Signwave (19 page)

Not on my part. I did it for the money, as always. But the people who hired me, they knew it had to be done, knew it was their duty to a man they loved—they just couldn't bear to do it themselves, or even to watch it happen.

So I told myself that even the slightest chance Dolly could be prosecuted was something I had to avoid. But lying to yourself never works. So—here's the truth—just like those people who had hired me in San Francisco: I couldn't take it.

I had never expected to die a hero's death. Before Dolly, my greatest hope was that it would be quick one.

I didn't need one more chance to tell her I loved her. If I hadn't proved it by now, words would change nothing.

—

“W
hy didn't you just ask me about all that?” Dolly said, after I finished telling her about my visit to Franklin and MaryLou.

“MaryLou doesn't have all your connections here. You know what's going on more than she ever could. But she knows some things about this town that I couldn't get from you, sweetheart; she's got one source you don't—she grew up here.”

Dolly nodded her understanding, but she didn't say a word. That was up to me, she was making it clear.

“I've gone as far as I can, I think,” I said. “I can maybe get more stuff”—I didn't bother telling Dolly where, or how—“but there's no way to…I don't know, connect the dots, maybe?”

“Why don't we just make a list of what we
do
know, first? Then at least we'll know what we
don't
know, okay?”

It was my turn to nod. Dolly snatched one of those pads she's always writing on, the kind where the paper is crosshatched, so it's really a bunch of little boxes. That's the same stuff I use to work out anything I'm trying to design. Luc always made his own designer's paper. It wasn't something he liked doing,
but it was a necessity to be precise. A tool, so no different from keeping a knife honed.

But that paper—now I could just buy the same thing. And once Dolly saw me sketching on that pad, she had to have a whole mess of them for herself.

No sitting on my lap, playing secretary, like she does sometimes. I didn't have to tell her this job could turn nasty, and turn me into something a lot worse.

“Okay,” she said, “this is for sure. We know there's something wrong with this Benton guy.”

“Yes.”

“Not just because he said…?”

“Nothing like that,” I interrupted. Not just to keep Dolly focused on what had been her own idea, but to keep her away from the truth: it was
everything
like that. “Keep going.”

“You said that one of the reporters for
Undercurrents
must be feeding stuff to Benton?”

“How else would he know who was responsible for the tip in the first place?”

“So it
is
—”

“No, honey. It's a lead, not a connection. We know which reporter because we know she's been in contact with Benton.
And
she bought shares in his hedge fund years ago. But all that fund has done is spend money, not make any. So there has to be some huge financial score in this—something worth investing not just money but a lot of time, too.”

“In that strip of land? How could there be? It would take…I don't know
what
…to make it worth a dime.”

“I don't know what, either. But I know the guy's a fraud.”

“How? Ever since he's been here, he's done nothing but—”

“Martin and Johnny told me.”

“When?” she demanded.

“A little while ago.”

“They never said—”

“Neither did I, right? I thought I could get some help from them without bringing you into it, but now there's no choice.”

“Dell…”

“They're not gay.”

“Martin and Johnny? Have you lost your mind!?”

“No. Not them. Benton and his supposed ‘partner,'
they're
not.”

“That's silly. I mean, they're always in—”

“So you couldn't tell, either. Any more than I could. But Martin and Johnny, you think
they
couldn't?”

“I'm not…I mean, I wouldn't…”

“This is about money, Dolly. Somewhere inside, that's what it's about. And it's got to be a
ton
of money. Benton's playing a long game. He's already rich, so it might even be for more than just paper money.”

“I
still
don't see—”

“Me, either. It was your idea to write down what we knew.”

“But you just said Martin and Johnny told you—”

“Yes. But now that I told you,
we
know.”

“What else, Dell?”

“Rhonda Jayne Johnson, that's the name of the informer. She just finished her senior year at State, but she's probably ten years older than her classmates.”

“You know where she lives, then?”

“And the car she drives. But none of that really helps. If we can't put together the big score Benton's been playing for, we can't do anything.”

“Why do we have to do anything if all he's after is money? He wouldn't be the first one who wanted more just for the sake of having it.”

“We have to do something because you're in his way.”

“Me?”

“You or something you're connected to. It has to be. Why else give you that friendly advice in the coffee shop?”

“I don't see it, baby. Maybe he was just—”

“Men like him, they never ‘just' do anything, Dolly. I don't know much about a lot of things, but men like him, I do. I've known a lot of them. They're all alike. Not in how they look, or even what they want. But there's one thing that's in all of them: they don't see people; they see
things
. Like chess pieces, or rocks, or buildings. Doesn't matter unless what they see is some kind of obstacle to where they want to go. To them, that would be a beaver dam blocking a river. You don't negotiate with beavers; you don't buy them off. Not when a few sticks of dynamite…”

“Dell, I'm scared.”

“Me, too.”

“Damn it! I'm not scared of this Benton, and you know it! I'm scared of what you get like when you think I'm in…”

“Why?” I said, trying to keep bitterness out of my voice. “That's the only time you never
have
to be scared, isn't it? When I go back to…what I know how to do. The one thing I'm good at.”

Dolly put her head in her hands. When I touched her shoulder, she whirled and slapped me hard enough to make me…
NO!
screamed in my head before I could spin with the slap and…I wouldn't allow myself to even
think
about what I'd come so close to doing.

“You are not allowed to ever do that,” my wife said, as calmly as she had once removed bullet fragments with only a flashlight to guide her hands. “Do you understand me, Dell?”

“Dolly, I would cut off my—”

“Ah, you stupid man! You think I meant you are not allowed to hit me? I hit
you
, didn't I? And you deserved it.” She gently pushed me until I was sitting in one of the chairs. Climbed in my lap. Dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don't you
dare
ever think you're only yourself—your true self—when you're at war. That's not you. That was never you. You're a good man. In
your heart, in the way you act. You're the man I love. If you're nothing more than a man who earned a living by…by doing what you did, what does that make
me
, then? Some whore who loves a man only for what he can do for her?”

“I—”

“Sssshhh, my husband. I know what you're going to say. I always know what you're going to say before you say it. Not the exact words, but what's behind them.”

She stood up. Held out her hand. Said, “Come with me, Dell. We'll finish that list later.”

—

“A
re you all right now?” she whispered in the dark.

“As soon as my face heals, I'll be.”

“Liar! You couldn't
be
any better, could you?”

“Don't be so sensitive,” I said, much more softly than I pinched her.

“Ow!!”

“Who's the fraud now?”

She kind of laughed deep in her throat, and slid her head onto my shoulder. “First we sleep,” she said.

—

“I
t has to be the land,” she said a couple of hours later.

“I think it must be that, too. But you and your friends, you bought it for next to nothing.”

“That project started before Benton ever came here. And we've still got plenty to do before we can make that dog park we want.”

“Nobody's ever offered to buy it from you?”

“Not from me. And not from any of the others, either. We made our own 501(c)(3), so there's no secret about who—”

“That number, what is it?”

“Number? Oh. A 501(c)(3) just means we're a nonprofit. The idea was to buy that parcel first, and then start raising money for the other things we need.”

“Like an access road?”

“Yes. Physical things. But also stuff like insurance. Everyone swears to Heaven their dog is peaceable, but…”

“So it's still years away?”

“Well, not
that
much. Maybe, I don't know, four or five. Our lawyer—”

“Lawyer? You mean like Swift?”

“It
is
him. I mean, we know we can trust him. And he said it was simple to incorporate, but we might have to go through the County Attorney's Office to get permits and things like that.”

“The County Attorney…”

“Oh, he's
nothing
like the DA. It won't be a problem. He
wants
there to be a dog park. He's on our side. But he's the kind of guy who wants all the ‘i's dotted and the ‘t's crossed.”

“The reason you know nobody's tried to buy the land from you, that's because you'd all have to vote on something like that?”

“That's right—no single member could sign a transfer deed; it would have to be the corporation itself. Or an ‘authorized agent,' I think Swift called it, and we haven't even picked one yet.”

—

F
irst I made sure that MaryLou was going to be around for a few more weeks.

Then I started fabricating a face shield for a motorcycle helmet that would accommodate night-vision goggles.

It was three days before I was sure it would work. My motorcycle is an old 600cc Honda. It doesn't look like much of anything,
and its battleship-gray paint makes it hard to get a good visual. It never made much noise to start with, less now that I've rewrapped the exhaust pipes.

Even if a cop did see me on the road, there wouldn't be anything to make him suspicious. A helmet and gloves, that's standard gear. And compared with the way some people ride around here, I'd scan as Good Citizen on all counts.

The bike would cover maybe a hundred and twenty miles before I'd need fuel. Not much range, so I'd need some luck along with the gasoline. The ghost had said the boss of
Undercurrents
was somewhere within the same range as the school.

First, I had to make sure that Rhonda Jayne Johnson's school address was still good.

—

“D
amn!”

“What's wrong?” MaryLou asked.

“The address, it's in that apartment complex.”

“So?”

“So I can't have you drop me off now and just wait for a phone call to come back and pick me up. There's no cover close enough. And I can't go into an apartment as quiet as I could a house.”

“
Break
into, that's what you're saying?”

“Not what you think. If she's there, I could see that without going inside. And if she's not, she'd never know I'd
been
inside.”

“There's only…maybe eighty apartments in that whole complex,” MaryLou said as she circled the block. “You see what I'm saying? It's kind of an X-pattern, ten, twelve units a floor, two floors.”

“That only makes it worse.”

“Worse? Why? You could just walk up and look at the building directory. Every apartment will have a name next to a buzzer or something.”

“She could keep her name on an apartment even if she lived somewhere else. As long as she paid the rent, the landlord wouldn't care.”

“The landlord is the school,” MaryLou said confidently. “We have the same kind of setup where I go. I don't use it myself. Those're off-campus housing, and I'm not much for partying. Anyway, there's an athletes' dorm. Much nicer. And it's part of my scholarship.”

“So you're saying, since she just graduated, she'd have to leave?”

“Didn't
you
say she was going for her master's? That'd be enough to let her keep the place.”

“Okay. But her name on the door wouldn't tell me anything. Even if it's there, it doesn't mean
she
is. And this whole area, the one we just drove through, it's no good for what I need. Some places, I could find cover in a bad neighborhood or even in some brush. Or I could just be a homeless guy, sleep on a bench or something. But if they're not scared, campus cops are worse than regular ones.”

“Yeah,” she said, half to herself, “same as my school. They know they're not real cops, so they snoop into everything. One of them even made me show ID when I was coming back after the library closed.”

“Just let me out, then. Circle the block a couple of times. If I can find her name in the directory, we won't know anything. But if I don't, at least we'll know where
not
to look.”

MaryLou nodded, then spun the wheel of her truck with one hand and coasted to the curb.

—

“H
er name's in the directory, all right. Building B, Number 17.”