All the Lucky Ones Are Dead (17 page)

Gunner shook Trevor's hand, said, “That's right. And you're doing a fine job of acting like you didn't already know, if you don't mind my saying so.”

Trevor almost laughed. “Excuse me?”

“I'm gonna make this brief, Mr. Trevor. Because you're a busy man, and so am I. Is Bume Webb's money paying for my services, or not? I need a simple yes or no.”

The smile on his host's face slowly vanished before Gunner's eyes. “What?”

“Not to worry. It's not a deal breaker, yet. But a man needs to know who he's working for, or it's no go, right?”

“I'm sorry, brother, but it seems there's been some kind of mistake. I don't—”

“Yeah, you do. It took a couple days, but it's finally come to my attention that the man I thought was my client has been paying me with money he doesn't have. Which means he's being bankrolled by somebody else. That somebody doesn't have to be Bume, but he's the only one I can see playing that role at the moment.”

“I'm still not following you.”

“No? I'll wrap this up, then. I don't work for other people's front men. That's not how I operate. If you or Bume put Benny Elbridge up to hiring me, you'd better say so, and fast, because I'm not working another minute on Elbridge's behalf until I know who's behind him, and why. I'm sure you can understand.”

Trevor rebuilt from scratch the charming smile he'd shown Gunner earlier, said, “I'll say it again. It sounds like there's been some kind of mistake. I'd really like to help you, but …” He hiked his huge shoulders up in a big man's shrug, smiled with even more dubious sincerity.

Gunner let the smile sink in, decided he disliked it greatly, and turned his back on it before he could do something to it he knew he'd only regret later.

Driving to his office at Mickey's after leaving Raymont Trevor in Burbank, Gunner was again made uneasy by the odd sense that somebody was trailing him, tracing his every move in the thick of rush-hour traffic. Three times in two days he'd felt this way now, and professional paranoia didn't generally go that far. He was being tailed, by a person or persons unknown, and the realization left him both furious and apprehensive.

Maybe being convinced someone was back there, rather than merely suspecting as much, made the difference, but this time he thought he was able to spot the vehicle shadowing his own: a silver, late-eighties Chrysler LeBaron with what looked like California plates, its front bumper listing badly to the left, damn near scraping the ground. A good fifteen car lengths behind him on the southbound Harbor Freeway—too far away to afford Gunner a decent look at the driver sitting behind the glare of its windshield—there was nothing concrete about the Chrysler he could point to as suspicious, save for the feeling he had that he'd seen it somewhere before. Not today, but recently. Sometime Tuesday perhaps, or maybe even Monday.

But where?

At just a few minutes shy of six p.m., the flow of traffic on both sides of the Harbor was its customary, lethargic self. You crept forward at ten miles per hour for a distance of fifteen feet, then stopped, only to repeat the process all over again. Gunner's Cobra was in the number three lane, the Chrysler in the number two, but they may as well have been bumper to bumper, so identical was their rate of speed. The entire freeway was one big synchronized crawl, affording Gunner no opportunity to find a slower lane, force the Chrysler to gain on him so he could get a good look at its driver.

So Gunner stopped the Cobra cold.

For appearance' sake, he got out of the car, shrugged an apology at the driver of the Toyota pickup directly behind him before moving around to the front of the Cobra to raise its hood. The double-chinned, mustachioed Hispanic in the Toyota leaned on his horn to offer his condolences, but Gunner just ignored him, feigning vague interest in the big Ford V8 stuffed into the Cobra's engine compartment as he watched the Chrysler crawl inexorably toward him, get to within ten car lengths … and then start merging right, making a hasty and forceful retreat off the freeway.

“Shit!” Gunner said.

He'd made a strategic blunder, faking the Cobra's breakdown here, just beyond a freeway off-ramp, rather than just short of one. Another quarter-mile, and his suspected tail would have been trapped between exits, with no avenue of escape readily available to him. But now … the silver car's driver was just able to make the Vernon Avenue turnoff, disappear up the ramp before Gunner could see his face or make out the license plate number on his car.

“Shit!” the investigator said again, dropping the Cobra's hood closed with a bang.

The guy in the pickup was still honking at him mercilessly, unable to go around, and several cars in back were joining in. Gunner just let them have their fun. They weren't calling him an idiot, exactly, but they would have been well within their rights if they had.

Mickey was putting the finishing touches on Joe Worthy's customary, aircraft carrier–like flattop when Gunner walked in. The two older men were alone in the shop this late in the day, and had been talking in hushed tones like a pair of women trading gossip in the church hall. Immediately, the investigator knew something was up; loud voices here always meant good news, subdued voices always meant bad.

“Man, where the hell have you been?” Mickey asked.

“Body Count Records. Two floors in a sweet-looking high-rise out in Burbank, pictures of mad-dogging young knuckleheads named Boney this and Thrilla that all over the place. Why? What's up?”

“You ain't heard?” Joe Worthy asked.

“Heard what?”

“It's all over the news,” Mickey said ominously. “How could you not hear?”

“I didn't have the radio on in the car. What the hell are you two talking about? What happened?”

“That girl Sparkle Johnson? The one on the radio you almost worked for a couple days ago? Somebody tried to kill her this afternoon. Put a bomb in her car and tried to blow her ass up.”

“Lucky thing you quit on her, huh?” Joe Worthy asked, grinning.

Like it was something to be proud of.

Six days earlier, when he had first approached Gunner about investigating the death threats Sparkle Johnson had allegedly been receiving, Wally Browne had given the investigator every phone number he owned: home, office, cellular, pager—even one for faxes. He'd been desperate for Gunner's help then, and wanted to make himself readily available. But not tonight. Calling Browne's home and office lines now only connected Gunner with disparate versions of voice mail, his cellular number was constantly busy, and three attempts to page him went totally unrewarded.

It seemed Gunner had made himself yet another well-deserved enemy.

And then the phone next to his bed rang well after eight p.m., and an exhausted-sounding Browne said, “Well, I guess you're happy now, huh, Mr. Gunner?”

“Never mind the sarcasm. How is she?”

“What, you don't think a little sarcasm's warranted here?”

“It's warranted. How's she doing?”

“Why don't you come see for yourself? She's staying here with me for the night.”

Gunner took the address down and said he'd be right over.

According to all the news reports, Sparkle Johnson had escaped with only minor injuries the explosion that had killed her unfortunate lunch date, but it wasn't until he'd seen her for himself that Gunner would allow himself to believe it.

She was sitting on Wally Browne's living room couch when Browne showed him into his Bel Air home, wearing what had to be Browne's bathrobe and slippers, sipping something hot and steaming from a bright yellow cup. Her left hand was heavily bandaged, and a large square of blood-spattered medical gauze was taped over her right cheek, just below the eye. Her listless gaze barely moved from the floor when Gunner sat down in the chair beside her.

Gunner thought back to their first meeting four days ago, found the contrast between that Sparkle Johnson and this one more than a little unnerving.

“Doctors say she's gonna be okay,” Browne said as he sat down beside her on the couch, patting her gently on the knee. “She's got a few facial lacerations from shattered glass, and a flying piece of something almost took her left thumb off, but … all in all, I'd have to say she got off pretty easy.
Damn
easy, in fact.”

“The bastard murdered Kyle,” Johnson said, still staring blankly at the floor. Tears were flowing freely down both of her cheeks.

“
Bastard
?” Gunner asked, questioning her use of the singular.

“Jarrett. Jarrett Nance.” She finally looked up at him. “We were engaged once.”

“You're saying you know who did this?”

Johnson nodded solemnly. “It had to be him. Who else would it be?”

Browne was mortified. “But I thought—”

“I'm sorry, Wally. I thought he was harmless. If I'd known he was capable of something like
this
…”

“He's the Mr. M who's been writing the letters?” Gunner asked. “And making the phone calls?”

Johnson nodded again. “Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because he's the only one who ever called me that before. Topsy. It's what he started calling me after our breakup, just to hurt me.”

As Browne had explained to Gunner at their first meeting, Johnson's “anonymous” Mr. M had referred to her as Topsy on more than one occasion, and though the investigator had never actually read Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, he knew enough about the infamous Civil War–era novel to know that this had been the name of the doomed Little Eva's most beloved and headstrong slave girl.

“So where does the M come in?” Gunner asked. “That a middle initial, or …”

Johnson shook her head, said, “I don't know where he got the M. Jarrett's middle name is Charles—the M must've just been something he used to try and throw me off.”

“I don't believe this,” Browne said, angry now. “An
old boyfriend?
That's what this has all been about?”

Johnson started crying, said, “Wally, I said I'm sorry! What more do you want me to do?”

“I want you to tell me why you weren't straight with me from the beginning! Jesus, Sparkle, a man is dead now!”

“I know that! Don't you think I know that?” She tried to set her cup down on an end table beside her, dropped it over the edge onto the floor instead. Black coffee spattered across the tan carpet at her feet, almost certainly ruining it, and she cursed once, then broke down completely, burying her face in the palms of her hands.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, kid, I'm sorry,” Browne said, instantly remorseful. He edged closer to her on the couch, tried to drape an arm around her heaving shoulders, but she shrugged it off, moved as far out of his reach as she could.

Unlike Browne, Gunner let her cry without interference, kept his silence for a good minute before attempting to speak to her again. “You tell the police what you just told us? That this Jarrett Nance is the man they should be looking for?”

Johnson shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “No. I couldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I couldn't believe he'd really do such a thing! I still don't. And yet … I know that's just my heart talking, not my head. It had to be Jarrett.”

“Then the authorities have to be notified. Right away.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Of course.”

“I can call them if you like,” Browne said, looking for some way to make amends for having been so hard on her earlier. “I'll just say you remembered something you'd forgotten to mention earlier, and you'd like to talk to one of their detectives again, if you could.”

“I think that would be a good idea,” Gunner said. “And in the meantime, she and I can keep talking, go over a few questions I'd like to ask.”

From the look on her face, Johnson didn't like the sound of that, but Browne nodded and left the room before she could register a complaint.

“Don't worry. I'll make this brief,” Gunner said, smiling to reassure her.

Johnson made a halfhearted attempt to smile back.

“This Jarrett Nance. Proper motivation aside—would he actually know how to build an explosive? Does he have any experience in that area that you know of?”

“That I know of? No.” Johnson shook her head. “He's an ad buyer. He buys commercial time on television for advertisers. But …”

Gunner waited for her to go on.

“He's also a gun nut. Reads all the magazines, visits all the web sites. If he wanted to build a bomb, I'm sure he could learn how to very easily.”

“Was the device timed, or tied to the ignition? That is, did it go off before the driver tried to start the car, or not until?”

“It was timed,” Johnson said. “Kyle was just getting in the car when … when it went off.”

“This was in the restaurant parking lot?”

“Yes.”

“But you weren't in the car yourself.”

“No.” Johnson shook her head, “Kyle had opened the door for me, but I hadn't gotten in. I was putting on an earring that had fallen off inside the restaurant. If it hadn't been for that …”

“Cops have any idea yet what kind of device it was?”

“What kind?”

“Yes. Was it a sophisticated piece of work, or a crude one?”

“Someone said it looked like a pipe bomb, but that it was too early to be sure. Look. What are you asking me all these questions for? I already told you who's responsible, didn't I?”

“You told us who you think is responsible, yes. But only five minutes ago, you weren't so sure.”

“Well, I'm sure now. It was Jarrett. It
had
to be.”

“He hates you that much?”

“Yes.”

“You said you two were engaged once. I take it you were the one who broke it off?”