Trouble was, here I was, in the garage with him, speaking of suspects.
And Shanna.
Or so I thought, but when I turned away from Jo-X she had reached the sidewalk and was disappearing around the front of the house at a dead run, headed east, downhill.
I took off after her, tried to keep up for two blocks, then gave it up because she was pulling away. All I had on were Nikes, not sandals that were actually rocket shoes. I try to run five or six miles several times a week, fast, but I was out of my league here. Maybe that was what Ignacio had meant.
Ignacio.
Sonofabitch.
I trotted back, turned the corner at the front of the house, and Vince was in the garage, snapping pictures of Jo-X. He must’ve had a spare SD card, or a spare camera in his car.
I didn’t call out, but he heard me coming, got off a shot of me bearing down on him, then darted across the backyard. A little hop, and in a surprisingly athletic move, he put one foot on the doghouse and went over the fence like a wharf rat. But—no way was he going to escape. I was fifteen feet behind him. I put one foot on top of the doghouse, and broke through the rotten plywood, barking my left shin and slamming into the fence hard enough to crack a plank. Fuckin’ doghouse roof took a hundred forty flyweight pounds but imploded at two hundred eight.
I watched the wharf rat go, through a backyard, over another fence like he’d pole-vaulted it. Speedy little fucker. I couldn’t have caught him wearing a jetpack.
The sonofabitch.
Now what?
I walked back across the yard, rubbing my shin. I could phone Ma. If she had coverage on the train, she would probably tell me to get the hell out of there.
Uh-uh. No way. At least not yet.
Which is when my phone rang. It was Ma. Perfect timing. I know God watches my every move, laughing so hard He or She gets side aches.
“Hiya, Ma,” I said.
“So how’d it go with that girl—Danya? Is she as good lookin’ in the morning as she was last night?”
“How would I know?”
That stopped her. “What’s goin’ on, boyo?”
“I phoned her at ten. She told me to come over to her place. When I got there, she was gone.”
“Well . . . so where are you now?”
“Her place. I chased a tabloid creep out of her house.”
“A tabloid creep? What the hell, Mort?”
“That’s what I thought.” And right then I wondered how the handwriting on the blackmail note Shanna had given me might match that of the creep—although he looked like the kind who would be the teacher’s pet and have terrific handwriting by the fourth grade. And quit growing when he was twelve and still pint-sized. Agile little shit.
“What tabloid?”
“Celebrity News. Guy looked like a ferret. Or a wharf rat. More like the latter, I’d say, if you want a professional opinion.”
“Celebrity News? Wharf rat? What are you gettin’ mixed up in? I told you not to get mixed up in anything.”
Last thing I wanted to tell her about was Jo-X, strung up in the garage like a horse harness in a barn. “I dunno.” Which was the absolute truth, just a little light on details. “Where are you, by the way? How’s the ride?”
“The ride’s fine and thanks for askin’ and you sound funny. So I ask once ag . . . what’s goin’ . . . on’t do a . . . thing like . . . las . . . for -od’s sa . . .”
“You know anyone by the name of Shanna Hayes, Ma?”
“Sha . . . Ha . . .”
“Ma? You’re breaking up.”
But she was gone. I would have to thank Verizon later.
Don’t do anything, she said. Like what? Don’t leave the house here? Don’t stay? Good enough. I could do whatever I liked.
So, of course, I stayed.
Maybe I had a moment. Or not. The garage door was open and it faced the street. The place had no windows. It would be dark if I shut the door, and virulently rank, so I had to leave it open if I was going to do a quick check around Jo-X. With the door open, it was dim inside. He might not be visible from the street, at least I hoped so. As a gumshoe, I was desperate for clues. And I thought I had a pretty good one, too: Jo-X, hangin’ against a wall. And another: a note demanding a million bucks. What I didn’t have yet was a client.
I hurried over, held my breath because Jo-X dead for several days in June didn’t smell as good as Jo-X fresh, or so I thought. I could’ve been wrong. He was shirtless, his trademark, but he had on a pair of old jeans. I wanted to check his pockets, which would’ve earned me a big slap on the wrist by my favorite Reno detective, Russ Fairchild. But in all fairness, Danya and Shanna were gone, and Jo-X wasn’t, so, as a maverick, which is why Danya hired me, or said she was thinking about it, what choice did I have?
None.
I ran into the house, found a pair of rubber gloves under the kitchen sink, ran back outside. No wharf rat in sight.
I needed information. And I got it. Pulling the wallet out of Xenon’s right rear pocket was like fishing around in a snake pit. I found a driver’s license issued to Aaron L. Butler. Picture looked like him, allowing for decomposition. Credit cards, a receipt for a motel in Caliente, the Pahranagai Inn—good one, Mort—issued to a Nathan Williams, and, in Jonnie’s front left pocket, talk about your basic bingo moment—a flash drive. I turned it over. Written on the back in tidy print was the name “Celine.”
Jo-X dead in Danya’s garage, flash drive in his pocket with the name Celine written on it, wallet intact, motel receipt, tabloid creep snooping around, note demanding $1,000,000. Up to my
