Faye Kellerman - Street Dreams

“Contractors drive Porsches?”

“The ones who work in Brentwood certainly do.”

“I thought they drove trucks.”

“Both.”

“I’m in the wrong business.”

“Didn’t Mom try to tell you that a long time ago?”

Decker flashed me a sour look.

“Contractors and real estate agents: They drive Porsches, Mercedes, Beemers, Jags… It’s all part of the image. Can we talk about my idea now?”

“Coming in, I didn’t see any work crews.”

“We didn’t look for any crews. Besides, it’s later now. Let’s go hit the lumberyards or the paint stores and see if we can’t get something going.”

My father tapped his toe, unwilling to comment.

“It’s a good idea, Decker,” I told him. “Much better than anything you have. You know, Daddy, I’m the one who was shot at and was yanked off active duty. Plus, I haven’t slept in over twenty hours. If you don’t start pulling your weight, I’m going home.”

My father slipped his hands into his pockets. “Point well taken.”

“Thank you. So do we go or what?”

Decker took out his keys. “I guess we go.”

Using the ruse that Pepe Renaldes owed my father, the boss man, a considerable sum of money-something that the men we talked to found very easy to believe-we came away with a half-dozen addresses in the right neighborhood. All it took was two hours of our time and two hundred bucks in twenties. Neither one of us had that much play cash, so Dad withdrew money from his ATM. I asked him if he really thought it was worth the effort, and he retorted by asking me exactly how much did I think my life was worth? He was overstating the case, but after his lecture on threat, I felt it best not to challenge.

The first address didn’t exist and the second one was a Kinko’s. The third was one of those squashed stucco houses. That looked promising, although the occupants’ last name was Martez. Inside were a mother and her two sullen teenage daughters, who were polishing their toenails, mixing the smell of acetone with the odor of bacon grease. She insisted that there was no Pepe Renaldes in residence, but since she was less than convincing, Decker searched the house. She let him do it because Decker was big, and Decker was authoritative, and Decker must have said something to her in Spanish that scared the bejesus out of her.

By the time we hit the fourth address-a dingbat apartment building-it was almost ten and the hopes of finding Pepe Renaldes in bed were fading fast. It was a two-story building of brown stucco, fronted by a patch of straggly lawn that had a couple of full-size palm trees dropping premature palm nuts. The little black balls littered the sidewalk and poked into the soles of my shoes. The place had no lobby, but it did have a directory-twelve units with number four looking very promising because the occupants were listed as R and nothing else. This little bit of Heaven was toward the back and secured by iron grilles on the front door and windows. As we approached the unit, I could hear ferocious barking in the midrange level coming from inside. I had reservations about dropping in, but Dad had other ideas.

“Okay,” he whispered. “You stay out of sight.”

“It’s got bars and a dog, Dad. How do you propose we get in?”

“You leave that to me.”

“You can’t push in the door. And even if you did, there’s a dog-”

“Just stay back and let me handle this.”

“Do you have another gun?”

My father smiled at me. “Aw… you care.” His face turned grave. “Stand over there, all right?”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Very much so.” He knocked on the door.

The dog went wild. I could picture my father charging in and the dog responding by going for his throat. I was naked without my gun and didn’t like that feeling at all.

We waited… thirty seconds… a minute.

Decker knocked again. He shouted something in Spanish.

The dog had worked itself up into a frenzy. There was yelling from above. Dad yelled back at him.

“You’re going to cause a riot,” I told my father.

“Nah, he’s just screaming for someone to shut the dog up.”

“Obviously, no one’s home.”

“Or sleeping. If he was out last night, Cin, he might be sleeping late.” Dad knocked again.

The dog kept up its vocal pyrotechnics.

Dad pounded this time.

“Let it ride-”

“You want to take control of your destiny or leave it to assholes?”

I exhaled. Dad gave the door another thrashing. “Last time,” he announced.

The dog was barking itself hoarse.

Ten seconds… twenty.

The dog quieted-a bark or two but without real feeling behind it. To my utter shock, I heard movement behind the door. My father pushed me out of the way. “ Yo, Pepe, ” he said. “ Soy Miguel. ”

I couldn’t understand the rest of his speech. I caught words but nothing else. I thought about Dad with his Spanish and Koby speaking three languages. I could barely cope with my native one.

Muffled Spanish came from behind the door.

Dad responded, “ Un hombre blanco - alto con pelo rojo. El la busca, hombre. El dice que usted le debe dinero. Yo no le dije nada pero el dice que tiene una pistola, amigo. Si me da cincuenta dolares y una cerveza, pienso que yo puedo hacerlo esperar.”

Silence.

I whispered, “What did you say?”

He shut me up with a movement of his hand and put his finger to his lips. A couple of perfunctory yelps from the pooch, then I could hear the clunk of the dead bolt being opened. Dad pushed me against the wall.

The image of a charging pit bull leaping at my father’s face became quite vivid.

“Give me your gun,” I told him.

“What?”

“Don’t argue!” I spat fiercely. “You told me to have convictions-I have them now. Give me your gun now or I’m going to yell police!”

He gave me his gun.

Slowly, the door started to open. Just a crack at first, then it opened a little wider. Immediately, Decker shoved full force with his body and the door flew open.

As expected, the dog sprang upward, but Dad had come prepared. He gave the canine a swift, hard kick in the cranium, sending the midsize pooch across the room and crashing into a table. Pepe was going in one direction, while the dog, a pit bull mix, was shaking itself off, readying itself for round two.

I jumped on Pepe’s back, squeezing my legs around his waist and encircling his throat with my left arm. I jammed the bore of the gun into the nape of his neck. “CALL THE DOG OFF!” I shoved the gun deep against his cervical vertebrae. “CALL IT OFF! CALL IT OFF!”

The pit bull started charging. Dad picked up an end table. I screamed and shot at the intractable beast, grazing its head but not deterring it an iota. Dad threw the end table, knocking it again on the head as Renaldes did a rain dance, trying to shake me off his back.

“CALL IT OFF!” I shot a bullet past his temple. “CALL IT OFF!” Another bullet past the other ear.

“Don’ shoot!”

“OFF NOW OR THIS TIME IT’S YOUR FUCKING HEAD!”

He finally started making overtures to the beast, calling him by his name, Fuego, cooing at him like a parakeet. Although Fuego was still pissed, he was disoriented from being slammed by flying furniture.

I was still holding on to Renaldes. “Put him in a closet!” I demanded.

“Get off-”

I zinged another shot past his ear. “EL PERRO IN THE CLOSET! NOW!”

At last my demand sank in. Pepe bent down, almost falling on his face under the burden of my weight, but somehow he managed to grab Fuego’s collar and lead him into a closet. As soon as the pit bull was secured behind the door, I jumped off, and at the same time, my father grabbed Renaldes by the throat. He pushed him down onto a tattered couch and tightened his grip. Renaldes’s face started turning a very unhealthy red. With his right hand, Decker motioned for his weapon. I gave it to him and he shoved it into Renaldes’s mouth. I do believe Pepe pissed in his pants.