Hot Wire (4 page)

"Just watch what you say, that's all."

He shuffled back to his booth and I walked over to the station, keeping to the shadows under the trees along the sidewalk. Traffic was light, but every car that passed tied my stomach in a knot and I clenched up ready to run. Baldy was still out there, most likely. Whoever he was. Still looking for his Lexus. When I reached the station, a crossing signal started to flash a couple blocks away, warning bells clanged, and I could hear a train engine rumbling through the dark.

The Nite-N-Day had three pump islands, a two-bay garage, and a convenience store with a green awning over the door and a neon Budweiser sign in the window. The station was hopping when I got there, cars pulling in and out, all the pumps busy. I hung around outside for a while, scanning faces and license plates, then I walked past the store and glanced through the window. A line of drunks, Berkeley stoners and a couple nightshift types waited in front of the register, but none of them looked familiar. The garage doors were open, a glare of smoky fluorescents, and I slipped inside like a ghost.

None of it felt real. Dwayne, the full-time mechanic, had the Sentry we'd called in earlier jacked up on the four-post lift; he was checking it out before they moved it to Heberto's warehouse. The garage was cramped for space and I had to pick my way around the alignment machine, brake lathe and rim-clamp tire changer. An air compressor rattled the tool racks and benches. Miguel, the part-time guy, was working on a Chevy C1500 SX2 in the next bay and he gave me a dopey grin. Stalling, I watched him yank the ignition switch while the compressor hammered at my ears.

"Emma, you OK?" He wiped his hands on his overalls. "You look kind of punk or something."

"I'm all right," I heard myself say. "I think I need some coffee."

I had to go through the store to get to the office and it was as cramped as the garage. Coolers rattled. A stand fan fluttered streamers. Janice, the speed-freak cashier, was yakking to a security guard with a fifth of vodka in his hand and a couple Goth types with spiked hair and pierced lips slouched over the coffee island, sneering at the world. Pumps chimed outside. A drill whined in the garage. Just then, the wrecker pulled into the station, hauling a blue Caprice with a flat tire and a busted windshield. It was a busy night. Deacon had a deadline to meet and there were a dozen teams like me and Arn cruising the streets in the city. The only problem: half my team was missing.

I couldn't put it off any longer. The office was down a hall back of the coolers, a tight passage with open ducts and a sputtering track light. I wiped my hands on my jeans, took a breath, then knocked on the door.

"Yeah!" Deacon yelled from inside.

I went in and closed the door behind me. The office was dark and stuffy, crowded with boxes of motor oil, engine parts and all kinds of junk. A ceiling fan stirred the smoke and dead air, but the room still smelled like an ash tray full of sump water. The only light came from a green banker's lamp on the desk and a portable TV flickering with the sound turned down. There was a fire safe in the corner, a bookshelf full of owner's manuals, a Goodwill sofa, a couple file cabinets, and a WWF Divas poster hanging on the back of the door. I stood under a picture of a lady wrestler with tits like dinner plates and triceps bigger than my head, waiting for permission to spill my guts.

Sirens passed a couple blocks away.

A Pennzoil clock ticked on the wall.

Jeffrey "Jiggles" Deacon hunched over an adding machine on the desk in the middle of the room. My boss was a fat slob, maybe 300 pounds, with drooping eyelids and blubbery lips that made him look like a giant frog. Part Greek or something – curly black hair, jowls, big ears – he always needed a shave and a change of clothes, not to mention a strong belt and suspenders. Poking around in a drawer, his desk littered with coffee cups, empty pizza boxes and stacks of moldy papers, he shot me a look, grunted, then turned to a manual typewriter older than I was and started to peck at the keys.

"Park it wherever," he said. "I'll be done in a minute."

Heberto sprawled on the sofa next to the door, blowing smoke rings at the TV. He looked calm enough, but he'd look calm if he was drowning a bag of puppies. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes, yawned, then got to his feet and cracked his knuckles, scanning me like a robot. He was twenty-eight, maybe, lean and buff, a Mestizo with black hair, black eyes and knife scars on his pockmarked cheeks. Dignified and soft-spoken, he used to be a cop in Mexico City and he had connections in all kinds of pest holes: El Salvador, Brazil, Panama, Columbia. He talked like an English textbook with a couple of missing pages, always polite and formal, but nobody ever laughed at his Spanglish. I knew for a fact he'd clipped a couple guys in Oakland and there were all kinds of stories about his crew. Meat hooks and blowtorches. Crap like that.

"Emma." He gave me a thin smile. "I hear you had some trouble."

"That's why I'm here, Mr. Gonzalez."

Kiss-up city. I sat down on a box of junk.

"OK." Deacon ripped a form out of his typewriter, tossed it on the desk, then kicked back in his chair and lit a cigar. "Tell us what happened and make it fast. We got company's gonna show up any minute – if Jacobo ever manages to pull his head out of his ass, the greedy little weasel. The bastard's two hours late already. He's scared to be seen with us, but he's even more scared he'll miss a chance to rob us blind, so we always got to hang around while he makes up his fucking mind."

I took my glasses off, cleaned them with my T-shirt, then put them on again, trying to act calm and collected.

Heberto was watching me like a snake.

#

I gave them the story I'd worked out during my walk to the station. It was mostly true, but I changed some details to make the whole thing sound like an accident that could've happened to anybody. In my new version, the Lexus had already been parked when we happened to drive by and the rest was just a fluke of timing. Bad luck, that's all. My story was plausible, more or less, not that it really mattered. Arn knew enough to get everybody indicted and I was a corroborating witness if the cops ever tracked me down. Assuming they were even involved. Deacon puffed on his cigar, studying me through a cloud of smoke while I tried to cover my sorry ass. Heberto never said a word.

"Tell me again," Deacon said when I'd finished. "Maybe it'll make sense this time around."

"We dropped off the Jeep," I said, trying not to fidget.

"Keep going."

"We took the back way back. There's a lot of night workers down there and they park in the street sometimes. We saw the Lexus parked outside this place – "

"What place?"

"I don't know. I didn't see any signs."

"Apartment building? What?"

"I don't know. Some dump. It looked like a storehouse or machine shop or something. No windows. I don't know what street it was, but I could probably find it again."

"No way." He pointed his cigar. "You stay away from there. I don't want you anywhere near the warehouse – got it?"

"Yeah," I said. "No problem."

"So you checked out the Lexus."

"Yeah. There wasn't anybody around. They'd left the keys in the ignition and I was getting ready to drive off when they came out and saw us. Another minute and we'd of got away clean."

"Were they cops?"

"I don't know."

"They were wearing suits."

"Yeah."

"Were they feds? Detectives?"

"I don't know," I said. "They were big mothers. One of them was bald and the other one had a crewcut. It looked like they had this other guy tied up inside. Working him over. I saw him when they opened the door."

"But they were white guys."

"Right."

"All three of them."

"Right."

"And that's it."

"Yeah. I got away, but the bald guy pulled a gun on Arn."

"How come he was still there?"

"Jesus, Deke – it happened too fast."

"So they got Arn."

"Yeah."

"And your work car."

"Yeah."

Deacon scratched a jowl. He looked gray and wasted and his forehead glistened in the hazy light. Frowning, he rubbed his eyes, then he settled back in his chair and blew smoke at the lamp.

"What do you think?" he asked Heberto. "These guys ring a bell?"

Heberto shook his head, staring right through me.

"They are not with the gangs," he said. "Dressed in that manner, they could be Oakland detectives questioning one of their snitches. A Latham witness, perhaps. The police have many intrigues with the gangs and maybe they are tying loose ends, but their prisoner was a
gabacho
. It makes no sense."

"He coulda been a witness," Deacon said. "Some white guy working at city hall or something. Maybe they were working him over to find out what he knew." He scowled at his cigar. "Just our luck it was a goddamn hit."

Heberto shrugged. "Anything is a likelihood."

They were talking about the Latham Scandal. A bunch of Oakland cops had just been indicted for clipping rats and ripping off dealers – the story had made all the papers. I got this flash of panic when I realized what might have happened. I was dead meat if I had stolen the Lexus from a couple of bent cops while they were getting ready to murder a witness before he could testify against them in court. If that was true, I was screwed. I had seen the three of them together and they knew I had seen them. If Baldy and Crewcut were Oakland cops tied up in the Latham mess, all they had to do was pull me over for a busted tail light and then shoot me for resisting arrest.

And Arn was probably dead.

"Take it easy." Deacon frowned when he saw my expression. "We don't know nothing yet. A couple honkies in suits. That's all we got right now."

Heberto nodded, his eyes calculating. "If we can find Arnold, we will know who they are. Their fashion does not have to mean anything, Emma. Even the Angels wear suits these days."

"Maybe they were rogues shaking down a dealer," Deacon suggested. "That's why they didn't identify themselves."

"It is possible," Heberto said. "They could be feds as well."

"Feds would've identified themselves."

"Unless they had some dirty business." Heberto blew a smoke ring at the TV and cracked a nasty smile. A 24-hour news channel was showing footage from Greece: a bank on fire, rioters fighting cops in the streets. It seemed to amuse him. "They could be outsiders," he went on. "Some new force intruding on my ground out of ignorance and stupidity. Smugglers. Mercenaries. There is no end to the possibility."

"So we got to find Arn." Deacon was getting impatient. "What about the Corolla?"

"That is no problem. I will inform Castel to report it stolen and file with the insurance in the morning. We have done this before."

"OK." Deacon hacked and coughed. "Jacobo might have a line on these guys, but I don't want to talk to him about it tonight. He'll just freak out and try to use it to jack up his price. I'll get with my bondsman to see if Arn got popped by Oakland." He turned to me. "If he did, his bail comes out of your end and count yourself lucky. Better hope they weren't cops or you're gonna need a new partner – if you still got a job. We got to see about that."

"He wouldn't say anything, Deke."

"I don't think so neither, but we can't take the chance." He shook his head. "Arn could get us all jammed on RICO charges if he shoots off his mouth and then everything turns to shit. I hope it don't come to that, OK? This could be a lot of nothing."

I thought I was going to get sick again. If Arn had been arrested, they were going to bail him out and then get rid of him in case he tried to cut a deal with the cops. There was nothing I could do to stop it and I was just hanging by a thread myself.

If he had been arrested.

"Maybe it's not so bad," Deacon said. "Meanwhile, I got to shut down until I know what the hell is going on and you better hope we don't miss the deadline. I'll get Miguel and Buster to move the stock to some of the other lots just in case the feds are sniffing around. Lucky for you, most of it's already gone. We'll leave the Lexus where it is for now. Can't risk moving it tonight."

"OK," I said.

"Yeah. OK."

I stared at my shoes, playing the pitiful little girl begging for forgiveness. It was easy to do. Most of his other drivers would've bailed in my position, but I owed him a lot and I had nowhere else to go. No money to run. Nobody else but Deacon. I knew he'd protect me if he could, no matter what he said in front of Heberto, but he was locked in by the situation and so was I. If the cops had busted Arn, I was a liability, but even if they hadn't, Heberto wanted to cut me loose and Deacon had to keep things smooth with Heberto. The more I thought about it, the worse it got.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked,

"Nothing," Deacon said. "I want you to fucking vanish. Grab your shit and stay at a motel for a couple days. Take a vacation. Disappear. I don't want you anywhere around here or the warehouse or anyplace they can find you. Got it? Especially not at home. Not until we find out who these guys were and what happened to Arn. Then we'll see what's what."