Silent Joe (18 page)

"I think you should go to Fiji."

"I'm not ditching Alex. He's kind of weird, but he might need me. But I'll tell you something. Another few weeks of this and I'm going to start getting pissed off at somebody."

"Does Alex know a man named John Gaylen?"

She thought, then shook her head. "Not that I ever heard. But Alex knows a lot of people."

I looked over at the men again. "I'll do what I can with these guys. If they're law enforcement, it won't be much."

"They're not exactly small."

"That doesn't matter."

I drove her back to her shop, waited while she collected a pile of mail from the box on Laguna Canyon Road, then walked her in. She pushed the play button on her answering machine.

"Chrissa, it's Heidi. How about a drink or four tonight after work? Call soon, let me know. "

She shrugged. "My life now. Suit, Gut, girlfriends and drinks."

"It will get better."

"I've got no reason to complain. My father wasn't murdered."

"No."

"You holding up okay?"

"Fine."

"Tough guy, huh? Just like Alex, that way. Nothing hurts."

I didn't say anything to that.

"Know something, Joe? You're cute. If I didn't have a guy, I'd make you take me out again."

"That's very flattering. But I'm dating, now. I mean, a couple hours from now I'll be dating."

She smiled and sighed. "Good for you. You're what my dad would call a real boy scout. You're in the wrong century, or at least decade. I like that."

"Thank you for your help. Here."

I gave her my card, with my home and cell phone numbers on it.

"You can put it with Bo Warren's," I said. "But I hope you call first."

"Don't worry about that, Joe. Here, wear this sometime."

She took off the rustred fedora and handed it to me.

"Thank you."

"I'm just going to tell you this once: that thing on your face isn't bad as you think it is. And the other half is perfect. You got nice thick blond hair and nice brown eyes and a really good jaw line. Try smiling someday—I'll bet you have a killer smile. And tall guys are
sexy, period.’’

I could feel the wave of red breaking over my skin, feel the tingle the scar and this funny flutter in my chest.

"I don't know what to say."

"Nothing would be just fine."

I walked across the parking lot to the bus stop. Suit and Gut exchanged words and smiles. Suit had a lot of muscles under that fabric and Gut had forearms like a blacksmith.

I badged them. They badged me.

"We know who you are, Trona," said Gut. "I'm Hodge. He's Chapman. TA Enforcement, at your service."

"Why are you following her?"

"It's our job."

"Rupaski's idea?"

"Somebody's above us would be the answer to that."

"What for?"

"That's more of none of your business. But I can tell you it's boring. The gash is nice to look at, but I don't think she likes us too much. Chapman here, he's got a hard-on half the time."

Chapman smiled as if this revealed something good about himself.

"Keep it in your pants," I said to him. "And Mr. Hodge, don't call her a gash again. I hate that word to describe a woman."

"Those hats of yours should be white, not pink."

"It's rust red. And display only good manners toward her, Miss Sands, at all times."

They both laughed at that.

"Okay, Trona, sure. Is it good manners if I smile while I wag it at her?"

"No. And she'll tell me if you do."

"Then what?"

"You'll get extremely hurt."

Suit was big and young and full of himself, but I could tell he knew a little about me. He smiled, looked at his partner, then back at me.

"I'll be good. I promise."

"He'll be good," said Hodge. "I'll make sure he behaves, Trona. Don't you worry about a thing."

"Joe's got enough to worry about," said Chapman.

Hodge laughed. Chapman laughed.

"Have a nice afternoon."

I went back into Chrissa's fashion shop, found her sitting at her table with tears in her eyes.

The stack of mail was on the table in front of her. She held out a postcard. It was mailed from Mexico City six days earlier. The picture showed an Olmec head from the Anthropological Museum. The handwriting was sloppy but legible:

D
r. Norman Zussman gave me a warm handshake and closed the door of his consultation room. He offered me a comfortable chair, and sat across from me on a small green couch. I set Will's briefcase on the floor beside me, and balanced my hat over one corner.

There was a coffee table between us, nothing on it. He was medium height and lightly built. He had short straight gray hair, blue eyes and a tanned face.

Dr. Zussman crossed his legs and set a yellow legal pad on his knee. "You succeeded in putting me off for nine days, Joe."

"I didn't want to talk to you, Doctor."

"I don't blame you for that. But it's better if you do. And it's required by your department. How are you doing?"

"Well."

He watched me. I get self-conscious when people stare and don't talk, but I knew he was just trying to get me to fill the silence. So I said nothing. I went to the quiet spot, got up in the tree and looked out. There is an eagle that sometimes shares my tree, but he wasn't there that day. I sat alone on the branch. The hillsides were tan and dry and I could smell them.

"Sleeping all right, Joe?"

"Yes, sir."

"Appetite good?"

"Yes."

"Drinking alcohol or using drugs of any kind?"

"I had some drinks a few nights back. I don't drink much, though."

"Why's that?"

"It makes me slow and stupid and feel bad in the morning."

He chuckled, wrote. "Tell me about the shooting, Joe. Take your time start at the beginning."

I told him about it. I started with Will being shot and falling. Then heaving Savannah over the wall and sliding back into the backseat of car. I explained that I was pretty sure the two men behind me would make for the wall and walk right past that open rear car door, and I'd have good shot at them with the interior lights off. I told him the shots were easy and I could tell both men were hit hard.

He listened and wrote. When I was finished he sighed quietly. "Were you shooting to kill?"

"Yes."

"Did you feel forced by the circumstances to do what you did?"

I had to think about that. "No, sir. I could have jumped over the wall with Savannah."

"But you didn't, because your first loyalty was to your father."

I nodded.

"How did you feel when you pulled the trigger?"

"Alert but calm."

"How did you feel when you saw the men fall, and you knew tlhey would probably die?"

"Relieved that they were not going to use their machine guns on me, or chase after Savannah."

Dr. Zussman was quiet for a long time. "Joe, how did you feel a, the shooting? Say, an hour later?"

"I was looking for Savannah."

"But did you think about the men you'd just shot?"

"No."

"And the next day, how did you feel about what you'd done?"

"I didn't think about it very much. All I thought about was Will."

Zussman wrote and sighed again. "Joe, how do you feel right now, about what you did?"

"Just fine, doctor."

"Have you had any bad memories, regrets, bad dreams?"

"At my father's funeral, I tried to feel bad that two men were dead and that I had killed them. But I didn't feel anything about them. I thought it was self-defense, and that they'd gotten what they gambled for when they set out to kill a man."

Zussman watched me for a long while, then. He shifted on the couch, like he was uncomfortable. He recrossed his legs and set the legal pad on the other knee.

"When you think of the shooting, can you see it, or does it become unclear?"

"It's very clear. I can see the seams in the leather seat I was lying on, the moisture on the windows."

"Do you dwell on that scene?"

"I dwell on how I could have saved Will."

"So, it's more a tactical concern than a moral one?"

"Yes."

"Why do you think that is?"

I thought for a moment. "My job was to protect my father. It was the most important thing I could do. I was brought up to do that. I was trained to do it. I wanted, more than anything in the world, to do it well."

Zussman leaned forward and lay his pad on the table, wrote something on it. "How do you feel about failing to do your job?"

It took me a while to come up with a description. I knew how I felt, but I'd never thought to describe it to anyone, especially a stranger.

"Like sand."

"Sand? How is that?"

"Dry and loose and nothing holding it together."

He looked at me again. "Do you feel like you're going to fall apart, like sand?"

"No."

"But why not, if you're dry and loose and nothing is holding you together?"

"I wasn't accurate, sir. Something is holding me together. I need find the man who shot Will. That has become very important to me."

"Ah. Of course."

Silence, then. Zussman gathered up his pad and sat back. "What you anticipate happening, when you find that man, Joe?"

"I'll arrest him for murder, sir."

He looked at me for another long moment. He blinked, started to write something, then stopped.

"Joe, how did you feel about giving up your sidearm, as part of this counseling?"

"I didn't give it up."

"Why not?"

"No one asked me for it, so I have it."

"On your person? Here?"

I nodded and held out the left side of my sport coat.

"I'm going to ask you to leave it with me. I'll turn it over to Sergeant Mehring for safekeeping."

I unholstered the .45, ejected the clip and set it on the coffee tab Then I racked the action to make sure the chamber was empty, hit the safety. It was surprisingly loud in the quiet consultation room. I set the gun beside the clip.