“They screwed up on the forensics. It’s a woman’s tongue.
Probably from a medical school.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a great tip. We’ll try to get it right.”
Broker nodded, they walked to the closet, carefully skirting the puzzle. She gave him his coat. As he pulled it on, his eyes swept the living room, and sitting on a cabinet shelf, he saw a framed photograph. Tom James’s sincere face, glasses, longish hair, and mustache. A regular “Minnesota Nice” poster boy.
“You have an extra copy of that picture?” he asked.
Ida shrugged, crossed the room, plucked the picture off the shelf and tossed it to him. “He’s all yours.”
51
Danny, wearing his new contact lenses, his hair combed back, made money plans at thirty-five thousand feet.
The problem with cash was it attracted attention. Even relatively small amounts consistently deposited in a bank would arouse suspicion. Most successful laundering schemes involved other people. Setting up a cash-and- carry business, falsifying books.
Danny wasn’t interested in trusting other people. Or lugging “twenny bricks” to the Cayman Islands.
He would fix up houses. He would write. And slowly.
SLOWLY. Very slowly, he would take weekend trips to casinos. He’d just play the slots at first. The long-odds megajackpot slots. He’d invest thousands of quarters and dollars. Until he hit a jackpot.
It might take years. But once he did, he’d have a legitimate income. He’d pay taxes. He could invest. He’d become known as a professional gambler who was expected to deal with large amounts of cash.
How long did it take to drive from Santa Cruz to Tahoe, Reno, Las Vegas?
Danny smiled and hugged his worn brown parka.
Twenny bricks. Flying with the sun. He pictured the barren cistern in the woods, above Highway 61, under a featherbed of fresh undisturbed snow.
He shut his eyes and imagined walking through the doors of the Sands. The sounds, the smells, the coin-song of the trays.
From the window seat, he watched the great plains pucker into the steep, shadowed wrinkles of the Rocky Mountains.
Two more deputy marshals, who had taken vows of silence, escorted him to San Jose. The jet wallowed down through about a mile of clouds and landed with a splash in rain puddles under an overcast early afternoon sky. Sunny California had the El Nino flu.
In the small terminal, the escorts turned him over to a tanned man with a confident smile. Early thirties, he was part bodybuilder, part cowboy, in a lightweight sports coat, black T-shirt, faded jeans, cowboy boots and sunglasses.
One of the escorts said, “He’s all yours, Travis.” And they ambled away.
Travis smiled, displaying perfect California teeth. A tiny stud twinkled in his left ear, and his styled hair had been ir-radiated to the color of ash by the sun.
“Inspector Joe Travis, pleased to meet you,” he said, holding out a brown muscular hand. Danny saw a strap when the collar of Travis’s coat shifted. Wearing a gun in a shoulder holster.
“Danny Storey,” said Danny, shaking confidently.
“Prove it,” challenged Travis, tightening his grip.
Danny froze, explored Travis’s merry prankster smile and resolved to show no fear. “Hey, what is this?” he demanded.
“Ground zero orientation. Survival lesson number one coming up-where is the center of gravity in your new world?”
Danny studied this young, assured, armed weight lifter.
Caught the drift. “You are the center of gravity.”
“Good,” said Travis. “You feel the slightest vibration, the tiniest temblor, you get on the horn to Travis. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Hell, pardner.” Travis slapped him on the back. “This is going to go off slicker than whale shit.”
They were walking out of the terminal toward the parking lot. Danny asked, “You’re from the West, right?”
“Snowflake, Arizona.”
Danny took a Power Bar from his pocket and tore off the wrapper. Made a joke. “Are there any marshals from, say, the Midwest or East?”
Travis’s hand shot out and intercepted the energy bar wrapper. “Gotta watch that out here. You can’t litter or smoke anywhere anymore. Not even beer joints. You drop a butt or a wrapper anywhere outside and it’s a two- hundred-dollar fine.”
“Jesus,” said Danny, as he devoured the Power Bar.
“Fine his ass out here, too, they catch him littering in public. You’re in California, man,” quipped Travis. After several steps, he asked, “Now, what were you saying?”
Danny shook his head. He had just discovered how won-derful the blase air tasted. Under luminous clouds he strolled through an open-air greenhouse. “When’s the last time it snowed here?”
“Oh, that’s good, I like that.”
Travis led him to a mud-spattered Chevy pickup. Under the thick coat of dirt it might have once been maroon. New tires, though. The box was piled full of sawhorses, scaffolding and several large plywood, pad-locked boxes.
They got in, Travis turned it over and the engine purred.
“Like the ad says. Like a rock.” He wheeled from the lot into traffic and onto a freeway. A small portable cooler sat on the seat between them. Travis popped it open and took out a can of diet Coke. “Help yourself,” he said.
Danny selected a Sprite and leaned back while Travis dodged through lanes of congested traffic. They passed an orange Kharmann Ghia, a mustard Volvo, an eggshell blue Saab; makes and colors more exotic and expensive than Danny was used to seeing on Minnesota highways.
“Trying to beat the rush to the hill,” Travis explained. “All this around here is Silicon Valley. Right over there.” He swung his pop can at a jungle of vegetation and buildings.
“That’s Cupertino, where Steve Jobs did his thing. You into computers?”
“Sure,” said Danny.
“Only way to go. Everywhere you look it’s Startup City, people out in their garages working on the next software coup so they can be bought out by MicroSquash.
“Problem is, a lot of the gearheads work here but live with the potheads, over the hill in Santa Cruz. And there’s only one road over the mountains. Highway seventeen. Accurately nicknamed the Highway of Death.”
Travis wasn’t exaggerating. The tortured road snaked through cuts in the hills. A steel guardrail fortified the center line. There was no shoulder. And no room to escape between the rail and the stark rock, both of which were scarred with auto paint. Tiny galaxies of shattered glass sprinkled the edge of the pavement.
“See what I mean,” admonished Travis. “I was you, I’d stay put on the other side of this damn mountain.”
Crossing the peak, Travis identified where the San Andreas fault came through. Then they started to descend into the Pajaro Valley. Danny had a contact high-hot metal, gasoline, cooked rubber, rain-plump vegetation, all marinated in the delicious air.
Travis interrupted his travelogue. “Hey, you’re a college graduate, right?”
Figuring he was being tested, Danny responded, “Nah, I went a few years at Wayne State in Detroit.”
