Page 189 of One Minute Out

And now, when I look into Cage’s eyes, I realize he believes I will do what I say I’ll do.

He’ll comply, he’ll keep working for the Agency, with or without functioning balls.

I rise to my feet again. “Keep the vodka on your nuts till the paramedics come. It will slow the bleeding.”

I turn and head for the stairs. Into my mic I say, “I’m coming out the front.”

“Roger that,” Rodney responds.

A few seconds later I meet him by the pool. He’s been shot through the thigh; the round went through and through, but he’s already bandaged it tightly.

He looks me over. “Dude. Your shoulder.”

I turn and stare at the knife there. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Rodney laughs. “Better leave it in till you get to a hospital.”

“What happened in there?” Kareem asks.

“I let Cage live.”

“Why would you leave him alive?”

“Trust me, I took all the fun out of it for him.”

Kareem sits on a planter by the back door. “Wish the cops would hurry the hell up.”

Rodney lowers to the ground next to him. Both men look utterly smoked.

But I don’t sit. “Guys, I’ve got to try and run.”

Both older men nod, but Rodney says, “Get out of here, brother. Good fighting with you. We’ll see you around.”

Kareem adds, “Yeah, in the yard at Pelican Bay.”

All three of us laugh at this.

It’s the only supermax prison in California, and the only reason we’re laughing is that, right now, none of us really gives a shit. We did our jobs today, and we know what we did was righteous.

“When LAPD gets here,” I say, “tell them to send a paramedic to the second floor of the pool house. There’s a wounded man, an innocent, and he needs help.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘innocent’?”

I shrug. “I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.” I pause, then say, “Sometimes.”

•••

Three minutes after this I’m climbing up a steep incline to a street a block north and a hundred feet higher up the hill, my left arm useless at my side. I’ve pulled my mask down over my face, so if I run into anyone dumb enough to be out on the street I’m going to look pretty scary, but at least the TV choppers above won’t show my mug on the evening news.

I make a turn and see a gaggle of police cars, twenty-five yards ahead. I can just make out Roxana there, standing next to a squad car with two other women. I recognize Talyssa by her bright red hair, and by the fact that she and her sister embrace so hard it looks like they are trying to crush each other. I don’t know who the other woman is, but after several seconds Roxana turns to her and punches her in the face, dropping her to the ground.

I suddenly have no doubts about her identity.

A cop on a bullhorn tells me to drop to my knees on the street, but I just turn away from the roadblock and begin walking back down the hill.

The guy keeps shouting at me, but I’m unconcerned.

I guess it’s possible I’ll be arrested by the local five-oh, but I have a sinking suspicion I won’t.

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