“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He sat back down. “You’d have to come clean. And that means you go back to being Maggie Nesbitt and that little girl goes to live with her father and you said you didn’t want that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they found some way to implicate you in Margo’s murder.”
“How could they?”
“Lots of motive,” he said. “Margo’s money for example.”
“And I get to keep the baby,” she said.
“What baby?” Gordon said.
Maggie told him. It had been the one part of the story she’d left out.
“I had no idea.” He picked up his cup from the coffee table, took a deep drink. “So, I guess we have to solve this ourselves if you’re going to keep on being Margo.”
“I guess.”
“The first thing we have to do is find somewhere else for you to live in case this guy Nighthyde comes after you again.”
“He’s not going to come,” Maggie said. “I shot him, remember?”
“Let me call Nick and find out about that.” Gordon got out of his chair again.
“No,” Maggie said. “I don’t want to involve him.”
“Okay, I got a friend who’s a cop in Long Beach. I’ll call him.”
She followed him back to the kitchen, back to the phone. She listened while he called the Long Beach Police Department, asked for his friend, then identified himself. He lied, saying he was away last night and when he returned home one of his neighbors had told him there was a shooting. He listened for about a minute, thanked his friend and hung up.
“You did shoot someone,” he told Maggie.
“Of course I did.”
“But you didn’t kill him. The police rolled on a shots fired complaint. When they got to the duplex, the neighbors were up, but nobody knew where the shots had come from. When Nick came home, he saw the blood and called the police. There was no body, so whoever you shot either got up and walked away or somebody carried him.”
“I fired off seven rounds at him,” Maggie said.
“So, you’re not a very good shot.”
“I am a good shot. Besides, I saw blood.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s dead.” Gordon set his coffee down. “I’m going to see an old friend and find out what I can about Congressman Nishikawa. I’ll be back before noon. Till then I want you to stay inside with the door locked. Shoot anyone who tries to break in or pick the lock.” He was serious.
“You won’t get an argument out of me on that,” she said.
“I mean it,” he said.
“What kind of friend?”
“One who won’t talk in front of you, otherwise I’d bring you along.”
“He got up, started for the door, opened it, turned back toward her. “When I get back, we’ll have to find someplace for Jasmine to stay till this is over.”
“What about me? I thought you wanted me to move out, too.”
“I changed my mind. You’re staying here.”
“Why? I don’t get it.”
“We’re after a big fish. We need bait.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“I hate it,” he said. “But we don’t have much choice if we want to put an end to this without involving the police.” And all of a sudden, Maggie knew what Gordon was going to do.
“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“Yes I am.” Then Gordon closed the door and she was alone.
Horace went straight to the motel, got his gun, then drove to the Taco Bell on Fourth Street. Coffee and toast didn’t cut it for breakfast. He ordered five tacos and a large coke, then went to the pay phone in the back to call Striker. He dropped a quarter into the phone.
“Did you mean what you said yesterday?” he said when Striker picked up.
“If I said it, I meant it, but what specifically are you talking about?”
“Having more money than I can count.” Horace felt his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. He relaxed his hand.
“Maybe not more than you can count, but you do the woman before tomorrow at this time and I’ll have a briefcase for you with a hundred and fifty large in it. Twenty-five for the woman in Catalina, twenty-five for the kid and a hundred for the Kenyon woman.”
“I already did the Kenyon woman.”
“She’s still walking around.”
“She won’t be tomorrow.” Horace grit his teeth. Striker was paying a lot, but it wasn’t right about the bitch in the alley. He’d done the job, he deserved to be paid. Besides, he didn’t like thinking Virgil died for nothing.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Striker sounded smug.
“I might wanna take a vacation after.”
“I understand,” Striker said.
“Anything I should know?”
“They haven’t pulled her car out of the bay yet, so the cops don’t know it was hers.”
“She didn’t call ’em?” Horace tightened his grip on the phone again.
“No.”
“What’s that tell you?” Horace said.
“She knows someone’s coming for her and she doesn’t want the police involved. She’s not afraid.”
“She’s gonna to be ready. That what you’re saying?”
“Maybe,” Striker said.
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s why you’re paying so much?”
“If it was easy, I wouldn’t need you.”
“Okay, but I want twenty-five extra for the bitch in the alley,” Horace said. “Fair’s fair.”
“Deal, but I want the Kenyon woman dead by tomorrow.”
“She’ll be dead.” Horace hung up and went to get his tacos.
Maggie took her coffee to the kitchen, washed the cups. She went to the refrigerator to get some ice and saw the Winnie the Pooh magnet for the first time. There were three yellow Post It notes under it.
She lifted the magnet and pulled the notes off the door. The top one was a reminder for Margo to pick up the cleaning from the Main Street Cleaners on Monday. Yesterday, Maggie thought. The second was to remind her to take the car in for a five thousand mile check up. Maggie laughed, she wouldn’t be doing that. Mom’s new address was scrawled across the top of the last one, followed by an address on Balboa Island.
She went to the bedroom, picked up Margo’s purse, then stopped herself. It was way too dressy for faded Levi’s and a sweatshirt. She grabbed the backpack, dumped out the school books, then dumped the contents of the purse into the pack. She reached under the pillow, pulled out the Sigma, put it in the pack, too.
Yes, she’d promised Gordon she’d stay inside with the door locked, but Balboa was a straight shot down Pacific Coast Highway on the bus. She could get there, talk to Margo’s mother and be back way before Gordon.
She jogged up to the guard shack, returned the guard’s wave, then saw a bus glide into the bus stop.
“Hey, wait!” She ran to the stop, caught the bus just in time.
Horace was about to make a pass by the Sand and Sea Condos, when he saw the Kenyon-Nesbitt woman with the new hair running to catch a bus.
