Into the Fire(107)

Merriweather Accountancy.

Max retreated until the bed struck the backs of his knees. He sat down abruptly, wrinkling the smooth duvet.

As Evan had anticipated, two thumb drives bookended the mission. Before and after.

He snapped the laptop shut and rose.

Max was still gazing blankly at the far wall, his eyes unfocused.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. “But we’ve gotta go.”





56



The Fucking Mary Kay Lady





Tommy rattled up in his dually to meet them beneath a freeway underpass where the 10 met the 405. A traffic cacophony roared overhead, endless streams of cars tracing the cloverleaf’s ramps and exits.

Evan’s bullet-riddled F-150 was parked beneath the cramped rise of the overpass. Spots of black mold clung to the concrete above. Aside from a few overturned shopping carts and a ragged army of smashed beer cans, the spot was deserted. That’s why Evan had chosen it, sunken here beneath the city, a stone’s throw from a thousand Angelenos up in the real world moving too fast to pay any notice.

Tommy parked nose to nose and stared at Evan and Max through the facing windshields. Evan gestured for him to come over.

Tommy looked none too pleased about that.

He thumbed a wedge of tobacco into his lower lip, lit up a cigarette, took a help-me-Jesus drag, and then threw up his hands and kicked open his door. He slid out, landing hard on his boots, and took a moment to set his warhorse joints in order and straighten up.

Then he strode over to Evan in the driver’s seat and knocked twice on the door panel. “You may have noticed, I’m not the fucking Mary Kay lady.”

“Yes,” Evan said. “That’s evident.”

“You can’t just call me up when you’re outta mascara and I roll up in a pink Cadillac.”

“No. But that would be awesome.”

Tommy glared at him, but already his hound-dog eyes had softened. “Hell,” he said, “it’s my own damn fault. If I didn’t keep failing retirement, I wouldn’t have to deal with the likes of you.”

“Listen,” Max said, leaning over. “I just want to say I really appreciate—”

“Don’t talk to me,” Tommy said. “I don’t know you.” He looked at Evan. “I don’t know him.”

He sucked a good half inch off his Camel Wide with a single inhale, shot the smoke up at the underpass, walked back to his dually, and got in. The passenger side.

“Uh,” Max said. “You sure about this?”

Evan said, “No,” and got out.

He walked over and hoisted himself up into Tommy’s driver’s seat. The two men sat side by side a moment. Evan lifted his boots, sunk to the ankles in discarded Starbucks cups, Red Bull cans, and empty ammunition boxes that clustered around the base of the seat.

“Sorry ’bout the truck mulch,” Tommy said. “But that’s how you get a vehicle, you know. You grow it from the ground up.”

“I’ll take good care of it,” Evan said.

Tommy flicked his chin at the lead-bitten Ford F-150. “Yeah, you seem to really baby your gear.”

“Look, with my truck, I need you to—”

“I know. I’ll deliver it back to you good as new. With all the fixings.” Tommy winked, the crinkle at the edge of his eye fanning down across his cheek. “It’ll cost you.”

“How much?”

“An arm. A leg.”

Evan nodded at Tommy’s tattered Strider Knives T-shirt, the breast pocket torn clean off. “Get you some new duds.”

“Shit,” Tommy said. “My version of dress for success is two extra mags.” He jerked a thumb to the backseat. “Your FN Ballista’s back there in the Hardigg Storm Case. Take good care of her. She’s a Tommy special. The mall warriors ain’t getting their mitts on a beauty like that.”

Evan started to protest again that he didn’t need a rifle, but then he recalled the dozen men he’d seen spill out of that van, SWAT-ready and armed to the teeth, and kept his mouth shut.

Tommy flicked his cigarette out the window, sucked a stray bit of tobacco through the gap in his front teeth. “You put metal on meat with that baby, fuckers’ll be DRT.” A wicked grin. “Dead Right There.” He reached for the door. “All right, get your boy outta your truck and we’ll be on our respective ways.”

“He’s gotta go with the truck, Tommy.”

Tommy did a pronounced double take that for anyone else would have seemed theatrical. “I know my ears are shot to shit, but I could swear you just said you want me to take that Strange Ranger over there with me.”

“The group that’s after him, they’ve got their tentacles sunk deep throughout the city. I need you to stash him somewhere out in the desert.”

Given the reach of Stella Hardwick’s group, the last thing Evan could afford was having Max near anybody who could be connected to him—especially after his contact with Violet and Clark. He needed to clear out way beyond city limits and let Evan do what had to be done.

The Ninth Commandment: Always play offense.

“I hope you have a lotta money,” Tommy said, “’cuz babysitting’s not on the list of services any more than mascara delivery is.”