The Parker Trilogy Read online

  As he waited, the sky above went all black as the clouds spilled their guts and the rain came down even harder.

  He suddenly imagined Hymie’s face, after a game of basketball in the park, smiling and sweaty. They’d grown up together, and despite the horrible homes they lived in, they’d found a bond and a sense of family together. In the hood, they’d come up the ranks together, and though, yes, it was true, Hymie had ridden Hector’s coat tails, it didn’t matter. Things were good for a while, there. They really were.

  Then the fool had gone and done it. Betrayed him for love.

  Glancing down at the desk he saw a paper clip that someone had twisted into a circle, making it look like a silver hoop earring, which made him think of Marisol. She’d done the same thing, hadn’t she? Betrayed him for love? Yes. She had.

  And now she had to pay.

  Just like Hymie.

  One of the two guys behind the counter reached for something under the register, but Campos had drawn down on him, the cold blue of his 9-mm pointed directly at his head. “Don’t!” he screamed.

  The guy, a tall Asian with a manicured beard, put his hands up. The man next to him, a squat, bald Asian with long sideburns and an Ed Hardee t-shirt followed his lead, his hands rising as his designer watch reflected the light and a series of chains that he wore around his wrists shimmied down his forearms.

  Tic Toc, on the other hand, figuring that Campos couldn’t aim in two directions at once, and was unlikely to shoot him in the back if he ran anyway, was off to the races.

  “I got him!” Parker yelled, holstering his gun as he watched Tic Toc open a lead across the parking lot that was nothing short of astounding. He was fast. No doubt about it. As Parker ran past Tic Toc’s Honda, he saw the Tweety Bird hanging from the rearview mirror, just like Eric Yi had told them.

  Tweety Bird? Some things just didn’t make sense. Parker couldn’t help himself. At what point, he wondered, as he ran past the car, did this guy think that Tweety Bird was gangster?

  Sirens were approaching from somewhere very nearby. Campos would be okay.

  As he ran out of the driveway, Parker saw Tic Toc running up the middle of the street, arms pumping furiously, his head, with black hair shaved almost to the scalp, bobbing along. He was muscle-bound, which meant two things: first, he was bulky, his thighs thick and his arms even thicker, which made running a bit awkward; and second, due to carrying all that extra muscle weight on his small five-foot-six frame, he was going to wear out sooner than he wanted to.

  Parker bolted as fast as he could to catch up, and then once at a comfortable enough distance not to lose him if he darted across the street or turned a corner sharply, Parker fell in step behind him and began to methodically cut down on his lead.

  He waited patiently for Tic Toc’s adrenaline to wear off and, sure enough, about two blocks later, he began to slow. First by a few steps, then a half-dozen, then more. Glancing over his shoulder repeatedly and seeing Parker closing on him, Tic Toc slowed to a jog and then cut down an alley, where he came to a labored stop.

  Breathing heavily, with his hands on his hips, he turned to face Parker.

  “Get on the ground, Danny!” Parker shouted as he pointed his finger and reached for his gun.

  But Danny Noh, aka Tic Toc, wasn’t having it. He charged Parker, and despite being tired, he closed the distance in a bolt. Parker had his hand on his holster when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to draw his gun safely, that there was a good chance that it would get grabbed or knocked out of his hand if he tried.

  Noh rammed his head straight into Parker’s chest like a bull and began driving him backwards.

  Cursing himself for being caught off guard, Parker rotated his body to the right, spinning Noh off into a fence nearby. He bounced off it like a man possessed and began throwing open-handed blows and elbow strikes. Karate. The art of “the open hand.” Just as advertised. The way in which he unleashed the moves told Parker that this was a sequence Noh had rehearsed many times before, and was probably used to seeing instant results from.

  There was just one problem: Parker was not a bar patron or some ignorant civilian expecting a boxing match. He knew what he was seeing and, more importantly, he knew what was coming.

  Stepping back, he blocked an elbow meant for his ribs and fired a hard fist into the side of Noh’s head, which staggered him. His eyes, initially fierce, lost some sauce. He grunted, rubbed at his head, then retreated a few steps back and began bouncing on the balls of his feet. More sirens were around, some of them headed their way. A man in a baggy shirt and shorts at the end of the alley was in the street, jumping up and down emphatically, pointing their way, probably trying to flag down one of the black-and-whites that Campos had no doubt sent to find Parker.

  “You gonna wait for backup . . . pussy?” Noh said with a smile.

  Parker smiled. “Unbelievable. You actually have a gold tooth? It’s almost sad.”

  Noh crouched, shuffled right and then left. “Screw you, jjab-sae.”

  Shadowing his moves and keeping his balance evenly centered between his feet, one hand open in front of his face, the other balled into a tight fist, Parker continued to press him.

  “I mean, really? How many rap videos have you watched, Tupac?”

  The high kick that came next was good, solid and blocked by Parker’s open hand. It was a nice try, and for his efforts Parker rapped Danny twice more with stiff jabs to the face. Noh sneered as blood began coloring his teeth.

  At six foot two, Parker had the height and reach advantage over Noh, all day long and twice on Sundays, so it only made sense that Noh would try what he did next: a foot sweep. It’s what all the tough guys did these days. The idea being that if he could take Parker’s legs out from under him and get the fight to the ground, then things would be more equal and leave Parker vulnerable to, say, a grappling move or an arm bar. It would not surprise Parker at all if Noh was not only a meathead, but an MMA meathead to boot.

  Parker leaped over the sweep and brought the heel of his shoe out directly into the star tattooed on Noh’s neck. He chortled, like a stuck goat, and then rolled away. When he got to his feet he glared at Parker. “Your mother’s a whore!” he screamed.

  A black-and-white came down the alley in a roar and screeched to a halt. The two uniforms inside jumped out and drew their weapons, but Parker waved them off. He knew better. It wasn’t procedure. But that part of him, always dark, sometimes sad, needed this. Like a drink. He knew his therapist would tell him that it was a very, very bad idea to give into the urge, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “Give us a second, guys. DJ Jazzy Dipshit here has just said something very unkind about my mother.”

  Amazingly, Noh smiled. He began to bob his head from side to side, as if to loosen his neck and shoulder muscles.

  “Too much creatine, chunky,” Parker prodded. “You got so much water on you, you could be a Sparkletts’ delivery man.”

  Deep down, Parker suspected that Noh knew better. Despite being older, Parker was leaner and in better shape. Neither one of them was a stranger to the gym, but Noh was the only one on steroids and, as such, the only one of them bound to have a hair-trigger temper that would make him act irrationally.

  The smart move was to give up. There was no way to win this. Even if he caught Parker with a good shot, two guns stood ready to take him down in seconds. But Noh evidently had something to prove.

  He came in high and tight, catching Parker in the neck with the heel of his hand as his other hand shot straight out and glanced off Parker’s chin, which Parker turned just in time to avoid serious harm.

  To an outsider it looked like Noh had just scored, big time. But in truth, he’d just played right into Parker’s hands. Literally. In seconds, Parker had Noh’s head cupped in his fingers, and before any slick defensive moves could be unleashed, Parker gave him a Glasgow kiss, as Arnie Ireland, a buddy from British Forces, had called it one night on leave after he and Parker had
met for some drinks at a strip club in Amsterdam and a fight had broken out with some German tourists.

  In the States, it was just called a headbutt.

  It shattered Tic Toc’s nose and sent him sprawling backwards, his arms pinwheeling like mad as his eyes tried to meet at the bridge of his nose and the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness began to negate his coordination. He stumbled and bumbled a bit before Parker caught him with a straight-leg kick to the chest that sent him, hard, into the wooden fence behind him. There was a loud thud and then he went down in a heap.

  One of the uniforms, Rebecca Fordham, a tall brunette with steely green eyes Parker knew well from his patrol days and who was a ringer on the squad softball team, let loose a whistle. “Damn, Parker,” she said, “you sure do love your mom.”

  “No shit,” the other uniform added. His hair was blond and his name badge said “Edelson.”

  As Danny Noh began to groggily come back to life, Fordham righted him and cuffed him. Just then, another black-and-white pulled up and Campos hopped out.

  Looking over the scene and to the horror show that was now Noh’s face, Campos shook his head and glanced at Parker. “He tried that karate shit on you, didn’t he?”

  Parker shrugged and nodded, waiting for his own adrenaline to throttle down now.

  “Damn it!” Campos said. “I missed it!”

  The uniforms laughed, but Parker did not. Because he knew that he’d come close, way too close, to following up that straight-leg kick with a solid throat punch that would’ve shattered Danny Noh’s larynx and most likely have killed him.

  An armored car rolled down the street at the end of the alley, sounding very much like a rumbling Humvee and making his ears ring, threatening unwanted memories. Parker felt his lungs tighten.

  No! Don’t. Breathe! he told himself. Calm down. Just breathe.

  He heard Campos’ voice from far, far away. “Hey? Parker? You all right, man?”

  Parker nodded, put the past back on hold and forced himself to walk to the car, noticing with dread and embarrassment that nobody was laughing anymore.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Bone Fingered Woman and her brood walked out, backwards, one step at a time, like a movie on rewind, from Father Soltera’s room. He felt them, still there, in the living room for a while, even though he could no longer see them, and then there was a bright red glow before he sensed their absence.

  He was trembling violently when he heard a knock on the door and Carol came in quietly with his pozole. He tried to call her but his mouth still wouldn’t move. He reached up and touched his lips. The leather stitching was gone. Still, he couldn’t vocalize a single word as he watched her tiptoe to the kitchen and then back out through the living room.

  When he heard his door shut again he felt so desperate not to be alone, to get to her and get a grasp on reality again, that he tried to roll out of bed. His torso cooperated but his lower body was flooded with pins and needles, as if the circulation to everything from his waist down had been cut off.

  He laid his head back and took inventory of his situation. How had this happened? How had the Lord allowed this to happen to him? Wasn’t the normal work of the church enough? Then to be asked to fight cancer, as well. Wasn’t that added burden above and beyond the call of duty? How had he gone from dealing with all of that to being thrust into whatever it was that was happening now?

  This thought made him think, really contemplate, what was happening right now. To walk back the past two days and figure it out.

  It had all begun with Luisa’s confession. She was pregnant. No one else knew except the boy, whom she didn’t want to name.

  Then came Felix . . . No, no that wasn’t correct . . . Then came Guero Martinez, Luisa’s uncle. With questions and threats. That was it. The moment in the market was the first time that the fabric of reality, the “real” world that Father Soltera had lived in for nearly six decades, was torn. That was when the spiritual world had revealed itself to him. Evil had come to him first. Why? Was it because of his sinful nature? Was he now simply meant for a place in hell, so hell had come calling?

  Despair gripped his throat and lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He felt tears in his eyes, pooling, hot, threatening to spill out. Why had God forsaken him?

  Yes, with Gabriella—he could barely think her name without wincing—he had gone astray, but hadn’t he always been as good as he could be up until then? All his work with the poor, and in the prisons. All his counsel to the lonely, desperate and afraid. How many souls gripped by grief had he held up until they could be healed? The women who had miscarried? The men who had buried their fathers? The families infected by the gangs or by drugs? He had worked hard. So hard. For so many years.

  Anger began to well in his heart and then spread in his chest. He didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t fair. To work so diligently for so long and be handed over to hell like this, to that woman and those poor girls.

  A voice spoke in his mind. Those were not the real girls, it said.

  Napoleon Villa was back.

  That’s when Father Soltera realized that the first person to visit him from the other side of the veil had actually been Napoleon, there in the pews, when Luisa left. No. Wrong again. Father Soltera had heard Napoleon come in, during Luisa’s confession. Yes.

  And he had left when she left.

  I’d been watching her for a while, Napoleon said.

  The tears fell, one across each cheek. Lying down like this, one made it into his ear. “Where . . . where are you?”

  Still with her, but calling to you. I heard your pain.

  “What’s happening to me? P-please tell me.”

  You’ve been enlisted to help . . . at a different level now. Do you understand?

  “No. I don’t. This is too much for me to bear. I can’t do this.”

  Not your call, Father. We both know who decides what is, and is not, too much to bear.

  “Yes. But perhaps . . . may God forgive me for saying it . . . perhaps He’s misjudged. I’m too sick. The cancer—”

  The cancer is not what’s really made you sick, compa.

  “What? Then . . .”

  We both know what. But I’m not here for that, Father. I’m afraid that’s between you and Him alone. I am here for Luisa.

  A quiet came to the room. As the rain outside suddenly began to fall much harder, Father Soltera felt a warmth spreading from his feet, up through his legs. He cried out softly as the pins and needles protested loudly before disappearing. He still felt weak, but before long the warmth had spread throughout him and began to chase away his fatigue.

  “What can I possibly do to help her? The boy is strong and less than half my age. And her uncle is practically the devil himself.”

  Uh. Not even close. But never mind that. The boy and the uncle are my concern. Your job is to get the girl to safety.

  “Where?”

  You’ll figure that out. You’ve helped others in the same predicament.

  Father Soltera began to understand, bit by bit, but as he sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bed, he looked down to a section of the blanket that one of the little girls had gripped with her hand. It was still bent with the curl of her fingers but also, he noticed now, she’d left behind singe marks. “The girls. Those poor—”

  Joaquin Murietta, Napoleon said grimly.

  Father Soltera bowed his head. “I know. I should’ve stopped him.”

  Me too.

  Stunned, Father Soltera looked to the ceiling. “What? You knew him?”

  I was the detective on that case. New to the job. I made mistakes that allowed him to walk the first time he was caught.

  Father Soltera reached back in his mind to the news reports and front-page articles of that time. Yes. He could remember them mentioning that Joaquin Murietta had been set free because the evidence against him was tainted somehow. His attorney had cast so much doubt over the case that even the public wasn’t entirely sure the police had arrest
ed the right man.

  But we knew. We all knew. From the beat cops to any detective that helped with the case.

  Father Soltera grew quiet. He didn’t want to say it, but the shame this man must’ve felt in having any part in letting Joaquin out . . .

  It is not entirely different than the shame you feel, to this day, for not stopping him in the confessional or—

  “Chasing after him when he left.”

  Yep. But shame is a tree that bears no fruit. In this life or the next.

  “Is that why that . . . thing . . . came here?”

  To take advantage of your shame? Yeah. And the lesser demons that came disguised as the girls only came to make it worse.

  “I understand. So. If I’m to help Luisa, why are you with her?”

  Because you’re not.

  “Where is she?”

  In class. Unable to concentrate on anything. Afraid, because he’s told her that he’s coming over to see her when she gets out of school, whether she likes it or not.

  “What? Felix, you mean?”

  Yes. And she’s right to be afraid.

  The carpet of his bedroom felt cool and thick against his feet as Father Soltera immediately stood up. “Why?”

  She’s not nearly far enough along for it to happen, but he still intends to try.

  “Oh, dear Lord! Try what?”

  The room was quiet again for a few seconds, and when Napoleon Villa spoke next it made Father Soltera wish he never had.

  He plans on punching her in the stomach, over and over, in the hopes of making her lose the baby.

  “What? You have to stop him!”

  I’ll try. But my power here is limited and, so far, pretty unpredictable. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a rookie at something, and I forgot how much it sucks.

  “Okay. Fine. I’m coming. Just give me some time!”

  Hurry.

  As he felt Napoleon blink away again, Father Soltera was up and on his way to the phone before his words even faded from the air.