empty-handed, no sign of the things she had come here to look for. Lenny’s life insurance policy, his will.
He went out to the car, got the Polaroid camera out of the trunk, and went back in. He shot photographs of the desktop, the open filing cabinets, the floor around the desk. Then he carefully lifted a long black plastic envelope out of a half-opened desk drawer. In gold stamped letters across the front: CITY NATIONAL BANK. It was empty. The impression of a small key had been left in one frosted plastic pocket. Safe-deposit box.
Parker eased himself into Lenny Lowell’s big leather executive’s chair and looked around the room, trying to imagine what Lenny would have seen as he surveyed his domain. What he would have focused on. Abby’s photograph had been knocked over on his desk. He looked down beside the chair. A couple of travel brochures lay at cockeyed angles half under the desk. Parker inched them out with the toe of his shoe.
LOSE YOURSELF IN PARADISE. THE CAYMAN ISLANDS.
“Well, Lenny,” he said to the empty room. “I’d hope you’re in another paradise now, but I imagine you’ve gone where all scum defense attorneys go. I hope you took your sunscreen.”
16
Jace took The Beast to a bike shop in Korea Town, where he knew no one and no one knew him.
“I need some work done.”
The guy behind the counter was busy watching Court TV on a television hanging up near the ceiling. He barely flicked Jace a glance. “Three day.”
“No. I need it today. It’s an emergency.”
The counter guy scowled up at the TV screen. “Three day.”
“You don’t understand, sir,” Jace said, trying to lean into the guy’s field of vision. “I need the bike. I’m a messenger. I need the bike to work.”
“Three day.”
The guy still hadn’t looked at him. He suddenly pointed a finger at the television and went off in Korean. Martin Gorman, attorney to the stars, was standing at a podium bristling with microphones, giving a press conference. At the bottom of the screen, it read: “Tricia Crowne-Cole: Death of a Debutante.” By the photograph of the woman in the lower left-hand corner, she looked like maybe she’d been a debutante during the Kennedy administration.
Jace sighed, cleared his throat, thought about walking out, but he couldn’t spend the day looking for another bike-repair shop.
“I’ll pay extra,” he said. “I’ll pay cash. An extra twenty bucks.”
The clerk turned to him and said, “Twenty now. Come back in two hour.”
It pained Jace to give up the money, but he had no choice. So much for his tip from Lenny. He only had two hundred forty in his pocket. He thought of Eta and the advance, and felt a pang of something. Disappointment, fear, uncertainty. He didn’t want to believe she had talked to the cops. Family was everything to Eta, and she considered her messengers family.
“I’ll wait for it,” Jace said.
The clerk made a sour face. Jace held up the twenty, just out of the man’s reach.
“For twenty I want it done now.”
The man said something nasty under his breath, but he nodded. Jace lowered his arm and the clerk snatched the bill away from him so quickly, he was tempted to check his hand to see if he had fingers missing.
The guy working on the bikes in the back room had a goatee and a red rag on his head. He looked like a pirate. His hands were black with grease and oil. The clerk told him tersely that he had to stop what he was doing to fix Jace’s bike.
“Very important customer,” the clerk said, then went back to his own important matters.
The mechanic looked at Jace. “How much did you give him, man?”
“Why? Are you gonna shake me down too?” Jace asked. “I’m a bike messenger, for Christ’s sake. Do I look like I’m rolling in dough?”
“Nah, I’m not gonna shake you down,” he said. “I’m gonna shake him down.”
There were twelve Lowells listed in the phone book. Three of them had first names beginning with the letter
Jace put the rejuvenated Beast in the back of the Mini, and headed west. His two-way radio lay on the passenger’s seat, the crackle and chatter familiar and comforting in a way, like he wasn’t all alone, like he was surrounded by friends. Only he didn’t really have friends, he had acquaintances. And he sure as hell was alone.
His head was pounding, his ankle was throbbing. He pulled into a 7-Eleven and bought a desiccated hot dog, a cheese burrito, a bottle of Gatorade, and some Tylenol. Fuel for the engine. He took a five-finger discount on a couple of PowerBars. He didn’t like stealing, but his first obligation was to survive. That law overruled a petty misdemeanor.
He ate in the car, careful not to spill anything—Madame Chen was very particular about her Mini—and tried to figure out what he would do if he found Abby Lowell at home. Knock on the door and say, “Hi. I’m the guy the cops think killed your father”? No. Who would he say he was? A client of Lenny’s? A reporter looking for a story?
He liked that angle. Lenny’s clients were criminals. Why would she open the door to one? But a young reporter searching for the truth . . . If she didn’t slam the door in his face, he might get to ask some questions, and get some answers. She’d probably take a look at him through the peephole and call 911. He looked dangerous or crazy or both with his face beat up and a day’s growth of beard. Who in their right mind would open a door to him?
“Base to Sixteen. Base to Sixteen. Where you at, Lone Ranger?”
An electric jolt of surprise hit him and he jumped a little. Eta.
“Base to Sixteen. I got a pickup for you. Sixteen, do you copy?”
He looked at the radio, but let it alone, his mind racing. Were the cops standing there beside her, making her try to lure him in?
“Base to Sixteen. I got money, honey. Never let money wait.”
Did she mean Money, as in a customer? Or did she mean money, as in cash? Cash made good bait. Jace thought about the two cops in the alley. The guy in the hat and the curvy
Jace reminded himself that just because they knew where he worked didn’t mean they could find him. If worse came to worse, and things heated up, he could always grab Tyler and go. But that would have to be a last resort. The idea of uprooting Tyler, wrenching him out of the only real home he’d ever known, taking him away from the surrogate family that made him feel safe and loved, tore at Jace’s heart. But what else could he do?
The answer lay in his stomach like a rock, heavier than the burrito he’d eaten. He wouldn’t acknowledge it. His mother hadn’t raised him to quit, to cut and run. Tyler was his only family. Jace wouldn’t leave him.
A. L. Lowell lived in a two-story rectangular stucco building with a few understated Spanish details on the facade. Built in the twenties or thirties, when people had style. The neighborhood was a funky mix of West Hollywood edgy hip, Hancock Park yuppie chic, and mid-Wilshire working-class run-down. Depending on the street, the area was dangerous, quiet, rough, family-oriented, or a place where you could pick up a transsexual hooker.
Jace cruised past the building, looking for signs of life.
By the size of the place and the configuration of the windows, front and side, he figured there were four units, two up, two down. There was no concierge, no uniformed doorman.
He parked the Mini just around the corner and across the street, where he still had a vantage point of the front entrance but couldn’t be suspected of casing the place. And he sat and waited.
It was the middle of a cold, damp, gloomy day. No one wanted to be out. With all the trees lining the streets and standing sentinel in the yards, the quality of light was as dim as the interior of a forest. Huge old maple trees made a canopy over the street in front of A. L. Lowell’s building.
This was the kind of neighborhood Jace had always imagined he would have grown up in if his life had been normal. People here probably knew one another, stopped and chatted on the sidewalk as they were walking their
