“Okay, just stay here and…give me sixty seconds to get into position. When you count sixty, run—that way. Asilomar. And just keep going. They’ll start after you but I’ll make a shitload of noise and lead ’em off.”

“Okay. Sixty.”

Then Darth gave a smile. “Yo. We did good tonight.”

A nod. A fist bump.

“Start counting.” Darth moved as quietly as he could into the woods away from the shed. As he did this he looked around. Ah, there, excellent. He found a perfect weapon. A rock about ten inches long, sharp at one end. He picked it up and hefted the stone. Good, good.

Darth had no intention of running. He was pissed off that they’d been pushed into a corner and pissed that the Jew had taken his bike. What he was going to do as soon as Wolverine took off was come up behind the cop, distracted by the noise of his friend’s footsteps.

Then Darth’d slam the rock into the cop’s head, knock him out.

And get the asshole’s gun, which would be a slick and smooth Glock or Beretta or something.

He felt a chill of pleasure and enjoyed a brief fantasy of his father coming into his bedroom, pushing him onto the bed, facedown, lifting the branch…and Darth twisting away, grabbing the automatic from under the pillow and watching his father’s terrified face stare into the muzzle of a fucking nine-mil.

Would he pull the trigger?

No. Yes. Maybe.

He silently made his way around the cop, looking carefully where he put his feet.

Okay, Wolverine. Up to you now.

About fifteen seconds left in the count. He gripped the rock and moved a bit closer to him.

Only, wait, weird. It wasn’t a him. It was a woman. Was it the bitch across from Goldshit’s? No, no that didn’t make sense. It’d have to be a cop, just a woman cop.

Could Darth drop a girl?

Then he decided: What the fuck difference does it make? Of course he could.

Then he had a weird thought: Wolverine—his real name was Wes—his mother, Mrs. Dance, was a cop. What if this was her? It was too dark to see anything but long hair. But then Darth, well, Donnie Verso, remembered that Wes had said his mother was out of town. Some big case she was working on.

So, whoever she was, it wasn’t Mrs. Dance.

Okay. He moved a bit closer and then paused, kneading the rock. He crouched and got ready to sprint up behind her and take the bitch out. In less than a minute Donnie Verso would have the gun he’d fantasized about for so long.

Chapter 51

Kathryn Dance continued toward the large Victorian house on the far edge of the park.

She was disappointed to see that while the porch lights were on, the rest of the house seemed dark. Too bad. Despite O’Neil’s assessment she was still inclined to lay the crime at the feet of a biker gang. The family here might have heard the throaty clatter of a ’cycle engine, maybe peeked out the front window and gotten a good view. Make and model of the bike possibly, descriptions.