“He’s not getting the kid—that much I know. Beyond that, I have an idea about getting Mandy to say incriminating things on tape.”
“Why would she do that?”
I shrugged. “She’s…weird. And she kind of likes me.” Anne squinted. “She called me last night. She was pretty drunk, and pissed off at Bray, and—”
Anne’s squint became a smirk. “She drunk-dialed you? What—she got bored with Tinder?”
I felt my face redden. “The point is: she’s not overly fond of her uncle. It turns out, on top of everything else, he’s a sexist—big surprise—and Mandy’s a disgruntled employee.”
“Poor baby. But is she disgruntled enough to bite the hand?”
“I guess we’ll find out, unless you have a better idea.”
Anne picked up one of the cardboard coffee cups on her desk. She looked inside and swirled it around and shook her head slowly. “I got nothing,” she said.
I left Anne wilting in her office with her salad and her documents, and rode the elevator to the garage. She had promised to call after she spoke to her bosses, though she couldn’t say how long that would take on a weekend. Still, I was hopeful when my phone chimed as I was unlocking the Honda. I shouldn’t have been.
Sutter’s voice was low and tense. “I’m in El Segundo,” he said. “You need to get over here.”
“What’s happened? Is Elena okay? Alex?”
“Don’t know if they’re okay, but they are definitely gone.”
—
I pulled into the driveway behind an SUV and sprinted up the path. The front door was open, and Sutter was in the living room with Yossi, the tall, dark man with Chinese characters on his neck, who looked more sheepish than dangerous now.
Sutter put up his hand like a traffic cop, and I stopped at the doorway while he spoke quietly to Yossi. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I saw Yossi go from sheepish to pale and nervous. Yossi nodded as he listened, and when Sutter was done he started to answer. Sutter raised a finger and stopped him. Sutter spoke some more and put a hand on Yossi’s shoulder. Yossi nodded again, visibly relieved, then slid past me, out the door.
“You want coffee?” Sutter asked, and walked into the kitchen. I followed.
“Coffee, some clue as to what’s going on—either of those would work.”
“They bolted, all three of them,” Sutter said as he scooped coffee into the machine. “Out the bedroom window, over the backyard fence, and—poof. About two hours ago. Yossi thought Elena and the boy were asleep, and that Shelly was taking a bath, and he was mostly watching the street. He’s embarrassed as hell, if that makes you feel any better. And he’s worried that he won’t get any work out of me again. He’s got that right, the sloppy fuck.”
“Two hours ago? How far could they get in that time?”
“On foot, figure three miles an hour times two, but we’ll find out. I’ve got Franco and Evie looking.”
I was adding milk to my coffee when the front door opened and Franco walked in, followed by Evie—the sinewy black woman with scars on her forearms. They paused when they saw me, and Sutter waved them on.
“We spiraled out,” Evie said in a heavy French accent, “on foot and in the car. Seven-mile radius, and we got nothing.”
“Maybe not total nothing,” Franco said, and pointed toward the rear of the house. “You know the place behind this one, with the carport? When I’m here before, I always see a pickup in it.”
“Blue Ford,” Sutter said. “Kind of beat up.”
Franco nodded. “That’s it. Evie says she thinks the guy lives there works a late shift, comes back late morning, leaves the truck in the carport, sleeps all day, takes off again around nine at night. Truck’s not there now, but it’s not nine yet. We go up close and find the kitchen door jimmied. I look in—very quiet—I see a wallet on the kitchen floor, looks empty.”
Sutter looked at me and smiled ruefully. “You think they jacked the truck?” I asked.
Franco nodded. “Me and Evie make a bet. I say the blonde did it; she thinks no. But that blonde is tough.”
Evie shook her head. “You know shit about women, cher. It was the little dark one, the mother. She watches everything—everybody—all the time. And she plans—you see it in her eyes. Out there in the yard or from the bedroom, I know she sees that house and that truck, that guy on the night shift—same as me.”
“I’m with you,” Sutter said. “I don’t guess either of you caught the tags on that Ford.” Franco and Evie shook their heads. “Me neither, but if it was boosted, the guy next door will be calling it in soon. When he does, I can get ’em from a guy I know with the Sheriff’s.”
“Which will tell us what?” I asked.
“Tag numbers make finding the truck easier.”
“Isn’t that a needle in a haystack in this town?”
“Yeah, but I think we can rule out Holmby Hills and Brentwood. I assume Shelly’s driving, and she’s gonna go where she knows. What do you know about where Shelly hangs out, or who she hangs with?”
I shrugged. “I’ve see her on the streets, near the Harney, but I don’t think she’s going back there anytime soon. As far as friends, Mia’s the only one who comes to mind, and, given what Shelly brought to her door last time…”
“Burnt bridges—I get it,” Sutter said. “Still, Mia might be a place to start. You know how to find her?”
“I’ll see what contact info we have at the clinic,” I said. “If we have anything.”
Franco and Evie left, and the little house was quiet but for a drip of water from the tap into the kitchen sink—as flat and insistent as a bill collector’s knock.
Sutter stared at the sink. “I got to fix that,” he said eventually.
“If Elena’s a planner,” I said, “what’s her plan?”
He shrugged. “You tell me.”
“She wanted money from the Brays, and passage home for her and the boy. And she wanted an apology.”
“She doesn’t strike me as someone who changes her mind easy.”
“But I have no clue how she’d go about pursuing any of that—not on her own, anyway. What’s she going to do, go to the press herself? Stake out all the places the Brays live?”
Sutter shook his head. “Who the fuck knows? But I’d focus less on her plans if I were you, and worry more about your own.”
I squinted at him. “What am I missing?”
“Your girl has left you deeper in the shit, brother, if you can believe your shit can get deeper. Even if you wanted to do a deal with Bray, you can’t now. And how do you think the old man will react when you tell him you have no idea where his grandkid is? Or when you tell him, Now that Alex and Elena are in the wind, I got no dog in this fight? You think he’ll say, Solid, my brother; no harm, no foul, nice doing business with you?”
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Sutter’s smile was tight and grim. He drank his coffee, and the dripping tap held sway again.
CHAPTER 48
There were two guys at the end of the alley when I parked behind the clinic, dividing the contents of a suitcase that looked mostly made of duct tape. Caught in my headlights, their smudged faces were furtive and hungry and mad. One elbowed the other, and together they dragged their treasure into deeper shadow. I dragged myself upstairs.
I found a yogurt that was only slightly out of date in the fridge, and a brown banana, and I stood by the kitchen window while I ate them. I looked again at the eviction papers that had come that afternoon, and thought about what Sutter had said—Your girl has left you deeper in the shit—and found nothing I could argue with.
What little leverage I might’ve had with Bray, any marginal sway over this slow-motion train wreck, had bolted out the back window of the house in El Segundo, and driven off in a stolen truck. Harris Bray hadn’t believed me before, when I said I couldn’t produce Alex. What reason would he have to believe me now, or even to listen? A helicopter flitted in the western sky, above Pershing Square and
the towers along Grand Avenue, and I thought about my recent chopper ride—the sky sliding across the cabin window, and Conti’s suntanned bulk. Perhaps the question of Bray’s believing me was beside the point. Perhaps, having raised up his mace, he just wanted to bring it down.
I dropped the eviction notice on the counter, and wondered what messengers might arrive at my door—or Lydia’s, or Lucho’s—tomorrow, and with what ugly news. Then I dug in my pocket for my cell. Talking to Harris Bray was a nonstarter, but maybe someone else would take my call, and maybe she’d be drunk again.
Amanda Danzig answered on the fourth ring but, unfortunately, was sober. There were people talking in the background, and music playing. “Kicking yourself over missed opportunities, doctor? Wondering if that ship has sailed for good?”
I laughed. “That wasn’t the main purpose of my call, but we can talk about that if you want.”
Mandy laughed too. “I haven’t had nearly enough wine for that. What do you want?”
“I don’t know where Alex is, and I don’t know where or how to find him. I want you to get your uncle to believe that and to lay off me and mine, before this gets out of hand.”
Another, chillier laugh. “Out of hand for who? As far as I can tell, my uncle has the reins firmly in his grasp.”
“Did he share the particulars of his plans with you?”
There was quiet on the line for a while, just dinner party sounds from wherever Mandy was. Then she sighed. “He did not, doctor, which is not atypical.”
“So you said, last night.”
“Christ—I really was in the bag.”
“There’s nothing wrong with venting.”
Mandy laughed again. “The two of you must really have hit it off. I’d have paid to be a fly on the wall.”
“If you had been, you’d know the overkill that he’s got in mind—and not just to punish me. There are innocent people—”
“None of this is remotely surprising, or remotely my business. Not anymore.”
“No? I thought you were concerned about the big picture at Bray Consolidated.”
She sighed. “Doctor, as appealing as you may be in certain ways, let me assure you that you and your friends and this whole messy business with my baby cousin constitute not the smallest pimple on the ass of the big picture of Bray Consolidated.”
“Maybe not, but what your uncle’s planning—coercion, conspiracy, inducing perjury—that kind of stuff is messy. It shows up on the radar, and in the press.”
“Again with the power of the press! That must be a generational thing, doctor, this overestimation of the power and incorruptibility of the Fourth Estate. It’s sweetly retro, and much less annoying than porkpie hats.”
“I’m serious, Mandy. If you’re concerned with your company—”
“It’s not my company, as my uncle has made abundantly clear to me. And my role is to stay the hell out of this and say: Good night, doctor. So: good night, doctor.”
My phone went quiet, and I put it on the counter and took a long, slow breath. Then I opened a bottle of Carta Blanca and went downstairs to pull Mia’s records.
CHAPTER 49
We held a podiatry clinic that Sunday—soaking, debriding, clipping, scraping, lancing, salving, and bandaging feet that looked like they’d marched the long way from Bataan. Lydia usually ran these things, with help from some of our part-timers and from Bruce Welker, a mostly retired podiatrist from the Valley who volunteered. But Lydia was a no-show when the first patients tottered in, so management fell to Dr. Welker, who seized command like a gnomish MacArthur. I was glad of it, because I had an overfull dance card of my own.
Injuries and STDs, mostly. Syphilis, chlamydia, ankle sprain, fractured ulna, scalp laceration, genital herpes, syphilis, syphilis, fractured ribs, second-degree burn, chlamydia. In between, I tried and failed to reach Mia on the several phone numbers we had on file for her. It wasn’t until two that afternoon that I took a break. I was eating an apple at my desk, listening to another of Mia’s phones ring, when Lucho stuck his head around the corner.
“You hear from Lyd, doc?”
I shook my head. “You?”
“Not yet.”
“Not even a voice mail?”
“Nope. I’m gonna give her a call.”
“She didn’t have much to say yesterday—not to me, anyway. Maybe five words altogether.”
“She’s pretty worried, doc. We all are.”
I nodded. “How’s Artie doing?”
Lucho shrugged. “Not sure. He’s been at his office since…I don’t know when. He’s gonna start calling his clients today.” He paused and looked down at his big, scarred hands. “I’m gonna call Lyd,” he said, and headed for the file room.
“Let me know when you talk to her,” I called.
By five he hadn’t, nor by six, nor by seven o’clock, when we were turning out the lights.
“I tried her house and her cell a couple times,” Lucho said. “I’m gonna go over.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “You go home to Artie.”
“He’s not home yet.”
“Then go to his office. I’ll see Lyd.”
Lucho frowned and looked at his feet. “Maybe she won’t be glad to see you.”
“There’s no maybe about it,” I said.
The sky was a muddy violet when I got to Highland Park. There were lights on in most of the little houses that I passed, and cars in the driveways. I turned onto Repton Street and slowed when I saw a woman who at a glance looked like Lydia. On closer inspection, she was smaller and younger, and I drove on.
There were kids on Lydia’s block, a pair of ten-year-old boys, shoving each other, laughing, sprinting past her house. Lydia’s windows were dark and empty, as was her driveway. The gate on her chain-link fence was unlatched, and swung slowly in the evening breeze. I parked in her drive and walked up the path to the porch; I stopped halfway there, when I saw that her front door frame was splintered, and that there was a large black boot print on the door itself, just under the knob.
I waited on the porch for a moment, until my heart climbed back behind my sternum, then pushed open the door and called Lydia’s name. I called three times and got no answer, and prayed it was because the house was empty. I found my cell phone, and the flashlight app, and threw a small white circle into the foyer. There were black scuffs on the floor, and broken crockery, and a small upended table with a broken leg.
“Fuck,” I whispered, and found the light switch. Then I searched the house.
I went through it twice, my breath fraying in my lungs, and found more broken things, but no blood and no body. Lydia’s sofa had been pushed up against the wall, and I slid it back to where it usually was and sat down heavily. I pulled out my phone again, but I didn’t know whom to call. Lucho? Sutter? The police? My phone made the decision for me. It glowed and burred, and Lydia’s name came up. A shuddering sigh went through me as I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Jesus, Lyd, where the hell are you?”
The voice that answered was heavy, dark, and Russian. “The bitch is here, doctor,” the man said, “but she can’t talk right now.”
CHAPTER 50
Sutter looked down at his living room floor and touched the toe of his sneaker to a stone that was newer-looking than the others around it, but webbed with cracks. He shook his head and sighed. “I just fucking replaced this,” he said softly. “Now look at it.” He looked up at me. “Tell it again—everything the guy said.”
The glass doors to the patio were open, and the ticking of insects came in with traffic noise and a tired breeze. I was on the sofa, and Eartha stepped from the cushions onto my shoulder. Sutter was pacing too, slowly, from the kitchen to the edge of the patio and back. He held a beer bottle in his hand, but hadn’t yet had a sip.
I nodded. “It wasn’t much. He said: It’s not complicated—we have your nurse and we want the boy. A simple swap. He said to tell you to call about the details. I tried telling him I di
dn’t know where Alex was, but he ignored me. He kept saying I should talk to you, and that you should call. Then I pointed out that you and Siggy had a deal, and he laughed at that. He said: They still do. The deal was, he pays and we forget about the girl. This has nothing to do with the girl; we forgot about the girl. This is a new deal.” I sighed. “Do I call Lucho?”
Sutter shrugged. “What’s he gonna do?”
“If Lyd doesn’t turn up tomorrow morning, he’ll want to know why—assuming he doesn’t call before then.”
He looked at his watch. “You open at, what, seven a.m.; that’s eleven hours from now. She’ll be back by then.”
“How’s that going to happen?”
“ ’Cause I’m going to get her now.”
—
Sutter said that I didn’t have to come, that I shouldn’t come, but I didn’t answer him, and he didn’t press. I waited in the living room while he went upstairs. He was back in ten minutes, having swapped sneakers for black boots, and wearing black Kevlar over his black tee shirt. He carried a gray duffel that looked heavy, and that made clanking sounds when he slung it on his shoulder.
“Might as well be useful,” he said, and tossed me car keys. We got into the GMC in his carport, and headed for the Valley. There was traffic on the freeway, but it was fast. The only sounds in the car were of tires hissing on pavement, Coltrane playing softly, and the metallic snap, latch, and rack of magazines and weapons as Sutter checked them.
“Siggy has her at his house?” I asked, as we turned onto Foothill.
“I don’t know where he has her. I know where he’ll bring her.”
Sutter had me pull off Berkshire Avenue onto a narrow street that bordered the back of Siggy’s property. It was hung in drooping pines and shadows, and the only streetlight was fifty yards from where I stopped.
“Lights,” Sutter whispered, and I killed the headlamps. Sutter got out, carrying the duffel, and disappeared into shadow. When my eyes adjusted I could just make him out, crouched beneath a pine at the foot of Siggy’s wall, a cell phone to his ear. In a moment he rose and fastened a belt around his waist. He Velcroed the holster around his thigh, and slung another gun on his shoulder. He slid the duffel into the back seat and came around to my window.
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