Hot Wire (12 page)

Nobody followed as far as I could tell.

I walked around the neighborhood west of Telegraph, checking out the cars parked on the street, watching the pedestrians. It was a funky area: old houses, big trees, gardens, a stone church. I was looking for a car that would be easy to steal without tools – some rattletrap, a student's wheels, something like that. When I found a likely candidate, I walked around the block a couple times until the street was empty and then I went to work.

Ten minutes later, I was driving down University, heading back to the highway in a Nissan pickup with rust spots, peeling clear coat and a Nuke The Whales bumper sticker.

#

I thought about hitting the road, but I didn't have the money to run and I couldn't split until I found out what had happened to Arn. It was dumb, but I couldn't just leave him behind like that, abandon him all over again. A couple years ago, I wouldn't have given him a second thought.

I drove a couple miles north on I-80, passing the track at Golden Gate Fields, then I turned on 580 and pulled into a Motel 6 near the Albany Flats Ecological Reserve, a stretch of weedy beach and marsh with a hazy view of the Bay. There were a couple trucks parked at the Denny's next door, but the lot was mostly deserted. Nobody saw me go into the office unless they were watching through binoculars.

The old lady behind the desk had a hearing aid, frosted hair and bulging eyes that made her look like a startled cat fish. I asked for a room in back, gave her a fake license-plate number and paid for two nights in cash. She didn't ask any questions. Didn't hassle me about my age. Squinting at my bruised face, she handed over the key and shuffled back to the soaps in her office.

I parked the Nissan under a tree that blocked it from view of the highway, then found my room and locked myself in, fastening the chain and propping a chair under the door knob. The room was spartan: bed, writing table, TV bolted to the wall, one bar of soap by the sink, two towels, one tube of shampoo in the shower. I figured I'd wash up and make some calls, but when I sat down on the bed, this black hole opened in the mattress and sucked me into Nowhere.

#

I woke up in the dark.

Hip-hop thumped on a car stereo in the parking lot, then a pair of headlights swept across the curtains and the jungle noise faded into the distance. The clock on the bedside table read ten p.m. I'd crashed for twelve hours.

I took a shower, pulled on the same grungy clothes I'd been wearing for two days, then cracked the drapes and checked out the parking lot. Rows of windshields glistened under a streetlight. A buoy flashed on the Bay. I was starving, but I didn't want to make any calls from the room or drive anywhere in the hot Nissan, so I took a chance and walked over to the Denny's by the motel.

The restaurant was busy. I felt like everyone was watching me when I walked through the front door, but the Greeter just smiled and showed me to a window table by the kitchen. When the waitress came around, I ordered a sirloin steak with french fries, peas and mushrooms, a salad and a big Coke, then I went through a basket of dinner rolls while I waited for my dinner. Someone had left an Examiner on the counter and I skimmed the stories to see if anyone I knew had made the paper.

Nothing about Steffy. Nothing about me.

The front page was full of the usual crap about the economy and how the war was going in Jabberstan and Suckmalia and a bunch of other rat holes I'd never heard of. The terrorists were everywhere, blowing up kittens, raping premature babies in their incubators. We were under attack. We needed more security, more surveillance cameras, more thugs groping old ladies at the airport, blah blah blah.

I flipped through the Metro section and found a weird story about a fire in the Oakland bottoms. A company named Ligar Shipping had burned to the ground last night and the cops suspected arson. The body of the company's lawyer, some guy named Howard L. Chase, had been found in a vacant lot a couple blocks away, cause of death "under investigation."

Chase. The Lexus had been registered to H.L. Chase – some address in San Francisco. Crewcut had said
Chase
and
Matthews
had hired me to steal the car.

I read the story all the way through, trying to make sense out of it. Somebody had torched Ligar Shipping last night – that must've been the fire we'd seen from the highway when we were driving to the warehouse. A little while after that, we saw the Lexus go by and I followed it to that place in the bottoms, driving into a federal stakeout in the process. Then, later that night, the cops found this Chase dead in the same area. The guy who owned the Lexus. The lawyer whose company had just burned down. The guy we'd seen with Baldy and Crewcut just before he croaked.

A hit. We'd interrupted a hit.

The waitress brought my food and I forgot about everything except my empty stomach. I hadn't eaten all day. I was starving. I cut up my steak and slathered it with A1 Sauce, washed down my fries with Coke, stabbed at my salad with a fork. I was so hungry, my hands were shaking. At least that's what I told myself.

When I finished eating, I paid the bill, got some change, then made some calls from a pay phone in the parking lot. An RV pulled into the motel office while I was dialing. Traffic passed on the highway and the breeze reeked of marsh and dead fish.

I called my room at the Berkeley Marina, just to see if anybody answered, but nobody did and I hung up when I got the recording. Then I psyched myself for a couple minutes before I dropped in some more change and called the convenience store at the Nite-N-Day. I had to talk to Deacon. Find out what was going on. The phone rang for a while, then Janice, the speed-freak cashier, picked up and I heard a gas pump chime in the background.

"Deacon's," she drawled. "Can I help you?"

"Janice. It's me."

A long pause. Horns tooted on the other end of the line.

She lowered her voice. "Emma?"

"I need to talk to Deke."

"Where are you? What's going on?"

"Is he there?"

"He went home a couple hours ago, but he's been trying to reach you all day and he's really pissed off about something."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, but Heberto and that sleaze-bag cop came by this afternoon and they were locked up in the office for hours."

"Jacobo came by the station?"

I closed my eyes.

"He kind of snuck in the back," Janice said. "And Buster didn't show up for work tonight. Have you seen him?"

The line clicked and her voice faded for a second. It couldn't have been a tap. The cops tapped lines at the phone company these days, so you never heard a thing, but it freaked me out anyway.

"I've got to go," I said.

"Where are you?"

I hung up, my skin crawling.

The Nite-N-Day had to be under surveillance. I should never have called there in the first place, but I'd screwed up even worse by not talking to Deacon right away and explaining what had happened. Jacobo had beaten me to it – the little weasel must've figured I hadn't talked to them yet or he would never have gone near the station. He was probably running damage control: no telling what kind of lies he'd told them about me. Deacon and Heberto must've found out about my arrest and the weird way I got released would've spooked them big time. If Jacobo told them I'd cut a deal with the task force, then Heberto's crew was probably looking for me right now, cruising around the city in a fleet of taco wagons with their shotguns and machetes.

Wonderful. I scanned the parked cars, the windows, the dark field between the motel and the waterline. The parking lot was deserted, but that didn't mean a thing. The cops could've taken over a room at the motel. The feds could be sitting in a van somewhere with night-vision glasses, waiting to see who picked me off first – Baldy and Crewcut, or Deacon and Heberto.

I called Arn's place to see if anybody answered. His phone rang four times and rolled over to voice mail. Nobody home. Nobody who wanted to answer, anyway. I hung up when I got his machine and just stood there for a while, trying to figure out what had happened last night.

Arn had told Baldy and Crewcut who I was. They went to my apartment, found Steffy and forced her to tell them where I'd gone, then they killed her to cover their tracks. After they left, Matthews showed up with his black SUVs and staked out my building. The lights had been on in Arn's apartment when I drove by, so Baldy and Crewcut must've stopped off to search the place before they went to the Radisson. One of them had answered the phone when I called. The bunch of them had been crawling all over me last night and I hadn't even known it. I'd passed them coming and going.

I called my apartment and checked the answering machine. There were six messages, four of them hang-ups from last night. Somebody had wanted to know if I was at home. Message Five was from Buster, of all people. He came off drunk and scared.

"Em," he whispered, breathing into the phone. "I moved that thing you brought in last night. You know what I'm talkin' about. Couple guys sniffing around the lot this morning – bald fucker and some dude with a crewcut. Said they were looking for this Lexus supposed to get some body work or something, but you could tell they was lying. I said we didn't have nothin' like that and showed them the book to prove it, but I don't think they believed me. Big fuckers. Smelled like cops, but I didn't see no badges. Anyway, I towed it after they left – that old garage on Potter. You know the one. I don't know what's going on, but cops been cruisin' by all morning and they got to be watching this place. I'm out of here, baby. You do the same."

Buster. Jesus Christ.

Just then, a black SUV pulled into the lot and parked in front of the Denny's. I clenched up when I saw it, but a couple drunks got out and stumbled through the front door, their shadows wobbling across the sidewalk. Bugs swarmed a light on a telephone pole. A bell chimed on the water.

The last message on my answering machine had a lot of traffic noise in the background. I couldn't tell who it was at first. It sounded like he was using a pay phone at a gas station next to a busy intersection. Pumps chimed and I heard a siren go by while he was talking.

"Emma..." He came off hoarse and spooked. I'd heard his voice before, but I couldn't place it. "You know who this is? I don't want to use my name on the phone, but I showed you a picture last night. Remember?"

Brown. That sleaze-bag reporter. How'd he get my number?

"Listen," he went on. "I've got to make this quick. I don't know if you'll get this, but if you do, we need to talk right away. I saw you at the station this morning and I know what's going on. Part of it, anyway. I know the guy who was in your car when you got arrested and you blundered into something major, believe me. Just take my word for it." He coughed and cleared his throat. "Check me out with the old man – the one who runs the place we were in last night. OK? Then give me a call. I can't say anything on your machine, but they'll back off if this goes public. Understand? So give me a call. This is one of those throwaway cell phones, so they won't get anything if they trace it."

He left his number, then hung up and a robotic voice told me I didn't have any more messages. There was a pen on a chain hanging by the pay phone and I used it to scribble his number on a page in the phone book, then I ripped the page out and stuck it in my wallet. No telling what the drunken bum wanted, but he had a lot of contacts and I couldn't just ignore his call. I deleted the rest of the messages on my answering machine in case the cops hadn't heard them already – especially the one from Buster. The crazy dope had freaked out and moved the Lexus to that old garage on Potter. I couldn't decide if he'd helped me or screwed me worse, but I hoped he was free and clear.

#

I dug out some quarters and made one last call. I couldn't put it off any longer.

The phone at Deacon's house rang a couple times, then his wife picked up and went to get him. I almost lost my nerve and hung up, but I forced myself to wait.

"Gimme your number," Deacon said when he came on the line. "I'll call you right back."

I almost hung up again, but I figured I had to take some chances if I was ever going to find out what was going on. I was screwed blundering around in the dark, so I gave him the number and hung up to wait.

Time dragged by. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Cars pulled in and out of the lot, their headlights sweeping across me and reflecting on the windows of the motel. A helicopter passed overhead, rotor light blinking, then it circled over the Bay and headed towards San Francisco.

The phone rang. Heart-attack city.

"Where the hell are you?" Deacon asked, traffic noise in the background. He must've gone to a pay phone near his house. "I been trying to get you all day."

"El Cerrito," I lied. Pac Bell could be recording the call, for all I knew. No telling who was listening. "I've been driving around all day and I stopped at this Quick Trip by Harding Park."

"You're on a pay phone?"

"Yeah."

"Anybody else know where you are?"

"I don't think so."

"All right." He coughed into the phone. "We heard Emeryville picked you up this morning, then cut you loose again."

"I didn't tell them anything."