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enough gold chain to tow a Metro bus. Little ballet slippers
with bows across the arch.
    He read Gunter’s face and followed
the frozen stare my way. Misty stopped moving her legs; I had to pull
her down a step to keep her behind me.
    “What we got heeeere?” Monzon
said. “We got us a weasel. Think he gonna leave the coop wid a
chicken.”
    “The three of us are going to walk
out that door,” I said. Monzon laughed. “You think you walkin’
outta here wid one of mine? You focking crazy or what?”
    I left the gun hidden in my armpit.
“Maybe you ought to back off like a nice boy,” I said. “We
don’t want to get grease all over everything, do we, Monzon?”
    He laughed again and put his right
foot on the first stair.
    “We see about some grease dere,
cholo,” he sneered. I watched as he reached toward the back of his
belt, and then I pulled out the automatic and shot him through the
top of the shoe.
    The foot exploded, sending a shower
of shoe and blood all over the foyer. Gunter looked down at the red
spots dotting his tuxedo shirt, pawed twice at his face and began to
back away. Monzon threw himself around the floor screaming, cursing
in Spanish. I reached behind me, grabbed Misty McMahon by the
waistband of her skirt and dragged her stiff-legged down the stairs
behind me. Gunter backed off. I pulled open the door and pushed Narva
and the girl out into the night. Behind Gunter one of the double
doors opened. Spooner’s head poked out. The sound of shouts filled
the foyer. I picked a spot about nine feet up the door and put two
slugs through the mahogany. The door slammed. I heard screams now and
the shuffling of many feet. Angel Monzon was groaning, holding his
foot, rocking on his spine. I pointed the gun at Gunter. “You stick
your head out this door and you’re going to have more than a funny
name and a bad lip.”
    I yanked open the right-hand door and
stepped outside. G had both hands on his shiny little gun, sighting
over the top of the car. “Let’s roll,” I said.
3
    FROM THE WALKWAY ABOVE THE MAIN DECK,
THE FERRY Spokane seemed to open its mouth and swallow the
dark water running headlong toward its bow. The huge vessel slid so
softly among the whitecaps that it seemed as if it were pulling the
water deep into its innards and somehow using the flow as a silent
means of propulsion. Despite the wind on my cheeks and the low
throbbing of the diesels, when I looked left or right, we appeared to
be standing still. Only by focusing my attention on the oncoming
escalator of green water was I able to maintain any sense of forward
motion whatsoever.
    Rebecca kept one arm entwined with
mine as she sipped a Starbucks latte through a red plastic straw. We
had the upper deck to ourselves. The tourists had lasted all of five
minutes in the wind before packing their cameras and scurrying inside
for a cuppa joe and a prune Danish. Regular commuters stay in their
cars for the twenty-minute passage between Edmonds and Kingston. They
figure the six-dollar fare is bad enough without blowing any more
hard-earned cash upstairs.
    Rebecca used a gloved hand to point
north.
    “Look,” she said.
    Fifty yards to starboard, silhouetted
against the pale yellow slope of south Whidbey Island, a sea lion
poked his glistening head through a carpet of kelp. His thick neck
twisted nearly in a circle as he sought whoever had disturbed his
afternoon nap. I watched as his bright blue eye fixed us in space
and, as he then rolled onto his side, he made what I took to be a
dismissive gesture with his flipper and slid silently beneath the
surface. I threw an arm around Rebecca’s shoulder and pulled her
close.
    On the rusted car deck below, Misty
McMahon stood clutching the yellow safety rope, her back to the
forwardmost cars, staring out over the onrushing waters of Puget
Sound as if she were expecting something familiar to come floating by
at any moment. The stiff wind puffed the red ski jacket around her
small frame and caused