Savages

loaded.”
    A soccer-mom van, stripped of the backseats, waits out back. Ben and Eric load the kilos in, then Ben gets behind the wheel and starts the motor.
    He has forty-three minutes to get to Costa Mesa.

109
     
    Slicing through SoCal
    Cutting through a California night
    The freeway (5) is soft and warm and
    Welcoming
    But for Ben
    The green exit signs are like steps climbing up a scaffold
    Toward O.
    Each one marking precious time, saying miles to go—
    And miles to go before she sleeps
    Aliso Viejo, Oso Parkway, El Toro
    Lake Forest, Culver, MacArthur
    John Wayne Airport now off to his left, glowing in white light, shut down for the night now so that takeoffs don’t disturb the slumber of Orange County—
    Jamboree, because the Boy Scouts camped there.
    Ben does eighty-five with a vanload of dope. Doesn’t want to speed like that but has to because the clock is running
    Irvine Spectrum with its unlikely Ferris wheel and
    Irvine Amphitheater proclaiming on its marquee the coming of Jimmy Buffett, o come, ye Parrothead faithful …
    Ben sees, from the corner of his eye
    The CHP car parked in the median
    Lying in ambush
    Like death does
    (Cancer, heart attacks, aneurisms, all waiting patiently in the median strip)
    He prays that the cop has better things to do, replays a Springsteen song in his head (“Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me”), not because he fears the years in prison but because it would mean O’s death and he glances in the rearview mirror to see if the cop pulls out (please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me), and he doesn’t.
    Ben fucking can’t fucking breathe.
    Hands soaked on the sweat-slick wheel.
    Finally, Bristol Street.
    South Coast Plaza.
    O’s hunting grounds.
    He exits left on Fairview.
    Head on a swivel, he looks for the address they gave him, street numbers matching a little strip mall.
    Come on, come on, come on
    Where is it, where is it, where is it
    His stomach aching, cramping in tension, he feels like he might shit himself, then sees—
    The wooden sign “33–38.”
    A liquor store, a pizza joint, dry cleaner’s, nail salon.
    All closed.
    He parks the van in the diagonal slot between lines and lets himself look at his watch.
    Two minutes to spare.
    Then he waits, knowing that they’re watching him.

110
     
    Chon comes out of the water.
    Creature from the Black Lagoon.
    He hits land and walks back to where he parked the pony.
    Looks at his watch.
    Four minutes.
    He races down to Spanish Landing, where a row of phone booths stand like monuments to the past.
    Fumbles quarters into the slot and dials the number he was told to dial.
    “It’s done.”

111
     
    Ben’s phone rings.
    “Yes!”
    Pull back on to Fairview, they tell him.
    Go two lights, take a left.
    Two more blocks, take a right.
    Go now, we’ll call back.
    Ben drives, a new mantra in his shaken brain—
    Two lights left, two more right.
    Just before the second right, the phone rings again.
    “See the fish store?”
    Ben looks around …
    The fish store, the—
    —then sees the sign with the cartoon fish, bubbles coming up from his mouth; the place sells tropical fish for home tanks—
    “Yes, I see it.”
    “Take the right, then right into the alley behind the store.”
    He does it.
    Pulls in to the alley.
    “Put it in park and get out.”
    “Should I shut off the engine?”
    “No.”
    He does what he’s told and gets out of the car.
    It happens real fast. A car rolls in, two guys jump out the back. One of them grabs Ben, shoves him against the shop’s back door, and presses a pistol to his head. The other snatches the phone out of his hand.
    “One word, one move, one sound. You die quick, the girl dies slow.”
    Ben nods as best he can with the hand around his neck, his cheek pressed against the metal door.
    “You take our car, we take yours. We see anyone following us, we see a cop, a chopper, anything, the girl is dead.”
    Ben nods again.
    “Wait a minute and then go home. We’ll call.”
    The hand lets him go.
    He hears the van drive off.
    Ben gets into the car, a CRV. The keys are in the ignition. A duffel bag is set on the passenger seat. He opens it up and sees
    Cash.
    A lot of cash.
    They paid for the dope.
    Ben heads back to Laguna.

112
     
    Chon comes in an hour later.
    Looks at Ben and nods.
    Ben nods back.
    They sit and watch the computer screen.

113
     
    The cell phone rings.
    Lado answers it.
    O hears him talk