T Parker - L. A. Outlaws

Hood had seen the same look on Iraqi people, a look of anger and shame at being mistaken for criminals or killers or sectarian rabble. But it was a look that not only the innocent could produce.

He checked the Lincoln’s registration and wrote down the plates, and the names, dates of birth and address for the Encarnación family of Fontana. Consuelo gave him a phone number.

Hood apologized then gave them directions to their hotel.

He trailed them three cars back, down Century to Sepulveda, then south to the Hacienda. They turned into the busy check-in area, and Hood passed them, then swung a U-turn back toward the Mariposa.

In room 6 he waited out the sunrise with donuts and lukewarm coffee. He wanted badly to do something right. He thought about the mother and twins and if he should drive out to Fontana for a look around. He doubted that Lupercio had shown at Valley Center either, but the plan was for Suzanne to call when it was light.

At six-thirty she called-no Lupercio, she said, and no sleep, not a creature stirring except an owl that floated out of the big oak tree at three-twenty and just about gave her a heart attack then flew back into the tree thirty seconds later with a pale shiny rattlesnake that buzzed until the bird ate its head. The owl was still perched there, eyes closed and the shredded carcass hanging over the oak branch. She wanted the rattle for Jordan but couldn’t figure out how to get it.

“No Lupercio, Hood?”

“No. Just a mother and two daughters on their way to Venezuela.”

“Tell me about that.”

Hood did, as he pulled the curtains almost shut. He returned to the chair, stepping through the snack wrappers and chocolate milk cartons and the spent energy-vitamin packet.

“Now what?” she asked. “We still don’t know which of your bosses is ratting me out.”

“He sensed the trap.”

“But we’re okay if nobody saw us, right? We’ve got our little traitor wondering if we’re as dumb as he thinks we are.”

“Exactly.”

“Who are your suspects, Hood?”

“You don’t know them.”

“What do they look like?”

“Cops.”

She was quiet for a beat.

“When I get a mouse in the pantry, I put the peanut butter on the trap but I don’t set it the first night. I just let him eat. Second night I put on peanut butter and set it. Kills them every time.”

“He’s smarter than a mouse.”

“I’m not going to live like this anymore. If I wait for Lupercio to find me, he will. I have to act.”

“Act how, Suzanne?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You sound like you do.”

She didn’t answer, and Hood listened to the silence then the rumble of another jet lumbering out of the sky toward the runway.

“You must really miss me, Hood.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s light here now and I’m still in the tree house. I’ve got your shotgun leaned up against the wall. The sun is coming up over the hills and colors are starting to form. The pond is dark shiny gray. It looks like the mercury that Jordan spilled out of the thermometer a couple of weeks ago. There are hills the color of lions and no houses on them. If a herd of wildebeest came down from Betty’s right now it would look perfectly natural.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s more than nice.”

Hood pictured her. “I wish I could have met you some better way.”

“You get what you take.”

“It’s the other way around.”

“The other way around is bullshit.”

Hood saw Allison Murrieta from the news the night before, nervously clowning around with the surfers and the 7-Eleven clerk just before her gun discharged. The clerk said he thought it was an accident. One of the surfers said he thought she was showing off. She took seven-hundred-plus dollars. The TV reporter said that in the last two days, five Southland charitable organizations had reported cash donations apparently made by Allison Murrieta, one as high as twelve thousand dollars. A San Diego charity said they got five thousand. The L.A. Police Foundation admitted getting an envelope in the mail with an undisclosed amount of cash and a card from Allison Murrieta.

“How should we have met, Hood?”

“Maybe you would have won a big hapkido tournament and I would have won CIF at tennis, and the Bakersfield Sun would have run our pictures on the same page.”

“What’s better about that?”

“It’s better than you being stalked by a killer.”

“Naw. What if we were back-to-back winners on Millionaire ? And they’d want our pictures together after the show-you and me and Meredith? And after drinks at a very posh bar our natural-born hotness for each other just took over? And we each took a year off work to do nothing but travel and learn the history of the world and have sex in totally cool hotel rooms?”

“That’s a good one, Suzanne. There should be a great car in there, somewhere, for the U.S. portion of our travels.”

“With a million bucks you can buy a lot of great cars.”

“I like the Camaro, but if I had the money I’d get the Cayenne Turbo.”

“I’d get a Saleen Mustang and a Harley fat-boy and still have more money left over than you.”

“You know how to stretch a dollar.”

Suzanne laughed and Hood laughed, too. He was still sitting in his canvas fold-up chair, back from the window, where he could see the flash of cars coming and going from the Mariposa and hear the slamming doors of travelers and the rising noise of traffic out on Aviation.

“You know, Hood, we could actually do all that without winning a game show. We just take a year off, put our money together and go. Make a perfect world.”

Hood thought about that one. He had eleven grand in the bank but eight of it was an IRA.

“What about your boys?”

“They got this thing called mail. And telephones. Ernest is a very good father and stepfather. They all might like me gone for a year. I’m overcontrolling when I’m home too much. I get fussy about the littlest things. I even drive me crazy, but I can’t help it.”

Hood reached down under the chair and retrieved his last donut. He had the surprising thought that running away with Suzanne for a year would be a good way to keep Allison Murrieta from getting shot.

“I could do it.”

“But you won’t. You’re chicken. You’ll stay straight and narrow, try to get your sergeant’s stripes before you’re eighteen. Or however you deputies prove your greatness.”

Hood laughed again. “You don’t know what I am.”

“I can tell a lot about a man just by being sexually assaulted by him.”

“Assaulted?”

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. He heard her yawn. “The owl just spun his head around and he’s looking at me with one eye. It’s yellow.”

“The parking lot of the Mariposa Motel is hopping.”

“There’s a mockingbird down in the coral tree outside my bedroom. They make such pretty sounds.”

“A bus just pulled in, big black cloud.”

“Smells like damp grass and fresh water here.”

“I got floor cleaner and cigarette smoke.”

“If I go to the edge and look straight down, I see where the trunk goes underground and I know there’s a root ball the size of the tree itself under there.”

“If I look down, I see an empty pack of donuts.”

“I had donuts last night, too. We’re so much alike-great minds, and all that.”

“That’s us.”

“This is us,” she said.

They were quiet for a long minute. Hood watched the cars jostling in and out of the lot and listened to the sound of Suzanne Jones’s breath in his ear. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper.

“Charlie, back when I was a teenager I had this policy about people moving me around, making me do what they wanted instead of what I wanted. My policy back then was don’t let it happen. Ever. Don’t give in and don’t turn away. Fight until you bleed if you have to. I based it on Roosevelt’s ‘Speak softly but carry a big stick.’ And that’s still my policy today. I won’t let someone move me around. Not your bosses and not Lupercio and not anybody. You should know that.”