Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

Mystery Man reaches for Evan, and Evan jerks back, but the hand continues past his thighs to the glove box. The lid thuds open. Inside, a gleaming handgun. The man removes it, the barrel jogging loosely toward Evan. He has gone board-stiff in the passenger seat, his hamstrings and calf muscles turned to piano wire. He tells himself to exhale, and a moment later he does.

The man smirks, enjoying this, then reverses the gun in his hand with an expert flip. Offering it to Evan. “Take it.”

Evan does.

“Go inside,” the Mystery Man says. “Aim it at the checkout clerk.”

“Then what?”

“Oh,” he says with knowing amusement. “That’s all you’ll need to do.”

Evan feels the heft of the gun, this neat metal contraption that contains the power of the universe. This is a test—it must be—but for what, he does not know. Is it a test he even wants to pass? If he does, will that make him the golden boy or a calf ripe for slaughter?

For the first time, his nerve deserts him.

“I, um … I can’t. I can’t do this.”

“Okay. Let’s get you back home.” The Mystery Man slots the gearshift into drive, and the tires creep into motion.

Evan pictures his mattress on the floor of the crowded bedroom. Mac and cheese from the pot five or six nights a week. Ramón’s brother, who left Pride House two years ago and now works at the mall, mopping floors and hauling trash. The size of Van Sciver’s clenched fist.

They pull out onto the main road when Evan says, “Hang on.”

The brakes chirp. Evan feels Mystery Man’s eyes on him, and a moment later he gives a little nod.

The man drives him back. Idles again in the same spot. Evan takes two deep breaths, then two more.

“Well?” the man says.

Evan finds his voice. “Can you take the bullets outta the gun?”

Another smirk. The man drops the magazine, pops the round from the chamber, hands back the weapon. Reaching across Evan’s waist, he flings the passenger door open.

Evan gets out. His blood thunders in his head. He holds the gun low at his side. The glass door approaches in a haze. A grating chime announces his entrance. The man behind the counter looks up. Middle Eastern maybe, or Indian, with kind eyes. He looks like someone’s father.

Evan approaches the counter. “Sorry,” he says, and lifts the gun.

The man rears back, knocking packs of Dentyne from the display. His hands go up in front of him, fingers wavering. “Please, please, just take. Just take.”

Before Evan can react, the front door smashes open and two cops barrel at him, guns drawn. “Hands! Hands! On the floor!”

He sees them approach as if in a dream. His gorge presses up through his throat. And then his cheek is smacking the floor, his arms wrenched back so hard he thinks the shoulder sockets might pop. Metal cinches his thin wrists. He’s hauled out, his head lolling weakly, and hurled into the rear of the squad car.

The beige Crown Vic is nowhere in sight.

14Wildly Out of Context

The house matching the address Veronica had palmed off to Evan was a shade of green that was better suited to peppermint frosting. The xeriscaped front yard featured little more than a few dead cacti and some square concrete blocks embedded in a sea of wood-chip mulch. The place was tiny, nestled between other Mid-Century houses, most of them Spanish style, heavy on stucco and adobe-tile roofs. A ladder, a few buckets of paint, and a bundle of detached rain gutters rusted by the side of the house, evidence of a remodel that had run out of steam. A collection of take-out menus had gathered on the doormat, a few weeks’ residue.

After retrieving a backup vehicle from one of his safe houses, Evan had circled the El Sereno block a few times, checking for strategically parted curtains, lookouts in parked cars, or binoculars flashing from neighboring roofs. Once he was convinced that the approach to Duran’s home was clear, Evan had left his silver Nissan Versa four blocks away in a parking garage beneath a strip mall and strolled back. He dressed generically as always—gray long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, and an Angels hat pulled low enough to shadow his face.

A spin through the databases in the Vault had given him some insight into the man Veronica wanted him to find. Andrew Duran was of average build, not unlike Evan, and he’d checked “Some Other Race” on the last census form. From his record he seemed like another hard-luck guy who couldn’t get his act together. Information on his childhood was sparse, but his sealed juvenile records showed the usual small-time busts in his late teens—possession of pot, vandalism, truancy. He’d seemingly cleaned up around the time most young men go to college or to prison, knocking around a number of jobs, the kind that put grease under the nails. Since then he’d collected an ex-wife, Brianna Cruz, and an eleven-year-old daughter named Sofia. A credit report showed a canceled Mastercard and a bank account that had hovered between seventeen and thirty-two dollars for a few months before it was closed. He’d struggled with debt and traffic fines, but the DCSS database showed no issues with his paying child support. He was currently an attendant at a parking lot for impounded vehicles.

“Currently” meaning up until a month ago, when a murder was committed at his workplace and he went missing.

It was the kind of shocking news that—given how Evan had arrived at his doorstep—wasn’t shocking at all.

The impound lot’s security footage had been conveniently knocked out for seven minutes around the time of the attack, which had taken place at 3:09 A.M. In the wake of the killing, the city had begun to shutter the lot after six at night, a precautionary response to stave off potential lawsuits. The Los Angeles Times suggested that the murder might have been an inside job.

Duran was wanted for questioning in connection with the death of Jake Hargreave, but law enforcement had failed to locate him. Evan had perused the reports and the crime-scene photos. Hargreave’s body had wound up sprawled on the asphalt, eyes open in an unnerving stare. As he’d fallen, his wrist had snapped under his weight, the hand swan-necked down as if Hargreave were displaying his fingernails. A bulky guy, air force, lots of gym muscle. A cross pendant had snagged on the collar of his shirt, caught in a nest of thin gold chain. One pant leg was hiked up, revealing the smooth-shaved calf of a triathlete. More blood had leaked from the gash in his neck than seemed possible, darkness spread beneath his body like a blanket.

A BOLO had been issued for Duran through multiple agencies, but nothing had trickled in. Evan had also checked his credit cards, banks, and cell-phone number, but Duran had done a fine job keeping invisible.

Or he was already dead.

The cops had presumably checked his house already, but Evan wanted to nose around himself.

He paused at the end of the walkway now, staring at the path of stones leading to the front door. So many questions.

Why had Jake Hargreave been killed?

Had Andrew Duran killed him?

Or had Duran witnessed the murder and fled Hargreave’s killers?

And the big question resting beneath the others: Who was Andrew Duran to Veronica?

Starting up the front walk, Evan reminded himself that he was just looking into the matter informally. He’d not done anything except fly to Buenos Aires and have a conversation with a long-lost relative. He’d yet to cross any lines that would put him back on anyone’s radar and void his presidential pardon.