Don Winslow - The Power of the Dog

Three hundred twenty pounds of Big Peaches on wheels? Callan thinks. Talk about your accidents waiting to happen…

“Yeah,” O-Bop says, “we took the wheels off a Mack truck, put them on the blades for him.”

“Fuck you, Brillo Pad,” Peaches said. “I blade pretty good.”

“People get the fuck out of his way, I’ll tell you that,” O-Bop says.

“You ought to get some exercise other than lifting your fucking elbow,” Peaches says to O-Bop. “Yo, Lost Weekend, eat your goddamn grapefruit.”

“What do you, peel it first?” Callan asks.

“Honest to God, fucking idiots. Gimme the thing.”

Peaches gets a knife, cuts the grapefruit in half, then carefully slices it into sections and puts it back in Callan’s bowl. “Now you eat it with your spoon, fucking barbarian. You know the word 'barbarian’ came from the Romans? It meant 'redheaded.’ They was talking about you people. I saw that on the-what do you call it?-the History Channel, last night. I love that shit.”

The doorbell rings and Peaches gets up and goes to answer it.

O-Bop grins at Callan. “Peaches in that bathrobe, he looks like some old mamma mia, don’t he? He’s even getting tits. All he needs is them fuzzy pink slippers with the little pom-poms on 'em. Honest to God, you should see him on those Rollerblades. People like run out of the way. It’s like some Japanese horror movie. Wopzilla.”

They hear Peaches say, “Come in the kitchen, see what the cat dragged in.”

Couple of seconds later, Callan’s looking up at Little Peaches, who gives him a big hug.

“They told me about this,” Little Peaches says, “but I didn’t believe it until I saw it. Where have you been?”

“Mexico mostly.”

“They don’t got phones in Mexico?” Little Peaches asks. “You can’t call people, let them know you’re alive?”

“Where was I supposed to call you?” Callan asks. “You’re in the Witness Fucking Protection Program. If I could find you, so could other people.”

“All the other people are in Marion,” Peaches said.

No shit, Callan thinks. You put them there. Old-school Big Peaches turned into the most spectacular songbird since Valachi. Put Johnny Boy in prison for life and then some. Not that life is going to be long-word is, Johnny Boy has throat cancer.

It’s good, though, that Peaches flipped, because Callan don’t have to worry about him calling Sal Scachi, who can’t be happy that Callan has gone off the reservation. Callan knows too much about Scachi’s work-all that Red Mist shit-to be out there in the wind, so it’s a good thing that him and Peaches are disconnected.

Little Peaches turns to his brother. “Are you feeding this guy?”

“Yes, I’m feeding him.”

“Not this grapefruit shit,” Little Peaches says. “Jesus Christ, get him some sausiche, a little prosciutto, some raviolis. If you can find any. Callan, they got a Little Italy in this town, you couldn’t get a cannoli with a machine gun. Italian restaurants here they serve sun-dried tomatoes. What is that? A couple years out here I am a sun-dried tomato. It’s always eighty-three and sunny here, even at night. How do they do that, huh? Is anyone gonna get me some coffee, or do I have to order it like I’m in a fucking restaurant?”

“Here’s your fucking coffee,” Peaches says.

“Thank you.” Little Peaches sets a box on the table and sits down. “Here, I brought doughnuts.”

“Doughnuts?” Peaches says. “Why are you always sabotaging me?”

“Hey, Richard Simmons, don’t fucking eat them if you don’t want them. Nobody’s putting a gun to your head.”

“You fucking asshole.”

“Because I don’t come to my brother’s house empty-handed,” Little Peaches says to Callan. “Good manners make me a asshole.”

“A fucking asshole,” Peaches says as he grabs a doughnut.

“Callan, eat a doughnut,” Little Peaches says. “Eat five. Every one you eat is one my brother doesn’t, I don’t have to listen to him whine about his figure. You’re fat, Jimmy. You’re a fat, greasy guinea. Get over it.”

They go out on the patio because Peaches thinks Callan should get some sun. Actually, Peaches thinks that Peaches should get some sun, but he doesn’t want to seem selfish. It’s Peaches’ opinion that there’s no reason to live in San Diego if you’re not going to go sit in the sun every chance you get.

So he leans back in the chaise, opens up his robe and starts to slather his body with Bain de Soleil.

“You don’t want to fuck with skin cancer,” he says.

Mickey sure doesn’t. Now he puts on his Yankees cap and sits under the patio umbrella.

Peaches opens a chilled can of peaches and scoops a few into his mouth. Callan watches a drop of the juice plop on his fat chest, then merge with the sweat and suntan lotion and run down his belly.

“Anyway, it’s good you showed up,” Peaches says.

“Why’s that?”

“How would you like,” Peaches says, “to do a crime where the victims can’t go to the cops?”

“Sounds okay.”

“Sounds 'okay'?” Peaches asks. “Sounds like heaven to me.”

He lays it out for Callan.

Drugs go north-Mexico to the States.

Money goes south-the States to Mexico.

“They just put the bones-six, sometimes seven figures-into cars and drive it across the border, into Mexico,” Peaches says.

“Or not,” Little Peaches adds.

They’ve done three of these jobs already, and now they got word that a narco safe house in Anaheim is bursting with cash and has to make the trip south. They got the address, they got names, they got the make of the car and the license plate. They even got an idea about when the couriers are going to make the run.

“Where are you getting the info?” Callan asks.

“A guy,” Peaches answers.

Callan figured it was a guy.

“You don’t need to know,” Peaches says. “He takes thirty points.”

“It’s like being back in the dope business, except better,” O-Bop says. “We get the profits but we never have to touch the stuff.”

“It’s just basic, honest crime,” Peaches says. “Stick 'em up, give me the money.”

“The way the Good Lord meant it to be,” Mickey says.

“So, Callan,” Little Peaches says. “You in?”

“I dunno,” Callan answers. “Whose money are we taking?”

“The Barreras’,” Peaches answers with this sly, questioning look in his eye, asking, Is that a problem?

I don’t know, Callan thinks. Is it?

The Barreras are as dangerous as sharks, not people you fuck with thoughtlessly. That’s one thing. Also, they’re “friends of ours”-according to Sal Scachi anyway-so that’s another thing.

But they murdered that priest, straight up. That was a hit, not an accident. A stone-pro killer like Fabian “El Motherfucking Tiburon” don’t shoot nobody at point-blank range on accident. It just don’t happen.

Callan don’t know why they killed the priest, he just knows that they did.

And they made me part of it, he thinks.

So there’s gotta be payback for that.

“Yeah,” Callan says. “I’m in.”

The West Side gang is back together again.

O-Bop watches the car pull out of the driveway.

It’s three in the morning and he’s tucked down in his own rig, half a block away. He has an important job to do: Follow the courier car without getting spotted and confirm that it goes onto the 5. He punches a number into his cell phone and says, “It’s on.”

“How many guys?”

“Three. Two in front, one in back.”

He hangs up, waits a few seconds, then eases out.

As per plan, Little Peaches calls Peaches, who calls Callan, who calls Mickey. They start the chronometers on their watches and wait for the next call. Mickey has it timed, of course, the average drive time from the driveway to the on-ramp of the 5-six-point-five minutes. So they know within a minute or so when they should get the next call.