“Neither,” I said. “I’m walking.”
I turned and left him there. I started walking up Mulholland toward Woodrow Wilson and home. He threw a barrage of curses at my back but that didn’t slow me down.
T
he garage door was open at Lawton Cross’s house and it looked as though it might have been left that way through the night. I had the cab drop me off in the street next to my Mercedes. It didn’t look like the car had been moved, though I had to assume it had been searched. I had left it unlocked and it still was. I put the small bag I had packed and brought with me into the backseat. I then got behind the wheel, started the engine and pulled the car into the open bay of the garage.
After I got out I went to the house’s door and pushed a button that would either ring a bell inside or close the garage door. It closed the door. I went over to the Chevy, slid my hands beneath the hood and felt for the release latch. The steel springs yawned loudly as I raised the hood. I looked down at a dusty but clean engine with a chrome air filter cowling and fan highlighting a painted red block. Lawton had obviously babied the car and had appreciated its internal as well as exterior beauty.
The documents from the investigative file that I had slipped beneath the hood the night before had survived the FBI search. They had fallen and been cradled by the web of spark plug wires on the left side of the block. As I gathered them I noticed that the car’s battery had been disconnected and I wondered when this had been done. It was a smart thing to do with a car that was not going to be used for a while. Lawton probably would have thought of doing it but would not have been able to actually do it. Maybe he had talked Danny through the procedure.
“What’s going on? What are you doing, Harry?”
I turned. Danny Cross was in the doorway to the house.
“Hello, Danny. I just came back for some things I forgot. I also need to use some of Law’s tools. I think something’s wrong with my car.”
I gestured toward the workbench and Peg-Board that lined the wall next to the Malibu. An array of tools and automotive equipment was on display. She shook her head like I had forgotten to explain the obvious.
“What about last night? They took you. I saw the handcuffs. The agents who stayed said you wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Scare tactics, Danny. That’s all that was. As you can see, I’m back.”
I closed the hood with one hand, leaving it partially sprung in the way I had found it. I walked to the Mercedes and reached the documents in through the open window to the passenger seat. I then thought better about that and opened the door, raised the floor mat and put them under it. It wasn’t a great hiding place but it would do for the moment. I closed the door and looked at Danny.
“How is Law?”
“Not good.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They were in there with him last night. They wouldn’t let me in and then they turned off the monitor so I couldn’t exactly hear everything. But they scared him. And they scared me. I want you to go, Harry. I want you to go and not come back.”
“How’d they scare you? What did they say?”
She hesitated and I knew that was part of the scare.
“They told you not to talk about it, right? Not to talk to me?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, Danny, I don’t want to get you in trouble. What about Law? Can I talk to him?”
“He said he doesn’t want to see you anymore. That it’s caused too much trouble.”
I nodded and looked over at the workbench.
“Then let me just get to my car and I’ll get out of here.”
“Did they hurt you, Harry?”
I looked at her. I think she really cared about the answer.
“No, I’m all right.”
“Okay.”
“Uh, Danny, I need to get something from Law’s sitting room. Should I go in or can you get it for me? What would be better?”
“What is it?”
“The clock.”
“The clock? Why? You gave it to him.”
“I know. But I need it back.”
A look of annoyance came across her face. I thought maybe the clock had been a point of argument between them, and now I was taking it back.
“I’ll get it but I’m telling him you’re the one taking it off the wall.”
I nodded. She went inside the house and I went around the Malibu and found a dolly leaning against the workbench. I took a pair of pliers and a screwdriver off the Peg-Board and went back to the Mercedes.
After throwing my jacket into the car I got down on the dolly and slid under the car. It took me less than a minute to find the black box. A satellite tracker about the size of a hardback book was held to the gas tank with two industrial-size strip magnets. There was a twist to the setup I hadn’t seen before. A wire extended from the box to the exhaust pipe where it was connected to a heat sensor. When the pipe heated up, the sensor switched on the tracker, conserving the unit’s battery when the vehicle wasn’t moving. The boys on the ninth floor got the good stuff.
I decided then to leave the box in place and slid out from underneath the car. Danny was standing there, holding the clock. She had taken the back off, exposing the camera.
“I thought it was too heavy for just a wall clock,” she said.
I started getting up.
“Look, Danny . . .”
“You were spying on us. You didn’t believe me, did you?”
“Danny, that’s not what I want it for. Those men that came here last —”
“But it
is
what you put it on that wall for. Where’s the tape?”
“What?”
“The tape. Where did you watch this?”
“I didn’t. It’s digital. It’s all right there in the clock.”
That was a mistake. As I reached for the clock she raised it up over her head and then threw it down to the concrete floor. The glass shattered and the camera broke loose from the clock shell and skittered under the Mercedes.
“Goddamnit, Danny. It isn’t mine.”
“I don’t care whose it is. You had no right to do that.”
“Look, Law told me you weren’t treating him right. What was I supposed to do? Just take your word for it?”
I got down on the floor and looked under the car. The camera was within reach and I pulled it out. The casing was badly scratched but I could not make any judgment about its interior mechanisms. I ejected the memory card the way Andre Biggar had taught me and it looked okay to me. I stood up and held it up for Danny to see.
“This might be the only thing that keeps those men from coming back. You better hope it’s not damaged.”
“I don’t care. And I hope you really enjoy what you see on it. I hope you’re very proud of yourself when you watch it.”
I had no response for that.
“Don’t come back here ever again.”
She turned and went into the house, her hand slapping the wall button, which brought the garage door up behind me. She closed the house’s door without looking back at me. I waited a moment to see if she would reappear and throw another verbal attack at me. But she didn’t. I pocketed the memory card and then squatted down to gather the pieces of the broken clock.
A
t Burbank Airport I parked in the long-term lot, got my bag out and took the tram to the terminal. At the Southwest counter I used a credit card to buy a round-trip ticket to Las Vegas on a flight leaving in less than an hour. I kept the return open. I then proceeded through the security checkpoint, waiting in line like everybody else. I put my bag on the conveyor and dropped my watch, car keys and the camera’s memory card into a plastic bowl so I would not set off the metal detector. I realized I had left my cell in the Mercedes and then thought, just as well, they might use it to triangulate my location.
Near the departure gate I stopped and bought a ten-dollar phone card and took it to a nearby bank of pay phones. I read the instructions on the phone card twice. Not because they were complicated but because I was hesitant. Finally, I picked up the receiver and called long distance. It was a number I knew by heart but had not called in almost a year.
She answered after only two rings but I could tell I had woken her up. I almost hung up, knowing that even if she had caller ID she would not be able to tell it had been me. But after her second hello I finally spoke.
“Eleanor, it’s me, Harry. Did I wake you up?”
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Were you playing late?”
“Till about five and then we went for breakfast. I feel like I just got to bed. What time is it?”
I told her it was after ten and she groaned. I felt the confidence go out of my plan. I also got stuck wondering who the ‘we’ she referred to was but didn’t ask. I was supposed to be long past that.
“Harry, what is it?” she said into the silence. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t get to sleep till about the same time, too.”
More silence slipped into the wire. I noticed that they were boarding my flight.
“Is that why you called me? To tell me your sleeping habits?”
“No, I, uh . . . well, I sort of need some help. Over there in Vegas.”
“Help? What do you mean? You mean like on a case? You told me you retired.”
“I did. I am. But there’s this thing I’m working on. . . . Anyway, I was wondering if you could meet me at the airport in about an hour. I’m flying in.”
There was silence while she registered this request and all that it might mean. As I waited my chest felt heavy and tight. I was thinking about the single-bullet theory when she finally spoke.
“I can be there. Where am I taking you?”
I realized I had been holding my breath. I exhaled. Deep down in the velvet folds I knew that would be her answer but hearing it spoken out loud, the confirmation of it, filled me immediately with my own confirmation of the feelings I still carried. I tried to picture her on the other end of the line. She was in bed, the phone on the bed table, her hair messy in a way I always found to be a turn-on, that made me want to stay in bed with her. Then I remembered that this was a cell number. She didn’t have a landline, at least one that I had the number for. And then that “we” thing came up again, intruding like a telephone solicitor. Whose bed was she in?
“Harry, you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Uh, just to a car-rental place. Avis, I guess. They try harder. Supposedly.”
“Harry, they have buses that come by the airport every five minutes for that. What do you need me for? What’s going on?”
“Look, I’ll explain when I get there. My flight’s boarding. Can you be there, Eleanor?”
“I said I’ll be there,” she said in a tone I was too familiar with, as if she was relenting and reluctant at the same time.
I didn’t dwell on it. I had what I needed. I left it at that.
“Thank you. How about right outside Southwest? Is it still the Taurus you had before?”
“No, Harry, it’s a silver Lexus now. Four-door. And I’ll have my lights on. I’ll flick them if I see you first.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then. Thanks, Eleanor.”
I hung up and headed for the gate. A Lexus, I thought as I moved. I had priced them before buying the used Mercedes. They weren’t outrageous but they weren’t cheap. Things must be changing for her. I was pretty sure I was happy about that.
By the time I got on the plane there was no room in the overhead compartments for my bag and only middle seats left for me. I squeezed in between a man in a Hawaiian shirt and thick gold neck chain and a woman so pale I thought she might detonate like a match the moment she was hit by the Nevada sun. I zoned out, kept my elbows to myself, though the Hawaiian shirt guy didn’t, and managed to close my eyes and almost sleep for most of the short flight. I knew there was a lot to think about and the memory card was almost burning a hole in my pocket as I wondered about its contents, but I also instinctively knew that I needed to grab rest while I could. I wasn’t expecting to get too much of it once I got back to L.A.
Less than an hour after takeoff I walked out through the terminal’s automatic doors at McCarran and was hit with the oven-dry blast of heat that signaled arrival in Las Vegas. It didn’t faze me. My eyes intently searched the vehicles stacked in the pickup lanes until they held on a silver car with its lights on. The sunroof was open and the driver’s hand was reaching through it and waving. She was flicking the brights at me, too. It was Eleanor. I waved and trotted to the car. I opened the door, threw my bag over the seat into the back and got in.
“Hi,” I said. “Thanks.”
After a moment’s hesitation we both leaned to the middle and kissed. It was brief but good. I had not seen her in a long time and I was suddenly shocked by the realization of how fast time could slip between two people. Though we talked every year on birthdays and Christmas, it had been almost three years since I had actually seen her, touched her, been with her. And immediately it was intoxicating and depressing at the same time. For I had to go. This would be quicker than any of those birthday calls we made each year.
“Your hair’s different,” I said. “It looks good.”
It was the shortest I had ever seen it, cut cleanly at the midpoint of her neck. But it wasn’t a false compliment. She looked good. But then again she would have looked good to me with hair to her ankles or even shorter than mine.
She turned from me to check traffic over her left shoulder. I could see the nape of her neck. She pulled into the through lane and we headed out. As she drove she reached up and held her finger on the button that closed the sunroof.
“Thank you, Harry. You don’t look that different. But you still look good.”
I thanked her and tried not to smile too much as I got my wallet out.