Dark Rivers of the Heart (17 page)

“We going in there?” Vecchio asked. “Why?”

“There might be a caretaker’s cottage,” Roy said. “Grant might be an on-site caretaker, living here.”

Roy sensed that they were as anxious as he to avoid being made fools of twice in one evening. Nevertheless, they knew, as he did, that Grant had likely inserted a phony address in his DMV records and that the chance of finding him in the oil field was between slim and nil.

After Dormon snapped the gate chain, they followed the gravel lane, using their flashlights to probe between the seesawing pumps. In places, the previous night’s torrential rain had washed away the gravel, leaving mud. By the time they looped through the creaking-squeaking-clicking machinery and returned to the gate, without finding a caretaker, Roy had ruined his new shoes.

In silence, they cleaned off their shoes as best they could by shuffling their feet in the wild grass beside the lane.

While the others waited to be told what to do next, Roy returned to his car. He intended to link with Mama and find another address for Spencer snake-humping-crap-eating-piece-of-human-garbage Grant.

He was angry, which wasn’t good. Anger inhibited clear thinking. No problem had ever been solved in a rage.

He breathed deeply, inhaling both air and tranquility. With each exhalation, he expelled his tension. He visualized tranquility as a pale-peach vapor; he saw tension, however, as a bile-green mist that seethed from his nostrils in twin plumes.

From a book of Tibetan wisdom, he had learned this meditative technique of managing his emotions. Maybe it was a Chinese book. Or Indian. He wasn’t sure. He had explored many Eastern philosophies in his endless search for deeper self-awareness and transcendence.

When he got in the car, his pager was beeping. He unclipped it from the sun visor. In the message window he saw the name Kleck and a telephone number in the 714 area code.

John Kleck was leading the search for the nine-year-old Pontiac registered to “Valerie Keene.” If she’d followed her usual pattern, the car had been abandoned in a parking lot or along a city street.

When Roy called the number on the pager, the answering voice was unmistakably Kleck’s. He was in his twenties, thin and gangly, with a huge Adam’s apple and a face resembling that of a trout, but his voice was deep, mellifluous, and impressive.

“It’s me,” Roy said. “Where are you?”

The words rolled off Kleck’s tongue with sonorous splendor: “John Wayne Airport, down in Orange County.” The search had begun in L.A. but had been widening all day. “The Pontiac’s here, in one of the long-term parking garages. We’re collecting the names of the airline ticket agents working yesterday afternoon and evening. We’ve got photographs of her. Someone may remember selling her a ticket.”

“Follow through, but it’s a dead end. She’s too smart to dump the car where she made her next connection. It’s misdirection. She knows we can’t be sure, so we’ll have to waste time checking it out.”

“We’re also trying to talk to all the cabdrivers who worked the airport during that time. Maybe she didn’t fly out but took a taxi.”

“Better carry it one step further. She might have walked from the airport to one of the hotels around there. See if any doormen, parking valets, or bellmen remember her asking for a cab.”

“Will do,” Kleck said. “She’s not going to get far this time, Roy. We’re going to stay right on her ass.”

Roy might have been reassured by Kleck’s confidence and by the rich timbre of his voice—if he hadn’t known that Kleck looked like a fish trying to swallow a cantaloupe. “Later.” He hung up.

He married the phone to the attaché case computer, started the car, and linked with Mama in Virginia. He gave her a daunting task, even considering her considerable talents and connections: Search for Spencer Grant in the computerized records of water and power companies, gas companies, tax collectors’ offices; in fact, search the electronic files of every state, county, regional, and city agency, as well as those of any company regulated by any public agency in Ventura, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties; furthermore, access customer records of every banking institution in California—their checking, savings, loan, and credit-card accounts; on a national level, search Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service files beginning with California and working eastward state by state.

Finally, after indicating that he would call in the morning for the results of Mama’s investigation, he closed the electronic door in Virginia. He switched off his computer.

The fog was growing thicker and the air chillier by the minute. The three men were still waiting for him by the gate, shivering.

“We might as well wrap it up for tonight,” Roy told them. “Get a fresh start in the morning.”

They looked relieved. Who knew where Grant might send them next?

Roy slapped their backs and gave them cheerful encouragement as they returned to their vehicles. He wanted them to feel good about themselves. Everyone had a right to feel good about himself.

In his car, reversing along the gravel to the two-lane blacktop, Roy breathed deeply, slowly. In with the pale-peach vapor of blessed tranquility. Out with the bile-green mist of anger, tension, stress. Peach in. Green out. Peach in.

He was still furious.

Because they had eaten a late lunch, Spencer drove across a long stretch of barren Mojave, all the way to Barstow, before pulling off Interstate 15 and stopping for dinner. At the drive-through window of a McDonald’s, he ordered a Big Mac, fries, and a small vanilla milkshake for himself. Rather than fuss with the cans of dog food in the canvas satchel, he also ordered two hamburgers and a large water for Rocky—then relented and ordered a second vanilla shake.

He parked at the rear of the well-lighted restaurant lot, left the engine running to keep the Explorer warm, and sat in the cargo area to eat, with his back against the front seat and legs stretched out in front of him. Rocky licked his chops in anticipation as the paper bags were opened and the truck filled with wonderful aromas. Spencer had folded down the rear seats before leaving Malibu, so even with the suitcase and other gear, he and the dog had plenty of room.

He opened Rocky’s burgers and put them on their wrappers. By the time Spencer had extracted his own Big Mac from its container and had taken a single bite, Rocky had wolfed down the meat patties that he’d been given and most of one bun, which was all the bread he wanted. He gazed yearningly at Spencer’s sandwich, and he whined.

“Mine,” Spencer said.

Rocky whined again. Not a frightened whine. Not a whine of pain. It was a whine that said oh-look-at-poor-cute-me-and-realize-how-much-I’d-like-that-hamburger-and-cheese-and-special-sauce-and-maybe-even-the-pickles.

“Do you understand the meaning of
mine
?”

Rocky looked at the bag of french fries in Spencer’s lap.

“Mine.”

The dog looked dubious.

“Yours,” Spencer said, pointing to the uneaten hamburger bun.

Rocky sorrowfully regarded the dry bun—then the juicy Big Mac.

After taking another bite and washing it down with some vanilla milkshake, Spencer checked his watch. “We’ll gas up and be back on the interstate by nine o’clock. It’s about a hundred and sixty miles to Las Vegas. Even without pushing hard, we can make it by midnight.”

Rocky was fixated on the french fries again.

Spencer relented and dropped four of them onto one of the burger wrappers. “You ever been to Vegas?” he asked.

The four fries had vanished. Rocky stared longingly at the others that bristled from the bag in his master’s lap.

“It’s a tough town. And I’ve got a bad feeling that things are going to get nasty for us real fast once we get there.”

Spencer finished his sandwich, fries, and milkshake, sharing no more of anything in spite of the mutt’s reproachful expression. He gathered up the paper debris and put it in one of the bags.

“I want to make this clear to you, pal. Whoever’s after her—they’re damned powerful. Dangerous. Trigger-happy, on edge—the way they shot at shadows last night. Must be a lot at stake for them.”

Spencer took the lid off the second vanilla milkshake, and the dog cocked his head with interest.

“See what I saved for you? Now, aren’t you ashamed for thinking bad thoughts about me when I wouldn’t give you more fries?”

Spencer held the container so Rocky wouldn’t tip it over.

The dog attacked the milkshake with the fastest tongue west of Kansas City, consuming it in a frenzy of lapping, and in seconds his snout went deep into the cup in quest of the swiftly vanishing treat.

“If they had that house under observation last night, maybe they have a photograph of me.”

Withdrawing from the cup, Rocky stared curiously at Spencer. The mutt’s snout was smeared with milkshake.

“You have disgusting table manners.”

Rocky stuck his snout back in the cup, and the Explorer was filled with the slurping noises of canine gluttony.

“If they have a photo, they’ll find me eventually. And trying to get a lead on Valerie by going back into her past, I’m liable to blunder across a tripwire and call attention to myself.”

The cup was empty, and Rocky was no longer interested in it. With an amazing extended rotation of his tongue, he licked most of the mess off his snout.

“Whoever she’s up against, I’m the world’s biggest fool to think I can handle them. I know that. I’m
acutely
aware of that. But here I am, on my way to Vegas, just the same.”

Rocky hacked. Milkshake residue was cloying in his throat.

Spencer opened the cup of water and held it while the dog drank.

“What I’m doing, getting involved like this…it’s not really fair to you. I’m aware of that too.”

Rocky wanted no more water. His entire muzzle was dripping.

After capping the cup again, Spencer put it in the bag of trash. He picked up a handful of paper napkins and took Rocky by the collar.

“Come here, slob.”

Rocky patiently allowed his snout and chin to be blotted dry.

Eye-to-eye with the dog, Spencer said, “You’re the best friend I have. Do you know that? Of course, you know. I’m the best friend you have too. And if I get myself killed—who’ll take care of you?”

The dog solemnly met Spencer’s gaze, as if aware that the issue at hand was important.

“Don’t tell me you can take care of yourself. You’re better than when I took you in—but you’re not self-sufficient yet. You probably never will be.”

The dog chuffed as if to disagree, but they both knew the truth.

“If anything happens to me, I think you’ll come apart. Revert. Be like you were in the pound. And who else will ever give you the time and attention you’ll need to come back again? Hmmm? Nobody.”

He let go of the collar.

“So I want you to know I’m not as good a friend to you as I ought to be. I want to have a chance with this woman. I want to find out if she’s special enough to care about…about someone like me. I’m willing to risk my life to find that out…but I shouldn’t be willing to risk yours too.”

Never lie to the dog.

“I don’t have it in me to be as faithful a friend as you can be. I’m just a human being, after all. Look deep enough inside any of us, you’ll find a selfish bastard.”

Rocky wagged his tail.

“Stop that. Are you trying to make me feel even worse?”

With his tail swishing furiously back and forth, Rocky clambered into Spencer’s lap to be petted.

Spencer sighed. “Well, I’ll just have to avoid getting killed.”

Never lie to the dog.

“Though I think the odds are against me,” he added.

In the suburban maze of the valley once more, Roy Miro cruised through a series of commercial districts, unsure where one community ended and the next began. He was still angry but also on the edge of a depression. With increasing desperation, he sought a convenience store, where he could expect to find a full array of newspaper-vending machines. He needed a
special
newspaper.

Interestingly, in two widely separated neighborhoods, he passed what he was certain were two sophisticated surveillance operations.