The Final Twist

57

Colter Shaw had returned to Hunters Point.

He was all too aware that the clock was counting down on the SP family’s murders, and could think of nothing else to do. Kevin Miller, the O.G. with the Hudson Kings, had told him that crews from Salinas were making forays into this part of Hunters Point.

For two hours he canvassed people on the shabby streets, flashing Blond’s altered picture and asking if anybody knew him.

He wanted to believe that somewhere here was a lead to the identity of the family that BlackBridge had targeted to die.

A belief that was stubbornly, however, not becoming a reality.

As he walked back to the Yamaha, chained to a light pole in a large, deserted parking lot, he spotted some construction workers, jeans and T-shirts, tan or gray jackets. They’d just finished boarding up a building to the north side of the lot, the direction where the city proper lay. It was impossible to tell from the faded paint on the side of the place what the single-story structure might once have been. It seemed to say fresh eggs though that seemed plain odd.

He waved and walked toward the workers along the waterfront. He noted that the bay near the shoreline was coagulated with grease and probably toxic runoff from the old shipyard. He could see, far away, the massive battleship turret crane, an unobstructed view, and even from this distance it was impressive, a monument to ingenuity and muscle and industry.

The Egg building was masterfully sealed. Substantial plywood boards and many Sheetrock screws had been involved. Maybe the place had fallen into the hands of crack or meth users and the owner wanted to secure it permanently.

Shaw walked up, smiled and nodded.

The six men, half of them Anglo, half Latino, glanced his way, then their eyes slipped to the asphalt.

“You work around here mostly?”

One of them said, “The Point, Bayview.” The others remained cautious. Was he a cop? Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

“By any chance, you seen this guy? He was a buddy of mine in the Army. He’s gone missing.”

Offering his phone, Shaw continued to spin his tall tale. “Got into some drug trouble and ended up in Hunters Point somewhere. I want to find him, get him some help.”

They seemed to buy his story. All looked at the picture, then at one another, but finally shook their heads. Shaw’s sense was that they — unlike him — were being honest.

He thanked them and they piled into the vehicles and drove out of the parking lot, leaving the whole area deserted, except for Shaw.

It had been a long shot. As he walked back to his bike he wondered, Who are you, SP? And who are the children? How many? Were they sons, daughters, both? What was there about the gangs in Hunters Point that was central to your death sentence?

Questions, questions, questions...

And Colter Shaw was filled with anger that he couldn’t seem to get a single answer.

He pulled on his helmet, started the bike, tapped it into gear and eased forward. He accelerated and was about a hundred feet from the exit when a battered gray pickup truck shot out from between two small, abandoned warehouses and aimed right for him, speeding with a gassy roar.

The Ford bore down on him at thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour. He had no choice but to brake and spin the bars. The pickup passed within two feet of his front fender.

Shaw tried to steer into the skid, but like much of the parking lot the surface here was sand and disintegrated asphalt. The Yamaha went down and he tumbled off with the bike pinning his right leg and arm under its two hundred pounds of metal. Not a huge weight but he could get no leverage to rise or to reach his weapon.

Which he now saw he needed.

The driver and the passenger had climbed from the pickup and were walking toward him.

Shaw recognized them.

The BNG gangbangers he and Russell had relieved of their drugs, money and guns in the TL yesterday.

They reached under their untucked shirts and pulled out their new weapons and approached the bike.