rearview mirror, Marcus was grim behind the wheel, and Hoffman was again on her radio.
If there were others following me, I couldn’t spot them. Another thing I couldn’t control.
We crossed the river on the Steel Bridge, and it started to rain, spatters on my windshield that the wipers couldn’t quite cope with, as if it wasn’t sincere enough to require their best efforts. I turned at the light on Broadway, then again on Market, and pulled into the underground garage at Chapel’s building. When I took my ticket from the dispenser, I could see the Ford idling near the top of the ramp.
Come on, I thought. Follow me.
The bar went up, and I pulled forward, winding farther down, past rows of parked Beemers and Lexi and Acuras, then through a forest of SUVs. I found a space on the lowest level near the elevator bank, got out with my backpack, and locked up.
There was no sign of the Ford.
This is not going to work, I thought, as I got into the elevator. I am fucked, and this is not going to work.
My hands were shaking when I punched the button for the tenth floor. I had to shove them into my pockets to keep them out of sight, and when the elevator stopped in the lobby, I was glad that I’d done it.
Marcus and Hoffman got on the elevator.
“This is a surprise,” I said.
They didn’t answer, just went to the back of the car, fitting in behind me. It was funny in its own way, how none of us was even bothering to pretend anymore.
We rode another four floors, and the car stopped once more, and two men in nice suits got on, talking anxiously about what the market had done in Japan that morning. They got off again at seven, and when the doors were again closed, I turned to face Hoffman.
“I was a total asshole last night,” I said. “And I’m very sorry.”
“Passive-aggressive
“That’s what they say.” I was still looking at Hoffman. She was staring back, and I wasn’t even certain she’d heard me.
Then the elevator stopped and we all got out, and they followed me into the offices of my attorney. Marcus and Hoffman waited near the back of the reception area while I approached Joy at the desk. She got to her feet when she saw me.
“Is Fred expecting you?”
“I hope so. He left me a message last night.”
“Why don’t you have a seat, I’ll tell him you’re here.”
There was a clock in the room, hanging over a Tailhook poster, one I hadn’t seen before. In this one, I was standing beside Van, with Click on a riser just behind us. The clock told me it was seventeen minutes past one.
It was reading twenty-nine to two when Joy, back at her desk, answered her phone, and then told me Mr. Chapel would see me now. I rose and joined her, and Marcus and Hoffman stayed put, unhappy with the situation. They wouldn’t be kept at bay for long.
When we were out of the reception area and winding through the halls, I told Joy that what I really needed was a bathroom, and could she direct me to one. She veered off course, leading me to the restroom.
“I’ll wait for you,” she told me.
“No, don’t do that.” I gave her my best embarrassed grin. “Make me feel like a total princess, you have to wait for me while I pee.”
She laughed, like I knew she would.
“I know the way,” I said. “I can manage the rest.”
“I’ll let him know you’ll be right there.”
“Great, thanks,” I said, and then went into the bathroom before she could say anything else, locking the door behind me. I stood with my back to it, listening, and I didn’t hear her leave, but I didn’t hear anything else through it, either, so it didn’t mean much.
Thirty seconds, I told myself. Give her thirty seconds, then go. More than that, Hoffman and Marcus will barge in. Less, she’ll still be there, waiting.
I watched the second hand move on my wrist.
Then I unlocked the door and took a breath, stepped out as if I knew where I was going and what I was doing. The receptionist had gone, and the only people in the hall were occupied with their own affairs, and paid me no attention. I set off toward Chapel’s office, heard his voice, strained, coming from the area of Joy’s desk. I didn’t stop, hoping that he’d keep Marcus and Hoffman busy, but it still took me almost three more minutes before I found the fire door and my way to the stairs.
The latch echoed in the stairwell when the door shut behind me, and as soon as I heard it click shut, I started running, one hand on the rail, the other on the backpack strap, trying to keep it on my shoulder. I went fast, two, three steps at a time, too ambitious, and I almost fell twice, but I didn’t slow down, and I sure as hell didn’t stop. The hangover swelled in my head. Marcus and Hoffman wouldn’t take long to figure out I was ditching them, if they hadn’t figured it already, and the best I could hope for was that they’d go back to my car, thinking that’s where I was headed.
Their bad luck that Portland has such a wonderful light-rail system.
There were two men standing in the rain, watching the ramp into the garage when I came out of the building, and I guessed they were cops, and turned my back to them before I had a chance to find out. Hoofed it across the street, my shoulders aching with the weight of the backpack, then jogged to the MAX stop. I made it by ten of two, and there was a train waiting, and I jumped on without paying the fare, working my way to the front of the carriage and dropping into a seat. It wouldn’t be a problem until I was past the Lloyd Center, since fares in downtown were waived, but I didn’t think I’d have time to hop out and pay then, either, and the thought that I might get caught only compounded my anxiety. It would be just my luck to have ditched the cops only to get picked up again for not paying public transportation.
It didn’t happen, and I made the train switch and all the way to the airport without trouble. Halfway to PDX, I started looking around the car, wondering if maybe he was on board, if he was watching, but after a minute realized that was futile. I doubted he was actually following me; the runaround was more to make certain I didn’t get any ideas, I supposed. Like I was going to start doing that at this late date.
Like I’d recognize him without his ski mask and parka, anyway.
The rain was coming heavier when I got off at the airport, and I swung through baggage claim and back outside immediately, heading for the cab stand. There were three people in line, and my watch was reading two forty-one, and the tremor in my hands was getting worse. I wanted a drink, settled for a couple drags of a cigarette, and got a Broadway Cab to take me back downtown.
“Third and Everett,” I said.
The driver, already behind the wheel and pulling us into traffic, glanced at me in the mirror. “You mean Twenty-third and Everett, yeah?”
“No, I mean Third and Everett.”
He started to argue, eyes on me in the mirror, then shrugged. If the strange white girl wanted to go to the heart of bum central, that was not his problem.
“Hurry,” I told him.
Everett straddles the dividing line between Old Town Portland and Chinatown, and there are storefronts all around the area that date back to the turn of the century, and in some cases, earlier. I almost missed the bar, because I was late by my watch, and now even more frightened that I’d fucked everything up. The rain was coming down in sheets, cold and solid, like walking through a car wash, and I had to go down the block twice before I was certain I had the right place, an unmarked and smoked-glass door sandwiched between a porno shop and a Chinese antiques store.
Inside was everything you’d expect, dark and a little dank, with the bar along the left side, and booths along the right, and enough room between the two that I could fit, if I walked sideways. I was soaked to the skin, and the
