Fangs Out by David Freed

Author:David Freed
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1579623441
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2013-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

THE VILLAGE of La Jolla at night is no cheap eats central. Unless your hankering is for coq au vin or wild mushroom raviolis in port wine sauce with a sautéed side of pomposity, you’re pretty much out of luck.

Where’s a taco shack when you need it?

El Indio still had to be open at that hour. It was fifteen minutes away, but definitely worth the drive. I wheeled the Escalade south onto Coast Boulevard and accelerated to something under Mach.

Bent as I was on my craving for something refried and wrapped in a tortilla, I didn’t notice the headlights at first, creeping up on my tail. I switched lanes. The lights did, too, so close behind me that they disappeared from view altogether, leaving only an ominous, dark presence in my wake. The Escalade’s illuminated speedometer registered close to fifty in what I assumed was a thirty mile-an-hour zone. The guy behind me had to be Johnny Law. My second traffic stop in three days. Damn.

A real Buddhist is supposed to be kind and considerate, even to traffic cops. I decided I’d save him the trouble of firing up his lights and siren; I pulled over without being prompted. He followed, aiming a high-intensity beam at my side-view mirror, blinding me to his approach, just as his fellow officer had done two nights earlier when Savannah and I were still on speaking terms. I turned on my dome light and put my hands on the top of the steering wheel to assure him that I posed no threat to him. But in heeding the Buddha and the Golden Rule, I forgot Rule Number One of the Official Special Operators Handbook, highlighted in boldface and printed all in caps on page one: NEVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN OR YOU’LL HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME WHEN THEY FIND YOUR SORRY ASS IN A DITCH.

The passenger door was flung open and into the Escalade climbed Bunny the Human Doberman with his .50-caliber Desert Eagle, the muzzle of which he jammed in my right ear.

“Drive,” he said, slamming the door behind him.

“You mind if we stop at El Indio? I’m seriously jonesing for a burrito.”

The blinding, high-intensity beam reflected in my side-view mirror had come from an LED flashlight like the kind police officers carry. Only in this case, the flashlight belonged to Daniel ‘Li’l Sinister’ Zuniga, Bunny’s cousin, who came hustling up to the driver’s side of the Escalade with the flashlight in his left hand and a Mac-10 submachine pistol in his right, which he proceeded to level at my head.

“You got him?” Li’l Sinister said, panting, sweat pouring off his pudgy face.

“Get back in your car!” Bunny yelled at his cousin.

I watched out of the corner of my eye in the side mirror as Li’l Sinister hustled back to his ride.

“I’m not gonna tell you again,” Bunny said, pressing the barrel of his gun into me even harder. “Drive.”

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