King City (6 page)

“You know it for a fact,” Wade said and wondered how long ago Guthrie had found that out for himself.

That’s when Mandy came out of the kitchen holding a plate in each hand. She laid them down in front of Wade.

The six buttermilk pancakes were hot, fluffy, and huge, with a ball of butter nearly as large as a scoop of ice cream melting on top. And this was the short stack. But he wasn’t going to complain. The six strips of bacon were thick and meaty and had a smoky aroma.

Wade was practically salivating as he tucked a napkin under his collar. “You should serve this with a side of Lipitor.”

“Would you like some maple syrup with that?”

“What does my body language tell you?”

She poured syrup on the pancakes for him and set the bottle down next to his plate. “You respect tradition. Pancakes and maple syrup go together, so that’s how you’ll take it. Besides, you wouldn’t have put on that napkin if you weren’t afraid of dripping on yourself.”

“You should have been a detective,” he said.

Wade took a bite of his pancakes. They were the best that he’d ever had, thick with buttermilk and yet so light they were like flavored air. The maple syrup was sticky sweet and natural; he could almost taste the bark that the sap had bled through. He quickly had another bite.

“How about you?” she asked.

“Been there,” he said. “Done that.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Don’t you already know the answer to that question?”

“There are limits to how much you can learn from studying someone’s body language.”

He did some studying of his own, looking for signs of insincerity in her expression. What he saw was a woman who was relaxed and amused, in no hurry to do anything else but stand there talking to him. “Don’t you read the paper or watch the news?”

“I’ve been away for a while and I’ve been preoccupied since I got back. Are you somebody I should know?”

“I hope so,” he said, instantly regretting his words and hoping she wouldn’t take them as a suggestive come‐on.

Then again
, he thought,
maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she did.

Before he could find out one way or another, he heard the sound of breaking glass, followed by whoops, hollers, and loud metallic thunks coming from outside.

Mandy looked past him to the street, her smile doing a fast fade, her entire body tensing up. Her father reached for Old Betty.

Wade took another bite of his pancakes, swiveled in his seat, and looked outside.

The gang of men who’d been standing across the street from the station before was now gathered around his Mustang, attacking it with tire irons and crowbars.

Wade didn’t really care about the Mustang. He’d fantasized about trashing it himself several times. What he wanted to do was finish his pancakes, resume the light banter, and send the gang a thank‐you note, but he knew that wouldn’t help establish his authority in the neighborhood.

This was a direct challenge that had to be met with a strong response, or he might as well turn in his badge.

Wade reluctantly pulled off his napkin and dabbed his lips with it.

“Excuse me for a minute,” he said and got up from his seat.

Mandy looked at him incredulously. “You’re not going out there, are you?” He nodded. “Aren’t you going to wait for backup?”

It was pointless to call for help, and he knew it. If any cops actually came, it would only be so they could watch on the sidelines and cheer his opponents on.

This was exactly the kind of confrontation the department was hoping for when they’d banished him here. He didn’t need them here to see it.

“I’m all there is,” Wade said and headed toward the door.

“Do you mind paying before you go?” Guthrie asked.

Wade turned and gave him a look. “You don’t think I’ll be coming back?”

“I ask everybody to pay before they leave the restaurant,” Guthrie said. “Especially the customers who are likely to get gunned down in the street.”

Wade took out his wallet, picked out a ten‐dollar bill, and handed it to him. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m a pragmatist,” Guthrie said.

“So am I,” Wade said.

“Pragmatists are survivors,” he said.

“I hope you’re right.” Wade walked outside.

The gang was still taking swings at his car with their tire irons as he strode casually into the intersection. They saw him coming and looked to the Escalade parked up the street for guidance. They got some kind of signal from the shark‐eyed Indian in the driver’s seat and resumed trashing the car, looking at Wade defiantly as they did it.

Wade drew his gun and fired four shots in rapid succession at the Escalade, blowing out the two front tires and putting two bullets into the front grill.

The Escalade slumped forward on its haunches and hissed like a wounded bull.

The gunshots were still echoing in the air when the driver’s‐side door flew open and the Indian jumped out. There was a gun in his hand, which he held down at his side. His muscled arms and shoulders were covered with elaborate, interwoven tattoos.

There was a loud clatter as the six men around Wade’s Mustang dropped their tire irons and crowbars and drew their guns.

But Wade kept his attention on the Indian. The others wouldn’t do anything without the nod from him.

The Indian looked at his flat tire, then walked around to the front of his Escalade to examine the perforated grill, an aftermarket piece of chrome mesh that must have cost a lot. It was ruined now.

The Indian turned and faced Wade.

“You killed my car,” the Indian said, his lips drawn into a snarl, giving him a furious glare.

The expression was scary looking, but it seemed to Wade as if it were meant more for an audience than for any one individual. The glare might have made other people wet themselves, but the theatricality of it diminished any impact it might have had on Wade.

“Guess that makes us even,” Wade said.

“You’re a fucking dead man,” the Indian said, the gun still held loosely at his side, but his arm twitched as he wrestled with the decision of whether or not to start firing.

“My advice to you is to drop the gun and walk away,” Wade said.

“There’s one of you and seven of us,” the Indian said.

Wade shook his head. “It’s only five.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because if you and your friends don’t drop your weapons by the count of three, I’ll shoot you in the head and then I’ll kill the guy with the loose pants.”

The men at Wade’s car traded looks among themselves.

“Which one of us is that?” one of them asked.

Wade didn’t turn to see who had spoken. He kept his gaze locked on the Indian.

“You’re full of shit,” the Indian said.

“One,” Wade said.

The Indian looked Wade in the eye. What he saw there wasn’t confidence or bravery or a willingness to die. What he saw was that a decision had been made. He saw rectitude.

Or all he saw was a reflection of his own doubts.

“Two,” Wade said.

The Indian dropped his gun. Wade kept his gun on him and glanced at the men by his car.

“Three,” he said.

They dropped their weapons too, following the Indian’s lead. But Wade also saw relief on their faces.

Wade shifted his gaze back to the Indian, who was snarling. It seemed like a much more natural expression for him than the last one. He thought about telling him but decided the Indian wouldn’t appreciate the observation.

“This isn’t over.” The Indian raised his right hand, made a gun with his fingers, and mimed firing it at him.

“You know where to find me.” Wade tipped his head toward the station but kept his gun aimed at the Indian. “Stop by anytime and we can discuss it.”

The Indian walked away and the others followed him, leaving their guns and crowbars on the sidewalk.

He watched them until they rounded the corner of the block and disappeared from sight.

Wade holstered his weapon and immediately broke into a full‐body sweat. He knew that he’d narrowly escaped execution and that it was just a dry run for what was to come.

But next time, he wouldn’t be facing them alone. He’d have Officers Charlotte Greene and Billy Hagen watching his back.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.

Maybe they’d simply end up adding their own corpses to the eventual body count. Their own. He wasn’t sure he wanted that on his conscience.

Wade picked up the Indian’s gun by sticking a ballpoint pen in the barrel and went over to his car to inspect the damage. It looked even worse up close. The body was covered with deep dents, gouges, and scratches. All the lights and windows were broken, the plastic front grill was smashed in, and the seats were coated with a layer of glass pebbles.

And yet somehow the fake gas cap with the
Bullitt
logo on it had come through the assault untouched.

He set down the Indian’s gun, picked up a tire iron from the sidewalk, and pried the cap off with one quick jerk. The cheap plastic broke apart and flew into the street.

When Wade looked up again, he saw Mandy standing outside of the restaurant staring at him, her arms folded under her chest. Her father came out behind her, wheeling his oxygen tank. The hookers and homeless and a lot of other people were stepping out of doorways and peering out between the bars of their windows to see what would happen next.

Hefting the tire iron, Wade strode across the street to the Escalade and took a swing at the windshield. The laminated glass radiated with cracks. He continued to swing at it until the windshield crumpled and caved in on the dashboard.

Wade walked around the car, smashing the windows as he went and busting the taillights. When he got to the front of the Escalade, he broke the headlights, caved in the shot‐up grill, and took a few more whacks at the hood for good measure before he threw the tire iron into the SUV and walked back to his Mustang.

He opened the dented trunk, the metal groaning as he lifted it, and then opened his gun locker, which resembled an ice chest. He put on rubber gloves, gathered up the discarded guns from the street, and dumped them in the locker. Then he peeled off his rubber gloves, tossed them in the trunk, and closed the lid, which he had to slam shut twice before it stuck.

Wade put his right hand on his holstered gun and strode into the open intersection again, looking in all directions for a possible shooter as he headed back to the restaurant to finish his meal.

As he got up close to Mandy, the look on her face and the way she stood asked a question, but he didn’t know whether it was intended for him or for her to answer.

So he just said what was on his mind. “I hope my pancakes haven’t gotten too cold.”

Wade passed Mandy and her father and went into the restaurant.

When Wade was facing down the Indian, he wasn’t really thinking about the situation. He was thinking about his father.

Glenn Wade wasn’t an imposing man, but he had strength. It wasn’t muscle; it was something in his eyes and in his bearing. His skin was dark and lined from a lifetime of living, working, and playing outdoors. He was a man who would’ve looked natural wearing a cowboy hat, but he wouldn’t have felt natural doing it. He would have felt ridiculous.

During the spring and summer, Glenn ran Granite Cove Park, the Loon Lake campground and resort that his grandfather built fifty miles north of King City and two miles west off the highway to Canada.

Granite Cove consisted of four red cabins, a general store, a boat dock, a camping area, and the two‐story house that the Wade family lived in year‐round.

Wade’s parents worked full time at the resort throughout the spring and summer. He and his younger sister, Elizabeth, helped out after school and throughout their summer vacations.

During the late fall and winter, when the resort was closed for the season, Glenn Wade worked full time as a deputy sheriff, one of only a handful enforcing the law on the lake and the surrounding community. He was a deputy during the summer too, but only part time. Since the resort and the boat dock were such a big part of the local economy, it was more important to the community to have him running the place than to have him out on patrol. But he was on call 24‐7 if something came up.