“Your schedule’s open.”
“Keep it that way. And, Kip-you did a good job on this. Excellent work.”
“I aim to please.”
Reynolds nearly ended the call, then remembered a question he’d meant to ask. “What name is she using?”
“Andrea Lowry. Does that matter?”
“No.” Reynolds smiled. “No, it doesn’t matter at all.”
Abby was getting seriously bored by the time her quarry entered Orange County. But when the van left the freeway, heading into Santa Ana, she got interested all over again.
Reynolds, she remembered, had been raised in the Santa Ana barrios. Possibly he was indulging in a little nostalgia by venturing home again. She doubted it. He didn’t seem like the sentimental type.
On TV, Orange County existed as a place of endless beaches, posh malls, and glistening marinas. And all of those things were real enough, and had earned the shoreline its nickname, the Gold Coast. But TV always oversimplified, and the reality of the county was inevitably more complex. Inland, away from the yachts and beachfront condos, there lay a massively overdeveloped patchwork of freeways, urban centers, and suburban sprawl. Hillsides, once bare, now sprouted condos, and condos on top of condos, and still more condos on top of those. Newness was the driving force here.
The wealthier areas were adult playgrounds where everything was new, glistening, beautiful, and oddly sterile. They drew in prosperity and commerce. The older districts, left behind, became home to Orange County’s underclass, which was sizable and, like everything else in California, growing.
Santa Ana was one of the old sections. Its population was largely Hispanic. Here was where the bus lines brought the chambermaids who made beds in Newport Beach’s luxury hotels and the gardeners who trimmed bushes outside Irvine’s million-dollar homes. Santa Ana was crowded and noisy and unpolished, its crime rates were high, and it was not a place where a man like Jack Reynolds was likely to spend his leisure time.
Abby stayed two or three cars behind him, catching glimpses of the reflective tape through gaps in the traffic. The van turned down a side street. She continued straight, afraid to pull directly behind her quarry. Her red sports car would stand out, and even a driver who wasn’t looking for a tail might spot it.
At the next corner she turned, then paralleled Reynolds’ projected route for a few blocks before cutting over to the street he’d been traveling on. The van was nowhere in sight. It was possible she’d lost him, but there was an equal chance he’d parked somewhere along the way. She retraced the route and spotted the van in the parking lot of a motorcycle repair shop.
Reynolds wasn’t at the wheel. He must have gone inside.
She cruised past the shop, a dingy square structure with off-white stucco walls that had turned considerably more off-white with the passage of time. From inside came the whir of power drills and the sputtering cough of a faulty engine. A hand-painted banner over the door read HARLEY SPECALISTS. She wondered why someone would take the time to paint the sign by hand but wouldn’t check the spelling first. She also wondered what the hell Congressman Reynolds was doing in a cycle shop. Nothing on his Web site or in his office had indicated a passion for motorcycles, and she seriously doubted that he would drop by to shoot the bull with a bunch of mechanics on a Friday afternoon, even if they did happen to be his constituents.
The situation was becoming more complicated-and more troubling. She didn’t like the fact that Reynolds had come here so soon after their meeting, as if her refusal to cooperate on the case had led him to take some more drastic measure.
Such as? She didn’t know, but a fair number of bikers were known for their participation in criminal acts. Reynolds had been willing to tiptoe along the edge of the law by hiring her. Maybe now he’d been prompted to cross the line entirely.
Well, she could hardly walk into the bike shop and ask him about his plans-although her sudden appearance in that environment would boast a certain theatrical flair.
If she couldn’t talk to Reynolds, who could she talk to?
There was one obvious choice, and that was Andrea Lowry herself.
It was a good thing Reynolds wasn’t her client, because going behind a client’s back to get info on him from his own stalker was definitely not in her usual playbook. And of course Andrea might not tell her a thing. They hadn’t exactly hit it off last night.
The thing was, though, Andrea knew when she was being lied to. She must have been lied to a lot. But suppose someone were to try telling her the straight truth. No lies, no games, just simple honesty. Would she respond?
It was worth a shot, if for no other reason than it was the only shot Abby had left. She drove out of Santa Ana and headed north on the 405, which would take her back to L.A.
11
Shanker was in the garage when he saw the Man enter the waiting room of his shop. The Man-that was how Shanker thought of him. To everyone else he was Congressman Jack Reynolds, but to Ron Shanker he would always be the Man.
He’d been talking to a pimply red-haired kid about rejetting the carbs on his Yamaha, one of those riceburners Shanker hated. But what the hell, business was business, and with the Mexicans crowding him on all sides, he needed all the business he could get. The Mexicans wouldn’t come to him, of course. They knew about the war three years ago, and although a truce was now in effect, it didn’t mean the two sides were friendly.
Anyway, he couldn’t keep the Man waiting, especially not in the crappy little room at the front of the shop, a room whose sole amenity was an ancient coffeemaker that dripped poisonous sludge into a stained carafe. He handed off the red-haired kid to one of his mechanics, telling him to drain the gas tank before starting the tune-up because the bike had been in storage and the gas was old. Then he headed into the outer room.
“Jack, how’s it hanging?” He extended a large hand and felt it gripped by the Man’s crushing fist. “What brings you here?”
“Business.” He said it in the unmistakable way that meant trouble.
Shanker nodded. “Let’s go into my office.”
He led the Man through the shop, past the Dynotest room where a Harley was being run through its RPM range. Around him rang the screams of power tools, mixing with the casual profanities of his three mechanics. All of them puffed cigarettes, the burning ends glowing like red eyes behind veils of smoke.
His office was down a short hall, past the stinkhole washroom that had needed a good cleaning for at least six months. The wall of the hallway was decorated with cycle calendars sent to his shop by manufacturers of tools and engine parts. Most of them displayed the wrong month, having been turned to whatever page featured the best artwork-the artwork in question consisting of color photos of busty, nearly nude, creatively tattooed women draped over motorcycles.
Reynolds entered the office, and Shanker followed, careful to shut and lock the door. He noticed that the Man did him the courtesy of sitting in the visitor’s chair rather than stationing himself behind the desk. They both knew he could sit anywhere he pleased.
The office was small and smelled of carpet cleaner. An air conditioner rattled in the window frame, working hard against waves of August heat.
Shanker settled into the desk chair and tried not to look scared. It was tough to do, because the Man was one sprung motherfucker. He’d known the Man for a long time, and he’d been scared of him for nearly as long. And Ron Shanker was a guy who didn’t scare easy-he had the scars on his hide to prove it, battle scars from street combat.
“What can I do ya for?” he asked with a weak, shit-eating grin.
Reynolds ignored the question. “How’s business?”
The inquiry took Shanker by surprise. The Man never made small talk with him.