His hand sprang open and the award clattered to the ground. I turned and ran toward the end of the alley that Potato and his men had not taken. Once I hit the sidewalk, I slowed to a casual stroll.
I should have asked Wardell to drop me off a mile from my car and walked back to it. I should have realized that Francois would send Potato and his men after me once he found out about the video Arne posted, and that Wardell could tell them where he’d dropped me off.
But had they already grabbed Arne off the street? Judging by what I’d just heard, I’d bet against it.
Still, if Arne wasn’t at the Bigfoot Room, I didn’t know where to find him, and I didn’t have as many friends as I used to.
I unrolled Lenard’s money and spread it flat under the floor mat. A cop would find it two minutes into a determined search of the car, but this was the best I could do. I drove back into Studio City and parked outside Ty’s gym.
Six people pushed through the doors in a rush just as I reached them, but the last, a muscular woman who couldn’t seem to stand up straight, held them open for me. The front desk was swarmed with people turning in locker keys and receiving plastic cards in return. I waited for things to thin out, watching people get processed at the desk and exit. Leaving work, rushing home to make dinner, pick up their kids, or go on dates, they were nothing like me. And God, there were so many of them.
When things had slowed enough that the supervisor could pay attention to me, I stepped forward. She was the same one I’d spoken to a couple of days before, but she didn’t recognize me. I had to explain myself again. Ty wasn’t here, she told me, and no, I couldn’t have his address or phone number.
A customer at the counter turned to me and said: “You mean Tyalee Murphy? He’s just around the corner. I’ll show you.”
I followed him outside. We stood at the edge of the parking lot together. He gestured toward an intersection like a man karate chopping an imaginary opponent. “That street there beside the pet-supply store is Cartwell. I think. Whatever the name, you go that way one block and take the very first left. Ty lives on that block, on the left side, in a building with two beautiful jacarandas out front.”
I had no idea what a jacaranda was, but I could figure it out. “That’s great. Thanks.”
“No problem. You’re a friend of his?”
“Actually, I’m a hit man hunting him down.”
We laughed and went our separate ways.
It was early evening, so parking on Ty’s residential street was impossible, but I did luck into a space around the corner. There were three buildings with two trees out front, and I found Ty’s name in the second one. I rang the buzzer and spent a few seconds studying the tiny fernlike leaves of the whatever tree out front. The security gate squawked at me like a mechanical crow, without anyone trying to speak to me first.
I went inside and up the stairs, then knocked on the apartment door. It was yanked open by a short, slim Korean man. He had small features on a broad, smooth face, and he was so fit his collarbones showed at the opening of his polo shirt. Like the client who’d given me directions, he had hair that had been cut very recently, and it had a lot of mousse in it.
Something about me startled him, and he laid his fingertips next to his throat. “You’re not the guy.”
“No,” I answered. “I’m a different guy.”
“I mean the pizza guy.” He looked me over, as though I might be hiding a pizza box somewhere.
“I’m looking for Ty,” I said. “Is he here?”
He moved his weight onto his back foot and put his hand on his hip. His expression suggested he thought I had a lot of nerve saying that to him.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “I’m an old friend and I think he’s in trouble.”
He started to say something but stopped himself to think about it. Then he let out a long, relieved sigh. “Come in come in,” he said, as though I was a doctor making a house call. “What’s your name?”
“Ray.”
“I’m Dale. I’m glad you came here and said what you said. I’ve been thinking something has been wrong for days, but … Ray Lilly? Tyalee told me about you.”
All my old crew were talking about me. It made me feel odd; I never talked about them. “What did he tell you?”
Dale looked around the room as though he was going to offer me a chair, but my question had made him rethink it. “He said you were the most honest thief he had ever seen, and that he could never trust you. What does that mean, anyway? Are you really some kind of thief?”
Ty and I had been thieves together, but I wasn’t going to be the one to break the news. “Let’s stay focused on Ty. Why do think something has been wrong?”
“He won’t touch me,” Dale said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “He wears those gloves, and when I touch his skin …”
“It burns.”
“Yeah. And he gets angry, like he’s afraid for me. What happened to him?”
I wasn’t going to go there. “Is he here?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
That wasn’t a good sign. Ty could have been lying somewhere in the apartment the way Caramella had.
The buzzer sounded. I stepped aside to let Dale access the intercom, but all he did was press the security button. He was a victim waiting to happen, and I wondered what Ty saw in him.
“Oh my God,” he said. “I haven’t even asked you to sit down. Come in, please, and be comfortable. Can I get you something? Beer?”
“I’d rather have water.”
“Of course, it’s so hot.” He hurried into the kitchen and filled a glass. I looked around the room. Their apartment had been furnished right off the showroom floor of IKEA, which made the place feel like a robot habitat. On the end table beside me there were two little spaceships facing each other. One was from Star Trek, but I couldn’t recognize the other. I had the sudden urge to smash them both.
As Dale handed me the glass of water, there was a knock at the door. He opened it without looking through the peephole first, signed the pizza guy’s slip, and shut the door. I took the pizza box from him.
“There’s something we need to do first.”
Together, we searched the apartment. He looked in cabinets and cupboards, and above them, too, searching for a clue to Ty’s odd behavior. I went through the motions with him, but what I really wanted to do was check every corner and behind every bit of furniture for a shape that could be touched but not seen. We didn’t find that, but in the bedroom, Dale showed me something else.
“I wasn’t sure if I should, but …” He dragged a stainless-steel suitcase out from under the bed. I knew what was in it even before he opened it.
Cash. It was bundles of twenties and hundreds, all thrown in randomly, and all bound up in paper wrappers.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. The urge to slug Dale, hard, and run out the door with this money was incredible. So many of my problems could be solved with this suitcase. And he was a guy who didn’t even look through the peephole before opening his door. It would be a useful lesson for him.…
“Look at this! It’s just like a movie!” Dale made that sound like an insult. “I don’t even know where it came from!”
I held up one of the bundles. The name of the bank was printed on it. “Yes, you do.”
He plopped down onto the corner of the bed. “Okay. I do. But Ty, he … Okay. Once, about a year and a half ago, I had a flat on my car, and I couldn’t afford a new tire. I was really, really broke, and he and I had just gotten together, okay? And I was upset because I’m in frickin’ L.A. without a car, okay?
“The next day, Ty had put four new sidewalls on it. He thought I would be happy, but he had even less money than I did. He hadn’t even started to cover his facility fee at the gym. I’m not stupid, okay? I knew he hadn’t bought them. But I made him promise not to steal again.”