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  ‘What . . . what day is it?’

  ‘Monday. Eight-seventeen P.M. You’re back in California – Redlands.’

  Had he really left Kat just yesterday?

  ‘Her glasses,’ Mike murmured. Pushing a fist to his forehead, he rocked a little. ‘I forgot. She needs a new pair to read—’

  Shep opened a can of SpaghettiOs with a pocketknife, stuck in a plastic spork, and handed it to Mike. ‘Eat. We got business to handle in the morning, and I can’t have you all pale and shaky.’

  ‘Annabel could be dead by now,’ Mike said.

  ‘Eat.’

  ‘Tell me which hospital. I need to call—’

  ‘You can’t—’

  ‘—just to know.’

  ‘Then you’re willing to kill her. And us. And Kat.’ Shep grabbed the phone from the nightstand and, trailing the cord, held it out to Mike. A dare.

  Mike stared at the phone hatefully. But didn’t reach for it.

  Shep set the phone down and extended, again, the SpaghettiOs.

  Mike took the can and did his best. Chew. Swallow. Repeat.

  He looked around, seeing the mess through Shep’s eyes. The whole room was gravid with sullenness, as if it had been dipped in gray. The SpaghettiOs had turned to sour mush in his mouth. He gagged them down, wiped his lips angrily. ‘Why are you here?’

  Shep said, ‘What?’

  ‘You could’ve told me off when I first called. After how we left things back when. But I knew you wouldn’t. I knew if I needed you, you’d be there in a heartbeat.’ The sentiment was coming out, bizarrely, as anger, a slow boil of a resentment Mike hadn’t known he was harboring. ‘Maybe you want me to be a criminal again. Maybe you were lonely.’

  Shep chewed his food. Scooped another sporkful. Paused. ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t owe me,’ Mike said. ‘Not for serving three months’ time for you.’

  ‘You think that’s why I’m doing this?’ Shep was utterly, infuriatingly calm. Thoughtful, even. ‘Because I owe you?’

  ‘Why else?’ Mike banged SpaghettiOs down on the TV, a blood spray erupting from the can to dot his forearm. There was relief in yielding to his temper, to using the old muscles in the old ways. He needed to strain and hurt and growl into the face of something. ‘Why else?’

  Shep took another hearty bite. Scraped the bottom of the can. ‘Never gave it much thought,’ he said, his mouth full.

  ‘Of course not.’ Mike felt his top lip curling. ‘That would be beneath you. Because you’re guided by unerring instinct—’

  ‘That one o’ your SAT words?’

  ‘You’re too pure to think. You’ve always known just who you are. Not like me.’

  ‘No past,’ Shep said.

  ‘But I do have a past. I never left it behind. What was a lie was where I thought I was headed. The cover-up over those pipes, that bullshit award – I knew it was wrong. But I went along. And now.’ A growl escaped Mike’s clenched teeth. ‘I don’t know how you fucking stand to look at me.’

  ‘That’s what you never learned,’ Shep said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Acceptance.’ Shep shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘The hell does that mean?’

  ‘Take your father. You been holding a grudge against him for how many years now? Black-and-white world. Him playing the role of black. What’s that leave you?’ Shep cranked open another steel can and dug into it, his appetite unhampered. ‘Your father’s betrayal – that’s been your North Star. And now? Leaving a kid behind?’ He held out his hands, a rare superfluous gesture, the spork sticking out of the can, a little white flag. ‘Black isn’t black today. White isn’t white. And maybe it never was. Maybe it’s all a goddamned mess and we do the best we can.’

  ‘That’s what you’ve done? The best you can?’

  ‘There was one time I didn’t. I was beaten down and couldn’t get up. And you made sure. You made sure I got up. And I vowed after that moment, I will never stay down again.’ Shep wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at Mike, as if he couldn’t figure out it was a challenge.

  All the heat went out of Mike. He took a wobbly step back and sank to the mattress. He tilted his cheeks to his palms and sat there, pouring his face through his hands. ‘I remember when we went to Ventura Harbor to ride the carousel,’ Mike said. ‘She was three, and she wanted the chicken. But these other kids kept getting it. I mean, it had to be the goddamned chicken. Who puts a chicken on a carousel anyway? And we waited and waited, but I couldn’t get it for her.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’ Shep asked.

  ‘I picture her in that home and what will happen to her if I fail,’ Mike said, ‘and I think I might die.’

  He couldn’t look up, but he heard Shep set down the can, right the chair, and pull it over. An exhale as he sat.

  ‘I never been responsible to or for anyone in my life,’ Shep said. ‘To take that on, it’s a courageous thing. But you can’t do it now. Not with what we’re going into.’

  He leaned forward so his head butted against Mike’s. Same position, same posture, the two of them staring down at the threadbare carpet. Shep shoved a little, solicitously, crown to crown.

  ‘You want her back,’ he said.

  Mike said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Safe.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you have to be nothing. Want nothing. You can’t have them – Kat or Annabel – if you need them. You’re not a husband. You’re not a father. You’re a man with a task. Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Get some sleep. We start early.’

  Mike cleaned up the room a bit and lay on the mattress. Beside him Shep’s eyes were closed and his breathing regular, but Mike couldn’t tell if he was out or not.

  The ceiling was cracked in infinite patterns, a tangle of tree roots.

  Mike said, ‘I will never turn my back on you again.’

  Silence. Mike figured Shep was asleep, but then he answered, ‘You done with your conscience yet? ’Cuz where we’re going, it’s gonna get in the way.’

  They lay there in the darkness. Mike was unsure when he crossed into sleep, but when he awoke to the sound of the shower, the clock showed 4:14 A.M. Shep emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, towel around his waist, the shower left running behind him like in the old days when they had to cycle six or seven bodies through on any given morning before the hot water ran out.

  Mike said, ‘I should probably ditch the car I stole.’

  Shep tossed him a set of keys, then crossed and parted the curtains. Gleaming in the front spot was a forest green Saab.

  Reluctantly, Mike matched Shep’s smirk. He showered off, then swiped the steam from the mirror. Shep’s Dopp kit was sitting there on the metal ledge, the electric clippers poking up into view. Mike lifted the razor and turned it this way and that, as if reviewing an old photograph. The plastic blade guards were loose in the Dopp kit. He found the right attachment, snapped it on.

  Shep called out through the door, ‘Ready?’

  The clippers sat heavy in Mike’s hand, like a weapon. The mirror had misted over again, so he cleared it with a washcloth and studied his reflection.

  Then he turned on the razor and took his hair down to foster-home length. He toweled off his head and stepped out into the main room.

  ‘Ready,’ he said.

  Shoulder to shoulder, they headed into the parking lot.

  Chapter 43

  Mike followed directions and asked no questions. He used the drive to iron out his thoughts, smoothing his resolve until it was as uniform and unwavering as the road ahead. The Saab blazed over the Grapevine through Bakersfield and the long flat tract of middle California, onion fields and truck stops, dust croppers feinting low over the 5 like something out of Hitchcock. Skirting the edge of San Jose, they pushed north through Sacramento and kept on toward Redding. That region of Northe
rn California’s looking interesting, Hank had observed, and Mike had a feeling that whatever Shep was steering him toward was going to make it more interesting yet. The Cascades loomed into view, Lassen Peak rising to the east, Mount Shasta dead ahead, both summits dusted with snow.

  Around the nine-hour mark, Shep said, ‘Exit here.’ Mike pulled off in Red Bluff and followed Shep’s instructions through the old-fashioned downtown. ‘Left. Right. Your other right. Left. Park here.’

  Before them a city registrar’s office occupied a single-story adobe building. The L-shaped parking lot was long and narrow, hemmed in by concrete-block walls protecting apartment complexes on either side. It had exits on both ends, which could prove useful depending on what was going to go down. Mike cocked an eyebrow, and Shep said, ‘Registrar’s a good place for a con woman to work. Bogus building permits, fake deeds, notary stamps floating around.’

  The Saab’s idle was so smooth the car might have been turned off. From the passenger seat, Shep had the better view of the glass front door. The .357 pressed coolly against the small of Mike’s back. They sat. And they waited – 5:03 P.M. . . . 5:07 . . .

  Shep pointed. Sure enough, the woman Mike knew as Dana Riverton emerged. She’d kept the same bland look she’d used when she’d met Mike at the café – librarian’s spectacles, conservative blouse, brown hair in no discernible cut. He wondered if she powdered over the jailhouse tattoo on her thumb webbing every morning before reporting to work.

  When Mike climbed out, Shep waited behind by some implicit understanding. The air felt cool against Mike’s cropped scalp. He caught her a few steps from the door.

  ‘Kiki Dupleshney?’

  She turned quickly. A half-second delay while she placed him. A few colleagues scooted past, and she shot them a nervous smile even while her eyes blazed with anger. ‘You must have me confused with someone else.’ The others passed out of earshot, and she fumbled a cigarette from her purse and lit up. ‘The fuck you want?’

  ‘Who hired you?’

  She grinned sweetly and blew smoke in Mike’s face, her filter sporting a pink dimple of lipstick. She enunciated clearly, accustomed to talking to idiots. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Why do they want to kill me and my daughter?’

  ‘Gee. Dunno.’

  ‘My wife is in intensive care,’ Mike said. ‘My daughter and I are on the run. You had a role in this.’

  Kiki played an imaginary violin between thumb and forefinger. ‘That’s how the Darwin game goes. Sorry.’

  ‘I’m going to find the men threatening us,’ Mike said. ‘I’m going to stop them. And you’re going to help me.’ Kiki started to walk away, but he grabbed her thick arm, hard. ‘No matter what I have to do, I will put my family back together. Do you understand me?’

  She ripped her arm free, spilling her purse. ‘I don’t give a fuck about your wife. And I don’t give a fuck if they do kill your daughter. But I’ll promise you this: If you don’t get out my face, I’ll scream for the cops.’

  She crouched and started collecting her things from the asphalt.

  Mike walked back to the Saab. Set his hands on the steering wheel. He was breathing hard and could feel the heat of Shep’s stare on the side of his face.

  Kiki finished stuffing items in her purse and continued on her way. She aimed her keys at the far end of the lot, and headlights blinked on a maroon Sebring convertible. They watched her drop her purse in the backseat and flick her cigarette butt at a row of trash cans behind the building. She climbed in, breeze blowing her hair, and touched up her lipstick in the rearview.

  Mike reached up and clicked a button, and the sunroof whirred open.

  ‘Get out,’ he said.

  Shep said, ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  Shep shrugged and stepped out.

  Mike dropped the pedal to the floor, leaving two streaks of rubber scorched into the asphalt. The Saab fishtailed but held course, and Kiki was reversing out of her space when she looked up and shrieked. The Saab hit her at a straight perpendicular, T-boning the Sebring and driving it into the retaining wall. The Saab’s air bag deployed with a sound like an upside-down bowl hitting water. Concrete crumbled around the convertible, chunks spilling through the open top into the backseat. Steam hissed up from the Saab’s wrinkled hood.

  Mike shoved aside the air bag. His door was crumpled, so he pulled himself up through the sunroof. The two vehicles were melded together. A continuous spray of wiper fluid shot in a poetic arc. Kiki lay flopped onto the steering wheel, the horn blaring, her seat belt still unfastened. A spurt of blood darkened her upper lip.

  Straddling the two cars, Mike hooked her beneath the chin, ripped her up out of her seat, and flung her onto the pavement. He leaped down, grabbed her hair, and forced her face around to his. She was stunned, lipstick smeared down her chin, stockings torn and bloody at the knees, hand cupped beneath her draining nose. He felt a revulsion for what he was doing, but it wasn’t close to stopping him. He tugged the gun from his belt and pressed the muzzle to the front of her shoulder, where arm met torso.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’

  Her pupils rolled to meet his.

  ‘Do you care now?’

  ‘Unh?’ she said loosely.

  ‘Do you care now?’

  She nodded against his grip. ‘Oh, God, yes, please stop.’

  A few people had spilled out of the office, and tenants were at their windows in the apartment complex beyond the collapsed wall. What surprised Mike in the face of all this was just how undaunted he felt.

  He said, ‘Talk.’

  ‘I don’t know who they are I swear one big guy and a cripple never gave me a number or anything just showed up like fucking ghosts found me by reputation I’m the best female operator in the area up here I got pending charges they said they could get ’em wiped for me Jesus my nose—’

  ‘And?’

  ‘So they gave me a file with info and the whole play set up already for me to contact you as the will executor they wanted me to confirm who you were they weren’t sure.’ She was panting, blood spraying her lips. ‘I have everything in the trunk there there go get it you can have it I swear to God that’s all I know.’ She tipped her hand, blood drooling between her fingers to the asphalt. ‘I need a doctor.’

  The trunk had blown open from impact, the file box inside knocked upside down, trapping the folders in place. Mike found the red-tabbed file quickly. Jotted across the front, upside down, was “4YCH429.”

  He walked back around to Kiki. She was on all fours, coughing. He pointed at the file, ‘What’s this license plate?’

  ‘I wanted something in case they screwed me so when they drove away I wrote down the plate number of the truck but that was before I learned how they are.’

  ‘It was a truck and not a van?’

  ‘It was a truck you can’t tell ’em they’ll kill me.’

  Shep had vanished. A small crowd was forming by the door of the office, and a few of the younger workers were whispering, looking like they were gathering their courage. The woman in the penthouse window across the way had a phone pressed to her face; she recoiled from Mike’s stare, dropping to the floor. It would only be a matter of time before the cops rolled up.

  ‘I guess you got a lot to worry about, then.’ Mike paused over her. ‘If you warn them I’m coming, you will see me again.’

  ‘Okay.’ She wiped at her bloody nose. ‘Okay okay okay.’

  File in hand, Mike stepped across the rubble through the hole in the wall and jogged along the side of the apartment complex. When he dashed out into the street a block over, a ragged Pinto with a rusted hood wobbled up beside him right on cue. Shep was hunched in the torn front seat like an elephant on a tricycle, the grocery bag with Mike’s things waiting in the passenger foot well. Mike jumped in, and they motored away from the curb.

  ‘I didn’t think these things were still on the road.’

&nb
sp; ‘After what you did to that Saab,’ Shep said, ‘this is all you’re gonna get.’

  The back of Mike’s forearm was streaked with blood, and, wiping it, he realized that it wasn’t his own. He could feel it drying, a tightening on his skin.

  Shep glanced down. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  Chapter 44

  ‘Where are we?’

  Boss Man’s voice through the phone was so clear he might have been sitting on the porch of the clapboard house next to William. A hot-oil smell wafted over from the wrecking yard; when William and Hanley’s grandfather had built the house, he hadn’t factored in wind patterns, so on some days the very walls seemed infused with burned tires and battery acid. The clear-as-hell afternoon afforded a glimpse of Mount Shasta rising in the distance, speckled with an early snow.

  ‘Wingate’s a wanted man in his own right,’ William said. ‘The agencies are on alert. Anywhere he pops up, they’ll deliver him straight to Graham.’

  Behind him the rickety screen door banged and heavy footsteps creaked the boards. Dodge carried with him the musk of the cellar. The mass of his shoulders bowed in a broad arc, he descended the steps and arrayed something on the crackly dead weeds of the front lawn. He shuffled over toward the side of the house, clearing William’s view to the tools nestled in the weeds. Ball-peen hammer. Needle-nose pliers. Metal shackles.

  ‘Even in his position, Graham can only do so much,’ Boss Man said. ‘The higher-profile this thing gets, the more cover smoke he has to blow. And the more it costs.’

  ‘Well, that’s why Graham has Dodge and me, isn’t it? Once he gets a bead on Wingate and the girl, we’ll make them vanish from all consideration.’

  Trailing a black garden hose, Dodge moved back toward the weeds. Returned to the spout to crank on the water.

  ‘You left the smashed-up van behind,’ Boss Man said. ‘Can anyone trace it to you?’