Way the fuck down past TJ, Rosarito, and Ensenada, down along the Baja Peninsula.
John is thinking he’s going to get a bullet in the back of the head, but then they pull up this hill, then over the top, and there’s a big house surrounded by an adobe wall, and they pull through the gate into the compound.
Doc comes out the door.
No shirt, baggy khaki cargo shorts, huaraches.
Hugs John like his long-lost son.
“You could have just called me,” John says.
“Would you have come?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Doc looks good for a dead man. A few strands of white in the hair, which has retreated off his forehead a few inches. John hasn’t seen him in over ten years, not since the faked suicide and Doc’s disappearance into the “program.”
“I thought you’d be selling aluminum siding in Scottsdale,” John says.
“Fuck that shit,” Doc says. “I bailed the first chance I got, came down here. Freedom is precious, my son.”
“Tell me about it,” John says. “You ratted me out, Doc.”
Doc shakes his head. “I protected you. Bobby, those other pricks, they were going to kill you. I took you out of it, somewhere safe.”
“Ten years, Doc. My wife is gone, my kid is a stranger-”
“You never wanted either of them in the first place,” Doc says. “Be honest.”
“What do you want, Doc?”
“I want to help you,” Doc says. “Make it up to you.”
“How?”
“You kept the faith, Johnny,” Doc says. “You’re like my own blood. I want to bring you in on something. Shit, I need to bring you in on something.”