Cold Springs(26)

The moment he dropped the last letter in the mailbox, he knew he had done the right thing. He'd settled for too little too long, trying to keep things stable for Race's sake. But the prize had always been there, ripening, waiting to be taken. He'd thought about it for years. And now that Laurel Heights was ruined for Race, anyway—f*ck it.

He and Race would scrape San Francisco off the bottom of their shoes like dog crap. They would move to a new country, make a new start. Mexico. El Salvador. Some place hot enough to bake the bad thoughts out of Samuel's head.

All Samuel needed was to find the girl—that was the key. The old leverage wasn't enough anymore. Zedman had made that clear when he tried to buy off Talia. But the girl—Zedman wanted the girl safe. And Samuel could control that variable. Yes, he could.

He took off from school early Friday evening, tired but content, got in his old battered Civic and drove back to Berkeley, to his condominium in the hills.

The place was much too expensive—one of a cluster of brown and blue townhouses just above the Caldecott Tunnel, in an area still bald of trees from the Oakland Hills fire. Samuel had looked up at these hills all his life. He had watched them burn in '91—the horizon rimmed with fire, ash snowing down even as far as the metal Santa Claus on his roof in West Oakland, the smell of burning wood and plaster permeating the city for days. Then he had watched the rebuilding—the gaudy new homes bought with insurance money, the gleaming new apartments on the blackened hillsides. He had loved these condos from the time they were wooden frames, back in the days when he had been rebuilding, too, re-creating himself from scratch. He had fantasized about living here, far above everyone else—a castle in the ashes.

His neighbors were all young and rich. They drove Land Rover SUVs, kept shih tzus, wore North Face hiking clothes but never went hiking. Every morning they said hello to Samuel with polite, nervous smiles, wondering how the hell he had managed to buy his way into their company.

Soon, he could tell them all to f**k off. On his way out of town maybe he'd swipe one of their nasty-faced little dogs, take it to West Oakland, find a pit bull for it to play with. Mail what was left back to the owner. Sign it like he'd signed the letters to Zedman for the last nine years. Love, Samuel.

He was thinking about that possibility, smiling to himself, when he pulled into his carport space and saw the mud-splattered mountain bike next to his back gate.

He felt in his pocket, fingering the new blade he'd bought to replace the one that was now at the bottom of the Lafayette Reservoir.

He entered the backyard, found the sliding glass door open. Inside, the television was playing, sitcom angst mixing with the AM talk show from the bathroom radio, the top 40 station on the bedroom boom box—all the voices Samuel left on, twenty-four hours a day, to drown the noise in his head.

The bedroom windows were open, looking out on the view that was half Samuel's rent price—Highway 24 directly below, a ribbon of lights slicing its way through the hills, down into the Berkeley flats, toward the blanket of fog that covered the Bay.

Race was kneeling by the bed, his back to the door. He was going through Talia's leather satchel, pulling out money, a gun next to him on the sheets.

“You need allowance?” Samuel asked.

Race lurched around, his eyes swimming. His fingers curled around the gun.

Samuel wasn't worried about that. The gun wasn't any different than the pillow Race used to carry around when he was two, or the toy car he'd had when he was five—just something to hold tight.

“What happened to your nose?” Samuel asked. It looked like somebody had grafted his left nostril with a strawberry, then smashed it.

“I need money,” Race said.

“You can try asking. I never said no to you, have I?”

Race pressed his lips together, trying to keep from sobbing. He rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist.

“Momma's dead,” he said, like he hadn't already known that for a week.

“Yeah,” Samuel agreed. “And you know damn well who's going to take the blame, you don't get your girlfriend over here, let us talk things out.”

“I need to get to—Texas, somewhere. I need a plane ticket. Mallory—”

“What you talking about? Where is she?”

“Gone.”

“What you mean, gone?”

Race told him. He described the man at the café who'd busted his nose, Mallory running off. Then afterward, watching from a distance, how he'd seen Mallory in handcuffs, forced into the man's car, a couple of BART cops watching. Race knew the man—the one who used to work at Laurel Heights, who now worked at a school for f**ked-up kids in Texas.

But Race didn't have to tell Samuel that.

Samuel knew the man, too. And he knew what this meant for his plans, losing hold of Zedman's child.

Katherine's father, who'd moved away, who Samuel had tried so f**king hard to let go, to believe he'd been punished enough.

He got a warm feeling, like a ski mask rolling over his face.

He remembered the whimpering sounds Talia had made, the magnolia smell in her hair. He looked at Race and saw that same guilt, same amber eyes as Talia's, and Samuel knew he had to swallow back the rage. Swallow it quickly before it killed him.

The stereo was playing a song he didn't like—some Britney Spears shit. He slammed his fist against the speaker. He picked up the whole unit and threw it—smashed it into the wall with the cord flying behind like a rat's tail.