Hot Wire (13 page)

"Take it easy," he said. "We got it from Jacobo, but we're kind of wonderin' about that fed or whoever it was talked to you last. Jacobo never saw him before."

"Jacobo's a rat, Deke. He's got to be."

"Just relax." He came off tired and edgy. "This is fucked up, OK, but it's not so bad if you keep it together. All right? Jacobo told us everything that happened and me and Herb believe him, as far as that goes. I been working with him for years and this bullshit task force has only been around for like a month or something. Jacobo's OK until I find out different and they don't have a damn thing, so don't worry about it."

"They must've flipped him," I said. "Janice told me he was at the station today and he's got to know they're watching the place."

"Nobody's watching the station." Deacon sounded like he believed it. "You think we'd have a meet there if the place was staked out? I told you already – this task force is a lot of bullshit. A judge turned them down on a couple search warrants, but they're going through the motions, OK? Trying to justify their budget."

"They knew everything we did last night. They said they busted Arn."

"They don't know jack and nobody busted Arn or my bondsman would've heard about it. Jacobo almost shit his pants when they picked you up, but you kept your mouth shut and they had to cut you loose, all right? It was a fishing expedition. Herb's calmed down, more or less, but we got to know what happened with that fed you talked to."

"I didn't tell him anything."

"Nobody says you did, but who the hell was he? What did he want?"

"I don't know, Deke. He said his name was Matthews and he showed me an FBI badge, but he acted kind of dodgy about it and he was the only one in the room. I don't know. All he wanted to talk about was the Lexus."

"What about it?"

"I don't know, but he was real eager to get it back for some reason."

"What did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him anything."

"So where's the car?" he asked. "We checked the garage back of the lot after Jacobo told us what happened, but it was gone and so was Buster. He never showed up tonight and he never turned in the keys."

"I don't know," I said, but I must have hesitated for a second too long and Deacon picked up on it right away.

"Listen," he said. "I don't know what you got going with Buster or maybe it's something else I don't know about, but that car started all this shit and we've got to turn it over to Jacobo right away. Understand? That fed you talked to's been leaning on him." He lowered his voice. "Jacobo made some calls and found out what happened last night. Those guys you ran into were Oakland cops shaking down this junk wholesaler who's supposed to go to the Grand Jury next week. It was his car. They snatched him and they were getting ready to lean on him a little when you ripped off his car and fucked everything up."

"Jesus Christ," I said, wondering if I could believe it. Deacon was getting all of his information from Jacobo. "What happened to Arn?"

"Nobody knows, but they're going crazy looking for that car." He cleared his throat. A horn beeped twice in the background. "Jacobo figures there's evidence in the trunk or something that ties those cops into the Latham Scandal. That's why your fed wants to find it. He's investigating police corruption in Oakland."

"I searched the trunk," I said. "It was empty."

"So it's got a fake bottom – who gives a shit? We're talking Oakland cops looking at hard time for shaking down dealers and a couple murders. Get the picture? They want that car back."

"Jesus, Deke. I don't know where it is."

"Well, you got tonight to find it," he rasped over the line, his voice hoarse and strained. "Get with Buster or do whatever you got to do, but if you don't call me by noon tomorrow and tell me where it is, I got to cut you loose. Understand? Herb don't want to handle it like this, but I talked him into holding off for a day. You know what I mean?"

"Holding off on what?"

"Just find the car," he said. "Noon tomorrow."

The dial tone buzzed in my ear.

I was walking back to my room when I saw the Deacon tow truck pull into the lot.

They must've been surprised to see me.

The truck lurched to a stop in the parking lot about thirty feet away, pinning me with its headlights. Castel was driving – I could see him leering through the windshield. He stuck his head out the driver's side window, his glass eye flashing like a diamond in its socket, then the passenger door opened and this
loco
I'd never seen before jumped out with a knife in his hand, scanning the lot for witnesses. There were too many lights and windows, though, too many people in the Denny's. He hid the knife and started walking towards me along the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. Castel put the truck in gear.

"
Oye Emma
," the
loco
called. "
Que hay de nuevo
?"

I took off running. The Nissan was parked in an alley by the motel office and the old lady at the front desk grabbed her heart when I stumbled past her window, knocking over a garbage can. Boots with metal taps clicked on the sidewalk behind me. The truck's lights swept the parked cars, reflecting on bumpers and windshields. I made the alley, tripping over something in the dark, then ran to the Nissan and fumbled with the keys for a second before I got the door open.

The tow truck pulled into the alley, blocking me off, its high beams glaring through my windshield. The
loco
, some greaser with slicked-back hair, pounded on my hood and ran around to the driver's side, the knife back in his hand. I started the engine, stomped on the gas, yanked the wheel to the right, then bounced over a curb and plowed through some weeds and junk, swerving around the truck and back into the parking lot. The four-cylinder engine howled. The suspension clattered. I clipped the fender of a parked car and almost lost it.

A station wagon was backing out of a space in front of Denny's. The driver hit his brakes and I just missed him, banging on my horn and yelling out the window. I bounced over a speed bump and checked the rearview. The tow truck had turned around, stopping to pick up the
loco
, but I knew I could outrun them if I made the highway. They hadn't expected to find me like that. If they had, they wouldn't have brought the heavy truck with the Deacon logo all over the side panels.

Their lights fell back on the access road to the highway. I made 580 and headed south towards Berkeley and Oakland, hitting ninety in the cruise lane, easing off to hide in front of a bus, changing lanes again, checking the mirrors. The Nissan rattled and pulled to the right, its engine banging like it was about to blow a gasket. After a mile or two, the tow truck had vanished in a swarm of headlights. There was still a lot of traffic for one in the morning.

I took the Gilman Street exit, jumped a red light at the foot of the ramp, then drove ten blocks to San Pablo and headed back to the north, circling through the neighborhoods until I was alone again. Ten minutes later, I parked on a side street a couple blocks from Solano in Albany, turned off the engine, and slouched down in the front seat to wait for daybreak.

#

Stucco houses lined the street, their porch lights glowing behind windmill palms and oak trees in the weedy yards. A dog yapped somewhere. The cooling engine ticked. Closing my eyes, I felt like one of those deep-water fish, half-blind and luminous, hiding way down in the dark.

Noon tomorrow
, Deacon had said.
Herb don't want to handle it like this, but I talked him into holding off...

Deacon had lied. Maybe. He had contacts at Pac Bell who must've traced my call back to the pay phone, but that didn't mean he wanted to clip me. He'd probably radioed the tow truck and told them to check out the motel, but Castel had been driving the truck and he worked for Heberto, not Deacon. So maybe Heberto had given Castel some extra instructions.

Whatever had happened, Jacobo must've told them I'd cut a deal with the feds. Maybe Deacon and Heberto were arguing about what to do with me. Maybe not. One way or another, Heberto's crew was looking for me now. So were Baldy and Crewcut. So was the Task Force. And Matthews was trying to use me for bait.

That's all I knew for sure.

I drifted off for a while, but I didn't sleep too hot, waking up every time a car passed on the street. The clouds flickered off to the west – a storm building over the Pacific. The wind picked up, shaking the palms and chasing trash across the sidewalk. It got colder. The air smelled like rain. I had these weird dreams, but when I woke up, I couldn't remember anything about them. I lay down on the front seat and crashed out again.

Something woke me up an hour later. My watch read three in the morning and I lay there for a couple of minutes, staring at the reflections on the dash and listening to the sounds of the street. The wind rose and fell, stirring the trees and hedges. A train whistled. Railcars clattered in the distance. Then the wind died down and I heard the sound of an engine running on idle – right outside my door.

I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

A tire crunched gravel and twigs. There was a muffled burst of static, then the wind rose again and a light drizzle started to patter the roof and windshield. I rolled over on my back and tried to make out the sounds below the rain. A bug with dozens of legs crawled across my stomach and wormed its way up to my throat.

Nothing happened for a while, then I thought I heard another noise outside. It sounded like a car pulling away, but I couldn't tell for sure. I rolled over on my side, trying to see the outside mirror without showing my face, but the angle made it impossible. Hunched against the door, I risked a glance out the window.

Nothing.

I sat up just enough to see over the dash. The street looked empty. Nothing had changed. Then I spotted the patrol car sitting at the end of the block. The cops had double-parked by the intersection with their lights off, but I could just make out the dark cherries on the roof and I could see a faint glow inside the car – the LEDs on their radio, maybe. They were just sitting there, watching the street or waiting for something to happen. Maybe they were a regular patrol. Maybe not.

Ten minutes later, they turned the corner and drove away. I sat up for another hour, watching the street, but if they came back again, I didn't see them.

#

Dawn broke damp and cloudy.

A garbage truck hissed on the corner a block away. Dumpsters banged and clattered. Drizzle spattered the windshield and trickled through the vents, dripping on my sleeve.

I checked my watch. Six in the morning. A ceiling of gray and black clouds had rolled in during the night and a thick fog had wiped out the neighborhood. This rain could last for days.

I started the engine and drove off to find a pay phone. The rain picked up, banging on the roof of the car and fogging the windshield. I pulled into a grocery store on Solano, bought some coffee and rolls, then called my apartment from a phone booth in the parking lot and checked my answering machine. More hang-ups – somebody had called four times in the middle of the night. I dug through my wallet for the scrap of paper with Brown's phone number and stared at it for a while, trying to decide if I should call him or blow him off. Maybe he knew something. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was just digging for another story.

Brown knew Vincent, so I called the old man at his home in Emeryville. While I was waiting for him to answer, I remembered that he had some guns for sale: hot Glocks from that dealer job in Richmond. He had told me about it Saturday night – two nights ago. It felt like a couple decades.

Vincent's phone rang for a long time – he didn't have an answering machine – but he finally picked up, sounding groggy and pissed off.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Vincent." I kept my voice down. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"Emma?" He coughed and cleared his throat. "You know what time it is? And don't tell me there's a problem at the Hot Box. That's the last thing I need right now."

He didn't know what had happened.

"Everything's fine," I said. "I wanted to talk to you about that reporter Brown. He called me last night."

"Brownie? What the hell's he want?"

"No idea." I didn't know what to say. "Some story, I guess. For that rag he works for. That's what he said, anyway, but you know the guy. What's his deal? I got some crap going on and I don't like him sniffing around. Is he just some drunk or what?"

"He's smarter than he looks." A cup or saucer clinked in the background. "I met him a year ago at that dump I worked in down by the harbor. Before I got the Hot Box. It was this bar and grill had to bribe the health inspectors every year, but it did OK most of the time. We got a lot of trade from the Port workers."

"Yeah, but do you trust him?"

"Trust him? Hell. The guy's down and out, but he always pays his tab and he hates the cops even more than I do. He's the only reporter I ever met outside of court, but he's mostly just a bum. Knows everybody, though. Contacts all over the city." Vincent snorted. "When I met him, he was doing a story about those chinks smuggling illegals through the Port. Remember that? Just sealed them up in containers and shipped them off to America, except a bunch of them died of thirst or something on the way over. Big mess when they found them, but you know it's still going on."