Someone Always Knows (17 page)

“Just to celebrate Hy being safe. And help yourself to the same.”

“Will do.”

When we were seated, we toasted each other, and he said, “The feds'll make drunks of both of us.”

“Hopefully they won't be coming around in the future.”

“I've already passed on the info about their visit to Craig and he's pressing his contacts for more information.”

“About Don Macy…”

“Give me a minute to check with Derek.” It was more than a minute before he returned. “We're following up on a lead about Macy possibly working as a chauffeur of some kind, since that was what he did for Tilbury. We've had no luck so far with the usual driver employment places, and Derek's now checking with the ride-sharing firms. Guy's not listed on any of the databases I have access to. I left messages with my sources, but none of them have gotten back to me.”

“I guess we're just stuck in a holding pattern here.”

We drank deeply. I studied Mick; he looked tired. I'd been loading him up with work, and it was taking its toll.

“So what's the surprise you mentioned to me?” he asked.

“The what? Oh yes. Your uncle's moving to town.”

His face lit up. “He's selling the dump in San Diego?”

“It's not a dump, Mick. It's our family home.”

“Sorry. I was just a little kid back when I spent any time there.”

“I know. And I'm not sorry to see it go. But it's not in any shape to list yet.”

“What does Anitra think of the move?”

“That's the bad part—she threw him out.”

Mick frowned. Upon the few occasions they'd met, he'd liked John's partner. “Well, it happens,” he finally said. “I oughta know, got a history of that. When's John coming up?”

“He's here already, at my house. You might stop by to see him; he's feeling kind of low.”

“Will do. I'll take Alison. She can cheer anybody up. If any of my sources calls back with info on Macy, they'll leave messages here as well as on my phones.”

After Mick left my office, I went to sit in my armchair under Mr. T. and turned my attention to Don Macy.

Macy had known Renshaw when he drove people to and from the airfield in San José. Recently Renshaw had been here in the city. So the probable scenario was that Gage had looked Macy up and enlisted him in whatever his plan was. And I'd begun to believe that plan was to take Hy and me down. Macy wouldn't have any stake in the plan, of course—he didn't know either of us—so his involvement must have stemmed from whatever compensation Renshaw had offered him. A few hundred dollars? Promises of big money right down the road? Could be either, or something else entirely.

There was a knock on the door, and when I called out, Derek came in. “I've found the firm Macy's affiliated with. It's called YouGo.” He handed me a paper he'd written their number on.

“Thanks,” I told him. “Good work.”

There were several such firms in the city: they connected passengers via cell phone with drivers of for-hire vehicles. Uber, Lyft, and others had come into conflict with the regular taxi companies, who claimed the services were illegal and compromised passenger safety, but the firms had proliferated throughout the United States and Europe.

Suppose, I thought, that Macy had been driving Renshaw, taking him places where he didn't want to be seen, helped him with other activities?

Such as the torching of the Webster Street house?

Renshaw knew about the bonds from Kessell's file. Maybe had known about them for quite some time and consulted the file to verify his information. So why would he have torched the house? And what about Nemo's death?

Nemo…

Before I'd thought it merely one of those strange names that contemporary parents saddle their kids with, but now it struck a familiar chord. Something someone had said to me in the last few days had brought it just below the surface of my consciousness.

Think, McCone. Think!

I remembered what Chrys Smithson had said about her son:
He'd pretend he was a character out of a Jules Verne novel, running around in a cape made of bedsheets with a broomstick sword covered in foil, yelling “Ahoy!”

Nemo was a swashbuckling pirate in Verne's action-adventure books for children. It was natural that a boy who loved ships and the sea as Adam Smithson had would idolize and play at being him. Possible that he'd adopt the pirate's name years later when he wanted to change his identity.

I took out the photograph of the Smithson family on the steps of the Webster Street house. If you looked beyond the young boy's chubby face to the bone structure, he and Nemo could have been identical twins. Or the same person.

But what of it? Nemo had died in the fire. Or had he? He'd been identified only by his dog tags; the autopsy still hadn't been completed—wouldn't be for some time, given the backlog at San Francisco's morgue.

The thought of those dog tags made me wonder why Adam had wanted to become someone else. To escape an overbearing mother? From what I'd seen of Chrys, she certainly had the personality to dominate her son. To free himself of a spotty record with the law? Chief Santos had told me Adam had been headed for more serious trouble than juvenile delinquency. At the time Adam departed Santa Iva, it had been easy to join the military while underage and with a false name. Probably still is; they're always looking for cannon fodder.

One thing bothered me: Why hadn't Adam simply headed for San Francisco, located the bearer bonds, cashed them, and disappeared in whatever way and place he chose? Why wait till recently?

Something had interfered. As much of a loner as he'd been, we might never know what it was. But then again, maybe when we uncovered more of Nemo's history.…

No use mulling over that right now. The chief thing was Renshaw. The way to find him was through Macy, so I needed Macy's address and phone number. I called YouGo; they said yes, indeed, Mr. Macy was one of their better drivers.

“I'd like to hire him as a temporary chauffeur,” I said to the chirpy-sounding woman on the phone. “It's an extremely confidential job. Is Mr. Macy discreet?”

“Absolutely.”

“Before I go ahead with this, I'd like to meet with him in person.”

“That can be arranged. Our offices are—”

“Oh no. I couldn't come there. I'm…very recognizable. Even my closest aides aren't to be aware of this arrangement.”

“I see.” Impressed pause; the concept of celebrity overwhelms the average person.

“Is it possible,” I asked, “to interview Mr. Macy at his residence?”

Another pause. “How long did you say this job would last?”

“Three weeks, minimum. Maybe longer. I'd expect to pay more than your regular rates, because he'd be on call twenty-four seven.”

“Let me check with Mr. Macy and call you back.”

“No, I'll call you. As I said earlier, this job is extremely confidential.”

When I called YouGo back, I had to go through the same routine as before with the man who was now handling the phones. No, he told me, under no circumstances did they give out drivers' addresses or contact information.

“But the woman I talked with before said she would check with Mr. Macy to see if it would be okay.”

“She shouldn't have offered. It's strictly forbidden.”

“Even if the job would be long, lucrative, and for an extremely well-known personality?”

“No, I'm sorry.” Then he paused. “Wait—would YouGo be granted permission to use this individual's likeness and comments in its publicity if the job turns out to be satisfactory?”

“Of course.”

“I'll have to check with my supervisor, Ms. Thomas. One moment please.”

When he came back on the line, the man sounded unhappy. “I'm sorry. To quote Ms. Thomas, ‘No, policy is policy, even if the person is a celebrity.' Of course, I do happen to know that Mr. Macy often frequents an establishment on Twelfth Street that caters to off-duty drivers.”

I was putting on my coat when John called: “I cleaned out the back of your fridge. What were you trying to grow there?”

“Hey, that was my science project.”

“You okay?”

“Tense. Has Hy called, by any chance?”

“Nobody's called. Is there something wrong? Any way I can help?”

“No!” I nearly shouted the word, seeing visions of a bumbling sidekick following me around, then modulated my tone. “You just enjoy your evening.”

“They sure ain't what they used to be.”

“Don't get maudlin. Order a pizza. Drink some beer. Watch a DVD—we've got hundreds of them. Mick may stop over later with his friend Alison.”

“Sounds like a good prescription, Doc. See you later?”

“Yeah—see you later.”

So far the day had progressed well enough, but it still could end badly. What, I wondered, was in store for me next? More anxiety over Hy, no matter what the FBI claimed? More taunting from Renshaw? Another near-breakdown on Chelle's part? Further family crisis? Pestilence, fire, flood? An earthquake way up on the Richter scale? And we have live volcanoes near Tufa Lake; were there any that could spew lava as far as the city?

Turned out it was pestilence, in the form of Jill Starkey.

“McCone,” she said in her irritating, whiny voice, “just thought I'd warn you—I'm putting out a special midweek edition.”

My hackles rose, and I had to fight to control the pitch of my voice. “About what?”

“Incompetence in the city. You and Ripinsky'll be ranked right behind the Muni.”

I listened to background noises: people talking, glasses clinking, a TV tuned high to a sportscast. Starkey crunched on what must have been ice and gulped it down.

I said, “I hardly think we rate that high in the grand scheme of things.”

“Hell, McCone.” Her voice was noticeably slurred now. “You act as if you do.”

“Jill, are you drunk?”

“Why shouldn't I be?”

“What's happened?”

“
The Other Shoe
has dropped. I mean, they dropped it.”

“You're not making sense.”

“Our backers are cutting us off. This next issue is the last.”

If I'd liked her even the smallest bit, I'd have expressed my sympathy, but as it was, I couldn't have been more pleased that her right-wing rag was going belly-up.

“So you, McCone, and your asshole husband are gonna go out in infamy with my paper.”

That tore it. “Shut up, Jill.” Ah, that felt good!

“That's all you've got to say to me?”

“No. Take this down, record it for your famous last issue, if you're capable in your present state: I'm sick of you, as are a lot of people in the city. You blow up insignificant events for the sake of sensationalism. You slant your stories to suit your own purposes. You take a dislike to people and hound them. You're mean-spirited, homophobic, and otherwise bigoted. You're a lousy journalist, a disgrace to your profession. And what's more, you've got bad hair and worse clothing.”

For once Starkey was shocked into silence. She broke the connection with a quiet click.

“Bad hair and worse clothing” was a low blow, I thought, even if it was true. But the rest—right on target.

Starkey would not report my diatribe in print—too much of what I'd said was true—but she'd find another sleazy rag in which to spew her crap, and I'd take a lot of heat from her in the future. No matter, I'd built up a certain reputation in the Bay Area; repeated attacks in a lunatic rag read by the lunatics wouldn't degrade it. So let Starkey shout her message from the rooftops: “McCone's a bitch!”

Sometimes I am.

God, I wished I could talk with Hy! He was always there in my consciousness, as I was in his. Since the beginning we'd had an uncanny connection, a sense of the other no matter how near or far apart we were. I'd know when he was distressed or in trouble, he'd know the same of me. I tried to tap into that now, but it wasn't working. Why not?

And then I remembered what Hy called his “pane of glass”: when he wanted to block strong emotions or revelations of pending actions from others, he imagined an insulated, shatterproof glass wall surrounding himself. He was doing that now. And because he was doing so he was protecting me from something it would be harmful for me to know.

But
why
?

Because he knew I'd blunder into the situation and upset whatever delicate balance he'd set up.

I should have realized this days ago…

I retrieved my car from the garage and drove to Twelfth Street, to the homey clubhouse in which on-demand drivers could take their breaks and enjoy their downtime. Wi-Fi, big-screen TV, free coffee, camaraderie, food-truck fare, and—very important—restrooms made it an extremely popular stop for those weary of the city streets, and all for only a nominal monthly fee. I showed my ID to an amiable man who seemed to be in charge, and he allowed me to wander among the picnic tables that appeared to be the barnlike structure's chief furnishings.

The first man I spoke with didn't like Don Macy: “Obnoxious little prick, always yapping about his ‘high connections.'” He had no idea where Macy lived.

A well-endowed woman avoided him because of his excessive interest in her breasts. “They're big, yeah, but I'm sure he's seen bigger…nope, I've never had his address or other information—why would I want it?”

Another woman thought he was “cute—kinda like a puppy dog, only not as yappy.” She didn't know the location of his doghouse.

A well-muscled man said, “I offered to help him with building upper-body strength, but that didn't interest him.”

And so on and so on: “A loner.” “Quiet guy.” “Reads a lot in his downtime.” “Studies the financial pages in the
Chron
, highlighting stuff with a yellow marker.” “Can sit and stare into space for a long time. It gives me the creeps. I mean, what on earth can he be thinking about?”