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  “I’m glad to meet you too,” Cherise said. “My, oh, my,” she said with a wry smile. “We know how to pick ’em, don’t we?” They talked about Isaiah and Dodson, their stubbornness, idiosyncrasies and blind spots. They laughed a lot.

  “I heard how you met TK,” Cherise said. “He’s a sweetheart, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he is,” Grace said. “Did you know he has a thing about your mom?”

  Cherise reared her head back. “My mom? Lord have mercy. He’d have a better chance at romancing a gladiator or the Great Wall of China.”

  “No offense,” Grace said. “But I’m a little puzzled myself.”

  “Mama has a low opinion of men generally,” Cherise said. “My father, Josiah, was a womanizer and scoundrel. I told her, everybody told her, but she ignored us. When he ran off to North Carolina with a barmaid she finally had to accept it.” Cherise looked at her mother, scolding someone about something. “It left a mark,” she added. “What’s TK going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said. “There’s no place for their paths to cross except church.” Cherise thought a moment.

  “What?” Grace said.

  “Mama belongs to a book club.”

  Isaiah was wrung out from the car chase but brightened the moment he saw Grace. She was in his living room, waiting for him—him, and it was thrilling. She told him about TK and Gloria as they shopped at Vons.

  “Gloria?” he said.

  “I know.”

  They went to McClarin Park and she watched him play basketball. They stopped by the Coffee Cup and Isaiah introduced Grace to Verna, who always greeted Isaiah with a warm “There’s my hero!” He also introduced Grace to Verna’s croissants. “She told me her recipe,” Isaiah said. “Snowflakes and a tub of butter.”

  They made brief but fire-breathing love, napped awhile, and took Ruffin for a walk. They went to the movies but neither really watched, content to sit in the dark, eating popcorn and holding hands with buttery fingers. They sat side by side on the back stoop, drinking Heineken, Ruffin lying under the lemon tree snapping at flies, the most aggressive thing he did.

  Isaiah told Grace what had happened when he left Jasper’s.

  “Two killers chased you?” she said.

  He shrugged. “They didn’t catch me.”

  “That’s not the point. You were in serious danger.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” he said. He felt like a kid being called a bad name. “They would not have caught me.”

  “This time,” Grace said, truly alarmed. “My God, Isaiah. How can you treat this like it’s routine?”

  “Because it is,” he said sharply. “I was in danger when I helped you with Walczak and you didn’t complain then.” He instantly regretted his words and realized with alarm that he knew how to hurt her. “That was a terrible thing to say,” he said. “You’re worried about me, that’s all. I’m sorry. Really. I apologize.”

  Her chest rose, she thought a moment and exhaled. “No, you were right. It’s what you do. I know that and I shouldn’t have said what I said.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and they stayed like that awhile.

  She squeezed his arm. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  Grace and her dad loved Steve McQueen movies, especially Bullitt. The chase through the streets of San Francisco in the ’68 Mustang GT was their favorite scene of all time. Three versions of the car were used in the movie; one was wrecked and sold for parts. Her dad had found it in a junkyard but was killed before he could work on it. After his death, she’d restored it in his memory. When she’d gone to New Mexico to be with her mother, she left the car with Isaiah. He’d prepped it for long-term storage—changing the oil, filling it with premium gas, installing a battery maintainer, removing the spark plugs, overinflating the tires, and using cedar balls to keep out the mice. The car was Day One fresh.

  They drove through Orange County, past Lake Elsinore to Temecula and along a windy, isolated road that braided its way up Palomar Mountain and to the observatory. Grace drove like a normal person instead of her usual Richard Petty with a death wish. The sun was saying good night to the world and the view from the observatory was spectacular. They sat on the parapet, chatting, a new phenomenon to Isaiah. Did Grace know how to make instant coffee yet? Did Isaiah still wear the blue shirt every time he wanted to look nice? They talked about Isaiah getting health insurance because he was a moron if he didn’t. Her birthday was June sixth, a Gemini. His was November 3rd, a Sagittarius.

  “Geminis gravitate to Sagittarians because we’re sexually very compatible,” she said.

  “I don’t need the Zodiac to tell me that,” Isaiah said. “Do you really believe in that stuff?”

  “No, but Mom’s into it. I think it comforts her, thinking she can understand her life by tracking the stars. In a way, I envy her.”

  “Me too.”

  Lately, Grace had been looking for a place to live with enough space and light to paint. So far, she’d struck out. “Everything’s expensive,” she said, “and the dog doesn’t help.”

  “Live with me,” Isaiah said, adding quickly, “I mean, if you want.” They were smiling at each other, playful but not, his heart drum-rolling in his chest.

  “Big step,” she said. “Aren’t you worried? If you add up all the time we’ve spent together, what’s it come to? A week?”

  “More like ten days. Plenty of time.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “I’m not getting any younger,” he replied. “Are you?” Now they were grinning.

  “Can I think about it?” she said.

  “Sure,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. “Take your time.”

  Isaiah was happy, a circumstance as exhilarating as it was unusual. How could someone reappearing in your life make you do dance steps when you took out the trash and sing “My Girl” while you were folding your laundry and make you feel so corny you wanted to bang your head on the refrigerator? He had invited Grace to live with him. Just like that. No hesitation. No thinking about it. He just did it. He’d never done anything that emotionally declarative in his entire life. She’d said she still had lots of problems. He understood that. Changes on the inside take a while to catch up with changing your ways. He was like that too. Maybe they could help each other and speed things along. Team up. Collaborate. Or maybe they’d be like eagles mating in the sky and get their claws tangled up and plummet screaming into the earth because neither of them was a therapist.

  A jolt of guilt rocked him when he thought about Stella. She wasn’t overflowing with problems. She was well adjusted, stable, optimistic. No visible wounds on her psyche. Nevertheless, Isaiah wanted Grace. With her hard shell and her wary outlook and a past that would always be there. Oh, she could loosen its bite but it would never let her go. But this wasn’t a reasoned choice, he thought. It was like preferring jazz over classical or skiing over rollerblading or playing wide receiver instead of inside linebacker. There was probably a complicated psychological explanation but so what? Did having an explanation for why you felt something change the way you feel? He wanted Grace and that was all there was to it. But why did she want him? he wondered. Was it just that she recognized another flawed soul or were there things about him that were truly lovable? He was good at his job. He wasn’t ugly.

  “Some list,” he said. Then he got on Amazon and ordered a king-size bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1488

  Angus paced around the house, restless and anxious. Too much was happening. Too much to worry about. Christiana, Isaiah, Dwight, Lok, Sidero and the nimrod Starks. And then there was his swan song. The Last Big Deal. Farewell, motherfuckers. I’m riding off into the sunset still in the saddle with a shitload of money on the mule train behind me. He’d made it through his seventy-six years without getting shot, crippled or locked up in Corcoran with the people he’d sold guns to. It was a goddamn miracle. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t lived through it.

  After Angus
left Welch and the coal mines, he rode the rails. He’d heard the life was adventurous; a form of freedom but that turned out to be bullshit. The constant racket from the rails was stupefying and how much fucking scenery could a person appreciate? There was no call of the road, only the need to move. If your life wasn’t going anywhere at least you could. Only other hobos could give you a hobo name and Angus was dubbed “Troll,” which he didn’t appreciate. He decided to go to California. He didn’t need a reason.

  Angus arrived at the 8th Street train yard in LA. The closest accommodation was on Skid Row; south of 3rd, west of Alameda and north of 7th. There was no south side; poverty, crime and shitty housing extending into South Central, Compton and beyond.

  He took up residence on Main Street, the neighborhood’s unofficial 5th Avenue. Piles of trash and garbage were heaped on the sidewalks nearly black with grime, the smell an odious mix of alcohol, shit, piss, rotting food and decades of accumulated BO. The homeless camped randomly. Angus’s abode was in an alley; a tent-like affair made from orange crates and garbage bags only recently emptied of their garbage. His neighbors were emaciated, obscenely dirty, covered with open sores, their flea-infested dogs as starved as their masters.

  For a time, Angus worked as a fry cook at Johnny’s Shrimp Boat, a takeout place slightly larger than a kiosk and set in a parking lot full of drunks. The owner, Shig, would scream out orders to him from three feet away. “SIX AND RICE, CHILI ON!” One night, Angus saw Shig’s Ruger .357 Magnum on a shelf beneath the register. He stole it and never went back.

  Angus sold the gun to the bartender at King Eddy’s, bought four Saturday night specials, sold three of them and kept one for himself. He made a good profit, enough to live on for a while. He wanted to sell more guns. He found a Yellow Pages that wasn’t ripped to shit and made a list of local gun stores and noted their locations. He didn’t want anything close to the Row. He chose Wyatt’s Guns and Gunsmith in Burbank, the city nothing like it is now. There was a growing residential area but a lot of it was dreary and lethargic with weedy vacant lots between the low-rise commercial buildings. Angus rode the bus with his gun tucked into the back of his pants. He was so scared he almost turned back, but the thought of returning to the stink and his wretched neighbors made him eager and determined.

  Wyatt’s store had a folding security gate on the front and back, heavy doors, spotlights that came on at night and a burglar alarm. Surveillance cameras were nonexistent at the time. The most intimidating security feature was a large black German shepherd that stayed in the store overnight. Angus went home, rented a storage locker and wondered if he had the nuts to carry out his plan. Another night in the Villa de Garbage Bags convinced him. If he didn’t do something soon, he’d die there.

  Eleven thirty in the morning. People were already at work and it was too early for lunch. The street was nearly deserted. Angus walked into Wyatt’s. The dog was lying near a rack of shotguns and barely looked up.

  “Morning,” Wyatt said. “How can I help you?” Angus froze a moment, the buzz of adrenaline in his ears, his eyes wide, forehead dotted with sweat. Wyatt must have recognized the look because he reached under the counter. Angus shot him and then the dog.

  He stood there for maybe a minute, breathing in the gun smoke and tamping down his panic, the quiet as bad as any sound he’d ever heard. He listened, waiting for yelling and pounding footsteps and sirens. Nothing. He looked at Wyatt and the dog. They were dead—fucking dead, their blood mingling on the linoleum floor, indistinguishable from each other.

  With shaking hands and a pounding pulse, he loaded Wyatt’s van with rifles and handguns until the suspension sagged. He drove back to LA, numb and glad of it. He put the guns in the storage locker and parked the van where it was sure to be stolen. He dismantled his own gun, wiped down the parts and scattered them in different storm drains. The only thing he felt bad about was the dog. The next day he found a newspaper someone had left on a bus bench. A big article on page 4.

  GUN STORE OWNER MURDERED

  Police Say Large Cache of Weapons Stolen.

  King Eddy’s bar, on the corner of 5th and Los Angeles Street, had been there since Prohibition. It was the quintessential dive: dim and gloomy, regulars hovering over their drinks at the long oak bar, glistening bottles of booze on inviting, ascending shelves, a place you looked into your drink so you wouldn’t see yourself in the mirror. Eddy’s had seen more drunken brawls, stabbings, shootings, vomiting, whispered deal making and ramblings of the insane than all the other bars in the area combined.

  Angus sold the guns to carjackers, drug addicts, pimps, hired thugs and especially gangbangers. It was 1987, the crack epidemic had swept through the hood like polio, infecting the poor, the voiceless and people of color. The Crips and Bloods were at war and the demand for guns was high.

  When the supply of guns from Wyatt’s ran out, Angus hired straw buyers to buy guns in Arizona and Texas. That was how he met Dwight. A scruffy little mutt with an explosive temper, a predilection for violence and a conscience that was MIA. He’d be your best friend while he stole your money and fucked your sister just before he gave you up to the cops. He was mean too. Once he turned off the road to hit a deer and kicked a bag lady because she asked him for a quarter. Dwight favored a stiletto over a gun. “More close-up and personal,” he explained. He was a good man to have around. Nobody wanted to fuck with a guy whose street name was Stab You in a Heartbeat.

  Angus was making money but even with Dwight’s help it was exhausting. The problem was selling guns one at a time. A hundred guns was a hundred transactions and a hundred chances to get busted. He couldn’t keep it up and he knew it. His solution came in the form of Tyler Barnes, a former Marine officer back from Iraq with an M16 to sell. Unlike Dwight, Tyler was a nice guy. Even-tempered, unassuming and polite. Angus liked him right off.

  The Vietnam War had ended decades ago, leaving thousands and thousands of weapons stored in so many places the military couldn’t keep track. And not just assault rifles and pistols, but grenades, land mines, plastic explosives, machine guns and rocket launchers. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan added more sophisticated weapons to an already massive arsenal. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth were stolen but it hadn’t made a dent. There was a group of navy employees who lifted parts for Phoenix missiles and F-14 fighter jets from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk and tried to sell them to Iran.

  Surplus weapons was a huge problem for the military. You can’t sell them off, you couldn’t dump them, you could only destroy them. In response, the military developed the “Defense Demilitarization Procedural Guidance” manual. The manual explained how to destroy a weapon’s most vital components with the fewest number of cuts, drill holes and disassembly. One observer called it “haiku with a blowtorch.” But that kind of precision takes time and the backlog of weapons was enormous. The arsenals and military bases were a gunrunner’s candy store.

  Military ordnance was a little high-end for the locals but not for the cartels. Sinaloa, Golfo, Juarez, Tijuana, Los Beltrán-Levya—they were always at war and they’d pay outrageous prices for anything that killed, killed faster, pierced armor, set shit on fire or blew shit up. Angus hired Tyler to get the supply chain organized. The weapons came from vetted military bases. Fort Bragg was especially forthcoming. Angus and Tyler thrived, accumulating wealth and property and toys until there was nothing left to buy. Dwight wasn’t happy about Tyler but Angus didn’t give a shit. They had moved into a new era. Dwight had to keep up or hit the fucking road.

  Angus stopped pacing, went into the kitchen and fed the dog a concoction he made himself. Organic chicken, carrots and broccoli, boiled and chopped up in the food processor. The doctor told him that if he ate as well as his dog he’d live to be a hundred. Angus missed Tyler. Tyler was a man’s man, intelligent, brave and honest. Angus considered him his true family. Losing him had weakened Angus’s will and made his mortality palpable and more imminent. He realized he’d seen himself and
Tyler as one and the same; their energy, loyalty and love—yes, love—made him feel invincible. Without Tyler, Angus was a tired, limbless old man who was in a business he could do without and that could do without him.

  Angus never believed he would retire. He thought he’d remain Top Gun until his heart exploded from all the Reuben sandwiches or someone blew his head off and took the title. Until Tyler’s death, the Last Big Deal was just another deal, in the making for months. With him gone, it was a last hurrah for a pointless life, a gold watch for a retiring pencil pusher, a souvenir from a bankrupt county fair. Tyler’s death had sucked the meaning out of everything. Angus knew that. It was only vanity and the fear of humiliation that kept him going.

  When the Deal was over, Angus could devote his time to Christiana, make her life easier and take some of the load off Gia. It all depended on Isaiah. If he got Christiana off, Angus would have a life with purpose. Take that away and there would be nothing left of him but savagery and revenge.

  Hugo was hanging at Sidero’s place, sprawled on the couch, smoking some tree. Sidero and Jenn were in the bedroom, arguing about something. They were always arguing. Hugo wondered why they stayed together. Jenn was hot but fucking her didn’t make up for all the shit she heaped on Sidero. Hugo’s own marriage worked in its own way. His wife did the wifely shit and the boy did his bit but lately he’d been trouble. Rebellious. Talking back. Sneaking out. Not towing the party line. You could expect that from a teenager, Hugo thought. He’d been the same way at that age. Still, you had to set limits, hard and fast ones and enforce them with your fists if you have to. There was nothing worse than a teenager with his own ideas.

  Hugo took another hit off the joint, held it in, and breathed out the smoke. It was potent stuff but not enough to drown out Jenn. When she was pissed, her voice was like shifting gears with a burned-out clutch. It vibrated the air and rattled your eardrums. Jesus, he wished she’d shut up. He didn’t know how Sidero could stand it. Hugo didn’t hit women unless they deserved it and he would have punched Jenn’s lights out a long time ago. Do it once and do it good and you never have to do it again. The world was all about respect.