless body was pinned to the floor, his
hands being cuffed behind his back even though he was
already dead. Malik's wife was sprawled on the living room
sofa where she had been dead for over fourteen hours. Two
tac officers were trying to stop the geyser of arterial
blood that spurted from the neck of Malik's nine-year-old
son. One of them screamed for the paramedics. The boy's eyes
were wide, searching the room as if trying to find a reason
for all this. His mouth opened and closed; his skin luminous
as it drained of color. The boy's eyes found Talley, who
knelt and rested a hand on the boy's leg. Talley never broke
eye contact. He didn't allow himself to blink. He let
Brendan Malik have that comfort as he watched the boy die.
After a while, Talley went out to sit on the porch. His
head buzzed like he was drunk. Across the street, police
officers milled by their cars. Talley lit a cigarette, then
replayed the past eleven hours, looking for clues that
should have told him what was real. He could not find them.
Maybe there weren't any, but he didn't believe that. He had
blown it. He had made mistakes. The boy had been here the
entire time, curled at the feet of his murdered mother like
a loyal and faithful dog.
Murray Leifitz put a hand on his shoulder and told him
to go home.
Jeff Talley had been a Los Angeles SWAT officer for
thirteen years, serving as a Crisis Response Team negotiator
for six. Today was his third crisis call in five days.
He tried to recall the boy's eyes, but had already
forgotten if they were brown or blue.
Talley crushed his cigarette, walked down the street to
his car, and went home. He had an eleven-year-old daughter
named Amanda. He wanted to check her eyes. He couldn't
remember their color and was scared that he no longer cared.
CHAPTER 1
The Avocado Orchard
Bristo Camino,California
Friday,2:47 P.M.
DENNIS ROONEY
It was one of those high-desert days in the suburban
communities north of Los Angeles with the air so dry it was
like breathing sand; the sun licked their skin with fire.
They were eating hamburgers from the In-N-Out, riding along
in Dennis’s truck, a red Nissan pickup that he’d bought for
six hundred dollars from a Bolivian he’d met working
construction two weeks before he had been arrested; Dennis
Rooney driving, twenty-two years old and eleven days out of
the Antelope Valley Correctional Facility, what the inmates
called the Ant Farm; his younger brother, Kevin, wedged in
the middle; and a guy named Mars filling the shotgun seat.
Dennis had known Mars for only four days.
Later, in the coming hours when Dennis would
frantically reconsider his actions, he would decide that it
hadn’t been the saw-toothed heat that had put him in the
mood to do crime: It was fear. Fear that something special
was waiting for him that he would never find, and that this
special thing would disappear around some curve in his life,
and with it his one shot at being more than nothing.
Dennis decided that they should rob the minimart.
“Hey, I know. Let’s rob that fuckin’ minimart, the one
on the other side of Bristo where the road goes up toward
Santa Clarita.”
“I thought we were going to the movie.”
That being Kevin, wearing his chickenshit face:
eyebrows crawling over the top of his head, darting
eyeballs, and quivering punkass lips. In the movie of
Dennis’s life, he saw himself as the brooding outsider all
the cheerleaders wanted to fuck; his brother was the geekass
cripple holding him back.
“This is a better idea, chickenshit. We’ll go to the
movie after.”
“You just got back from the Farm, Dennis, Jesus. You
want to go back?”
Dennis flicked his cigarette out the window, ignoring
the blow-back of sparks and ash as he considered himself in
the Nissan’s side-view. By his own estimation, he had moody
deep-set eyes the color of thunderstorms, dramatic
cheekbones, and sensuous lips. Looking at himself, which he
did, often, he knew that it was only a matter of time before
his destiny arrived, before the special thing waiting for
him presented itself and he could bag the minimum - wage
jobs and life in a shithole apartment with his chickenshit
brother.
Dennis adjusted the .32-caliber automatic wedged in his
pants, then glanced past Kevin to Mars.
“What do you think, dude?”
Mars was a big guy, heavy across the shoulders and ass.
He had a tattoo on the back of his shaved head that said
BURN IT. Dennis had met him at the construction site where
he and Kevin were pulling day work for a cement contractor.
He didn’t know Mars’s last name. He had not asked.
“Dude? Whattaya think?”
“I think let’s go see.”
That was all it took.
The minimart was on Flanders Road, a rural boulevard that
linked several expensive housing tracts. Four pump islands
framed a bunkerlike market that sold toiletries, soft
drinks, booze, and convenience items. Dennis pulled up
behind the building so they couldn’t be seen from inside,
the Nissan bucking as he downshifted. The transmission was a
piece of shit.
“Look at this, man. The fuckin’ place is dead. It’s
perfect.”
“C’mon, Dennis, this is stupid. We’ll get caught.”
“I’m just gonna see, is all. Don’t give yourself a piss
enema.”
The parking lot was empty except for a black Beemer at
the pumps and two bicycles by the front door. Dennis’s heart
was pound-ing, his underarms clammy even in the awful dry
heat that sapped his spit. He would never admit it, but he
was nervous. Fresh off the Farm, he didn’t want to go back,
but he didn’t see how they could get caught, or what could
go wrong. It was like being swept along by a mindless urge.
Resistance was futile.
Cold air rolled over him as Dennis pushed inside. Two
kids were at the magazine rack by the door. A fat Chinaman
was hunkered be-hind the counter, so low that all Dennis
could see was his head poking up like a frog playing
submarine in a mud puddle.
The minimart was two aisles and a cold case packed with
beer, yogurt, and Cokes. Dennis had a flash of uncertainty,
and thought about telling Mars and Kevin that a whole pile
of Chinamen were behind the counter so he could get out of
having to rob the place, but he didn’t. He went to the cold
case, then along the rear wall to make sure no one was in
the aisles, his heart pounding because he knew he was going
to do it. He
was going to rob this fucking place. As he was walking back
to the truck, the Beemer pulled away. He went to the
passenger window. To Mars.
“There’s nothing but two kids and a Chinaman in there,
the Chinaman behind the counter, a fat guy.”
Kevin said, “They’re Korean.”
“What?”
“The sign says ‘Kim.’ Kim is a Korean name.”
That was Kevin, always with something to say like that.
Dennis wanted to reach across Mars and grab Kevin by the
fucking neck. He pulled up his T-shirt to flash the butt of
his pistol.
“Who gives a shit, Kevin? That Chinaman is gonna shit
his pants when he sees this. I won’t even have to take it
out, goddamnit. Thirty seconds, we’ll be down the road.
He’ll have to wipe himself before he calls the cops.”
Kevin squirmed with a case of the chicken-shits, his
nerves making his eyes dance around like beans in hot grease.
“Dennis, please. What are we going to get here, a
couple of hundred bucks? Jesus, let’s go to the movie.”
Dennis told himself that he might have driven away if
Kevin wasn’t such a whiner, but, no, Kevin had to put on the
goddamned pussy face, putting Dennis on the spot.
Mars was watching. Dennis felt himself flush, and
wondered if Mars was judging him. Mars was a boulder of a
guy; dense and quiet, watchful with the patience of a rock.
Dennis had noticed that about Mars on the job site; Mars
considered people. He would watch a conversation, say, like
when two of the Mexicans hammered a third to throw in with
them on buying some tamales. Mars would watch, not really
part of it but above it, as if he could see all the way back
to when they were born, see them wetting the bed when they
were five or jerking off when they thought they were alone.
Then he would make a vacant smile like he knew everything
they might do now or in the future, even about the
god-damned tamales. It was creepy, sometimes, that
expression on his face, but Mars thought that Dennis had
good ideas and usually went along. First time they met, four
days ago, Dennis felt that his destiny was finally at hand.
Here was Mars, charged with some dangerous electrical
potential that crackled under his skin, and he did whatever
Dennis told him.
“Mars, we’re gonna do this. We’re robbing this fuckin’
store.”
Mars climbed out of the truck, so cool that even heat
like this couldn’t melt him.
“Let’s do it.”
Kevin didn’t move. The two kids pedaled away.
“No one’s here, Kevin! All you have to do is stand by
the door and watch. This fat fuck will cough right up with
the cash. They’re in-sured, so they just hand over the cash.
They get fired if they don’t.”
Dennis grabbed his brother’s T-shirt. The Lemonheads,
for chrissake. His fucking brother was a lemonhead. Mars was
already halfway to the door.
“Get out of the truck, you turd. You’re making us look
bad.”
Kevin wilted and slid out like a fuckin’ baby.
JUNIOR KIM, JR.
KIM’S MINIMART
Junior Kim, Jr., knew a cheese dip when he saw one.
Junior, a second-generation Korean-American, had put in
six-teen years behind a minimart counter in the Newton area
of Los Angeles. Down in Shootin’ Newton (as the LAPD called
it), Junior had been beaten, mugged, stabbed, shot at,
clubbed, and robbed forty-three times. Enough was enough.
After sixteen years of that, Junior, his wife, their six
children, and all four grandparents had bailed on the
multi-cultural melting pot of greater LA, and moved north to
the far less dangerous demographic of bedroom suburbia.
Junior was not naïve. A minimart, by its nature, draws
cheese dips like bad meat draws flies. Even here in Bristo
Camino, you had your shoplifters (mostly teenagers, but
often men in business suits), your paperhangers (mostly
women), your hookers passing counterfeit currency (driven up
from LA by their pimps), and your drunks (mostly belligerent
white men sprouting gin blossoms). Lightweight stuff
com-pared to LA, but Junior believed in being prepared.
After sixteen years of hard-won inner-city lessons, Junior
kept “a little something” under the counter for anyone who
got out of hand.
When three cheese dips walked in that Friday afternoon,
Junior leaned forward so that his chest touched the counter
and his hands were hidden.
“May I help you?”
A skinny kid in a Lemonheads T-shirt stayed by the
door. An older kid in a faded black wife-beater and a large
man with a shaved head walked toward him, the older kid
raising his shirt to show the ugly black grip of a pistol.
“Two packs of Marlboros for my friend here and all the cash
you got in that box, you gook motherfucker.”
Junior Kim could read a cheese dip a mile away.
His face impassive, Junior fished under the counter for
his 9mm Glock. He found it just as the cheese dip launched
himself over the counter. Junior lurched to his feet,
bringing up the Glock as the black-shirted dip crashed into
him. Junior hadn’t expected this asshole to jump over the
counter, and hadn’t been able to thumb off the safety.
The larger man shouted, “He’s got a gun!”
Everything happened so quickly that Junior wasn’t sure
whose hands were where. The black shirt forgot about his own
gun and tried to twist away Junior’s. The big guy reached
across the counter, also grabbing for the gun. Junior was
more scared now than any of the other times he had pulled
his weapon. If he couldn’t release the safety before this
kid pulled his own gun, or wrestled away Junior’s, Junior
knew that he would be fucked. Junior Kim was in a fight for
his life.
Then the safety slipped free, and Junior Kim, Jr., knew
that he had won.
He said, “I gotcha, you dips.”
The Glock went off, a heavy 9mm explosion that made the
cheese dip’s eyes bulge with a terrible surprise.
Junior smiled, victorious.
“Fuck you.”
Then Junior felt the most incredible pain in his chest.
It filled him as if he were having a heart attack. He
stumbled back into the Slurpee machine as the blood spilled
out of his chest and spread across his shirt. Then he slid
to the floor.
The last thing Junior heard was the cheese dip by the
door, shouting, “Dennis! Hurry up! Somebody’s outside!”
Part 2
DENNIS
Their voices overlapped, Kevin grabbing Dennis’s arm, making
the truck swerve. Dennis punched him away.
“You killed that guy! You shot him!”
“I don’t know if he’s dead or what!”
“There was fucking blood everywhere! It’s all over you!”
“Stop it, Kevin! He had a fuckin’ gun! I didn’t know he
would have a gun! It just went off!”
Kevin pounded the dash, bouncing between Dennis and
Mars like he was going to erupt through the roof.
“We’re fucked, Dennis, fucked! What if he’s dead?!”
“SHUT UP!”
Dennis licked his lips, tasting copper and salt. He
glanced in the rearview. His face was splattered with red
dew. Dennis lost it then, certifiably freaked out because
he’d eaten human blood. He swiped at his face, wiping the
blood on his jeans.
Mars touched him.
“Dude. Take it easy.”
“We’ve gotta get away!”
“We’re getting away. No one saw us. No one caught us.
We’re fine.”
Mars sat quietly in the shotgun seat. Kevin and Dennis
were wild, but Mars was as calm as if he had just awakened
from a trance. He was holding the Chinaman’s gun.
“Fuck! Throw it out, dude! We might get stopped.”
Mars pushed the gun into his waistband, then left his
hand there, holding it the way some men hold their crotch.
“We might need it.”
Dennis upshifted hard, ignoring the clash of gears as
he threw the Nissan toward the freeway two miles ahead. At
least four people had seen the truck. Even these dumb Bristo
cops would be able to put two and two together if they had
witnesses who could tie them to the truck.
“Listen, we gotta think. We gotta figure out what to do.”
Kevin’s eyes were like dinner plates.
“Jesus, Dennis, we gotta turn ourselves in.”
Dennis felt so much pressure in his head that he
thought his eyes were swelling.
“No one’s turning themselves in! We can get outta this!
We just gotta figure out what to do!”
Mars touched him again.
“Listen.”
Mars was smiling at nothing. Not even looking at them.
“We’re just three guys in a red truck. There’s a
million red trucks.”
Dennis desperately wanted to believe that.
“You think?”
“They’ve got to find witnesses. If they find those two
kids or the woman, then those people have to describe us.
Maybe they can, but maybe they can’t. When the cops get all
that sorted out, then they have to start looking for three
white guys in a red truck. You know how many red trucks
there are?”
“A million.”
“That’s right. And how long does all that take? The
rest of the day? Tomorrow? We can be across the border in
four hours. Let’s go down to Mexico.”
The vacant smile was absolutely sure of itself. Mars
was so calm that Dennis found himself convinced; it was as
if Mars had run this path before and knew the turns.
“That’s a fucking plan, Mars. That’s a plan! We can
kick back for a few days, then come back when everything
blows over. It always blows over.”
“That’s right.”
Dennis pushed harder on the accelerator, felt the
transmission lag, and then a loud BANG came from under the
truck. The transmission let go. Six hundred dollars. Cash.
What did he expect?
“MotherFUCKing piece of SHIT!”
The truck lost power, bucking as Dennis guided it off
the road. Even before it lurched to a stop, Dennis shoved
open the door, desperate to run. Kevin caught his arm,
holding him back.
“There’s nothing we can do, Dennis. We’re only making
it worse.”
“Shut up!”
Dennis shook off his brother’s hand and slid out of the
truck. He searched up and down the road, half expecting to
see a highway patrol car, but the cars were few and far
between and those were mostly soccer moms. Flanders Road
from here to the freeway cut through an area
of affluent housing developments. Some of the communities
were gated, but most weren’t, though most were hidden from
the road by hedges that masked heavy stone walls. Dennis
looked at the hedges, and the walls that they hid. He
wondered if escape lay beyond them.
It was like Mars read his mind.
“Let’s steal a car.”
Dennis looked at the wall again. On the other side of
it would be a housing development filled with cars. They
could crash into a house, tie up the soccer mom to buy some
time, and drive.
Dennis didn’t think about it any more than that.
“Let’s go.”
“Dennis, please.”
Dennis pulled his brother out of the truck.
They crashed into the hedges and went up the wall.
OFFICER MIKE WELCH,
BRISTO CAMINO POLICE
Officer Mike Welch, thirty-two years old, married, one
child, was rolling code seven to the Krispy Kreme donut shop
on the west side of Bristo Camino when he got the call.
“Unit four, base.”
“Four.”
“Armed robbery, Kim’s Minimart on Flanders Road, shots
fired.”
Welch thought that was absurd.
“Say again, shots fired. Are you kidding me?”
“Three white males, approximately twenty years, jeans
and T-shirts, driving a red Nissan pickup last seen west on
Flanders Road. Get over there and see about Junior.”
Mike Welch was rolling westbound on Flanders Road.
Junior’s service station was straight ahead, less than two
miles. Welch went code three, hitting the lights and siren.
He had never before in his three years as a police officer
rolled code three other than when he pulled over a speeder.
“I’m on Flanders now. Is Junior shot?”
“That’s affirm. Ambulance is inbound.”
Welch floored it. He was so intent on beating the
paramedics to Kim’s that he was past the red truck parked on
the opposite side of the road before he realized that it
matched the description of the getaway vehicle.
Welch shut his siren and pulled off onto the shoulder.
He twisted around to stare back up the street. He couldn’t
see anyone in or around the truck, but there it was, a red
Nissan pickup. Welch waited for a gap in traffic, then swung
around and drove back, pulling off behind the Nissan. He
keyed his shoulder mike.
“Base, four. I’m a mile and a half east of Kim’s on
Flanders. Got a red Nissan pickup, license
Three-Kilo-Lima-Mike-Four-Two-Nine. It appears abandoned.
Can you send someone else to Kim’s?”
“Ah, we can.”
“I’m gonna check it out.”
“Three-Kilo-Lima-Mike-Four-Two-Nine. Rog.”
Welch climbed out of his car and rested his right hand
on the butt of his Browning Hi-Power. He didn’t draw his
weapon, but he wanted to be ready. He walked up along the
passenger side of the truck, glanced underneath, then walked
around the front. The engine was still ticking, and the hood
was warm. Mike Welch thought, sonofabitch,
this was it, this was the getaway vehicle.
“Base, four. Area’s clear. Vehicle is abandoned.”
“Rog.”
Welch continued around to the driver’s-side door and
looked in-side. He couldn’t be sure that this was the
getaway vehicle, but his heart was hammering with
excitement. Mike Welch had come to the Bristo police
department after seven years as a roofing contractor. He had
thought that police work would be more than writing traffic
tickets and breaking up domestic disturbances, but it hadn’t
worked out that way; now, for the first time in his career,
he might come face-to-face with an actual felon. He looked
either way up and down the road, wondering why they had
abandoned the truck and where they had gone. He suddenly
felt frightened. Welch stared at the hedges. He squatted
again, trying to see under the low branches, but saw nothing
except a wall. Welch drew his gun, then approached the
hedges, looking more closely. Several branches were broken.
He glanced back at the truck, thinking it through, imagining
three suspects pushing through the hedges. Three kids on the
run, shitting their pants, going over the wall. On the other
side of the wall was a development of expensive homes called
York Estates. Welch knew from his patrol route that there
were only two streets out unless they went over the wall
again. They would be hiding in someone’s garage or running
like hell out the back side of the development, trying to
get away.
Welch listened to the Nissan’s ticking engine, and
decided that he was no more than a few minutes behind them.
His heart rate in-creased. He made his decision. Welch
burned rubber as he swung out onto the road, intent on
cutting them off before they escaped the development, intent
on making the arrest.
DENNIS
Dennis dropped from the wall into a different world, hidden
behind lush ferns and plants with leathery green leaves and
orange trees. His impulse was to keep running, haul ass
across the yard, jump the next wall, and keep going, but the
siren was right on top of them. And then the siren stopped.
Kevin said, “Dennis, please, the police are gonna see
the truck. They’re gonna know who we are.”
“Shut up, Kevin. I know. Lemme think!”
They were in a dense garden surrounding a tennis court
at the rear of a palatial home. A swimming pool was directly
in front of them with the main house beyond the pool, a
big-ass two-story house with lots of windows and doors, and
one of the doors was open. Just like that. Open. If people
were home, there would be a car. A Sony boom box beside the
pool was playing music. There wouldn’t be music if no one
was home.
Dennis glanced at Mars, and, without even looking back
at him, almost as if he had read Dennis’s mind again, Mars
nodded.
JENNIFER SMITH
Sixty feet away through the open door, Jennifer Smith was
thoroughly pissed off about the state of her life. Her
father was behind closed doors at the front of the house,
working. He was an accountant, and often worked at home. Her
mother was in Florida visiting their Aunt Kate. With her mom
in Florida and her dad working, Jen was forced 24/7 to ride
herd on her ten-year-old brother, Thomas. If her friends
wanted to go to the Multiplex, Thomas had to go. If she lied
about going to Palmdale so she could sneak down to LA,
Thomas would tell. Jennifer Smith was sixteen years old.
Having a turd like Thomas grafted to her butt 24/7 was
wrecking her summer.
Jen had been laying out by the pool, but she had come
in to make tuna fish sandwiches. She would have let the turd
starve, but she didn’t mind making lunch for her father.
“Thomas?”
He hated it if you called him Tommy. He didn’t even
like Tom. It had to be Thomas.
“Thomas, go tell Daddy that lunch is ready.”
“Eat me.”
Thomas was playing Nintendo in the family room.
“Go tell Daddy.”
“Just yell. He’ll hear you.”
“Go get him or I’ll spit in your food.”
“Spit twice. It turns me on.”
“You are so gross.”
Thomas paused the Nintendo game and looked around at
her. “I’ll get him if you ask Elyse and Tris to come lay out.”
Elyse and Tris were her two best friends. They had
stopped coming over because Thomas totally creeped them out.
He would wait in the house until everyone was lying by the
pool, then he would appear and offer to rub oil on them.
Even though everyone said ooo, yuck, go away, he would sit
there and stare at their bodies.
“They won’t lay out with you here. They know you watch.”
“They like it.”
“You are so gross.”
When the three young men stepped inside, Jen’s first
thought was that they were gardeners, but all the gardeners
she knew were short, dark men from Central America. Her
second thought was that maybe they were older kids from
school, but that didn’t feel right either.
Jennifer said, “May I help you?”
The first one pointed at Thomas.
“Mars, get the troll.”
The biggest one ran at Thomas, as the first one
charged into the kitchen.
Jennifer screamed just as the first boy covered her
mouth so tightly that she thought her face would break.
Thomas tried to shout, but the bigger boy mashed his face
into the carpet.
The third one was younger. He hung back near the door,
crying, talking in a loud stage whisper, trying to keep his
voice down.
“Dennis, let’s go! This is crazy!”
“Shut up, Kevin! We’re here. Deal with it.”
The one holding her, the one she now knew as Dennis,
bent her backwards over the counter, mashing the sandwiches.
His hips ground against hers, pinning her. His breath
smelled of hamburgers and cigarettes.
“Stop kicking! I’m not going to hurt you!”
She tried to bite his hand. He pushed her head farther
back until her neck felt like it would snap.
“I said stop it. Relax, and I’ll let you go.”
Jennifer fought harder until she saw the gun. The
bigger boy was holding a black pistol to Thomas’s head.
Jennifer stopped fighting.
“I’m going to take my hand away, but you better not
yell. You understand that?”
Jennifer couldn’t stop watching the gun.
“Close the door, Kevin.”
She heard the door close.
Dennis took away his hand, but kept it close, ready to
clamp her mouth again. His voice was a whisper.
“Who else is here?”
“My father.”
“Is there anyone else?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“In his office.”
“Is there a car?”
Her voice failed. All she could do was nod.
“Don’t yell. If you yell, I’ll kill you. Do you
understand that?”
She nodded.
“Where’s his office?”
She pointed toward the entry.
Dennis laced his fingers through her hair and pushed
her toward the hall. He followed so closely that his body
brushed hers, reminding her that she was wearing only shorts
and a bikini top. She felt naked and exposed.
Her father’s office was off the entry hall behind wide
double doors. They didn’t bother to knock or say anything.
Dennis pulled open the door, and the big one, Mars, carried
in Thomas, the gun still at his head. Dennis pushed her onto
the floor, then ran straight across the room, pointing his
gun at her father.
“Don’t say a goddamned word! Don’t fucking move!”
Her father was working at his computer with a sloppy
stack of printouts all around. He was a slender man with a
receding hairline and glasses. He blinked over the tops of
the glasses as if he didn’t quite understand what he was
seeing. He probably thought they were friends of hers,
playing a joke. But then she saw that he knew it was real.
“What are you doing?”
Dennis aimed his gun with both hands, shouting louder.
“Don’t you fucking move, goddamnit! Keep your ass in
that chair! Let me see your hands!”
What her father said then made no sense to her.
He said, “Who sent you?”
Dennis shoved Kevin with his free hand.
“Kevin, close the windows! Stop being a turd!”
Kevin went to the windows and closed the shutters. He
was crying worse than Thomas.
Dennis waved his gun at Mars.
“Keep him covered, dude. Watch the girl.”
Mars pushed Thomas onto the floor with Jennifer, then
aimed at her father. Dennis put his own gun in the waistband
of his pants, then snatched a lamp from the corner of her
father’s desk. He jerked the plug from the wall, then the
electrical cord from the lamp.
“Don’t go psycho and everything will be fine. Do you
hear that? I’m gonna take your car. I’m gonna tie you up so
you can’t call the cops, and I’m gonna take your car. I
don’t want to hurt you, I just want the car. Gimme the keys.”
Her father looked confused.
“What are you talking about? Why did you come here?”
“I want the fucking car, you asshole! I’m stealing your
car! Now, where are the keys?”
“That’s what you want, the car?”
“Am I talking fucking Russian here or what? DO YOU HAVE A CAR?”
Her father raised his hands, placating.
“In the garage. Take it and leave. The keys are on the
wall by the garage door. By the kitchen. Take it.”
“Kevin, go get the keys, then come help tie these
bastards up so we can get outta here.”
Kevin, still by the windows, said, “There’s a cop coming.”
Jennifer saw the police car through the gaps in the
shutters. A policeman got out. He looked around as if he was
taking his bearings, then came toward their house.
Dennis grabbed her hair again.
“Don’t fucking say a word. Not one fucking word.”
“Please don’t hurt my children.”
“Shut up. Mars, you be ready! Mars!”
Jennifer watched the policeman come up the walk. He
disappeared past the edge of the window, then their doorbell
rang.
Kevin scuttled to his older brother, gripping his arm.
“He knows we’re here, Dennis! He must’ve seen me
closing the shutters!
“Shut up!”
The doorbell rang again.
Jennifer felt Dennis’s sweat drip onto her shoulder and
wanted to scream. Her father stared at her, his eyes locked
onto hers, slowly shaking his head. She didn’t know if he
was telling her not to scream, or not to move, or even if he
realized that he was doing it.
The policeman walked past the windows toward the side
of the house.
“He knows we’re here, Dennis! He’s looking for a way in!”
“He doesn’t know shit! He’s just looking.”
Kevin was frantic, and now Jennifer could hear the fear in
Dennis’s voice, too.
“He saw me at the window! He knows someone’s here!
Let’s give up.”
“Shut up!”
Dennis went to the window. He peered through the
shutters, then suddenly rushed back to Jennifer and grabbed
her by the hair again.
“Get up.”
MIKE WELCH
Officer Mike Welch didn’t know that everyone in the house
was currently clustered less than twenty feet away, watching
him through the gaps in the shutters. He had not seen Kevin
Rooney or anyone else when he’d pulled up. He’d been too
busy parking the car.
As near as Welch could figure, the people from the red
Nissan had jumped the wall into these people’s backyard. He
suspected that the three suspects were blocks away by now,
but he hoped that some-one in this house or the other houses
on this cul-de-sac had seen them and could provide a
direction of flight.
When no one answered the door, Welch went to the side
gate and called out. When no one responded, he returned to
the front door and rang the bell for the third and final
time. He was turning away to try the neighbor when the heavy
front door opened and a pretty teenage girl looked out. She
was pale. Her eyes were rimmed red.
Welch gave his best professional smile.
“Miss, I’m Officer Mike Welch. Did you happen to see
three young men running through the area?”
“No.”
Her voice was so soft he could barely hear her. Welch
noted that she appeared upset, and wondered about that.
“It would’ve been five or ten minutes ago. Something
like that. I have reason to believe that they jumped the
wall into your backyard.”
“No.”
The red-rimmed eyes filled. Welch watched her eyes
blur, watched twin tears roll in slow motion down her
cheeks, and knew that they were in the house with her. They
were probably standing right on the other side of the door.
Mike Welch’s heart began to pound. His fingers tingled.
“Okay, miss, like I said, I was just checking. You have
a good day.”
He quietly unsnapped the release on his holster and
rested his hand on his gun. He shifted his eyes pointedly to
the door, then mouthed a silent question, asking if anyone
was there. She did not have time to respond.
Inside, someone that Mike Welch could not see shouted,
“He’s going for his gun!”
Loud explosions blew through the door and window.
Something hit Mike Welch in the chest, knocking him
backward. His Kevlar vest stopped the first bullet, but
another punched into his belly below the vest, and a third
slipped over the top of his vest to lodge high in his chest.
He tried to keep his feet under him, but they fell away. The
girl screamed, and someone else inside the house screamed, too.
Mike Welch found himself flat on his back in the front
yard. He sat up, then realized that he’d been shot and fell
over again. He heard more shots, but he couldn’t get up or
duck or run for cover. He pulled his gun and fired toward
the house without thinking who he might be hitting. His only
thought was to survive.
He heard more shots, and screaming, but then he could
no longer hold his gun. It was all he could do to key his
shoulder mike.
“Officer down. Officer down. Jesus, I’ve been shot.”
“Say again? Mike? Mike, what’s going on?”
Mike Welch stared at the sky, but could not answer.
2
Friday,3:24 P.M.
JEFF TALLEY
Two-point-one miles from York Estates, Jeff Talley was
parked in an avocado orchard, talking to his daughter on his
cell phone, his command radio tuned to a whisper. He often
left his office in the afternoon and came to this orchard,
which he had discovered not long after he had taken the job
as the chief of Bristo Camino’s fourteen-member police
department. Rows of trees, each tree the same as the last,
each a measured distance from the next, standing without
motion in the clean desert air like a chorus of silent
witnesses. He found peace in the sameness of it.
His daughter, Amanda, now fourteen, broke that peace.
“Why can’t I bring Derek with me? At least I would have
someone to hang with.”
Her voice reeked of coldness. He had called Amanda
because today was Friday; she would be coming up for the
weekend.
“I thought we would go to a movie together.”
“We go to a movie every time I come up there. We can
still go to the movies. We’ll just bring Derek.”
“Maybe another time.”
“When?”
“Maybe next time. I don’t know.”
She made an exaggerated sigh that left him feeling
defensive.
“Mandy? It’s okay if you bring friends. But I enjoy our
alone time, too. I want us to talk about things.”
“Mom wants to talk to you.”
“I love you.”
She didn’t answer.
“I love you, Amanda.”
“You always say you want to talk, but then we go sit in
a movie so we can’t talk. Here’s Mom.”
Jane Talley came on the line. They had separated five
months after he resigned from the Los Angeles Police
Department, took up residence on their couch, and stared at
the television for twenty hours a day until neither of them
could take it anymore and he had moved out. That was two
years ago.
“Hey, Chief. She’s not in the greatest mood.”
“I know.”
“How you doing?”
Talley thought about it.
“She’s not liking me very much.”
“It’s hard for her right now. She’s fourteen.”
“I know.”
“She’s still trying to understand. Sometimes she’s fine
with it, but other times everything sweeps over her.”
“I try to talk to her.”
He could hear the frustration in Jane’s voice, and his own.
“Jeffrey, you’ve been trying to talk for two years, but
nothing comes out. Just like that, you left and started a
new life and we weren’t a part of it. Now you have this new
life up there and she’s making a new life down here. You
understand that, don’t you?”
Talley didn’t say anything, because he didn’t know what
to say. Every day since he moved to Bristo Camino he told
himself that he would ask them to join him but he hadn’t
been able to do it. He knew that Jane had spent the past two
years waiting for him. He thought that if he asked right now
she would come to him, but all he managed to do was stare at
the silent, immobile trees.
Finally, Jane had had enough of the silence.
“I don’t want to go on like this anymore, just being
separated. You and Mandy aren’t the only ones who need to
make a life.”
“I know. I understand.”
“I’m not asking you to understand. I don’t care if you
understand.”
Her voice came out sharp and hurt, then both of them
were silent. Talley thought of her on the day they were
married; against the white country wedding gown, her skin
had been golden.
Jane finally broke the silence, her voice resigned. She
would learn no more today than yesterday; her husband would
offer nothing new. Talley felt embarrassed and guilty.
“Do you want me to drop her at your house or at the
office?”
“The house would be fine.”
“Six o’clock?”
“Six. We can have dinner, maybe.”
“I won’t be staying.”
When the phone went dead, Talley put it aside, and
thought of the dream. The dream was always the same, a small
clapboard house surrounded by a full SWAT tactical team,
helicopters overhead, media beyond the cordon. Talley was
the primary negotiator, but the night-mare reality of the
dream left him standing in the open without cover or
protection while Jane and Amanda watched him from the
cordon. Talley was in a life-or-death negotiation with an
unknown male subject who had barricaded himself in the house
and was threatening suicide. Over and over, the man
screamed, “I’m going to do it! I’m going to do it!” Talley
talked him back from the brink each time, but, each time,
knew that the man had stepped closer to the edge. It was
only a matter of time. No one had seen this man. No
neighbors or family had been found to provide an ID. The
subject would not reveal his name. He was a voice behind
walls to everyone except Talley, who knew with a numbing
dread that the man in the house was himself. He had become the
subject in the house, locked in time and frozen in place,
negotiating with himself to spare his own life.
In those first weeks, Brendan Malik’s eyes watched him from
every shadow. He saw the light in them die over and over,
dimming like a television with its plug pulled, the spark
that had been Brendan Malik growing smaller, falling away
until it was gone. After a while, Talley felt nothing,
watching the dying eyes the same way he would watch Wheel of
Fortune: because it was there.
Talley resigned from the LAPD, then sat on his couch
for almost a year, first in his home and later in the cheap
apartment he had rented in Silver Lake after Jane threw him
out. Talley told himself that he had left his job and his
family because he couldn’t stand having them witness his own
self-destruction, but after a while he grew to believe that
his reasons were simpler, and less noble: He believed that
his former life was killing him, and he was scared. The
incorporated township of Bristo Camino was looking for a
chief of police for their fourteen-member police force, and
they were glad to have him. They liked it that he was SWAT,
even though the job was no more demanding than writing
traffic citations and speaking at local schools. He told
himself that it was a good place to heal. Jane had been
willing to wait for the healing, but the healing never quite
seemed to happen. Talley believed that it never would.
Talley started the car and eased off the hard-packed
soil of the orchard onto a gravel road, following it down to
the state highway that ran the length of the Santa Clarita
Valley. When he reached the high-way, he turned up his radio
and heard Sarah Weinman, the BCPD dispatch officer, shouting
frantically over the link.
“. . . Welch is down. We have a man down in York
Estates . . .”
Other voices were crackling back at her, Officers Larry
Anders and Kenn Jorgenson talking over each other in a mad rush.
Talley punched the command freq button that linked him
to dispatch on a dedicated frequency.
“Sarah, one. What do you mean, Mike’s down?”
“Chief?”
“What about Mike?”
“He’s been shot. The paramedics from Sierra Rock Fire
are on the way. Jorgy and Larry are rolling from the east.”
In the nine months that Talley had been in Bristo,
there had been only three felonies, two for nonviolent
burglaries and once when a woman had tried to run down her
husband with the family car.
“Are you saying that he was intentionally shot?”
“Junior Kim’s been shot, too! Three white males driving
a red Nissan pickup. Mike called in the truck, then called a
forty-one four-teen at one-eight Castle Way in York Estates,
and the next thing I know he said he’d been shot. I haven’t
been able to raise him since then.”
Forty-one fourteen. Welch had intended to approach the
residence.
Talley punched the button that turned on his lights and
siren. York Estates was six minutes away.
“What’s the status of Mr. Kim?”
“Unknown at this time.”
“Do we have an ID on the suspects?”
“Not at this time.”
“I’m six out and rolling. Fill me in on the way.”
Talley had spent the last year believing that the day
he became a crisis negotiator for the Los Angeles Police
Department had forever changed his life for the worse.
His life was about to change again.
JENNIFER
Jennifer had never heard anything as loud as their guns; not
the cherry bombs that Thomas popped in their backyard or the
crowd at the Forum when the Lakers slammed home a
game-winning dunkenstein. The gunfire in movies didn’t come
close. When Mars and Dennis started shooting, the sound
rocked through her head and deafened her.
Jennifer screamed. Dennis slammed the front door,
pulled her backwards to the office, then pushed her down.
She grabbed Thomas and held tight. Her father wrapped them
in his arms. Layers of gun smoke hung in shafts of light
that burned through the shutters; the smell of it stung her
nose.
When the shooting was done, Dennis sucked air like a
bellows, stalking back and forth between the entry and
office, his face white.
“We’re fucked! That cop is down!”
Mars went to the entry. He didn’t hurry or seem scared;
he strolled.
“Let’s get the car before more of them get here.”
Kevin was on the floor beside her father’s desk,
shaking. His face was milky.
“You shot a cop. You shot a cop, Dennis!”
Dennis grabbed his brother by the shirt.
“Didn’t you hear Mars? He was going for his gun!”
Jennifer heard a siren approaching behind the shouting.
Then Dennis heard it, too, and ran back to the windows.
“Oh, man, they’re coming!”
Jennifer’s father pulled her closer, almost as if he
was trying to squeeze her into himself.
“Take the keys and go. The keys are on the wall by the
garage. It’s a Jaguar. Take it while you still can.”
Dennis stared through the open shutters like prison
bars, watching
the street with fearful expectation. Jennifer wanted them to
run, to go, to get out of her life, but Dennis stood frozen
at the windows as if he was waiting for something.
Mars spoke from the entry, his voice as calm as still
water.
“Let’s take the man’s car, Dennis. We have to go.”
Then the siren suddenly seemed to be in the house, and
it was too late. Tires screeched outside. Dennis ran to the
front door. The shooting started again.
TALLEY
York Estates was a walled development that had been named
for the legendary walled city of York in England, a village
that was protected from the world by a great stone wall. The
developers built twenty-eight homes on one- to three-acre
sites in a pattern of winding streets and cul-de-sacs with
names like Lancelot Lane, Queen Anne Way, and King John
Place, then surrounded it by a stone wall that was more
decorative than protective. Talley cut his siren as he
entered from the north, but kept the lights flashing.
Jorgenson and Anders were shouting that they were under
fire. Talley heard the pop of a gunshot over the radio.
When he turned into Castle Way, Talley saw Jorgenson
and Anders crouched behind their car with their weapons out.
Two women were in the open door of the house behind them and
a teenaged boy was standing near the cul-de-sac’s mouth.
Talley hit the public address key on his mike as he sped up
the street.
“You people take cover. Get inside your homes!”
Jorgenson and Anders turned to watch him approach. The
two women looked confused and the boy stood without moving.
Talley burped his siren, and shouted at them again.
“Get inside now! You people move!”
Talley hit the brakes hard, stopping behind Jorgenson’s
unit. Two shots pinged from the house, one snapping past
overhead, the other thumping dully into Talley’s windshield.
He rolled out the door and pulled himself into a tight ball
behind the front wheel, using the hub as cover. Mike Welch
lay crumpled on the front lawn of a large Tudor home less
than forty feet away.
Anders shouted, “Welch is down! They shot him!”
“Are all three subjects inside?”
“I don’t know! We haven’t seen anyone!”
“Are civilians in the house?”
“I don’t know!”
More sirens were coming from the east. Talley knew that
would be Dreyer and Mikkelson in unit six with the
ambulance. The shooting had stopped, but he could hear
shouts and screaming inside the house. He flattened on the
street and called to Welch from under the car.
“Mike! Can you hear me?”
Welch didn’t respond.
Anders shouted, his voice frantic.
“I think he’s dead!”
“Calm down, Larry. I can hear you.”
Talley had to take in the scene and make decisions
without knowing who or what he was dealing with. Welch was
in the middle of the front lawn, unmoving and unprotected.
Talley had to act.
“Does this house back up on Flanders Road?”
“Yes, sir. The truck is right on the other side of the
wall that runs behind the house, that red Nissan! It’s the
suspects who hit Kim’s.”
The sirens were closer. Talley had to assume that
innocents were inside. He had to assume that Mike Welch was
alive. He keyed his transceiver mike.
“Six, one. Who’s on?”
Dreyer’s voice came back.
“It’s Dreyer, Chief. We’re one minute out.”
“Where’s the ambulance?”
“Right behind us.”
“Okay. You guys set up on Flanders by the truck in case
these guys go back over the wall. Send the ambulance in, but
tell them to wait at Castle and Tower. I’ll bring Welch to
them.”
Talley broke the connection, then pushed himself up to
a crouch.
“Larry, did you guys fire on the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Don’t.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stay down. Don’t fire at the house.”
Talley climbed back into his car, keeping his head low
and the driver’s door open. He backed up, then powered into
the yard, maneuvering to a stop between Welch and the house
to use the car as a shield. Another shot popped the
passenger-side window. He rolled out of the car almost on
top of Welch. Talley opened the rear door, then dragged
Welch to the car. It was like lifting two hundred pounds of
deadweight, but Welch moaned. He was alive. Talley propped
him upright in the open door, then lifted for all he was
worth to fold Welch onto the backseat. He slammed the door,
then saw Welch’s gun on the grass. He went back for it. He
returned to the car and floored the accelerator, fishtailing
across the slick grass as he cut across the yard and into
the street. He sped back along the cul-de-sac to the corner
where the ambulance was waiting. Two paramedics pulled Welch
from the rear and pushed a compress onto his chest. Talley
didn’t ask if Welch would make it. He knew from experience
that they wouldn’t know.
Talley stared down the length of the cul-de-sac and
felt himself tremble. The first flush of panic was passing,
and now he had time to think. Now he had time to acknowledge
that what was happening here was what had cost him so much
in Los Angeles. A hostage situation was developing. His
mouth went dry and something sour flushed in his throat that
threatened to make him retch. He keyed the mike again to
call his dispatcher. He had exactly four units on duty and
another five officers off. He would need them all.
“Chief, I pulled Dreyer and Mikkelson off the minimart.
We’ve got no one on the scene now. It’s totally unsecured.”
“Call the CHP and the Sheriffs. Tell them what’s going
on and request a full crisis team. Tell them we’ve got two
men down and we have a possible hostage situation.”
Talley’s eyes filled when he realized that he had used
that word. Hostage.
He remembered Welch’s gun. He sniffed the muzzle, then
checked the magazine. Welch had returned fire, which meant
that he might have wounded someone in the house. Maybe even
an innocent.
He shut his eyes hard and keyed the mike again.
“Tell them to hurry.”
JENNIFER
Jennifer whispered, “Daddy.”
Her father held her head, whispered back.
“Shh.”
They snuggled closer. Jennifer thought her father might
be trying to pull them through the floor, that if he could
just make the three of them small enough they would
disappear. She watched Mars peering through the shutters,
his wide back hunched like an enormous swollen
toad. When Mars glanced back at them, he looked high.
Kevin threw a TV Guide at him.
“What’s wrong with you? Why’d you start shooting?”
“To keep them away.”
“We could’ve gotten out the back!”
Dennis jerked Kevin toward the entry.
“Get it together, Kev. They found the truck. They’re
already behind us.”
“This is bullshit, Dennis! We should give up!”
Jennifer wanted them to run. She wanted them to get
away, if that’s what it took; she wanted them out.
The words boiled out of her before she could stop them.
“We don’t want you here!”
Her father squeezed her, his voice soft.
“Be quiet.”
Jennifer couldn’t stop.
“You have no right to be here! No one invited you!”
Her father pulled her closer.
Dennis jabbed a finger at her.
“Shut up, bitch!”
He turned and shoved his brother into the wall so hard
that Jennifer flinched.
“Stop it, Kevin! Go through the house and lock all the
windows. Lock the doors, then watch the backyard. They’re
gonna come over that wall just like we did.”
Kevin seemed confused.
“Why don’t we just give up, Dennis? We’re caught.”
“It’s going to be dark in a few hours. Things will
change when it gets dark. Go do it, Kev. We’re going to get
out of this. We will.”
Jennifer felt her father sigh before he spoke. He
slowly pushed to his knees.
“None of you are going to get out of this.”
Dennis said, “Shut the fuck up. Go on, Kevin. Watch the
back.”
Kevin disappeared toward the rear through the entry.
Her father stood. Both Dennis and Mars aimed their guns
at him.
Jennifer pulled at his legs.
“Daddy! Don’t!”
Her father raised his hands.
“It’s okay, sweetie. I’m not going to do anything. I
just want to go to my desk.”
Dennis extended his gun.
“Are you fuckin’ nuts?! You’re not going anywhere!”
“Just take it easy, son.”
“Daddy, don’t!”
Her father seemed to be moving in a dream. She wanted
to stop him, but she couldn’t. She wanted to say something,
but nothing came out. He walked stiffly, as if he was
prepared to take a punch. It was as if this man in the dream
wasn’t her father, but someone she had never before seen.
He went behind his desk, carefully placing two computer
disks in a black leather disk case as he spoke. Dennis
followed along beside him, shouting for him to stop,
shouting that he shouldn’t take another step, and pointing
the gun at his head. Dennis looked as scared as she felt.
“I’m warning you, goddamnit!”
“I’m going to open my desk.”
“I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”
“Daddy, please!!!”
Jennifer’s father held up a single finger as if to show
them that one tiny finger could do them no harm, then used
it to slide open the drawer. He nodded toward the drawer, as
if to show Dennis that nothing would hurt him. Her father
took out a thick booklet.
“This is a list of every criminal lawyer in
California. If you give up right now, I’ll help you get the
best lawyer in the state.”
Dennis slapped the book aside.
“Fuck you! We just killed a cop! We killed that
Chinaman! We’ll get the fuckin’ death penalty!”
“I’m telling you that you won’t, not if you let me help
you. But if you stay in this house, I can promise you this:
You’ll die.”
“Shut up!”
Dennis swung his gun hard and hit her father in the
temple with a wet thud. He fell sideways like a sack that
had been dropped to the floor.
“No!”
Jennifer lunged forward. She pushed Dennis before she
realized what she was doing.
“Leave him alone!”
She shoved Dennis back, then dropped to her knees
beside her father. The gun had cut an ugly gouge behind his
right eye at the hair-line. The gouge pulsed blood, and was
already swelling.
“Daddy? Daddy, wake up!”
He didn’t respond.
“Daddy, please!”
Her father’s eyes danced insanely beneath the lids as
his body trembled.
“Daddy!”
Tears blurred her eyes as unseen hands lifted her away.
The nightmare had begun.