"Nick Horrigan?"
I recognized the voice but still couldn't believe it. I said hoarsely, "Yes, Mr. President?"
"So good of you to take my call this time."
I wasn't sure what to do with that, so I bit my lip and waited.
Bilton continued, "I understand you want to stay out of the limelight."
"Yes, si-" I caught myself. "Mr. President."
"That's good. I respect that. Lord knows there are enough types willing to air their dirty laundry for a chance to swap Kleenex with Barbara Walters. Do you have any dirty laundry, Nick?"
I swallowed just to get some moisture to my throat. "I think we all do, Mr. President."
"Yes," he mused. "Some more than others. As I was saying, I'm pleased that you're not a glory hound. I'm proud of the contribution you made at San Onofre. You'll find, Nick, that some people will want to meet with you, to exploit your role for the sake of their cause or campaign, to pry around in what is clearly a matter of national security. You wouldn't want to meet with someone like that, Nick. Certainly not twice."
Information moved quickly between the camps, it seeemed, through the common link of the Secret Service. But who was reporting back to whom?
Bilton continued, "If you mess around on certain stages, the spotlight finds you eventually. And that spotlight is hotter than a desert sun and illuminates twice as much. So again, I'm pleased that you've decided to take the high road on this."
My heart was racing. On the one hand, it seemed like standard political bullying from Bilton: Don't help my rival in his campaign to defeat me, don't contradict the fabricated version of events at San Onofre that is helping us in the polls, or I will make you pay. But there seemed a more menacing lining as well. Would I be made to pay like Charlie?
While I was trying to figure out how to reply, he said, "Good-bye, Nick," and hung up.
As I handed back the phone, Sever seemed amused by my expression. "The Man likes to do that. The off-guard thing. Apologies, but, you know, following orders and all that." His hand disappeared beneath his jacket and came out with a fat envelope, which he offered to me. "This is so you can get some new furniture and the like."
I tilted the envelope, took note of the hundreds crammed inside. The sight brought me back to the oiled leather smell of that sedan, where I'd clutched a similar envelope filled with traveler's checks. The one thing I'd carried into my new life.
I tried to read Sever's eyes. What was really being offered? Hush money? Payment for me to stay away from Caruthers, to abstain from giving him any information that might help his campaign? Was the cash for me to disappear again? Considering the context, it would seem that Sever was playing bagman for Bilton. But I had put in my sarcastic request for a new front door to Alan, a member of Caruthers's camp. And here a door was, with a cash offer behind it. Yet that seemed too straightforward. Was Sever really testing the waters, or was this a smart misdirection?
I handed the envelope back. He raised his eyebrows inquisitively.
One wrong turn, I thought, to get off course.
He shrugged and returned the envelope to his pocket. "We'll hold on to this for you. In case you change your mind, want a new couch." Passing me, he grinned a strained grin, handing me the keys. I wondered if Wydell knew about this little field trip. "You need anything else, give a call." He tapped his fist on the jamb and nodded farewell.
I took a minute to regain my composure, then called in Homer, locking the door behind us as he trudged to the bathroom. The minute I heard the shower running, I checked the dishwasher. The paper clip was still there, resting on the top right edge of the door. The bundled hundreds remained inside, untouched beneath the rack of dirty dishes.
On my disposable cell phone, I called Raz and asked him to come change out my locks. "I be there in two hour, bro. I give you good price."
I had no sandwich meat, but I found a box of mac and cheese in the pantry, so I started boiling water. After I'd stirred in the fluorescent orange powder, Homer emerged from the bathroom, shrugging into his massive coat. His cheeks and forehead were flesh-colored again, but already his hands bore streaks of dirt from his clothes. Beads of water stood out in his matted beard.
He trudged over and stared at the pot and the glass of water, disappointed. "You don't even have a soda?" he asked.
"Why don't you dip into your 401(k) and go buy a Pepsi?"
He sighed resignedly. "Fair enough. But mac and cheese?"
"Hey," I said, "it's been a long couple days."
"Something to do with why that guy's been hanging around?" He registered my surprise. "Oh, yeah. Up the street. Sitting in his car, talking to himself-earpiece, you know."
"The guy who was just here? How often?"
"I seen him once or twice the past couple days. And now up here. Why's he so interested in you?"
"Mistaken identity."
"Don't think so," Homer said firmly. His beard shifted as he chewed, then he noticed I was looking at him and said defensively, "You notice things in my profession."
"Profession?"
"Homeless drunk."
"What kinds of things do you notice?"
"People on the run. People with something to hide." He lifted the spoon from the pot and ticked it at me, and I noticed how much he resembled
Liffman while looking nothing like him at the same time. "What are you hiding?"
"A hundred eighty grand in the dishwasher."
His smile held little amusement. "You like to avoid questions."
"What are you, the homeless shrink? Eat your fucking food."
"You call this food?" But he lowered his face and ate in silence.
After a while I said, "Sorry."
"You should be. That's no way to talk to a guest."
"Don't push it."
He finished scraping cheese goo off the bottom of the pot and handed it back. I set it steeping in hot water. Later it would need a good scouring, as would the bathroom, which generally looked as if two street dogs had fought in there by the time he got through with it.
His assessment of me continued to chafe. "How can you tell that about someone?" I asked.
He gestured around the condo. "Look at this. Look at you. A perfectly all-right-looking guy. Reasonably smart. Everything's there for you. But it's like you left something behind somewhere along the way."
My face grew hot. "Left something behind?"
"Some people dig in and fight. Some of us run. You're a runner. Like me."
I knew better than to ask what he was running from. We'd covered that ground, and he skirted his past almost as well as I did mine. "Maybe once," I answered, a little too sharply.
"People don't change." He lifted a snowy eyebrow at me, observing the impact of his words. "Truth hurts?" he asked, not unkindly.
"C'mon," I said tersely. "I'll walk you out."
"Of course."
We headed down and out onto the street, and Homer started trudging off. I stared after him. Was I a runner like him? In light of Bilton's not-so-indirect threats, did I dare to keep digging? Could I stop?
I called after him, and he turned back. I asked, "You're buddies with the homeless guys who live around the VA, right?" The VA was a big operation with federal funding, so I didn't have any contacts over there.
"'Buddies' might be a stretch, but we have common interests."
"Such as?"
He frowned thoughtfully. "Abandoned shopping carts, empty soda cans, Night Train."
"A lot of Vietnam vets around there?"
"Ya think?"
"Can you ask the administration if they have a system for keeping tabs on soldiers from specific infantries? I'm trying to find anyone who served in Company C of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry. I need to get a name of one of the guys they served with."
"Half those guys are prob'ly dead or on the street, and I doubt the government gives a shit where the other half lives, but it can't hurt asking. Sir." He snapped off a salute and a smirk and kept wa
lking.
When I turned back to my building, a glint overhead pricked my peripheral vision, something on the balcony of the unrented unit next to Evelyn's. I glanced up in time to see a long-lens camera withdraw from view, disappearing behind the orange tile balustrade.
Chapter 18
I teetered on the ledge between balconies, doing my best to ignore the pavement three stories down. Hugging stucco, I inched farther along. I'd climbed from my balcony to Evelyn's and on toward the unrented unit from there. It was a reckless play, but I was goddamned tired of being spied on and angry enough to risk a deadly plummet in order to force a confrontation.
Two abandoned lawn chairs sat by the sliding glass door, which had been left open. The screen cut the sunlight, but I could see that there was no one in the living room. I eased down onto the balcony and through the screen door, which gave off the faintest chirp in the tracks. The sound echoing in my head, I froze for a solid minute, so tense that my shoulders cramped.
The living room smelled of fresh paint. Outlets still taped off, sheets of drywall on the counter. The condo, a mirror image of mine, was undergoing a remodel to be put on the market. The workers had taken off for Labor Day last week and not come back. Sensing movement in the bedroom, I crept over, flattened myself against the wall beside the jamb, and peered in.
She sat cross-legged in the middle of the faded carpet, facing away. Her brown hair was pulled into thick, girlish braids, and her head was bent as she fussed over something in her lap. The camera? A gun? Her arms, poking from a black tank top, were pale and thin, though not without muscle. A sun tattoo stood out on the back of her slender neck. Her posture and manner seemed that of a child, though she was probably in her mid-twenties.
I stepped into the doorway. "Why are you following me?"
She yelped, a camera popping from her lap onto the carpet. "Damn it." She clutched at her chest. "You scared the shit out of me." Her bangs were cut high and ruler straight across her forehead. Her eyes, big and unreasonably pretty, were moist from the scare. She crawled over and checked the camera, twisting the zoom lens free and examining it with concern. "I'm not following you."
I walked over and crouched in front of her. The realization that she was scared made me uncomfortable, but I felt no urge to reassure her. Her nose was nicely sloped and she had pouty lips, but her face was lean, shadows touching her cheeks. She reached for one of the many pockets in her cammy pants, and I grabbed her wrist, my fingers nearly encircling it.
"Careful," I said. "Slowly."
I let go, and she withdrew a roll of film. I took it and slid it from the little black tube. Kodak MAX Versatility Plus, 35mm 800-speed. The kind used to snap me before was Ektachrome 100. "Let me see the rest of your film, please."
She pulled a handful of plastic canisters from her pockets. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'll just get out of here. You don't have to call the cops."
A pillow, blanket, and overnight bag had been shoved into the corner, along with some Styrofoam take-out boxes. Her nervousness seemed genuine, and it didn't quite add up.
I checked the other rolls of film and the one in the camera. They were all the same high-speed type, not the kind left for me at the photomat. Not that that meant anything. So I went through her bag, but it held only a change of clothes, some toiletries, and more camera gear. A lens case bore a printed label-PROPERTY OF KIM KENDALL.
"Who hired you to follow me?"
"I told you. This has got nothing to do with you."
"Don't bullshit me. I saw you taking pictures of me."
"I'm not taking pictures of you. I was taking pictures of him"
"Okay. Let's just call the cops and have them straighten this out for us."
Her mouth tensed. "No, seriously," she said. "I'll prove it." She stood and tugged at my arm. "Come here."
I followed her into the bathroom. A chemical reek hit my nostrils when she shoved aside the shower curtain. Photographs hung dripping from the retractable clothesline, which had been pulled out and notched at the far end of the tub. Homer slumbering outside the liquor store. Homer napping on the grassy stretch along Ocean Avenue. Homer passed out at a bus stop on Wilshire. Evidently Homer slept a lot.
I plucked a photo off the line and studied it. "Who is he?"
"Wendell Alton. He was a dentist. Couldn't control the drinking. Lost everything-his family, house, his practice. He hasn't paid child support in years. We just tracked him down."
"Homer was a dentist?"
"Homer? Right. Yeah, he was."
"And you are…?"
"Usually? An art photographer. But that pays about as well as you can imagine. So I do jobs now and then for a couple private investigators."
"And this job?"
"Just to figure out what Alton's up to. To capture his life, report back. I'd learned that you let him come over once a week to shower and whatever.
So I set up here to show him coming and going. And for a home base, you know? It's harder than you'd think to shadow a homeless guy. All they do is lie around in the open."
"So what's going to happen to him?"
"Not up to me. I just turn in the pictures. His wife wants to come after him, that's her business."
"Isn't there a statute of limitations?" I was more upset than I should have been. "The guy's suffered enough, hasn't he?"
"A statute of limitations on abandoning your family?" She looked at me like I was subhuman. "Try that on the mom who's been working three jobs for the past decade. Or the kid."
"So he'll pay now? From jail?"
She shrugged. "Probably not. But he can't just run away from his past and expect it'll never catch up with him."
I leaned against the sink, feeling a bit nauseous.
"Why were you looking at all my film out there?" she asked. "What were you expecting to find?"
"Nothing. I… Nothing."
"Are you gonna call the cops?"
"No. Just- Listen, go easy on Homer. Tell his wife and the PI or whoever. He's an okay guy. Just beaten down. Going after him isn't going to solve anything. Just… leave him be."
Her big light eyes were flared with what I imagined was uncharacteristic empathy. I felt more paranoid than usual as I walked out.
Chapter 19
Slotted in the driveway next to Induma's recreational Range Rover was her Jag, a nice old-school one from before all the luxury cars started looking like Camrys. Her house, a done-to-a-turn Craftsman backing on the murky Venice canals, lit up in greeting as I strolled between the waist-deep bamboo lining the walk. Less than a block from the beach, the air had a pleasing sea-dirty tint. I was a few minutes late, having driven freeway loops and parked three blocks away to make sure I wasn't being followed.
The lights, with their high-tech sensor pads, continued to illuminate my walk in segments until I was on the porch. Induma loved her technology. At the door I realized how nervous I was. I hadn't been over since we'd split, and I was looking forward to seeing her more than I wanted to admit.
Before I could knock, she shouted, "Come in!"
Stepping into a waft of humid air and layered scents, I set down the bottle I'd brought of her favorite dessert wine. Induma, like the kitchen, was a mess. Shiny hair piled atop her head, flecks of lassi on her face, dish towel crammed quarterback style down the front of her sweatpants. Lids rattled on steaming pots. Papadum disks dripped vegetable oil onto paper towels. A timer buzzed. On a sheet of tinfoil on the kitchen table sat a giant lump of clay, shaped vaguely, bizarrely, like Chewbacca's head.
Induma kneed the oven door closed. "Out of my way. Sit here. Eat this."
She slid a dish of puliyogare across the counter, pointed at it with a dripping wooden spoon. Rice with roasted peanuts and curry leaves, flavored with tamarind. I took a bite. She was a vegetarian, but her food was excellent anyway.
"Lord," I said.
She winked at me. "I know. Handro'll be right down. He's cleaning up."
"Cleaning up?"
"He's i
nto sculpting."
That explained Chewbacca on the kitchen table.
"He any good?" I asked.
"God-awful."
I wanted to ask her about Charlie's house, but there was a comfort to being near Induma, and I wanted to enjoy it before Alejandro descended. I took a turn around the kitchen and the contiguous living room, noting the wonderful, domestic accoutrements. A ring-stained cork coaster on the coffee table. Sheet of TV channels taped to the inside of an open cabinet door. A dog-eared fashion magazine. What I was admiring, I realized with a touch of envy, was how lived-in the house felt.
There's a kind of fear, a kind of loss, that goes into your cells. Becomes a part of you. Walls you off, keeps you from getting to the things you want the most. Nothing brought that home like the feeling I got when I glanced over at Induma.
Alejandro pattered down the stairs, pulling a T-shirt over his head leisurely enough to show off his ridged stomach. He was clearly more handsome than me. And more Latin. At the sight of me, his striking face lit up with a sincerity that made me feel guilty.
"Nick!" The suave accent turned my name into "Neek." He sauntered over and offered me an embrace that reeked of Polo Sport. He flipped his shaggy dark hair from his eyes with a practiced toss of his head, then gestured proudly at the lump of clay on the table behind us. "My latest piece. You like?"
"Wookie?"
He frowned. "Self-portrait. I still work on the nuance."
"The nuance," I said. "Right."
Putting his arm around my shoulders, he turned me away from Induma in a two-man huddle. "I need your advice. We have our year anniversary Sunday, and I want to do something special."
"Look, I don't think I'm the guy to-"
"I know you two used to, you know, but it don't bother me. Really. You friends now. You know her so well. Give me the advice for a good date."
I glanced back. Induma, busy at the stove, caught my eye, suppressing a grin.
"You wouldn't think it, but she loves action movies," I said. "Rent something with Steven Seagal."
"Really? "
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