from under there before I have a stroke.”
The boy scuttled out from under the car like a crab, stood up, and tried in vain to dust himself off. The sleeves of his sweatshirt had to be six inches longer than his arms. The hood had fallen back, revealing a shock of blond hair.
“I don’t really consider myself to be a genius,” he confessed modestly. “I just know a lot of stuff.”
“Why aren’t you in school?” Parker asked. “You already know everything, so they sprang you loose?”
The kid pushed back a sleeve and consulted a watch that was so big for him it looked like he had a dinner plate strapped to his arm.
“It’s only seven thirty-four.”
“Your school must be close by, huh?”
The boy frowned.
“And you live in the neighborhood, or you’d be more concerned about the time,” Parker said. “You’re observant. You’re smart. I’ll bet you know a lot about what goes on around here.”
The one-shoulder shrug. The toe in the dirt. Eyes on the ground.
“You’re below the radar,” Parker said. “You can slip around, see things, hear things. Nobody even notices.”
The other shoulder shrugged.
“So why were you watching me down there?”
“I dunno.”
“Just because? You working your way up to becoming a Peeping Tom so you can spy on girls?”
The little face scrunched up in distaste. “Why would I want to do that? Girls are weird.”
“Okay. So maybe you want to become a spy. Is that it?”
“Not really. I just have an in-sa-tia-ble curiosity.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Parker said. “Do you know the Chens? From the fish market?”
Both shoulders.
“Do you know a guy around here by the name of J. C. Damon? He’s a bike messenger.”
The eyes went a little wider. “Is he in trouble?”
“Kind of. I need to speak with him. I think he might have some information that could help me with a big investigation.”
“About what? A murder or something?”
“A case I’m working on,” Parker said. “I think he might have seen something.”
“Why won’t he just come and tell you, if that’s all?”
“Because he’s scared. He’s like you, running away from me because he thinks I’m the enemy. But I’m not.”
Parker could see the wheels turning in the kid’s head. He was curious now, and interested in the grudging way of someone pretending not to be.
“I’m not a bad guy,” Parker said. “You know, some people blame first and ask questions later. There could be cops like that out there looking for this guy Damon. It’d be a whole lot better for him if he came to me before they get to him.”
“What’ll they do to him?”
Parker shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have any control over them. If they believe this guy’s guilty, who knows what could happen?”
The kid swallowed hard, like he was swallowing a rock. Blond hair, blue eyes, good-looking kid. Just the way Parker had described Damon to Madame Chen. This one had been right there at the back of Chen’s, watching, listening. His interest now went beyond the excuse of the kid’s insatiable curiosity.
“Could they shoot him?” the boy asked.
Parker shrugged. “Bad things can happen. I’m not saying they will, but . . .”
He reached in a pocket, pulled out a business card, offered it to the kid. The boy snatched it as if he expected a manacle to snap around his wrist. One of those cop tricks he was wise to. He looked at the card, looked up at Parker from under his brows, then stuck the card in the pouch of the sweatshirt.
“If you see this guy Damon around . . .” Parker said.
The black-and-white radio car turned in at the end of the alley and stopped behind Chen’s. The uniform got out and called to him.
“Detective Parker?”
Parker started to raise a hand. The kid was off like a shot.
“Shit!” Parker shouted, bolting after him.
The boy had run back into the U of buildings. No way out, Parker thought, closing in on him. There was only the narrowest of spaces between two of the buildings, a ray of sunlight as thin as a razor blade. The kid ran around the front row of cars. Parker tried to cut the angle, jumping up and skidding on his ass across the hood of a Ford Taurus. He reached out to grab the kid as he came off the car, but he landed badly, stumbled, and went down on one knee.
The kid didn’t even slow down as he came to the buildings. He ran into the crack of space, fitting exactly between the two walls.
Parker swore, turned sideways, sucked in his breath, and started in, cobwebs hitting his face, the brick snatching at his suit. The boy was out the other end and gone before Parker had made it a dozen feet.
“Hey, Detective?” the uniform called from the parking lot.
Parker emerged, scowling, picking spiderwebs off the front of his jacket.
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Yeah,” Parker said, disgusted. “Call Hugo Boss and send my apologies.”
30
Ruiz sat at her desk with her head in her hand, her expression a mix of exhaustion, disgust, testiness, and fading hope. She had put her aromatic witness in Parker’s chair, at Parker’s desk, willing to suffer the stench in the name of revenge.
Obidia Jones appeared to have had a fine night’s sleep in a holding cell. A late dinner from Domino’s, coffee and pastry from Starbucks for breakfast. He paged through the mug books as if he were reading a magazine, occasionally remarking when he saw someone he knew.
“Personally, I prefer a heartier breakfast,” he said, as he tore off a delicate piece of his danish. “Something substantiated to stick to a person’s ribs. Something representing all your major food groups. A good big breakfast burrito.”
Ruiz rolled her eyes.
Kray walked past with a sour look on his face. “Can’t you take that somewhere else, Ruiz? Why should the rest of us have to put up with that filthy stink?”
Ruiz looked at him. “As much time as you spend with your head up your ass, Kray, I’d think you’d be used to the smell by now.”
Yamoto, standing by the coffeemaker, choked back a laugh and dodged the snake eyes his partner shot him.
“Bitch,” Kray muttered under his breath.
“Say that a little louder,” Ruiz taunted. “So I can file a harassment complaint against you. You can go through sensitivity training again. How many times would that be?”
Kray made a face and mimicked her like he was a five-year-old child.
Parker came into the squad, took three strides into the room, and was knocked back by the smell. When he saw Mr. Jones sitting in his chair, he turned a piercing look on Ruiz.
She smiled like a sly cat and said, “Touche.”
“I think I’ve got the car,” Parker said, ignoring her. “I’ve got to call an ADA for a warrant. If we’re lucky, we’ll have prints by noon.”
“Where was it?” Ruiz asked.
“Chinatown. Doesn’t make any sense now, but it’s going to. I can feel it.”
