Authors: T. Jefferson Parker
Merci whirled and pressed
her face into that of Lauren Diamond. "Buzz off, lady."
Lauren Diamond slowed,
then stopped, but the shooter kept up behind them. Hess turned, gave him a
little wave, tried to make things look casual, and kept going. Merci was half a
step ahead of him now as they headed toward the car.
"Thanks,"
she said.
"You're
welcome."
"Do not tell me I
should have felt what she was feeling, or thought what she was thinking."
"Oh hell, no. She's just an ambitious young reporter
who might be happy to help you someday. It would have taken about thirty
seconds of your time to be civil."
"So I screwed up
again."
"Why be a bitch
all the time?"
"I'll get the
hang of good manners sooner or later."
"I'm starting to
think you don't want to."
"Now you're
thinking what I'm thinking."
When they got into the car
Merci exhaled and looked at Hess.
"I'll tell you
something, partner—bringing that suit was the dumbest. damned thing I've ever
done in my life. How can I get out of it now, after I've started all
this?"
Hess lied to his partner then, excusing himself for
an oncologist appointment. He was puzzled by this Colesceau, no matter what
Merci thought, and he was going to ride that feeling for a couple more hours,
before they headed up to Sacramento and the state Morticians' Licensing Board.
He was tiring of watching Rayborn start fights wherever she went. He felt like
a nanny for the neighborhood bully.
First he went by Pratt
Automotive and had a talk with Marvis Pratt, his wife, Lydia, and an employee
named Garry Leonard. They told him Colesceau did his job okay, though Pratt
didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. He hired guys like Colesceau
because he thought people deserved a second chance, and because Holtz was a
friend.
They showed him through
the place—the front shop and office area, the high bay in back with the
beautiful yellow and black Shelby Cobra that Hess just stood and stared at. It
was the most beautiful car he ever seen.
"Four hundred fifty horse,"
said Pratt.
"That's a car
and a half."
"We've done a lot of
restorations. They come here dogs and leave here dolls."
"How much?"
"One eighty.
Firm."
"Colesceau ever drive
a different vehicle to work here, not that old red Datsun?"
"No, just the
truck."
Hess looked at the
expansive bay, the clean racks, the orderly tools, the rafters catching the
late morning light through high windows. In dogs and out dolls, he thought.
Paradise, for a car nut.
They went back to the
office. "Does he call in sick, miss work, spend time on the phone?"
"No. He's good about
being here. It's easy work. Mainly what he does is sits on that stool, helps
some customers and wiggles his tits around every once in a while."
"They
hurt,
Pratt," said Lydia.
"Whatever. I gave him
his walking papers. I can't have a crowd demonstrating outside the place.
Jesus, it's hard enough to make a living anymore."
Hess knew from LaLonde's
statement that "Bill" had computer printout sheets containing nine
different car manufacturers' specs on the alarm system frequencies. He noted
the computer and monitor on the office desk, and a similar one behind the
counter in the front store.
"The computers
replace those old catalogs?"
Pratt said they did that,
but lots more: he got daily updates, changes, recalls and corrections right
from the factories. They'd get information on new models coming out,
incentives going to dealers, even newsletters from different plants around the
world.
Hess asked him to print
out repair/replacement data on the 1998 Infiniti Q45 and 1996 BMW 525 antitheft
systems.
Lydia sat down and two minutes later Hess had eight
pages of specs and exploded drawings.
"You can go on
and on with this stuff," she said.
"Colesceau know
how to work the computer?"
"Sure. That's part of
his job," said Lydia. She looked at Hess with a dark expression, then
away. "I think it's lousy what you guys did to him. Getting his neighbors
all riled up for nothing. He's a lamb, really. Mixed up, but a lamb."
"I hope you're
right," he answered mildly.
Hess then showed them the
drawing of the Purse Snatcher and gave all three his work and pager numbers.
Per usual, he got a home number from them, just in case. You never know.
• • •
In the office of Quail
Creek Apartment Homes, the middle-aged and overweight supervisor, Art
Ledbetter, told Hess that Colesceau had never complained or been the subject of
a complaint until now. He assumed Colesceau paid his rent on time, but rent
checks went to corporate up in Newport. Ledbetter did light security and
scheduled maintenance work, took applications, fielded questions and
complaints. But they had no choice but to evict. Thirty-day notice already
served. What could you do with protesters camped out around the clock?
Hess stood and looked at a model of the
complex, which hung from one wall. The aerial view was interesting. He saw that
the complex was actually an enormous circle, and the quadrants of apartments
were designed in perfect symmetry with each other. He noted the way that the
developers were packing them in these days: each snaking row of units had a
front facing one street and a front facing another,
but shared a common rear wall. Thus, the illusion of privacy without real
privacy at all.
"Ever see any
unusual activity around his unit?"
"None at all. No
complaints, like I said."
"What about his
hours? Come and go all the time, late at night, maybe?"
"I ride that little
golf cart around 'til ten some nights. I've never seen him out and about at
that hour. But, you know, one of the nice things here is you can use the
remote, open your garage door and drive in without hardly disturbing anyone.
Walk right into your unit from the garage. That's the idea, keep things quiet,
private."
"Do you know
most of the tenants?"
Ledbetter shook his head.
"Some. There's a batch of ghost people I never see. Maybe they work nights
and sleep all day, never use the pool, I don't know. Some fly in for business,
stay a month, fly back out. But they pay rent every month, or corporate would
serve them."
"How about
visitors to Colesceau's?"
"His mother. And a
couple—man and a woman. Twice, maybe. Not often."
Hess asked him to describe
them and he did: Holtz and Fontana, right down to Holtz's Corrections Ford.
Ledbetter was good with cars, like a lot of men are.
Hess looked down at the
map of the complex that Ledbetter had given him. Colesceau's was an end unit
apparently no different than any other two-bedroom end unit.
"What about his
immediate neighbor, to the left?"
"Nice young
lady, works nights."
"What about the
unit behind his?"
"Old lady, never
see her. One of the ghost people."
"Ever seen a
silver panel van at Colesceau's?"
Ledbetter frowned.
"Silver panel van. Well, yeah, a few months back I did see a silver van
pulling out of the complex. One of those fancy conversion things with the
running boards and the riser on top. But who knows what unit it came from.
Driver could have been lost for all I know."
Hess made his notes, gave
Ledbetter a card and thanked him. "Would you mind giving me your home
number, just in case?"
"Not a problem."
Hess did a brief
door-to-door after that, but six of the neighbors he called on were gone, and
the other three had nothing of note to say about Matamoros Colesceau except
that he should get the hell out of their city.
• • •
He got the Lifestyler's
address from the phone book—the closest wig shop to Colesceau. It was in a
little shopping center by the freeway, between a community newspaper office
and a walk-in clinic.
A young Chinese woman
stepped up to greet him while an elderly woman who looked like her mother
regarded him placidly from behind the counter. The walls were high, with long
shelves full of white heads wearing all styles and colors of wigs.
Hess felt like a thousand faceless
women were staring at him. He also felt the walls waver in and out just a
little, like they were leaning in for a closer look.
He identified himself and
gathered what he could about human hair wigs: they were available, typically 10
to 20 percent more expensive than synthetics, the upside was they looked good,
the downside was that you had to shampoo, condition and set them just like you
would your own hair—often.
He asked if they'd ever
sold a long, blond, human hair wig to a man. The two women consulted in their
native tongue, and the young one told Hess yes, several over the years.
Sometimes, she said, men will buy for their wives. Sometimes for themselves.
She exchanged glances with her mother and smiled very demurely at Hess.
The old woman stood and
took up a long wooden pole with a metal V at the end. She shuffled along the
wall behind the counter, stopped, reached and hooked a head off its platform.
The hair was blond and wavy.
"Human
hair," the old woman said. "Eighty-nine. You try."
"It's not for
me."
"Okay. Sit. You
try."
The younger held open a
little swinging door and Hess stepped behind the counter. He sat in the styling
chair, facing a mirror surrounded by lights. The older woman displayed the
wig for his inspection, then lifted it and snapped it over his head. Hess was
surprised how tight it was. She snugged it into place, brought up a
wide-toothed plastic brush and started picking the hairline locks down over
Hess's forehead. Thirty seconds later he looked like a signer of the Declaration.
He looked at the women
behind him in the mirror in front of him.
"Good,"
said the older. "Human hair. Eighty-nine."
Somewhat amazingly to
Hess, it was good. It looked like it could be his hair. If he just squinted a
little and glanced at himself—as he did just now—he could believe this image in
front of him was a man with long, wavy blond hair. Absurd, yes, but still...
unified, credible.
He sat there for a moment
in the wig, offering a deal with the younger: eighty-nine for the wig, copies
of all receipts for blond human hair wigs sold to men for as far back as they
had them, and a home phone number for each woman.
The old woman listened,
then nodded and smiled cagily at Hess, who smiled and blushed.
"This isn't for
me," he said.
Both women were smiling
and nodding.
Old one: "Deal. Receipts come later."
• • •
He used a pay phone to
call Brighton's direct number.
The sheriff picked up
himself.
"She wants an apology
and she wants Kemp to stop," said Hess. "She's sorry she brought the
suit."
Brighton was silent for a
moment. "Why couldn't she tell me that herself?"
"She didn't want to
rat out a friend of yours. You're her boss, Bright. She wanted to be a stand-up
deputy."
More silence. Then, "Thanks."
• • •
Hess and Merci caught the
one-fifty flight from Orange County to Sacramento. They rented a car at the
airport and Hess drove them toward the city. The afternoon was bright and
ferociously hot, with the rice fields wavering in the sunlight.
Hess felt light-headed and
he watched the shimmering mirage of interstate before him with particular
attention. A bird hit the windshield and he flinched. All it left was a clear
patch of something wet and a ring of small gray feathers. Hess looked through
it but didn't look at it: part of him was still in Matamoros Colesceau's
apartment.
He used Merci's cell phone
to call Bart Young, the president of the Southern California Embalming Supply
Company, again, hoping to pry loose the list of recent buyers. The pleasant
sounding president was hesitant at first, then firm again in his decision not
to give Hess the list. Hess could tell he felt bad.
He thanked him and hung
up. "He's close. Maybe if you called him back and said something about the
victims, he'd cave in. He's a decent sort, but he doesn't want to betray his
customers. Why don't you try him? Get him to feel bad about the women? Men have
a harder time saying no to women sometimes."
Five minutes later Merci
was castigating the man for his noncooperation and gutless mercantile behavior.
Apparently he hung up because Merci pushed a button, cursed and slapped the
mouthpiece back over the keypad.
"I've never once been
able to sweet-talk anybody in my life," she said. When Hess looked over
she was actually scowling. Her hair was pulled back and her ears were red.
"I'm the wrong one to get guilt or sympathy out of anybody. I made Mike
cry once. And the way I look at it is, if he won't cough up the names, then
this embalming machine pusher'll get a hotter place in hell for himself. It's
out of my hands. I wash 'em."