“Yeah, I guess so.” He punched numbers on the computer and said, “Huh, that’s funny. His name’s not on here.”
Hondo said, “Maybe he used an assumed name, or one of the others checked in for him.”
“No, I remember exactly, because he didn’t use Bob, he used Robert.” He punched keys again and frowned at the screen. “I don’t understand.”
I said, “Did he sign something?”
“Yeah, he did. I’ll have to go dig through the hard copies from last week, but he did sign. Signed Robert Landman, I remember it.”
His nametag read Loomis. I said, “Loomis, we’ll come around tomorrow and check with you. Here’s something for your trouble, and we’ll match it tomorrow if you find us anything good.” I handed him a hundred dollar bill.
He took it, looked around and put it in his pocket. “You fellows come here after one. I’ll be by myself then.”
We nodded and as Hondo pushed the door to go out, we heard Loomis hissing, “Tell Elvis hello for me!”
When we got outside, I could see three Hispanics leaning on the driver’s side door of my pickup. They appeared to be in their early twenties and were dressed in baggy khakis, white undershirts, and were drinking forties of malt liquor, holding them at their sides by putting a finger in the mouth of the bottle.
We stopped at the truck and they didn’t move. “Excuse me guys, this is my truck.”
The one wearing the hairnet said, “Truck? I thought it was a fish.” They all ha-ha’d and still didn’t move.
Hondo took his sunglasses off and hooked them on his belt, pulling his jacket out and away from his underarm to make room. He said, “I tell him all the time it looks like Shamu.”
Hairnet said, “Yeah, that’s the one. Man, when you gonna get a real paint job on this bruto? This is a big, bad-ass truck, gringo.”
I could see the butts of handguns sticking out of the pants of the closest two, so I had to guess all three were armed. I gave an aw-shucks smile and eased a half-step at a forty-five degree angle to settle into an open Bi-Jong stance they wouldn’t recognize as anything. It left no soft areas exposed and opened my jacket an inch away from my side. The magnum’s weight against my ribs was telling my hand right where to go.
Hairnet grinned at us and pulled out a switchblade, flicking the button. As he started to rake the point across the side of the truck, Hondo shook his head and said, “Uh-uh.”
At that same moment, I felt the hair on my neck prickle and I turned to look behind us at the street. A lowrider was coming by with two cholos hanging out of the windows, holding Mac-10s in each hand. I yelled and the others glanced at the street. I was already moving and Hondo was a heartbeat behind as we tackled the three boys and shoved them to the pavement while the four Macs bratted nine-millimeter bullets into the side of Shamu at a rate of twenty-five rounds per second. It sounded like being under a metal shed during a bad hailstorm for two seconds, then their magazines were empty and it was silent.
When we heard the car speed away, Hondo and I got off the three gangbangers, who were much slower getting up. Hairnet was holding his arm where Hondo had hit him to knock him down.
“Man, es-say, you almost broke it.”
“I thought about holding you in front of the truck to save the paint job.”
Shamu had l
ots of holes in the sides and a wavy string of spiderwebs in the front window. The angled glass had caused the nine millimeters to ricochet off rather than penetrate.
Hairnet talked to the other two in Spanish, then said, “I’m not complaining man, it’s just that I never been hit like that. My neck hurts and my teeth clicked together so hard I got tiny chips in my mouth.” He looked at me, “How you know they was coming?”
“I felt it. Nothing else I can tell you.”
“Like a psychic thing, uh? That’s cool, man. What’s your names?”
“I’m Ronny Baca, He’s Hondo Wells.”
“Both of you got Spanish in your names, that’s good.”
I could hear sirens in the distance. On a hunch I said, “You three get out of here, we’ll take care of the cops.”
Hairnet looked at us for a second, then said, “You saved the lives of three Maravillas, and it’s not something we forget. If you need anything, you ask for one of us. My name is Pretty Boy, this is Chato and he’s Cuarenta.”
“Forty?” Hondo said.
Pretty Boy said, “Yeah, he likes his beer.” That was it. They trotted off and disappeared around the corner. Two minutes later a police vehicle pulled up and the officers got out. We told them our story of innocence, of walking to our vehicle and this car drove by and we saw the guns just in time. They had us go over it three times before they were satisfied.