Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(33)

“What if they’re expecting you?” she asked.

“Even if they are,” he said, “it won’t help them.”





21

Quick and Easy

Central Eastside was an industrial district checkered with low-rent housing. Evan coasted in the stolen Subaru with the switched rear license plate, watching a parade of radiator shops, commercial laundries, and wholesale construction-supply joints march by. The streets were pothole-intensive, shimmering with broken glass. A few spots had been taken over by brewpubs and distilleries, gentrification doing its cheery best, but they were out ahead of the curve here and—from the looks of the clientele and graffiti—in over their heads.

Joey took in the streets and seemed not uneasy in the least.

She wore a half squint, her taut cheeks striking, the youthful fullness of her face turned to something hard and focused. Evan found himself admiring her. She was a medley of contradictions, surprises.

They drove for a time in silence.

“I need a shotgun,” Evan said.

“I’m sure we could rustle one up in these here parts.”

“Last thing we need is to go down the rabbit hole dealing with local criminals and wind up with a rusty Marlin Goose Gun. We need something well maintained, and we need it quick and easy.”

“Where you gonna find a shotgun like that on no notice?”

“The police.”

“Of course. Quick and easy.” She cast a glance across the console, did a double take. “You’re not joking, are you?”

Evan pulled over beneath the green cross of a marijuana dispensary, fished out his RoamZone, and dialed 911.

*

The cruiser pulled up, and two venerable cops emerged, slamming the doors behind them. The driver hit the key fob, the car putting out a chirp-chirp as it locked.

Joey sat on the steps of the dispensary, holding Evan’s phone and pretending to text. Her dark wavy hair fell across her face, blocking one eye, an artful dishevelment.

“What are you doing here?” the officer said. He had a dewlapped face, eyes gone weary from seeing too much shit for too many nights.

“My pops works here,” Joey said.

The second cop, a tough-looking redhead with sun-beaten skin, stood over Joey. “We had an anonymous report of shots fired on this block.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“You hear anything?”

“All the time.”

An annoyance passed between the cops. “Care to elaborate?”

Joey sighed. Pocketed the phone. “C’mere.” She brushed past the redhead, took the driver by the arm, walked him to the curb, and pointed across the street. “See that alley there? There’s a auto-salvage yard at the end of it. That’s where to go if you need a piece on the down-low. A shitty little .22, something like that. That’s what everyone says around here. People test the goods before they pay up.” She stood back, crossed her arms. “So yeah, I heard shots fired. Tonight and every night.”

The redhead let out a sigh that smelled of coffee and cigarettes. “Let’s go.”

She and her partner headed across the street and disappeared up the alley.

Evan emerged from the darkness at the side of the store. Joey flipped him the keys she’d lifted from the driver’s pocket.

Evan thumbed the fob, popped the trunk to reveal a mounted gun-locker safe.

Also remote-controlled.

He thumbed another button on the key chain, and the gun locker opened with a brief metallic hum.

Inside, cartons of shells and a Benelli M3 combat shotgun.

His favorite.

He grabbed two cartons, took the shotgun, then closed the gun locker and the trunk. He pointed at a spot on the sidewalk. “Drop the keys there.”

Joey did.

They walked over to the Subaru and drove off.





22

Dead Man’s Pocket

The headquarters were on Northeast Thirteenth at the very tip of Portland proper in a long-abandoned pest-control shop sandwiched between a trailer lot and a precast-concrete manufacturing plant. The drive over had been a descent into rough streets and heavy industry—truck parts, machining, welding. Gentlemen’s clubs were in evidence every few blocks despite the absence of any actual gentlemen.

The small pest-control shop, no bigger than a shack, had been retrofitted as a command center. Evan recognized the make of steel door securing the front entrance—the kind filled with water, designed to spread out the heat from a battering ram’s impact. A ram would buckle before it would blow through a door like that. That was incredibly effective.

When there wasn’t a back door.

Which Evan watched now. At the edge of the neighboring lot, he’d parked the Subaru between two used trailers adorned with cheery yellow-and-red sales flags. He had the driver’s window rolled down, letting through a chilly stream of air that smelled of tar and skunked beer. Joey sat in the passenger seat, perfectly silent, perfectly still.

Two cartons of different shotgun shells were nestled in his crotch, the shotgun across his lap. He had not loaded it yet.

A few blocks over, a bad cover band wailed an Eagles tune through partially blown speakers: Some-body’s gunna hurt someone, a’fore the night is through.

Evan thought, You got that right.

A Lincoln pulled up to the rear curb of the building. Evan sensed Joey tense beside him. A broad-shouldered man climbed out of the sedan. He knocked on the back door—shave and a haircut, two bits. Even at this distance, the seven-note riff reached the Subaru through the crisp air.