“Where’s Hector?” I asked, buckling up.
“With Ricky,” Bobby replied.
It felt like a ten ton weight hit my chest and I stopped breathing entirely.
Luckily, Shirleen spoke for me. “What’d you say?”
“It was Ricky Balducci shootin’ at him. I drew his fire, Hector rounded the building, climbed the fire escape and got him,” Bobby answered.
Visions of Hector choking the life out of Ricky (or worse) filled my head. I started breathing again (more like hyperventilating) and yelled, “Go back! You can’t leave Hector with Ricky, he’s going to –”
“He had him disarmed, cuffed to a door and he’s got a gun on him,” Bobby interrupted me. “The cops were approachin’ when I left. Ricky’s facin’ rape, arson and now attempted murder. Hector assaults him, he f**ks it up. Hector’s a wild man but ain’t no way he’s gonna f**k this up, no matter how much he wants to kick Balducci’s ass.”
This made sense and it made me stop hyperventilating.
Then another thought occurred to me.
“Why did you move me out?”
“Hector wants you at the offices,” Bobby answered.
“Why?” I pressed.
“I didn’t ask, I don’t care. He wants you there, I take you there. I follow orders and I don’t question them. Ever,” Bobby returned.
I decided (since Bobby had just been in a gunfight), that maybe now was not the time to be asking any more questions.
He took us to the offices and parked in the underground garage. I didn’t have time to have an emotional drama that I was back in the garage for the first time since I’d careened in there after being raped. Shirleen and Bobby hustled me out of the car, up the stairs and into the offices before I could blink.
Shirleen stayed in the reception area but Bobby took me straight through the door to the back rooms and into the surveillance room which was filled with a couple of desks, monitors, equipment and the big, muscular bulk that was Jack.
Jack turned to us, his eyes did a professional full body scan of me then they moved to Bobby.
“Got the call,” he told Bobby.
“Code One?” Bobby asked.
“Yup,” Jack replied.
I looked between them wondering who would explain.
“I’m off,” Bobby said then he was.
The door closed behind him. This I took as Bobby not being the one to explain.
Therefore, I turned and asked Jack, “What’s Code One?”
“Sit. Watch the monitors,” Jack responded.
I sat in a swivel chair in front of the bank of monitors, six across, four rows, each with what looked like a DVD recorder under it. I trained my gaze on the screens and repeated, “What’s Code One?”
“Do as I say, when I say, no matter what you see on the monitors,” Jack answered.
Though this wasn’t really an answer I didn’t quibble. I didn’t suspect that now was Quibble Time. Quibble Time was after whatever Code One was was over and I was innocently playing Yahtzee with my friends again.
“Should I be worried about whatever’s happening?” I went on.
“Nope.”
“You’re sure?” I pressed.
“Yup.”
I didn’t really believe him but, as I mentioned, it was not Quibble Time.
We watched the monitors.
Then I asked, “What are we looking for?”
“Anything.”
“What kind of anything?”
“Anything, anything.”
I was feeling ill-equipped to be Jack’s Monitor Helper but I decided to stop asking questions about my assignment. It was not only not Quibble Time it was probably not Question Time either. Except for things looking like they’d gone back to normal at Fortnum’s and a bunch of people in the pool hall doing pool hall type activities, nothing much was happening.
I decided on a different subject. “Can I call Hector?”
“Nope.”
Blooming heck!
“Can I call him in, say, fifteen minutes?” I tried.
“You can shut up. That’d be good.”
My back went straight but my eyes didn’t leave the screens.
“Did you just tell me to shut up?”
“I see you didn’t hear me.”
“Hector was in a gunfight!” I snapped.
“Not the first, probably not the last.”
Oh my.
That shut me up.
I decided not to think about that until I was, say, six hundred years old and silently we watched the screens.
Then I saw something in the pool hall.
“Oh my God!” I cried.
Jack went on alert.
“What?”
“Look at her outfit!” I pointed at a girl in the pool hall. “Her tank top is skintight and she’s not wearing a bra. And her skirt is shorter than the one I wore to Stella’s gig!”
Jack was silent but I felt he’d lost his intensity.
I peered closer, the girl on the screen bent over a pool table and I gasped when I was treated to a partial moon. “Blooming heck! She’s wearing a thong!” I exclaimed then went on, “Now, if you’re going to wear a skirt that short, you really should wear proper underwear.”
Jack remained silent.
I looked at him. “Don’t you think?”
Jack’s eyes remained on the screens. “I think Hector owes me big time is what I think.”
Hmm.
Perhaps Jack was not the kind of man who discussed women’s underwear choices, even after dramatic shootouts (or, perhaps, ever).
I decided that was my cue to stay silent again.
This lasted less than a minute.
“Why are we watching a pool hall?”
“The Balduccis own that pool hall.”
I felt bile slide up my throat and I swallowed it down.
I thought that was apropos. The Evil Fitzpatrick clan hung out at a pool hall in Veronica Mars.
I didn’t share this with Jack.
“Oh,” was all I said but I watched closer.
We sat in silence for awhile and then I saw Hector’s Bronco enter the garage.
“Thank you God,” I breathed, watching him park.
He got out, started toward the door to the stairs, I felt my body begin to relax but then I saw Hector stop and look toward the entrance of the garage.
Jack tensed.
I tensed.
Then I saw a BMW careening into the garage.
Hector pulled his gun out of the back of his jeans again and I automatically went into a squat, not standing, not sitting and not sure what I was going to do.
“Sit,” Jack ordered, not taking his eyes from the screen.