Page 39 of Lone Wolf

He wedged himself into the line, left the Jeep in park, and jogged ahead past the impatient patrons. Near the valet booth, a scattering of empty vehicles idled, keys in the ignitions. With the butt of his Strider knife, still flecked with Jayla Hill’s blood, he knocked hard on the passenger window of a parked BMW. The car alarm screeched to life. As the valets ducked into the key cupboard, searching for the matching fob, Evan stepped into an idling Escalade tricked out with gold trim, tinted windows, and a dashboard statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. From upgraded speakers, a funk-rock star was singing that a lowrider knows every street, yeah.

Signaling judiciously, he pulled out into traffic, burying the Escalade in the gunged-up vehicular snarl at Western and Wilshire. Anonymous behind tinted glass and cushioned on smooth shocks, he drifted across the potholed streets of downtown. Drivers bopped alongside him to a symphony of sounds not unlike the ones he’d rotated through in his game of musical cars, and he felt a stab of affection for his adopted home, this ragged, messy city in its full multifarious glory, a tumbled-together mash of melting-pot magnificence. An equal-opportunity carjacker, he’d stolen vehicles across the demographic gamut, though he had to admit that driving this Escalade gave him a special thrill. It would’ve been a dream ride to the foster kid he’d once been and his pack of fellow savages, running the streets of East Baltimore with empty pockets, a wing, and a prayer.

Dipping south, he carved a circuitous route back to where he’d started. The blockades were lifting, and SWAT seemed to have pulled back, but a few sporadic helicopters still spun overhead. LAPD vehicles grew denser as he neared Dr. Hill’s neighborhood, but they were mostly running patrol routes, a show of vigilance to reassure residents.

He kept away from the row of town houses, taking an eastward approach to the spot where he’d left his truck. The sun had begun its graceful dive to the Pacific, throwing severe slants of bronze through the patchwork streets, rendering them in bars of gold and gray.

His Ford F-150 waited in a puddle of darkness that had pooled in the narrow run of asphalt between warehouses. One of the rectangular vaults in the back held a change of clothes and a pouch of baby wipes, and he cleaned himself up as best he could and swapped garments, transferring the pouch filled with ice and human flesh to his new cargo pants. Stuffing his grimy, blood-spattered clothes into a foil-lined grocery bag he kept on hand for precisely this contingency, he slid behind the wheel.

Minding the speed limit, he drove home in a haze. The pickup fit him, the seat molded to his body, the steering wheel smooth at the ten and two.

Ignoring the valet as usual, he scooted through the porte cochere, sped down the ramp beneath Castle Heights, and slotted his truck in its space between concrete pillars. Getting out, he allowed himself to experience the sensations in his body. A mistake. He groaned like someone twice his age.

Zippered grocery bag swinging at his side, he headed for the stairs to the lobby. He tried to straighten out his limp and tighten his stomach against the sharpness clutching his lower back.

He’d scraped his chin on the ground flinging himself beneath the Suburban. His ribs ached from something or something else, and his palms and knees were scuffed. Splinters dotted his arm from the plywood door. A bruise bloomed on the side of his neck where it had been caught by one of Tanner’s thrown elbows and the dull pain at the side of his head hadn’t let go. His tailbone throbbed from his tumble down the stairs to the underground bar, but not as much as his left elbow. The skin of his shoulder burned from the sniper round that had kissed his shirt, and his top vertebrae smarted with a whiplash ache from when he’d rocketed the police car up the pillar to the overpass. His stomach tingled from adrenaline and the shot of vodka. The ice bag sweated through his cargo pocket, numbing his thigh. His skeleton felt like a tower of blocks that a single misstep could bring tumbling down.

And yet a cool blue pilot light flickered in his chest undiminished, triumphant. He felt better than he had after that old dame had knocked him down the stairs. No matter what they’d thrown at him, he’d answered.

And answered.

And answered.

Now he wanted nothing so much as to burn his clothes, take a scorching shower, and drink a gallon of vodka.

After running the deadly Rube Goldberg gauntlet that had taken him across half of downtown, he hoped a seamless route through the battle space of the lobby would deliver him to the elevator with minimal interface with the native hostiles.

As was his habit, he paused before opening the door to the lobby. Deep breath in, longer breath out, seating himself in his alias: Evan Smoak, Castle Heights resident, bland and reclusive importer of industrial cleaning supplies.

He stepped inside.

A mob of Castle Heights denizens clamored around the so-called social area, funneling toward the glass doors to the pool. He was spotted immediately by the imperious Hugh Walters, 20C, retiree and longtime Homeowners Association president. “He’s here!” he exclaimed in a warbling, almost feminine cry. “Just in time!”

Three dozen Castle Heightsians turned to take Evan in, their faces gaping with excitement.

“Special poolside HOA meeting,” Hugh said. “I knew you’d make it! I knew you’d make it for the vote.”

Evan had a memory flash of a decorative flyer that had been slipped under his door last week, something about a pending election for new leadership. It had featured jaunty personified images of ballot boxes and the gratified cartoon faces of franchised voters. He’d crumpled it immediately into the trash compactor.

Feigning deafness, he pivoted quickly for the elevator, but a wave of residents swept around him, conveying him toward the pool. Trapped in a miasma of coffee fumes and old-lady perfume, he struggled helplessly against the momentum.

“You won’t want to miss this one, Mr. Smoak.” Arms akimbo, Hugh waited for him at the glass doors, growing ever larger as Evan was borne forward and delivered sacrificially. “And given all the last-minute campaigning, I will tell you this…” Hugh clutched at his heart with mock breathlessness. “It’s been one crazy day around here!”

Evan allowed himself to be jostled out onto the pool deck.

For the first time today, he conceded defeat.

24

A Nightmare of His Worst Imagining

In Evan’s absence, perfidy and subterfuge had flourished at the Castle Heights Homeowners Association.

For reasons known only to herself and God, Lorilee Smithson, 3F, had spent her recent cosmetic-surgery recuperation reviewing the HOA bylaws. She’d stumbled upon a loophole that permitted a special election by majority vote for the hotly coveted presidency if an emergency meeting was called on the Castle Heights Cryer, a “good neighbors” app unbeknownst to Evan until this very moment. Due to a legal oversight, the bylaws neglected to specify either a time frame for the announcement or the minimum number of members necessary for a quorum.

In Lorilee’s mind, a scheme had taken shape. And it found fertile ground in the resentment she’d been nursing at Hugh’s championing of a no-pets policy that had shut down her weekly sleepovers with her cousin’s teacup poodle. And so a few weeks ago, while Hugh was visiting an ailing older brother in Sarasota, Lorilee had called a stealth meeting, which she advertised one minute prior to the event. She’d shown up alone and voted herself president, and Hugh had returned to a nightmare of his worst imagining.

Wedged among fellow residents in strappy lawn chairs and chaise longues around the pool, Evan gleaned this sordid history from cross talk and murmuring.