Hocus

intended.

“Where was the fax machine?” Bret asked.

“There in the airport. A commercial one. Self-service.”

“Oh, so you didn’t have to hand it to anyone else.” Frank heard the relief in Bret’s voice.

“No,” Samuel said. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, Faye, he didn’t make a mistake. He ran into unforeseen difficulties and found a creative way around them. Which is what an intelligent person does when he encounters the unexpected. A lesser person would have given up.”

“You still haven’t heard just how creative this greater person was. How do you suppose he paid for the fax?”

Silence.

“He stole a woman’s wallet,” she said.

“Faye, I removed one credit card from a wallet and returned the wallet and everything else that was in it to the woman’s bag — all before she even knew it was missing. The charges for the fax are so small, she’ll never have to pay them herself. So try some new way to make trouble.”

“Faye, did you have some problem with the contractor?” Bret asked.

“None,” she answered quickly. “Now, when do I get to take a peek at our guest?”

“You don’t,” Bret answered. “It’s very difficult for him to be in this situation. It would make him feel ashamed to have others see him as a hostage.”

“But he’s asleep! He’ll never know!”

“Doesn’t anyone’s dignity matter to you, Faye?” Samuel asked.

“Honestly! As if a guy who’s knocked out on morphine is going to know who looked at him.”

“People aren’t exhibits,” Samuel said. “This isn’t a zoo or a carnival. Right now, I feel a greater affinity to that man than I do to you. I know what it’s like to have someone else view you as a curiosity. It stinks.”

“We have a lot to do,” Bret said. “We should get to work.”

Faye seemed to understand that it was time to drop the subject. Frank kept listening, but most of what he heard was the sound of the trunks being moved.

He listened and lay wondering why Bret had allowed this wakefulness. When he wasn’t thinking about that, he was thinking about the cop in the story that Bret had given him to read, and Bakersfield, and men who had always made him proud of being a cop, men who had always treated him like a son.

Again and again he thought of Irene, and things he wished he had told her more times than he had.

30

I WATCHED AS CASSIDY’S FACE CHANGED, from weary to suddenly alert. He didn’t say much to the caller. He listened, looked at his watch, and said, “Great. I’ll call back just as soon as I can.”

He put the phone away and smiled. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but our luck just might be changing. That was Hank. We’ve had a couple of breaks.

“First, seems a fellow who just got back in town picked up his newspapers from his neighbor’s house and saw a familiar face on the front page of the Las Piernas News Express. It was Samuel Ryan’s photo that drew his attention. Seems he was hired by Ryan — who was using a different name — to do some peculiar unpermitted work on a building. So after wrestling with his conscience and calling his lawyer, he’s on his way down to the department to have a little talk. But from the sounds of it, there’s a possibility that this man can lead us to where they’re holding Frank.”

“What kind of peculiar work?”

“No real details on that yet,” he said.

“Cassidy—”

“A soundproof room of some sort.”

“Oh, Christ….”

“Don’t think like that. It won’t help.”

“No, no — of course not,” I said. “You’re right. Any minute now, we could know where he is. That’s what’s important.”

I was trying hard to convince myself, and he knew it, but he was kind enough not to point it out. He went on to say that the other break had been here in Bakersfield. Detectives had spent time checking out rental car agencies, asking if anyone recalled customers who smelled of aftershave. They’d come across one agency that said no customer smelling of after-shave had been in, but one of their vans had come back reeking of the stuff.

They had been a little surprised, because the van had been rented and returned to them by a woman — who matched the description of the woman in Hocus. The detectives had the van at the crime lab now, but the fragrance had definitely matched the scent on the abandoned “old man’s” clothing.

Her name, according to their records and her driver’s license, was Faye Taft. She had given an address and a credit card number. The rental car agency was near the airport — and Bakersfield PD had learned that Faye Taft also had a pilot’s license. Her flight plans had been to Torrance, and she had left just after the incident at the library. The Torrance Airport confirmed that her plane had been there, but she’d then flown on to Las Piernas.

“Do you think it could have been a woman who approached you?” Cassidy asked.

“Maybe, but for reasons I can’t exactly name, I’m fairly sure it was a man. Besides, if the person who approached me showed up at the rental counter, they would have smelled the aftershave.”