Gone (Michael Bennett)

choice. I, uh, what? I, uh, therefore I am?” Manuel asked.
    The thugs began giggling. A heavy blow to his kidney knocked him to his knees. There was a shriek, and then duct tape was smeared hard over his mouth and ears.
    Ray stared down at the carpet, half unconscious with terror. He was unresisting as his shoes, socks, shirt, shorts, and finally his underwear were stripped from his body.
    He had been adopted. That was why he’d been so excited about becoming a father. A lot of adopted people acted all forgiving about their biological parents, talked about how brave they were for abandoning their own flesh and blood, but not him. Once his kid was born, he’d been planning to show them. He was going to attach his kid to himself, hold the tiny, brand-new human in his arms and never ever let him go.
    Only now he never would.
    A hand grabbed his hair, pulled him up on his knees, yanked his head back, exposing his throat. Ray pinched his crying eyes shut as bright white camera light torched his face.
    “This is what happens to those who stand in the way of Los Salvajes!” Manuel screamed as Ray felt something hard and cold bite under his right ear.

CHAPTER 63
     
    PARKER AND I DECIDED to meet up for a late-night dinner when news of the Dodger Stadium murder dropped.
    A little after one in the morning, we left the hotel and drove to a softly lit restaurant called Ammo, on Highland Avenue in Hollywood.
    “I like the name,” I said to Parker as we sat at a booth. “After what happened at the ball game tonight, we’re probably going to need a case of double-aught buck and couple of boxes of fifty caliber to go.”
    Instead, we ordered some drinks. Jack and ginger ale for me, a pinot grigio for Emily. I’d actually had a couple of room service beers after I heard about the ball-game decapitation, but they hadn’t worked at all. After seeing the now-national news coverage about the savagery committed in the midst of the Dodger home opener, I’d never felt more sober in my life.
    On the ride over, Emily had told me that a team from our Perrine task force had been sent to the stadium, but we hadn’t heard back from them yet.
    “It’s Perrine. We both know it,” Parker said angrily as she placed her unringing phone down on the corner of the table. “He’s marking his new US territory now and rubbing our noses in it in the process.”
    Emily sighed as she stared out the plate-glass window. She looked tired. Pale and drained, as if she’d just given blood. The hours she was putting in would have taxed anyone, not to mention the unrelenting pressure from above. And still we couldn’t move the needle on what the cartels were doing. I shared her frustration. No doubt about it, we were getting our asses thoroughly kicked.
    “I saw this video on the Internet recently,” Emily said, “where these kids, these nice, normal-looking suburban kids, film themselves slowly, methodically, and mercilessly abusing a sixty-eight-year-old bus monitor. They call her fat, ugly, say that she should hang herself. And as she sits there, crying, these kids are laughing themselves silly. I mean, her tears are turning these kids on. It’s like debasing this poor old woman is the greatest and funniest thing they’ve ever done in their life.”
    “I saw it, too,” I said. “I wish I hadn’t. It was like something out of A Clockwork Orange , only for real.”
    She lifted her wine and stared at it.
    “You ever wonder if maybe Perrine is a symptom of a larger disease? As if things are … changing. As if people are changing. Their attitudes. The way we treat each other. Look at all this bath-salt stuff. People biting each other’s faces off. The flash mobs where hundreds of punks go wilding in some store.
    “Seems to me, the center is having some serious trouble holding these days, Mike. It’s like Perrine is picking up on that and just going to town, trying to egg on complete collapse. Maybe it’s time to head for the hills. Any room up in Northern Cali for one more in the Bennett militia?”
    “Nah,” I said, marking circles on the napkin with the bottom of my drink. “That’s not the move, Emily. Trust me. The hills are a nice place to visit, but you don’t want to live there. I know things are looking pretty bleak, but right here, right now, is the place to be. This latest crap from Perrine only proves it. He’s trying to break our will, but he’s out of his league. Bigger assholes than he have tried and failed. I