Free L. A. Outlaws by T. Jefferson Parker

and then they weren’t. Shiny blades appeared. They moved apart, putting some space between them as they advanced. The sun was behind them and Lupercio still could not see them clearly.
    “Suzanne hired me to do landscape maintenance,” he said.
    “So you sneak into the barn?” said the big one.
    They came out of the sunlight and Lupercio truly saw them for the first time.
    “Put up your hands,” said the big one. Lupercio guessed him at six feet four, two-ninety, maybe three hundred pounds. The other was bigger. They were both very young and Lupercio felt relief.
    “She told me to use these tools,” said Lupercio, nodding to the far wall, on which dozens of yard tools hung on hooks in pegboard. He raised his hands and looked down at his boots, humbly.
    “You know her number?” Big asked Bigger. “We could call her.”
    “I don’t know her number.”
    “Then let’s just chain him up and wait,” said Bigger. “If Suzie hired him, fine. If she didn’t, we’ll tie him to the truck and drag him through Indian country. You ever had your ass dragged through prickly pear?”
    “No,” said Lupercio.
    “It’s the worst thing there is.”
    “I’m a gardener,” said Lupercio. “Why do you need knives for a gardener? I ask you to be reasonable. I would like to do my job because I need the money. I have identification in my pocket. You can hold it until Suzanne comes back. And I can work.”
    Bigger stepped closer to Lupercio, and Big went behind him. With one huge hand Bigger flipped his knife closed and slipped it back into the scabbard on his belt. Out came his wallet on a chain, then the wallet went back into his pocket but without the chain. Bigger stepped toward Lupercio to bind him.
    “My identification,” said Lupercio. He stared into Bigger’s eyes now and lowered his right hand toward his pocket deliberately but not quickly.
    “Leave it where it is,” said Bigger.
    In a flash of steel in sunlight Lupercio popped the machete out of its breakaway scabbard and cut off Bigger’s right hand at the wrist. Then he pivoted left and swung the weapon in both hands across Big’s belly, high and deep enough to feel the tip scrape vertebrae as it passed through. Following the blade Lupercio completed the circle and augured down on his short strong legs then jumped and brought the machete straight down through the top of Bigger’s head with the sound of an ax splitting a log. Bigger collapsed, but Lupercio held tight to the long handle and braced his foot on the man’s face to pull the weapon free; then he spun again and brought the blade down with all of his considerable strength onto the fallen brother’s neck. The steel cleanly split the big column before bouncing sharply off the concrete floor in a rooster tail of blood.
    For a moment there was no sound but his breathing and the weakening splashes of blood on cement; then Lupercio searched the barn and the house and the garage and found no diamonds.
    From the house he took jewelry so that this whole mess would look like a burglary gone wrong, but he knew that Suzanne Jones would instantly see it for what it was. He took a battered leather address book from a desk in a room full of books.
    Lupercio was an optimist, though as he made his covert way back to his car he admitted his problems: the police would soon be crawling all over this place, Suzanne Jones would clear out and try to sell the diamonds very quickly, the Bull would be angry.
    All that, and the boy could identify him.
    But throughout his eventful life Lupercio had found that chaos is opportunity. He made his plan as he drove the dirt road toward town.

10
    “W e’ll call her Allison Murrieta because we don’t know who the hell she really is,” said the captain.
    His name was Patmore, and he was leading an interagency task force briefing on the armed robber Allison Murrieta. He stood in a Sheriff ’s headquarters conference room beside a television screen on a stand, with a remote