I snuck another peek at my watch, and when I looked up, Sally was studying me with those flat eyes. 'Late for something?'
'No.' I felt like vomiting. 'No.'
'Yeah,' Valentine said. 'We got it the first time.'
'Went to your house this morning,' Sally said. 'All the curtains are drawn. Your wife barely opened the door enough to poke her head through. Like there's something in there she didn't want us to see. Is there something in there you don't want us to see?'
Only torn-up walls, peeled-back carpet, dismantled outlets--the kind of mess a paranoid schizophrenic with a toolbox might make if left unattended. 'No,' I said. 'We're just a little sensitive to being watched right now. You can hardly blame her. Why were you at the house?'
'Your neighbor called.'
'Don Miller?'
'The very one. He said you were acting weird.'
'That's a news flash?'
'A lot of banging from your house. The closed blinds. And maybe you shoved something down into the sewer a couple nights ago.'
'Like a body?' I said.
She waited patiently as I did my best to feign amusement, then said, 'I came by to make sure I didn't mislead you in our last conversation. 'Look around' means look around. It doesn't mean go Falcon and the Snowman and get your ass shot off.'
My half grin felt frozen on my face. TELL NO ONE, they'd warned, OR SHE DIES. But for a moment I almost caved. Spilled about the e-mail and the key and the Honda's trunk. Wouldn't the police have a better chance at saving that woman than I would? All I had to do was open my mouth and make the right words. But before I could, a cell phone bleated out the Barney theme song.
Sally sighed, her considerable weight settling. 'The kid likes it. One in an avalanche of humiliating parental concessions.' She stepped away to take the call.
Valentine pouched his lips, looked down the hall with unfocused eyes. He took a step closer, like he shouldn't be telling me something but wanted to anyway. 'Listen, man. One thing I learned in my time on the force is, shit leads to more shit. I can't tell you how many guys we've put away for taking one wrong step at a time.' He smoothed his mustache, and in his brown eyes I saw the weariness of experience, the wisdom he'd rather not have accrued.
Sally doubled back briskly. 'We got a 211 in Westwood. We gotta move.' She turned her focus to me. 'If you're into something, we can help, now. If you keep us out, when things go south, we won't be able to help. Because by then you'll be part of the problem. Now: Is there anything you want to tell us?'
My mouth had gone dry. I took a breath. I said, 'No.'
'Let's go.' Sally jerked her head at Valentine, and they hurried up the hall. She paused to look back at me. 'Be careful,' she said, 'wherever you're rushing off to.'
Chapter 29
Through the strobe flicker of passing vehicles, I could make out the Honda in the alley across the street. I'd rushed home to retrieve the key and my Red Sox hat, and made it back with two minutes to spare. The whole ride I talked myself into and out of detouring to a police station, but the image of that woman sitting on her couch kept my foot on the gas and my hands steady on the wheel. She was no more than a hazy silhouette in a photo that I'd barely glimpsed, but the thought of her vanishing, of feeling terror or pain because of a gamble I took, was unbearable.
Now that I was here, confronting that locked trunk, my convictions seemed less clear. Removing the paper from my pocket, I unfolded it and read my scrawled handwriting. I received an anonymous e-mail telling me to come to this car, or a woman would die. The key to this car was hidden in a fake rock in my front yard. I don't know what's in the trunk. I don't know where this will lead. If something bad happens, please contact Detective Sally Richards of the West L.A. station.
Of course, if I did get caught in some transgression, any idiot would still think I was guilty and that I'd just written the note for insurance. But it was better than nothing.
Two minutes left. My spine felt stuck to the seat. The digital clock--one of the few things on the dashboard I hadn't smashed--stared back at me unwaveringly. The final minute seemed to last forever, and yet I felt I had no time left at all. They'd made me responsible. If she died, it would be as though I'd murdered her myself. But was it worth potentially risking my life for a woman I didn't even know?
FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS. OR SHE DIES.
The clock ticked to the hour.
I got out, my breath echoing in my hollow chest. I jogged across the street, paused at the mouth of the alley to collect myself. But there wouldn't be time for that.
I reached the Civic. Relatively clean, specked with dirt, moderate wear on the tires--it was ordinary in every way. Except it had no license plates. I pressed my ear to the trunk but could hear nothing inside.
There was no one deeper in the alley or at my back, closing in on me. Just the whir of passing traffic, oblivious people on their oblivious way. I fought the key into the lock. The pop of the release vibrated up my arm. I took a deep breath, then let go, stepping back quickly as the trunk yawned open.
A duffel bag. My duffel bag, the same one I'd kicked into the sewer. It was stuffed full, blocky imprints shoving out its sides.
I leaned over, hands on my knees, and finally exhaled. The zipper came reluctantly, and after a nerve-grinding pause I threw it open.
Dumbfounded, I stared down, breathing the rich scent of money. Stack after stack of ten-dollar bills. And lying on top of them a map with a route traced in familiar red marker.
In person, $27,242 seems like a lot more than it is. When it's composed of ten-dollar bills banded in packs of fifty, it seems like half a million. Pulled over in my car in the far reaches of a nearby grocery-store parking lot, duffel in my lap, I'd counted. The bundles kept coming and coming, uniform save the one made up of disparate bills. If the movies weren't lying, tens were untraceable, or at least harder to trace than hundreds or twenties. The ramifications of that were almost as troubling as the rest of it.
The Honda had proven as inscrutable as the altered voice on the phone. No registration or anything else in the glove box, nothing hidden under the floor mats--even the skinny Vehicle Identification Number plate had been unscrewed from the dash.
I couldn't stop staring at the map. The red line started at the freeway entrance nearest the alley, snaked east along the 10 for a good hundred and fifty miles, and finally dead-ended in Indio, a broke desert town east of Palm Springs. A small square of paper with an address--produced, no doubt, by my printer--was taped beside the terminus. Beneath it was typed 9:30 p.m. If I didn't hit traffic, I'd get there by then. That was the point--just enough time to react.
A truck throttled by in the parking lot, and I quickly zipped the bag back up. For a moment I sat with my hands on the steering wheel. Then I called Ariana from my crappy prepaid phone. The matching one I'd gotten her went straight to automated voice mail, so I dialed her office line. It was likely monitored, but I had no other way to get hold of her.
'I'm not going to be home,' I said carefully. 'Until late.'
'Oh?' she said. I could hear the whine of the lathe in the background. Someone shouted something at her, and she answered tersely, 'Gimme a sec here.' Then back to me: 'What's this about?'
Had she forgotten that we could speak openly only on the prepaid phones?
I said, 'I just . . . have to take care of some stuff.'
'Just when we're getting on track, it's back to this? Another double feature after work? Anything to avoid being home?'
Was she acting right now because we weren't on a secure line? And if so, how could I signal that there actually was a problem?
'It's not like that,' I said lamely.
'Have a nice night, Patrick.' She hung up. Hard.
I stared at the phone, unsure what to do next.
