I nodded and looked over at the workbench.
“Then let me just get to my car and I’ll get out of here.”
“Did they hurt you, Harry?”
I looked at her. I think she really cared about the answer.
“No, I’m all right.”
“Okay.”
“Uh, Danny, I need to get something from Law’s sitting room. Should I go in or can you get it for me? What would be better?”
“What is it?”
“The clock.”
“The clock? Why? You gave it to him.”
“I know. But I need it back.”
A look of annoyance came across her face. I thought maybe the clock had been a point of argument between them, and now I was taking it back.
“I’ll get it but I’m telling him you’re the one taking it off the wall.”
I nodded. She went inside the house and I went around the Malibu and found a dolly leaning against the workbench. I took a pair of pliers and a screwdriver off the Peg-Board and went back to the Mercedes.
After throwing my jacket into the car I got down on the dolly and slid under the car. It took me less than a minute to find the black box. A satellite tracker about the size of a hardback book was held to the gas tank with two industrial-size strip magnets. There was a twist to the setup I hadn’t seen before. A wire extended from the box to the exhaust pipe where it was connected to a heat sensor. When the pipe heated up, the sensor switched on the tracker, conserving the unit’s battery when the vehicle wasn’t moving. The boys on the ninth floor got the good stuff.
I decided then to leave the box in place and slid out from underneath the car. Danny was standing there, holding the clock. She had taken the back off, exposing the camera.
“I thought it was too heavy for just a wall clock,” she said.
I started getting up.
“Look, Danny…”
“You were spying on us. You didn’t believe me, did you?”
“Danny, that’s not what I want it for. Those men that came here last -”
“But it is what you put it on that wall for. Where’s the tape?”
“What?”
“The tape. Where did you watch this?”
“I didn’t. It’s digital. It’s all right there in the clock.”
That was a mistake. As I reached for the clock she raised it up over her head and then threw it down to the concrete floor. The glass shattered and the camera broke loose from the clock shell and skittered under the Mercedes.
“Goddamnit, Danny. It isn’t mine.”
“I don’t care whose it is. You had no right to do that.”
“Look, Law told me you weren’t treating him right. What was I supposed to do? Just take your word for it?”
I got down on the floor and looked under the car. The camera was within reach and I pulled it out. The casing was badly scratched but I could not make any judgment about its interior mechanisms. I ejected the memory card the way Andre Biggar had taught me and it looked okay to me. I stood up and held it up for Danny to see.
“This might be the only thing that keeps those men from coming back. You better hope it’s not damaged.”
“I don’t care. And I hope you really enjoy what you see on it. I hope you’re very proud of yourself when you watch it.”
I had no response for that.
“Don’t come back here ever again.”
She turned and went into the house, her hand slapping the wall button, which brought the garage door up behind me. She closed the house’s door without looking back at me. I waited a moment to see if she would reappear and throw another verbal attack at me. But she didn’t. I pocketed the memory card and then squatted down to gather the pieces of the broken clock.
22
At Burbank Airport I parked in the long-term lot, got my bag out and took the tram to the terminal. At the Southwest counter I used a credit card to buy a round-trip ticket to Las Vegas on a flight leaving in less than an hour. I kept the return open. I then proceeded through the security checkpoint, waiting in line like everybody else. I put my bag on the conveyor and dropped my watch, car keys and the camera’s memory card into a plastic bowl so I would not set off the metal detector. I realized I had left my cell in the Mercedes and then thought, just as well, they might use it to triangulate my location.
Near the departure gate I stopped and bought a ten-dollar phone card and took it to a nearby bank of pay phones. I read the instructions on the phone card twice. Not because they were complicated but because I was hesitant. Finally, I picked up the receiver and called long distance. It was a number I knew by heart but had not called in almost a year.
She answered after only two rings but I could tell I had woken her up. I almost hung up, knowing that even if she had caller ID she would not be able to tell it had been me. But after her second hello I finally spoke.
“Eleanor, it’s me, Harry. Did I wake you up?”
“It’s okay. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Were you playing late?”
“Till about five and then we went for breakfast. I feel like I just got to bed. What time is it?”
I told her it was after ten and she groaned. I felt the confidence go out of my plan. I also got stuck wondering who the ‘we’ she referred to was but didn’t ask. I was supposed to be long past that.
“Harry, what is it?” she said into the silence. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I didn’t get to sleep till about the same time, too.”
More silence slipped into the wire. I noticed that they were boarding my flight.
“Is that why you called me? To tell me your sleeping habits?”
“No, I, uh… well, I sort of need some help. Over there in Vegas.”
“Help? What do you mean? You mean like on a case? You told me you retired.”
“I did. I am. But there’s this thing I’m working on… Anyway, I was wondering if you could meet me at the airport in about an hour. I’m flying in.”
There was silence while she registered this request and all that it might mean. As I waited my chest felt heavy and tight. I was thinking about the single-bullet theory when she finally spoke.
“I can be there. Where am I taking you?”
I realized I had been holding my breath. I exhaled. Deep down in the velvet folds I knew that would be her answer but hearing it spoken out loud, the confirmation of it, filled me immediately with my own confirmation of the feelings I still carried. I tried to picture her on the other end of the line. She was in bed, the phone on the bed table, her hair messy in a way I always found to be a turn-on, that made me want to stay in bed with her. Then I remembered that this was a cell number. She didn’t have a landline, at least one that I had the number for. And then that “we” thing came up again, intruding like a telephone solicitor. Whose bed was she in?
“Harry, you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Uh, just to a car-rental place. Avis, I guess. They try harder. Supposedly.”
“Harry, they have buses that come by the airport every five minutes for that. What do you need me for? What’s going on?”
“Look, I’ll explain when I get there. My flight’s boarding. Can you be there, Eleanor?”
