'Now you're not going to believe me, right?' he asked. 'I got priors, and I'm a 'disgruntled former employee.''
Jane looked up at the sky, then sighted along the wall of the complex. 'It's a cold, clammy night for L.A. It'll probably rain soon, from the way it feels. And you may not believe it, but I hardly ever find myself in this part of town after midnight in any weather.'
'I can believe that,' he said.
'If I thought you were going to lie to me, I'd be pretty stupid to be here, wouldn't I?'
'Yeah.'
'Then tell me what it was like.'
'They're looking for young men with strong motivation and they'll give them the skills to succeed. Like the army. They got this guy who comes in and tells you how to be a thief in a big store so that you know what to look for.'
'Did he get it right?'
'There were plenty of people in that room who could tell you for sure, but I wasn't one of them. I think it was pretty close, though, because they were all listening. Probably got some new ideas for the off-season.'
'The skills to succeed. Can you tell me anything about this guy? Who was he?'
'His name was Farrell. Sort of an old guy with gray hair that's all bristly like a brush and spit-shined shoes. They called him the training officer. After he told us how to spot thieves, he told us what to do about them.'
'Take them to the back of the store and call your supervisor?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'He says the system doesn't do any good. They get a court date and in a day they're back for more. So the supervisor would take them someplace and scare them.'
'How scared?'
'Farrell says that comes under initiative. The company judges supervisors on the results.'
'What are the results?'
'He says there are three kinds: the ones who don't need it and are doing it for some kind of kick, the ones in a crew that sells it, and junkies. There's no way to make any of them stop, but you can make them go to another store next time.''
'Did you get to see any of this?'
'Once. A woman got caught with a bag that had a big box in it with a trapdoor cut in it, and she was shoveling stuff into it. The supervisor took her in the back for a while, then shoved her out the loading dock door. She ran.'
'I've heard this before. Stores do it themselves. What else did you see?'
'The next week my background check comes in, so I'm out. I turn in my blues and go home. Two days later I get a phone call. It's Farrell. He says he's sorry to hear what happened, but maybe he can do something for me. I got initiative and motivation and I'm not afraid to do what needs to be done. He says sometimes there are jobs for people who cant make it through a background check. I'd still be working for Intercontinental, but they'd pay me in cash. Kind of an undercover job, and it paid a lot more.'
'Did he say what you would be doing?'
'I'm twenty-two. Never had a job before because I'm dragging a five-page rap sheet. Got two convictions. Aggravated assault - did three for that in youth camp. Assault with a deadly weapon - did three more for that in Soledad. I figure he was looking for a brain surgeon.'
'You said there were a lot of people in the training class who had the same problem. Did anybody else get the same offer?'
'I don't know.'
'What did you tell him?'
They reached the sidewalk on the other side of the complex. He moved to the outside and looked carefully up and down the street before he ventured out of the shelter of the big buildings. 'I told you I couldn't get another job.'
'So you signed on.'
'He had me come to another office. Not the big place where they hire and train people. This one was out in Van Nuys. There were eight or ten men hanging around - white guys, black guys, a couple of Mexicans. Everybody dressed good, but not really doing much. The sign on the door said 'Enterprise Development.''
Jane remembered the men at the courthouse. They had all been wearing suits or sportcoats, and none of them had been carrying anything that could connect them with Intercontinental Security. 'Where in Van Nuys?'
'The address is 5122 Van Nuys Boulevard. Big building, small office.'
'What did you do there?'
'Farrell came and talked to me for a while.'
'What did he tell you?'
'Pretty much what anybody tells you when you're doing something you get paid in cash for. If something goes wrong they'll slip you bail money, but if you tell anybody anything, there are a bunch of them and only one of you.'
'And he still didn't tell you what he wanted you for?'
'Yeah, he did,' said the young man. 'Hunting.'
'What?'
'That's what he said. The way it works is, the company has a list of people they want. The company does whatever is legal to find them. That's all in the open. It's a big company with offices in fifty places and a lot of people on the payroll. But then there's some cases that are off the books. Like maybe a guy disappears at the same time as a computer chip or a famous painting or something. The company knows it, they know he's got it, or he's got the money from it. Somehow he got away with it.'
'So they hunt him.'
'Yeah. The rest of it was just about the head guy.'
'What about him?'
'How he did all of it. He went to work in the L.A. office a few years ago and set all this up. He was born off in the woods someplace way north of here, and he's a tracker. He thinks like a hound. Once he's got the scent, he never gives up. Farrell says he used to go after killers all by himself just for the kick it gave him. He gets a rush out of it, like a hunter.'
'When?'
'When what?'
'When did he go after killers?'
'Before. When he was a cop.'
Jane felt increasingly tense. 'What's his name?'
'Bearclaw.'
It wasn't exactly a surprise, but she felt a sensation like an electric shock. 'Barraclough?'
'B-A-R-R-A-something. He's - '
'I've heard of him,' Jane interrupted. She tried to clear her mind of the thoughts that were crowding in. She could almost see Danny Mittgang's face eight or nine years ago when she had asked him why he was running. He had not said the Los Angeles police wanted him as a material witness; what came out of Danny's mouth was 'Barraclough.' He had actually begun to sweat and gulp air. The name was already so familiar in certain circles that he had expected her to know it.
She had heard it many times after that, and each time there was something odd about the story. A fugitive's friends who had refused to betray him the first time they were questioned talked to Barraclough. A middle-aged man who had committed a white-collar crime would uncharacteristically forget there was no evidence against him and burst out at Barraclough with guns blazing. Barraclough would use information that could have come only from a wiretap to find a suspect, but no wiretap evidence would be introduced at the trial. She had filed the name with a few others, policemen in various parts of the country who were willing to do just about anything to catch a suspect. But the difference between Barraclough and the others was that when his name was mentioned, the person who said it was always afraid.
Jane tried to concentrate. She was not likely to get a second interview with this young man. 'How did you get
