“Well,” he said. “Good morning.”
I said, “Tom Harper, meet Olivia Soto. Olivia, this is Tom. We’re old buddies.”
She gave him her hand, which he held a moment too long. I explained that Harper and I had served in the Marines together.
She smiled and said, “That’s nice.”
Harper said, “That’s quite a shiner. What happened to your face?”
“I fell and hurt myself last night,” said Olivia. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” She went into the kitchen.
Harper didn’t look away from her until she was out of sight behind the cabinets, then he turned to me and softly said, “Hubba hubba.”
“You’re all class, Harper. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”
“You talk to me about class at a time like this? Who is that gorgeous girl?”
“I told you. Olivia Soto.”
“Name sounds familiar. What is she? Actress? Model?”
“Doña Elena Montes’s personal assistant.”
The look in his eyes changed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Sitting in my living room having coffee with a friend. What are you doing, Tom?”
“This is serious. It could cause you a lot of trouble if the DA finds out you’re sleeping with the Montes woman’s assistant.
“I’m not sleeping with her.”
“Then what’s she doing here this time of day?”
Olivia stepped back into the living room with a cup of coffee. Harper turned toward her. Every time she came into a room, it felt like a grand entrance. She crossed to the sofa with perfect grace, as if she were balancing a stack of books on her head. She settled down beside me and tucked her bare feet underneath a pillow. “I’m here because Malcolm was worried I might have a concussion, so he wanted to keep an eye on me.”
Harper looked at me. I shrugged.
“All right,” he said. “It’s your neck on the line. Just remember I was never here, and I never saw you two together.”
We all sipped our coffee. I waited. Harper was in no hurry. He sat staring at Olivia with what appeared to be a mixture of admiration and skepticism. He took another sip of coffee. Olivia returned his stare.
He said, “There’s something else we should talk about.”
“What could that be?” asked Olivia.
“Not you and me, unfortunately. Me and Malcolm.”
“In that case, I think I’ll take a walk.”
I said, “Stay on the property, okay?”
She gave me a smile as she opened the front door. When she had stepped outside, Harper said, “Why does she have to stay on the property?”
I almost told him about the attack at her house the night before, but that could lead too close to the fact that she was Alejandra Delarosa’s daughter, and I didn’t want the police to know that yet. Olivia was my only promising lead, and I hated to give her up to the police until I knew how she fit in with the home invasion charge against me.
I said, “I’m worried about a concussion, like she told you.”
He raised one eyebrow. “If you say so. Listen, there’s a gang investigation we have going. It’s been underway for about a year. Mexican mafia guys out of Santa Ana bringing cocaine across the border at Tijuana, using gringos for mules.”
I said, “Hard to believe they’d be able to move serious quantities through Tijuana these days. I figured the Feds would have that crossing squared away.”
“Normally that’s true, but we got some dirty guards involved. So we’re working with the FBI on this one. They track entry photos taken on these particular guards’ shifts. If anyone comes in who fits a certain profile, they send the images to us. We see what we can do about the people in the photos. Find the cars, check them for modifications and traces of cocaine, maybe turn the mules and set up a bust with their handlers next time they do a drop.”
I asked, “What does this have to do with me?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but I was curious to see how he would put it.
Harper finished off his coffee and stood up. “Hypothetically speaking, if a person out on bail was told not to leave the county, and that person went to Mexico for any reason, then that person would be in violation of his bail even if he came back of his own free will. He would be subject to rearrest and confinement until there was a determination of his guilt or innocence in a court of law, and his bail would be subject to forfeiture. All of that could happen, hypothetically, if photographic evidence of his trip were taken when such a person reentered the States, and if the photo was noticed by certain detectives, and if a friend in the department couldn’t keep those detectives from noticing, which that friend could not.”
“He could not?”
“Not possible.”
“Okay…hypothetically speaking, how long might it take these other law-enforcement officers from noticing this evidence and rearresting this bail violator?”
“It could happen anytime, Malcolm. Two or three days at the outside, would be my guess.”
43
“I’m feeling pretty nervous.”
I glanced at Sid Gold’s reflection in the rearview mirror of the stretch Mercedes and said, “That’s surprising.”
From the backseat, he said, “I know, right? I do all these huge deals all the time. Lionsgate. Paramount. Sony. The Weinsteins. I took a meeting with Spielberg just yesterday for crying out loud, and here I am nervous about going to a singles bar.”
“Been a long time?”
“Twenty-three years, since I met Fanny. Can you believe it? My palms are sweating back here.”
“Want me to turn around?”
“No. Now that I’m so scared about it, I need to get this done. I’m not going to mope around all by myself while Fanny’s got that guy. It’s a matter of self-respect.”
“You’ll be fine. Just smile and ask questions and listen. Women love it when you listen.”
“Ain’t that the truth. I probably wouldn’t be in this situation if I’d listened more to Fanny.”
I pulled to the curb in front of the Quiet Woman in Corona del Mar and got out under the sign of the medieval woman with her head cut off. I opened the door for Sid. I was wearing the black suit I usually wore like a uniform when I drove the stretch. In a new holster underneath the jacket, I also wore the M11 Simon had procured for me after my release from jail.
I said, “You have my number on your cell?”
“I’ll call you when I’m ready. Unless, hey, you want to go in and have a drink with me?”
“If that’s what you want. But what about that self-respect?”
“You’re right. Yeah, you’re right. I gotta do this on my own.”
“You’ll be fine, Sid.”
He took a step toward the door, then turned back. “I won’t talk about the business, and I won’t let them know I have money. I’m not interested in gold diggers.”
“Makes perfect sense. Just be yourself. And remember to listen.”
“Listen.” He nodded. “Here goes.”
He walked to the door and pulled it open. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” spilled out onto the sidewalk. I watched Sid until the door swung closed, then I got behind the wheel, made an illegal U-turn, and drove the limo south along the Pacific Coast Highway to the Crystal Cove Promenade parking lot. I swung around to face the ocean and killed the engine.
The sun was already down, but there was a pale pink afterglow to the west. I saw a few white lights twinkling offshore, probably commercial fishing boats or container ships steaming south to San Diego and Mexico, or up to Long Beach or LA Harbor.
I went over everything again, item by item, all the facts and guesses I had considered the night before. My thoughts circled around the dead bomber up in Silverado Canyon, trying to figure out if he had been the one who murdered Haley. There wasn’t enough information, so I considered Olivia for a while, Olivia in her bed at my place, hoping I would come to her. I thought about that and the fact that she was one of the more desirable women I had ever met. And then I considered the strange fact that while I did find her desirable, I did not desire her. I wondered how that worked and decided it was probably too complicated to understand. Maybe it meant I would never desire any woman again. Maybe I was one of those people for whom love comes only once. Or maybe it was the fact that Olivia was lying about who she was and what she wanted. It seemed pretty obvious she intended to use me for her own purposes. I didn’t mind protecting her from Medallion and his partner, but I didn’t much like the idea of going to prison for her, if that was what she had in mind.