down the hall to a key-operated elevator. He'd been wondering how Brodsky would be able to manage the steep steps. The pornographer did not look like someone who had climbed stairs within the past decade.
'Where're you parked?' Brodsky asked.
'Out front.'
'I'm out back. I'll swing around the block and you follow me. It's a red Lexus.'
The elevator doors opened, and Miles took his leave, heading back down the stairs the way he'd come. A few minutes later, Brodsky's red Lexus made a slow crawl along the lane closest to the building, incurring the honking wrath of an impatient driver who swerved into the left lane around him. Miles pulled in behind the fat man's car, and the Lexus sped up, circling back around the block at the next intersection.
They headed north. Brodsky drove like a maniac, imparting to his vehicle an agility he himself would never possess, darting in and out of traffic at speeds well exceeding the legal limiL almost dating Miles to keep up.
The house was a generic tract home just over the hills in Studio City.
The fat man took only a moment to sort through a pile of papers and notebooks in a cupboard next to the phone before he came up with a black-bound organizer containing his father's personal address book.
Miles tried to call first, from Brodsky's phone, but there was no answer, so he wrote down the number and address, peeled off a twenty and a five, and thanked the pornographer for his generous help before setting off for Monterey Park.
Hec Tibbert was waiting for him in a folding chair on the dead weed patch that was the lawn in front of his house.
It had been awhile since Miles had driven through this area, and he was not surprised to see that the Chinese presence seemed to have increased even more. This section of
the southland had become a major Chinatown--a real one, not the kind that tourists came to see. Now the population was so heavily Weighted toward emigrees that even American institutions like banks and gas stations had signs written in both English letters and Chinese characters.
Brodsky must have called again after Miles had left, because Tibbert was clearly expecting him. The ramshackle house was sandwiched in between a run-down single-story apartment complex and a brand-new multi story office building. The old man stood and walked to the sidewalk as Miles got out of his car.
'Mr. Tibbert?' Miles asked.
'Hec,' the old man said, extending a hand. 'Freddy told me you'd be coming.'
Miles shook Tibbert's hand. 'I'm sorry to bother you. I tried to call, but no one answered. I just have a few quick questions.'
'Don't apologize. At my age, I'm grateful for any visitors.' He scowled at two cute little Asian girls skipping down the sidewalk, laughing happily. 'Especially if they're white. Come on, I got some coffee on the pot inside. Sit a spell.'
Miles followed him across the nonexistent yard into the house. There were piles of newspapers in the hall, a leaning broken-legged table covered with overturned beer cans in the living room, but the kitchen was surprisingly clean, and at Tibbert's insistence, Miles sat down on one of the bright yellow chairs arranged around a sparkling Formica table.
The old man stared out the window as he cleaned out two cups in the sink. 'Get out of here!' he yelled at someone outside, and Miles heard the sound of giggles and running feet.
Tibbert poured coffee and brought the two steaming cups to the table.
'Damn slopes are taking over. Whose country
is this anyway? I remember when this used to be a nice town to live in, before they ran all the white people off.'
Miles tried to smile politely. His gut reaction was to berate the old blizzard for his racist stupidity, but he couldn't afford to antagonize the man.
'Owen used to say that the chinks weren't as bad as the niggers or the Mexicans, but living here sure showed me that ain't true.'
That was his cue. Miles cleared his throat. 'Speaking of Owen, I'd like to ask you a few questions.' He pulled out the list, scanned it quickly--and spotted Tibbert's name.
He looked up at the old man in surprise. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to him that Tibbert would be on the list, too, and he hadn't bothered to so much as look at the paper since he'd left for Hollywood.
Miles thought for a moment. He wasn't sure how to bring up the subject, and finally he simply handed the paper over and said, 'There's a list here. Made by the father of my client. You and Owen are both on it. Could you tell me why you're on it, or what you have in common with the other men on the list?'
The old man looked at the piece of paper. There was no pause for thought, no racking of his brain, only a slight puzzlement. 'Oh, yeah,' he said. 'We all worked on the dam.' She's going after the dam builders, too. ; He'd almost forgotten about the crazy old lady in the mall, but the words of the homeless woman came back to him now, and a chill passed through his body, a shiver of cold that began at the back of his neck, wrapped around his heart, and continued down to the tips of his toes.
He stared stupidly at Tibbert, not knowing how to broach what he didn't even understand. A crazy old woman in a mall, a series of bizarre deaths, a list predicting the murder
of men who worked on a dam but now all lived in different parts of the country.
Montgomery Jones had been killed near a dam, he remembered.
It almost made sense. Almost. But the connections were still not quite tangible, and he could not for the life of him figure out what was going on here.
He was scared, though, and the most frightening thing was that the crazy woman in the mall had called him by his father's name.
Bob.t
Tibbert was looking down at the list, his finger following the silent movement of his lips as he read the names one by one. Every few seconds he would look quizzically up at Miles, but Miles stir did not know what to say.
He gathered himself together, took a deep breath, placed his own finger at the top of the paper. 'Several of these men,' Miles said slowly,
'have been killed recently. I've been hired by the daughter of one of them--Liam Connor-to find out why he is being stalked, why attempts have been made on his life. The list does not seem to be in any particular order, there's no way to predict what's going to happen, and that makes this whole thing a crap shoot That's why I have to try and get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. I can't just stake out someone's house or put a round the- dock guard on someone, because I don't know who's next or even if someone will be next.'
Tibbert nodded. 'Liam Connor. I remember him.' 'What can you tell me about Liam? Do you have any idea why someone would be after him? Why someone would be after any of these men?' 'Wolf Canyon,' the old man said.
'What?'
'It's not just the name of the dam, it was the name of the town.'
'What town?'
Tibbert suddenly looked much older. The sun was streaming through the kitchen window, emphasizing the lines on his face, but that was not what had affected his appearance. It was emotion that had added the weariness of years to his features.
'We dammed the Rio Verde,' he said. 'It was about twenty miles downriver of an existing dam, and between the two was a small town.
Wolf Canyon. The people there fought the dam project tooth and nail, but they lost, the courts ruled in the government's favor every time, and the dam went up. Finally, the project was completed, the governor and some senators and the vice president came out for the grand unveiling, and...' He shook his head. 'It was all ready, everything was a go, only Wolf Canyon... the town ' He trailed off
'What happened?' Miles prodded.
Tibbert leaned forward. 'It wasn't evacuated like it was supposed to be. There were people there when they
