Dead End Fix Read online

  This time the brothers were less vocal in their support. Kashawn figured they were thinking the same thing he was. If the Picos wanted to talk, they had no choice but to listen.

  “I’ma call the number on those letters,” D’Loco announced. “I’ma set up a meeting.”

  “And then we gonna take out any damned Pico stupid enough to show up!” This time Kashawn’s brothers shouted down the rebel in their midst.

  “It’s all safe,” D’Loco continued. “Jazz taught me how these things go. Public place. Two from each side. No guns. We listen to what they got to say. They listen to us. Things go bad, we lost nothing. It’s how it’s done.” D’Loco took his time looking each of his men in the eye. “And we gonna do it.”

  The rebel brother mumbled under his breath, then pushed his way out of the room. Kashawn didn’t think the other brothers were sorry to see him go.

  “When?” Big Cheeks asked.

  “I’ma call that number right now. Sooner’s better, I guess.”

  “Who you takin’ with you?” J-Fox asked.

  D’Loco inhaled long and slow. When he exhaled, Kashawn felt the room go cold.

  “I’ma take Green K with me.”

  —

  Kashawn parked the car in the lot next to McDonald’s on Spring Street. They were in the center of the city, a place Kashawn had been at least ten times. Each had been for some sort of court appearance that had ended with him in another foster facility. He’d long ago formed an opinion of the area. It was filled with too many white people not giving one care about what happened to a young black kid. He’d made himself a promise to avoid downtown whenever possible. But this was the first time D’Loco had him drive, and he was going anywhere his leader wanted.

  “You really leavin’ your piece?” he asked before switching off the ignition.

  “Like I said, this is how it’s done. You leave yours behind too, hear me?” D’Loco’s eyes scanned the parking lot. It was nearly six o’clock. Already dark but still early enough that the restaurant was filled with people grabbing a quick dinner.

  “You know this place?” he asked.

  D’Loco kept surveying the area. “No. That’s the plan. Public place. Nobody’s turf.”

  Kashawn looked at the Subarus, Volvos, and Volkswagens in the parking lot. He watched the people coming and leaving the fast-food joint. Whites and Asians.

  If you were lookin’ for alien turf, he thought, this is it.

  “All right, then.” D’Loco opened the door of the Escalade and stepped out. “Let’s go get us some nuggets.”

  —

  Two black men sat at a corner booth. Kashawn and D’Loco walked toward them. Kashawn thought they looked enough alike to be brothers. Same height, same build. But the one with the dreadlocks seemed older.

  “People call me D’Loco.” He nodded toward Kashawn. “This here is Green K.”

  The man with the dreadlocks fixed them with a long stare. “I’m Spice. Then again, you already knowed that. With me is Three Pop. He my man. Been with me more than ten years now.”

  Kashawn wondered if he was supposed to speak. But Spice’s man hadn’t said a word, so he figured he’d stay shut too. He was relieved when Spice pointed toward two chairs and they sat down.

  “Get right down to it,” Spice said. “We got a full-on war workin’, ain’t that right?”

  “Not of my doin’.” D’Loco’s voice rumbled with authority. “Was a Pico struck the first blow. Can’t let that go unchallenged.”

  Spice looked to his man. Kashawn mimicked the move and looked toward D’Loco. But his leader kept his eyes on the two Picos sitting across the table.

  “We get to who struck who later.” Spice tapped a red fingernail against the white Formica. Kashawn noticed Three Pop had one red nail too. “We saved three of yours today.”

  “After you took one of my best. Blue Man been with me awhile.”

  Spice nodded. “Stuff like that counts. No doubt. 97s take six of my men. My count has us takin’ four of yours.”

  “No doubt, then, is there?” D’Loco sounded so certain. “97s stronger than Pico Underground.”

  Spice huffed out a breath. “Take those three we dropped the love note on this day, and we one ahead. You wanna keep playin’ this? How long you figure till we got just one man standin’? And how much you willin’ to bet that last one won’t be you or me?”

  D’Loco stared at the man.

  “This war bad all the way around,” Spice said. “Bad for blood. Bad for business. Cops come in, start scaring away the customers.”

  “A truce? That what you want?” D’Loco turned to look at Kashawn, who held his gaze but didn’t have a clue as to what D’Loco was signaling.

  “Like I say.” D’Loco returned his attention to Spice. “Wasn’t no 97 started this war.”

  Spice’s man lurched forward. Spice had his hand on the man’s shoulder before he moved two inches.

  Spice patted the man’s shoulder and he settled back. “Three Pop got some different notion about that.” Spice pulled a garment from the back of his man’s chair.

  Kashawn’s breath left him.

  “What’s this, now?” D’Loco asked.

  “Three Pop here picked this up at the police station.” Spice put his hand back on his man’s shoulder.

  Kashawn heard the roar of his pulse pounding in his ears.

  “This denim jacket belong to Three Pop here.” Spice laid it on the table. “See here? Sleeve’s cut off. That sleeve is where Three Pop wears his colors. Like I say, Three Pop proud to be a Pico for ten years now.”

  Kashawn saw the twitch in D’Loco’s eyelid.

  “Look like your man best learn how to take care of what’s his. I’ll tell you this. Ain’t no 97 ever let something with his colors end up like this.”

  D’Loco was protecting him in front of the Picos. Kashawn wondered what would happen once they left.

  “I’ma let my man say what’s next.” Spice took his hand off Three Pop’s shoulder. “Then we’ll talk about who started what.”

  Kashawn shifted his attention to the man directly across from him.

  “Some detective give me back my jacket.” Three Pop had a rage in his voice that Kashawn could almost smell. “Took it off a dead boy. My little brother. Everybody call him Banjo. Twelve years old. Walkin’ to meet up with a church bus after doin’ his good deed for the day. Gunned down.”

  D’Loco didn’t move. Kashawn kept his eyes on his leader, looking for some sign of what was to come.

  “You sayin’ a 97 did this?” D’Loco finally asked.

  “You know it same as me,” Spice said. “Three Pop, tell these 97s when little Banjo got shot.”

  “Been over a month ago now,” Three Pop said. “Couldn’t be sure who at first. Cops say shots came from a car. Witnesses say maybe one color, maybe another. Too scared to be sure. But when they give me back Banjo’s things, I know it was a 97.”

  “A month now, you say?” D’Loco asked.

  “That’s right. Just about the time you added new blood to one of your corners.” Spice leaned back in his chair. “Three Pop just learn of the jacket and the stealin’ of his colors. He adds that two plus two. Only answer he come up with is one of yours took out Banjo thinking he was Three Pop. Ain’t no way Picos can let that go.”

  D’Loco said nothing as he stared at Spice for several minutes. Kashawn thought about his room. He tried to taste the sausages Slow Time had cooked up for him and his brothers that morning. He remembered he’d eaten four. And two eggs to go with them.

  Why didn’t I have the toast? I still coulda made it to work on time. I shoulda had the toast.

  “What’s your terms?” D’Loco finally asked.

  Spice lifted his palms. “Keep things simple. The killing stops. Right now. Tonight. We all go home and it’s business as usual tomorrow. You feelin’ that?”

  D’Loco kept his eyes on Spice. “And?”

  Three Pop leaned forward. He pointed to
an outline of a tear tattooed on his cheek. “And I fill this in. Give me the sumbitch who gunned down a twelve-year-old church boy thinkin’ he was hittin’ me, and we call it done.”

  “ ’Cept of course for a penalty,” Spice added.

  “What might that be?” D’Loco asked.

  Spice nodded toward Kashawn. “We been watching his corner. His spot’s not far from Pico territory. You do good business there. But if you was to lose it, my thinking is your wallet won’t be much thinner.”

  “And Pico expands its territory.” D’Loco’s voice was low with rage. “That your thinkin’?”

  “Wasn’t one of mine made the mistake and killed a kid.”

  D’Loco said nothing. Kashawn looked at the menu behind the counter. He looked for the most expensive item listed. Then the next costliest. Then the next. He needed to keep his mind occupied. If he didn’t, he was afraid he’d soil himself right there in the white people’s McDonald’s.

  “That number I called,” D’Loco asked. “It still good?”

  “For a time,” Spice replied. “Wanna say three days? Truce starts tonight. We see what three days bring.”

  Kashawn felt suddenly light, like he was able to float above himself and watch the conversation from the ceiling.

  “Sound about right,” D’Loco said. “I’ma call you.”

  Spice and his man got up and left the restaurant. D’Loco sat silently for a few minutes more.

  “Let’s go,” he finally said.

  Not another word was exchanged the entire ride back to the clubhouse.

  Chapter 27

  Olympia

  Lydia walked her last patient of the day out of her suite of offices, went back to her desk, and stretched. It had been too long since she’d sat hour after hour in her therapist’s chair. She promised herself a hard workout and a long, hot shower once she got home. Just one last chart to write and she could call it a day.

  Sad, she thought as she recapped the symptoms, interventions, and progress of her last patient. People came to her looking for a way out of their misery. More often than not their pain was self-inflicted. Somewhere along the line, typically decades ago, someone—a parent or a person they had once loved—had hurt them. Whether intentional or not, a psychic wound had been inflicted. Such is the nature of things. To love is to expose oneself to heartache. But by keeping the pain alive years after the initial hurt, Lydia’s patients nurtured their depression and anxiety. They came to her so convinced they were doomed to a lifetime of wretched despair because of what had been done to them. It was her job to help her patients see and embrace their own power. To show them a way to accept what had happened, no matter how horrific at the time, and to know it need have nothing to do with the life available for them to live now. It was okay to want things to have been different, but the key to living well was not needing them to be.

  A wave of her own painful history rose up. She had once been powerless. Abused and abandoned. There was nothing she could do to change the then and there of her biography. But she was determined to build the here and now of her life from different material. No one would hurt her again.

  But what cost am I paying? she wondered. Oliver told me I was the one he needed protection from. I’ve become the source of his pain. Oh, Oliver. I’m so sorry. Live long and well. If things had been different, I might have built a life with you.

  She refocused her attention on finishing the chart. Practice what you preach, doctor. You can wish all you want, but it’s the needing that brings you pain. Protect yourself. No one else is going to do it for you.

  She added her final chart, now complete, to the stack from patients she’d seen earlier. She locked them away, promising to file them tomorrow. It was nearly four o’clock. Working out the strain from her muscles seemed a higher priority than paperwork.

  She backed her Volvo out of the parking lot and waited at a red light for the chance to turn north onto Capitol Boulevard. Traffic was light. It would be another hour before the crush of state employees fleeing their cubicles clogged Olympia’s streets.

  Soft jazz drifted from her stereo speakers. The kind of music that reminded her of Mort. Lydia hadn’t heard from him in over a week.

  No news needs to be good news.

  There were four cars in front of her. She took a deep breath and distracted herself from her impatience by focusing on her surroundings. The sky was heavy with low, dark clouds threatening rain. On the sidewalk to her left a woman walked two French bulldogs. The restaurant on the corner had a sign bragging its corned beef was the best in the city. A brown Toyota was behind her. Behind that was a silver car. She couldn’t make out the model.

  The light switched to green. The lead car made the turn, followed by two more. Lydia, however, was stymied by the car in front of her. She could see the driver. A man talking on his cellphone, oblivious to the fact that it was his turn to move. She took another deep breath and pretended to be thankful for yet another opportunity to practice her patience.

  The brown Toyota behind her was less tolerant. The driver honked his horn. Lydia glanced in her rearview mirror and saw him signaling her to move forward. But the car in front of her still hadn’t moved. She was wondering where Brown Toyota was so frantic to be when he maneuvered his way around her, one hand on the steering wheel and the other flipping the bird, as he drove on to make the light. The silver car behind her pulled forward. She could see now it was a Buick.

  Finally the driver of the car in front realized his folly. He made his left after the light turned yellow, leaving Lydia and the cars behind her stuck for another round. Lydia stemmed her irritation by focusing on the music. Wynton Marsalis was leading his band through a haunting, reflective number, the perfect soundtrack for the weather.

  At last the light was green again. She made her turn and headed north. Half a block up she saw a bicyclist in her lane. She glanced in the side mirror, saw the left lane was free, and switched over.

  The silver Buick did the same.

  She continued north, passing through the heart of the capitol campus. The car behind her made no turn into any building’s parking lot. The same was true as she passed side streets leading to residential areas. Through the downtown district, where any number of stores and restaurants might cause a person to pull off, the silver Buick stayed right behind her.

  A sensation she’d learned to trust sizzled deep inside her. It was the same feeling that had warned her as a child to hide when certain foster fathers were around.

  She clicked her turn indicator, moved into the far lane, and watched the Buick mimic her move. She turned right onto Fourth Avenue. The Buick did the same. She caught the red light at the corner of Fourth and East Bay. Though it was her plan to turn left, she kept her indicator off, hoping the Buick would assume she was continuing east. When the light changed, she made the turn.

  So did the silver car.

  The low clouds combined with the prelude to dusk made it difficult for her to make out anything more detailed than two men in the Buick. She continued north on East Bay Drive, past condominiums and marinas. She considered turning into Priest Point Park. But her gut told her not to waste the effort. She knew she had a tail.

  Was it a patient? As a clinical psychologist Lydia had been trained to firmly set her boundaries. But patients were often curious to learn more about the therapist who knew their darkest secrets. It was common for them to ask personal questions to try to balance the power in the relationship. Sometimes she encountered patients waiting for her in the parking lot. They mistook the intimacy of therapy for friendship and suggested meeting for coffee or a drink.

  But the last male patient she’d seen that day had been at eleven o’clock. And there were two men in the car. One man wouldn’t bring another along as he tried to get friendly with his psychologist.

  It could be the FBI. Mort had told her the special agent leading the investigation into Hadley’s kidnapping was still asking questions. Mort had promised to handle him, but
he wasn’t as good a liar as Lydia. If the FBI had suspicions Mort’s friend Lydia was the “Sheila” who had escorted Hadley home, they might have assigned a team to watch her.

  But her gut still sizzled its warning. If the FBI were tailing her, they wouldn’t be so obvious.

  Lydia kept her speed within the posted limit and reviewed her options as she made her way down Boston Harbor Road. She had no weapons in the car. Cars could be stolen. She kept two guns at her office. But a return now ran the risk of tipping off the tail. She could drive home and have her entire arsenal available. But if the two men following her meant her harm, would she have enough time to get into the house and down to her basement before they got to her?

  She reached over and opened her glove box. There was nothing but an owner’s manual, a box of tissues, and a flashlight. She popped open the console separating the two front seats. Two tins of mints and a hairbrush. Her jacket was lightweight, offering protection only against rain. There was nothing in her backseat but the camera she kept handy for shooting photographs of her beloved hawks, eagles, and owls.

  Lydia passed the road that would take her home and continued on toward the hamlet of Boston Harbor. She slowed as she approached the entrance to Burfoot State Park. On impulse she made the left turn into the parking lot, the Buick no more than ten car lengths behind.

  There was only one other vehicle in the lot. A bronze minivan surrounded by five young girls in matching scout outfits and two arm-waving women trying to herd them into their seats. Lydia parked her Volvo next to them. She pulled the flashlight from the glove box and slid it into her jacket pocket. She got out of the car, paying no attention to the Buick, now parked fifty feet away. She made a show of eyeing the tall cedars and fir trees before she opened the rear door and pulled out her camera. She took a few shots there in the parking lot, looking like nothing more than a woman capturing the beauty of late autumn in the Pacific Northwest. She panned her camera toward the Buick, using her zoom lens for a closer look at the men inside.