High Bloods (30 page)

Ida Grace looked up when I sat down opposite her. She eyed the tote gratefully.

“I wondered where that went.”

“It’s where it was supposed to go that interests me.”

A waiter placed glasses of cognac on the table with a murmured apology. I swallowed mine in gulps, watching two swan wranglers climb precariously on the tiled roofs of cabanas trying to coax down a pair of the beady-eyed birds.

Beatrice and I looked at each other. She was holding hands with herself, probably because she still had the shakes. But she smiled.

“I wonder what’s become of Duke?” Ida asked nervously, looking around.

I told them, and threw in a cheery prognosis. No harm in that.

“You didn’t happen to see Francesca Obregon this afternoon?” I said to Bea.

“Yes! I mean, I only had a glimpse of her when she was dropped off at one of those big bungalows.”

“Anyone with her?”

Bea shook her head.

“I didn’t see anyone. Come to think about it, I don’t believe she came to the show.” She looked around at overturned tables and floating trash in the pool while the band played on. “Some people don’t know how to have fun,” Bea said. A different look came into her eyes. “Do you suppose she still has my knife?”

“Listen, Bea. I want you to take Ida home. I’ll arrange transportation. Both of you stay at the
minka
tonight. I’ll probably be delayed. Keep an eye on the loot until Ida can return it to the
bank tomorrow. Meanwhile I’ll have private security guards on the front gate all night.”

Her eyes got a little bigger.

“What did you mean when you said where the money was
supposed to go?
There’s still somebody who might come after it?”

“I don’t think so. He’ll probably be on the run, and in a different direction. Mexico is closest. I feel personally obligated to see that he doesn’t make it.”

Lew Rolling called.

“Got your boy. I wouldn’t have believed it.”

“Go.”

“That pair of Geekers was issued to G. W. McClusky by ILC Scientific. Three years ago, when they first became field-approved.”

“Stork McClusky.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah. I need his exact location.”

“Can’t get it, R.” He sounded exasperated. “He’s Intel, and they’re stonewalling. He’s none of our business and besides they’ve never heard of him.”

“The fuck,” I said, and got up from the table. I looked at Bea, described her to Lew, and told him I had a job for him.

Then I headed straight for the table where Booth Havergal, his wife, and the Spooks from Rome were preparing to leave. Cerise Havergal looked ill, but she was able to smile. I knew Booth had been wondering what I was doing there.

“Sorry to be rude,” I said to Booth, “but I have a lousy situation on my hands and the clock is ticking. I need some help from your guests.”

Booth winced. Paulo was, as usual, lighting a cigarette for the gloves-wearing woman. She flicked her dark glance at me. Even by daylight her face seemed dense with secrets; the glowing tip of her cigarette failed to ignite a responsive spark in the
deep stealth of her being. Apparently she had no identifiable emotions. Paulo smiled, as laid-back as ever.

“What is it, R?” Booth said, not too pleased with my usual lack of interest in the protocols of command. And whatever it was I’d brought to him, he didn’t want Cerise listening.

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” she said. “Nice to see you again, R.” She was one of those women endowed with a natural elegance but without artifice whom I wouldn’t have minded being married to, if she hadn’t been married to someone else.

I spoke to Booth as Cerise walked away.

“An Intel agent’s gone sour,” I said. “I need him and need him damn fast, because I think he knows where Mal Scarlett is. He tried to promote his knowledge into some ready cash from Ida Grace. It won’t be too long before the Stork realizes the cash ain’t coming and he’s been burned.” Now I included the Spooks from Rome. “Intel won’t acknowledge McClusky or otherwise give me a thing I can use. But if you get hold of Cale DeMarco—”

The gloves-wearing woman exhaled a long streamer of smoke from her nose and looked at Booth, granting him permission to give me some inside dope.

“Cale DeMarco resigned as chief of ILC-Intel at ten this morning,” Booth said.

“Oh,” I said. But now I had a grasp of why McClusky was trying to get his hands on some fast money. The walls were caving in at Intel.

I looked at the gloves-wearing woman.

“So you’re cleaning house. Just give me McClusky, that’s all I ask.”

The Latin band had finished with “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” and were packing up their instruments. Paulo began whistling a cheerful tune, providing the next musical interlude. He eyed a model, who gave him the eye back. Male model.

“Paulo!” the gloves-wearing woman said a bit sharply. His
whistling stopped and his smile became a little sheepish. He looked at her.

She nodded in my direction.

“Find out whatever he needs to know, and go with him,” she said.

As we were leaving the terrace I got in touch with Lew Rolling and told him to meet us out front in a department R-Two (Rapid Response Transport/Tactical Weapons Operations).

“All I need is McClusky’s ILC call sign,” I said to Paulo. “I think I know where he’s going to be for the next fifteen minutes. After that he’s long gone.”

he largest transit station on the Sunset light rail line
was UCLA North, where passengers transferred to the Westwood/Wilshire monorail loop. The tandem streetcar that the dead kid who had come for the money probably intended to catch was now held up indefinitely by the accident. It was scheduled to make three more stops before arriving at UCLA North, ETA 5:58
P.M.

That station was always busy: it served Bel Air as well as a campus of thirty-five thousand students. Most of the time even a Stork McClusky at six-six or so wouldn’t attract a lot of attention as he waited for the arrival of his delivery boy.

“So what do you think?” Lew Rolling asked me. “If that’s where McClusky is?”

“He could have planned it several ways. The simplest would be to get on the streetcar, locate the kid, sit or stand near him. Next stop the kid goes, leaves the bag, and Stork cuddles up to it. He rides to the Malibu terminus of the Sunset line, hires an air taxi there. Ten minutes later he’s at LAX, and in Mexico City in time for a late dinner.”

“No streetcar, no money,” Paulo said. “Then what does he do?”

“What does INTEL/INT have on him?”

“Dipping too often into the black bag.”

“Then he has money stashed somewhere else. Doesn’t need the fifty grand that bad, so he dusts.”

“Among his other bad habits,” Paulo said, “was stiffing casinos.”

“Okay. Then he might not be so well-off, and he’s nervous. But the cash from Ida Grace would seem like such easy pickings. So he doesn’t give up on it until he can’t control his fidgety feet any longer.”

We had passed the Beverly Glen light rail interchange. I told Lew to take a left at the top of the hill onto Hilgard, then approach the station by a circuitous route through the campus. McClusky, wherever he might be waiting, wouldn’t miss an ILC heavy among the delivery trucks and an occasional restored old sport-ute on Sunset.

“Speaking of bad habits,” I said to Paulo, “what about Cale DeMarco?”

“Racketeering. Charges to come later. He was advised to hire a good lawyer.”

“I hope you can make that stick.”

Paulo smiled confidently.

“My wife is very good at building airtight cases,” he said.

“Arlequin? She’s your—None of my business, of course, but I thought you—”

He nodded, still smiling.

“Sexual orientation is no matter to us. We are two old souls, and we’ve spent other lifetimes together. We have perfect accord spiritually.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. Old souls? I changed the subject. “The other night you told me that DeMarco had a helicopter tracking the armored truck from Angel Towne with Mal Scarlett in it. The pilot reported engine trouble and they had to break off surveillance. Do you think you can confirm that story? I have one I like better. McClusky was aboard; he faked the trouble call. The chopper
continued to the next
mal de lune
site where Mallory was unloaded. Later Stork revisited the location, photographed Mal, who must have been hysterical from fear by then. But he didn’t attempt to rescue her. Uh-uh, not McClusky. For which over sight I will take great pleasure in kneecapping him. He sent his proof of life to Ida Grace, with a polite request for a payoff. I don’t think that he ever intended to give up the girl’s whereabouts. For that I will be pleased to take out his other knee, which ought to be enough to get his tongue wagging.”

Lew parked the R-Two on Circle Drive behind the Applied Math building and we got out. Lew unlocked the R-Two’s arsenal. In addition to heavy stuff like the PHASR and compact zippos there was an array of small arms, each with silencer attachments and sonic stunners. I changed my shoulder holster to allow for the silencer I attached to my Glock.

From the roof of Applied Math Lew would have an unobstructed view of all levels of UCLA North station, which was about two hundred yards west. Paulo was to be his contact; they checked walkie reception on Paulo’s whisper tit. Lew took binoculars and went upstairs. Paulo declined to choose a weapon.

“Guns make me uncomfortable,” he said.

A monorail train passed overhead a few yards away, ghostly quiet but with that charge of momentum you felt in the gut; sunlight winked off its tinted windows. Summer session at the university was over and there were few students around as we walked toward the station.

“There really shouldn’t be any need to shoot McClusky,” Paulo said. “Rat that he is.”

“Now don’t go and spoil my day,” I said.

Before we reached the southwest exit ramp of the station, Lew Rolling had positioned himself on the roof of UCLA’s Applied Math building and had checked in on the walkie.

“I’ve got McClusky on the lower westbound platform,” he said.

Paulo handed me the walkie.

“What’s he doing?” I said to Lew.

“Moving around; checking the time; checking the arrivals board.”

“Lew?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful where you aim those binoculars. The lenses aren’t tinted. The sun is just at the right angle now to give you away if he looks in your direction.”

“Roger that.”

An eastbound triple-tandem streetcar was in the station; a crowd from the Malibu beaches was streaming toward us down the ramp. Most were college kids. Backpacks, beach blankets, folding chairs, a couple of surfboards.

“McClusky knows both of us on sight,” Paulo said. “But he’ll pick you out first. You’re as obvious as an anthill on a putting green.”

“Check,” I said. I stepped in front of a gangly kid with zinc oxide on his prominent nose. He had his arm around a tink with a gamin haircut and merry close-set eyes. He was wearing one of those beach hats that are woven from palm fronds.

He looked startled, then anxious when I gave him a look at my ID folder.

“We’re High Bloods.”

I’d already scanned them. “I like your hat. Would you take a fifty for it?”

“Uh—what? You want to buy my hat?”

“Sure,” the girl said, nudging him out of neutral with a sharp elbow. “Let’s see the money.”

I gave him the money and he gave me the hat.

“What’s going down?” the girl said.

“Nothing to worry about,” I said. “Just keep moving.”

I put the hat on. It had a beachy tang and a faint beeriness. I was already wearing Reef’s sunglasses. I looked at Paulo and said out of the side of my mouth, “Lothario in the sixth at Del Mar. Back up the truck on this one.”

“You’ll do,” Paulo said. He checked the time. “Four minutes past the hour.”

“We want ILC helo Interceptors and BHPD prowlies on the scene at ten after. Gives me time to have a chat with the Stork.”

“If he takes off?”

“Then I’ve done a bad job of convincing him that he’s wasting his time.”

We split up. I stopped at a newsstand and bought a paper. Then I idled my way through a crowd descending from the monorail platform. I positioned myself next to the line at the pizza stand on the eastbound side and watched Stork McClusky grow more and more agitated on the platform across from me. Six minutes after the hour: he was scowling as he stared up Sunset for a glimpse of the late streetcar. He took out a blue handkerchief and blotted some sweat below the snap brim of his cocoa-colored Panama straw hat.

A groan ran through the crowd waiting with McClusky. More faces turned up to see what the arrivals board had to tell them. I couldn’t see from where I stood but I had a good idea what the message was:
ACCIDENT DELAY WESTBOUND.

Stork took in the bad news with his lips compressed. I saw indecision in his face. “Delay” could mean five minutes, or an hour.

Time to go for his balls
, I thought.

I drew the Glock and concealed it with the folded newspaper. Then I transmitted McClusky’s call sign on the ILC channel of my wristpac. A silent signal. He stared at his vibrating wristpac for a few moments, indecisive, then wary. But he responded wordlessly.