Страница 22 из 59
“Come on.” Theron gave short shrift to the notion, probably guessing there was no way in hell I’d hand my weapons over to this kid. “You know the iron mean less than nothing. Who the hell are you, anyway?”
“Paco. Ramon’s mi tio.”
“Then go fetch him, Paquito. I don’t like waiting.” Theron still hadn’t put his teeth away. He also seemed to get a few inches taller, his shoulders broadening, and a slight crackle told me he was puffing up for my benefit.
Gangs are all about face, really. Paco was in that dangerous stage where he was still a young wa
The prospect was amusing, but I didn’t have time to fuck around. Sunlight was wasting and someone was pla
Theron stepped forward, looming over Paco, still showing his teeth. The boy flinched, covered it up well, and retreated up two swift steps before turning on his heel and hurrying into the adobe’s gloom.
“I take it these are friends of yours.” My fingers relaxed, and I controlled a sharp flare of irritation. My heart rate had picked up, walloping along harder than it should. Theron shut the door with a click and leaned against the wall, all hipshot Were grace.
“We like to know who’s doing what out here. You okay?”
“Peachy.” Adrenaline coated my tongue with copper. I was all twitched-up. Dying a couple of times a day will do that to you, redline your responses even to garden-variety aggressiveness. As hard as hunters are trained to deliver maximum violence in minimum time, we’re also trained to clamp down on the chemical soup of the body’s dumb meat responding inappropriately.
The scab on the back of my head had come away in two graceless chunks in the shower, blood clots large enough to give even me pause. I still felt them peeling free of my scalp, bits of dead tissue clinging to my fingernails under the hot water.
Focus, Jill. Now’s not the time to go postal. Save it for later. Save it for hellbreed or scurf. Relax. I took in a deep cool breath, aware of the prickle of reaction-sweat along the curve of my lower back, calming my heartbeat with an effort.
Mercifully, Theron let it go. I slid my shades back up my nose. The dimness gave me no trouble, even through dark lenses my vision was acute enough to pick out the clean tiles, the pattern in the plaster on the wall, and the way Theron tilted his head slightly, testing the air.
I smelled Ramon before I saw him. The cologne was musky, mixing with the smell of healthy male and dominance every charismatic man exhales. I also smelled metal and cordite, and my palms itched for a gun.
Settle down, Jill. He’s only human, after all. He couldn’t even break you out in a sweat.
The voice of reason didn’t help. I calmed myself with an effort. The scar prickled, sensitive to the tightening of my aura.
Cholos run to two types: beanpole and brick shithouse. Ramon was the latter, wide and chunky, the 51 colors showing on his do-rag and knotted around his left biceps. He had a broad cheerful face and eyes as cold as leftover coffee. He also had a ca
“Love one. This is Kismet. Bruja grande.” Theron was making it, in essence, impossible for Ramon to dismiss me.
The gangbanger eyed me. I eyed him right back through the shades. My heart rate settled down. The body sometimes likes to pitch a fit, thinking it can stave off death or injury by working itself up into the redline after the fact.
Still, you can’t blame the body. It’s wiser than the idiot pushing it through the valley of danger.
Ramon said nothing. He was still deciding. I tilted the shades down a bit and gave him my second-best level glare.
He took it well, only paling and stepping back once. The scar prickled under its cuff, responding to the sudden fog of blood-colored fear tainting the air.
It’s not getting bigger, Jill. Goddamn it.
Theron laid an easy hand on my shoulder. “She’d probably like a beer too.”
Ramon said something under his breath, probably a prayer. When I didn’t disappear or scream in pain, he shrugged. “C’mon back, then. Whatchu here for?”
That was my cue to open my mouth. “Pedro Ayala.” I left it open-ended.
Ramon took another half-step back, his gaze sharpening and his hand making an abortive movement for the.45, stopping in midair and dropping to his side. “What for? He dead.”
I didn’t relax, but I was glad he hadn’t put his hand near the gun. “Whoever killed him is fucking with me and mine.” I didn’t mean it to come out quite so baldly. “You’re not the only people who take care of your own.”
Gangbangers, if they’re smart, understand loyalty. This one didn’t look like an idiot, and he was capable of thinking twice. Both good signs, but you never can tell.
Ramon studied me for another few moments, no sign of warming in his cold-coffee stare. “Pedro was one of yours?”
He was a cop. That makes him one of mine. “He was. I’m after whoever unloaded on him, señor.” I let it hang for five long seconds. “I would also like a beer.”
The gangbanger’s eyes didn’t get any warmer, but his shoulders dropped. He eyed me from top to bottom again, then shifted his inspection to Theron, who spread his hands and shrugged in the particular way Weres have—not volunteering an opinion, but giving polite consent to listen to whatever the questioner wants to say next.
My fingers stopped itching for a gun, and the scar quit prickling as his fear stopped drenching the close air of the foyer.
Ramon visibly decided it might not hurt to be sociable. “C’mon into the kitchen, bruja. I tell you about Ay.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was a productive half-hour.
I ended up with a bandana in the 51 colors, a short lesson in how to wear it and where in the barrio not to go when I had it on, and a full rundown on Pedro Ayala—the scene of his death, and who rumor said saw him gu
It was more than I’d hoped for. The beer didn’t hurt, either.
Even my Impala wasn’t stripped at the curb, which showed someone was watching when we trooped into Ramon’s house. It was a good thing, too.
There were three cholos in fla
I almost thought we would get out of there without a fight.
“Eh gato,” one of them called. “Who’s mamacita puta?” A long stream of gutter Spanish followed, asking in effect how much I cost for a few acts that might have been fu
Yes, I hate men catcalling at me. It doesn’t precisely bother me—I quit walking the flesh gallery of Lucado Street a long time ago—but I dislike it so intensely my hands itch for a gun each time.
“Does everyone in the barrio know you’re a Were?” I said over the car’s roof, controlling both the urge to drop down into the driver’s seat and the persistent itching for a weapon in my hands. A thin scrim of sweat filmed my forehead, prickled along my lower back.