Last shot

Chapter 21

A stray dog licked the necks of soda bottles in the recycle bin at the curb, paws pressed into the extra black bags piled beside the garbage cans. Walker looked up and down the street, then crossed to the tract house. Within a moment of his ringing, a man in his late sixties appeared at the door wearing a barbecue apron that read DON'T * amp;^%# WITH THE CHEF! Dense chestnut hair powdered with white capped a square-hewn face. Age loosened the skin of his powerful forearms just slightly enough to add texture, and his hands hung like lifeless slabs. The hazel eyes took in Walker with a single sweep.

"Come 'round back." The door closed.

Walker reached across the side gate to raise the latch, then stumbled over a golden retriever all the way to the back deck, where the man awaited him at a picnic table. Wisps spiraled out of holes in the closed barbecue as it self-cleaned. Through a picture window, Walker saw two kids chasing each other in circles around a plush denim couch while an attractive woman in her forties sealed leftover chicken into neat Ziplocs. Pierce threw a rubber chew toy onto the lawn, and the dog sailed after it.

Walker sat down opposite his father. "You don't look surprised."

"I thought you just might be dumb enough, yeah."

"Can't take up a trail a year and a half later."

"No, you can't." Pierce gave a dead grin. "So I guess you did what you had to do."

Walker cast a gaze around the spacious backyard. "Nice house."

"Real estate development. Easy gig." Pierce didn't smile, but the muscles of his face tensed to show amusement. "And it's legal, mostly."

"I'm hungry."

"I bet." His hand pivoted off his wrist to give an abbreviated flare of the fingers.

Constance came out, tugging her sandalwood-colored hair back into a ponytail. She spoke in a lowered voice, though the kids were inside. "Hi, Walk. I didn't know you were out."

"I'm not."

The surprise froze her face for an instant, but she covered with a flat smile. "Can I bring you something?"

"He's fine." Pierce kept his eyes on Walker, eager to pick back up.

She withdrew, pulling the door closed behind her. She whispered something to the kids, who'd been staring out the window, and they went back to running circles.

"You got yourself in the position you're in," Pierce said, as if Walker had just finished moaning about his unjust fate. "You had a fine family. Didn't give her any kids. Didn't build shit. Look at me. I got out-did something else for a change. These children." He shook his head, overcome by his good fortune.

"They got names?" Walker asked, mostly to break up the taped lecture.

"Bronson and Bronwyn." He smoothed a rough palm over the wooden surface of the table, clearing the slate for the conversation at hand. "This thing. Why you're here. It isn't what it looked like."

"You looked into it?"

"Course I looked into it. But I can't do more than that. I'm on the straight and narrow now. Too much at stake. Morg poked around-he can give you a start. Talk to him."

"Where do I find him?"

"He'll find you. What are you gonna do?"

"What do you think I'm gonna do? I need a safe house."

"I got a complex going off Sepulveda, by the dump. Half built, tied up in litigation."

"What for?"

"The shit you care? We had to shut down construction. You can go live in there. Water and electricity to the model unit should work. Hell, there's a security truck and everything. Your very own gated community. Never let it be said I don't take care of my own." Pierce waited for Walker to challenge the claim, but he said nothing. "You good for gear?"

"Always."

"Good, 'cause I can't help you there. Not no more."

"Lend me a shirt, though?"

"Got some shit going to Salvation Army. Trash bags by the curb. Go on and dig through them." Pierce pulled a rubber-banded roll of hundreds from the front pocket of his apron and tossed it across the table. It bounced off Walker's shoulder and rolled on the deck. "You owe her."

"We all owe her." Walker dipped a shoulder and swept the roll of bills from the fine-stained wood. He studied it before shoving it into a pocket. "I can't sit at your table, but I can do your dirty work."

"That's right. Our dirty work."

"Why? You never cared about Tess."

"I cared about you both until you turned into the total fuckups your mother raised while I was away. Still, it's a point of principle. Tess was my blood. You don't let your blood get fucked with. Something you could stand to learn."

The cash bulged uncomfortably in Walker's pocket. "Three grand. Tess needed just three grand to move states with the kid. Why didn't you help?"

"What do you think? I'm still in the game?" He ran his tongue across his teeth, bulging his upper lip. "Tess never was an ace with a checkbook. You start a family, you gotta have your priorities. Save your money in case maybe a kid gets sick. Instead she blows it on her hair-trigger brother in the clink."

"What do you mean?"

"Your appeals, the attorney. You didn't think it was free?" A smile cracked his face. "Oh, you didn't know. You didn't want to know."

Finally Walker said, "She said you paid."

Pierce was grinning, his face vibrant from the realization. "She put every cent she had and a few she didn't into your defense lawyer's pocket. That's why she couldn't afford a new liver for Spanky. So don't come bitchin' to me like I'm the March of Dimes."

Walker studied the red and blue plastic toys littering the sandbox by the steps, the Wacky Wiggle hose laying limp on the rich green strips of rolled sod.

Pierce kept carrying on the argument alone. "Yeah, well, guess what you win when you complain?" He held up his hand, thumb and fingers forming a zero. "It wasn't my job to do a damn thing. Not with where I was with my career then. Your mother and I worked it out. That woman never kept her word. Not a day in her life. The queen martyr. Only woman I've ever known who'd rather open a vein than fry a fuckin' egg." He stood, tapped a fist on the table like a judge dismissing a case. "I'll get you the keys."

Walker waited for his face to stop burning, but on it went. He kept an impassive expression in place, heavy like a welder's mask. And then, slowly, gradually, he started to believe the mask.

"Who are you?" The boy stood in the threshold, tugging the sliding door so it knocked against him at intervals. Fair hair, light blue eyes, pug nose-the kid looked like a JCPenney model.

Walker studied him, then cleared his throat. "I'm-"

"An old friend," Pierce said, appearing behind Bronson and ushering him inside, large hands encompassing the narrow shoulders. Walker stood and caught the airborne keys. The circle tag of the key ring had an address scrawled in black ink. Walker memorized it and left the incriminating tag on the picnic table. Pierce had already vanished into the house, and somewhere one of the kids started banging "Frere Jacques" on a piano.

At Walker's approach, the scruffy dog retreated across the driveway, where it crouched at the neighbor's mailbox, longingly regarding the plunder he'd been forced to abandon. Walker rustled in the curbside bags and dug out a few shirts and one of his father's outmoded court-appearance suits. Even as he drove off, the mutt remained at bay, skinny and trembling.