‘You want her back,’ he said.
Mike said, ‘Yes.’
‘Safe.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you have to be nothing.
‘Yes.’
‘Get some sleep. We start early.’
Mike cleaned up the room a bit and lay on the mattress. Beside him Shep’s eyes were closed and his breathing regular, but Mike couldn’t tell if he was out or not.
The ceiling was cracked in infinite patterns, a tangle of tree roots.
Mike said, ‘I will never turn my back on you again.’
Silence. Mike figured Shep was asleep, but then he answered, ‘You done with your conscience yet? ’Cuz where we’re going, it’s gonna get in the way.’
They lay there in the darkness. Mike was unsure when he crossed into sleep, but when he awoke to the sound of the shower, the clock showed 4:14 A.M. Shep emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, towel around his waist, the shower left running behind him like in the old days when they had to cycle six or seven bodies through on any given morning before the hot water ran out.
Mike said, ‘I should probably ditch the car I stole.’
Shep tossed him a set of keys, then crossed and parted the curtains. Gleaming in the front spot was a forest green Saab.
Reluctantly, Mike matched Shep’s smirk. He showered off, then swiped the steam from the mirror. Shep’s Dopp kit was sitting there on the metal ledge, the electric clippers poking up into view. Mike lifted the razor and turned it this way and that, as if reviewing an old photograph. The plastic blade guards were loose in the Dopp kit. He found the right attachment, snapped it on.
Shep called out through the door, ‘Ready?’
The clippers sat heavy in Mike’s hand, like a weapon. The mirror had misted over again, so he cleared it with a washcloth and studied his reflection.
Then he turned on the razor and took his hair down to foster-home length. He toweled off his head and stepped out into the main room.
‘Ready,’ he said.
Shoulder to shoulder, they headed into the parking lot.
Chapter 43
Mike followed directions and asked no questions. He used the drive to iron out his thoughts, smoothing his resolve until it was as uniform and unwavering as the road ahead. The Saab blazed over the Grapevine through Bakersfield and the long flat tract of middle California, onion fields and truck stops, dust croppers feinting low over the 5 like something out of Hitchcock. Skirting the edge of San Jose, they pushed north through Sacramento and kept on toward Redding.
Around the nine-hour mark, Shep said, ‘Exit here.’ Mike pulled off in Red Bluff and followed Shep’s instructions through the old-fashioned downtown. ‘Left. Right. Your
Before them a city registrar’s office occupied a single-story adobe building. The L-shaped parking lot was long and narrow, hemmed in by concrete-block walls protecting apartment complexes on either side. It had exits on both ends, which could prove useful depending on what was going to go down. Mike cocked an eyebrow, and Shep said, ‘Registrar’s a good place for a con woman to work. Bogus building permits, fake deeds, notary stamps floating around.’
The Saab’s idle was so smooth the car might have been turned off. From the passenger seat, Shep had the better view of the glass front door. The.357 pressed coolly against the small of Mike’s back. They sat. And they waited – 5:03 P.M… 5:07…
Shep pointed. Sure enough, the woman Mike knew as Dana Riverton emerged. She’d kept the same bland look she’d used when she’d met Mike at the cafe – librarian’s spectacles, conservative blouse, brown hair in no discernible cut. He wondered if she powdered over the jailhouse tattoo on her thumb webbing every morning before reporting to work.
When Mike climbed out, Shep waited behind by some implicit understanding. The air felt cool against Mike’s cropped scalp. He caught her a few steps from the door.
‘Kiki Dupleshney?’
She turned quickly. A half-second delay while she placed him. A few colleagues scooted past, and she shot them a nervous smile even while her eyes blazed with anger. ‘You must have me confused with someone else.’ The others passed out of earshot, and she fumbled a cigarette from her purse and lit up. ‘The fuck you want?’
‘Who hired you?’
She grinned sweetly and blew smoke in Mike’s face, her filter sporting a pink dimple of lipstick. She enunciated clearly, accustomed to talking to idiots. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Why do they want to kill me and my daughter?’
‘Gee. Dunno.’
‘My wife is in intensive care,’ Mike said. ‘My daughter and I are on the run. You had a role in this.’
Kiki played an imaginary violin between thumb and forefinger. ‘That’s how the Darwin game goes. Sorry.’
‘I’m going to find the men threatening us,’ Mike said. ‘I’m going to stop them. And you’re going to help me.’ Kiki started to walk away, but he grabbed her thick arm, hard. ‘No matter what I have to do, I will put my family back together. Do you understand me?’
She ripped her arm free, spilling her purse. ‘I don’t give a fuck about your wife. And I don’t give a fuck if they
She crouched and started collecting her things from the asphalt.
Mike walked back to the Saab. Set his hands on the steering wheel. He was breathing hard and could feel the heat of Shep’s stare on the side of his face.
Kiki finished stuffing items in her purse and continued on her way. She aimed her keys at the far end of the lot, and headlights blinked on a maroon Sebring convertible. They watched her drop her purse in the backseat and flick her cigarette butt at a row of trash cans behind the building. She climbed in, breeze blowing her hair, and touched up her lipstick in the rearview.
Mike reached up and clicked a button, and the sunroof whirred open.
‘Get out,’ he said.
Shep said, ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
Shep shrugged and stepped out.
Mike dropped the pedal to the floor, leaving two streaks of rubber scorched into the asphalt. The Saab fishtailed but held course, and Kiki was reversing out of her space when she looked up and shrieked. The Saab hit her at a straight perpendicular, T-boning the Sebring and driving it into the retaining wall. The Saab’s air bag deployed with a sound like an upside-down bowl hitting water. Concrete crumbled around the convertible, chunks spilling through the open top into the backseat. Steam hissed up from the Saab’s wrinkled hood.
Mike shoved aside the air bag. His door was crumpled, so he pulled himself up through the sunroof. The two vehicles were melded together. A continuous spray of wiper fluid shot in a poetic arc. Kiki lay flopped onto the steering wheel, the horn blaring, her seat belt still unfastened. A spurt of blood darkened her upper lip.
Straddling the two cars, Mike hooked her beneath the chin, ripped her up out of her seat, and flung her onto the
