Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

He's doing three-sixties — wall, cliff, wall, cliff, wall, cliff — he's spinning toward the edge of the cliff and then skids to a stop.

With the front of the 'Stang hanging over the edge.

Jack's looking down at eternity.

He gets out — gently — his legs are weak and the world is spinning and the Caddy and Charger are long gone.

He checks out the 'Stang.

Major damage.

Front-left quarter panel banged in. Passenger-side door banged. Gashes and scrapes along the whole passenger side.

You're talking Bondo from here to eternity.

It's never going to be over, he thinks. You know too much, Letty knows too much, they won't let you just give up.

And face it, you won't let you just give up.

It won't be over until you've finished your job.

Your job is to not pay claims you don't owe. You don't pay people to burn their own houses down, and you don't pay them to kill their wives, and you don't let them rip off your company. You do the job you started to do.

And do it right this time.

So quit your whining and find Nicky's fucking furniture.

And how the hell are you going to do that?

It could be anywhere in the freaking world.

Nicky has apartment buildings, Nicky has condos, Nicky has Yeah.

Jack pats the back of the 'Stang.

"Goodbye, old paint."

He puts his shoulder to it and pushes it off the edge.

Watches it somersault down the canyon and explode in a ball of flame at the bottom.

He starts walking west with his thumb out.

Into a great sunset.

Young waits for the sun to go down.

Has his troops assembled in the parking lot of the Ritz and they all have their assignments. He's edgy as a mother duck because if he pulls this off tonight it's the biggest organized crime roundup since the Appalachia raid. He has names, records, aliases, safe houses. He knows where the weapons are, what they are, who they belong to. He makes half these busts, he can start a ball rolling across the whole country. Start winding ROC up in Arizona, Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York.

He's just waiting for dark.

Jimenez is likewise stoked. Got him his share of the list, his share of the collars, because for once the Feds are playing team ball. So he has his guys posted all over So-Cal. Got a freakin' battalion ready to hit in L.A., another squad down here in Orange County, some more troops in San Diego. Just waiting for the sun to go down.

Sandra Hansen, she's sitting in the room at the Ritz, guzzling Diet Cokes like they could settle her nerves. She won't get the satisfaction of going on the busts. She can't ever even admit that Cal Fire funded half this investigation. All she can do is sit by the phone and hope that it goes down right, that something doesn't come along to fuck it up.

Because it's a tricky deal.

The bust's tonight.

Fifty million dollars' payment in the morning.

Then her guy starts filling them in, in exchange for complete and total immunity for anything except a capital offense. The whole deal signed off on by Claims, Mahogany Row and an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies.

So tonight's a big night.

She looks out the window at the. beautiful stretch of beach and one of those incredible red California sunsets and all she wishes is that it would be morning.

Nicky's gazing at the sunset, too.

Lev and Dani behind him on the lawn like lengthening shadows.

"It is as if we're in the cell again," Nicky says. "The three of us in a corner against the world. We are fighting for our lives. New lives. Years ago in that hell I promised you new lives. I promised you Paradise. Tomorrow — if we do what we have to do tonight — we will have those new lives.

"We are just a few steps from safety. Tonight will tell the story."

Just a few steps from safety, but all the plans are made.

It will be a bloody night.

It already has been. Jimmy Dansky and Jack Wade dead in a fiery pas de deux.

And the sister.

There can be no mistakes this time, which is why he's ordered Lev to do it. Lev will make no mistakes.

All other problems will disappear.

And I am a shifting cloud in a twilight sky.

Letty's in no mood for sunsets. She feels like hammered shit.

Which is about right, she thinks, considering.

A deputy drives her home. Another drives her car for her.

"Want me to stay?" he asks.

"I'm fine."

"The boss said-"

"I know what the boss said." Letty laughs. "I'm fine."

She has an ice pack and a bottle of Vicodin and some hopes that Jack will show up tonight to pamper her a little.

Fetch me a drink, fluff my pillow, make sure I get a good night's sleep.

Because first thing in the morning, I'm taking my broken wing to Mother Russia's house and questioning Nicky about what two missing kids were doing at his crib the night before they disappeared.

Boss told me to lay off Pam's case and work the missing kids.

Follow it where it leads.

Well, guess what?

It leads to Nicky.

And where the hell is Jack?

You'd think he'd befalling all over himself to do the concerned male number.

She calls him at the office.

Gone.

Calls him at home, gets his tape, leaves a message.

She knows where he is.

He's out working the arson case.

Lifer claims dog on the scent.

Job or no job, Jack will never give up.

It's just one of the things she loves about him.

She loves him and she's worried about him and she says a little prayer that he's okay.

Then she takes two Vikes, gets into bed, and turns out the light.

Natalie tarns on the bedside lamp.

"Go to sleep," she says to Michael.

"I can't."

He's crying again.

"Why not?" Natalie asks.

"Ghosts."

"They're not ghosts, they're shadows."

But they are scary, Natalie admits. The branches of the big eucalyptus tree outside the window are blowing in the wind, making ghostlike arms and heads on the bedroom wall.

"I'm scared," Michael says.

"Of what?"

"Fire," Michael says. "Like burned up Mommy."

"This house won't catch on fire."

"How do you know?"

I don't know, Natalie thinks. She's scared, too.

She has bad dreams.

Where there's fire everywhere.

And Mommy's asleep and won't wake up.

"There won't be a fire," she says, "because I am the princess and that's my command."

"Who can I be?" Michael asks.

"The princess's little brother."

Michael whines, "Can't I be something else, too?"

"Like a wizard?"

"What's that?"

"Like a magician," Natalie says. "Only better."

"Can I make things disappear?"

"Yes."

"Like ghosts?"

"Yes," Natalie says. "Now go to sleep."

"Leave the light on."

She leaves the light on.

And lies awake and watches the shadows move.

Jack sits in the darkness.

All but invisible against the bluff, he's waiting for there to be just enough light for him to see without being seen.

So he sits down and just watches the ocean.

Like he used to do as a kid.

Just sits at Dana Strand and does nothing.

The waves are silver under the full moon.

They fall on the beach with a sound like shhhhhhhh.

A Pacific lullaby.

Jack waits for the sun to come up.

Letty wakes up with a start.

A sound outside.

Footsteps on the deck.

She picks up her weapon from the side table by the bed and holds it in her good hand as she eases along the wall to the door.

Settle down, girl, she tells herself. Her heart's racing and her hand's trembling.

She gets to the door and looks out through the glass panes.