The Power Of The Dog (104 page)

It’s okay, he thinks. I really only came to say good-bye.

He knows that he’s walking into an ambush. That they’re going to kill him and Nora on the Cabrillo Bridge.

They don’t have a choice.

Nora gets into the backseat with John Hobbs.

He’s very courtly to her—an old gentleman wearing a suit with a white shirt and a bow tie and an overcoat, even though the night is warm.

She looks beautiful tonight and she knows it. She’s dyed her hair back to blond and they bought her a black dress that fits like a sheath. She wears diamond earrings and a diamond choker and heels. Her makeup is perfect, her eyes large, her lips glistening red.

She feels like a whore.

You play the part, she thinks, you dress the part.

Hobbs goes over everything with her again but she already understands it. Sal Scachi laid it all out for her. All she has to do is meet Adán in the middle of the bridge and walk back to the car with him.

Then she’s free to go and so is Sean Callan.

New identities and new lives.

He’s waiting for her back at the safe house, a hostage to her fulfilling her part of the deal. They needn’t have bothered, she thinks. I’ve done my bit so far. What’s a few more seconds of pretended love?

The only thing that bothers her is that Adán’s going to get away with all of it. The CIA, as these men doubtless are, will keep him and hold him and take good care of him and he’ll never be punished for Juan’s murder.

It’s wrong and she hates it but she’ll do it for Sean.

And Juan will understand.

Won’t you? she thinks, sending the thought to heaven. Tell me that you understand, tell me you want me to do this. Tell me you forgive me for the sins I’ve committed, and for the one I’m about to commit.

Sal Scachi looks at her in the rearview mirror and winks. He can easily understand how a man could become obsessed with her. Even Callan’s in love with her now, and Sean Callan is the coldest motherfucker who ever walked.

Well, I hope you got her on your mind tonight, Callan. I’d prefer you a little distracted because I’m the one who’s got to pop a cap in you. It’s too bad, sonny boy, but you gotta go. Can’t take the risk of you ever running your mouth about this.

It’s all been set up. A drug shoot-out on the bridge tonight, then the media starts the official public mourning for the hero Art Keller and a day or so later they break the story that he was a dirty cop on the Barrera payroll who got greedy and got his. Shot by one of Barrera’s hitmen.

The notorious Sean Callan.

You do get a new identity tonight, Sean boy.

This time you die for real.

John Hobbs inhales the woman’s perfume.

Old men, he thinks, take their fading pleasures where they can. In days past, quite past, he might have tried to seduce her. If, indeed, one can be said to “seduce” a prostitute. Now, alas, all he requires of her is for her to fulfill her obligation.

Bring Adán Barrera peacefully into our hands.

Hobbs has no qualms about it, none of the regret that he feels for the unfortunate but necessary sanction of Arthur Keller.

Ah, well, the next world is perfect; this one, considerably less so.

He inhales the woman’s perfume.

Art drives his own car to the rendezvous.

Adán sits beside him, his hands cuffed in front of him. There’s no traffic on the streets at quarter to three in the morning. Art takes Harbor Drive because he likes to see the sailboats and the moon shining on the water and the downtown skyline.

Adán sits quietly, with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

“You know something, Adán?” Art asks. “You’re the reason I hope there’s a hell.”

“Don’t think this is over,” Adán says. “I still owe you for Raúl.”

Art pulls over, gets out, yanks Adán out of the car and pushes him down on his knees. Art draws the .38 from his holster and enjoys the look of fear that comes into Adán’s eyes. He raises the gun, then smashes it into Adán’s face. The first blow cuts the cheek under his left eye, raising an ugly, bleeding welt. The second one breaks his nose. The third one splits his upper lip and breaks two teeth.

Adán topples over with a groan, spitting blood out of his broken mouth.

“That’s just so you know I’m serious,” Art says. “Fuck with me and I swear to God I’ll beat you to death. You understand me?”

Adán nods.

“Who approached you about setting up Parada?”

“Nobody, it was an—”

Yeah, it was an accident, Art thinks. And it was an accident that Tío walked out of prison, an accident that Antonucci gave you absolution. Everything was a fucking accident. Art jerks him up by the hair and smashes the gun butt against his ear.

“Who approached you to set up Parada?”

What the hell? Adán thinks. It doesn’t matter now.

“It was Scachi,” he says.

Art nods. That’s what I thought, he tells himself.

That’s what I thought.

“Why?”

“He knew it all,” Adán says. “Just like me.”

“He knew about Cerberus?”

“Yes.”

“How about Red Mist?”

“That, too.”

Art hauls him back up, marches him to the car and shoves him back in.

It’s time to go to the bridge.

Callan gets in position.

He takes the heavy sniper rifle from its bag, then attaches the tripod and the infrared scope and screws on the silencer. He lies down in the dead grass and sights in on the bridge.

There ain’t gonna be nothing to it. As soon as Keller hands Barrera over, Sal will look up and nod and Callan will take out Keller.

Then just walk away.

Sal will swing by, pick him up on Park Boulevard and take him to Nora. Get their new passports, go to L.A., get on a plane to Paris.

A new life.

He settles in and gets himself ready to kill Art Keller.

Operation Red Mist comes home.

The Cabrillo Bridge spans Highway 63 where it bisects Balboa Park.

Art parks the car just to the west, by the bowling green where the old people come, dressed all in white, to play their slow game in the afternoon sun. He opens the car door and pulls Adán out by the elbow, shows him the .38 holstered on his hip and says, “Please make a run for it.”

Then he pushes Adán out on the west end of the bridge and they start walking east toward the main part of Balboa Park.

The stone of the bridge glows softly gold under the amber lanterns.

To his right Art sees the downtown office towers and the huge red neon sign that reads HOTEL CORTEZ, which dominates the skyline.

Beyond that are the harbor and the ocean and the Coronado Bridge, rising up like a dream from its base in Chicano Park in Barrio Logan, where he grew up. To his left is the chasm of Palm Canyon, the redwoods and star pines looming above the west side of the highway behind him, the San Diego Zoo to the northeast.

Straight ahead is Balboa Park, with the California Tower rising above two tall palm trees like the top of a wedding cake. The bridge itself runs into the Prado, the long broad walkway between the museums and gardens, and at the end of the Prado a tower of water shoots into the night sky from the Balboa plaza.

He’s taken this walk many times.

So they killed Father Juan as part of Red Mist, Art thinks.

And Hobbs ordered it.

For the first time in a long time, Art has perfect clarity.

He sees it all now.

Callan sights in on Keller’s forehead, then his chest, then his forehead again. Make it a head shot, Scachi had told him. The narcos shoot turncoats in the head.

Art sees headlights swirl ahead of them as a car turns in the big circle in the middle of the Prado and then comes toward them. The car, a black Lincoln, stops at the east end of the bridge.

Art sees Scachi get out and open the back door. Hobbs gets out slowly, leaning heavily on his cane even as Scachi steadies him. Then Scachi walks around the back of the car and opens the other door and Nora gets out of the car gracefully, like a woman who’s used to having doors opened for her.

He feels Adán’s arm tense.

Then someone else gets out of the car and he blinks.

The man has aged. His hair is silver now, and so is his mustache. He’s thinner, but he still carries himself like an Old World gentleman.

Ever gallant, Tío takes Nora by the arm.

Adán sees her and smiles.

She looks lovely, all the more so in the soft light. It’s as if she’s gained her vitality back, her femininity. He tries to run to her but Art holds him back. It doesn’t really matter, though, because she’s coming to him.

Don’t get too close.

Is what Callan’s thinking as Nora crosses the bridge. Just get Barrera and walk back to the car. She don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no reason to let her know. He hopes she’s back in the car by the time he has to pull the trigger.

She don’t need no more blood splattered on her.

They meet just west of the middle of the bridge.

Scachi walks ahead of the rest, comes up to Art and says, “No offense, Arthur. I need your weapon.”

Art slides his jacket back and Scachi takes his .38 and tucks it into his own belt. Then he turns Art around, makes him lean against the bridge railing and frisks him. Finding nothing, he waves for the others to come ahead.

Art watches Tío come toward him with Nora on his arm. Like he’s walking her down the aisle, Art thinks.

Hobbs lags behind.

Tío looks at Adán’s bleeding, broken face and says to Art, “You haven’t changed any, mi sobrino.”

“I should have put one in your head when I had the chance.”

“You should have,” Tío agrees. “But you didn’t.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came so my nephew would know he was being delivered to safety,” Tío says, “and not to be murdered. It looks as if I’m just in time.”

He hugs Adán, both hands behind his head, being careful not to get blood on his suit. “Mi sobrino, Adán, what have they done to you?”

“Tío, it’s good to see you.”

“Take the handcuffs off him, please,” Tío says.

Art steps behind Adán, takes the cuffs off and nudges him forward.

Hobbs looks at Art and says, “You’re a man of your word, Arthur. You’re a man of honor.”

Art shakes his head. “Not really, no.”

He grabs Hobbs and spins the old man in front of him as a shield, his left hand at Hobbs’ neck, the other behind his head. One twist will kill him.