I see the reflection of blue lights off the trees before any police cars round the corner ahead of me. Damn it, now there are cops at both entrances. I lean and make a hard left, cutting across a narrow strip of grass and then behind a food distribution warehouse, where I stop between a dumpster and the warehouse. A few seconds later a police car flies down the street I was just on, siren blaring. I ride forward past the dumpster to the back of the warehouse, where an ancient pair of railroad tracks runs behind this building and the other ones backing up to it, trees lining both sides of the tracks. I turn right, onto the tracks, giving my Thruxton’s shocks a real workout. By the time the trees fall away and the tracks cross the road I used to drive into the industrial park, the police have all congregated at the back of the park where the shooting happened and haven’t yet sealed off all exits. I gun the bike down the road and out onto Fulton Industrial, speeding past more warehouses and gas stations until I hit Cascade and take a left, winding my way back through the dark wooded lots toward the city.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When I hit 285 I take it and go northbound, merging with the traffic that even late on a Monday night flows around the city, a river of steel in a bed of stone. No police cars fly up behind me, no blue lights flash in my rearview. I’ve escaped the shitshow. But other than that, I didn’t gain much, only that Bala didn’t know where Tane was. At least the Sureños don’t have him. So where is he? Has he bugged out of Atlanta? Maybe hopped a plane to Hawaii or the Solomons or some tiny atoll on the other side of the planet? Bala might have had some ideas about where Tane could be, but now I’ll never know. I need to get back to Ethan’s house and figure out my next move. Maybe tomorrow Uncle Gavin will be awake and coherent and can give me some direction. Not all of Bala’s Sureños are dead, and if they can regroup after tonight, they’ll want their money man back even more.