Текст книги "January Justice"

Автор книги: Athol Dickson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

So. There were no bloodstains, no bullet holes, no other evidence of the crime. It had been seven years, after all, but I was still disappointed.

I walked downhill to the path. I followed it to the Range Rover, got in, removed the handgun, and put it on the passenger seat again. I turned the vehicle around very carefully and then drove back out to the park road.

Just beyond the first hairpin turn, I nearly hit a white Escalade, which was parked in the middle of the road with its hood up. A man stood by the front bumper reaching down into the engine compartment. He didn’t bother to look around when I stopped. He wore a straw cowboy hat tipped back on his head; a pair of jeans; a red-and-black-striped, western-cut shirt; and a pair of boots. He rose up on his toes and reached a little deeper into the engine compartment.

I glanced over at the gun on the passenger seat. I thought about slipping it into my holster, but a strange lethargy had settled in. I simply didn’t bother. I wanted the pain to stop. The ache of missing Haley and longing for her touch. The constant sense of being incomplete. I left the weapon where it was and got out of the Range Rover.

“Need a hand?” I asked.

“This thing,” he said. “I had to take it back in three times already. Dealer won’t admit it’s a lemon.”

I walked up beside him and looked down at the engine. “What’s it doing?”

He removed his hand from where it had been hidden down among the pulleys. In it was a Beretta M9 semiautomatic. He took one step back to get out of my reach, the Beretta aimed at my midsection. Both moves were the kind of thing they teach you at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, what used to be called the School of the Americas. He was one of the guys who had been following me. Not the one with the gold medallion around his neck. The Other One.

He said, “Okay.”

I heard a door open as someone got out of the Escalade. Although I couldn’t see him behind the raised hood, when he stepped into view, I saw he was the one with the medallion. He wore his top shirt buttons undone, like before.

“You guys got a different SUV,” I said.

“We have lots of them,” said Medallion. He said it in Spanish.

I switched to that language too. “Who are you guys again?”

“You know what it means to be disappeared?”

“I have heard the expression.”

“We are going to make it happen.”

“I wish you would reconsider.”

“We warned you fairly, did we not?”

“You certainly did. I have no objections about that.”

“And our friends warned you again yesterday, but here you are.”

“Those guys are your friends? You should keep better company.”

“So that is two fair warnings, right? Yet here you are, continuing to do what we have asked you not to do.”

I said, “Would it help if I promised—” And in the middle of my sentence was a movement behind me, and then they gave me what I wanted, which was nothing anymore.

24

Most people believe in the illusion of a clear dividing line between the things inside their heads and the things outside, but I had been cleansed of that mass hallucination by a river of lysergic acid diethylamide, among other substances. If I had actually returned to sanity, it was only because the drugs had taught me not to put my faith in what I thought I knew about the world within me, or without.

For example, the fact that I was lying motionless offered no clue about anything. Neither did the fact that I was moving. I had no certainty of either fact, if they were facts. But my return to sanity had involved the habit of describing everything that seemed to be around me, in order to acknowledge my own state of being, whether it was actual or not. So in the situation where I seemed to be, I admitted that there might be darkness, and there might be pain, and there might be some kind of connection between those things and the thing that called itself me. And in admitting that these things might in fact exist in ways that remained independent of each other, it became slowly possible to sort them out.

I most likely moaned. It appeared that I rolled over. I confessed it might be possible that I was me, and I was still alive.

What was this dark around me? I rubbed my face and felt what moistness feels like on the fingers, if feelings might be actual. And yes, a spike of pain when I apparently touched my forehead. An idea came and stayed long enough to let me think about it. That was progress, surely. The idea was this: blood in the eyes might cause darkness. There was logic in the thought, whether logic was logical or not. I willed my hands to wipe my eyes. It seemed to make no difference. If I truly did exist, it seemed I might be blind.

Here we go now, moving. Rolling to one side. Pressing down. Equal and opposite reactions. Science. That’s the ticket.

It seemed I was sitting, and lo and behold, all around me were little pinpoints of light, like stars. Oh no. Not that again. Was I in space again, adrift? But wait, didn’t this mean I was seeing something? Yes. The things that looked like stars. I sat and gazed around and realized it was possible they were stars,

actual stars in a night sky. The universe outside of me was filled with them, so densely packed above, they looked as though God had spilled the sugar. Of course. This was an image of the Milky Way within my head, what it would look like with no city lights to drown it out. And I thought of city lights far below a cliff, and Haley in midair above them. I remembered and then felt great disappointment that remembering was still possible.

Then I heard breathing, and it wasn’t mine.

I looked down—looking now as if what I was seeing was really happening, beginning to believe the things I saw—and I saw more stars a little lower, and much larger. They were yellow, two pairs of them, each pair close together. Then they vanished for a millisecond, gone and back again in the blink of an eye, and a word entered my brain. “Coyotes.” And another word came after that, and it was “move.”

It took about an hour to get back up to the road. Once I reached it, I probably sat there in the dirt another hour, gathering my strength. Then I got myself up on my two legs, and I began to walk. Who knows how long I walked? Certainly not me. I believe I fell a few times, but always I got up. I was getting better at that all the time. Falling. Getting up.

The road ahead of me grew brighter, and I wondered if the sun was rising, but then I realized it was an unnatural quality of light, pale and otherworldly. Then I realized it was headlights. A vehicle coming from behind me. The men who made my disappearing happen, returning to do it right this time. I willed myself to turn toward the downhill side of the road. I willed myself to go down into the darkness. But my feet got tangled as I turned, and I fell on the road, and though I did consider getting up again, and would undoubtedly have done so given enough time, there simply was no time.

The headlights came too close. They stopped. I heard the sound of two doors opening behind the headlights, but staring toward their glare had only left me blind again. One of them approached me from the right. One came from the left. They were flanking me again. I wouldn’t let them take me alive. I would take them with me. Oorah.

They laid hands on me together. They lifted me, and I stood up.

“Are you quite well, sir?” came the voice of one of them, and I knew who it was, and I let them bear my weight, and I said, “Don’t call me ‘sir.’”

“Yes, Mr. Cutter,” said Simon.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” said Teru.

The doctor at the Hoag Memorial emergency room, where Teru and Simon took me, had a few things to say about how lucky I was. It turned out Medallion and the Other One had sapped me, shot me in the chest three times, and then rolled me down the hill beside the road. To add insult to injury, they had also taken Haley’s Range Rover.

It was the Kevlar vest that saved me, of course. All three slugs had flattened themselves against it. I had three cracked ribs, a goose egg on the back of my head where they had coldcocked me, a bad gash across my forehead near the hairline, and assorted bruises and small cuts from my unconscious tumble down the hillside, although it was hard to tell which of those had come from the beating in Pico-Union and which from the attack in the mountains.

The doctor believed if I had been conscious, I might have broken many other bones, but the flexibility of my limp body had allowed all of my muscles and joints to go with the flow as I fell, so to speak. “I’ve seen this before,” he said, “in people who were sleeping in a car when it got in a wreck. It also explains why drunk drivers usually cause more damage to the other guy than they do to themselves.”

He wanted to hold me for twenty-four hours for observation, because of the risk of a subdural hematoma. I got a private room. It seemed that Simon and Teru hadn’t eaten since lunch, so Teru went out for takeout while Simon remained sitting beside the bed. My head still felt as if someone was in there beating on my brain, but otherwise I felt strangely alert and interested in everything. It was a kind of emotional high I had noticed before, after surviving other near-death experiences.

When Teru left the room, I said, “Can I ask something personal?”

Simon said, “One may always ask.”

“How old are you?”

He didn’t seem surprised at the question. “Let us say that I am older than I feel.”

“Well, you move like you’re in your thirties. Mind telling me what you bench?”

“Bench?”

“Bench press. You know, weight lifting.”

“I understood your reference, Mr. Cutter, but why do you ask?”

“Just making conversation, really.”

“Ah. Well, in answer to your question, about fourteen stone.”

I did the math. Fourteen stone was two hundred and eighty pounds. I said, “How many reps?”

“Two sets of eight, twice a day.”

“What do you do for cardio?”

“Miss Haley allowed me to swim in the early mornings. I have taken the liberty of continuing that regimen since her passing.”

“Do you run?”

Simon shook his head slightly. “One’s knees.”

“How about keeping up with hand-to-hand?”

“I visit Abernathy’s on my days off.”

Abernathy’s was a boxing gym in LA. It had been around since the 1940s. I said, “You have a regular sparring partner?”

“Jack Rolls and I are old friends.”

I looked at him. “You spar with Jack Rolls? Seriously?”

“When he’s good enough to find the time.”

Before Jack Rolls retired and bought Abernathy’s, he had been a World Boxing Association light-middleweight world champion. I said, “I’m impressed.”

Simon shrugged.

“Listen,” I said, “I hope I didn’t offend you the other day by asking about your work before you were a butler.”

“Not in the slightest. One would enjoy a conversation about it with someone of your background. Unfortunately, there is the Official Secrets Act.”

“So there is. Can you tell me why you changed careers?”

“Cashiered, I’m afraid. Frightfully unfair matter of age restrictions. Didn’t care to enter management, so to speak, which was the only other option.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Over two decades have passed, more’s the pity. If they had only seen things properly, I had many good years left to offer.”

“You still do.”

“Very kind of you to say so, Mr. Cutter. One serves queen and country, little thinking there will be an end to it, except perhaps in the honorable way at the hands of an enemy, and then suddenly they mention that it might be best to carry on elsewhere. Not because one failed in any way or because one no longer functions adequately, but simply because one managed to survive a day too long as measured by a calendar. One knows about policy of course. Still, one does not seriously expect such things to be determined strictly by one’s own age. But there was no exception made. Bit of a surprise at first. Caught off guard.”

“What made you decide to become a butler?”

“Several factors. My father was valet to the eighth Marquess of Berkleyshire, so I was raised with a thorough understanding of life in service. And I believe I may say without fear of overstepping that my work for Her Majesty’s government involved similar skills at times.”

I said, “Congressman Montes implied that he met you on some kind of diplomatic mission, so I think I can guess what you mean. I spent a little time working out of our embassy in Khartoum. The head of housekeeping was actually section chief for the CIA.”

“Regrettably, I must avoid comment. However, it did occur to me that butlers often continue to serve until they are well advanced in years, and after my discharge, that concern was on my mind. So…” Simon shrugged, folded one leg over the other, and straightened the perfectly creased fabric of his slacks.

I rubbed my temple, trying to manage the pain as we sat in silence for a few minutes. The ability to be together without talking was one of my favorite things about Simon.

After a while I said, “It’s all relative. Some of the younger noncoms in my last company called me ‘Pops.’”

“Oh, of course, Mr. Cutter. One does not object to aging itself. Most natural thing in the world. And one must admit the eyesight, reflexes, and strength may not be quite what they once were. But nature in her wisdom provides certain compensations, does it not? One learns a bit here and there as one goes along, and when confronted with certain difficulties, one begins to feel a stratagem based on experience is so very often preferable to the type of rash solutions favored in one’s youth. It seems frightfully foolish not to recognize this, and frankly, quite unjust. It is the injustice that continues to annoy.”

“Why not take what they offered in management?”

“That was not where one’s strengths lay. One was more… hands-on. And it seemed a rather dismal prospect to end one’s days behind a desk in some office staring as the Thames rolled by.”

I yawned and rubbed my temple again. I must have slept a little, because the next thing I knew, Teru was in the room, He and Simon sat beside each other eating hamburgers. Only Simon’s fingertips touched his sandwich, as if he wanted to remain as far from it as possible. Teru was wolfing his down with gusto. I smiled, then went back to sleep.

Sometime after dawn I rolled over and opened my eyes. It took a moment to realize that Tom Harper was sitting by the bed.

I said, “Tom.”

He stood, looked down at me, and said, “How you doing?”

“Pretty much good to go, I think.”

“Good. Mind if we talk about why you’re here?”

He asked a lot of questions. I told him everything I could without giving up Vega’s name and whereabouts. I didn’t like to identify my clients to the authorities. Not even to Harper. It was bad for business.

Once I had Harper filled in, he said, “What are you not telling me?”

I said, “I gave you everything I know.”

“Come on, Malcolm. You get a bomb thrown through your window and claim you don’t know why. I have to hear from the Newport cops about a couple of guys tailing you. They ran the plates on that Suburban, by the way. They were stolen. Why don’t you tell me about these things?”

“I don’t know who threw the bomb. And what would I mention the two guys before now? It’s not against the law to follow people. I only told the Newport cops because they asked. I don’t like to bother you that way. I figure you’ve got enough real crime fighting to do.”

“We’re buddies, Malcolm. You should’ve at least mentioned they were out there.”

“Bicycle theft. Speeding tickets. Pirated Duran Duran CDs.”

“I’m serious, Malcolm.”

“What are you gonna do, blame the victim now?”

Teru was sitting in a recliner on the other side of my bed. Harper looked at him and said, “Do you understand this blockhead?”

“Who can understand the wind, grasshopper?” replied Teru.

Harper looked back at me. “What’s he talking about?”

“Beats me. My friend is inscrutable.”

“Okay. You guys have your fun. Meanwhile, I’m just, you know, kind of assuming there’s been a crime committed here, and I was toying with the idea of going out to catch the bad guys.”

“What else can I say? It was two Latinos in a white Escalade. The same two who were following me before in a black Suburban. I didn’t get the plates this time because one of them was standing in the way. One of them wears his shirt unbuttoned to show off a lot of bling. They both move like professionals. They both carry M9s.”

“Yeah, but what do they want?”

“Based on the bullets and everything, my guess is they want to kill me.”

“But why, Malcolm? Why is the question.”

“If you figure out an answer, let me know.”

25

When I woke again, Olivia Soto was sitting in a chair next to Teru. He remained where he had been before, but he was asleep.

Olivia was reading a magazine. I watched her for a minute, wondering why she was there and how she had found out I was there, and whether I should let her know I was awake or keep on watching her, or just go back to sleep. I decided it would be wrong to be inhospitable in a hospital.

I said, “Hello.”

She looked up from the magazine. “You’re awake.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “You might be a dream.”

She stood and leaned over and gave my cheek a gentle kiss. Maybe she meant it as a sympathetic gesture, but her lips on my skin felt foreign and unnatural.

“Proves nothing,” I said. “Beautiful girls always kiss me in my dreams.”

She smiled, then took my hand and said, “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Teru muttered something in his sleep and adjusted his position in the recliner. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“Doña Elena asked me to convey her hope for your quick recovery. The congressman also wanted you to know he’s concerned.”

“How’d they know I was here?”

She shrugged. “The congressman has his ways.”

“Well, it was nice of them to send you over. Please tell them I appreciate it.”

“Okay, the thing is, they didn’t exactly send me. Doña Elena just asked me to mail a card. But when I found out you were hurt, you know…” She stroked my hand a little.

I said, “It’s just a little headache and a couple of scratches.”

“Thank God for that.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then released it and sat back down next to Teru. “Who did this to you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you think it had something to do with what you’re doing, looking for Alejandra Delarosa?”

“Maybe.”

Teru roused himself with a sudden shake, then stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “I’m hungry.”

I said, “Olivia, have you met Teru?”

She nodded. “We talked awhile before he went to sleep. Simon was here too, but he left about an hour ago. He said something about painters coming over to the house.”

“An hour ago? How long have you been here?”

“Just a few hours.”

Terus said, “Olivia volunteered to keep an eye on you while I took a nap.”

I looked at him. “You were here all night?”

“Sure,” he said. “And now that you’re awake, I’m thinking enchiladas.”

A little later, I checked out of Hoag without waiting for the doctor’s blessing. Simon had brought over a change of clothes for me earlier, so except for a small bandage over the stitches on my forehead, I was fairly presentable when Olivia drove Teru and me about half a mile inland from the hospital. We ate at El Matador on Newport Boulevard. It was the finest Mexican food in south Orange County, except perhaps for La Siesta in San Clemente. My head was splitting, but I was used to that, and besides, greasy food has always seemed to help with headaches.

While we ate, Olivia said, “Are you going to drop the investigation?”

I covered my mouth when I answered, since it was full of refried beans. “Why would I do that?”

“Someone almost killed you. That would make most people stop.”

I shook my head. “I won’t stop.”

“Yes. I had that feeling.” She took a healthy bite of chili relleno. She seemed to ponder me as she chewed. She swallowed. “Does the money make you curious?”

“What money?”

“The two-hundred-thousand-dollar ransom. You do know Toledo was worth millions?”

“Some people think so.”

“Some people? Everybody knows he stole millions from the people of Guatemala. So why did the kidnapper only ask for two hundred thousand?”

“That’s exactly what we want to know,” said Teru.

I looked at him. “We? What ‘we’?”

“You and me of course. And Simon.”

Olivia said, “You’re working on this with Malcolm?”

I said no in the same moment Teru said yes.

Olivia looked back and forth at us, her lovely eyebrows arched. I stared at Teru’s profile. He didn’t return my look, but he did sort of stick his jaw out stubbornly.

“Well, it’s good to know Malcolm has help,” said Olivia. “Since he so clearly needs it.”

“Simon is a butler, and Teru is a gardener,” I said. “They are not personal protection specialists, and they don’t have private investigation licenses.”

“I am also an attorney,” said Teru, turning to stare down his pug nose at me. “And a philosopher, as you well know. I defy you to ask me anything about Nietzsche. Or Oliver Wendell Holmes, for that matter. Junior or senior.”

Ignoring him, I turned toward Olivia. “I don’t need help. Everything is going exactly according to plan.”

She said, “Getting knocked unconscious, shot three times, and rolled off a mountain? This is your plan?”

“It’s called flushing your quarry.”

“Otherwise known,” said Teru, “as getting your butt kicked.”

“Well, whatever your so-called plan is, what do you think about the two hundred thousand?” asked Olivia.

“The police say she asked for half a million initially, and Toledo talked her down.”

“It’s still not enough money, when she could have asked for millions.”

“True,” I said. “So I think maybe Delarosa didn’t realize how much Toledo had. Or maybe she figured he wasn’t liquid. Just because a man is worth a few million doesn’t mean it’s in a form that he can transfer. She was his administrative assistant, after all. She might have known his investment situation.”

Terus said, “Maybe that two-hundred-thousand figure isn’t accurate. It’s common in kidnapping cases for the details to be reported incorrectly to the press. It helps the police weed out crank tipsters.”

Olivia opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again and focused her attention on her lunch. Teru and I did the same. It really was top-notch Mexican food.

After a while, Olivia said, “Should we get something to go for Simon?”

Teru and I both laughed. Teru said it might be worth it to take back a taco, just to see the expression on Simon’s face. But I said there wasn’t much chance of a reaction one way or another, and Teru agreed it probably wouldn’t be worth the money.

Olivia said, “I take it Simon doesn’t like Mexican food?”

“He’s more of a Cornish hen and escargot kind of guy,” said Teru.

Teru paid the bill; then Olivia drove us to El Nido and dropped us off. She said she had to get back to the Montes’s place in Beverly Hills.

As she drove down the driveway, Teru said, “Some people have all the luck.”

“What do you mean?”

“That there is a gorgeous girl, and she obviously has a thing for you.”

“That’s not why she comes around,” I said.

“No?”

Watching Olivia’s car turn left at the gate and move out of sight, I said, “No.”

We turned to cross the grounds. I was a bit light-headed. At one point I wobbled a little, and Teru gripped my elbow to steady me.

I said, “The old noggin’s taken quite a pounding.”

“You want to sit down here a minute? I could go get a golf cart.”

“It hasn’t come to that.”

He held on to my arm as we walked slowly. I didn’t object. I said, “Interesting that she asked about that two hundred thousand. I’ve been wondering about that all along.”

“She seems like a smart girl.”

“Woman, Teru. We try to call them women now.”

“Not when you’re my age, and they’re her age.”

We walked on.

I said, “It’s time to look into Arturo Toledo’s financial situation. See if he really did get out of Guatemala with all those millions.”

“Hard to find that out, I would imagine.”

“Probably. But Doña Elena’s new husband is a congressman, so his finances are in the public record.”

Teru said, “If Toledo had the money, and the Delarosa woman only got two hundred thousand of it, then Doña Elena might have all the rest.”

“And if she does, there might be hints of it in the congressman’s finances.”

“Which would mean what, exactly?”

I paused a moment to consider the implications. “If Toledo didn’t have the money, I’ll know why Delarosa settled for two hundred. And if he did have the money, I’ll know I need to focus more on why she settled.”

Teru nodded. “You want help looking into that?”

“Nah. It’ll give me something to do while I wait for my head to get back to normal.”

“Define ‘normal.’”

“Shut up.”

“Okey-dokey.”

With his usual sixth sense, Simon seemed to know we were coming. He stood waiting in the shade of the palms beside the guesthouse patio, looking very proper in his Savile Row bespoke suit. It was a relief to settle into a chair at the table beside him. On it were a pitcher of lemonade, three glasses, three slices of key-lime pie, and a SIG Sauer P228 in a tactical holster.

Simon remained standing as he poured the lemonade with one hand held behind his back. “I thought you might enjoy a citrus-flavored dessert after your Mexican meal. To cleanse the palate.”

I decided not to bother asking how he knew where we had eaten and refused to dignify his remark about palate cleansing with a reply.

I said, “Where’s the Tabasco sauce?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know. Tabasco. Hot sauce, made from peppers.”

“I am familiar with the condiment, but should not consider it desirable with key-lime pie.”

“Oh well,” I said, helping myself to a slice. “One should not expect an English butler to be familiar with American cuisine. Have a seat and pitch in on this pie before it melts.”

Looking back and forth between Teru and me, Simon slowly sank into the chair on my left. Teru was already sitting across the table. He also took a slice of pie and dug in.

I pointed at the M11 on the table. “Is this for me?”

Simon said, “To replace the one they took.”

“How’d you get your hands on it so quickly?”

“Respectfully, Mr. Cutter, it would be best if I did not answer.”

“But it’s legal? Registered?”

“Indeed it is.”

“That takes at least ten days.”

“In most cases, I believe that is correct.”

“But not in this case?”

“No, sir.”

“This is what you did after you left the hospital?” I clipped the holster to my belt. “Thank you, Simon.”

“You’re welcome, Malcolm.”

I looked at him to see if his use of my first name was intentional, or a slip. He looked away and covered a yawn with a linen napkin.

I said, “When did you last sleep?”

“I believe it was the evening before last.”

“You didn’t even take a nap?”

He looked back at me as if I had just suggested serving fish and chips to the Prince of Wales. “One does not nap.”

I turned to Teru. “And you. Thank you for staying there all night.”

“Sure,” said Teru, finishing his pie. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Simon, that was excellent. I’m really gonna miss your excellent taste in bakeries.”

“And I shall miss the pleasure of walking in your garden, Mr. Fujimoto.”

I said, “You guys never mentioned how you found me.”

Teru said, “You told me where you were going, remember? When you didn’t get back on time, we decided to go looking.”

“I said I’d be back about three. What time was it when you found me?”

“I don’t know. Couple of hours after midnight.”

“You searched all that time?”

Neither of them answered.

I decided I had asked enough questions for a while. We sat there quietly while seagulls wheeled and shrieked in the perfect blue above. Teru packed his pipe and lit it with a wooden kitchen match. Neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to move on. Neither of them seemed to think anybody had to say anything. We just sat together.