Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [64]
“Yeah, I do.”
He pulls into the parking lot and parks on the other end from Teddy’s car. “You have your subpoena?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s deliver it,” Boone says.
Then I’ll call Johnny Banzai and let him know that we have a potentially important witness for him in his fresh murder case. Then I’ll go home, catch some sleep, and be fresh and ready when the big waves hit.
He’s thinking these happy thoughts when Teddy suddenly walks back from the cabin, carrying a small black bag. He walks right past his car; then he crosses the road and walks up about fifty yards to a thick bed of reeds that stands between the San Luis River and the western edge of the old Sakagawa fields.
“What’s he doing?” Petra asks.
“I don’t know,” Boone says. He reaches behind and grabs a pair of binoculars and trains them on Teddy as the doctor walks to the edge of the reeds.
Teddy looks around, then steps into the reeds. Inside of two seconds, he disappears from sight.
Boone sets the binoculars down and jumps out of the van.
“Go look in the cabin, see if she’s there,” he says to Petra, and then he crosses the road and jogs down to the edge of the reeds. Foot traffic has trampled down the front edge of the reed bed, and narrow paths cut into the standing reeds like tunnels. Soda cans, beer bottles, and fast-food wrappers lie among small white plastic garbage bags. Boone picks up one of the bags, unties the top, and then gags, fighting back the vomit.
The bag is full of used condoms.
He drops the bag and steps into one of the tunnels that lead through the reeds. It’s like being in another world—dark, narrow, and claustrophobic. The late-afternoon sunlight barely penetrates the tall reeds, and Boone can’t see five feet in front of him.
So he doesn’t see the shotgun.
48
The curtains on the cabin windows are open, and Petra can see into the small front room, which has a sofa, a couple of chairs, a kitchenette area and a table.
But no Tammy.
Petra walks around to the side, where another window offers a view of the small bedroom, where there is likewise no Tammy.
Maybe she’s in the bathroom, Petra thinks.
She walks around to that side, puts her head against the thin wall, and listens. No sound of running water. She waits for a minute, hoping to hear the toilet flush, or the taps running, or anything, but it’s perfectly still.
For one of the few times in her life, Petra doesn’t know what to do. Should she wait here, in case Tammy is inside? Should she go back to the van and wait, in case Tammy just hasn’t shown up yet but is on her way?
And how does she know it’s even going to be Tammy, and not some other bimbo that Teddy is shagging in his Bang for Boobs program. And where was Teddy going? What could he possibly be doing in a bed of reeds, looking for the baby Moses, for God’s sake? And what, if anything, has Boone found? Should I follow him? she wonders.
She decides to go back to the van and wait.
Except waiting isn’t her best thing.
She gives it a shot, she does, but it isn’t going to happen. What she really wants to do is go see what Boone is finding out. She makes it about three minutes, then bails.
49
Mick Penner should have.
Bailed, that is.
Should have taken Boone’s advice, thrown his shit into a bag, gotten into his beloved BMW, and hit the highway.
He doesn’t, though.
He intended to. One of those “road to hell” deals. He meant to get moving, but then he decided that one beer and a quick toke would help him get his shit together. He’s on his third Corona when the door comes in.
Dan Silver’s first punch goes into Mick’s liver and crumples him. Mick’s on his knees, hunched over in agony, sucking for air, when the kick comes into his solar plexus and makes breathing an impossibility.
Mick flops on the floor like a fish on the dock.
Then they’re kicking him, shoes and boots smashing into his thighs, his shins, his ankles, his ribs. He rolls over on one side and pulls his arms over his head and manages to blurt out, “Not my face. Please, not my face.”
His face is his living, and he knows it. Knows now in one