Survival Of The Fittest

downtown before heading back to Crenshaw but there'd be no reason for him to wander in there. And he was pretty good with that cane, knew the street layout.”

“So he was lured,” I said. “What about family?”

“None- lucky for Bob Pierce. Myers has been living alone for the last five years, since his mother died. Apparently she sheltered him and after she was gone he decided to pull himself together. First he took some training at the braille center, then he enrolled at the school. They've got an eighteen-month computer program and he was acing it. The address on Stocker is a state-financed group home.”

Sharavi removed the black-matte pistol and placed it next to the computer. “A blind man… my contact back east called me while you were gone. He's found nothing on Meta in New York, but the lawyer who wrote that article in The Pathfinder-Farley Sanger- is still practicing at the same Wall Street firm. The editor- that woman stock analyst, Helga Cranepool- is still working at her job, too. Neither of them comes up in Lexis, so Sanger doesn't go to court on important cases. My source says the firm does estate planning for rich people.”

“What kind of car does he drive?” said Milo. “What kind of shampoo does he use?”

“Mercedes station wagon, one year old. I'll try to find out about the shampoo. And if he uses cream rinse.”

Milo laughed.

Sharavi said, “The Mercedes is registered in Connecticut. Sanger's got a home in Darien and an apartment on East Sixty-ninth Street. He's forty-one years old, married, has two children, a boy and a girl, no record of criminal activity.”

“So Sanger's being watched.”

“For a while. I also looked up Zena Lambert, the bookstore clerk. No criminal record for her, either. She's twenty-eight years old, lives on Rondo Vista Street in Silverlake. The bookstore's nearby. She has a MasterCard but rarely uses it. Last year, she earned eighteen thousand dollars.”

He smiled. “I'll check into her hair-care, as well.”

“You surveilling her, too?” said Milo.

“Not without your agreement.”

“How long are you planning to surveil Sanger?”

“Long as necessary. In view of his belief that retarded people are- what was the phrase, Dr. Delaware-”

“Meat without mentation,” I said.

“- meat without mentation, it seems a good idea, maybe he'll do something that tells us more about the group. On both coasts.”

“Speaking of coasts, any chance of accessing his travel records?” said Milo. “Corporate lawyers fly back and forth all the time, nice cover.”

“Good idea,” said Sharavi. “I'll do it tomorrow, when offices open in New York. In view of Myers's murder, I did call all the major hotels here in L.A., just to check if Sanger's registered and he's not. But he could be traveling under a different name.”

“Thanks for all the work.”

Sharavi shrugged. “What next?”

“I've got an appointment to meet with Mrs. Grosperrin tomorrow morning, see if I can learn more about Myers, why he was lured, as opposed to some other student.”

“For one, he was black,” I said. “Every single victim- except Ponsico- was non-Anglo.”

“A racist eugenicist,” said Sharavi.

“The two have generally gone together. A look at the books Spasm sells might give us some information. Something tells me the place doesn't specialize in children's literature. When do I go?”

Sharavi's eyebrows rose.

Milo told him, “He wants to play Superspy. I blame you.”

“Are you thinking of going as yourself, Doctor?”

“I wasn't planning to show ID.”

“Then maybe you should take alternative ID.” Sharavi turned to Milo. “It's the kind of thing I could be helpful with.”

“Undercover hoo-hah?” said Milo.

“For his protection. If he's up for a bit of role-playing.”

Talking about me in the third person.

Sharavi gave me an appraising look. “You've already made progress on a beard.”

38

At that point, something in the room changed.

Milo and Sharavi found several points of agreement:

Undercover work was serious business- temporary dissociation, Sharavi called it.

“We're talking a visit to a bookstore,” I said.

“A visit that could lead to something, Doctor. You need to be extremely careful from the start.”

“Meaning?”

“Go as someone else, get comfortable being someone else.”

“Fine.”

“And,” said Milo, “you need Robin's okay on this.”

“Don't you think this is a little-”

“No, Alex, I don't. What will probably happen is you'll go there, look at some weird books, come home. Even if you do hook up with Meta, it could dead-end, maybe they're just weenies. But Daniel and I both know police work's ninety-nine percent boredom, one percent panic at the unexpected. We are dealing with a person who stabbed a blind man in the back.”

He asked Sharavi, “How long would it take you to get him false papers?”

“Half a day,” said the Israeli, “for driver's license, credit cards, social security. I can also get him clothes, if that's necessary, and a car.”

“The address on the ID,” said Milo. “Bogus or real?”

“Real is better- I know of a place in the Valley that's available right now, but I may also be able to find one in the city.”

“Just cover or actual use?”

“In the event of a prolonged role-play, he could use it.”

Milo turned to me. “What if you need to move for a while, Alex? Are you ready for that?”

Hard voice. I knew what he was thinking. The last time I'd relocated, the move had been coerced. Running from the psychopath who'd burned my house down.

“I assume we're not talking long-term.”

“Probably days, not weeks,” said Milo. “But what about patients?”

“No active ones,” I said. Since Helena Dahl had dropped out. I thought of her brother, another high-IQ suicide…

“What about old patients in crisis?”

“I can always check in with my service. Most of what I've got is paperwork- reports due.”

“Good,” said Sharavi. “So far, your lifestyle seems to fit this nicely.”

Milo frowned.

They both gave me more rules:

In order to avoid accidental slipups, I needed to use a false name similar to my real one and a personal history that grew out of my own.