Free The Front of the Freeway by Logan Noblin Page B

that just look like money. A woman coos at me in French over the intercom. Tony said he doesn’t understand a word, but he thinks her voice is sexy, so I’m stuck with her for the ride. I don’t know what she’s saying either, but I’m pretty sure she likes me.
    “Il fait quatre-vingts degrés.”
    Count Tony usually doesn’t operate in daylight, but I guess this is my thing, and driving down PCH on a sunny afternoon is like driving through a van Gogh. The Pacific is a sea of gems stretching out from the long bending ocean highway, a deep blue expanse strewn with a thousand diamonds dancing and flashing under a low hanging California sun. On the other side, sprawling green hills ripple out across the countryside, peppered every few minutes by towering white castles, Home & Gardens mansions peering out from miniature, tamed forests or pointed metal gates. An electric chime hiccups inside the car again, breaking the spell; I know I should wear my seatbelt, but I never could stand the feeling of being tied down to something.
    Cesar’s is one of these glass cathedrals, three reflective, jagged stories stacked on a creamy white foundation, but his isn’t perched high in the Malibu Hills like the others. Cesar’s sinks some three hundred feet down into rolling hillside, a thin ribbon of road climbing out from the translucent palace hidden like a glacier in the dry valley. I take a sharp right onto a long gravel track winding down through the sand and brush as a heavy metal briefcase slams against the wall of the trunk with a dull thud. $75,000 in hundreds straight from the Bank of Tony, to be returned with interest, of course, locked and bolted in an aluminum box, just in case I need to close today.
    “Don’t let him bully you.” That’s the last thing Tony told me before I left. “If he’s going to work with you, he has to trust you, and if he’s going to trust you, he has to respect you. And if you lay down like a bitch, none of those things are going to happen.” Fine. I’ve never been much of a pushover, and I’ve been watching Tony close enough to play businessman myself. But it’s not Tony’s voice coming out of my mouth anymore. The strings are off my back. There’s a voice box a few feet in front of the automatic steel gate—here’s my chance.
    “Hello?”
    The gate’s about 12 feet high, a flowery pattern of twisted metal rolling into a single arch across the paved road, a mile-long spear-tipped fence jutting out from either side. Ten feet in front is a little black electronic box on a thick white stand, and I’m next to it, yelling at nobody.
    “Hello?”
    The box crackles with static and a muffled voice mumbles from the back of it.
    “Name?”
    I twist my mouth to a J and almost fumble out the name Julian, but I catch it and instead cough out, “It’s Tony.” The static snaps to silence, and for a second I’m frozen halfway out the window. Then, a harsh brass buzz, and the gate swings slowly open, an iron jaw unclenching, inviting me in. I roll forward cautiously, kicking up a spurt of loose gravel behind me, and edge down the mile-long paved tongue.
    Cesar lives in the serrated shell of a broken ice sculpture, a lot of sharp glass angles jutting out like translucent knives from smooth white pillars and overhangs. Two long, crystal wings face the ocean, a reflective pair of arms hugging a wide, ivory patio with a squat, circular fountain in the middle of it all, bubbling with the mansion’s steady heartbeat. I pull up next to the concrete spring and kill the engine. Keeping my eyes on the massive glass entrance, I lean over to pop open the glove box and pull out Tony’s heavy black pistol. That’s the other thing he told me. Take this. And I did, I tucked it in the back of my pants under my belt without saying a word, but the weight of it pressed against my spine is more of a bad memory than anything. Keeping the barrel on the steering wheel, I press the small black release and the