Into the Fire(8)
She snorted as if that were the most na?ve thing in the world.
Which of course it was.
Max took it not as an insult but a challenge. He worked extra shifts, put in overtime every chance he got. After a brief ceremony at the Van Nuys courthouse, they took a couple of friends to lunch at Chili’s to celebrate. They didn’t need anything more than that.
With Violet’s encouragement, Max used what little they’d socked away to pay for night classes at Cal State Northridge. His twelve-hour days stretched to sixteen. He was going to get a B.A. and then maybe go to law school from there. With her at his side, he could be the person he’d always been afraid to be.
When she came out of the bathroom one morning, hopping up and down with excitement and holding a purple wand with a plus sign for positive, he actually broke down and cried like a baby. They bought plastic plugs to cover the outlets, started reading about sleep training and homemade baby food, cleared out the walk-in closet, and painted the walls lavender.
Those first notes of optimism, stirred into being by George Thorogood and a few lukewarm Bud Lights, had become a melody and now a symphony. They had become the soundtrack of his life.
Little did he know he had only three more months of bliss before it would all go to hell.
* * *
Max came out of his reverie there in his truck, parked between two grocery store dumpsters, breathing in the smell of garbage. The alley walls rose up, crowding his windows, and the air pressed in on him, claustrophobic and thick.
The one contact Grant had given him had a voice mail that was no longer taking messages. He had an envelope he wasn’t supposed to open. And a guy named “The Terror” on his tail.
Max gripped the wheel again and then slumped forward and rested his forehead on his knuckles. He hadn’t been terribly fond of his cousin, but he owed it to Grant to figure something out as much as he owed it to himself to not get killed.
He needed answers.
Which meant going to the last place he wanted to be right now.
5
Social Environment
Evan sat in the darkness of the subterranean parking garage under his residential high-rise, grocery bag on the passenger seat next to him. Line-caught salmon, lemon, dill, capers, butter, cracked black pepper, sparkling water. He caught a whiff of the meal to come, savory and rich. It would pair nicely with a smooth vodka, something grape-based.
It was delightful here in his truck, a Ford F-150 pickup reinforced with as many discreet security measures as his penthouse. Right now, snugged into a parking slot between two pillars, he could be anyone else in the world coming back to the comforts of home, the evening ahead promising nothing but a well-cooked meal and a warm flush from a touch of alcohol.
But he couldn’t be anyone else in the world.
At least not yet.
Grocery bag clutched in his arm, Evan started across the parking garage beneath the Castle Heights Residential Tower. At the top of the brief run of stairs, he hesitated at the door to the lobby, readying himself to switch personas. Among the building’s residents, he was known as a tenant who led a bland life as an importer of industrial cleaning supplies. He had an average build, the better to blend in, and kept his muscles toned but not bulky. Just another ordinary guy in his thirties, not too handsome.
As he took a moment to seat himself firmly in his alias, he realized that he was on edge. Entering the humdrum world of Castle Heights could do that to him. Compensating for the wind drift of a sniper round was second nature to Evan. But engaging in small talk by the mail slots was torture.
He stepped inside.
The highly active and highly invasive homeowners’ association had recently voted to upgrade the lobby furniture in an effort to create a more social environment.
Evan didn’t like social environments.
Sure enough, a clot of residents had formed on the armless love seats by the Nespresso machine. Ida Rosenbaum of 6G, a wizened turtle of a woman, exhibited a vintage marcasite and amethyst necklace to cooing onlookers. “I finally got to the safe-deposit box to haul this stuff out,” she was saying. “I mean, I’m not getting any younger. Say what you will about my Herb, may he rest in peace, but he had an eye for fashion.”
Evan slipped inside, easing the door shut with tactical precision. There were only two people in the building of interest to him—Mia Hall and her nine-year-old son, Peter. Mia and Evan had engaged in something more than a dalliance but less than a relationship. He found her mind and her body unreasonably appealing, and it seemed she had found some appeal in him, too. Unfortunately, their rapport was complicated by the fact that—as a DA—if she ever uncovered who he really was, she would have to have him arrested. After she’d gleaned the contours of his extracurriculars, they’d settled on an uneasy don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy that had worked out about as well as the Clintonian original. Their non-dalliance non-relationship had not ended harmoniously.
Evan was relieved to see that Mia was not among the crew roosting on the new lobby furniture now. Lowering his head, he beelined for the elevator.
“Evan! What’s the big rush, chief?”
Evan froze, a prey instinct, as if he could blend into the background.
Johnny Middleton, who lived in 8E with his retiree father, spread his arms, a salesman greeting a customer on the showroom floor. His trademark sweat suit, which sported the logo of a mixed-martial-arts studio, was hiked up at the midline to reveal a middle-aged paunch. “Ida here was just showing off some of her old-school bling.”