California Fire and Life (49 page)

Dani opens the back door.

He’s crying as he rolls up Nicky’s pant leg, takes a knife and makes an incision above the Two Crosses tattoo behind Nicky’s knee. He slices the knife down and rips off the skin.

Nicky can’t feel it.

Tears stream down Dani’s face as he says, “If ever I transgress against
Vorovskoy Zakon
, may I burn in hell.”

He closes the door, steps away and tosses the match.

Then sticks his gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Man’s sitting in a car and the car’s on fire.

He doesn’t get out.

Flames lick at his legs and he doesn’t get out.

Just down the hill the Pacific pounds on the rocks.

California fire and life.

Jack Wade sits on an old Hobie longboard, riding swells that refuse to become waves.

He watches a plume of smoke rise up from the beach.

The smoke means to him that Hernando has fired up the grill and that the coals will be hot enough in a little while and that he’ll have to come and help Hernando cook dinner for the tourists.

If there are any at the fishing camp.

Usually there aren’t, and then Jack helps Hernando work on the little lodge that he’s putting up. Nothing fancy, a little cinder-block-and-rebar job with a beamed roof, but Jack knows how to build it and Hernando is happy for the help.

The rest of the time, Jack surfs or fishes or drives into town to buy supplies for the camp. When the tourists are in, he’ll cook them breakfasts of
huevos rancheros
or pancakes or any other damn thing they want, and he makes lunches of fruit and chicken and cold, cold beer. In the evening he grills the fish they’ve caught, or the fish he’s caught, and after he’s done cleaning up he grabs a beer and sits and listens to Hernando sing the old
canciones
.

Or if Hernando doesn’t feel like singing, Jack just lies in the bed of Hernando’s old pickup and listens to the Dodgers game on the radio. The weather reports talk about big rainstorms coming up in the north.

Sometimes Jack sits back and looks at some crayon drawings that come for “Uncle Jack” in Hernando’s mail. At first they were of trees and houses on fire. Now they mostly show horses, or kids on horses, and the kids are usually smiling and the lady with them always has black hair.

Jack thinks a lot about Letty.

He thinks a lot about himself and Letty with the kids.

He rarely thinks about California fire and life.

THE DEATH AND LIFE OF BOBBY Z

When Tim Kearney draws a life sentence in a prison full of gang members, he’s pretty much a dead man. That’s when the DEA makes him an offer he can’t refuse: impersonate the late, legendary dope smuggler Bobby Z so the agency can trade him for a captured DEA agent. His chances are still not great, but may be a little better than in prison. Kearney winds up in the drug lord’s compound, where he meets Bobby Z’s old flame, Elizabeth, and her son. It’s a short vacation by the pool before all three of them are on the run.

Crime Fiction/978-0-307-27534-9

THE POWER OF THE DOG

Art Keller is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager turned high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and incorruptable Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell’s Kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hit man. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug
Federación
. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you’ve never seen it.

Crime Fiction/978-1-4000-9693-0

THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE

Frankie Machianno, a hard-working entrepreneur, passionate lover, part-time surf bum, and full-time dad, is a widely recognized pillar of his waterfront community. He is also a retired hit man. Once better known as Frankie Machine, he was a brutally efficient killer. Now someone from his past wants him dead. However, the list of suspects is longer than the California coastline. With the mob on his heels and the cops on his tail, Frankie hatches a plan to protect his family, save his life, and escape the mob forever.

Crime Fiction/978-0-307-27766-4

VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD
Available at your local bookstore, or visit
www.randomhouse.com
.