Storm Runners (9 page)

I’ll be damned, thought Stromsoe.
Frankie’s trying to make rain.

He took the magazine over to the wall where the pictures hung, held it up, and made sure that he was looking at the same guy. No doubt, he thought. Same face. Same hat and clothes. Hatfield, the rainmaker.

He compared the pictures of the towers to the towers that Frankie and the old man had made.

Stromsoe shook his head.
Frankie Hatfield’s trying to make rain like her great-great-granddaddy did.

In an odd and admiring way, he wasn’t surprised.

Stromsoe turned off the office lights, found his way to the leather chair, and sat. He aimed his flashlight beam on one of the photographs of Charles Hatfield. Stromsoe smiled slightly, then clicked off the light and set it on the desk. He locked his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes.

The weather lady who makes rain, he thought.

He wondered if she had met with any success in her rainmaking venture, if she’d told anyone about it, if she was sane.

It was possible that the answer to all three questions was no.

He sat for a few minutes, thinking about how easy it was for catastrophe and heartbreak to kill your hope and your wonder. The death of hope and wonder was the hidden cost charged by every criminal, torturer, and terrorist. Few wrote about that, how the facts of loss are not the truth of loss. Few seemed to realize how often and easily the beautiful things vanish, except those from whom they had vanished. And most of those people didn’t have much left to say, did they, because without hope and wonder you can’t even move your lips. A lot of them were in their own private Miami hotel rooms, as surely as he had been, ending things slowly, good citizens to the end.

So why not put a river in a bottle?

Make it rain.

Amen, sister.

A FEW MINUTES later Stromsoe turned off the lights in the office, followed his flashlight to the window, and climbed back out. He landed on the drum with a hollow thud, hopped off.

When he turned and looked up the dirt road he could see the guy fifty yards out ahead, looking over his shoulder and hauling ass for the gate.

S
tromsoe broke into a run, swinging his arms and getting his knees up as best he could.

When he came over the rise he saw that he might actually catch up before the guy got to his car, or at least in time to throw himself onto the back of it like a PI in a movie.

Maybe.

Pins smarting and joints stiff, Stromsoe dug down for all the speed he could get. The guy hopped the gate. Same guy as in La Jolla, Stromsoe saw—same square shoulders and squat-legged sprint. Same gold sedan.

The man was at his car, struggling with his keys while he stared
at Stromsoe in apparent fear. The car door swung open. Stromsoe timed his stride to launch himself over the gate like a pole-vaulter. It worked. Midair he saw the car door open and the lights flash on but Stromsoe landed square, took three quick steps, and tackled the guy just as he hit the seat.

Stromsoe immediately felt his weight advantage, so he used it. Covering the struggling man with his big body, he found the guy’s hands and pinned them back onto the passenger seat. It was harder than he thought with his little finger missing—an entire one-tenth of his hand tools gone. The guy yelled in pain and head-butted Stromsoe hard right between the eyes, so Stromsoe butted him hard back. He used his weight to slow the guy’s breathing. When he felt him getting tired he let go and punched him in the jaw and wrestled him over. Then Stromsoe swiped out the plastic wrist restraint from his back pants pocket. He wrenched the guy’s arms back, cinched the restraints with the flourish of a calf roper, dragged the now unstruggling man out of the car, lifted him by his belt and collar, and dumped him facedown across the hood of his own sedan. The guy’s chest heaved and his breath made a patch of fog on the gold paint. Stromsoe patted him for weapons and tossed his wallet onto the front seat. Then he flipped the guy faceup and patted him for weapons again.

Stromsoe stepped back, panting. “Relax, hot rod. You’re mine now.”

“Chinga tu madre!”

“Yeah, sure, first chance I get.”

“Gimme my lawyer.”

“I’m not a cop, so you don’t get a lawyer. You just get me. How come you’re following Frankie around?”

“Frankie who, man? I don’t follow no guys around.”

“Damn,” said Stromsoe. “I work that hard just to collar an idiot. Look, let me sketch this out for you—I’m calling Frankie Hatfield and the cops, she’ll ID you, and you’re going to jail for trespassing, stalking, and aggravated assault. They’ll set bail sometime tomorrow and it will be high because she’s a star and you’re a dumb-ass. She’s got pictures of you lurking around her property, for chrissakes. So you’re meat. Right now we’re going to my car to get my cell phone.”

Stromsoe pulled on the guy’s foot to slide him off the hood.

“No! Okay, okay, okay. I’m just doing what I do, man. Just…don’t call any cops.”

“So you’re going to talk to me?”

“Yeah, man, yeah.”

“Get started.”

Stromsoe tied the guy’s bootlaces together. They were workingman’s boots, grease-stained suede and soles worn smooth. The laces were regulation brown, not
sureño
gangster blue or
norteño
gangster red. He wore jeans and a gang-neutral black T-shirt. The guy was younger than Stromsoe had figured—midtwenties at most. He was short—five foot six, maybe. He looked Hispanic, but could easily be something else. The only accent Stromsoe could detect was Southern Californian. Stromsoe ran his flashlight over the guy’s arms for gang or prison tats but saw none.

“I saw her on TV, man. I’m her biggest fan. I went to her work and followed her to the different places where she does her show. I used the Assessor’s office to get her parcel numbers and from there I figured out what she owned and where she lived.”

Stromsoe picked up the wallet and sat in the driver’s seat. He checked the glove box for a gun but came out with a handful of
digital snapshots and a cell phone instead. He put the phone back and flipped through the pictures in the poor interior light: Frankie Hatfield outside her home, going into the Bonsall barn, doing a live report from what looked like Imperial Beach. The shots had probably been printed side by side on picture paper, then cut out in a hurry.

“Yeah, hot rod—Assessor’s office. Keep talking.”

“So I went and looked at her, man. I just looked. I didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

“You just like to look?” asked Stromsoe.

“You seen her. You know.”

“Know what?”

“She’s beautiful.”

“There are lots of beautiful women you don’t stalk.”

The guy said nothing for a beat. “But she’s totally giant, man. A perfect, giant lady.”

“You’re stalking her because she’s tall?”

Again, the guy was quiet for a moment.

“Because she’s tall
and
beautiful,” he said. “That’s what it is, all it can ever be, man.”

Stromsoe used his flashlight and both sides of a business card from his wallet to take down the driver’s-license information:

“Yep, she’s six inches taller than you, John.”

“You see what I mean then, man. You her boyfriend? Or are you a bodyguard she hired?”

“You like to wag it while you look, John?”

“It ain’t that! I don’t do that never, ever.”

Stromsoe counted the money in the wallet—sixty-four dollars, plus an ATM card, a video-store membership, and a car-wash card with three washes punched out and dated.

“Ever been in her room?” asked Stromsoe.

“No, man. I’m not a panty bandit. I ain’t that kinda stalker. I can prove it.”

“What do you do with these pictures?”

“They’re for me and my own information. That’s my private shit, man.”

“Private. That’s a good one, John. Where’d you do your time?”

“Six months L.A. County, that’s all. They said I was a deadbeat dad but I wasn’t. The post office fucked me up. I taught that boyfriend of hers some manners, though.”

“Way to go, John. Why come all the way to San Diego to stalk a tall woman? Don’t you have any closer to home?”

“Not like her I don’t. You seen those hats she wears on TV?”

“What channel is she on up there in Azusa?”

“Uh, six, I think.”

“You think.”

“I got TiVo. I can watch whatever I want whenever I want to.”

“You can watch Frankie Hatfield over and over.”

“That’s the truth. What’s your name, man? Who am I talking to, sitting there in my own ride?”

“Call me Matt.”

Cedros shook his head slowly. “I call you bullshit.”

“You got a job, John?”

“Centinela Valley Hospital. Janitorial.”

“You can keep up on the child support, then.”

“Bitch married the punk and I still gotta pay,” said Cedros.

“Your kid’s worth it,” said Stromsoe.

“She’s the cutest little thing you ever saw in your life.”

“Then hope nobody like you follows her around and takes her picture,” said Stromsoe. “What’s your cell-phone number, John?”

Cedros gave it. He gave the same home address that appeared on his CDL. He knew his employee number by heart, which Stromsoe took down also. The name of his supervisor at Centinela Valley too—Ray Ordell. On still another business card Stromsoe wrote down the name of Cedros’s ex-wife and her new husband and daughter—all residents of Glendora. He even got Cedros’s parents’ phone number. If the statements weren’t true, Cedros was one of the best liars Stromsoe had ever seen.

Still, Cedros wasn’t adding up for him.

“John,” said Stromsoe. “I believe your details. But I think your main story—you stalking Frankie because she’s tall and pretty—is a crock. What do you think?”

Stromsoe aimed his flashlight into Cedros’s face while he waited for the answer. Cedros glared into the light, but Stromsoe saw calm and intelligence in the man’s eyes.

“I think I’m telling you the truth and nothing but,” he said. “When I saw her on TV, I just…
man
.”

Stromsoe let the crickets and frogs do the talking for a moment. There wasn’t much left to do but the obvious.

“I need to use your phone,” he said.

“What for? I get to meet Frankie?”

“You get to meet the sheriff.”

“Homes, man, I been cooperating. You can’t do this to me.”

“Got to. But the sheriffs are close, so no roaming charge.”

Cedros tried to wriggle off the car. His boot heels and head both pounded the hood and it looked like he might slip off. Stromsoe spun him back to the middle of it, where Cedros flopped like a fish on a rock.

“Oh, man, you cannot do this to me. Let me go. I’ll give you anything.”

“John,” said Stromsoe. “When this is all over, if I catch you around Frankie again, you will be very unhappy.”

Stromsoe dialed.

A
t ten-thirty the next morning Frankie Hatfield identified John Cedros in a Sheriff’s lineup at the Vista Sheriff Station.

Stromsoe hustled her to her car and got her out of there before the crime reporters could figure out who she was and why she was there. He’d had her wear sunglasses and a ball cap.

At the nearby San Marcos Courthouse, Cedros was assigned a public defender who suggested that unlawful arrest by the county, and assault and battery by PI Stromsoe, might be more appropriate charges than the ones against his client. Stromsoe observed. The defender talked to a young bearded man afterward and the young man took notes.

Earlier that morning Stromsoe got a copy of Cedros’s rap sheet from Dan Birch—assault, possession of stolen property, drunk in public. A total of six months in county. He’d never been convicted of failing to pay child support, as he’d said the night before. And no record of stalking, harassment, blackmail, exposure, or burglary.

Stromsoe was not surprised. After a night to think about him, Cedros still didn’t add up.

For one thing, Cedros admitted right off to stalking Frankie because she was pretty and tall. He had pictures of her in his glove box—a sex rap right there, thought Stromsoe—exactly the kind of thing you try to cover up, not confess. Then Cedros didn’t know what channel Frankie was on up in Los Angeles County because Frankie wasn’t even on the air up there. L.A. County had its own Fox affiliate and its own weather people. Stromsoe had checked with the satellite and cable operators for Azusa, and neither offered San Diego’s local stations.

There was also that cagey gleam in Cedros’s eyes, even when Stromsoe had taken him down to the hood of the gold sedan. Like he was thinking, figuring, acting. The guy just didn’t look right, in a way that Stromsoe could see but not explain.

So he sat in the courtroom and watched as tiny, muscular John Cedros was charged with stalking, loitering near a residence, trespassing on posted agricultural property, and unlawful interference with property. Cedros’s lawyer entered a plea of not guilty. Bail was set at seventy-five thousand dollars. A temporary restraining order was issued.

Cedros posted a bond for seventy-five hundred through a bondsman and walked into the lobby of the courthouse at five o’clock.

Stromsoe was waiting for him.

“You’re a nightmare, man,” said Cedros.

“My head still hurts,” said Stromsoe.

“What do you want from me?”

“I’ll help you past the reporter outside if you’d like.”

“Reporter? Where?”

“The short guy with the beard. I’m going to give you my coat in case he’s got a cell-phone camera.”

“You helping the weather lady or me?”

“The weather lady.”

“Lead the way, man. Keep that reporter out of my face.”

Stromsoe did exactly that, ushering Cedros to the parking lot and keeping himself between the accused and the young crime reporter. Cedros put the coat over his head even though the reporter never brandished a camera. Stromsoe got Cedros into his truck and started back to the Sheriff ’s substation.

Cedros threw the coat into the backseat and stared out the window.

“John, I’ll tell you. I got to thinking and I talked to Frankie. I thought I could help you both out—you tell me why you’ve been watching her and I can get her to drop the charges.”

Cedros looked at Stromsoe with a scowl, but his eyes were cool and analytical.

“I told you why I followed her, man.”

“It was a good story but it wasn’t the truth.”

“It’s my truth and I’m not changing it.”

Stromsoe pulled into the substation and walked Cedros inside. He waited while Cedros submitted his bail papers to a large deputy, who handed them to an even larger deputy, who read them slowly and disappeared. A few minutes later he came back with Cedros’s car keys.

Stromsoe followed Cedros out to the impound yard to get his car. Cedros plunked himself into the front seat, reached down for the lever, and slid the seat way up. He checked the glove box.

Stromsoe stayed back by the trunk.

“Oh, man,” said Cedros. “They took my pictures.”

“They took them for evidence, John. Pop this trunk and see what else they took.”

When the trunk lock popped Stromsoe lifted the lid to shield himself, quickly reached down beneath the bumper, and felt the GPU locator jump from his fingers to the car frame. The locator was held in place by strong magnets and could broadcast to a receiver up to a hundred miles away. Birch had agreed that Cedros was worth a closer look, and the locator was one of Birch’s favorite new toys.

Stromsoe was staring hopefully into the trunk.

“Just get away from me, man,” said Cedros. “Let the whore hit me with trespassing—it’s a fine is all it is. Let her hit me with harassment because I didn’t harass her or nobody else, man. I never said one thing to her. I didn’t stalk her either. I just…looked. I don’t have any priors like that. The judge will throw it out. They got all my pictures, but that’s okay with me because it’s proof of what I did—I snapped some shots of a pretty lady I saw on TV. The
Enquirer
does it all the time and those guys get
paid
for it.”

“Who paid you for it?”

“Man, you’re stubborn as a goat. I told you and told you again.”

For the first time since last night Stromsoe thought John Cedros might be on the level—a short, garden-variety stalker who got off spying on and taking pictures of a tall, celebrity woman.

USING THE LOCATOR receiver, Stromsoe tailed the gold sedan north toward Los Angeles in the dismal evening traffic. It was interesting to follow a blipping light on a map rather than an actual car.

Inching through Santa Ana, he saw a city that hadn’t changed a lot in twenty years. His old home was just half a mile from this freeway. The high school wasn’t far. Mike’s house wasn’t either. He passed a cemetery hidden behind towering cypress trees where as a twelve-year-old he had attended the funeral of Uncle Joseph, his mother’s charming and humorous brother. At that service Stromsoe had had the revelation that people were constantly entering and exiting the world, so that the departing always left the gift of one more available space, and we should thank them.

Glancing into the rearview, he saw a man who had changed drastically. Where was the chubby-cheeked freshman with a passion for leading the marching band? He felt unrecognizable. He hadn’t kept up with a single person from his high school, except for Hallie, who was dead, and Mike Tavarez, who had killed her. He couldn’t think of one person from his past who would surely recognize him.

To his surprise, John Cedros didn’t drive home to Azusa, but directly to the downtown headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Stromsoe had to pull over and watch as Cedros stopped at Gate 6, inserted a card, then drove in when the arm lifted.

Stromsoe looked up at the DWP headquarters. It rose fifteen stories high above Hope Street, a horizontally layered steel-and-stone fortress that looked down on the city it powered. One parking lot was shaded by solar panels. There were flowers in the planters of the walkway leading to the entrance.

Stromsoe swung his truck around and parked out front behind a
LADWP van. He dialed Cedros’s cell phone number and was surprised when he answered.

“John, this is Matt Stromsoe, Frankie’s friend. Make it home okay?”

“Yeah, I made it home,” said Cedros. “Gonna get a cold beer out of the fridge right now.”

“Not coming back down to Fallbrook, are you?”

“It’s a free country,
pendejo
. I’m not afraid of you.”

“You working today? Going to tell Ordell about your adventure in jail?”

“Keep my boss out of it. And keep my work out of it. It’s the only damned thing I got left.”

AN HOUR LATER the gold sedan pulled out of the lot and headed toward the freeways. It was nine o’clock by now and Los Angeles was a sprawling jewel against the black October sky.

Stromsoe fell back and followed the locator again. Traffic was light now and Cedros got himself onto the 210 going east for Azusa. A few minutes later the GPU indicator stopped moving. Stromsoe pulled over and waited twenty minutes to make sure. Then he got within eyeshot of 300 North Walton and saw the gold sedan in the driveway.

He parked under a huge, drooping jacaranda tree that had soon littered the hood of his truck with pale purple-blue blossoms but made him feel invisible. Scrunched down in the seat, he could see through the upper arc of the steering wheel.

He could hear the traffic out on Azusa Avenue and the peppy rhythm of
corridos
coming from one of the houses across the street.

Stromsoe remembered a
corrido
written about Mike “El Jefe” Tavarez. In the song, Tavarez is a new Robin Hood, while his boyhood rival—who kidnaps and rapes Tavarez’s young wife—is the “big swine” of the American DEA, a man called Matt Storm. Stromsoe had first heard it back in 1995. It was based on a story by a Tijuana newspaper reporter who had come up with a few scant facts that inspired the
corrido
writer. Back then Stromsoe thought the song was deranged and amusing but now, almost ten years later, he was angered by the way it reversed the truth for entertainment.

Mike had been the subject of at least a half dozen
corridos
. In all but one of them he was a handsome leader forced by gringo racism into a life of armed robbery, but who also found time to play guitar, sing beautifully, and write stirring love songs. He killed without remorse but was loyal to the woman who was taken from him. In one
corrido,
which was commissioned by a leader of his rival La Nuestra Familia, Tavarez was portrayed as a musically gifted coward.

Stromsoe had been mentioned only in the one—Matt Storm, the big swine of the DEA. He remembered playing it for Hallie one evening. It made them smile uneasily, and speculate whether Stromsoe’s interagency team of crimebusters would catch Tavarez before someone murdered him, and which would be preferable.

HE LISTENED TO the news, dozed fitfully, his legs threatening to cramp. He straightened them across the bench seat of the F-150, rubbing the backs of his thighs. He hit the wipers and cut a cloudy swath through the jacaranda blossoms on his windshield.

Just after sunrise he saw John Cedros come from his house and open a rear door of the gold sedan. A pretty, pregnant young woman in a white robe and matching slippers walked behind him. His hair was gelled back. His shirt was short-sleeve, blue, and had an emblem on the left breast. The collar of a white T-shirt showed at the open neck. His trousers were blue too, his work shoes were black and looked heavy.

Cedros kissed the woman, who hugged him once before letting him go. She was taller than him by two inches. He checked his watch as he got in and started up the car.

The woman waved as the gold sedan pulled away, then walked back into the house.

Stromsoe followed the car at a comfortable distance, all the way back to the Department of Water and Power, where it stopped again at Gate 6.

As he watched Cedros’s car pull forward into the lot, Stromsoe used the DWP phone directory to get his number.

“This is the Department of Water and Power custodial…” The recording gave an emergency number and said to leave a message.

Stromsoe didn’t.

Instead, he called Centinela Valley Hospital and was given the number of Empire Janitorial, which did not employ a John Cedros at Centinela Valley or any other of its contract sites. There was no Ray Ordell in their employ either.

Heading back down the freeway, Stromsoe called Frankie.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“Sure, but about what?”

“Making rain,” he said.

She was silent for a moment. “Sunday night we might really have something to talk about.”

“Can you do it?”

“I don’t know yet. But I think the answer is yes. Meet me at the barn at six Sunday evening.”