Nothing.
What was it Otto had said? Something about a short in the transmission? I turned the key again, far enough that it allowed me to unlock the automatic transmission lever between the seats, and moved it from park, down through reverse and neutral and the lower gears, and back again. I did it a couple of times, then turned the key all the way forward in a bid to turn the engine over.
Bingo.
“Yes!” I shouted. “Yes!”
The hell with the auto club. As long as the Virtue was running, I could keep it running. All I had to do now was move the Camry, which was parked behind the Virtue. I bailed out of the Virtue, jumped into the Camry, backed it up ten feet, effectively blocking in a couple of other people’s cars, then got back into the Virtue.
I looked at my watch. It had been twelve minutes since Bullock’s phone call. I still had better than forty-five minutes before he called again. I had at least one vital errand to run, and one important phone call to make.
“Where are you going?” Trevor asked me through the open window.
“I’m going to try to get my daughter back.”
“Let me come with you,” he said.
“I can’t.”
Trevor’s expression grew more frustrated. “I might be able to help you. I, I might be able to figure out where they went.”
“Trevor, I’m going to ask you this one last time. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He pressed his lips together, looked one way and then another. “No,” he said. “No, there isn’t.”
I put the car into reverse, and Trevor said, “Give me your cell phone number. In case I find out anything, I can call you.” He had his own out and in his hand. I told him my number, which he immediately entered into his phone’s memory bank. If I had a chance sometime, if we all got through this evening alive, I’d have to get him to show me how to do that.
“I have to go,” I said, backed out of the spot, and headed for Lawrence Jones’s apartment.
As I drove I tried to put the pieces together. If Bullock wanted the Virtue back, how did he know where to find it? I hadn’t even bought the car at the auction. Lawrence had handled everything. He’d done the bidding, he’d written the check, he’d filled out the forms-
Jesus.
And only a few hours later, someone had gone to see Lawrence Jones, torn his place apart, and left him for dead.
Probably after they’d found the check I’d written him, for the same exact amount as the check he’d written at the auction.
And the one I’d written him would have had my name and address on it.
Which explained why Lawrence, at the hospital, had tried to tell me that they were after me, too.
What were the odds that the kind of people who’d stab Lawrence for a name and an address were going to let me walk away with Angie once I’d let them search the Virtue for what they believed was hidden inside it?
This was not something I was going to be able to handle alone. I had to have help. I needed the police.
But if Bullock had his own people on the inside, or had members of the force on his payroll, how could I call the police and be confident they wouldn’t pick up the phone and call Bullock?
The answer was not to call the police. The answer was to call a single policeman. A police detective. One who might feel he still owed Lawrence something, who might want to make up for a mistake he’d made in the past.
As I sped toward Lawrence’s apartment, I dug into my back pocket and struggled once again to get out my wallet. In there, I found Steve Trimble’s official business card. I let the wallet drop onto the passenger seat, glanced at the home number on the card, memorized it, and dropped the card next to my wallet. Now I dug out my phone and punched in the number with my thumb, keeping my other hand on the wheel.
“Hello?” A woman.
“Is Steve there?”
“May I tell him who’s calling?”
I told her.
“Just a minute.”
I waited a good half minute. Finally, “Walker, what do you want?”
“I haven’t got a lot of time to explain this, Trimble, so listen carefully. Some people from Lenny Indigo’s gang, one of them Barbie Bullock I think, have kidnapped my daughter. They’ve told me that if I call the police, they’ll know and they’ll kill her. They say they’re willing to trade her for my car, which I bought yesterday at a police auction with Lawrence, and which I’m guessing has drugs hidden in it someplace. Am I going too fast?”
“I’m listening,” Trimble said.
I could see Lawrence Jones’s building up ahead. I hung a right before I reached it, drove into the parking lot out back.
“They’re calling me back in about half an hour, to tell me where I’m supposed to meet them. I don’t think I can make this exchange alone. I need someone watching my back, and since I’m too scared to call 911 and tip these guys off, I’m calling you. And there’s something else you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“I think these are the people who tried to kill Lawrence.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line. “Where will we meet?”
My mind raced. “How fast can you get to Lawrence Jones’s apartment?”
“Fast.”
“I’m in that part of town. I could meet you out front. I’ll be in one of those Virtue hybrid cars. It’s silver.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Okay.” I paused to catch my breath. “I appreciate this.”
“Ten minutes,” he said again, and hung up.
I pulled up behind Lawrence’s old Buick. I was hoping the cops, during their investigation of the attack on Lawrence, wouldn’t have bothered to search this car. After all, it had bogus plates on it. There was a chance that if they’d rooted through any car, it would have been Lawrence’s Jag, whose plates were legit.
I popped the Virtue trunk, left the engine running, walked around back and lifted up the cover I’d looked under only a few minutes earlier. I grasped the tire iron, walked over to the passenger side of the Buick, and smashed in the window.
I pulled up the lock button, opened the door, and reached for the handle to the glove box. It was locked. Using the thin end of the tire iron, I wedged open the glove box door.
I reached into the back, past the ownership manuals and tattered maps, and found the gun Lawrence had used to fire at the Annihilator two nights earlier. I took it out, and a roll of masking tape that was tucked in there. I knelt down next to the car and rolled up my right pant leg as far as my knee and taped the gun around my leg. I didn’t much care what Bertrand Magnuson might think of this.
And if it hadn’t been for Angie’s suggestion that I go for ample-fit khakis, I wouldn’t have been able to roll the pant leg back down over the gun so easily.
29
I WAITED AROUND FRONT, on the sidewalk, by the door to Lawrence Jones’s apartment. I’d driven the Virtue around, left it running. Its excellent fuel economy was a major blessing now that I was afraid to turn the damn thing off.
Five minutes later, Trimble arrived in the same unmarked four-door Ford he’d shown up in the night before at this same location.
He put down his window, motioned me over. “Have they called yet?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Any moment now, I’m guessing.”
