11th hour

Chapter 87

The tall kid with pink-blond hair falling over his face and wearing threadbare jeans and a glittering T-shirt came over to where Will was standing with his back to the wall. He asked Will if he wanted to get high.

Will didn’t know this kid personally, but he knew a lot about him. His given name was Steven Sargent, but the name Stevie Blow had stuck. Blow was twenty-five, looked younger, and liked to patrol school neighborhoods during the day and clubs, especially Zeus, at night.

Will said that he wanted to buy some coke, and Blow said sure, and then he wanted to tell Will about his own brand of “bath salts.” This drug was highly addictive; it contained MDPV, a chemical that caused intense hallucinations and sometimes bad trips that made the user violent or even suicidal. Bath salts were generally available but Blow was pushing his own blend, Peach Bliss.

He shouted into Will’s ear, “I guaran-damn-tee you, Peach is a smooth high. Only twenty bucks for a trial sample.”

Stevie reached his hand into his back pocket and Will said, “Not here.”

Some Other Mother was saying thank you, waving off an encore, taking in the storm of applause, and then leaving the stage. The crowd went crazy again as the favorite house DJ took his place in the booth.

Will turned his head once to make sure Blow was behind him, then moved along the fringes of the crowd, looped around to the back, pushed the doors open, and entered the kitchen.

The kitchen was in chaos. Orders were shouted, cooking oil sizzled, pans clashed against the burners, dishes clattered in the large sinks. The rear doors were propped open to vent the hot air outside.

No one looked at them as Will and Blow made a swift exit through the kitchen and out to San Bruno Avenue. There was a gap in a fence leading to an area just under the freeway overpass, where it was dark and noisy.

Blow was saying, “Man, you’re too paranoid. I could sell you this shit inside a police station and there’s nothing anyone could do about it.”

“I like privacy,” Will said.

“To each his own,” said Stevie Blow. “Anyway, you’re gonna love this stuff.”

He was sorting out his packets when Will took his gun from his waistband. He held the gun by the grip, stuck the barrel into an ordinary plastic shopping bag, a plastic sleeve that would contain the shell casings and GSR.

Will aimed and then fired twice.

The sound was muffled by the suppressor; two little puffs, like popcorn kernels exploding in an air popper.

Stevie Blow dropped his merchandise, flattened his palms to his chest. He looked at the blood on his hands, then brought his eyes to Will. He said, “Whaaa?”

“You’re guilty and you’re dead, that’s what. I feel bad for your parents, though. I’m sorry for them.”

Will put a shot into Stevie’s forehead, watched him fall, then dragged the body over to the wall and propped it in a sitting position between piles of bagged garbage.

As he headed toward his wife’s car, Will felt no sadness for Stevie Blow. He was thinking about his own boy, how in twenty minutes he’d be turning off Link’s TV and then getting into bed beside his dear wife.

He wasn’t going to lose any sleep tonight.