REEVE DIDN’T HANG AROUND for the aftershock.
He flew out to Los Angeles that morning, grabbed a cab at the airport, and told the driver he wanted a cheap rental service.
“Cheapest I know is Dedman’s Auto,” the cabbie declared, enjoying showing off his knowledge. “The cars are okay-no stretch limos or nothing like that, just clean sedans.”
“Dead man’s?”
The cabbie spelled it for him. “That’s why he keeps his rates so low. It’s not the sort of name would leap out at you from Yellow Pages.” He chuckled. “Christ knows, with a name like that would
Reeve was studying the cabbie’s ID on the dashboard. “I guess not, Mr. Plotnik.”
It turned out that Marcus Aurelius Dedman, the blackest man Reeve had ever seen, operated an auto- wrecking business, and car rental was just a sideline.
“See, mister,” he said, “I’ll be honest with you. The cars I get in here ain’t always
“And if the client wrecks them, they come straight back for hospitalization?”
Dedman laughed a deep, gurgling laugh. He was about six feet four and carried himself as upright as a fence post. His short hair had been painstakingly uncurled and lay flat against his head like a Cab Calloway toupee. Reeve reckoned him to be in his early fifties. He had half a dozen black kids ripping cars apart for him, hauling out the innards.
“Nobody strips a vehicle quite like a kid from the projects,” Dedman said. “Damned clever mechanics, too. Here’s the current options.” He waved a basketball player’s arm along a line of a dozen dusty specimens, any of which would be perfect for Reeve’s needs. He wanted a plain car, a car that wouldn’t stand out from the crowd. These cars had their scars and war wounds-a chipped windshield here, a missing fender there, a rusty line showing where a strip of chrome had been torn off the side doors, a sill patched with mastic and resprayed.
“Take your pick,” Dedman said. “All one price.”
Reeve settled for a two-door Dodge Dart with foam-rubber suspension. It was dull green, the metallic sheen sanded away through time. Dedman showed him the engine (“reliable runner”), the interior (“bench seat’ll come in handy at Lover’s Point”), and the trunk. Reeve nodded throughout. Eventually, they went to Dedman’s office to clinch the deal. Reeve got the feeling Dedman didn’t want the project kids, no matter what their mechanical skills, to see any money changing hands. Maybe it would give them ideas.
The office was in a ramshackle cinder-block building, but surprised Reeve by being immaculately clean, bright, air-conditioned, and high-tech. There was a large black leather director’s chair behind the new-looking desk. Dedman draped a sheet over the chair before sitting, so as not to dirty the leather with his overalls. There was a computer on the desk with a minitower hard disk drive. Elsewhere Reeve glimpsed a fax and answering machine, a large photocopier, a portable color TV, even a hot drinks machine.
“Grab a coffee if you want one,” Dedman said. Reeve pushed two quarters into the machine and watched it deliver a brown plastic cup of brown plastic liquid. He looked around the office again. It had no windows; all the light was electrical. The door, too, was solid metal.
“I see why you keep it padlocked,” Reeve said. Dedman had undone three padlocks, each one barring a thick steel bolt, to allow them into the office.
Dedman shook his head. “It’s not to stop the kids seeing what’s in here, if that’s what you’re thinking. Hell, it’s the kids who bring me all this stuff. They get it from their older brothers. What am I supposed to do with a computer or a facsimile?” Dedman shook his head again. “Only they’d be hurt if I didn’t look like I appreciated their efforts.”
Reeve sat down and put the cup on the floor, not daring to sully the surface of the desk. He reached into his pocket for a roll of dollars. “I’m assuming you don’t take credit cards,” he said.
“Your assumption is correct. Now, there’s no paperwork, okay? I don’t like that shit.” Dedman wrote something on a sheet of paper. “This is my name, the address here, and the telephone number. Anyone stops you, the cops or anybody, or if you’re in a crash, the story is you borrowed the car from me with my blessing.”
“Insurance?”
“It’s insured.”
“And if I break down?”
“Well”-Dedman sat back in his chair-“for another thirty, you get my twenty-four-hour call-out service.”
“Does it stretch as far as San Diego?”
Dedman looked at the roll of notes. “I guess that wouldn’t be a problem. That where you’re headed?”
“Yes. So how much do I owe you?”
Dedman appeared to consider this, then named a figure Reeve found comfortably low. Reeve counted out the bills and made to hand them over, but paused.
“The Dart isn’t hot, is it?”
Dedman shook his head vehemently. “No, sir, it’s aboveboard and legal.” He took the bills and counted them, finding the sum satisfactory. He looked at Reeve and smiled. “I never rent a hot car to a tourist.”
Dedman had warned Reeve that he might get lost a few times on his way out of Los Angeles, an accurate assessment of Reeve’s first hour and a half in his new car. He knew all he had to do was follow the coast, eventually picking up I-5, but finding the coast was the problem initially, and keeping to it proved a problem later. The freeway system around Los Angeles was like a joke God was playing on the human brain. The more Reeve focused his mind, the less sense things made. Eventually he let his eyes and mind drift into soft focus, and found himself miraculously on the right road, heading the right way. He wasn’t on the coast, he was inland on I-5, but that was fine. I-5 was fine.
He had both windows open and wished he had a radio. One of Dedman’s mechanics had offered him one, installation included, for fifty bucks, but it would’ve meant hanging around the breaking yard for another hour or so, and Reeve had been keen to get going. Now he wished he’d taken the teenager up on the offer. Everything about the Dart was fine except the axles. The steering wheel juddered in his hands at speeds above fifty, and it felt like the problem led directly from the axles, either front or back. He hoped a wheel didn’t spin off and roll away ahead of him.
Once on the interstate, it was a quick run to San Diego. He came off near the airport and took Kettner Boulevard into the downtown district. He wanted a different hotel from last visit, and something more central, something much closer to the CWC building. His first choice, the Marriott, had rooms. Reeve swallowed hard when told the price, but was too tired to go looking anywhere else-the previous night had been a long one, after all. He took his bag up to the room; pulled open the curtains, flooding the room with light and a spectacular view of the bay; and sat down on the bed.
Then he picked up the telephone and rang Eddie Duhart.
He didn’t identify himself. He just asked, “What’s happening?”
Duhart couldn’t wait to tell him. “
“He’s back to himself?”
“Seems to be. First thing he did was sack the bodyguards. Then he decided that was too lenient, so they’re back on the payroll till he can find a worse fate. Next he phoned for a vet and a van to take away the carcass.”
“But he doesn’t remember any details from last night?”
“Not a one. Man, I should get my hands on some of that stuff. He’s spent all day trying to put together the pieces. You should hear him. Man is he wild! He dropped into a private hospital, checked in as an emergency. He wanted them to run tests on him. He’s been doing everything. He thought maybe he’s been hypnotized, so he’s got a hypnotherapist coming over to the house to try to get him out of it.”
“Hmm, he may have stumbled onto something.”
“You think the hypnotist can help him remember?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anyone trying it before.”
