Chapters (11)
Keegan didn’t look at the men as he walked past. He stared down at the splintering planks at his feet and the scuffed nailheads glinting in the lamplight. His breathing was slow and conscious. Out here on the pier, the ocean breeze was colder than he’d bargained for, and it rippled in the folds of his sweat-dampened shirt. The bulge of the gun would have been obvious if anyone looked in his direction, but soon he was beyond the fishermen and breathing easier, the dark end of the pier up ahead of him, the Mambo King music growing tinny at his back.
He passed the locked bait shop and the gutting tables and the steel pump and fire-hose station. The radio music faded into the distant din of the breakers. Soon he could hear his own footsteps on the weathered boards and the slosh of waves lapping the pylons far below.
At the farthest reach of the pier, Keegan leaned over the scarred wood railing and looked down at the inky water. He pulled the bundle from his waistband and felt the heft of it in his hand. He glanced behind him, down the length of the pier. None of the fishermen had moved from where they sat. If they’d noticed him at all, they were no longer interested.
He could see the milky glow of Avalon on Catalina Island, a smudge of light on the black horizon. A scattering of ships’ lamps dotted the sea. The dim shape of the old Pacific Park amusement pier lay half a mile to the north, fenced off and falling into ruin. Its ramshackle Ferris wheel and the roller coasters and the old dance hall, all faintly dusted with moonlight. It was an eyesore. An arson job waiting to happen.
Keegan threw the package overhand, a lofty lob to get it as far away from him as he could. He watched the dark shape tumble in an arc through the moonlit sky. There was a small, silent plume of white in the distance, and it quickly vanished among the glimmering swells.