were all I needed for that.
The yellow note had San Quentin Prison printed across the bottom. Above that, in black letters, the initials C.T. were printed slantways, along with a phone number that had an Axminster exchange.
There was a phone in Elana’s bedroom, but it was dead, so we let Fearless’s new pet into the backseat and drove toward a gas station on Slauson. I didn’t want to bring the dog, but I didn’t have the time to argue with Fearless either.
I did say, “Don’t you think somebody’s gonna miss his pet?”
“If he had a collar or license I’d take him home right this minute,” Fearless replied. “You know a dog catcher could be givin’ him cyanide tomorrow if we just let him go.”
That was the end of our discussion.
When we got to the gas station I put a nickel into the slot. C.T., whoever that was, was a long shot. But it was the only shot we had.
He answered on the first ring. “Leon, is that you, man?” His voice sounded like a metal file rasping against stone.
“C.T.?” I asked, disguising my voice just in case this rough man ever heard me speak again.
“Who is?” he asked.
“It’s me — Dingo,” I said. I regretted the name as soon as I said it. I was scared stupid.
“Who?”
“Leon told me to call you up. He wanted me to come and get you but —”
“Get me? Man, I could hardly sit up straight.”
“Leon said to come help —”
“You a doctor?”
“I can take care’a you,” I said, trying to make my fake voice sound certain. “I got a brother used to be a medic in the army with me.”
There was silence on the line.
“C.T.?”
“Why you callin’ me that?”
“That’s what Leon wrote on the paper, man. Ain’t that you? I mean if —”
“When you gonna get here?” he asked, interrupting me for the third time.
“That’s why I called. He wrote down your initials and phone, but I can’t read the address. Clinton sumpin’.”
“Clinton?” C.T. moaned. “Denker, man. Twenty-nine sixty-nine Denker. Super’s apartment.”
“Be right there,” I said in a husky voice that would have fooled even my mother.
“YOU GOT my pistol, Paris?” Fearless asked over the loud barking in the backseat.
“I told you already, the girl stole it.”
“That was my gun she took from you?”
“Yes.” I took the left onto Denker.
“An’ now you want me to walk unarmed into the house of a friend of a ex-con nearly killed you yesterday?”
“He don’t know me, Fearless. I’ll just walk in there an’ tell him I’m Leon’s friend.” Finding that phone number and fooling C.T. had given me a sense of control.
“What if he was the one sittin’ next to Leon when he was chasin’ yo’ ass down the street?”
“Shit.” My fingers went suddenly cold.
“That’s okay, man. I’ll go in first. But you owe me a pistol.”
THE ADDRESS C.T. had given us was a court of apartments at the corner of Horn. We left the dog in the car. The super’s apartment was listed under the name of Conrad Benjamin Till. Whoever designed the court must have been a fan of Minos’s maze. After every two doorways there was another turn. I lost my sense of direction almost immediately.
Most of the apartments were dark, as the next day was a workday. We went past a pair of teenagers having some kinda sex behind a skimpy rosebush. I don’t know if they saw us, but they sure didn’t stop.
NO ONE ANSWERED when we rang Conrad’s bell. No one called out when we knocked. Fearless had brought Layla’s tire iron in lieu of a pistol and used it on the door. The sound of that doorjamb being wrenched open by that twelve-pound tire iron was frightening; loud and whining with reports like small-caliber gunshots now and then. I looked around to see if anyone
