The painter watched them go, waved even, though they’d already forgotten about him. Then, still grinning, he wiped his hands as he walked to his van. He reached into the passenger side and took out a cell phone, holding it to his face. He stopped smiling only when the connection was made.
“They were just here,” he said.
That afternoon, Eddie dropped his employer off downtown, on the corner of Eighth and E. James Reeve had some work to do at the public library. He sometimes typed his notes into the laptop there, too-it was better than his motel room, a hundred times better. Surrounded by busy people, people with projects and ideas, people with goals, he found his own work, his own goal, became more focused.
Plus, the library was only four blocks from Gaslamp, which meant he could get a beer afterwards. Eddie had a couple of things to do, but said he might be in their regular haunt by six. If he still hadn’t arrived by the time James felt like going home, the bar would call him a cab. It was an eight-dollar ride, including tip.
The story was slowing down, he decided. Here he was in San Diego, which should have been the heart of it, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. He had Preece and the pesticide research, but that was years back. He had a rape, also ancient history. He had stories from two retired investigators. He had Korngold… but Korngold was dead.
He had Agrippa and the bank accounts. Maybe if he went back to England, concentrated on that particular corner of the puzzle, talked to Josh Vincent again; the union man’s story was almost enough in itself. But he’d already pitched that at Giles Gulliver, who’d pooh-poohed it, saying the Guardian had run a similar story the year before. He’d checked, and the Guardian hadn’t been following the same tack at all-but there’d been no persuading Giles, the stubborn old bastard.
So there was little enough for him to add to his files. He had other names, and had tried telephone calls, but no one wanted to meet him, or even talk on the phone. This was a shame, as he’d had his little recorder beside him, the microphone attached to the telephone earpiece. All his recordings showed so far was evasiveness on a grand scale, which didn’t mean anything. Americans were wary of callers at the best of times. Blame all the cold-callers out there, interrupting lunch or dinner or a postprandial snooze to drum up money for everything from the Republican Party to Tupperware parties. He’d even had someone call him in his motel room, trying to sell him language courses. Language courses! Maybe they tried every room in every motel. Barrel-scraping was what it was.
Barrel-scraping.
He sighed, turned off the laptop, folded it away, and decided he could use a beer, Mason jar or no Mason jar. As he pushed through the library’s main door the heat hit him again. It was very pleasant; almost too pleasant. You could go crazy in a place like this, with only slight fluctuations in temperature all year. Almost no rain, and the streets clean, and everyone so polite to you; it could get to you.
He found himself in the dimly lit air-conditioned bar, sliding onto what had become his favorite stool. The barmaid was new and wore cutoff denims and a tight white T-shirt. Her hair was tied back with a red bandanna, another one loose around her throat. Her legs, arms, and face were tanned and smooth. You just didn’t get girls like that in England -not with that all-over even tan and that unsullied complexion-yet here they were thick on the ground. Then he looked in the long mirror behind the bar, seeing not only his own reflection, but those of his fellow drinkers. Who was he kidding? Imperfections were staring him in the face. Men-men in love with beer-pasty-faced and thick-paunched, with greasy thinning hair and little stamina. Here’s to the lot of us, he thought, draining his first jar.
The drinker on the stool next to him didn’t look in the mood for conversation, and the barmaid needed everything repeated twice, unable to comprehend his accent. “I haven’t got an accent,” he told her, then had to repeat that, too. So when Eddie hadn’t turned up by 6:30, he thought about calling him. After all, he was Eddie’s employer, and Eddie’s job was to ferry him around. But that wasn’t exactly fair, he decided, after a moment’s thought. He was paying Eddie peanuts, and the guy was with him most of the day as it was-though he got the feeling Eddie hung around so he could pick up some free drinks and maybe even a free dinner.
He decided he wasn’t hungry. He’d had enough. He just wanted to go back to his lousy motel and sleep for twelve or so hours. He asked if the barmaid could call him a cab, remembering to shorten the a in cab so she’d understand the word.
“Sure,” she said.
Then the silent drinker next to him decided it was time to bow out, too. He walked out of the bar without saying a word, though he did nod in James’s general direction, and he left a couple of dollars on the bar for the server, which was pretty generous. While she had her back to him, making the call, James slipped one of the dollars along to his own section of bar and left it there. Times were hard.
A minute later, the driver stuck his head into the bar.
“Mr. Reeve!” he called, then went back outside again. James Reeve slid off his stool and said so long to the assembly. He’d only had the four beers, and felt fine-maybe a little depressed as he picked up his laptop, but he’d been worse. He would do something with the story, something lasting, something immortal. He just needed a little more money and a lot more time. He couldn’t just let it go, not when it affected the whole damned planet.
There were a couple of panhandlers directly outside, but he brushed past them. They never really bothered him. They took one look at him-his height, his pallor-and decided there were better options. The driver was holding the rear door open for him. The cab was unmarked, that struck him as he got in. And something else struck him, just a little too late.
He hadn’t given the barmaid his name.
So how did the driver know it?
PART TWO. GHOSTS
FOUR
AS HE DROVE SOUTH, Gordon Reeve tried to remember his brother, but the phone call kept getting in the way.
He could hear the operator telling him he had a call from the San Diego Police Department, then the detective’s voice telling him it was about his brother.
“Very unfortunate circumstances, sir.” The voice had betrayed no emotion. “It appears he took his own life.”
There was a little more, but not much. The detective had wanted to know if he would be collecting the body and the effects. Gordon Reeve said yes, he would. Then he’d put the phone down and it rang again. He was slow to pick it up. Joan had been standing beside him. He remembered the look on her face, sudden shock and incomprehension mixed. Not that she’d known Jim well; they hadn’t seen much of him these past few years.
The second phone call was from the British Consulate repeating the news. When Reeve told them he already knew, the caller sounded aggrieved.
Gordon Reeve had hung up the phone and gone to pack. Joan had followed him around the house, trying to look into his eyes. Was she looking for shock? Tears? She asked him a few questions, but he barely took them in.
Then he’d got the key to the killing room and gone outside.
The killing room was a single locked room attached to the outbuildings. It was fitted out as a cramped living room. There were three dummies dressed in castoff clothes-they represented hostages. Reeve’s weekend soldiers, operating in teams of two, would have to storm the room and rescue the hostages by overpowering their captors-played by two more weekend soldiers. The hostages were to come to no harm.
Reeve had unlocked the killing room and switched on the light, then sat down on the sofa. He looked around him at the dummies, two seated, one propped upright. He remembered the living room of his parents’ home, the night he’d left-all too willingly!-to join the army. He’d known he would miss Jim, his older brother by a year and a half. He would not miss his parents.