"Walls are sandbagged, windows are all wire-meshed or boarded over. There's a lot of ammunition, lot of food. For crissake, they got a garden on the roof, maybe a dozen shooters, plus women and kids. Buildings are all connected through sheltered access. We gotta go in there we can do it, but I don't see how we do it without we blow up some women and kids."

"Probably why they're there," I said.

"Now that's cynical," Cholla said. "Nothing as cynical as a cynical Yankee."

"Yeah, you're probably right," I said. "Why do you think they're there?"

"To keep people from a.s.saulting the place for fear of killing the kids," Chollo said.

I nodded.

"Of course," I said. "You say they got a garden on the roof? Stuff grow in pots or what?"

"No, they dumped a bunch of dirt up there, must have carried it up in buckets. It's a flat roof and it's covered with dirt and there's a bunch of plants growing up there."

"What kind?"

"I look like f.u.c.king Juan Valdez?" Chollo said. "How the f.u.c.k do I know what kind? I was twenty-three before I found out that stuff didn't grow canned."

"House is supporting a lot of weight," I said. "How about Deleon? What do you think?"

"Deleon's not normal," Chollo said.

"You mentioned that," I said.

"He walks around in there like he's on the Starship Enterprise. And he dresses like he's going to a masquerade. He had some kind of f.u.c.king vaquero look today-boots, the whole deal. Even carried a short leather whip around his wrist. Like a quirt, you know. Like he was Gilbert Roland."

"Theatrical," I said.

"Absolutely, and he can't wait for you to stop talking so he can tell you some more about himself. My people this, and my operation that, and my citadel so and so. He actually uses the word citadel, for crissake."

"You think she's in there?" I said.

"I didn't see her," Chollo said. "But there's a locked room."

"Yeah, there is."

"And there are wedding plans."

"Yeah, there are."

We sat quietly for a while. Chollo finished his sandwich and I drank some decaf while he did it. Chollo then wiped his mouth carefully with a paper napkin, put the napkin in the bag the sandwich had come in, and sat back to drink his coffee. There was no hint of pickle juice on his shirt.

"He's such a jelly bean," Chollo said. "He could have his private quarters guarded to make himself feel, like, important."

"And the wedding?"

"Could be the lovely bride is filming in Monaco," Chollo said, "and jetting in just before the event."

"And hubby-to-be is arranging the wedding."

"Sure," Chollo said.

"You believe that?"

"No."

"You think she's in there?"

"Somebody is," Chollo said.

"So we gotta go in."

"Going to be a lot of blood we go in there straight on," Chollo said. "I got no problem with that, but if it is Belson's wife is in there, he might.

"We gotta go in," I said.

"She was a princess, a wonderful mother," Luis said. "She was beautiful and she cared for me beyond all else."

As he spoke, the badly edited film jerked from scene to scene. In many of the scenes, lit by the cheap floodlight bar of his camera, Luis's mother was with men. In one scene she was kissing a man next to a bed when she was filmed. The man had a hand on her b.u.t.t. The fabric of her short skirt was gathered in his hand. The skirt was hiked nearly hip high. She turned as if frightened, holding her hand to shield her face, gesturing at the camera.

"I used to tease her when she would come home with a date. I would catch her giving them a little kiss and later I would tease her about it. But it was never anything with the men. She always said I was the only one, the man she truly loved."

"And your father?"

Luis shook his head, annoyed. "I had no father," he said.

"Is he alive?"

"I told you," he said, "I have no father."

The film looped back to the beginning, and began its second run-through. The apartment so often pictured seemed no more than a single room. The men pictured were never the same.

"Your mother had a lot of men," Lisa said.

"They were friends. She never loved them."

"She had friends in every night?"

Luis stood suddenly, and walked to the far side of the room.

"Did they stay all night?" Lisa asked.

"We will not speak anymore of my mother," Luis said. "We will talk of other things."

He walked back behind the theater flats for a moment. She could feel his weakness, and she could feel her strength.

"Did they stay all night?"

He reappeared. When he spoke his voice was low and firm and dangerous, like a movie villain.

"We will talk of us, now," he said.

"Your mother was a hooker, wasn't she?" Lisa said.

Luis whirled toward her and slapped her hard across the face; she fell to her hands and knees. Her head ringing. And, from that position she heard herself laughing.

"She was, wasn't she? She was."

And then Luis was on his knees beside her crying, his arms around her.

"I am sorry, Angel, I am sorry. I am so sorry."

She raised her bead and looked at him, still on hands and knees, and saw the tears, and laughed. The sound of it ugly even to her.

"h.e.l.l, Luis," she said. "So was I."

Chapter 35.

"Deleon look like his mug shot?" I said.

"Yeah, but real tall," Chollo said.

"Six-five," I said. "What do you think?"

"He's dangerous, but he's not tough, you know. He's like a big kid and he's full of himself, but he's not really sure, and he's afraid someone will find him out, and you know he's kind of desperate all the time. He's got that look you see in some of the gang kids, the new ones. They're scared, but they're crazy, and they'd die to get respect, so you don't know what they'll do. You can't trust them not to be stupid."

I nodded.

"That's what Deleon's like. Guys like you and me, we know pretty well what we can do if we need to. Don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Don't care too much if other people know it. Deleon doesn't know what he can do, or if he can do it, and he wants everyone to think he does and can, if you see what I'm saying. If the woman wasn't involved, he'd be easy enough. I've made a good living putting guys in the ground that were trying to prove how dangerous they were because they weren't sure themselves."

"But the woman is involved."

"Yeah, and that makes Deleon dangerous as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d because you can't do it simple, and you can't do anything without knowing how it'll affect the woman, and you can't trust him to do anything that makes any sense to you. And he's big and he's got a gun."

"Swell," I said. "Is there a number-two man?"

Chollo laughed.

"El Segundo is a skinny little shooter with a big long ponytail, named Ramon Gonzalez. A c.o.ke head, got a thin, droopy moustache, jitters around behind Deleon wearing two guns."

Chollo laughed again.

"I don't mean a gun and some sort of hide-out piece in an ankle holster. Or a back-up under your arm. I mean he's wearing two Sig Sauer nines with custom grips, one on each hip, like the f.u.c.king Frito bandito."

"He a real shooter?" I said.

"Oh yeah," Chollo said. "And he loves Luis. Looks at him like he was George f.u.c.king Washington."

"I never been too scared of a guy wears two guns," I said.

"How many people you met wear two guns?"

"The only other one is Hoot Gibson," I said.

"I don't know if he's good, but Ramon's real. I know the type. He shoots people 'cause he likes it."

"And you don't," I said.

"I got no feelings about it," Chollo said. "I do it 'cause they pay me."

"I'm not paying you," I said.

Chollo grinned.

"Maybe I'll go to heaven," he said.

"You got my word on it," I said. "There's a dozen shooters? That include Deleon and Gonzalez?"

"I don't know. It's an estimate. I counted nine while I was in there plus Deleon and Gonzalez. Figured there were a few I missed, on the roof maybe, growing squashes. So twelve, fifteen guys altogether."

"And the women and children are theirs?"

"Sure. The place is broken up into apartments with a common kitchen, looks like. Floor plan doesn't make any sense."

"That'd be perfect. Nothing else makes any sense. I don't know if she's in there, and if she is I don't know why. And the only way to find out is to go in, but if I go she may get killed."

"Hey, senor," Chollo said. "I'm just the translator. I am not paid to theenk."

"Lucky for you," I said.

The coffee was gone and the sandwiches were eaten. I gathered up the debris and got out and dumped it in a waste barrel near the sub shop. It was a fine bright spring day with the sun reflecting off the parked cars and glinting on their chrome trim, and sparkling off the tiny flecks of mica in-the surface of the parking lot.

Adolescent girls in striped tee shirts and cut-off jeans loitered along under the arcade roof that ran along the front of the shopping center. Most of them smoked. Some of them inhaled. One of them saw me looking at them and stared back at me, full of bravado and uncertainty, and straightened slightly so that her new bosom, about which she was doubtless uneasy, stuck out proudly. I grinned at her, and she turned away quickly.

Ah sweet bird of youth. They used to come running when I smiled.

Back in the car I started up and headed back up Route 93.

"What now, Jefe?" Chollo said.

"Thought we'd go back and park in a different place and look at the citadel some more."