"Head back out," he said. "I think Marchant has this entire proper wired for sound."
Blazak said nothing as we drove through the dark hills. We passed the first gate, wound down toward Coast Highway and went through the second. The guard stared at us.
"What do you know about Miguel Domingo?" I asked.
"The cops killed him right there. Machete, screwdriver."
"His sister was the one who got run over the week before."
Blazak looked at me, then back out the window. He said nothing as I waited to turn north on PCH.
"I didn't read that."
"The papers covered it, back page."
"We did not employ her, either. Lorna told me about your call."
We rode for a minute.
"I wish it wasn't that way," said Blazak.
"What way, sir?"
"People coming two thousand miles to work for seven bucks an hour. But you know, every once in a while, they get ahead, make it. Odds are better than the lottery. Better than the goddamned jungles where they came from. If I were one of them, I'd come here, too."
I made the turn and headed north. Off to the left the black ocean and black sky disappeared into a bank of pale fog. The fog just stopped a few hundred yards offshore, like smoke trapped behind a pane of glass.
"Your son called me about an hour ago. He'll sell it to you, and hand over Savannah. Two million."
Blazak was looking at me. "Sell me what?"
"You'll know, I won't—Alex."
He looked out the window as I headed up the hill toward Corona del Mar.
"And he's using you now instead of your father."
"Apparently, sir."
"And you'll get Marchant into it."
"I don't know, yet. It depends what you do."
"That thing with Will—it didn't have to happen. Alex is insane, Trona. And he's playing with lives."
"What's Alex selling you, along with your daughter?"
"A videotape."
I waited.
"Me, Lorna, another party. Female. I'll tell you something, Trona—I'm not ashamed of what I do. It's just kicks to me and nobody gets hurt. Consenting adults. But I've got Lorna to protect. I don't want that thing out in the general population, if you know what I mean."
"I wouldn't either, sir. Did you make it?"
"Yeah. I disguised it in the cover of one of Savannah's old cartoon videos. Something she'd outgrown. Stashed way in the back of my moviecollection, which is substantial and somewhat cluttered. But Savannah is into everything. Plays this game called Savannah the Spy—always digging around in my stuff, Lorna's stuff, anybody's. Apparently, it was in her backpack when she was taken. They must have tried to watch it. Alex realized he could add that to the ransom demand. A two-for-one offer. He can keep the damned tape, for all I care. My daughter, he cannot keep."
"How long will it take you to get up the money?"
"I'll have it at ten tomorrow morning. Trona, I got ripped off once doing this. I love my girl, so I'm willing to risk getting ripped off again. I'm not willing to expose her to gunplay and the kind of bullshit my son thinks is so amusing. If I don't want to risk the FBI shooting them both dead, I've got no choice but to trust you. So I'm going to trust you. But you should know not to fuck with me. I'm just a businessman, but when need to have ass kicked, I find a way to kick it."
I looked out at the juice stand and the thick trees bunched in a gully between the highway and the ocean.
"Sir, you're not hugely impressive to me. Your threats are really just bad manners."
He chuckled. "You're a weird guy, Trona. Not hugely impressive you. I like that. And I like what you did to Bo in my living room."
I made a U-turn at Poppy and headed back toward Blazak's home.
"I'm demanding that you leave Marchant out of this," he said. "That is my condition."
I thought about that. "They're good at this kind of thing."
"I remember how good they were at Waco and Ruby Ridge."
"They got Elian back to his father."
"Elian wasn't being held by someone who set a homeless guy on fire then pissed on him to put it out. Or dropped his own cat into a bucket of acid. Shit, maybe I shouldn't have said that to you."
"I'm over it, Mr. Blazak. Even if my face isn't."
His wave got us through the first gate.
"No Marchant. I'll have the money at ten," he said. "When we need to talk, call Lorna at the house. She'll get me and I'll call you back. Marchant's got tape recorders on the phones."
We wound up into the dark hills toward the second gate.
"My father was shot by a gangster named John Gaylen. We're closing in on him."
"Congratulations."
"The night before he killed Will, he met with Bo Warren."
In the periphery of my sight I saw Blazak studying me. He said nothing for a long minute. I listened to the grumble of the Mustang's V-8 as we cantered up the road.
"I've got no idea what that sonofabitch Bo would be talking to this gangster for. He's Dan Alter's man, not mine."
"He looked like he was yours in your house that day."
"On loan. He's all bluff and no results. He failed to secure my daughter. He succeeded in costing me one million dollars in cash."
"We think Gaylen was hired to hit Will."
"And you think Warren had something to do with it?"
"I think Warren is a gopher, sir. That's what you called him. But he wasn't alone with Gaylen. He had someone in the car with him. I want to know who."
Blazak shook his head. "How would I know that? You guys. You cops. You FBI men. You head-of-security types. People like you and Will and Rick Birch and Steve Marchant. You see plots inside plots. You have the nerve to polygraph me and my wife, then act secretive about the results. All this conjecture you come up with, all the coincidence and speculation. And all I want is my daughter back. One small eleven-year-old girl is all I want. You figure out Bo Warren and the killer. I can't. I don't even care. I'm a businessman. I get things done. You guys are a totally different breed."
"Yes, sir. We clean up messes for people like you."
He shook his head and flicked his hand, like he was waving a bee off a picnic plate. "Maybe you can ask Alex when you drop off two million more of my dollars and pick up Savannah. I've never even heard of this Gaylen character until now."
"Everything's going to go right with Savannah."
"Stop at the gate, Joe. Look, I'll do anything to get my daughter back safely. If you're the one I need to work with, then I'll work with you. I’ll consider you a business partner until you show me I should consider you something else."
He slammed the door of my Mustang and went to the gate pad to punch in his code.
When I was back on Coast Highway I called Steve Marchant's pager, hung up and waited.
He called back in less than one minute. I told him that Alex Blazak had asked me to broker a deal for his sister and a dirty movie. Cost to Jack, two million in cash. Jack had agreed. "Finally," he said. "Now we've got some room to move. You and I are going to kick some ass and get that girl back. I'll call Sheriff Vale, see how he wants to work this."
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next morning I was parked outside the Chapel of Light entrance a little after sunrise, waiting for Bo Warren's red Corvette. The huge parking lot was locked at night, opened by security in the morning. Vandals had broken glass and spray-painted obscenities on the sidewalks a few years back, so Daniel had decided to take preventive measures.
Warren's car grumbled around the corner and paused at the gate. The gate was iron, with slats running down, big cloudlike curls at the top, and angels playing trumpets above the curls. It was painted white. Warren punched in a code and drove through and I followed him before the gate could roll back.
When he saw me behind him he slammed on his brakes and got out. I met him about halfway between the two cars.
"Get the hell out of here," he said. "This isn't just sacred grou
nd, it's private, too."
He looked freshly showered: hair damp and neat, clothes crisp, boots almost unbelievably shiny. His sunglasses threw a small rising sun back at me. I thought of another shower I'd taken recently, and had to wrestle my mind off of that memory.
"I want to talk about John Gaylen."
"Then talk about him, soldier."
"You met with him in the parking lot of Bamboo 33 the night before he shot Will."
"Sounds like you should be talking to him, not me."
"We are."
"I'll tell you what I told His Holiness—I didn't meet with John Anybody. Got no idea where the Bamboo 33 even is. What is it, some gook joint?"
"It's a Vietnamese nightclub. And we've got an eyewitness who puts you there. Car, plates, good description of the driver. You, Mr. Warren.'
He stared at me without moving, face hard, sun bright on his glasses
"Here's how it could work, Mr. Warren. Rick Birch is lead on Will case. If I tell him what I know, he'll bring you in for questioning. If he brings you in, it's easy to make sure a reporter or two knows about it. That's news in this county—Reverend Daniel's head of security brought in for questioning in the Trona murder case. You being new to the Chapel of Light, it might not be so good for your performance review."
I could see his jaws moving, the pronounced throb of his carotid. That artery is the first thing a police interrogator looks for when his subject starts talking.
"I thought Daniel was your friend."
"He is, Mr. Warren, but you're not."
"What a pissy way to do business, Joe. Don't you understand the meaning of loyalty?"
I said nothing.
"Look Joe. Jennifer Avila put me onto a hood named Luz Escob Aka Pearlita. Escobar said her friend Gaylen had mentioned Alex Blazak. I thought he might know something about where Alex had gone with Savannah. So I talked to him. He didn't. Or at least he didn't tell me. Routine investigation work, Joe. That's all it was."
"Who was with you?"
"Pearlita, who do you think?"
"Jack Blazak came to mind."
Warren smiled and shook his head. Like a boxer who's been tagged and doesn't want to show it.
"No. Jack left all the footwork to me. Delegation. That's what makes him a smart man."
"Not smart enough to get his daughter back."
"He'll get her. Guys like that always get what they want. Everything's for sale, and they can afford it all."
"What happened when you tried to pay the ransom to Alex and pick up Savannah? Before Will got involved. What went wrong?"
He shook his head. "Alex didn't show. So I didn't leave the money. No Savannah, no money. That was the original deal. That's where Will blew it. First rule of a kidnapping for ransom—you never pay out before you pick up. I'm surprised an ex-sheriff deputy would have tried something so dumb. Of course, maybe that's why Alex wanted to use him. The way it played out, Alex got the money and kept the girl."
"What about the video?"
"Incidental. A bored businessman in a three-way with his own wife and some bimbo. Christ, these rich people are revolting."
Warren looked over at the chapel. "I'm late for work. And I'm glad to help out, Joe. Now get the fuck off this sacred ground. Your judo might work on me, but you can't throw God."
"It surprises me you say that, Mr. Warren. You don't brim with amazing grace."
"I brim when the paychecks clear."
I went back to the car. The exit side of the gate has a sensor so the angels with their trumpets slid open and let me out.
I met June for lunch in a park near her work. I hadn't seen her since our date, though I'd called her twice and thought about her every few minutes.
I didn't think she would be as beautiful to me in person again as she was in my memory of that outstanding night. I was wrong about that: when I walked over the grassy rise and saw her standing in the shade of a magnolia tree my heart swelled into my throat and I wondered if I'd be able to say hello.
I managed, barely.
We sat in the shade of the tree and ate cold chicken sandwiches she'd made. She was wearing the bracelet and the ruby earrings. We spread a blanket and lay down and kissed once. It lasted approximately forty-five minutes. My left arm went numb and I finally rolled over onto my back. From there the magnolia tree looked like the quiet spot. I thought how nice it was to be in a quiet spot instead of just imagining one.
"Can I touch your face?"
"Okay."
She reached across my face and set her hand on my cheek. I could smell her body and her perfume and I tried to concentrate on those things. Her fingers were soft. When a scar like that gets touched it feels like whole thing is trying to move. Like a plate. She pressed gently on bottom, down at the jawline, and the top of it—up above my eye—moved against the good flesh around it.
"Does it hurt?"
"Hot and cold, yes. Touch, no."
"How do you shave?"
"Very extremely carefully."
She laughed. I smiled.
"You should do that more."
"I've seen it in the mirror. Tough sledding."
"I disagree. Joe Trona doesn't feel sorry for himself, does he?"
Her fingers moved up my cheek. Flowers on rock.
"I try not to. I try very hard to realize that Will was right. The time I met him he said everyone has scars but most people have them the inside."
"That's beautiful and true."
"He said good things. He did good things."
"Why did they do that to him?"
"I don't know."
We were quiet for a while. The breeze hissed and rattled the big magnolia leaves and the grass was cool on my back through the blanket.
Her fingers came up around my eye. Petals on steel.
"Would you walk through Hillview with me and my mike sometime?
Remember for me and talk about it? If Joe Trona going back to visit Hillview isn't Real Live material, nothing is."
"I'll think about it."
"Am I taking advantage?"
"It's not that. But the wrong people will notice. Your show, when we talked? I was saying things I've never said before to anyone. If we do it again, people might know."
"Are you making your father's enemies?"
"I think I am."
"And you think they'd hear us and try to hurt me to hurt you?"
"Yes."
"Fuck 'em, Joe. Let's do the interview right now."
I rolled over and looked at her. "You don't understand."
"I understand that it doesn't scare me."
"It scares me, June. I love you and if anything happened to you I'd lose it."
Silence, then.
"You're right. And I was being flip."
"I am right this time. You've got courage to burn. Burn it at the right times."
One more kiss, ten minutes, more or less. June broke it off.
"It's showtime," she whispered. "Time to go yap."
When I got home I removed the radio transmitter from Will's car and locked it in one of my floor safes. I was getting that feeling again, of things lining up in bad ways. The same feeling I'd had that night with Will. This time, I tried to listen to it a little more closely.
The feeling got even stronger when I picked up the mail at my cubby later that afternoon. Another postcard—this time from Monterey, California:
Dear Joe,
I hope I can trust you. Don't let anything go crazy like "before. I'm getting very tired.
With. Love,
S.B.
I was standing on the corner of Balboa Boulevard and Pavilion at 4:P.M.
Alex had picked a good place to lose himself and observe me. The boulevard was crowded with cars going both directions, but the traffic was moving along well. Pavilion was a smaller street that emptied into parking lots on either side of Balboa. There were pedestrians all over—tourists and beachgoers, boogie-boarders and fishermen, students and families and retired couples. Th
ere were two bars and two restaurants with easy view of my corner. Even a hotel. Alex Blazak could have been in almost any car or behind almost any window and I couldn't have seen him. He could have been one of the tourists or the students. He could have glassed me from the foot of the pier or from the beach.
Marchant had planted agents in the area, but he didn't tell me how many and he didn't tell me where.
I headed for my car, feeling seen.
I drove back up Balboa Boulevard and called Marchant, told him Alex was a no-show.
"Of course he's a no-show," said Steve. "He's just getting you use to taking orders, seeing if you can keep your word. We won't get a look him until he's coming for the money. He might have you run a few more senseless errands for him. Always agree, always do what he says. At always tell me."
I had just driven off the peninsula when Rick Birch called. "Good news,’’ he said.
"I would like some."
"McCallum ran the slug that killed Ike Cao through the Federal DrugFire registry. We got lucky. The same gun that fired that bullet also fired bullets into two Lincoln 18th gangsters—Felix Escobar's victims."
"Pearlita's brother," I said.
"Maybe he gave it to her for safekeeping. Maybe she wanted to keep it in good working order, so she used it on Cao. Anyway, we picked her up half an hour ago on suspicion of first-degree murder. She had a twenty-two auto in her glove compartment."
"Maybe she'll roll over on Gaylen."
"Let's hope so. She did him a big favor, with Ike Cao. Now we'll see if she's stand-up or not."
"If she could ID the guy in Bo Warren's car that night, I'd be pleased."
"So would I. We'll let her get used to lockup tonight, then see if she wants to deal."
I drove to the Grove, waiting for my cell phone to ring again, but it didn't. I listened to June's show. Her guest was the general curator of the Los Angeles Zoo, who had grown up in Orange County. As a boy, he'd kept a crocodile in his backyard, an anteater in his bedroom and a collection of snakes in his garage. Driven his mom crazy. Sounded like a nice guy. At the sound of June Dauer's pleasant whisper of a voice I could feel my skin warm and my heart beat harder. I wanted to pull her out of the radio and kiss her for a few hours.
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