The Walking (21 page)

"I've wasted enough time with you. Get the fuck out of my office. This conversation is over."

Miles met his eyes. "Twenty-five bucks, and I won't report the existence of those golden shower videos"--he nodded toward a stack of pink jacketed cassettes--"to my friend Manny Martinez on the vice squad."

Brodsky stared at him for a moment, as if gauging his seriousness, then shrugged and pushed himself away from the desk, making the Herculean effort to stand. He was almost as wide as he was tall, Miles saw, a physical attribute that gave him the appearance of a cartoon character.

"Do you want me to drive?" Miles asked.

"We'll take our own cars so we can go our separate ways afterward. No offense, but I don't want to spend my entire afternoon on this fucking thing."

"Your call." Miles followed him out of the office and

down the hall to a key-operated elevator. He'd been wondering how Brodsky would be able to manage the steep steps. The pornographer did not look like someone who had climbed stairs within the past decade.

"Where're you parked?" Brodsky asked.

"Out front."

"I'm out back. I'll swing around the block and you follow me. It's a red Lexus."

The elevator doors opened, and Miles took his leave, heading back down the stairs the way he'd come. A few minutes later, Brodsky's red Lexus made a slow crawl along the lane closest to the building, incurring the honking wrath of an impatient driver who swerved into the left lane around him. Miles pulled in behind the fat man's car, and the Lexus sped up, circling back around the block at the next intersection.

They headed north. Brodsky drove like a maniac, imparting to his vehicle an agility he himself would never possess, darting in and out of traffic at speeds well exceeding the legal limiL almost dating Miles to keep up.

The house was a generic tract home just over the hills in Studio City.

The fat man took only a moment to sort through a pile of papers and notebooks in a cupboard next to the phone before he came up with a black-bound organizer containing his father's personal address book.

Miles tried to call first, from Brodsky's phone, but there was no answer, so he wrote down the number and address, peeled off a twenty and a five, and thanked the pornographer for his generous help before setting off for Monterey Park.

Hec Tibbert was waiting for him in a folding chair on the dead weed patch that was the lawn in front of his house.

It had been awhile since Miles had driven through this area, and he was not surprised to see that the Chinese presence seemed to have increased even more. This section of

the southland had become a major Chinatown--a real one, not the kind that tourists came to see. Now the population was so heavily Weighted toward emigrees that even American institutions like banks and gas stations had signs written in both English letters and Chinese characters.

Brodsky must have called again after Miles had left, because Tibbert was clearly expecting him. The ramshackle house was sandwiched in between a run-down single-story apartment complex and a brand-new multi story office building. The old man stood and walked to the sidewalk as Miles got out of his car.

"Mr. Tibbert?" Miles asked.

"Hec," the old man said, extending a hand. "Freddy told me you'd be coming."

Miles shook Tibbert's hand. "I'm sorry to bother you. I tried to call, but no one answered. I just have a few quick questions."

"Don't apologize. At my age, I'm grateful for any visitors." He scowled at two cute little Asian girls skipping down the sidewalk, laughing happily. "Especially if they're white. Come on, I got some coffee on the pot inside. Sit a spell."

Miles followed him across the nonexistent yard into the house. There were piles of newspapers in the hall, a leaning broken-legged table covered with overturned beer cans in the living room, but the kitchen was surprisingly clean, and at Tibbert's insistence, Miles sat down on one of the bright yellow chairs arranged around a sparkling Formica table.

The old man stared out the window as he cleaned out two cups in the sink. "Get out of here!" he yelled at someone outside, and Miles heard the sound of giggles and running feet.

Tibbert poured coffee and brought the two steaming cups to the table.

"Damn slopes are taking over. Whose country

is this anyway? I remember when this used to be a nice town to live in, before they ran all the white people off."

Miles tried to smile politely. His gut reaction was to berate the old blizzard for his racist stupidity, but he couldn't afford to antagonize the man.

"Owen used to say that the chinks weren't as bad as the niggers or the Mexicans, but living here sure showed me that ain't true."

That was his cue. Miles cleared his throat. "Speaking of Owen, I'd like to ask you a few questions." He pulled out the list, scanned it quickly--and spotted Tibbert's name.

He looked up at the old man in surprise. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to him that Tibbert would be on the list, too, and he hadn't bothered to so much as look at the paper since he'd left for Hollywood.

Miles thought for a moment. He wasn't sure how to bring up the subject, and finally he simply handed the paper over and said, "There's a list here. Made by the father of my client. You and Owen are both on it. Could you tell me why you're on it, or what you have in common with the other men on the list?"

The old man looked at the piece of paper. There was no pause for thought, no racking of his brain, only a slight puzzlement. "Oh, yeah," he said. "We all worked on the dam." She's going after the dam builders, too. ; He'd almost forgotten about the crazy old lady in the mall, but the words of the homeless woman came back to him now, and a chill passed through his body, a shiver of cold that began at the back of his neck, wrapped around his heart, and continued down to the tips of his toes.

He stared stupidly at Tibbert, not knowing how to broach what he didn't even understand. A crazy old woman in a mall, a series of bizarre deaths, a list predicting the murder

of men who worked on a dam but now all lived in different parts of the country.

Montgomery Jones had been killed near a dam, he remembered.

It almost made sense. Almost. But the connections were still not quite tangible, and he could not for the life of him figure out what was going on here.

He was scared, though, and the most frightening thing was that the crazy woman in the mall had called him by his father's name.

Bob.t

Tibbert was looking down at the list, his finger following the silent movement of his lips as he read the names one by one. Every few seconds he would look quizzically up at Miles, but Miles stir did not know what to say.

He gathered himself together, took a deep breath, placed his own finger at the top of the paper. "Several of these men," Miles said slowly,

"have been killed recently. I've been hired by the daughter of one of them--Liam Connor-to find out why he is being stalked, why attempts have been made on his life. The list does not seem to be in any particular order, there's no way to predict what's going to happen, and that makes this whole thing a crap shoot That's why I have to try and get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. I can't just stake out someone's house or put a round the-dock guard on someone, because I don't know who's next or even if someone will be next."

Tibbert nodded. "Liam Connor. I remember him." "What can you tell me about Liam? Do you have any idea why someone would be after him? Why someone would be after any of these men?" "Wolf Canyon," the old man said.

"What?"

"It's not just the name of the dam, it was the name of the town."

"What town?"

Tibbert suddenly looked much older. The sun was streaming through the kitchen window, emphasizing the lines on his face, but that was not what had affected his appearance. It was emotion that had added the weariness of years to his features.

"We dammed the Rio Verde," he said. "It was about twenty miles downriver of an existing dam, and between the two was a small town.

Wolf Canyon. The people there fought the dam project tooth and nail, but they lost, the courts ruled in the government's favor every time, and the dam went up. Finally, the project was completed, the governor and some senators and the vice president came out for the grand unveiling, and..." He shook his head. "It was all ready, everything was a go, only Wolf Canyon... the town " He trailed off

"What happened?" Miles prodded.

Tibbert leaned forward. "It wasn't evacuated like it was supposed to be. There were people there when they let in the water."

Miles shook his head. "I don't... I don't understand."

"We killed them," Tibbert said. "We flooded the town and killed them all."

The picture was starting to come together, though he still could not claim he understood it.

Apparently, someone screwed up and forgot to make sure that all of the people were out of the town before water was released from the dam upriver. The water flooded the new reservoir, killing everyone who had not been evacuated. The force of the raging water drove them through the canyon-in many instances knocking them out of their shoes or clothes, breaking their bones--and their existence was only discovered a day later, after the ceremonies were over and the dignitaries were gone, when scuba divers went down to

examine the new dam and found the bodies crammed against debris screens, mixed in with the mud. All total, over sixty men and women died.

And now someone or something was taking revenge for it, picking off people who had worked on the project. Supervisors, from what Tibbert told him of the names on the list. People in charge.

The old man leaned back in his chair, drained his cap of coffee. The expression on his face was unreadable, and though he met Miles' eyes, it was only for a second; then he pretended to focus his attention on a bowling trophy atop the refrigerator.

It made sense, Miles supposed, but it was fantastic, and the scenario brought up more questions than it answered. It this was some sort of curse, why had it waited until now to kick in? And who was behind it?

Was this part of some ancient Indian thing, or was it instigated by the relative of one of the people who'd drowned?

Miles stood, perfunctorily thanked Tibbert for the coffee and for answering his questions, told him he'd be in touch soon with some follow-ups, then quickly hurried out of the house and over to his car.

On the sidewalk two Asian girls were playing hopscotch, and from the porch Tibbert told them to get the hell away from his house and play in their own yards. The shouting brought Miles' mind back to the here and now, and he turned back toward the old man, still standing on the front steps. "Be careful!" he called out. "You know what's happening. You might be next."

"Don't worry about me," Tibbert said, but Miles heard the fear beneath the bravado.

He stepped back up the walk. "You want me to have someone watch you?

Maybe stake out your place here case something happens?"

Tibbert shook his head.

"You have someone you can stay with?"

"I'll be fine."

Miles nodded. He wasn't sure that was the case, was not even sure Tibbert himself believed it, but he knew when not to push, and he sensed that the best thing to do right now was to give him a little breathing room. He'd call the old man back in a few hours and check in, see what he wanted not to do after he'd had time to soak this all in and think about it.

Miles walked out to the car, got in, and started the engine. He gave Tibbert one last look, then pulled into traffic.

Magic. Curses. Mysterious deaths. It was crazy, but he bought it all, and he realized that what was really throwing him for a loop was the old lady from the mall.

She's going after the dam builders, too!

The crazy woman had mistaken him for his father, had called him by his father's name. Did that mean that Bob was somehow connected to all this? Miles refused to credit that. He accepted that some supernatural force was being used to avenge the deaths in Wolf Canyon all those years ago, but linking that to his father's resurrection did not make any sense.

Or did it?

He drove out of Monterey Park and onto the Pomona Freeway, troubled.

Liam Connor pushed open the sliding glass door and walked outside to light up a cigarette. Even with Marina gone, he still felt guilty smoking in the house, and he stood on the back patio, inhaling deeply, staring into the darkness.

There seemed something strange about tonight. He could not put his finger on it, but it made him antsy. This was already his fifth cigarette of the evening, though he had vowed to limit himself to three a day.

The backyard was big, but night expanded its parameters even farther.

Light from the house illuminated the patio and a half-circle section of lawn, but the outer flower bed, the bushes beyond, and the wooden fence that marked the edge of his property were hidden behind a curtain of black that erased all boundaries.

It was a quiet evening, and the ocean seemed unusually close. The cars on PCH were loud enough for him to differentiate individual vehicles, and he could make out male and female voices from the sidewalk in front of the bar and shops. He could not hear the sound of waves, but he could hear the cries of gulls, and the air was tinged with the briny scent of the sea.

It occurred to him that he was standing very near the edge of the continent and that, beyond that, water continued halfway around the world, traveling so far that at the other end it was already tomorrow.

Water.

He thought of Wolf Canyon.

There was a sound from the bushes beyond the perimeter of house light, a crack of twig that made him jump. He nearly dropped his cigarette but caught and kept it at the last moment, immediately bringing it to his lips to take a long calming draw

An apple came rolling out of the darkness.

Goose bumps appeared instantly on his arms and the skin at the back of his neck. He looked out across the lawn toward the section of blackness from which the apple had come, and another one rolled across the grass toward him, bumping to a stop on the concrete edge of the patio. He heard laughter on the wind, a low giggle barely discernible in the slight breeze that had suddenly materialized.