Roland flashed the high beams at the oncoming car with its headlights off. He wondered if the driver had been drinking, which seemed a regular practice in that part of Los Angeles. In the last three days hunting, he had seen several cars weaving all over the road, and more than a few inebriated drivers walking a line for the police. This was probably just another drunk not realizing he was nearly invisible to other drivers. It didn’t much matter, since they appeared to be the only ones using this stretch of Mission Road on the relatively cool summer evening.

Missionlooked much different at night. When he passed by on the afternoon of the funeral it had bustled with traffic; minivans, construction vehicles, and an occasional modern chuck wagon all jockeying for their piece of the pavement. Now, Roland and the other driver had the road all to themselves as they passed through the section that severed the Greenley Industrial Park into east and west halves. Roland drove with the windows down and classic tunes playing on the new satellite radio installed only a week earlier. At the moment Peter Frampton was coming alive through the pickup’s Bose speakers.

The other car’s headlights eventually flashed on as they got within two hundred feet of each other. Even with the glare from the high beams he could make out the distinctive outline of a low rider. In the past few days he had seen plenty of them. This particular one was a Chevy Impala, the preferred ride of the local gangsters.

Roland flicked on his brights. The car came to a sudden stop in the road. Malevolent eyes glared at him from the car as he passed by slowly. These men might be drinking, but they weren’t drunks. They were pack hunters. Roland made out four or five men inside the vehicle, all appeared to wear white tank top shirts and bandanas common in that part of LA. One of the occupants sneered at him with a contempt he was sure he had not yet earned. The blue and white head cover was their badge of honor, like the tattoos that littered their arms and warned the world not to fuck with them.

He had never been good with warnings.

The local newspapers were filled with articles about motorists being terrorized. What had been only a hoax several years earlier was now a real problem. And Roland Pine appeared to be in the middle of its spawning grounds, which he was sure explained the absence of other drivers. According to the papers the gangsters drove around with their headlights off and wait for unsuspecting victims to flash their lights, as he had done. Those who responded were subsequently chased down, beaten and robbed—or worse. A few had even been killed; shot when they failed to pull over fast enough.

To Roland it seemed particularly disgraceful for anyone to harm someone simply trying to do a nice thing for a fellow motorist. Drivers normally communicated with each other in nasty, nearly primitive ways. Even sweet housewives behind the wheel of a car, loaded with brats, could become menaces when they got on the road. Flashing headlights has always been the universal way to signal to another car that they are hard to see or in danger. A way to express concern for a fellow man or woman. One of the last ways to communicate with a perfect stranger that someone who didn’t know them still cared about their well being. The idea that scumbags were using this very method for selecting victims made him almost as angry as their acts of violence.

In his rearview mirror he watched their vehicle spin around in a wild arc and close the distance. In a matter of seconds, the Impala had pulled up so close that its roof was barely visible. Roland smiled and wondered if they realized what they were getting themselves into, since his vehicle was no minivan. The F-250 he drove was an extra large four wheel drive pickup, lifted four inches above factory settings, with large oversized tires designed for off-roading, and a powerful big block motor under the hood. The perfect vehicle for turning a low-rider into a speed bump.

His shadow stayed with him for several miles as they reached the next industrial park, where companies that only did business during daylight hours were locked up tight for the night. The Impala’s driver seemed to bide his time, waiting until Roland slowed for an approaching stop sign. At that instant, the lowrider sped up next to him, where two men leaned out of its windows and shouted threats. In their outstretched hands were automatics that they held sideways. From his elevated vantage point, it appeared they were more interested in looking cool than in firearm accuracy. He was sure that his firearms instructors, the best money could buy, had never suggested twisting the gun sideways to any of their students. And in the tens of thousands of rounds he fired over the years, only once had he ever tried it himself. It had been after enduring a shoot-em-up, bang-em-up flick with his son. The accuracy had been lousy, to say the least. Apparently, his new Chicano friends had not gotten the memo.  

The looks on their faces were almost comical when he smiled, flipped them off, and accelerated through the intersection. It did not surprise him when shots rang out, but he had not expected a bullet to actually tear through the driver’s side mirror. Maybe their shooting was better than he had expected. Or just lucky.

In the shattered pieces of glass he watched dozens of tiny lights growing steadily brighter as they raced once again to catch up. When they pulled next to his vehicle the second time he fired a sawed-off shotgun at the closest man, the force blowing him back inside the car. Even in the poor lighting, Roland could make out his listless head as it flopped onto the now excited drivers lap. Roland swiveled the twelve-gauge hogleg toward the next man who was still leaning out of the back window with a puzzled expression. Before it registered that he was next, Roland squeezed the second trigger. The man tumbled to the macadam as triple-ought buckshot erupted from the Remington’s ten-inch barrel.

The low-rider accelerated, leaving its ejected passenger on the ground. But not before Roland noted its license plate, Cool Ese. He pressed on the accelerator, when he heard the wounded man scream obscenities. It surprised him that a man could have a fatal shot to his chest area, and still have so much fight left in him. Roland stopped the vehicle, put it in reverse and backed up toward the man sprawled out in the road. From the strength of his voice it seemed possible that he might manage to live long enough to describe Roland to the police.

When he backed over his right leg the man screamed like a banshee, clawing for the unused pistol lying next to his outstretched hand.

“Hey Ese,” Roland yelled out the window, doing a bad impression of a Chicano gangbanger. Roland was never much for impressions, although he had a roommate once who could imitate Howard Cosell perfectly. He recalled a night when he had talked him into calling Roland’s older brother, pretended to be the sports announcer, and told him he had won a free trip to the Superbowl. He was sure his brother fell for it initially, because as Roland listened in on another phone he could hear him respond to Mr. Cosell’s questions. He was yes-sirring and no-sirring like Roland had never heard him do before. Eventually, he figured out they were messing with him when they started laughing.

The man writhed in pain as the oversized pickup idled on his crushed leg, the healthy low rumble of the dual pipes barely noticeable through the man’s constant squealing. A few moments earlier the man had thought it was entertaining to hurt others. Now, on the receiving side he did no longer seemed to think it was very funny.

“Your Ese’s left you man. No loyalty,” he said, with mock sympathy. “That looks really painful. Does it hurt Ese?”

“Fuck you,” the man spit back.

Roland opened the door and stepped down from the truck. “Do you blow your father with that mouth?” He smiled and thought of his ex-wife. She had always said he was the only one amused by his sense of humor. He was sure his new friend would have agreed. The man continued to scream obscenities at him in both English and Spanish, as he clawed for the gun. With the tips of his little finger and thumb he managed to pull it toward him. Roland reloaded the shotgun. As the man slid the weapon a few inches closer he wrapped his entire hand on the grip, putting his index finger on the trigger.

“Do you, you, feel like I do,” Roland sang, as he placed the hogleg to the side of the man’s head and pulled both triggers. The weapon bucked upward almost hitting Roland in the head from the force. It was a good thing for the guys in the Impala that it didn’t hit him—because it would have made Roland really angry.