Wicked Break

Twenty

I drove back to Mission Beach, my body beginning to wear down at the end of the day. It was becoming a regular thing.

My head was aching, too, but that was from the wear and tear of the emotional ride of the last few days than anything else. I considered swinging by the SandDune for a drink, but I knew the taste of alcohol would remind me of my mother and the blown-out windows of the bar would remind me of Moreno, Lonnie, and all the other unpleasant characters that had planted themselves in my life.

And the more I thought about Carolina coming to my house for dinner, the more reckless it felt. I’d been caught up in the moment and not thinking clearly. Lonnie and Mo knew where I lived, a fact that was starting to weigh on me more by the day. My home wasn’t completely safe for me, much less anyone else.

While waiting for a red light to change, I dialed her on my cell and got her answering machine. I left a stumbling, vague message about meeting at a restaurant in Mission Beach on Saturday rather than my home. I knew she’d take it the wrong way, but I’d deal with that when I saw her.

I opted to park the Jeep several blocks up from my place. I knew the early evening party traffic would be choking the alleys and I didn’t feel like fighting it. I took the opportunity to walk down the boardwalk and collect my thoughts.

The air was still as I strolled up the concrete walk next to the beach, the usual evening breeze sucked up by the lingering heat of the day. The water at the edge of the sand rippled like a black canvas tarp. The laughter and conversation that floated around me from the evening revelers as the darkness descended felt familiar and comfortable.

I wasn’t sure I wanted my mother coming into this familiar and comfortable environment because all I’d ever known from her presence was disruption. I’d grown accustomed to being on my own, to living in my own world, and I didn’t want to adjust any of that for someone I would never be able to fully trust.

A group of people on the balcony of a blue stucco two-story let out a cry of appreciation. I looked up. Beer bottles raised in the air, they rocked and swayed to the muted music from inside their place. I shook my head, smiling. Those yells and cries, the constant stereophonic noise that poured out of the houses up and down the boardwalk, those were the things I knew I could count on.

I hopped the low wall onto my patio and watched the dark ocean roll in and out for another minute. I thought about going in and calling Carter, but I was afraid he’d tell me he was with Dana, and that was something I didn’t want to know about. I didn’t want to think about the Plutos or the gang members, either. For one night, I needed a breather.

That left Liz. She said to call her.

I pictured her face, the half-Hispanic, half-Italian features that had taken hold of me a long time ago and refused to let go. I had my doubts about whether we could coexist, but I knew that every time I saw her, I felt like we should be trying.

Maybe it was time.

I headed for the sliding door. As I reached for it, I froze.

The door was an inch from being closed.

I pulled my gun and listened.

Nothing.

I eased the door open with my left hand, the gun heavy in my right. No lights and the television was off. Definitely not Carter.

I stepped into the living room and looked into the shadows. Nothing broken or disturbed. I could hear my breathing and tried to relax.

Something was wrong, but I couldn’t place it.

I moved over to the front door. The deadbolt was intact and I couldn’t see any damage around the lock.

I scanned the room again, then moved down the short hallway toward the bedroom, replaying the living room in my head, trying to compare the picture of what I’d just seen to what it normally looked like. Television, coffee table, sofa. They were all there.

Then it hit me.

The longboard.

I turned back to the far corner of the living room. The longboard that always stood in the corner was gone.

The muscles in my back tightened and my index finger flexed around the trigger of the gun.

Then it hit me again.

The longboard.

Literally.

The board came charging out of my bedroom, slamming into me and knocking me onto my back, the gun flying from my hand. I recognized Lonnie sliding across the top of the board, his momentum carrying him over and past me into the dark living room.

I rolled over quickly and grabbed him by the ankle as he tried to scramble to his feet. He jammed a heel into my mouth, but I remembered last time and I wasn’t letting go. The pain that had riddled my body in the previous days had transformed itself into adrenaline.

I got to my knees and threw myself forward, landing on him as he tried to get up. I forced him back down to the floor, I slammed his face into the floor, his nose cracking on the hard surface.

He screamed and I grabbed his hair, pulled his head up, and rammed his face into the floor again, the adrenaline ripping through my body. His body shook beneath mine as I pressed all of my weight into him.

A hand yanked at the waist of my shorts while another grabbed my shoulder, tearing me away from Lonnie. The hands picked me up with the ease of a crane and hurtled me across the living room and into the dining room wall. Red and black clouds exploded in my eyes as I hit the wall back first. Lightning rocketed through my back and legs as I slid to the floor. I shook my head and righted myself against the wall, trying to clear my vision.

Mo was helping Lonnie off the floor. They looked as if they hadn’t even changed clothes from the last time I’d seen them.

I tried to get up, but my knees buckled and I slid back to the floor.

“Fucking cocksucker,” Lonnie said, a hand across his nose, his voice wet and muddled. “You fucking cocksucker.”

I tried to rise up again, made it halfway before my knees gave out again and I fell to my left. My hand landed on something steel, something cold, something friendly.

My gun.

I slid the gun next to my leg, my hand locking onto it like a magnet.

“I told you’d we’d be back,” Lonnie said, removing his hand from his face and exposing what looked like a smashed piece of clay where his nose should’ve been. Blood oozed from his nostrils and he’d smeared it across his mouth. “Here we are, asshole. And you’re gonna talk this time.”

“How about Mo steps outside, you little piece of shit?” I said, trying to sit up straighter against the wall. “You want me so bad? Let’s go. Just me and you. Or does Mo always do your fighting for you?”

“You can’t handle me, motherfucker,” Lonnie sneered.

“I’ve done it twice, dumbass,” I said, tightening my grip on the gun. “And I’m just wondering. Do you call him Mo because it’s short for Mommy?”

“You’re fucking dead,” Lonnie said, moving toward the glass slider. He reached for the hanging blinds and started to pull them closed. “Grab him, Mo.”

Mo grunted and took a step toward me.

“Don’t fucking move, Mo,” I said, raising the gun and aiming it at his chest.

He looked at it, a blank expression on his face. No fear, no anger. As if I were holding a plate of cookies and he wasn’t sure if he was hungry. He turned to Lonnie.

Lonnie, on the other hand, looked a little scared, his hand frozen on the cord to the blinds. He licked the blood on his lips and shook his head slowly. “You think that matters?”

“I’m guessing, yeah, it does,” I said, keeping the gun on Mo and glancing at Lonnie. “Seems to have frozen your mommy right in his footsteps. Wanna give him a kiss?”

Lonnie stared at me, his eyes cold and flat, full of hate. He looked at his hand, his red fingertips illuminated by the moonlight from outside. Then he looked back at me, a small, ugly smile emerging on his small, ugly face.

He looked at Mo. “Get him.”

Mo turned and rushed at me. I froze for a second, stunned that he would charge me with a gun aimed at his chest just because Lonnie said to.

Then I squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit him in the right shoulder and he grunted, stopping in midstep, his eyes still locked on me.

Lonnie moved for the glass slider and I jerked the gun in his direction and fired. The slider shattered and Lonnie disappeared into the shower of glass.

I swiveled the gun back at Mo. He had his left arm across his chest, his hand covering the expanding wound. He pulled his hand away and examined the blood like a child cut for the first time.

“Let’s go!” Lonnie screamed from outside.

“Don’t move,” I said, locking the gun on him.

Mo reacted as if he didn’t even hear me. He pivoted and I fired, but the shot missed high.

Mo jumped the coffee table and charged through the shattered glass door faster than a man with a bullet in his body should’ve been able, following Lonnie out into the night.