'The electric chair.' He'd meant it as a joke, but he read my expression and said, 'Look, I'm just fucking around. You'll get off.'
'How? You gonna corroborate my story for me?'
He laughed. 'Let's just say that when it comes to the cops, my word probably counts for less than yours. I'd hurt you more than I'd help you. Besides, I've got no evidence. Nothing concrete.'
'Neither of us does.'
'Yeah, you're out of witnesses. They keep dying.' He finally put two and two together, and a ripple of fear moved across his face, left it changed. 'That's why you came to find me. To warn me.'
'Yes.'
'You think they'll really . . . ?'
'I think I wouldn't want to take the chance.'
'Jesus, I--' He looked around the van, as if the walls were closing in. His panic sweat clinched for me that he wasn't in on the scam. 'Okay,' he said. 'Okay. I've gotten lost before when the heat's turned up.' He stuck a thumb in the upholstery, widened the tear. 'You didn't have to come find me. Thanks for the warning.'
I said, 'Trista Koan. I need an address.'
He nodded, one pronounced dip of his head, a man used to dealing. 'I'll get one for you. Gimme an hour. What's your cell?' I gave him the number of the throwaway I'd reclaimed from Ariana. He had me repeat it twice and didn't write it down. 'What else?' His eyes were light green and surprisingly pretty set in that coarse face.
Those two muffled percussions echoed in my head, making me flinch. The toe of that black boot, barely in view at the edge of the door. Joe was looking at me funny.
I cleared my throat. 'I'd like you to call in the location of Elisabeta's body. Anonymously. I can't have anything to do with it.'
'Like you said, this broad ran cons and had death threats against her. The cops're gonna connect the dots to draw the wrong picture or to lead back to you. Either way, they'll be all over you once she turns up dead. So why report it?'
'What, just leave her body there?'
'Not like she cares.'
'She's got family, I'm sure.'
'So what? She'll still have family in a week when the neighbors complain about the smell, but at least you'll buy yourself a few more days to dig around without the cops up your ass. She fucked with us. It's not like she deserves better.'
I said, 'Her family does. Make the call for me.'
'It's your jail sentence.'
'Anything else you can give me on Keith Conner?'
'I can give you everything on Keith Conner,' he said. 'But that's my currency, man. What do I get?'
'You say you want to know who fucked with you. Well, this could be your chance. I'm not even asking you to share the risk.'
He was back at his fingernails again, but he noticed and set his hands down in his lap. 'From what I've learned, movie stars don't do shit. Meetings, lots of meetings. Business managers, agents, the Coffee Bean on Sunset. And fucking lunches. You just sort of hang in and hope for some break in the routine, something weird. One day, about two weeks ago, I noticed something like that. Another car following him, keeping an eye. Not one of the regulars. We all know each other. And no one trolls in a Mercury Sable with tinted windows. I call the license plate in to my hook at LAPD, and guess what? The number doesn't exist.'
He'd lowered his voice, and I found myself leaning toward him. The smell of the van--peanuts, coffee, spent breath--was making me claustrophobic, but the hook was set and I was going nowhere.
Joe continued, 'Now I'm curious. So when it peels out, I follow it. I lose it at a light but find it parked two blocks up at the Starbright Plaza, one of those crappy strip malls on Riverside by the studios. You know, stores downstairs, offices up? I go kick the tires. It's got a Hertz sticker on the windshield.'
Hertz again. Just like the car Sally traced the VIN back to.
He continued, 'So someone had switched the plates. I check the mall directory, walk around, but there's a ton of offices and nothing looks suspicious. I stake the car out for a few hours, then get bored and leave.'
'Starbright Plaza?'
'Starbright Plaza. That's the best I got for you.'
I pulled open the door, drew in a deep breath of fresh air, and stepped down onto the street toward my car. I'd gotten the key into my lock when I heard the van behind me, sputtering.
'Hey,' Joe's gruff voice called out. 'If you live, I still want that exclusive.'
When I turned around, he was already chugging off.
Chapter 43
A bland-as-hell two-story sprawl, brown wood and beige stucco, named Starbright Plaza. The inadvertent irony was common around these parts, in the slices of neighborhood around Warner Bros., Universal, and Disney. A-List Tires and Rims. Blockbuster Orchard Supply. Red Carpet Motel with FREE cable in every room!
The parking lot was jammed, so I valeted in front of the cafe at the far end of the complex. None of the patrons took note of me, though I assessed their faces with skittish defiance, searching for signs of recognition. Amazing how self-centered a good dose of fear can make you.
The valet handed me a slip featuring a glossy ad with Keith Conner's scowl:
This June, Be Afraid.
This June, There's Nowhere Left to Hide.
This June . . . THEY'RE WATCHING.
Another driver tapped the horn politely; I'd zoned out there a few feet off the curb. I stepped through the mist of the outdoor air conditioner onto the sidewalk and took in the shops and offices, feeling some of the frustration Joe must have felt: How do you search a massive strip mall for something suspicious?
Two workers carried a picture window out of a glass shop, like extras in a Laurel and Hardy sketch. Figuring that the other downstairs businesses, which ranged from a dry cleaner to a Hallmark, were equally innocuous, I walked to the stairwell. A FedEx delivery guy tapping at an electronic clipboard whistled down, not even bothering to glance up as I skipped aside at the landing.
The upstairs hallway, shaped in a wide V, hosted an endless row of doors and windows. Quite a few were open as I strolled by, uncertain of what I was looking for. Cubicles and wall charts, young guys on phones working baoding balls, selling penny stocks and exercise equipment in three no-hassle payments. I passed a fly-by-night insurance shop, then a straight-to-video operation with proudly displayed movie posters featuring giant insects wreaking havoc on metropolises. A few of the offices had been hastily cleared out, clipped cables poking from the ceilings and walls, jumbles of telemarketing phones mounded in corners. Others, with closed blinds and unmarked doors, were as silent as a surgeon's waiting room. Clearly the rentals had a considerable turnover rate.
Ducking the occasional shitty security camera, I kept walking, noting business names and glancing at faces, wondering what the hell I was doing here. Finally I ran out of room, reaching the far stairwell. I was just starting down when the brass placard drilled into the last office door caught my attention: DO NOT LEAVE ANY PACKAGES WITHOUT SIGNATURE. D O NOT LEAVE ANY PACKAGES WITH NEIGHBORING BUSINESSES. A FedEx tag had been left compliantly around the knob. Except for its number, 1138, the door itself was blank, like many others.
I plucked the tag free, stared down at the sloppily penned business name: Ridgeline, Inc.
My face tingled with excitement. And fear. Careful what you look for--you just might find it. In this instance the likely operating base for the men who'd sent me those e-mails, who'd framed me for murder, who'd killed three people and counting.
The orange-and-blue tag indicated a second delivery attempt for a package sent from a FedEx center in Alexandria, Virginia. Just inside the Beltway, the city was rife with influence peddlers and power brokers. The package's origin struck me as ominous.
The blinds of the office window were imperfectly closed. I went up on tiptoe to get an angle through the slats. The front room was as plain as could be. Computer, copier, paper shredder. There were no plants, no paintings, no Sears family portrait taped to the monitor. Not even a second chair for a visitor to sit in. A windowless door led back, I assumed, to a hall and more rooms.
I jogged downstairs and through the dingy alley behind the complex to check out the rear of 1138. A rickety
