T Parker - L. A. Outlaws

I look inside at Jordan’s face flickering in the TV light and I see the potential cost of doing business with this man.

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” he says. “And I have a very interesting proposal for you. Name the time and place. No Angel and no Rorke. Just us. I have a way for you to achieve everything you desire. Bring the diamonds and I’ll give you your price. It will get us off on the right footing. Forty-five grand is nothing compared to what fortune will come later.”

“The L.A. River,” I say. “Midnight tomorrow. First Street Viaduct, down at the water.”

“It’s September. There is no water.”

“There’s always a little. Stand out in the open where I can see you.”

The night is starless and a half moon resting on its back dangles light over the river. I trot across the railroad tracks and the gravel crunches under my feet. The power lines above me buzz as I stop beneath concrete stanchions acrawl with graffiti vibrating green and red and yellow and blue even in the darkness. I stand and watch. A man waits at the bottom of the channel, down-river. I scan the banks of the channel and the walls of the bridge and the deep-cut shadows beneath the caissons, but I see no one else. I sidestep down the gently angled side of the viaduct.

At first it looks empty. But as I jump from the steep side to the flat bottom of the channel I see a faint gray ribbon winding toward the ocean. It’s no more than a stream and almost invisible as it reflects the featureless sky above.

The man is wearing a Dodgers warm-up jacket. His hands are in the pockets. He studies me as I approach. He has the big torso and short legs of Wyte. I’ve got my Colt Gold Cup.45 in my right hand, out where he can see it. My left hand is empty and down at my side, and Cañonita is in the left pocket of my coat.

“Suzanne.”

“Guy.”

“That’s a big gun.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I brought high hopes to this meeting. I’m unarmed.”

“Take your hands out slowly.”

“Of course. I like your new haircut.”

“Thank you.”

Wyte slips his hands out, turns his palms toward me, lowers them. “This is going to be a challenge, trying to make a legitimate business proposition at gunpoint.”

I lower the.45. “Why’s that?”

“It suggests a lack of trust. But that will change. A year from now we’ll be sitting across from each other at the Peninsula, say, or the Edison, sipping single malts and toasting our many successes. I believe in that future. Tonight we’re going to begin something unique, enduring and shamelessly profitable. Do you have a vision of your life at forty years old?”

“By then I want a big solid house, piles of money in the bank, acreage, my boys and a drawbridge.”

“Crocodiles in the moat?”

“Very large ones.”

“You can have them, and more. Suzanne, I can sell everything you can acquire. Everything. I’ve never once paid anyone over thirty-five percent of what I earn but I’ll make you an equal partner-fifty percent each. You’ve shown determination and courage. There’s nothing I respect more than respect.”

Wyte studies me. “I’m getting top, top dollar for all things American. Even our enemies love our cars and trucks and light planes and boats. They love our guns and ammo and our copper wire and our sheet metal and our cigarettes and porn. I’ve got arrangements within the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles that afford me virtually unlimited use of containers-unopened and unin spected except for random radiation scans. Which is fine because we have no intention of exporting nuclear devices unless, of course, you think you can steal one.”

Wyte is smiling. It’s a dry, big-toothed smile but even at night I can see the twinkle in his eyes.

“Suzanne, listen. Because of my connections I know where all this product is. I know who has it and how they protect it. I have security information on harbors, ports, marinas, railway and bus stations, airports and hundreds of Los Angeles County institutions. Hundreds. Consider: when a beautiful new shipment of Mercedes-Benz automobiles comes in by rail this Friday, I know when the yard security will be lax and where the fence can be breached. Or, as we’ve seen, when an unfortunate diamond broker tries to pay off his gambling debts in stones, I know when and where it’s going to happen. You might not ever like me, but you’ll love my information.”

He stops and lifts his nose to the breeze.

“How can you know all that?”

“It’s what I do. I work hard at it.”

“The merchant of menace.”

Wyte sighs and lifts his chin but I can’t tell if he’s sniffing the breeze again or showing me disappointment.

“Why me?” I ask.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He looks up, maybe at the power lines throbbing overhead, maybe at the recumbent moon. When he looks back at me there’s a different glimmer in his eyes, something wild.

“Because you are youth. You are health and strength. You can do things I can only dream of. You can do things you haven’t dreamed of, yet. Suzanne, listen. You have to let go of Allison, quit the fast-food stickups and the publicity. The risk is much too high for the reward. Find a new way to taste your own adrenaline. Don’t contribute to charities-create one of your own, a tax-free shrine to comfort the afflicted and coddle your soul. You must steal more cars. You must also steal motorcycles and personal watercraft. You must graduate to higher-cost items, such as light airplanes and motor yachts. These require more planning and less luck. Let Allison go into history beside her great-great-great whatever he was. Secure her legend by allowing her to vanish. If Allison is never heard from again, she’ll be talked and written about for decades. Maybe longer. The cover of People magazine-that’s a triumph-what more can Allison want? You must continue to be an award-winning schoolteacher and a terrific mom. They’ll want you to go on television to tell the story of your relationship with the outlaw Allison, the killing of Lupercio, your wrongful arrest. This is the real mask that hides you. Let them worship the silent Allison Murrieta. The most powerful stories are told in whispers.”

I hear what I think is a grocery cart rattling down the channel behind me. Wyte looks past me but I can’t tell if he’s curious or expectant. I aim the Colt at his chest, step back and turn my head. The cart glistens dully toward me, more sound than sight. The wheels clatter on the concrete and the loosely jointed steel shivers and clanks.

Wyte’s chest reappears atop my gun sight. “I’ll put my hands up if you’d like.”

This is exactly what he’d do if he had a handgun holstered under his coat and behind his neck.

“Don’t move.”

He watches the cart.

I turn again for a look at the pusher: a man, hooded in a dark sweatshirt, baggy pants. He’s a hundred feet away. The cart is filled with what looks like grocery bags. It veers left then right as if it has its own mind, and I figure the guy is drunk or acting that way. I look back at Wyte. Hands still up, good boy. I slide my left hand into my jacket pocket.

With the Colt still aimed at Wyte I step back from Cart Man’s path so I can see both of them with a minimal turn of head.

“He’s a bum,” says Wyte.

When Cart Man is fifty feet away I can see he’s a black guy. Maybe Rorke. The cart veers and shakes and rattles.

“Don’t move,” I say to Wyte.

“Move where?” he asks.

Cart Man at thirty feet is still lost inside his hood. The cart makes a racket. At twenty feet it veers right. Cart Man appears to be fighting a bad wheel but he looks at me.