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think it’s her.” But
Dan, squat and eager, muttered, “Let’s do this.” The mission just seemed
inevitable. No one listened to that douche bag Sammy anyway.
    Dan pointed to the driver seat. Kenny hustled up
to the front and pulled away. They had found their target, they felt the
pressure. Plus, Kenny had told them his girlfriend had to drive the van to work
the next day.
    The van cruised down the Embarcadero toward the
cafe. The shooters crouched near the shaded windows. They stopped for a few
minutes until Tania got up and left the cafe. She sipped a coffee as she
strolled in front of one of docks on the marina. The van rolled slowly by. A
rear window cracked open. Dan unloaded, sending a muffled blast right at Tania.
Her right shoulder evaporated in a red mist. She toppled over. Then another
shot and another shot, muffled humps, as the van rolled peaceably by. Tania lay
still on the concrete. There was some ricochet action and a biker toppled over,
crashing into a cafe table.
    “Hit a mushroom, hahahah!” Kenny loved the mayhem.
The shared adrenaline rush, four hard, young badasses. The guys were laughing
and belting each other; they should have videotaped the bitch and put it up on
Youtube. The geek on the mountain bike was just a bonus.
    People on the sidewalk were looking around now, a
girl down, a biker screaming. They scanned the street and over the water and
looked down the Embarcadero. The elderly van lumbered along, innocuous and
overlooked.
    Later the papers came out with the story and the
girl’s name. Melissa. She was from out of town, a student from Wisconsin.
    Another mistake. The bosses were not happy. Dan,
Ricky, Sammy and Kenny got the call. A dark SUV came by their Clement Street
apartment and drove them to a private bar on Grant Street. Some heavy hitters
there, soldiers from the top crews. Tamo had warned that bullshit mistakes
would not be tolerated. Two of the soldiers dragged Kenny down a stairwell to
the basement. Kenny resisted a bit. One of the men snapped the butt of his
handgun on his skull, a hard thwack. Kenny’s limbs jerked a crazy dance. They
shoved the other guys downstairs and tossed Kenny into a shallow pit dug into
the floor filled with filthy water. Beer cans and cigarette butts floated on
the surface. One of the men opened Kenny’s skull with a pipe. Blood mixed with
the dark waters. Head wounds always looked worse than they were, the pressure
of veins on the skull shot the blood everywhere, but still, the moaning from
Kenny unnerved his friends.
    Dan, Sammy, and Ricky got knocked around a bit
before Tamo decided they had enough. Kenny lay unconscious in front of the
others, bleeding into the half dug pit. They emerged with shocked looks from
the basement into a side alley. Something different in their faces now. They
blinked in the summer light and eyeballed the dumpsters. Still worried the beat
down was not over.
    Tamo watched them in silence. Then laughter
geysered up through him so rapidly that he rocked back and forth, almost
dancing. He loved this life. When you felt part of something so close to the
top, it was close to perfection. Like a ruined god.
    “Dumb little fuckers. We like the handicap van
though. Smart!” Tamo pointed to his skull. “That’s why you’re still alive.”
    A joke went around the triad, the crews needed to
increase their missionary work: seduce more girls who worked at hospitals,
nursing homes, schools for the blind.

Chapter
8
     
    Ray walked the trash-strewn streets of the Civic
Center back to his car. He parked on Sutter Street and checked into the
Commodore Hotel, a Jazz-era hotel known for its informal style on the
Tenderloin outskirts. He had good memories of the place, having done some
spoken word performances here a few times with a blues band. He popped into the
hotel bar, decorated completely in red, with one wall comprised entirely of
champagne glasses encased in bulletproof glass.
    He checked his phone for Dominique’s number.