Burning Moon

by Richard Barre

  27

  Past two, no moon to speak of, Matt took off after a possum or raccoon or something, finally wandering back and flopping down in the leaves with a long sigh. Translation: Is this is the best you can do with your life?

  Wil put down his field glasses, kneaded his eyes, stretched. Leashing Matt to prevent a rematch with whatever-it-was, he raised the glasses and ran them over the compound. Guards moved among the cactus shapes, Wil guessing rheostat or some kind of timer to diminish the lighting the later it got. Robb was in the guard shack; Wil could see the glow of a TV or computer screen. Other than that, the scene was as arresting as a chiaroscuro on velvet.

  Mia had appeared the same time as last night; her Civic was still in the garage. Except for a figure Wil thought might be her, wisps of cigarette smoke and a pinpoint of red, he’d seen no trace—no sign of Luc, either. Earlier in the day, there’d been a grocery van, a pool-maintenance truck, cleaning service a half-hour later. In between the last two, Sonny left in one of the Yukons, back with grocery bags an hour later, two-plus more until Mia pulled in.

  No sign of Lorenz or Maccafee.

  More than welcome considering Mia’s involvement.

  Whatever it amounted to.

  Stretching periodically and drifting, second- and third-guess speculations about what she was doing down there, he kept watch. Matt stirred and Wil let his hand drift there, already wondering what he’d done for companionship BD: Before Dog. The only thing Matt wasn’t long on was talking back. The listening and the understanding parts he had down pat.

  Nice life, Hardesty. Maybe get out more?

  Thinking about that, he missed Kari, and, in a less definable way, Lisa, their history having pared itself down to select moments, one in particular due to the context. They’d hit the backcountry for some thermal-pool time, Devin only four but game. Coming up on one, they’d encountered a naked couple deep in the throes, obviously enjoying themselves. He’d tried fielding Dev’s singsong questions as they wide-berthed the pair, but Lisa had to step in and save him: answering but not really, tiptoeing across a glacier. And later, au naturel at a farther-in hot spring, Dev’s suddenly-aware looks, he and Lisa taking refuge in Chuck E. Cheese’s noisy but welcome distractions.

  Distractions…

  Wil realized he’d lowered the glasses, raised them in time to catch Mia striding toward the garage, the door rising, the Civic driving out, no lights until well past the main gate, almost to a curve and then through it. He checked his watch—almost four—and calculated the duration as close to a shift, whatever meaning that held. The point was that he was a good thirty minutes from the Bonneville even if he and Matt ran it.

  Noting the time in his log, he broke out a treat for Matt, sandwich and a hit of thermos coffee for himself, then settled back in to finish his own shift.

  ***

  At four a.m., a muted Bullitt long since replaced by The Getaway, the man heard a sound and saw a manila envelope slid under the door. By that time, he had a grip on his HK Special Ops .45, safety off and the hammer back.

  Resisting the urge to scan through the fisheye, yank open the door, he brought the envelope to the writing table and opened it. Inside were Dao Hong’s mug shot, two maps—a small-scale of the Hall of Justice and a large-scale of San Francisco—route instructions and destination. Paper-clipped to these was a parking claim ticket and a smaller envelope containing business cards plus a chauffeur’s license with space for a photo above the name Carson Lowell Sage. Included also was a letter on Evetta Sanger’s stationary authorizing Carson Lowell Sage to pick up her client Dao Hong and others in his service on the specific date.

  The only thing missing was the time.

  The next hour he spent laminating a blurry photo of himself in glasses into the license and analyzing the maps for alternatives, backups to get where he needed on his own terms. At five, he claimed the Range Rover from a Penthouse-reading attendant and drove to the Hall, a tired-looking L-shaped seven-story looking up at the freeway. Circling until he had its lay, the main entrance on Bryant, the Harriet Street side where he’d be waiting, the man pulled into a yellow zone to let his senses take over. Closing his eyes, he imagined it—angles, video cameras, possible pedestrian traffic—everything going perfectly. Then everything faulty-wrong: construction impediments, stalls, media crush, demonstrators, police roust. Thinking as a quarterback might, changing the call at the line of scrimmage once he’d seen the defense. Sizing up the courtroom before the trial so as to achieve total focus on the matter at hand.

  Control and calm.

  Calm and control.

  Thirty minutes later he reached into the satchel he’d brought and pulled out four stacked traffic cones, setting them in place opposite the employee door. By the time he’d scanned in an oldies station, scrunched into the leather seats that smelled so good, he felt ready. So much so that he was back at the hotel, stretched out and actually nodding off when the phone rang at seven.

  “Everything is in order?”

  “With the envelope? Yes,” he said.

  “Excellent.”

  “Where’d you find the Rover?”

  “Airport,” the voice answered. “Long-term parking, where you are to return it. Our people will find it and switch plates.”

  “And the press conference?”

  “Eleven a.m. Hong and perhaps two others. Repeat to confirm.”

  He did, controlled and calm enough to have envisioned it. Which didn’t prevent him from allowing a moment to pass as if there might be a sticking point.

  “Our arrangement was for Hong only,” he said. “You are prepared for more?”

  No pause. “Already you’re being paid twice what we anticipated. But yes, I have adjusted your deposit.”

  “Good man.”

  There was a chuckle; then, out of left field, “Is that what I am? So little is what it seems.” Leaving him to wonder which of the two, good or man, the voice was talking about.

  28

  Wil finally got off the hill at ten, figuring tradeoff: Mia—assuming he could find her since she hadn’t reappeared at Luc’s—versus some heatup in the activities below. So far there’d been little evidence of the latter; Robb emerging for the morning papers was about it. Two guys blowing down the pool area and the driveways.

  The trouble was, you never knew.

  On the other hand, breaking from it was a chance for him to clean up, to sleep before figuring out his next move. Prominent among the alternatives: more of same. Matt was only too glad to hop in the front seat, curl up by the surfboard slot Wil had cut in when he’d bought the car. Which left him his thoughts on Mia, assuming she was playing the game he had deduced for her: leave family after dinner, come to Luc’s, return before Vinh and Li got up to find daughter still in bed.

  Resting up for the rigors of academic life.

  Considering he’d pulled the same stunt about a hundred years ago, it was a thought, anyway. And sure enough, as he made the turn onto her street, there was the Civic on the right side of the drive.

  No Island Seafoods pickup on the left.

  Wil street-parked, stood on the stoop with Matt and rang the bell.

  “Mia Tien, come on down.”

  Getting Matt into the act with a couple of coaxed barks.

  Ornamental garlic wafted pungent; butterflies worked the lantana. A flock of starlings morphed from a ragged circle into a dumbbell before reforming and darting off over the treetops.

  Finally, from inside: “I’m sleeping. Go away.”

  “Not when we’re awake,” Wil called.

  “Go away.”

  “How do I know it’s really you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “You really want to discuss your evenings this way?”

  Hesitation, Wil saying into it, “Neighbors looking. Still here.”

  The door was pulled open a chain’s width to mussed black hair, bleary eyes, one hand clutching a mauve robe.

  “Look, I’m really
tired,” she said.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  She just looked at him.

  He said, “Hey, you’ve had more sleep than I have, so either we do this here or down at the store. With or without you.”

  She slid back the chain, opened the door, stepped back to let them in, Wil looking around at the living room, immaculate as before. “You won’t be sorry,” he told her.

  “God, you’re annoying.”

  “You haven’t seen annoying yet.”

  “If you say so. Now what do you want?”

  “Answers. You and Uncle Luc from eight to four in the morning. The deal in twenty words or less.”

  Something in her eyes flared and died. “Go to hell,” she said and turned away.

  Wil eased onto the couch, thinking she was indeed a piece of work: Holly Pfeiffer territory, a girl he knew from another case, hardened shell over an unset center. He said, “I figured you might say that, so I’ve come up with a theory. You want to hear it?”

  “Would that matter?”

  “No,” he said. “Think your dad would?”

  “I’m not a minor. My father has no leverage over me.”

  “Not surprising, the way you feel about him.”

  “What makes you think you know how I feel about anything?”

  Wil rubbed tired eyes, then his whole face. “Here’s my theory. You take Uncle Luc up on some offer he made to come work for him, dig into Jimmy on the side, end-run the lame-brain daddy was dumb enough to hire. Ballpark?”

  She let herself lean into the Lazy-Boy, tilted her head at the ceiling. “All right, he pays me to do things. Hostess and computer work. It’s a way to make money. Be independent for a change.”

  “Like your brother was…”

  Whatever she was about to fire back faded.

  He added, “Probably kick in on home expenses, too, with daddy’s blessing. And if you see anybody else buying it, let me know because even Matt can see through that.”

  By then she was up and facing the glass, the bamboo trembling with light. Just wanting her to see it if nothing else, anything to make a dent, he said, “Come on, Mia. How do you think your uncle acquired all that?”

  “My uncle invested wisely. Not like my father.”

  “So have other people. Yet Luc has armed security twenty-four-seven and walls two feet thick.”

  “So what? That’s his business.”

  “Just like something in you says he had something to do with what happened to Jimmy or you wouldn’t be there.”

  She stood looking out: porcelain hard, hands shoved deep in her pockets. “You’re wrong,” she said, “all wrong. And you’re going to ruin everything.”

  “Look me in the eyes and say it.”

  “My uncle is helping pay for my education.”

  “Nice try.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, turning. “If you’re going to tell my father, go ahead. I don’t care.”

  Lord. “Given their relationship, you think your education is all Luc has in mind? He’s not manipulating a situation to stick it to somebody? You’re not a pawn in that?”

  “You are sick. I don’t—”

  “Mia, either Luc isn’t what you think he is, or he is. Either way is no-win. And if he’s what some other people think he is…” Pausing to let that sink in.

  “What other people?”

  “People whose business it is to know, take my word,” Wil said. “You’ll at least think about it?”

  Her nod was barely perceptible.

  “Look,” he said with a breath, “I understand that you’re trying to help, but—”

  “You understand jack.” Looking away from him. “Just leave, will you? Please?”

  As he closed the door behind him, all of it echoing, a crazed darkened soundchamber, Wil flashed on what he’d seen on the freeway on the way over. Grazed by a truck, a hawk had fallen between lanes and lay flapping as the cars came at it. Instant decision time: Swerve to give it a merciful death? Let nature take its course? Risk his life to save it? Checking for an exit sign about the time he saw an explosion of feathers in the rearview.

  The way he felt then was the way he felt now: Give me a clue.

  29

  Wednesday morning, after a trip to Ventura for plugs, oil, and air filters for the Bonneville, Wil was washing it in the drive when the phone rang on the seat where he’d set it.

  “Hardesty,” he answered.

  “You feeling any more like that beer?”

  For a moment, nothing, no female match to the voice; then it dawned. “Amber?”

  “For a second there it sounded like you didn’t remember me.”

  “How could I not?” he said, shutting off the hose and wiping his hands on the drying towel. “What’s up?”

  “You told me to call—like, if something turned up. But if you don’t care…”

  “Wait a second. You found something?”

  “I’m calling aren’t I? Now, are you coming or what?”

  She hung up.

  “Why not? Wil thought, Stranger things.

  He finished the car, then drove to Isla Vista. Sabado Tarde, the street where Jimmy and Wen had lived, looked still asleep; in front of the triplex, only the white Jetta was on the lawn, so he pulled in behind it and parked.

  A blonde head lifted on the balcony.

  “It’s open,” Amber called down. “Come on up.”

  Wil entered to worn carpeting, gypsum needing paint, a stairwell lit by strips of dimpled yellow glass. Upstairs was a living room/divider/counter arrangement, couch and worn leatherette chairs, expensive-looking stereo components up on pine shelving, a dying fern. Down the hall, he caught hollow-core doors, one revealing a sink embedded in Formica.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” Amber said, sliding open the glass door to the balcony.

  “No roommates?” Pretending to look around instead of at her swim suit, the little it held back.

  “France, Spain, and Thailand respectively.” Shrug and a resigned sigh; the blonde hair and those eyes. “Thanks to their dads, that is. Mine split—no idea where he is.”

  “Working on your tan, I see.”

  “You really think so?” Thumbing down her elastic waistband to expose the line. “Not much else going this summer.”

  Wil took a barstool, faced her. “Finding something, you said.”

  She worked a loose smile. “I’ve been keeping that beer cold. Why don’t you pop one while I lose the Dark Tropic.”

  “Pass, thanks.”

  “You might as well,” she said. “I have to shower anyway.”

  And like that she’d unfastened her top and was twirling-untwirling it in her hand. Her breasts stood alert, her stomach was smooth and tan and flat around the silver navel stud, which seemed to be winking at him. The smile was now equal parts come-on.

  “Unless you need one, too,” she added.

  Wil took in a breath, blew it out. “Amber, you have a body a blind man could spot at midnight. But that’s not why I came here.”

  “Already?” she said coyly.

  He chalked one up for her. “I’ll be outside if you genuinely have something. Meantime, thanks for the show.”

  “Such a stick-in-the-mud, our private eye. I had no idea.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You really don’t want to do me?” Bordering on amazement.

  Wil looked at his watch, pointed to the kitchen clock behind her. “Fifteen minutes. If you’re not outside with whatever, it’s been unreal.”

  Fourteen minutes after he’d leaned against the Bonneville, Matt curled up inside, she came out in cargo shorts, white Jennifer top, wet hair finger-combed back. Even more stunning, if that were possible.

  “What are you, homo?” she said. “How do you think I’m getting through school?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s nothing personal.” Then he saw what she had and was handing him: what looked to be a compact disk case, no liner notes or markings. Just the disk i
n its holder.

  Wil turned it in his hands. “A CD?”

  “Moron Kenny tried to play it—he found it stuffed in the couch after we’d moved in. Five in and hit Shuffle Play, that’s Kenny. I put it in my computer, but I couldn’t read what came up.”

  A data disk, purchased blank to lay down information.

  “Words or numbers?” he asked, beginning to feel a race beyond Amber.

  “Words, a ton of accent marks.” Reaching in to pet Matt, who licked her hand. “For a while I forgot about it. Then I found your card.”

  “Thanks, Amber, I owe you one.”

  “Told you so. Probably not when Kenny’s back though. He’s kind of unstable sometimes.”

  “I wonder why,” Wil said, feeling a sudden pang of sympathy for Kenny as he started the Bonneville.

  ***

  As with yesterday, Mia’s Civic was alone in the drive. This time, Wil simply leaned on the doorbell until she appeared, yawning.

  “Tell me it’s a nightmare,” she said blearily.

  “Your laptop have a CD port?” he asked.

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “Does it?”

  “Why should you care? Of course it does.”

  “This,” he said, holding up the labelless disk in its case.

  “You woke me up for a fucking CD?”

  Wil said, “I woke you up because you know the language better than I do.”

  He watched her expression change as she took it from him, turned it over, angled it to the sunlight.

  “Where did you get this?”

  Something in the way she said it, tiredness gone like mist from an atomizer. “Why?” he said.

  “This.” A tiny crown about the size of a baby’s fingernail molded into the case, the lower right rear corner. “My uncle special-orders them from a place in Singapore—for their capacity. The disk has a similar mark around the hole.” Taking it out and turning it over to show him. “Now where did you get it?”

  “Jimmy and Wen’s old place. The tenants found it stuck in the couch,” he said. “The laptop?”

  In moments she had on jeans and the DKNY sweatshirt and they were at the kitchen table, Wil handing her the instant coffee he’d found and microwaved, Matt between them on the floor. She slid the disk into her laptop port, hit some keys. Then it was up and they were looking at metered lines and breaks, the squiggles, tents, and hooks characteristic of the language Wil had seen printed when he was in Vietnam.