Maggie moved over next to Gordon, draped an arm over his shoulder, snuggled her head against him. She felt him turn toward the cruiser as they passed.
“It’s okay now.”
“What was that all about?”
“I got a beat up looking car. They expect that here, but if they see Joe Whitebread, they might wonder what he’s doing in this neighborhood so late.” Gordon had his eye on the mirror. “When they looked over and saw an old guy like me smile back with an obviously younger girl clinging to his neck, they assumed you were a hooker.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I told you, I was in the FBI. I know this kind of stuff. Besides, that’s the kind of smile I gave them.”
“That’s so degrading.”
“Uh oh,” he said.
“What?”
“We have a tail.”
“How?” Maggie turned around, saw headlights behind. Then the blue and red lights on the cop car came on.
“Turned his headlights on when he saw the black-and-white.” Gordon slowed.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here.”
“I want to see how it goes.” Gordon killed the lights, stopped in front of a two story white house, reversed and parallel parked between a pickup and a VW bus. He did it fast, like a pro, like a cop.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Maggie thought the house looked like it was once the proud home of an upper middle class family, but the ghetto had expanded, chasing the affluent out of the area. Now the house seemed to be falling apart.
“He must’ve been waiting outside my place,” Gordon said.
“Let’s go,” Maggie said.
“I checked in the rearview when I was busting all those stop signs and didn’t see anything. He was running without his headlights, otherwise I’d have spotted him.”
“Should we be waiting here like this?”
“The cop let him go,” Gordon said, ignoring her. “That was fast.” Then, “Down!”
They ducked.
Gordon popped his head up as soon as the car passed. “Black BMW.”
“What?” Maggie was up now, too.
“Your friend from earlier this evening.”
“How can that be?”
“Good question.” Gordon started the car, pulled away from the curb without turning on his lights.
“What are you going to do?”
“Do you have to ask?”
“I guess not.” Maggie settled back, eyes on the Beemer’s tail lights. “He’s getting on the freeway?”
“Yeah.” Gordon slowed, waited till the BMW was around the on ramp and out of sight before turning on his headlights. Then he accelerated through the ramp.
“This car really goes,” Maggie said.
“A hot rod in disguise,” Gordon said. “Four hundred twenty-seven cubic inches tuned to perfection under the hood. Holly four barrel carb. This old girl can do a hundred and fifty all day long and go from zero to sixty in six flat.”
“So can a lot of cars these days, that BMW for instance.”
“Yeah, but who’d expect it of a twenty-something year old Ford? Mechanically she’s new, but she’s ordinary looking, an old man’s car.”
“Gordon, nobody drives cars like this anymore.”
“That car up there is a product of precision engineering, like the space shuttle. It’s fast, it’s flashy, it screams money. Ricky had a BMW when we met. I hated it, all that computer crap under the hood. Give me an old American car any day, something a human can understand. Besides, there’s nothing like the feeling of four hundred cubic inches rumbling under the hood.”
“You surprise me.”
“What? I can’t be macho?”
Maggie laughed as the BMW moved into the fast lane. Gordon did too. It felt good, laughing, but it was serious business they were about, the laughter was short.
“That bastard drove me into the bay.” Maggie didn’t want to forget that.
“Maybe not,” Gordon said.
“What do you mean?”
“He followed you, sure. But that doesn’t mean he meant you ill will.”
“Sure he did, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now.”
“You said you noticed him right after you left the police station. How do you know he’s not a cop? Maybe he was shadowing you for your own protection.”
“In a BMW?”
“Coulda been a cop, you never know. I used a 450SL on a stake out once.”
“Gordon, he chased me.”
“Sounds more like you might’ve run. Why’d you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Maggie clenched her fists. “I just did.”
“You could’ve driven back to the police station, or into a gas station, someplace with people.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“You will next time.”
“So, you think it was a cop?”
“In a BMW? Get serious.”
“Gordon!”
“I said it coulda been, I didn’t say it was. I was trying to make a point. You ran without thinking and now you don’t have a car. You had other options.”
“So, you don’t think it was a cop?”
“No.”
They followed the BMW as it got off the Long Beach Freeway at Lakewood Boulevard and they stayed a safe distance behind when it took the Traffic Circle onto Pacific Coast Highway. It stopped at an office building where PCH intersected Anaheim. Gordon drove on by.
“Now what?” Maggie said.
“We go back.” Gordon turned, parked around the corner. He opened his door.
“You’re not going in that building?”
“I’ll be right back.”
“I’m coming.” Maggie reached over the seat, seeking the grip in back.
“Leave the gun.”
“No.” She pulled it out, got out of the car. She stuffed the gun between her Levi’s and the small of her back, pulled the sweatshirt down over it just like she’d seen Thomas Magnum do so many times on TV reruns when she was in high school. “Alright, let’s go.”
Gordon led her around to the front of the building, tried the door. “Didn’t lock up after himself.” He pushed through the glass doors.
“Don’t these buildings have a security guard or something?” Maggie whispered.
“Five story office building, four or five offices to a floor-I don’t think so. Custodian probably locks it around six, it would lock automatically after anyone leaving late, but if someone opened it with a key-”
“And forgot to lock it after himself-”
“Exactly,” Gordon said.
Inside, they were in a lobby, high ceiling, marble floor. A reception desk to the right of the double glass doors was empty now. Light from streetlights outside gave the lobby an eerie feeling, like walking through a horror movie. Tingles rippled up Maggie’s spine, turned to ice at the back of her neck.
