Skip found a narrow path on the other side of the house overgrown with bougainvillea. He used the thorny bushes for cover and set up at a window. He put on latex gloves, opened the duffel bag, and got out the Halligan, a titanium pry bar the fire department used for forcible entries. He wedged the adze end between the wall of the house and the frame of the burglar bars and with a padded sledgehammer drove it all the way in. He stopped a few times to listen but the music was still playing and the kids were arguing about something else. Skip yanked, pried, and wrenched the Halligan until he’d leveraged the frame away from the wall, the anchor bolts, chicken wire, and chunks of stucco coming out with it. He broke the window and climbed in.
The bedroom smelled a little like ammonia, weird but no big deal. The bed was made and a couple of photos were on the nightstand. No empty beer bottles, no laundry, no shoes on the floor. Smart-ass was a neat freak. Skip was unloading his gear when he heard a car pull into the driveway, the rumble of the engine telling him it was the hot-rod Audi. His cell buzzed. A text said on his way. “Thanks for telling me, asshole,” Skip said.
Hurrying now, Skip slipped on his ski mask and popped a high-capacity magazine into the Glock 17, the shorter barrel better in tight spots. The clip held thirty-three rounds and extended five inches below the grip. Skip inserted the Glock’s barrel into an ordinary automobile air filter fitted with a special adapter. It looked odd, like the gun had a can of soup stuck on the end, but with the subsonic ammo the gunshot was no louder than the snap of a mousetrap. He thought about meeting smart-ass at the front door but it was risky. He might be seen or heard before he got off a shot. Better to stay here and wait. He’d come into the bedroom sooner or later.
Isaiah drove home, smelling like melted plastic and ashes, hoping it wouldn’t stay in the car. Cal was truly crazy, burning up thousands of dollars’ worth of his belongings, stuff people clawed and struggled for used as firewood. Put a perspective on it, though. Owning all that didn’t help Cal any. He was lost before the fire and lost afterward. The common denominator was Cal.
Isaiah pulled into his driveway, on high alert now. He got out of the car quickly and stepped behind it. He was afraid of that target gun with the long barrel but there weren’t any lines of sight where Skip could set up. Isaiah had driven home fast, changing lanes, making sudden turns, watching for that blue truck coming up behind him.
Isaiah scanned the street from end to end. Nothing happening except for some kids playing football. But there was an appliance repair van parked in front of Mrs. Marquez’s house. If Mrs. Marquez wanted an appliance repaired she’d have called him. The tinny taste of adrenaline expanded on his tongue. He crossed the street to her house and knocked on her door but she wasn’t home. He approached the kids. “Say, did you see where the repairman went?” he said.
“What repairman?” a kid said.
“I didn’t see nobody,” another kid said. The others shrugged or looked away.
“Did you see anybody around my house?”
“I didn’t,” the first kid said. The rest were already going back to their game.
Isaiah got his mail out of the box, unlocked the front door, and pushed it open with his foot. He could see through the living room and into the kitchen. The back door was intact and he relaxed a bit. There was no other way to get into the house. He went in and dropped everything on the coffee table except the Visa bill. Looking at it first made the other bills seem not so bad. He opened the envelope and went down the hall reading the charges. Flaco’s extra sessions of physical therapy were killing him. There was nothing left over for the condo fund. Without Cal’s bonus money the plan would fall apart.
Skip waited, the bedroom warm and humid as a laundry mat. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes, both hands leveling the Glock at the door. He liked this part. The buildup. It was almost better than offing the guy. Q Fuck was in the hall. Skip could hear his sneakers squeaking on the cement floor… getting closer… closer… and then they stopped. Long seconds went by without a sound. What the hell is he doing? If he knew I was here he’d turn and run. Unless he has a gun.
Isaiah looked up from the Visa bill just in time to see the green blobs of chicken shit on the floor. He’d brought Alejandro inside that morning and forgot to put him back in the garage. Hopefully, the bird was pecking around somewhere and not roosting on the closet rod and crapping all over his clothes.
“Alejandro?” he said. “Are you in there?”
Skip’s eyes darted around the room. Who the fuck is Alejandro? Something in the closet moved and fluttered. Skip turned and fired. SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP. There was a hellish squawk that scared the living shit out of him and he kept firing into a cloud of swirling white things. SNAPSNAPSNAPSNAP.