South by Southeast (44 page)

I wasn't the same man who'd raced after Escobar in the stairwell after he shot my father. I felt I'd aged decades in hours, was breathless by the time I reached the park entrance at the corner of Wilshire and Curson Avenue. The bands across my chest felt so tight I wondered if I was having a heart attack.

But I couldn't afford to care.

Where was he? Escobar might not be there—I'd find another note or some gruesome, bloody token. But after my eyes swept the deserted grounds, looking toward the museum and the parking lot first, a flicker of light caught my eye from my left side. The light was hardly brighter than a firefly's, but I saw it.

As always, Escobar was hidden in plain sight, maybe no more than twenty yards from me. I didn't see him in the shadows at first, but the light was an obvious signal. He was shrouded near the hulking figures of the park's signature mastodons.

Escobar had balls. We were barely a stone's throw from Wilshire Boulevard, and he had posted himself near the park's most recognized feature—the white concrete behemoths representing countless creatures that had sunk below the tar over the ages. The father stood mired helplessly in the tar, tusks high in a silent, terrified bellow, while two smaller ones—perhaps a mate and a child—watched from the shore. A family's moment of helplessness was perpetually captured for tourists from all over the world.

The exhibit was protected by a high black fence winding around a pit the size of a baseball diamond, but I walked toward the flickering light, watching for Escobar. The light was coming from
behind
the fence, close to the tar.

“Gus?” I called. My body flinched, expecting an answer from a gun.

The light flickered more persistently. A pen flashlight, I
guessed. I followed the paved path until the fence abruptly ended. A panel had been cut away, sagging inward.

My entry point.

The night stood still in the instant before I climbed over the broken fence, a moment of the unknown, of hope preserved. I was still alive. April might still be alive. The moon was full, casting a bluish hue over the black, silent tar. The creatures standing before me might have been real. Dad might have been beside me, holding my hand.

“Stop there,
compadre
.”

Escobar's voice came from the far side of the larger mastodon standing on solid ground. I still couldn't see him. Was he alone?

“Where's April?” I said.

A muffled sound might have been from her, close to Escobar. I leaned over slightly to try to see under the mastodon, and I thought I saw two pairs of legs, one clothed and one bare.

“April?” I said, taking another step forward.

“I said stop,” Escobar said, and the new sound was definitely from my love, muffled pain. The sound sent pinpricks into my spinal cord. My knees turned to Jell-O.

“Don't hurt her,” I said. “I'm here. I'm alone. That was our deal.” I heard my own voice and wondered if I knew how foolish it was to try to bargain with a psychopath.

“Stay where you are,” he said calmly. Unhurried. “Starting with your shirt, remove your clothes. Strip down.
Ahora
. Now.”

I glanced around, expecting to find a crowd of tourists gawking with cameras, but the tourists had left with the sunlight. It was nearly one in the morning. Wilshire Boulevard's sparse traffic breezed past us, unaware. Any random jogger would have seen me, if anyone had been jogging. No security guard patrolled nearby.
Shit.
I considered trying to stall Escobar, but I didn't want to test his patience.

April made another sound, an attempt at communication. A
warning? She was obviously gagged, but she sounded like herself somehow. Escobar had not broken her.

“It's all right, baby,” I lied, unbuttoning the dress shirt I had been wearing since my morning visit to Nelson's office. I suddenly wished I had confided in Nelson instead of fleeing his car. Had I been thinking straight? Anything had to be better than facing Escobar alone.

“The rest,” Escobar said after I'd tossed my shirt to the ground. “Very slowly.”

I unhooked my slacks and let them fall to my ankles. I had lost weight in the past couple of weeks; my clothes barely fit me. I stepped out of my pants, taking time with each foot.

“Satisfied?” I said, hoping I could keep my briefs on. “I'm unarmed. No wire.”

“You're a good boy. You know how to take direction better than that, Tennyson,” Escobar said.
“Todos.”

He wanted me nude. Exposed. Vulnerable. I bent over slightly to tug down my briefs, keeping my eyes toward the voice. The morning air bit into my skin, but my shiver had nothing to do with the cold.

“
Bueno
. Now,” Escobar said. “Step toward the small one. Walk slowly.”

The baby mastodon stood in front of its mother, closer to the tar's edge. As I took careful steps, I saw two shadowed figures behind the larger beast.

April was bent over in front of Escobar, and a shotgun lay across her back, pointed straight at me. April was wearing the dress I'd seen her in earlier; Escobar hadn't stripped her. Maybe he hadn't raped her. The gun was pointed at me, not at her. So far, so good.

“Please,” I said. “Let her go. April hasn't done anything. She isn't like the others.”

“Or like you?” Escobar said.

“Or like me. She's nothing like me. You know that.”

“Look in the shadow. See what I have left for you.” When I hesitated, Escobar pumped his shotgun to chamber a round. I couldn't make out all of the gun's details, but it was a twelve-gauge. At this range, he could hit me without trying.

Confused, I did as he had asked and saw coiled there a pair of ankle cuffs, joined with eighteen inches of unbreakable plastic wire. Probably available at any sex-toy shop on Sunset Boulevard. I slipped the loops over my feet, desperation bubbling up like methane through tar.

But there was hope, too. If he was focused on me, he wasn't thinking about April.

“You're right,” Escobar said, his voice tight. “She's not like you. But her judgment was poor, no? And now here we are. So you must watch her drown, Tennyson. That's her price for foolish choices. When I'm finished here, I'll come for Chela.”

He must have done something to April—something outside of my vision—because she tried to suppress a sound of pain as he pushed her closer to the tar. A tide of rage stirred in me, but if I let myself hear April's pain, it would blot out that part of me that could save us.

“You only get one shot before this place is crawling with cops,” I said. “You picked the wrong spot, Gus. You picked the wrong weapon.”
You picked the wrong man.

April let out a muted yell as Escobar forced her to take another step closer to the edge of the tar pit. April's hands were bound behind her back. Under Escobar's grip, she walked bent over, as if she carried an overwhelming weight on her back. But Escobar barely seemed to notice her.

“You're wrong, Tennyson,” Escobar said. “The first shot will attract attention,
sí
. But I will aim low. And there you'll lie, screaming and helpless, while I force her head beneath the water. She will drown quickly. In panic, they always drown quickly. I shoot you
a second time, this one in the head, and I will vanish—a phantom once again.”

I forced a chuckle. “Sorry, man, but you don't know April. That girl doesn't panic.”

Was April laughing, too? She made a sound remarkably like my chuckle, and I nearly smiled.
Good girl, April.
If we unnerved Escobar, we could knock him off his game.

Escobar made a sudden jerking movement. April's laugh, if that was what it had been, became a wounded animal's cry. I heard the wet
snap
of a breaking bone. April shuddered, nearly lurching off her feet, but Escobar pulled her close. April sobbed once but stopped midway through, as if from pure will. My whole body went cold to try to block out her pain.

“Laugh at me again,” Escobar said, “and I'll break her other wrist. They're as fragile as a sparrow's wing. And you, April—
walk,
or see him castrated.”

He pushed April another step closer to the tar.

Think think think think think think think think think

“Whatever happens to April, the same thing happens to Louise,” I said.

Escobar barked a laugh. “You're truly desperate, Tennyson.”

“You know she's been working night and day trying to finish your masterpiece,” I said. “Don't try to tell me you haven't been spying on the woman who was supposed to be the mother of your child. When's the last time you saw her, Gus? You thought I came out here without a bargaining chip? You let April go—my people let Louise go.”

“I care nothing for her,” Escobar said.

But we were both lying. If he hadn't cared about Louise, he would have kept moving instead of stopping to deny his feelings. I heard it in his voice.

“Yes, you do. She's the closest you've found to someone who understands you. You care about Louise, and you care about that
damn movie,” I said. “My partner hunts and hurts people for a living. If she doesn't get good news from me in five minutes, we both lose somebody tonight.”

My description of Marsha didn't sound that far off, if only she had agreed to help me. If Marsha had backed me up, by this time, Escobar would have been cooling meat.

Escobar hesitated.
“She?”
Good. He'd been listening.

“Yes,” I said. “I know a lot of interesting women. Some of them aren't very nice.”
Bingo.
The devil is in the details. A female was so unlikely in this context that I could see that he was struggling not to believe me.

“Always an actor, Tennyson—and not a very good one,” he said, deciding I was lying. He dragged April closer to the muck.

I hadn't expected a threat against Louise to work. Even if Escobar cared about Louise, his mission would come first. But I had bought a few seconds to try to unsettle him, break his concentration, force a mistake. I only needed seconds. Escobar wouldn't want to fire his gun any sooner than he had to. As long as we were hidden, he could say or do anything; but the moment his gun fired, he might have three minutes or less to finish his work.

His sickness was hurting his logic; it was much harder to try to wound someone with a gun rather than simply firing at the center of mass. And the logistics of trying to drown April were complicated. Escobar couldn't outsmart his compulsion to follow his ritual.

Escobar pushed April forward another step, and suddenly, they were less than ten yards away from me, fully visible in the pale moonlight. April was gagged, but her eyes staring up at me hadn't changed. If she was crying, I couldn't see it. Despite the pain from her broken bone, all I saw in her eyes was defiance. And love. April looked more concerned about me than she was about herself.

“Don't you worry about a thing, baby girl,” I said, as if we were alone. As if there were no gun riding across her back. “This will all be over soon.”

“Sí,”
Escobar said, giving her a harsh push that nearly sent her to her knees at the edge of the water. “It will be over soon.”

The water gurgled, and an odor like stale farts wafted from the pond. Timeless rot. The water looked as if it was boiling in slow motion. While Escobar glanced toward the ripples in the tar pit, I inched closer to him. With my brown skin against the night, he never saw me move. Despite the ankle cuffs, I would be close enough to leap at him if he gave me another chance. A shotgun was unwieldy; if I came at him from the right angle, he would never have the chance to aim.

My heartbeat sped. In the dark, it would be hard to recognize the right moment, and there would only be one.

Escobar chopped his knee behind April's so that she collapsed to the soil, her bare knees hitting the ground too hard. She looked like an impending execution, gagged, with her hands behind her. April cried out again, but only briefly, trying so hard not to. Her cry tried to pummel past my defenses, but I shut her pain away.

As much as I wished I could, I couldn't turn away from April's face. She needed my eyes to give her hope. I nodded to her:
I've got this. Just trust me.

“Come, Tennyson,” Escobar said. With an exaggerated wrenching movement, he grabbed a tight handful of April's hair with his free hand, yanking her head back the way he had pulled Brittany's on the set. April's hair was short, so he must have caught her by the roots. The sound April made this time was more indignation than pain.

Escobar grinned at me with déjà vu. “This,” he said, “is how you take control. So now it's your turn. Come take her from me.”

He waggled his shotgun at me, a beckoning finger. A Mossberg twelve-gauge. When I blinked, I thought I saw the barrel blaze.
The mass of pellets would travel faster than the speed of sound. I might not live to hear it.

“Better watch your aim,” I said. “That's gonna rip me up.”

“I can live with that if you can,” Escobar said.

“But then April is wasted,” I said. “You did all this for nothing. No purpose. Would this make
Mami
proud? For this she sacrificed herself?”

The anger on Escobar's face was nearly bright enough to glow, but he didn't speak. He glared at me with lips pursed tight, still hyperalert. He never looked away from me or loosened his expert grip on April. If I couldn't rattle him by mentioning his mother, rattling him might not be possible.

Escobar struck April with his knee again, and she fell flat to the soil with an
oof
. He planted his weight on her, driving her into the ground. Her face was inches from the black, oily water.

“You don't need April, Escobar,” I said. “Let her go. You got me. Here I am. Look at me.” My arms akimbo, I shuffled in a slow circle so Escobar could look me over at every angle. Every vulnerability.