Music thumped. Laughter carried on the hot wind. Jack checked his phone. 3:17 p.m. The attack had happened at 2:45. 32 minutes for the three men to run east, find their handler, deliver the news that they'd grabbed the purse, but the woman had fought back.
If they were going to report to Webb, they'd already be there. Jack was betting they would be, because scared men run to their bosses. And those three had to be scared. Assault on an elderly woman in broad daylight witnessed by multiple people, police already involved. That kind of heat made people stupid, made them predictable.
Jack got off the bike, stretched. His back popped in three places. 67 years of living, 32 of them trying to forget how to be what he was about to become. He crossed the street. The gravel crunched under his boots like breaking bones.
The door to El Lobo swung open easy. Inside, dim lighting, smell of beer and cigarettes despite the smoking ban, a jukebox playing something heavy and angry. A dozen men scattered around tables. All of them looked up when Jack walked in. All of them saw the leather jacket, the patch, the way Jack moved, slow, deliberate, like a man who'd done this before.
The music stopped. Someone had pulled the plug on the jukebox. Jack walked to the bar. The bartender, 40 bald arms covered in amateur tattoos, stared at him with the kind of recognition that had nothing to do with memory and everything to do with instinct. "Help you?" the bartender asked.
His hand had moved below the counter, where the gun would be. "Whiskey." Jack said. "Neat." The bartender didn't move.
"I'm not here for trouble." Jack continued. "I'm here for a conversation." "About what?" "About three boys who hurt an old woman this afternoon, about a man named Webb, about justice."
The bar had gone cemetery quiet. The bartender's eyes flicked to the back of the room. Jack followed the glance. Three men sat in a booth near the emergency exit. Young, nervous, one in a black hoodie, one in a denim jacket, one in a red cap.
Bingo. Jack turned back to the bartender. "That whiskey." The bartender poured. His hand shook slightly.
He set the glass down in front of Jack with more care than necessary. Jack took a sip. Let it burn down his throat. Closed his eyes for just a second. When he opened them again, one of the three men, the one in the denim jacket, was standing, moving toward the back exit, trying to be subtle, failing completely.
Jack set down the glass, left a 20 on the counter, turned. The young man froze halfway to the door. "Sit down." Jack said, not loud, not threatening, just certain. The young man looked at his friends, looked at the door, looked at Jack, made the wrong choice.
He bolted. Jack didn't run. Running was for people who weren't sure where their prey was going. Jack knew exactly where out the back into the alley toward whatever hole this kid thought was safe. Jack walked to the emergency exit, pushed it open.
The alarm should have gone off. Someone had disabled it. Convenient. The alley behind El Lobo was all concrete and dumpsters and graffiti. The young man couldn't be more than 22, stood 20 feet away breathing hard, looking for an escape route, looking at a dead end.
Jack stepped into that alley, let the door close behind him. The sound echoed like a coffin lid. "What's your name?" Jack asked. The young man didn't answer, just stared.
His hand moved to his waistband. Jack saw the shape of a gun under the shirt. "I wouldn't." Jack said. "Who the hell are you, old man?"
Old man. Jack almost smiled. "Someone who wants answers. That woman you pushed today, Martha Morrison, she's my mother." The color drained from the kid's face like water from a broken glass.
"I didn't We didn't mean She fought back." "She's 84 years old." Jack said, and despite his best efforts, rage crept into his voice like smoke under a door. "You put her in the hospital, broke her hip, gave her a concussion. At her age, those injuries can kill her.
Do you understand that?" The young man's hand was definitely on the gun now. "I asked you a question." Jack said. "What's your name?"
"Cody." Barely a whisper. "Cody Blake." Blake. Something stirred in Jack's memory.
A name from a long time ago. A connection he couldn't quite make. "Who hired you, Cody?" "I don't" "Marcus Webb. I know about Webb.
What I want to know is why. Why my mother? Why that purse?" Cody's eyes darted left, right, anywhere but at Jack. "We were just supposed to grab it.
Quick job, in and out. Webb said there was something in it he needed." "What?" "I don't know, man. He didn't say, just just that it was important, that he'd pay five grand for it.
We needed the money. It was just supposed to be easy." "Easy." Jack repeated. The word tasted like poison.
"You put an elderly woman in the hospital for $5,000?" Cody pulled the gun. It was a small revolver, probably a.38, shaking in the kid's hand like a leaf in a hurricane. Jack didn't move, just looked at Cody, really looked at him, saw the fear, the desperation, the same stupid, reckless need that Jack had seen in mirrors when he was young and thought being dangerous made you strong. "You're not going to shoot me."
Jack said. "I will. I swear to God." "No, you won't, because you're not a killer, Cody. You're a scared kid who made a bad choice.
You're in over your head and you know it." The gun wavered. "Where's the purse?" Jack asked. "Webb has it.
We brought it straight to him." "Where?" "I don't know. He took it and told us to lay low. That's why we're here.
We're supposed to wait for him to call." Jack took a step forward. Cody backed up. The gun shook harder. "You have a choice right now."
Jack said. "You can try to shoot me. Maybe you'll hit me. Probably you won't. Either way, your life ends here.
You'll go to prison for assault, maybe attempted murder, if you pull that trigger." Another step. "Or" Jack continued "you can put the gun down. You can tell me everything you know about Marcus Webb, and you can turn yourself in to the police with my recommendation that you cooperated." "Why would you do that?"