Avoiding anyone associated with the newsroom, I quickly ducked into the downstairs office of classified advertising. Following Hocus’s instructions, I paid for an ad in the personals section that read “John Oakhurst, come home.”
Geoffrey, the day shift security guard, had never failed to do me any kindness he could manage, and he kept his record at one hundred percent when I asked him if all the pool cars were spoken for. He didn’t answer yes or no, just handed me a set of keys and said, “Drive carefully.”
“Thanks,” I said, and started to leave. I stopped at the front doors and turned back. I handed him the cellular phone and said, “When the Las Piernas Police Department comes looking for me, please give them their phone.”
He laughed his wheezy laugh and said, “Sure.”
I parked the pool car several blocks away from the burned-out warehouse, not even driving past it, although the temptation was great. But I knew there would still be some activity there, investigators sifting through the rubble, so I avoided it. Frank isn’t there, I told myself. Prayed to God it was true.
I got out of the car and started walking. The night before, as we had stayed penned in our enclosure, I had thought about this neighborhood. Now, walking through it, I was fairly certain that Hocus was still nearby.
Whether or not they had been seen entering it, Hocus had been in the warehouse. I was betting they hadn’t moved far. First, Frank wouldn’t be easy to move. If he were awake, he might escape. That meant he was probably still doped up on morphine, all the more likely if they were sticking to their plan of increasing his dosages.
As I had told Bredloe, I didn’t think the arrival of the police at the warehouse had been a surprise — they had been beckoned there. Only two people were in the warehouse when the fire was set; Faye Taft was very likely the “prone” person in the warehouse. So Frank had been moved and had had to be watched by Samuel or Bret.
Bret, most likely, I decided. Faye was Samuel’s girlfriend. I couldn’t be sure it was Samuel who stayed there to make sure she burned up with the building, but there was something in the way he had spoken of her that made me believe he was capable of it. And I remembered Regina Szal telling me that Bret had passed out at the sight of blood. Bret, I had decided, made an unlikely killer.
Samuel had to have left on foot. Any escape in a vehicle would have been impossible. Either he disguised himself as an official — a firefighter or SWAT team member — or he had left by some concealed exit.
When I was about a block north and two blocks east of the warehouse, I slowed down, started paying more attention to the neighborhood. I walked past a shoe repair shop with a faded cardboard sign in the window that said “We closed Mondays.” There was a comic book store next to it. I glanced in, saw five or six customers, all who seemed to be men in their thirties. I kept walking.
When I reached the row of shops directly behind the warehouse, I began to get the distinct impression that someone was following me. Paranoia required no effort on my part at this point, so I ducked into a small cafe. All the tables were covered with plastic-coated, red-and-white-checkered tablecloths. There were dusty plastic vases with dusty plastic flowers in them. I sat at a table in the back, only to glance down and notice that a large fly was in final repose on one of the red checkers.
“We don’t open for lunch for another hour,” a voice called from the back.
“I’m in luck, then,” I said under my breath, then stood up and walked toward the voice. A large, rough-faced man in a dirty apron filled up most of a narrow hallway. His arms were covered with tattoos. He was lighting a cigarette.
I looked back toward the street, just in time to see Reed Collins peer in through the window. After seeing nothing but empty tables, he walked on.
“You want something, lady?” Mr. Culinary Arts asked.
“Could I use your rest room?”
“Look, we’re closed.”
I reached into my jeans and pulled out a buck. “Could I use your rest room?” I asked again.
He looked skeptical. “A lousy buck?”
“Even pay toilets used to only cost a nickel,” I said.
He took a long drag on the cigarette. “So did a candy bar. Stop or you’ll make me cry.”
After glancing back at the window, I pulled out a second dollar. He snatched the bills from my fingers and said, “Make yourself at home.”
The bathroom was past the kitchen, and judging from the sweltering heat in the tiny room, the ovens were on the other side of one wall. I flipped on the light switch, which also turned on a fan that sounded like a tank battalion crossing a metal bridge but did nothing to cool the room. The switch also apparently signaled an air freshener dispenser to have multiple orgasms — it found its release again and again. The toilet and sink were rust stained, the floor was sticky, and toilet paper seemed to be on a BYO roll basis.
Thank God I didn’t have to go.
Trying not to touch
When I couldn’t take it any longer, I stepped out.
“He turned right at the corner,” the cook said.
“Who?”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “The cop you’re avoiding. Plainclothes guy.”
“He came in here?”
“No. Like I said, went around the corner to the right.”
“How could you tell he was a cop?” I asked.
