The Detachment

I’m not comfortable hurting some girl who has nothing to do with any of this. I mean, my daddy taught me that gentlemen can kill each other, preferably with firearms, and that’s fine, but that we respect womenfolk. I’m sure that sounds fucked up to most of your more modern, egalitarian, self-actualized killers, but it’s how I was raised.”
    “I hear you.”
    “And I know you have a thing about no women and children, too.”
    “Yes.”
    “So…we’re just bluffing then.”
    I nodded. “But I think when Horton understands Larison is involved in this, he won’t take the chance.”
    “Well, that right there is the problem. See, I don’t think Larison is bluffing. I think that man—and no disrespect, ’cause he is obviously one capable sumbitch—I think he’s a little bit…Well, how do I put this. You know, some dogs, big dogs, they could kill you, but they don’t, because they’re good dogs. You can trust them. Other dogs, they’re looking at you, and you don’t know what the hell they’re thinking. Or which way it could go. That’s how Larison is to me. Any given moment, I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m not sure even he knows.”
    It interested me that each of them understood the other in canine terms. But I kept the thought to myself.
    “Horton said something about Larison keeping too much hidden,” I said. “Being in turmoil.”
    “Well, shit, everybody has something to keep hidden.”
    “You have something to keep hidden?”
    He grinned. “Just my midget porn fetish. Don’t tell anyone.”
    “You and I are on the same page,” I said. “We’ll let Larison think what he wants, because the more scared Horton is, the better for us. But we’re not going to let him hurt anyone. If it comes to that, we’ll stop him.”
    He nodded. “Thank you for that. I figured as much. Just wanted to make sure.”
    We pulled our own clothes out of the pile of clean stuff and ate some of the provisions Dox had brought in. Then he napped while I watched the door, the Supergrade in hand. I watched the angle of the sun on the window curtains get increasingly sharp, and still no sign of Larison or Treven. Dox woke up and it was my turn to sleep while he stood sentry.
    At a little past six, I was awakened instantly from a light sleep by three sharp knocks. I took a position on one side of the door, the Supergrade up and ready, while Dox opened it. It was Larison.
    “Treven’s on the way,” he said. “Good news. I’ll wait until he’s here and then brief you. Is that grub? I’m starving.”
    He grabbed a wrap and started devouring it. Treven showed fifteen minutes later. While he tucked in, too, Larison briefed us.
    “We went online,” Larison said. “And found only four summer classes at the school. And only one on screenwriting, which is her thing. So we staked out the building where the class is held.”
    “You see anyone?” I asked. “Anyone who looked like they were looking for us?”
    “Hell yes,” Treven said. “We saw them—two of them—hanging out exactly where we would have been hanging out if we were trying to get to us.”
    Larison said, “So we made sure not to be where we would have been if we’d known no one was looking for us.”
    “The weird thing is, I understood all that,” Dox said.
    “We picked up a couple of radios at a Radio Shack,” Larison said. “Not much range, but good enough for our purposes. We hung way back. Decided to take a chance, and it paid off.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of chance?”
    “We don’t know how she gets to school,” Treven said. “Could be a car, could be a bus, could be a bicycle for all we know. We made Hort’s guys monitoring her building, so we couldn’t do the same. Which meant we had to take a guess. Car, bus, or bicycle. We guessed bus. We guessed right. Followed her onto an L.A. Metro bus.”
    I still didn’t like it. “How’d you manage it without getting seen?”
    “I staked out Hilgard and Charing Cross,” Larison said. “The stop right by the school.”
    “And I waited at the next stop,” Treven said. “Hilgard and Sunset.”
    “Totally lucky that it turns out she rides the bus,” Larison said. “But hey, sometimes you catch a break. When I saw her come out and wait at the Charing Cross stop, I radioed Treven. He got on at the next stop, right after her.”
    “What about Horton’s guys?” I asked.
    “One of them got on with her at Charing Cross,” Larison