“It’s not your fault,” William said.
“Look at me, William,” Jennifer said, and William did. “It was always my choice. Everything I’ve ever done has been by choice. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“We will get out of this place, okay? Not today. Not tomorrow. But we will. And when that time comes, it may not feel like the normal course of events, okay? Do you understand?”
“I do,” William said.
She took his face in her hands. “If I ask you to do something, one day, that seems crazy, just know that I’m asking you because I love you. I would never, ever, try to hurt you. You know that, right?”
“Yes,” William said.
A cool breeze blew in through the open window, so Jennifer got up to close it. Which is when she noticed a dozen Star Wars action figures splayed out on the lawn beneath the window.
“What’s going on with your toys?” Jennifer asked.
“I’ve been dropping them out the window,” he said, “to see how long it takes for them to hit the ground.”
“Oh,” Jennifer said. She closed the window, locked it. She’d tell Levi and Maryann to hide the computer at night.
“Can I have another piece of cake?” William asked. He’d already turned back to his drawing.
“Of course, baby,” she said. “Every day is your birthday now.”
FOUR
SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 2002
THE MOJAVE DESERT, CA
“HEY BOSSMAN,” LONZO GUIJARO SAID, “CALIFORNIA AIN’T OPEN CARRY. Maybe stow that shit.”
Peaches Pocotillo, who’d been dozing in the front seat of the stolen Escalade with a Glock on his lap since they left that gas station in St. George, Utah, six hours earlier, popped his eyes open. Peaches didn’t know what he imagined California would look like, but as they wound along a two-lane highway hugging sand dunes and the periodic outcrop of jagged, volcanic mountain, it wasn’t this.
“Where we at?”
“An hour out from Palm Springs.”
“What day is it?” Peaches asked.
“Saturday,” Lonzo said. His phone started to buzz. He looked at it, set it back down. “My kid. She had a soccer game this morning.”
“My kids don’t play sports,” Peaches said. He had three daughters. Three mothers, too. All from different tribes. They were more of an investment than a family, each girl endowed with casino money every month, each getting a nut at eighteen. Peaches in charge of investing it, which meant he took his cut as he saw fit. The mothers had their nuts, too. Eventually, he was going to need to marry one of these women and get rid of the others.
“It’s all they talk about,” Lonzo said. “Soccer, lacrosse, ballet. Every dollar I make, they spend on fucking shoes and uniforms. Can hardly keep up.” He rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his left hand. Peaches saw him do a bump off the same palm before they left the Super 8. The Escalade belonged to the drug dealer. St. George’s finest. Best person to steal from. They have the nicest cars, and they never call the cops. “Don’t know what I’d do if Ronnie didn’t sponsor the soccer league. Probably have to do freelance hits.”
“May his generosity never cease,” Peaches said, though he’d look into that when they got back. Fucking Ronnie Cupertine spent so much money trying to look legit that he could have just gone legit. It would have been cheaper.
Lonzo was a Gangster 2-6 OG Peaches inherited from Ronnie, but they’d had a good working relationship even before the Native Mob moved in on The Family. Gangsters didn’t live very long, generally, so if you were an OG, it wasn’t odd to clique up every now and then, talk shop, partner on drug deals, all of which had been the case for Peaches and Lonzo back in the day, Lonzo being the guy who opened the door to Ronnie in the first place. Now Lonzo was his guy, too. They’d spent the last three days driving from Chicago and hadn’t killed each other. A good sign.
Driving was a necessity these days because Peaches Pocotillo wouldn’t fly on planes. Wasn’t that he was scared. Used to really like it. Even took a few lessons, back when he was learning all aspects of the Native Mob drug trade and considering getting a license to fly crop dusters and Cessnas, but that was back when someone who’d done time could still get into a flight-training program. That wasn’t happening now.
In one respect, those terrorists had done Peaches a favor, taking the light off of his business, letting him operate almost out in the open. If you weren’t popping civilians on city streets, or selling hotshots to Gold Coast debutantes, and/or making and distributing child pornography, the FBI didn’t give a shit.
Run a phony casino?
Fine. As long as you didn’t wash any money for anyone named Muhammed, you were going to be okay.
Move H and Oxy throughout flyover country?
Okay. The masses needed opiates. Peaches hadn’t heard of anyone getting busted for selling drugs since before 9/11. Not anyone moving weight, that is. Cops might bust a corner, but they weren’t tracking up the line. Government wanted the people as dulled as possible.
Kill gang members?
Man, that was no-human-involved shit right there. Go to fucking town.
In another respect, though, if you had a sheet, you could hardly move without somebody running you through Interpol. Get on a plane, TSA is going through your luggage, letting the FBI know you’re in transit. Land in a big city, they’re picking your face up on the cameras and spinning you through a thousand different databases, logging your movements. They don’t arrest you or send a tail, but they know when you were in this town or that town, probably some junior Clarice Starling at Quantico putting you on a spreadsheet. Not that Peaches was Hannibal Lecter. Or even Sal Cupertine, for that matter, though it kind of pissed him off that people didn’t realize he was up there with both of them in terms of body count, but whatever.
It wasn’t a secret, Peaches was certain, that he was shot-calling The Family with Ronnie Cupertine out of commission, even though Peaches controlled the release of information regarding Ronnie’s health like he was governing a tiny Soviet state. Peaches had this idea that controlling The Family was more ceremonial, that underlings kept shit like Ronnie’s car dealerships and philanthropic activities handled, but in fact Ronnie was hands-on with everything, hyper-protective of his brand. So the last several months, Peaches had to periodically release statements from Ronnie regarding the various charities he ran, made sure the car dealerships stayed current with their commercials, Ronnie Cupertine still shooting holes in credit ratings with a tommy gun and offering great deals on “Great American Cars!” The advertising agency had enough clips of Ronnie and his tommy gun to make commercials for another two hundred years, and the lot had enough stolen cars to make that a reality.
Peaches hit a button on the side of his seat, came full upright, tipped his sunglasses up, tried to make sense of the world he’d woken up in. “Fuck is this place?”
“Used to be gold and copper mines,” Lonzo said.
“No shit?”
“Whole area was filled with precious metals,” Lonzo said. “A hundred twenty years ago, you couldn’t dig ten feet without running into your fortune. That’s the story, anyway.”
