Nemo was a swashbuckling pirate in Verne’s action-adventure books for children. It was natural that a boy who loved ships and the sea as Adam Smithson had would idolize and play at being him. Possible that he’d adopt the pirate’s name years later when he wanted to change his identity.
I took out the photograph of the Smithson family on the steps of the Webster Street house. If you looked beyond the young boy’s chubby face to the bone structure, he and Nemo could have been identical twins. Or the same person.
But what of it? Nemo had died in the fire. Or had he? He’d been identified only by his dog tags; the autopsy still hadn’t been completed—wouldn’t be for some time, given the backlog at San Francisco’s morgue.
The thought of those dog tags made me wonder why Adam had wanted to become someone else. To escape an overbearing mother? From what I’d seen of Chrys, she certainly had the personality to dominate her son. To free himself of a spotty record with the law? Chief Santos had told me Adam had been headed for more serious trouble than juvenile delinquency. At the time Adam departed Santa Iva, it had been easy to join the military while underage and with a false name. Probably still is; they’re always looking for cannon fodder.
One thing bothered me: Why hadn’t Adam simply headed for San Francisco, located the bearer bonds, cashed them, and disappeared in whatever way and place he chose? Why wait till recently?
Something had interfered. As much of a loner as he’d been, we might never know what it was. But then again, maybe when we uncovered more of Nemo’s history.…
No use mulling over that right now. The chief thing was Renshaw. The way to find him was through Macy, so I needed Macy’s address and phone number. I called YouGo; they said yes, indeed, Mr. Macy was one of their better drivers.
“I’d like to hire him as a temporary chauffeur,” I said to the chirpy-sounding woman on the phone. “It’s an extremely confidential job. Is Mr. Macy discreet?”
“Absolutely.”
“Before I go ahead with this, I’d like to meet with him in person.”
“That can be arranged. Our offices are—”
“Oh no. I couldn’t come there. I’m…very recognizable. Even my closest aides aren’t to be aware of this arrangement.”
“I see.” Impressed pause; the concept of celebrity overwhelms the average person.
“Is it possible,” I asked, “to interview Mr. Macy at his residence?”
Another pause. “How long did you say this job would last?”
“Three weeks, minimum. Maybe longer. I’d expect to pay more than your regular rates, because he’d be on call twenty-four seven.”
“Let me check with Mr. Macy and call you back.”
“No, I’ll call you. As I said earlier, this job is extremely confidential.”
6:22 p.m.
When I called YouGo back, I had to go through the same routine as before with the man who was now handling the phones. No, he told me, under no circumstances did they give out drivers’ addresses or contact information.
“But the woman I talked with before said she would check with Mr. Macy to see if it would be okay.”
“She shouldn’t have offered. It’s strictly forbidden.”
“Even if the job would be long, lucrative, and for an extremely well-known personality?”
“No, I’m sorry.” Then he paused. “Wait—would YouGo be granted permission to use this individual’s likeness and comments in its publicity if the job turns out to be satisfactory?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll have to check with my supervisor, Ms. Thomas. One moment please.”
When he came back on the line, the man sounded unhappy. “I’m sorry. To quote Ms. Thomas, ‘No, policy is policy, even if the person is a celebrity.’ Of course, I do happen to know that Mr. Macy often frequents an establishment on Twelfth Street that caters to off-duty drivers.”
7:49 p.m.
I was putting on my coat when John called: “I cleaned out the back of your fridge. What were you trying to grow there?”
“Hey, that was my science project.”
“You okay?”
“Tense. Has Hy called, by any chance?”
“Nobody’s called. Is there something wrong? Any way I can help?”
“No!” I nearly shouted the word, seeing visions of a bumbling sidekick following me around, then modulated my tone. “You just enjoy your evening.”
“They sure ain’t what they used to be.”
“Don’t get maudlin. Order a pizza. Drink some beer. Watch a DVD—we’ve got hundreds of them. Mick may stop over later with his friend Alison.”
“Sounds like a good prescription, Doc. See you later?”
“Yeah—see you later.”
So far the day had progressed well enough, but it still could end badly. What, I wondered, was in store for me next? More anxiety over Hy, no matter what the FBI claimed? More taunting from Renshaw? Another near-breakdown on Chelle’s part? Further family crisis? Pestilence, fire, flood? An earthquake way up on the Richter scale? And we have live volcanoes near Tufa Lake; were there any that could spew lava as far as the city?
Turned out it was pestilence, in the form of Jill Starkey.
“McCone,” she said in her irritating, whiny voice, “just thought I’d warn you—I’m putting out a special midweek edition.”
My hackles rose, and I had to fight to control the pitch of my voice. “About what?”
“Incompetence in the city. You and Ripinsky’ll be ranked right behind the Muni.”
I listened to background noises: people talking, glasses clinking, a TV tuned high to a sportscast. Starkey crunched on what must have been ice and gulped it down.
I said, “I hardly think we rate that high in the grand scheme of things.”
“Hell, McCone.” Her voice was noticeably slurred now. “You act as if you do.”
“Jill, are you drunk?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“What’s happened?”
“The Other Shoe has dropped. I mean, they dropped it.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Our backers are cutting us off. This next issue is the last.”
If I’d liked her even the smallest bit, I’d have expressed my sympathy, but as it was, I couldn’t have been more pleased that her right-wing rag was going belly-up.
“So you, McCone, and your asshole husband are gonna go out in infamy with my paper.”
That tore it. “Shut up, Jill.” Ah, that felt good!
“That’s all you’ve got to say to me?”
“No. Take this down, record it for your famous last issue, if you’re capable in your present state: I’m sick of you, as are a lot of people in the city. You blow up insignificant events for the sake of sensationalism. You slant your stories to suit your own purposes. You take a dislike to people and hound them. You’re mean-spirited, homophobic, and otherwise bigoted. You’re a lousy journalist, a disgrace to your profession. And what’s more, you’ve got bad hair and worse clothing.”
For once Starkey was shocked into silence. She broke the connection with a quiet click.
“Bad hair and worse clothing” was a low blow, I thought, even if it was true. But the rest—right on target.
Starkey would not report my diatribe in print—too much of what I’d said was true—but she’d find another sleazy rag in which to spew her crap, and I’d take a lot of heat from her in the future. No matter, I’d built up a certain reputation in the Bay Area; repeated attacks in a lunatic rag read by the lunatics wouldn’t degrade it. So let Starkey shout her message from the rooftops: “McCone’s a bitch!”
Sometimes I am.
God, I wished I could talk with Hy! He was always there in my consciousness, as I was in his. Since the beginning we’d had an uncanny connection, a sense of the other no matter how near or far apart we were. I’d know when he was distressed or in trouble, he’d know the same of me. I tried to tap into that now, but it wasn’t working. Why
not?
And then I remembered what Hy called his “pane of glass”: when he wanted to block strong emotions or revelations of pending actions from others, he imagined an insulated, shatterproof glass wall surrounding himself. He was doing that now. And because he was doing so he was protecting me from something it would be harmful for me to know.
But why?
Because he knew I’d blunder into the situation and upset whatever delicate balance he’d set up.
I should have realized this days ago…
8:07 p.m.
I retrieved my car from the garage and drove to Twelfth Street, to the homey clubhouse in which on-demand drivers could take their breaks and enjoy their downtime. Wi-Fi, big-screen TV, free coffee, camaraderie, food-truck fare, and—very important—restrooms made it an extremely popular stop for those weary of the city streets, and all for only a nominal monthly fee. I showed my ID to an amiable man who seemed to be in charge, and he allowed me to wander among the picnic tables that appeared to be the barnlike structure’s chief furnishings.
The first man I spoke with didn’t like Don Macy: “Obnoxious little prick, always yapping about his ‘high connections.’” He had no idea where Macy lived.
A well-endowed woman avoided him because of his excessive interest in her breasts. “They’re big, yeah, but I’m sure he’s seen bigger…nope, I’ve never had his address or other information—why would I want it?”
Another woman thought he was “cute—kinda like a puppy dog, only not as yappy.” She didn’t know the location of his doghouse.
A well-muscled man said, “I offered to help him with building upper-body strength, but that didn’t interest him.”
And so on and so on: “A loner.” “Quiet guy.” “Reads a lot in his downtime.” “Studies the financial pages in the Chron, highlighting stuff with a yellow marker.” “Can sit and stare into space for a long time. It gives me the creeps. I mean, what on earth can he be thinking about?”
Great character studies of Macy, but no concrete facts. That is, until I finally reached a bearded man in a heavy woolen shirt at one of the back tables. “Macy? Sure—he’s been my neighbor for two or three months. The house was vacant for a long time before that. I mentioned it to Don because I liked the guy and thought we could get together after work and hoist a few beers, but he blew me off, told me to mind my own business.” He wrote down the address. “Sorry I don’t have his phone number or e-mail, but he never gave them to me.”
8:32 p.m.
Don Macy’s house was on the eastern slope of Potrero Hill, not the most desirable of locations there, but situated well above one of the neighborhood’s true pockets of squalor. Like many areas in the city, the hill can be described as “evolving”—a euphemistic term encompassing anything from becoming a better class of slum to having the ubiquitous developers throw up luxurious condos to accommodate the techie invasion. When the techies leave for more glamorous quarters, as they inevitably do, the condos will sink down on the scale and the slums will be razed and rebuilt upscale, and the cyclic nature of city life will continue.
No car—it would have been an aged tan Honda Civic, according to information Derek had received from an informant at the DMV—sat in the driveway or anywhere on the street nearby. The house was a corner one, completely dark. It had a small front yard surrounded by a low wrought-iron fence beyond which knobby plants that looked like old rosebushes grew. Although it was hard to make out architectural details in the faint amber-pink light from a nearby street pole, I guessed it was a standard one-floor two-bedroom cottage faced in aluminum siding.
No one home, but that didn’t mean Macy wouldn’t return soon. I phoned the office, and my newest operative, Nadya Collins, answered. A former detective on the Santa Cruz force who had taken several years off to raise her twin boys, she’d come to us at the recommendation of the chief down there. She was fifty-two, tall, and strong-bodied, with an engaging smile that I imagined had elicited many a confession from the criminals she’d apprehended. She also possessed a fierce scowl that could fuse a recalcitrant felon to the edge of his or her chair.
I said, “Is there anybody in the office who can run a surveillance on a house on Potrero Hill for me?”
“I’m available.”
“Great.” I gave her the address and details.
When I finished Nadya said, “Hang on a second. Mick wants to talk to you.”
My nephew came on the line. “Craig’s just gotten some highly interesting information. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes.”
“News of Hy?”
“All he said was he wants to see you ASAP.”
I made it to the M&R building with two minutes to spare.
“No Craig?” I asked Mick as I burst into my office.
He turned from some papers he was putting in order. “Not yet.”
“What’s keeping him?”
“Shar—”
“It’s bad news, isn’t it?”
“He sounded kind of rushed.”
“Craig always sounds rushed.”
I eased into my desk chair, closed my eyes, distanced myself from the physical world around me. Listened and felt for signals from Hy. There were none.
That goddamn pane of glass! It was still blocking our connection.
After a few moments I moved to one of the sofas, and Mick and I sat silently, waiting for Craig. When he arrived he burst into my office without warning—an unusual move for him.
“Finally got the text of this,” he said, and held out a paper. “It’s a confidential memo from one of the highly placed ops at the Bureau to a deputy director attached to Homeland Security. It’s copied to one of the higher-ups at the CIA.”
I stood up, skimmed it, then read it more slowly. It confirmed what the agents who had visited me had said.
“So it really is a serious hostage negotiation,” I said.
“Two of them, apparently. In remote areas where cellular reception isn’t good.”
“Even if it was good, Hy wouldn’t chance making a call that could be intercepted. I’ve been worried over nothing.” After a moment I asked, “What about Renshaw? The Bureau seems very interested in him. Can you find out anything about that?”
“I’ll try. In the meantime why don’t you think back on your past dealings with him? And remember that what constitutes cause and effect isn’t always logical in the mind of a lunatic.”
“He wasn’t always a lunatic. Something must’ve pushed him over the edge recently.”
“Or he’s been over the edge and planning this for a long time.”
What Craig said gave me pause. “I understand. But in the meantime what am I supposed to do?”
“As I said before, backtrack on your relationship with Renshaw from now to day one. Get it all noted down. You may figure out what’s going on in his twisted brain. At any rate, I’ll transmit it to the feds when you’re done. And, I hate to say it, but you’ll be better off carrying.”
Mick asked Craig, “You’re advising her to arm herself?”
“Yes, I am.”
To me he said, “You told me you were through with guns.”
“I was, but there’re some situations that call for extra protective measures.” There was no time to explain my philosophy on firearms right now. Especially since it was one of the many issues I still hadn’t yet fully figured out.
I added, “I’ve put Nadya on surveillance at Don Macy’s house. Will you please assign somebody to that club on Twelfth Street where the drivers hang out?”
“Will do.”
“Thanks. I’ll be here in my office if anything comes up. I need to be alone for a while.”
Once they had closed the door I sat down at my desk and smoothed out the copy of the memo on top of the blotter. Phrases leaped off the page at me.
Subject has concluded his initial hostage negotiation and has now agreed to undertake a second regarding Code Name Goat.
Subject has conducted a number of similarly delicate ne
gotiations for us, and is eminently qualified. Background on subject:
Subject singlehandedly foiled Project 8879J. Returned stateside and was offered protective custody in return for testifying. Refused and for many years led public life as environmental activist without serious incident.
Subject’s wife is well-known private investigator in San Francisco as well as his business partner. Most likely knows of Project 8879J, but not of its significance to present national security. Has had recent contact with our suspect, Code Name Mylar.
Recommendation: Keep Subject in the dark about the Bureau’s and his wife’s ongoing investigation into Mylar’s activities in order for him to concentrate upon this new negotiation. Because of his location at present time, communication between the two of them is highly unlikely.
Good God, I thought, what an inane communication! Code names, such as Goat and Mylar—a type of plastic. Subject. Suspect. Project 8879J. Was this memo written by a real, intelligent person or by a grown-up adolescent running around in tights and a cape?
Project 8879J. Now that sounded real.
Some trace of an old memory associated with it.
Dredge it up. Hunt it down. Get evidence.
I sat for a long time, concentrating. The memory refused to surface.
It must’ve been something Hy had told me about years before.
When? What? And where was the evidence?
I laced my fingers together, closed my eyes. Tried to remember whatever Hy had told me about that project.
Anything? Yes, I had a vague memory of a conversation we’d had, but I couldn’t dredge up any of the details. I’d keep trying till I did.
After a while I went home to bed.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20
2:25 a.m.
My subconscious disgorged the memory of the conversation with Hy as I slept, waking me. Not the details, but I knew where to find them. I got up, packed a small bag, and headed for Oakland Airport’s North Field.
4:13 a.m.
Someone Always Knows Page 17