Last shot

Chapter 30

A '72 Olds Cutlass Supreme held down the VIP space beside the entrance canopy's awning, the license plate asking, RUGAME? The muscle car's powder blue coat had been recently sprayed, the white soft top restored, the chrome hubcaps and bumpers buffed to a mirror shine. The stand-alone building fronted an enormous mesh-enclosed preserve, like a butterfly pavilion, a bite of maybe fifteen acres from Playa Vista's Ballona Wetlands. A gravel road carved through the marshy ground, widening into a parking lot. Frogs and crickets shrilled. To the west the concrete-clad Ballona Creek moved slow and steady, pulled along like a strip of black fabric. The wetlands between were a surprising sprawl of nature within eyeshot of Lincoln Boulevard.

The last few customers trickled out, paintball guns holstered or dangling from slings, their store-crisp camo getups looking like Halloween costumes. Monday nights, Walker guessed, were slow when it came to war games.

He caught the solid oak door on its backswing and entered the spacious front room. With its wall-mounted weapons, framed Soldier of Fortune covers, and wooden bar complete with thatch canopy, tiki torches, elk heads, and twining plants, the lounge was part tropical-themed frat house, part movie-villain lair. The lights had been turned off, though a desk lamp remained on in the connecting room, illuminating brackets of guns and video equipment, clipboards hanging from pegs, and a row of lockers. To the side of a service counter, a wide ass barely accommodated by board shorts jutted into view, its owner rustling in the cabinets below.

Walker moved silently through the lounge toward the office, passing a curtained entrance to the enclosed preserve. Humid air breathed through the olive drab gauze, smelling of greenhouse. A camo tarpaulin banner secured by twine arced across the threshold between the two rooms, red letters offering what Walker assumed was the corporate tagline: GAME: SEXUALITY DISTILLED. Catching the drift, his eyes pulled to a routed-wood sign nailed to a door: GIRLS' CHANGING-OUT-OF ROOM-NO ENTRY!!!

An obese tabby hopped up on the counter, sending a paintball gun into a rasping rotation. A high-pitched man's voice issued from below. "Be careful, Elektra."

The cat took note of Walker's shadowy presence, hissing with alarming ferocity. A moment later a pink-faced man hoisted himself into view. A line of perspiration twinkled across a baby-smooth upper lip. Breast mounds bulged out a Hawaiian shirt. Around his neck hung a badge: PAINTBALL COMMANDER. FOUR-TIME COURSE CHAMPION. Walker remembered similar custom-made badges marketed in law-enforcement catalogs, advertised as "real nickel."

The man spoke with unexpected confidence. "Sorry, pal. Closed for the night."

Walker stayed a few steps back in the shadows. The man grew wary of his silence. "Listen, pal. I'm the owner, and I'm tired of the bullshit. Write an angry letter to the editor or something, but get the hell out. Now."

Still Walker didn't respond. The man's hand rustled under the counter, but then his arm froze. "That's not a paintball gun."

The wall-cut light of the desk lamp went no farther than Walker's wrist, illuminating the Redhawk and little more. "No."

The tabby judiciously retreated from the countertop, taking up residence on a row of binders lining a rear shelf. The window looked out over the parking lot, empty save for the beloved Olds.

The Mickey Mouse voice lost some of its confidence. "I'm the four-time course champion. You don't want to tangle with me, pal. All right?"

Walker stepped forward, letting the light fall across his face. He nodded at the man's hidden hand. "Pick it up. Go on."

"Umm…"

"Pick it up."

"I don't really want to."

Walker cocked the hammer, and the man cringed and slowly withdrew his hand from beneath the counter, careful to keep the SIG Sauer aimed away.

"Point it at me," Walker said.

The pistol trembled in the man's grip. "Do I have to?"

"Yes."

It took him an eternity to fight his hand north, to place Walker in the sights.

"Open your eyes," Walker said. The man was cringing, sweat beading at the band of forehead beneath his receding hairline. Walker waited until the terrified pupils came into sight. He stared down the barrel of the SIG. "You have no idea how little I have to lose."

"Probably not. Can I put the gun down now?"

Walker nodded, and the pistol clattered into a drawer. "You're going to answer all my questions, and you're going to do so immediately. I will not ask a question twice. Understand?"

The double chin jerked up, then puddled.

"What's your full name?"

"Wesley Aloysius Dieter."

"A contract deal came through here on Wednesday, June sixth. Do you know anything about it?"

"Swear to God no."

"Do you have hidden cameras?"

"Uh-uh. It makes guys nervous. Say the press or a guy's wife gets ahold of some footage. We had a state assembly rep in here last week, ya know?"

Walker's eyes ticked toward the video equipment. "But you film them?"

"Sometimes. But it's just the one tape, shipped to an address they designate." Wes tapped a contract underlying the counter's scratch guard. "We don't keep a master, nothing." He exaggerated showing Walker his hands before pulling a ChapStick from his pocket and moistening his lips. "I had a closed-circuit in for a while, some lenses in the preserve to keep an eye on the girls, but some of my customers are pretty paranoid. They like their privacy." He added, with an element of pride, "We get a lot of tough guys, former operators, ya know?"

"You keep a log?"

"Yeah, but it won't do you any good. Guys use fake names or tags, mostly." Wes wiped the sweat from his cheeks. His voice was less fearful. He seemed to be enjoying himself, playing a role in a real-life dangerous plot.

Walker put a charge back into him, circling the counter and pressing the point of the Redhawk to his greasy cheek. "Get it."

Wes recoiled, then dug through some binders behind the desk and produced an appointment sheet-names marked by the start times. Walker glanced through the list-nothing he recognized, though he wasn't sure what he was expecting.

"Tell me something useful."

"Okay," Wes's voice ratcheted even higher. He snatched up the page, his fingers snapping nervously as he perused the names. "Mostly my regulars here. That was the day Cheetah Runner twisted her ankle. I remember it." Wes's eyes darted around the page, and then he made a strangled noise of excitement. "This guy." He tapped the page excitedly. "Sickle Moon. Rookie mission. He had a silver briefcase. I remember because he had to rent two lockers, one for it, one to fit his clothes and gear. Look right here." Beside the name was scribbled an abbreviation that Walker took to be the locker-rental code.

"Did he take the briefcase with him when he left?"

"I didn't see."

Walker pointed at another handwritten mark: L13ov. "What's that mean?"

"He kept one locker overnight."

"And that didn't make you suspicious? A cash drop?"

"Like I said, this is a meeting ground for all types of guys. A lot leave their gear overnight if they book again for the next day. I'd never think it was for a contract. At most I thought he was buying guns. Guys do that here, now and then, get around the bullshit waiting-period laws." Wes read Walker's anger, and his face started to quiver. "It's just for fun, really. Guys who want to shoot up at the ranges in the hills, ya know? Targets on boards, maybe an out-of-season deer or two. Nothing big. Who's that hurt?"

"What'd he do when he was here?"

Wes spoke rapidly, placating. "Normal appointment. One-hour hunt. Minimum requirement if you wanna rent a locker."

In order to locker the cash, Sickle Moon, the bag man for the deal, had to partake of the action.

Walker noted the credit-card swiper beside the computer on the rear desk. "How'd he pay?"

Wes checked the scrawl on the appointment sheet again. "Cash. Most of 'em do."

"Did he order a video?"

"Uh-uh."

"Get on your knees."

Wes blurted out, "I have an address."

"An address? Why the hell you have an address all of a sudden?"

"I always do. Look, this is a high-ticket, high-risk operation. One in five customers invites a girl out. One time in three, she goes. We gotta know who with. Believe what you want, but I know some of these girls years now. I don't want to see anything happen to one. So we shoot digitals of the clients' license plates. I got a pal on the force gives us addresses, so if a girl goes out and stays out too long, we know where to start looking. That's all. I don't tell anyone-I can't tell anyone-or that'd be the end of this place. And probably me."

"Get it."

Wes dug through a cabinet. With trembling fingers he aligned the combo on a lockbox, then dug through laser-print close-ups of license plates. He pulled one, handed it to Walker.

Walker glanced at the handwritten name above the address on the back: Ted Sands.

He slid the photo in his pocket. "On your knees."

"Oh, God." Wes let out a strident moan. "Come on, pal, I helped you as best I could. I don't know anything."

"Lace your hands behind your neck." Walker stood behind him, pressing the barrel to the wispy hair above his collar.

Wes was keening now, voice choked with snot. "I'm just a businessman. I talk a game, that's all. I talk a game, but I'm not really a player. I just like being around them. Please. Please."

Walker pulled the trigger, the hammer clicking over an empty chamber. "You're not worth the bullet."

He left Wes collapsed on the floor behind the counter, Elektra grooming herself indifferently by his head.