“Look there.” Gordon was pointing to a legend on the wall between double elevators.
“Long Beach City Bank, so what?” Maggie said. There was the bank, a travel agency and an Italian restaurant on the first floor.
“Third floor, Hightower, Private Investigators.” He turned to her. “I need to know you’re safe in the car.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No argument. If you don’t go to the car right now, we’re leaving. Then we’ll never know what the guy in the BMW was all about.”
“Gordon.”
“No, it was stupid of me to even let you get this far.”
“I’m coming.”
“No!” He was whispering, but he was firm. “I’ve been trained for this, you haven’t. You’d be in the way.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Maggie backed through the doors as Gordon entered a stairwell next to the elevators. She didn’t want to go back to the car, but a part of her was secretly relieved. She’d had enough of guns and shooting to last a lifetime. It was good Gordon was taking over.
She got in the car.
Safe.
Thank God for Gordon.
She pulled the gun from its place behind her back and put it in the glove box. A car went past, lights splitting the dark. Only now did she realize how late it was. She looked at the dashboard clock. Midnight. How long had Gordon been up there? Maybe she should check on him.
But he’d said to stay in the car.
Ten minutes later she couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d been gone too long. She got out of the car, walked to the office building, opened the door and stepped into the lobby. She looked up at the legend. The private investigator Gordon wanted to check out was on the third floor. She looked for the office number, but she saw something else. She took two steps forward, stood between the elevators, stared up and read.
The District Office of the 35th Congressional District
5th Floor, Room 500.
Now she knew where the man in the black BMW had gone and it wasn’t to any private investigator on the third floor.
The elevator on the right started to move. She looked to the numbers above it. It was coming down from the fifth floor. She stood transfixed as it descended to the fourth floor, then the third. Any second it was going to open and she was going to be caught. She cast her eyes around the lobby, saw the reception desk and ran toward it.
She heard a bell tingle as she dove behind the desk. The floor was cold and hard. She took baby breaths that sounded jack-hammer loud to her ears, but she knew nobody else could hear.
A whoosh of sound hit her as the doors opened. Not loud, she told herself, not really.
“Everything is on track, except for your loose end.” It was a radio voice, smooth and cultured.
“I’m gonna take care of it.” A hard voice. Maggie wished she could see their faces, but no way was she going to risk popping her head up for a quick look.
“Soon, I trust.” The radio voice again. Maggie shivered, because all of a sudden she recognized it, knew who it belonged to.
“You can count on me-” The hard voice was swallowed up with the sound of the front doors opening and a car passing by outside.
The doors closed, a sonic boom to her heart, then silence. She breathed a sigh of relief, cut it short when she heard someone charging down the stairwell behind her. Horrified, she reached behind herself for the gun. It wasn’t there. She’d left it in the car and any second someone was going to come bursting out of the stairwell and she’d be the first thing he saw, because although she’d been hidden from the elevators, she was in clear sight of the stairwell.
Nowhere to go. No time.
The door burst open.
He stopped, breathing hard, caught her with a hard glare.
“What are you doing here?” It was Gordon.
“I was worried?” Maggie pushed herself to her feet.
“You should have stayed in the car.”
“You took so long.”
“I was waiting outside that PI’s office. After a few minutes I figured out I made a mistake.”
“A few minutes, more like fifteen.” Maggie was whispering, but frantic.
“Not so loud. I heard the elevator, thought I could catch them,” Gordon said. Then, “Did you get a look at them?”
“No.”
“Damn!” Now Gordon was loud.
“But I know who it was, not the guy in the BMW, but the one he came to see.”
“How?” Gordon said.
“Fifth floor.” Maggie pointed up at the legend.
“What?” Gordon followed her finger. “The Congressional Office?”
“Yeah,” Maggie said, “the Congressional Office. You know, where the Honorable J.L. Nishikawa works when he’s in the district.”
“Johnny Nishikawa got the medal of honor in Vietnam,” Gordon said. “ He’s honest to a fault, beyond reproach. You’ve gotta be mistaken, that can’t be where the BMW guy went.”
“He was talking to someone when he went out. I heard his voice. It was him, I know, I’ve heard him enough times on television.”
“The only thing that proves is the congressman was in his office tonight. The guy in the BMW could still be up there.”
“No, the other guy sounded like the man who followed me into the liquor store.”
“You sure?”
“I bet the Beemer’s gone,” Maggie said.
“Let’s see.” Gordon crossed the lobby, pushed his way through the double doors, looked down the street. The BMW was gone.
“I forgot to tell you something.” Maggie passed him, got in his Ford.
He got in after her, slid behind the wheel. “What?”
She told him about Ichiro Yamamoto who used to work for Congressman Nishikawa and who went to the police with a story about conflict diamonds and weapons. She told him about the man Striker, who used to be Nishikawa’s administrative assistant and now worked for Nakano Construction, which used Yakuza money. And she told him that Ichiro Yamamoto was in that convenience store when Frankie Fujimori was shot to death.
“That was a lot to leave out,” he said when she’d finished.
Chapter Sixteen
Jesus wept, he’d been shot. His head was ringing. Horace couldn’t hear. He forced himself out of the fetal position, struggled to sit, back against the wall. He had to move, any second the place was gonna to be crawling with cops. Pain wracked his side. He put a hand inside his jacket, pulled it out. Wet, sticky. Blood.
Using the wall as support, he fought his way to his feet. Standing, he took a few breaths. The breathing hurt, but he didn’t taste blood, didn’t think he’d been lung shot. He moved along the wall to the kitchen. The room was
