So, here the two of them were, waiting around after seven o’clock—quitting time, dammit—for the war vets to show up and get the cash. She watched LaDon sip a Diet Coke and pick at his fingernails. He had a Taser in his top drawer and fists big enough to crush a pumpkin. Their operation was bare bones, but at any one time, they were sitting on twenty K or more in straight cash. That’s decent bait for a stick-up boy, especially in the neighborhood LaDon chose for their place of business. The dispensary was off University Avenue, a small office next to a tire shop and below two studio apartments. All day, Jessie cringed at the little kids stomping on the ceiling. Since they opened this spot two months ago and started working social media and Weed Maps, they’d cleared nearly sixty K in sales.

  And shit was ramping up.

  Jessie shut off her computer, leaned back in her office chair, and said, “LaDon, you ever think about going on a diet?”

  He twirled the Diet Coke can so she could read the label: “The fuck you think this is, woman?”

  “That’s diabetes waiting to happen is what that is.”

  “I already have the diabetes, sister. It runs in the family.”

  “Only thing that runs in your family is a sweet tooth.”

  LaDon stared at her with menace eyes. “You going to cook me dinner this week?”

  “Wednesday, baby,” Jessie said. “I got some vegan pasta and a couple of—”

  “What’s that now?” LaDon shifted in his seat. The floor creaked with his weight. He planted his elbows on the steel desk, closed one eye in confusion.

  “Vegan pasta.” Jessie watched him, a smile barely visible at the corners of her mouth.

  “Uh-uh, Jess. I want some motherfucking ribs. Or that thing you made last time…” He snapped his fingers searching for the name.

  “Marsala,” she said. “Chicken marsala.”

  “That was some good white people food. I’ll eat that whenever. But vegan pasta? Oh, hell no.”

  Jessie laughed, blew a lock of brown hair from her eyes. “You might like it, big boy.”

  LaDon shook his head, checked his cell for the time. “Where these motherfuckers at?”

  “Making the Friday rounds,” Jessie said.

  “Let me get this straight,” LaDon said, “These dudes are keeping our money with a lot of other drug dealers’ money? And you’re good with that?”

  “They’re a security start up. They’re solving an important problem.”

  “Sixty K ain’t never gonna be a problem for me, Jess.”

  Jessie shrugged. They couldn’t keep the money in the office—in fact, it was LaDon who told her that. But he didn’t like the guy who came to see her about holding their money. Bald guy named Abel. He was a fast talker and sarcastic as hell. But it wasn’t him who sold Jessie on the service.

  It was Abel’s partner, a tall eucalyptus-looking guy—white-ish skin and thin, wispy hair—named Glanson. Another war vet. She guessed they served together.

  Jessie liked Glanson. He was good looking and had honest eyes. She hoped he was coming to get their pick up this evening.

  It’d be nice to see Glanson.

  LaDon said, “I think it’s because you like the tall one.”

  Jessie rolled her eyes. She turned around in the office chair and began to unlock the safe. “You know I’m the kind of girl who does it one night at a time—I’m not looking for a ball and chain.”

  “Whatever you say.” LaDon leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  Jessie finished punching in the combination and the safe door creaked open to reveal six stacks of money bound by thick rubber bands. She reached inside and began to pull the money out, tossing stack after stack into a gray duffel bag.

  LaDon took a toothpick from a tray on his desk, began to run it along his hairline. “We gonna do six figures this month?”

  “Not this month,” Jessie said. “But business is fucking booming. We’re looking at twenty K.”

  “And you need any help with the grow?”

  “I could use someone to do my laundry, clean up the apartment for me.”

  “Fuck that,” LaDon said. “I’m busy.”

  Jessie finished with the money, zipped the bag closed, and secured it with a small combination lock. She turned and looked at LaDon. “I’ve been wondering…you got a nickname, LaDon?”

  LaDon smiled that nice big smile of his. “They call me Captain Groove,” he said. “You wanna know why?” He shimmied in his seat.

  Jessie laughed, she couldn’t help it. “You smart ass…”

  Click here to learn more about Countdown by Matt Phillips.

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  Here is a preview from The Furious Way by Aaron Philip Clark, published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books.

  Click here for a complete catalog of titles available from Down & Out Books and its divisions and imprints.

  PREFACE

  Lucy Ramos sat on the edge of her mattress naked under her robe while a blonde boy freshened up in the bathroom. He came out trailed by a musky cologne and planted a moist kiss on her lips. He had gotten dressed, back into his tailored slacks and Italian loafers.

  He was probably twenty-four with a youthful face. Lucy wasn’t certain and had never cared enough to ask.

  “Gotta run,” he said, “see you soon?”

  “Okay,” Lucy said.

  She was still a bit turned on and there was a half-bottle of Shiraz left. She would have asked him to stay, but figured being alone would do her best—she needed time to think.

  “You should probably eat something,” he said as he slipped into his blazer. “I could order for you. Maybe from that Thai place you like?”

  Lucy laid her head against the pillow and was silent. He stood for a moment, his wispy breathing filled the space.

  “You mind blowing out the candle?” Lucy asked.

  He walked over to a nightstand and picked up two one hundred-dollar bills. He gently blew on the candle wick and the room went dark.

  “Don’t forget to lock the door,” he said as he stumbled over Lucy’s clothes. Lucy’s tank top had gotten caught around his foot. He shook it off and left.

  Lucy barely spoke for most of her childhood. Various doctors said her lack of speech was aligned with her psyche, some side-effect of trauma over her mother’s death. It would take her years of speech therapy and shrinks to overcome the condition, but even after, she was seen as quiet and disturbed. As a child, her doctor had diagnosed her with Asperger Syndrome—a mild form that presented in Lucy a keen memory. Her mind worked like an old VCR, she could rewind to moments in her past and recall every consequential detail—it had a way of keeping her up at night, robbing her of the ability to truly forget the fateful events in her life. And perhaps it was her quiet nature, her off-kilter way that intrigued the gigolo, the blonde boy, who went by the name Kip. She was a challenge for him. Every Tuesday night at 9:30 he would arrive inundated with virility, walking with a wide gate, upright and justified. It reminded Lucy of how John Wayne strolled about in his Westerns.

  Lucy enjoyed time with Kip but she never knew ecstasy, and this only frustrated him. She left him a browbeaten boy with all confidence shaken. Sometimes she would allow him to clean up afterwards while she stood on the balcony listening as he sung 1980s power ballads in the shower. With a cigarette clasped between her two fingers, she would overlook Los Angeles. She saw the city as a great maze of unpredictability and this frightened her. She often couldn’t walk out of her door sober and struggled not to become a complete shut-in. Kip was her connection to the outside world. She liked to listen to his ramblings. Highly animated, he’d gesture when recalling his day—the car that cut him off on Fairfax, the barista who scorched his latte, the chicken salad he gave to a homeless man on the 110 off-ramp for “good karma”—reminders of life in the city.

  Twice a year, Lucy would venture outside the seven-block radius of her apartment. Usually she’d skateboard or take the bus to a museum where she could observe life in near silence. But this time Lucy had a plan—she’d take the bus to San Pedro, a port town south of Downtown. There, she would see a man who could help her make good on a promise, a blood oath that she made as a young girl.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The 81 was the only bus that traveled into the South Bay from downtown Los Angeles. The bus was always packed. The adage that no one walked in L.A. was true, but they damn sure rode. The bus reeked—mostly of sweat and cheap fragrances like the knock-offs peddlers sold on street corners near Lucy’s apartment building.

  The bus had been sitting in traffic for ten minutes. The city seemed even louder on the 110 Freeway—car horns and squeaking brakes. Even from the confines of the bus, she felt assaulted by the noise of it all. Lucy thought if the devil was real, he’d make hell an L.A. freeway and the traffic never-ending.

  Lucy observed her fellow passengers. She wondered if she was missing out on things by staying in her apartment for several months straight. She rarely received paper mail; all her bills were delivered to her email. Even her meals were delivered by the same five restaurants she had on speed dial. If she needed products she ordered from online retailers. Lucy had her groceries delivered three times a month. She wagered that if she were to die, it would possibly take weeks before anyone noticed. But what difference would it make how long her body rotted? She wouldn’t be around to care.

  Despite the loneliness, Lucy knew she was better off living a solitary life. She was in control. She didn’t have to answer to anyone—not some nagging boss or manager at a superstore. She took jobs when she wanted to and spent weeks listening to records and reading books. Lucy’s apartment was her haven. She was free, unlike the passengers on the bus—they were zombies. They were tired and empty husks having worked themselves to the bone like machines or the enslaved androids she read about in her Manga books. They looked real but their souls, those other worldly ghosts inside, had vacated long ago. They were dead like her mother, only her mother had decomposed in her grave—erased from the world.

  Lucy never romanticized about death. In her mind, her mother didn’t exist—no heaven, no hell—just gone. Lucy could accept that her mother was no more, but what bothered her was the way she left the world. When her mother was taken from her, it was as if someone had struck a match and lit Lucy on fire and she’d been burning ever since. But after twelve years she had found hope. She was on her way to San Pedro, to the home of Tito Garza. An old article in the Los Angeles Times had dubbed him: El Perro of Pedro—The Dog of San Pedro. Other news organizations coined him the Hell Hound of Downtown and South Bay Butcher because of the high volume of victims found in both areas. Lucy hoped that Garza could still live up to the monikers and that he was every bit the killer she had read about.

  The bus dropped Lucy off on Gaffey Street. She used her smart phone’s GPS to navigate the rest of the way. She walked two blocks through a neighborhood that looked as if the homes were waiting to be torn down. Apartments and bungalows that were condemnable, so old they had to have been poisoning the occupants with lead or mold. She thought if one of the houses had ever caught fire, the entire neighborhood would burn like torch paper.

  The phones’ GPS alerted Lucy that she had arrived. She watched Garza’s home from across the street. The lawn was in desperate need of mowing and weeds had overtaken the flowerbed. The paint was weathered and peeling; roof shingles were missing. Lucy thought that Garza likely lived alone and didn’t get many visitors.

  The small voice inside her head was telling her to go back home, but no amount of trepidation was going to keep her from ringing Garza’s doorbell.

  Nineteen—the number of times Tito Garza avoided prosecution, only spending ten years in the California State Penitentiary for decades of criminal acts. Now, an old man, he was weary and alone—a shadow of his former self—respected by the dead and pissed on by the living. Two days ago, the neighborhood kids stole his dog; a Chihuahua bitch he found in an alley, rain soaked and near death. He had nursed the dog back to health but now he feared she was dead and was expecting, any day, for them to throw what was left of her on his porch. If only he were twenty years—no, fifteen years younger. He’d be healthier and fit, and he could do something. When they tagged his mailbox and house, he grumbled, cursing at them from the window. Only for a group of boys to return later, painting vulgarity and what looked to be a large penis on his front door. “Little shits,” he’d say, blotting out their scrawls with white paint. Garza was running out of white paint and patience.

  Lucy rang Garza’s doorbell. She listened for the chime but heard nothing. Guessing the bell might be broken; she knocked on the door and waited. Garza opened the door slowly, enough to see the skinny girl standing on his porch. Lucy struggled to get a good look at him, but most of his face was hidden behind the door. Garza studied Lucy—looking her up and down. She stood in jeans, a tank top, and slip-on gum-soled sneakers. Noticing the backpack, Garza assumed the worst.

  “You got my dog in there?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “My dog in that bag?”

  “No,” Lucy said, “why would I have your dog?”

  “Thought maybe you found her.”

  “No.”

  “What are you doing here if it’s not about my dog?”

  “Are you Tito Garza?”

  Garza was silent for a moment, then replied: “There’s nobody here by that name,” and shut the door.

  “I know it’s you, Mister Garza.”

  “You a reporter?” He shouted through the door. “I gave my last interview thirty years ago, so you’re wasting your time.”

  “I’m not a reporter.”

  “Then how did you find me?”

  “The internet.”

  “Give me a fucking break.” He opened the door. “You’re one of those death freaks ain’t you? Going around getting autographs from supposed serial killers and shit. You people are sick, you know that? Now get the hell off my porch!”

  “Mister Garza, please. I have money. I’ll pay you for your time. Just talk to me.”

  “You bullshitting me?”

  “No. I’ve got the cash.”

  “Well, you don’t look like a reporter.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Fifty bucks will get you twenty minutes. I’ll need to pat you down first.”

  “Pat me down?”

  “You want in or not?”

  “Okay. Fine.”

  Lucy stood still in the doorway while the old man ran his hands about her body, checking for weapons or a wire. When Garza was satisfied, he let Lucy in and shut the door behind them. He took a seat in his recliner and lit a cigarette. Lucy was frozen; she didn’t know whether to sit or keep standing. She looked around the house, dark and musty—absent was family photos and decorations. The house felt cold—a well-worn sofa, a recliner, a table, and a few cheap knickknacks on the mantle above the fireplace. Two dead roses that had dried but remained intact were arranged around an urn on display in a curio cabinet, along with commemorative Dodger plates. It all lacked a woman’s touch and Lucy realized that she was probably the first woman in years to set foot in the dwelling.

  “You gonna sit down?”

  Garza gave a phlegmy cough and then pointed to the sofa. Lucy sat with her legs wide, the way she’d seen Kip do. She thought it’d give her confidence but it didn’t. She could feel the couch’s springs pushing through the fabric and she tried to adjust herself in such a way to alleviate the pressure.

  “I don’t get visitors,” Garza said.

  Lucy nodded as she continued to scan the house.

  “The goddamn internet…I miss the days you could disappear for two-hundred bucks. Now, nobody is really gone until they’re down in the ground,” he said.

  “So, you’re safe here?” Lucy asked.

  “Safe from what?”

  “I don’t know? I found you easily. There could be people out there—people who could mean you harm.”

  Garza laughed. “I’ve outlived all those people. I’m an old ghost. And it’s been years since anybody has knocked on my door. That is until you, which is why I’m deciding whether to let you walk out of here.” Garza took a long drag off the menthol. His face was expressionless. Lucy searched his eyes—nothing.

  “People know I’m here,” she said gently.

  “Yeah? What people?”

  The old man looked worn-out, as if he had to muster all his strength to remain upright. But Lucy knew it could be a put on—his hunched back and shuffling feet could be hiding a deceptive strength.

  “My boyfriend,” she said.

  “What man would let his woman knock on my door?”

  “Maybe he’s waiting outside and if I don’t come out he’s coming in.”

  “Shit you say.” Garza stood up and walked over to the window. He pressed back the curtain and gazed out. “Ain’t nothing out there but strays.”

  When he turned around, Lucy stood holding a can of pepper spray.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “I bet you will.”

  “Don’t test me, man. That’s not why I came here.”

  “I ain’t gonna hurt you. Relax.”

  “You don’t hurt women?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “I know you don’t,” Lucy said, “and that’s part of the code, isn’t it?”

  “What code?”

  “The gangster code.”

  “You watch too many movies. I’ve seen men beat on women my whole life. Doesn’t turn me on—never did. Besides, you’re too green to be any trouble.” Garza sat back down in the chair. “It’s best to get on with it.”

  “I need information.”

  “I don’t rat. I don’t care how much money you’ve got. And that is part of the code in case you were wondering.”

  Lucy opened her backpack. Inside, two stacks of bills were held by rubber bands. “I’m talking more like advice—tutelage.”

 

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