"You don't have to do anything, either of you bitches. Am I asking you to do anything? Either of you?"
"I'm just saying," Nathan grumbled.
There was silence. They looked around the school yard, kids walking home, kids being picked up by parents, moms mostly, in a long line of cars in the driveway. Tiff looked their way again. Donnie brushed his hair out of his eyes and when he looked again, she'd turned away.
And she'd be interested why? he thought, sad.
Wes said, "Hey, come on, Darth. We're with you. Whatever you want, tag or trash. We're there. I'll help you get the bikes but I'm not going inside."
"All I'm asking. You two. Lookouts."
"Fuck, amen," the big kid said.
Nods all around.
"Roll?" Donnie asked.
A nod. They headed for the gate in the chain link that led to the street.
Donnie and his crew. He didn't share with them what was really going down.
What he'd tapped inside his jacket wasn't a can of Krylon. It was his father's .38 Smith & Wesson pistol.
He'd made the decision last night--after the son of a bitch, his father, pulled out the branch, tugged Donnie's pants down and whaled on him maybe because of the bike or maybe for some other reason or maybe for no fucking reason at all.
And when it was over, Donnie staggered to his feet, avoided his mother's damp red eyes and walked stiffly to his room, where he stood for a while at his computer--his keyboard was on a high table, 'cause there were plenty of times he couldn't sit down--playing Assassin's Creed, then Call of Duty, GTA 5, though he didn't shoot or jump good, you can't when your eyes are fucked up by tears. In Call of Duty, Federation soldiers kept him and the other Ghost elite special ops unit pinned down and his guys had got fucked-up because of him.
That's when he made the decision.
Donnie realized this life wasn't going to work anymore. He had two ways to go. One was to go into his father's dresser and get the little gun and put a bullet in the man's head while he slept. And as good as that would feel--so good--it meant his brother and his mother's life'd be fucked forever because Dad didn't treat them quite as bad as Donnie got treated, and he may've been a prick but at least he paid the rent and put food on the table.
So, it was number two.
He'd take his father's gun, go back to the Jew's house, with his crew. After they got the bikes--evidence--he'd have the others keep an eye out for cops and he'd go inside, tie the asshole up, and get every penny the prick had in the house, watches, the wife's jewelry. He had to be rich. Donnie's dad said all Jews were.
He could get thousands, he was sure. Tens of thousands.
With the money, he'd leave. Head to San Francisco or L.A. Maybe Hollister, where they made all the clothes. He'd get something on, and not selling ice or grass. Something real. He could sell the D.A.R.E.S. game to somebody in Silicon Valley. It wasn't that far away; maybe Tiff would visit.
Life would be good. At last. Life would be good. Donnie could almost taste it.
Chapter 87
Charles Overby, a man who loved the sun, who just felt good with a ruddy complexion, now walked toward the Guzman Connection task force room, deer level in CBI headquarters, and wasn't pleased at what he saw.
It was late afternoon and the shade outside turned the glass to a dim mirror. He looked vampiric, which, if it wasn't a word, should be. Too stressed, too busy, too much shit. From Sacramento all the way to Mexico with their smarmy, lawbreaking ally Commissioner Santos.
He stepped inside the room. Foster and Lu, Steve and Steve Two, were at one table, both on phones. DEA agent Carol Allerton sat at another, engrossed in her laptop. She seemed to prefer to play alone, Overby had noted. She didn't even notice him, so lost was she in the e-mails scrolling past on her Samsung.
"Greetings, all."
Allerton glanced at him. "Getting reports on that truck left Compton a day ago, the warehouse near the Four-oh-five. The Nazim Brothers. May have twenty ki's. Meth." This truck, Allerton explained, had been spotted on Highway 1.
Lu asked, "A semi? There? Jesus."
The highway, between Santa Barbara and Half Moon, could be tricky to drive, even in a sports car. Narrow and winding.
"That's right. I want to follow it. No reason for 'em to be taking that route, unless they're going someplace connected with Pipeline." Allerton then turned to Lu. "You free?"