Foster nodded. ‘You should’ve told me I’m a dick.’
‘I thought it.’
His silver mustache rose as he gave the first smile she’d seen since the task force had been put together.
Soon they arrived at the motel, which was in the hills about three miles east of the ocean. It was on the eastern side, so there was no view of the water. Now the place was shrouded in shade, surrounded by brush and scrub oak. The first thing that Dance thought of was the Solitude Creek roadhouse, a similar setting – some human-built structure surrounded by quiet, persistent California flora.
The inn had a main office and about two dozen separate cabins. She found the one they sought and parked two buildings away. Stemple drove his truck into a space nearby. There was one car, an old Mazda sedan, faded blue, in front of the cabin. Dance consulted her phone, scrolled down the screen. ‘That’s his, Escalanza’s.’
Stemple climbed out of his truck and, hand on his big gun, walked around the motel. He returned and nodded.
‘Let’s go talk to Se?or Escalanza,’ Foster said.
The two agents started forward, the wind tossing her hair. She heard a snap beside her. She saw a weapon in Foster’s hand. He pulled the slide back and checked to see if a round was chambered. He eased the slide forward and holstered the gun. He nodded. They continued along the sand-swept sidewalk past yellowing grass and squatting succulents to the cabin registered in the name of Pedro Escalanza. Bugs flew and Dance wiped sweat. You didn’t have to get far from the ocean for the heat to soar, even in springtime.
At the door they looked back at Al Stemple – a hundred feet away. He glanced at them. Gave a thumbs-up.
Dance and Foster looked at each other. She nodded. They stepped to either side of the door – procedure, not to mention common sense – and Foster knocked. ‘Pedro Escalanza? Bureau of Investigation. We’d like to talk to you.’
No answer.
Another rap.
‘Please open the door. We just want to talk. It’ll be to your advantage.’
Nothing.
‘Shit. Waste of time.’
Dance gripped the door. Locked. ‘Try the back.’
The cottages had small decks, which were accessed by sliding doors. Lawn chairs and tables sat on the uneven brick. No barbecue grills, of course: one careless, smoldering briquette, and these hills would vanish in ten breaths. They walked around to the unit’s deck and noted that the door was open, a frosty beer, half full, on the table. Foster, his hand on his weapon’s grip, walked closer. ‘Pedro.’
‘Yeah?’ a man’s voice called. ‘I was in the john. Come on in.’
They walked inside. And froze.
On the bathroom floor they could see two legs stretched out. Streak of blood on them. Puddling on the floor too.
Foster drew his gun and started to turn but the young man behind the curtain next to the sliding door quickly touched the agent’s skull with his own gun.
He pulled Foster’s Glock from his hand and shoved him forward, then closed the door.
They both turned to the lean Latino gazing at them with fierce eyes.
‘Serrano,’ Dance whispered.
CHAPTER 88
They were back.
At last. Thank you, Lord.
The two boys from the other night. Except there were three of them at the moment.
Well, now that David Goldschmidt thought about it, there might’ve been three the other night. Only two bikes but, yes, there could have been another one then.
The other night.
The night of shame, he thought of it. His heart pounding even now, several days afterward. Palms sweating. Like Kristallnacht, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, in 1938, when the Germans had rioted and destroyed a thousand Jewish homes and businesses throughout the country.
Goldschmidt was watching them on the video screen, which wasn’t, as he’d told Officer Dance the other night, in the bedroom but in the den. They were moving closer now, all three. Looking around, furtive. Guilt on wheels.
True, he hadn’t exactly gotten a look at them the other day, not their faces – that was why he’d asked Dance for more details: he didn’t want to make a mistake. But this was surely them. He’d seen their posture, their clothes, as they’d fled, after obscenely defacing his house. Besides, who else would it be?
They’d returned for their precious bikes.
Coming after the bait.
Which was why he’d kept them.
Bait …
Now he was ready. He’d called his wife in Seattle and had her stay a few days longer with her sister. Made up some story that he himself wanted to come up for the weekend. Why didn’t she stay and he’d join her? She’d bought it.
As the boys stole closer still, glancing around them, pausing from time to time, Goldschmidt looked up and watched them through the den window, the lace curtain.
One, the most intense, seemed to be the ringleader. He was wearing a combat jacket. Floppy hair. A second, a handsome teenager, was holding his phone, probably to record the theft. The third, big, dangerously big.
My God, they looked young. Younger than high school, Goldschmidt reckoned. But that didn’t mean they weren’t evil. They were probably the sons of neo-Nazis or some Aryan group. Such a shame they hadn’t formed their own opinions before their racist fathers, mothers too probably, had got a hold of their malleable brains and turned them into monsters.
Evil …
And deadly. Deadly as all bigots were.
Which was why Goldschmidt was now holding his Beretta double-barrel shotgun, loaded with 00 buckshot, each pellet the diameter of a .33-caliber slug.
He closed the weapon with a soft click.
The law on self-defense in California is very clear …
It certainly was, Officer Dance. Once somebody was in your home and you had a reasonable fear for your safety, you could shoot them.
And for all Goldschmidt knew, they too were armed.