One ring. Two…If it got to the fifth ring, it would go on message. Did Clyde have the phone off? Joe waited, growing cross. Turn your phone on! Turn it on, Clyde!
Or was Clyde looking at the incoming number and, not recognizing it, wondering with his usual annoyance if this was some unwelcome sales pitch?
Three rings, four. Desolation drowned Joe. Maybe he should ride home to the farm with the driver of the pickup. Better that than the city pound, than a cage, dry cat kibble, and forced adoption or the gas chamber.
"Damen," Clyde said gruffly, just before the fifth ring.
"I'm in San Jose," Joe said. "I need a little help here. No money for a cab, or a bus ticket," he said, hoping to get a laugh out of Clyde.
No laugh. Only a long silence. A heavy, demoralizing silence.
"Clyde? I'm at the San Jose airport. I need a ride. Do you think-"
"We're on our way," Clyde said before Joe could grovel and beg. "We just passed Gilroy."
"How did you…? What're you doing in Gilroy?"
"Hold on," Clyde said none too sweetly. There was some muttering, then Ryan came on. "Joe, are you all right? Where are you, exactly? Where at the airport? How do we find you?"
"How did you…?"
"Dulcie figured it out. How will we find you?"
He gave her directions from the A tunnel entry. "I am, at the moment, in the bed of a 1999 Honda pickup. Green, with three wooden crates tied in the back, and smelling of horses. If the pickup's gone, I'll be…" Rearing up, he looked around short-term parking for a likely retreat. "I'll be near the shuttle stop, under a bench. Did this number show on your screen?"
"It did," she said. "We'll call you when we get there. It's nearly supper time. We brought you a little something. Wait, Clyde wants to talk."
Another silence while she handed the phone back. Joe heard her whisper, "Be nice. The poor cat's scared, all alone in that place. I'd be scared silly." And Joe thought, My God, I love this woman.
Clyde came on. "I wish, Joe, when these things happen, you would use a little judgment. That you would at least call me. What did you do, stow away in Lindsey's car?"
"Ryder Wolf is dead," Joe told him. "Gibbs shot her. Dallas and Mike are on their way to San Francisco to meet Lindsey-she followed Ray. Hopefully SFPD will find him first."
There was another long silence that made Joe wish he hadn't tried to sort it out on the phone. "Sometimes…," Clyde began, then, "Where did you find a phone?"
"It's Ryder's phone."
Clyde sighed and didn't ask any more questions. "If we can't find you, we'll call that number. That's a big airport. Stay put if you can. Hold on." There was another pause as Ryan took the phone.
"Fast-food burger okay? With fries?"
"Sounds like heaven," Joe said, licking his whiskers. If Clyde had ever shown good sense, it was when he asked Ryan Flannery to be his wife. He hung up thinking fondly of a hot, greasy hamburger and greasy fries.
Pushing the phone back among the crates, he curled down on the hard metal floor of the pickup, yawned, and closed his eyes. He'd be sure to wake if the driver appeared. Cats are light sleepers, a cat hears every slightest sound, senses every movement. And, curling his front paws under him, Joe Grey dropped into sleep.
35
GULLS SWOOPED LOW over Fisherman's Wharf, winging beneath the low clouds. Circling and screaming they dropped down among the rich smells of raw and frying fish to land on a restaurant roof; there they strutted, stomping softly like little thumping drumbeats, directly above Lindsey Wolf's head where she sat inside at a window table.
Having angled her chair behind a potted palm, she was out of sight from the hotel across the street. Distracted for a moment by the pitter-pat above her, she abandoned her surveillance, looking up-she looked back just in time to see Ray Gibbs pull aside the second-floor curtain, as he had done twice before.
Standing in plain view, he peered down at the narrow, crowded street, watching the wandering tourists, then looked across at the restaurant windows. She was sure he couldn't see her behind the palm and crammed among other diners. The interior of the restaurant, despite its big windows, was shadowy in contrast to the bright street.
He had the TV on, she could see its light flickering behind him through the thin curtain. She wondered, shivering, if the shooting was on the news yet, if that was what he was watching.
If she'd hesitated when he shot Ryder, she'd be dead, too. She was certain Ryder was dead, she couldn't have lived, the way she was shot. She grieved for Ryder, guilt had ridden with her as she hailed a cab, following Ray. Praying for Ryder, and riven with hate for Gibbs, she wanted to see him burn. Burn for Ryder, and for Carson, and for Nina Gibbs.
Why had he come here after he shot Ryder? Why not catch his flight, for which they must have had last-minute reservations? Or head up the coast among the small fishing and lumbering towns of northern California and southern Oregon, with all the open land and woods where he could disappear?
But maybe he thought, among the city's crowds of tourists, he wouldn't be noticed. The sidewalk below was jammed with gaudily dressed pedestrians moving back and forth across the narrow street, pushing around the fenders and bumpers of slow-moving cars, hungering to spend their money on little treats, or on useless wares to cart home as unique gifts for family and friends who would soon throw them away.
Gibbs moved again, letting the curtain fall back into place, and disappeared from view. Had he seen her, was that why he was staring across at the restaurant? She watched the street, praying to see Dallas's Blazer, praying they'd hurry. She was terrified Gibbs would come down, come across to the restaurant. Every time he left the window she drew farther back behind the palm, wanting to run.
When the waitress came to refill her glass of iced tea, she ordered a dessert that she didn't want, buying time. She couldn't sit there forever not ordering anything, the restaurant was too full. She had picked up her fork, was toying with the meringue when Gibbs stepped out the front door of the Argonaut. He stood a moment looking around, then headed across the street toward her, toward the door of the restaurant.
JOE GREY WOKE to the step of high-heeled cowboy boots, a distinctive sound one couldn't mistake. The next instant, the pickup bed shook as the cab door was flung open. He caught a whiff of male sweat, glimpsed the guy before he ducked back between the boxes-a squarely built man dressed in a faded western shirt and worn, western straw hat. There was a thud as he tossed something into the narrow space behind the driver's seat, maybe a suitcase or a duffel. Joe, snatching the phone in his teeth, leaped over the metal side of the truck bed just as the guy started the engine. Sailing to the roof of the next car, he leaped again to the top of a white Honda van, where he flattened himself against its roof, hiding the cell phone under him. The guy hadn't seen him, was busy backing out, looking over his shoulder, maneuvering the big pickup out of the tight space.
When the cowboy had gone, Joe rose up, hoping his weight hadn't punched any buttons on the phone that would send it into some incomprehensible mode that he couldn't figure out.
Should he call Clyde back, tell him he'd had to move? Or wait to see what happened? He hoped this van would stay in place for a while. It hadn't been there when he'd hopped into the truck. Hoped the driver wasn't just picking up a passenger. He must have been deep in sleep when it pulled into the parking space, he hadn't even heard a door slam.
He decided to stay where he was despite the fact that on the white van he was as visible as a dead rat on clean sheets. He was up high enough to see cars pulling in and out, to see the yellow roadster or Ryan's red pickup. He hadn't thought to ask what they were driving. He watched a beefy woman with three cranky, arguing kids approaching, heading straight for him, and he hunkered down again, praying the van wasn't theirs, trying to make both the phone and himself invisible.