Someone Always Knows (18 page)

Great character studies of Macy, but no concrete facts. That is, until I finally reached a bearded man in a heavy woolen shirt at one of the back tables. “Macy? Sure—he's been my neighbor for two or three months. The house was vacant for a long time before that. I mentioned it to Don because I liked the guy and thought we could get together after work and hoist a few beers, but he blew me off, told me to mind my own business.” He wrote down the address. “Sorry I don't have his phone number or e-mail, but he never gave them to me.”

Don Macy's house was on the eastern slope of Potrero Hill, not the most desirable of locations there, but situated well above one of the neighborhood's true pockets of squalor. Like many areas in the city, the hill can be described as “evolving”—a euphemistic term encompassing anything from becoming a better class of slum to having the ubiquitous developers throw up luxurious condos to accommodate the techie invasion. When the techies leave for more glamorous quarters, as they inevitably do, the condos will sink down on the scale and the slums will be razed and rebuilt upscale, and the cyclic nature of city life will continue.

No car—it would have been an aged tan Honda Civic, according to information Derek had received from an informant at the DMV—sat in the driveway or anywhere on the street nearby. The house was a corner one, completely dark. It had a small front yard surrounded by a low wrought-iron fence beyond which knobby plants that looked like old rosebushes grew. Although it was hard to make out architectural details in the faint amber-pink light from a nearby street pole, I guessed it was a standard one-floor two-bedroom cottage faced in aluminum siding.

No one home, but that didn't mean Macy wouldn't return soon. I phoned the office, and my newest operative, Nadya Collins, answered. A former detective on the Santa Cruz force who had taken several years off to raise her twin boys, she'd come to us at the recommendation of the chief down there. She was fifty-two, tall, and strong-bodied, with an engaging smile that I imagined had elicited many a confession from the criminals she'd apprehended. She also possessed a fierce scowl that could fuse a recalcitrant felon to the edge of his or her chair.

I said, “Is there anybody in the office who can run a surveillance on a house on Potrero Hill for me?”

“I'm available.”

“Great.” I gave her the address and details.

When I finished Nadya said, “Hang on a second. Mick wants to talk to you.”

My nephew came on the line. “Craig's just gotten some highly interesting information. He'll be here in fifteen minutes.”

“News of Hy?”

“All he said was he wants to see you ASAP.”

I made it to the M&R building with two minutes to spare.

“No Craig?” I asked Mick as I burst into my office.

He turned from some papers he was putting in order. “Not yet.”

“What's keeping him?”

“Shar—”

“It's bad news, isn't it?”

“He sounded kind of rushed.”

“Craig always sounds rushed.”

I eased into my desk chair, closed my eyes, distanced myself from the physical world around me. Listened and felt for signals from Hy. There were none.

That goddamn pane of glass! It was still blocking our connection.

After a few moments I moved to one of the sofas, and Mick and I sat silently, waiting for Craig. When he arrived he burst into my office without warning—an unusual move for him.

“Finally got the text of this,” he said, and held out a paper. “It's a confidential memo from one of the highly placed ops at the Bureau to a deputy director attached to Homeland Security. It's copied to one of the higher-ups at the CIA.”

I stood up, skimmed it, then read it more slowly. It confirmed what the agents who had visited me had said.

“So it really is a serious hostage negotiation,” I said.

“Two of them, apparently. In remote areas where cellular reception isn't good.”

“Even if it was good, Hy wouldn't chance making a call that could be intercepted. I've been worried over nothing.” After a moment I asked, “What about Renshaw? The Bureau seems very interested in him. Can you find out anything about that?”

“I'll try. In the meantime why don't you think back on your past dealings with him? And remember that what constitutes cause and effect isn't always logical in the mind of a lunatic.”

“He wasn't always a lunatic. Something must've pushed him over the edge recently.”

“Or he's been over the edge and planning this for a long time.”

What Craig said gave me pause. “I understand. But in the meantime what am I supposed to do?”

“As I said before, backtrack on your relationship with Renshaw from now to day one. Get it all noted down. You may figure out what's going on in his twisted brain. At any rate, I'll transmit it to the feds when you're done. And, I hate to say it, but you'll be better off carrying.”

Mick asked Craig, “You're advising her to arm herself?”

“Yes, I am.”

To me he said, “You told me you were through with guns.”

“I was, but there're some situations that call for extra protective measures.” There was no time to explain my philosophy on firearms right now. Especially since it was one of the many issues I still hadn't yet fully figured out.

I added, “I've put Nadya on surveillance at Don Macy's house. Will you please assign somebody to that club on Twelfth Street where the drivers hang out?”

“Will do.”

“Thanks. I'll be here in my office if anything comes up. I need to be alone for a while.”

Once they had closed the door I sat down at my desk and smoothed out the copy of the memo on top of the blotter. Phrases leaped off the page at me.

Good God, I thought, what an inane communication! Code names, such as Goat and Mylar—a type of plastic. Subject. Suspect. Project 8879J. Was this memo written by a real, intelligent person or by a grown-up adolescent running around in tights and a cape?

Project 8879J. Now that sounded real.

Some trace of an old memory associated with it.

Dredge it up. Hunt it down. Get evidence.

I sat for a long time, concentrating. The memory refused to surface.

It must've been something Hy had told me about years before.

When? What? And where was the evidence?

I laced my fingers together, closed my eyes. Tried to remember whatever Hy had told me about that project.

Anything? Yes, I had a vague memory of a conversation we'd had, but I couldn't dredge up any of the details. I'd keep trying till I did.

After a while I went home to bed.

2:25 a.m.

M
y subconscious disgorged the memory of the conversation with Hy as I slept, waking me. Not the details, but I knew where to find them. I got up, packed a small bag, and headed for Oakland Airport's North Field.

I lifted off at oh-dark-thirty in Two-Seven-Tango and set my course due east toward the high desert country. As the faint early-morning lights of the Bay Area faded behind me, I crested the hills at Altamont Pass, where if it had been daytime and clear I'd've been able to see the wind turbines rotating beneath me. By the time I was halfway across the great agricultural plain beyond, the fields were taking on definition—mostly brown of varying shades, interspersed with some green, laid out in neat squares separated by access roads.

The sky above the eastern mountains was taking on a pinkish-yellow glow. I watched it grow more and more intense before the rim of the sun appeared; after that the fiery ball rose quickly, illuminating the sharp peaks of the Sierra Nevada. At Yosemite I changed course slightly to the northeast, tuning my mike into the chatter on the UNICOM at the small airstrip outside Vernon, by the lake.

“Four-Eight-Seven, that crate of yours sure needs a new paint job.”

I smiled, recognizing the voice of a friend, Janie Moore.

“Three-Five-Bravo, I'm surprised you fly that Piper in public.”

Another friend, Tim Caxton.

“Break it up, you two,” said the bored voice of Amos Tinsdale, who manned the communications shack. “This is an airport, not a playground.”

Both snorted.

I said into the microphone, “Tufa Tower, Two-Seven-Tango requests permission to land at your playground.”

“Two-Seven-Tango, you're back! About time. Put her down, but watch out for those two school kids up there.”

“You got it.”

No pretensions or formalities at Tufa Tower Airport, but it's one of the safest I've ever flown into. Good friends and neighbors look out for each other.

After tying down and spending some time catching up with the folks at the small terminal, I asked Janie Moore, a rangy blonde with a long ponytail, if she would give me a ride out to the ranch and back.

“You leaving so soon?”

“Just a quick trip to pick up some stuff we keep there.”

“You guys're never here any more. I don't know how long it's been since we danced at Zelda's or had a fish fry.”

I didn't either. “Real life's kind of catching up with Ripinsky and me,” I said. “I did tell you in our Christmas card that we merged our companies?”

She nodded, starting her Land Rover. “You're speeding up while the rest of us're slowing down.”

There it was: that divide again. How to explain that neither Hy nor I wanted to abandon the things that energized us, gave us purpose and interest in life?

I said, “We'll come up soon, make a party of it. God knows that old house is due for a good cleaning.”

And it was. I'd never seen such stupendous cobwebs, such copious rodent droppings, such peeling paint. I went straight to the big bedroom, where there were two brassbound steamer trunks Hy had picked up somewhere years ago. Strained and grunted as I moved the larger trunk away from the wall, broke a fingernail prying loose a panel behind it. The wall safe resided there, some six inches above the baseboard. I'd memorized the combination when Hy had given it to me, long before we were married, but had had little occasion to use it; my important documents were in the safe at the office, and only Hy's old ones were here. He'd shown them to me: deed to the ranch; his and Julie's marriage certificate; her death certificate; a thick file labeled “Chiang Mai.” “Feel free to read it,” he'd said. “All the details of Project 8879J and my exit from Southeast Asia are set down there.”

I'd never read it. I don't know how most couples operate, but Hy and I have a deep respect for one another's privacy. He'd told me many details of his nightmarish years in Asia, but nothing about whatever this project was. And because of that omission, I knew the experience had been extremely painful. If I read about it, he'd feel bound to discuss it, and I didn't want to awaken that pain. He'd seemed grateful at the time that I declined.

But Gage Renshaw had been part of that experience. The file might contain the key to his vendetta.

The papers were inside an old brown water-stained duffel bag. I pulled them out, opened the bag, and peeled off some plastic wrapping to make sure they were the right ones. Yes—8879J.

When I went back to the main room, Janie was standing at the front window, fingering a deteriorating sheer curtain. “Ramon Perez and his wife want to buy this place, you know.”

Ramon and his wife Sara tended the ranch, our horses, and the sheep herd for us.

“He's mentioned it.”

“They've done wonderfully with the herd, moved the horses over to be with theirs, where they seem content. And they can afford at least a portion of the property; they've saved their money well.”

“What're you saying, Janie?” I asked, although I already knew.

“It might be a kindness to everybody concerned if you and Hy let it go.”

She was right, of course. In my haste to get hold of the files, I hadn't given a thought to stopping in to see the Perezes or the horses, King and Sidekick. I hadn't really paid attention to the house, except to notice its shabby condition. I didn't truly believe that we would fly up for a massive cleaning, go dancing at Zelda's, or throw a fish fry.

“I'll speak to Hy about it,” I told her. “We'll see.”

The stack of files had seemed thicker than I remembered; if I made an immediate return to the Bay Area, I'd be in for a long night reading them and an exhausted, ineffectual morning. But if I stayed here, dirty and dismal as the ranchhouse was, I could squeeze in a few hours' sleep and be somewhat refreshed for the day ahead. So I decided to remain at the ranch overnight to read them, and called Janie to ask if she could take me to the airstrip early tomorrow morning. She readily agreed. “Anytime,” she added. “I'm usually up well before dawn. Just give me a holler.”

In addition to being filthy, the house was so cold that I made myself a pot of strong coffee and took it and the files to bed, where I turned the electric blanket on high. Half an hour later the sheets were still clammy, but I didn't care. I was immersed in an old story.

Hy's handwriting:
Chiang Mai. The bargain has been sealed. 200 crates of automatic weapons and rocket launchers to be delivered by Renshaw to a private island in the South China Sea, where they'll be distributed within the week to insurgents in two nearby trouble spots. Financial backing of several multinational companies with operations based in the U.S. firmly in place. Guarantee of no governmental interference.

Whose government? The anonymous countries'—or ours?

There followed a list of governments, national and multinational companies, and individuals. I sucked in my breath while reading it: a number of US allies; some of the world's most respected firms and prominent citizens. Two members of the US House of Representatives and a senator, now deceased.

I leafed through the rest of the file, nearly choking on my disgust as I read of Renshaw's plans. As I read of how many of the world's most upstanding citizens and institutions had been willing to fund and profit from them.

This was the original, Hy's insurance in case whatever agency into whose hands he had placed the copies reneged on its agreement to keep him out of its investigation. And it had, because nothing about it or its results had ever appeared in the media. Now the FBI wanted control of the case.

One flaw in their thinking: Renshaw was Hy's and mine. We'd be the ones to finally bring him down.