‘I think under the circumstances, our producing three hundred thousand dollars cash on zero notice is rather impressive. With computerized banking we don’t stash as much cash in the vault as we used to. As I said, I’d be happy to arrange for a transfer of the balance to any-’
A cautious knock on the door, and then an attractive woman in a crisp pantsuit opened the door a crack. ‘Excuse me, sir. You have a phone call.’
‘You know very well, Jolene, that when the door to the back office is closed-’
‘I was told it’s
A red light blinked on the telephone sitting on the corner desk.
The manager stiffened. He nodded at Mike and turned for the desk.
Mike threw the remaining bundles into the bag and walked briskly out.
‘Daddy, why are we here? These people are scary.’
‘We’re going to catch a ride out of here in a second, Kat.’
‘Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. Soon.’
South of Devonshire in Chatsworth. The shortest distance to the shittiest neighborhood. Weeds rose through cracked sidewalks, vining their way through fallen chain-link. Kicked-in front doors were spray-painted with blood reds and metallic greens:
Mike was horrified that he’d brought Kat here. But he was more horrified of what might happen to her if he allowed whoever was chasing them to catch up.
The gleaming Ford crawled along, drawing stares, a few people shouting at them, their words blurred to senselessness by the purr of the engine. A knock on the back window startled Kat into a shriek. A bony face loomed, caved cheeks and suppurating smile, the outside door handle click-clicking against the lock.
Mike accelerated, the bony face falling away, and turned the corner. An elderly man backed an ancient Volvo out of a driveway and Mike pulled tight behind him, blocking him in. The man climbed out indignantly to meet him, scraggles of gray hair fringing the drooping line of his jaw.
‘Boy, don’t you think you can intimidate me. I been living here since before your daddy’s-’
Mike held up three hundred-dollar bills. ‘This is for you to wait for us. Two minutes. We’ll come back. I’ll pay you double this to give us a ride.’
‘I was born at night, boy, but not
Mike stuffed the money into the man’s wrinkled hand. ‘Just a ride.’
He drove back to the worst run of meth houses, stopped in the middle of the street and climbed out, leaving the driver’s door open and the engine running. Slinging the bank bag over a shoulder, he scooped up Kat from the backseat as he used to when she was an infant. Terrified, she buried her face in his neck. He jogged with her, her breath steaming against his throat.
Reaching the quiet intersection, he looked back. Stick figures circled the pickup, flickering past the bright beams, heads cocked. It would only be a matter of time. And Dodge or William or Graham could spend the night running down a junkie joyride while Mike got Kat somewhere safe.
He turned and jogged to where the elderly man stood waiting.
He and Kat cut across Jimmy’s ragged front lawn, dodging car parts and a rusting lawn mower that had deteriorated into the brown grass. Mike had asked the old man to drop them off several blocks away, and they’d run to cover the distance.
Kat hid behind Mike’s back as he rang Jimmy’s bell.
Jimmy tugged the door open, facing away toward the interior. ‘-get the damned armchair off the front lawn.’
A disembodied feminine voice. ‘Why should you care?’
‘Because I ain’t havin’ no duct-taped La-Z-Boy on my lawn, that’s why.’
Shelly appeared in the hall, pale slender fingers forked around an ash-heavy cigarette. ‘You’re a credit to your race.’ Her gaze shifted, taking note of Mike before Jimmy did, and then she pinched her bathrobe closed and trudged back out of sight.
Jimmy’s head swiveled. ‘Wingate? What the hell you doing here?’
‘I need help.’
‘Fight with the wife? Shit, I don’t blame you. Ever since Shelly and I got back together…’ Jimmy growled a low note of frustration. ‘You know when she wants to have sex?
Kat moved into view behind Mike, and Jimmy said, ‘Shi
Mike said, ‘I need something to drive.’
‘You want your truck back?’
‘I’m in trouble, Jimmy.’
Jimmy looked from Mike to Kat, seeming to register the severity of the situation.
A minute later they were in the quiet of Jimmy’s garage. Mike settled Kat into the passenger seat of the Toyota, the familiar smell of his old pickup a badly needed piece of comfort. He pointed at the toolbox mounted over the wheel well. ‘We need to empty that?’
‘Nah,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’s all your shit anyways.’
‘Can I switch the plates?’ Mike asked. ‘With the Mazda?’
‘It’s Shel’s car, but hell, I pay the note on it.’
He helped Mike replace the plates, and then Mike shook his hand. ‘Thank you, Jimmy. I’ll make this up to you.’
‘Nothing you haven’t done for me already.’
Jimmy stood and watched as Mike backed out. ‘Going to find Just John?’ he called out.
Mike drove off thinking,
The Days Inn required a credit card, so they’d wound up closer to the city in one of the run-down motels across from Universal Studios. From what Mike gleaned, the place catered to thrifty tourists and people looking to rent a bed in hour intervals. A single-story strip of rooms lining a narrow parking lot, it was the Bates Motel sans taxidermy victims. Car exhaust and the screech-and-honk of Ventura Boulevard two blocks away assailed the senses. The front-desk clerk, a collection of tattoos shaped like a man, was only too happy to take a cash deposit.
The overnight parking form asked for a vehicle license number, making Mike glad he’d switched the plates in Jimmy’s garage. In the room he dropped the bag of cash in the corner and emptied his pockets onto the bedspread. Two cell phones, money clip, change, a half-used ChapStick he carried for Kat. He closed the blinds. An internal door connected to a room next door, which he’d also rented so Kat would have somewhere to sleep undisturbed while he conducted whatever grim business the night would hold.
Kat lay curled in the fetal position on the bed, and he sat to pet her head. She made a little noise and shifted so she could hug him around the waist. He bent and gathered her clumsily into his arms, smelling her hair, taking her in. Her warmth. The tiny fingers. The fragile stalk of neck. That smooth skin – not a crease, not a wrinkle. He looked up to keep his tears from falling, did his best to freeze his chest so she wouldn’t sense the shift in his breathing.
He owed her an explanation –
He went into the bathroom to shore himself up. Leaning over the chipped sink beneath the flecked mirror, he took his reflection’s measure. He was nearly unrecognizable. Pink-rimmed eyes, pasty flesh, sweat-dark hair swirled this way and that. No wonder Kat was so terrified.
With horror he saw that blood had dried beneath the fingernails of his left hand. He dug at the black crescents with his other nails, shoving his fingers under the stream of boiling water, but the flakes were stubborn and would not budge. He stopped suddenly, steam rising from the sink, moistening his cheeks. The dried blood beneath his nails was the only part of Annabel he had left.
