Hood reached down under the chair and retrieved his last donut. He had the surprising thought that running away with Suzanne for a year would be a good way to keep Allison Murrieta from getting shot.
“I could do it.”
“But you won’t. You’re chicken. You’ll stay straight and narrow, try to get your sergeant’s stripes before you’re eighteen. Or however you deputies prove your greatness.”
Hood laughed again. “You don’t know what I am.”
“I can tell a lot about a man just by being sexually assaulted by him.”
“Assaulted?”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily. He heard her yawn. “The owl just spun his head around and he’s looking at me with one eye. It’s yellow.”
“The parking lot of the Mariposa Motel is hopping.”
“There’s a mockingbird down in the coral tree outside my bedroom. They make such pretty sounds.”
“A bus just pulled in, big black cloud.”
“Smells like damp grass and fresh water here.”
“I got floor cleaner and cigarette smoke.”
“If I go to the edge and look straight down, I see where the trunk goes underground and I know there’s a root ball the size of the tree itself under there.”
“If I look down, I see an empty pack of donuts.”
“I had donuts last night, too. We’re so much alike-great minds, and all that.”
“That’s us.”
“This is us,” she said.
They were quiet for a long minute. Hood watched the cars jostling in and out of the lot and listened to the sound of Suzanne Jones’s breath in his ear. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper.
“Charlie, back when I was a teenager I had this policy about people moving me around, making me do what they wanted instead of what I wanted. My policy back then was don’t let it happen. Ever. Don’t give in and don’t turn away. Fight until you bleed if you have to. I based it on Roosevelt’s ‘Speak softly but carry a big stick.’ And that’s still my policy today. I won’t let someone move me around. Not your bosses and not Lupercio and not anybody. You should know that.”
“Let me figure out what to do about Lupercio, Suzanne.”
Another silence, another jet. “You figure it out, Hood.”
“Bye, Suzanne.”
“Bye, Charlie.”
Just before nine A.M. Hood pulled up to the Encarnación address in Fontana: The Hosier & Reed Funeral Home.
On the off chance that Consuelo and her daughters actually lived there-perhaps one or more of them acting in an after-hours capacity-Hood walked the building in search of an apartment or guest quarters.
The building was one story and not yet open for business. Around the side Hood walked a chain-link fence that surrounded a healthy green lawn. There was a covered patio with some plastic chairs and an ashtray on a stand. A fountain stood in the middle of the lawn and a raven dug its head into the water then straightened and gave Hood a canny stare.
The building looked too small to accommodate a business and living quarters for three. The rear half of it had few windows, and the rear door was not a residential one but an electric roll-up large enough to accommodate a hearse or a van.
He dialed Consuelo’s number on his cell phone but was told that the call could not be completed as dialed. He tried it twice more with the same results.
Hood felt less foolish for having rousted the woman and girls. They’d fooled him with fake ID but he still wondered if they were somehow connected to Lupercio Maygar. If so, Lupercio would soon know that instead of Suzanne Jones, a young LASD deputy had been waiting for him at the Mariposa. And if that was true, then she had been betrayed by Wyte.
34
Hood doesn’t have to figure out what to do with Lupercio because I already have.
I call Guy and tell him I changed my mind. I’m ready to sell the diamonds. I’ll call back tonight at ten to arrange the meeting.
And I know what he’s going to say when I calclass="underline" I’ll come to you.
Meaning Lupercio will come to me.
Then I call my friend who works for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, a secretary who’s been there twelve years and knows things. I had her son at Franklin five years ago, nice kid, a curious mind. I tell her about my friend Guy. I describe him in some detail. I put him into the department hierarchy above Hood, but not so high up he’s deskbound. She listens, says she’ll think on it. What I think is, she’ll be able to help.
Now I’m at the Sunset Tower Hotel because it used to be the Argyle and I loved being close to the ghosts of movie stars, I loved the stainless steel and the deco mirrors, the cast-iron palms around the pool and the great view of the city. That’s all gone now, except the views, but it’s a five-star property. Hood’s got no idea where I am. I may lure him here later tonight if everything goes right, feed him a couple of room service martinis and give him a bath in the silver tub.
I’ve already made my arrangements for Lupercio, and now it’s time for a nighttime jog. I run up one side of the Sunset Strip and back down the other. It’s nice to be blond and not look like Suzanne or Allison. I feel free. I run past the Whiskey and the Rainbow and the Jaguar dealership I’d love to hit someday, past the Viper Room and the sidewalk where River died, past Hustler Hollywood and the cigar shops and boutiques and sushi bars all lit up under huge billboards flashing tits and ass for movies and TV shows and booze and clothes-man, the models look about Bradley’s age.
Around me on the sidewalks are the people the ads are trying to sell to: couples walking close, single guys and dolls tracking each other down, some working girls, young queers with their cute walks and old ones with their cute dogs. I can smell the need in the air, in the mix of perfume and cologne and the exhale from the Armani store and car exhaust and meat smoke from the grill at Kings Road. Some of it comes from me.
I get some looks and this is good.
I get more looks an hour later in my almost new black Pontiac Solstice, which puts out two hundred and sixty horses and two hundred and sixty pound-feet of torque from a turbocharged four, though the steering is vague. I got it down in La Jolla on my way back from Valley Center earlier today. It was easy. I chose a good restaurant, watched this chick park her cute little car, let her get inside, then called the restaurant to say there was a black Solstice in the lot with the headlights on. When she came out to solve the problem, keys in hand, Allison introduced her to Cañonita. She told me she’d seen me on TV up at her boyfriend’s place in L.A. Later I cold-plated it so there’s no reason to pull me over.
Superior Wrecking & Salvage is east of L.A., way out by the riverbed, dead automobiles stacked ten high, mountains of them rising from the flats along the Orange Freeway. Around it are rock quarries and billboards. My friend Phillip owns the place and he’s showed me a few things and turned the keys over to me for the night, no questions asked, just two thousand dollars cash for his generosity. If anything happens, I’m a trespasser.
The office is in a metal building that reminds me of Angel’s staging place for his cars. The lights are off in the front of the building where the customers lean against an old counter and deal with Phillip’s employees. Behind the counter are two large cubicles, and down a short hallway is the inner sanctum, Phillip’s personal lair.
I sit at his desk. I’m Allison but without the mask. Phillip has disarmed the security alarm system, as I asked him to. For a moment I watch the bank of video monitors built into one wall. There are twelve screens in all, four rows of three across, each a live feed from the security cameras positioned around Superior’s eight fenced acres. Most of the ground lights are on, per my request. The wrecking yard glows in the night, steel and paint and chrome vibrant in the floodlights. Even the rust seems bright. I never knew there were so many different shades of it. The cranes hover over the automotive bodies like undertakers. There are four of them, and their big engines are all idling against the night, another arrangement Phillip has made at my request.