The Memory Collector (16 page)

Ken glowered at him.

Ken may have been a pessimist, but he was a pro. Vance, though, was an incurable amateur. He was supposed to be Ken’s apprentice in the art of specialist theft, but Murdock saw that even Ken had doubts about his cousin’s potential. And this was a job on which they couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

“Eyes on the prize,” he said. “That lab in South Africa made bottled magic, and Kanan got it.”

“So how come he ain’t delivered?” Vance said.

“Stop fidgeting.” He stepped toward Vance. “Do you realize what a huge advantage we have, obtaining this stuff? This isn’t like trafficking firearms or C4 overseas. The logistics are astounding. We don’t need a Ryder truck or a shipping container. This stuff can be carried in your pocket. It’s the score of a lifetime.”

Ken rubbed his nose.
Yeah, yeah,
Murdock thought—the stuff was incredibly tricky, too. But that was what made it so incredibly valuable.

He pointed a finger at Vance. “This is going to turn you into a badass beyond your wildest, gun-toting, ho-and-bitch-filled dreams. This stuff is the real deal. It’s a superstar. And we’re about to be the world’s sole suppliers.”

Vance shrugged his shoulders and wiped his nose again. “Yeah. Cool.”

Murdock nodded at Ken. “Call Sales. There’s no need to postpone the auction. One way or another, Kanan’s going to deliver today.”

He spread his arms. “We’re going to be the lords of fear.”

Amy Tang was waiting outside Ron Gingrich’s apartment building on a side street in the Haight, talking on the phone. The breeze lifted Jo’s hair from her collar and spun it around her face. She buttoned her peacoat and jogged across the street to the magenta-painted building.

Tang, repudiating the neighborhood’s Day-Glo color scheme, was wearing black jeans, a black sweater, black boots. She looked like she’d shopped at Baby Gap for Goths.

She put away her phone. “I told Gingrich his boss is dead. He’s upstairs bawling like a baby. I need you to tell me if he’s faking.”

Behind Tang on the corner, three grimy teenagers slouched on the sidewalk, panhandling. One of the girls held out her right hand for money and talked on a cell phone with her left. The cardboard sign at her feet said, AT LEAST I’M NOT A HOOKER.

Jo and Tang walked up creaking stairs to the third-floor apartment where Ron Gingrich lived with his girlfriend. A uniformed SFPD officer was standing outside the door. The apartment was small and haphazardly friendly. Batik sheets covered the sagging sofa. Spider plants decorated the television and bookshelf. Hendrix and Grateful Dead posters decorated the walls. The kitchen smelled like bacon and fried eggs.

Gingrich’s girlfriend, Clare, was thin and nervous. So were the three Chihuahuas jumping around her feet like grease in a frying pan.

“You’re a shrink?” she said. “Please tell me what’s wrong with him.”

Gingrich was sitting in a beanbag chair by the bay window in the living room, wearing gym shorts and a Metallica T-shirt. His ponytail was greasy. His eyes, watching pro wrestling on the television, were bright.

Clare and the dogs approached him. “Ron, sweetie, the doctor’s here to see you.”

Gingrich looked up pleasantly. “Hey, it’s the shrink from the plane.” He stood. “Man, that was weird. Did you end up sectioning the guy?” He offered his hand to Tang. “I’m Ron.”

Tang’s mouth tightened. “We met a few minutes ago.”

A dust bunny of confusion scooted across Gingrich’s face. “Sure. You guys here to interview me about the fight on the plane?”

“No,” Jo said. “About Jared.”

“Just give him a call. He’ll be happy to talk. He’s rich and all, but you don’t need to go through me. He’s approachable.”

Tang shifted uncomfortably and cut her eyes at Jo.

“Want coffee? Clare, baby, we got some of that Colombian?” Gingrich smiled and headed into the kitchen. “We haven’t eaten—you gals want to stay for breakfast?”

Clare’s face was frozen. “He ate three eggs, toast, and bacon half an hour ago. He ate three more eggs fifteen minutes ago.”

Whistling, Gingrich pulled out a skillet and turned on the stove. “How you like ’em, ladies?”

Jo avoided Tang’s scowl and walked into the kitchen. “Ron, hold on a second.”

“No eggs for you?”

“I need to ask you about Jared.”

“Sure, but why so serious?” His eyes were red but untroubled. “What’s going on?”

“It’s about the party at his house last night.”

“Last night?” He smiled, but his expression was vague. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you flip the electrical switch in the pool shed?” Jo said.

“Doctor, I think you’re confused. I just got back from London.”

“Ron, Jared’s dead.”

He stopped cold, holding an egg in his hand. For a moment, it looked like he’d taken a two-by-four between the eyes. Then he sagged back against the stove. He groped for balance and crushed the egg against the counter.

“No. How did it . . . ? Oh, Christ.” He looked at his girlfriend. “Clare—Jared’s . . . oh, God.”

Gingrich slid down the counter into a wretched crouch and burst into tears.

Jo saw the red slice on his forearm. It looked like it had been gouged with a dull nail.

“Ron?” she said.

He thrust his head into his hands.

Jo turned to Clare. “He needs to get to the hospital.”

She took out her phone and called neurologist Rick Simioni.

Kanan swung the maroon Navigator into the marina. The bay was stippled with whitecaps. Alcatraz shimmered in the morning haze. He cruised toward the forest of sailboat masts, scanning for threats.

He was operating on a simple principle: To stay alive, assume the worst. Expect an ambush. He’d once seen a sign tacked to the door at a U.S. Marine firebase: HAVE A PLAN TO KILL EVERYBODY YOU MEET TODAY. It was pertinent advice.

He cruised along, checking for vehicles or people who seemed out of place. Two Post-it notes were stuck to the dashboard. The first read:
Vehicle, Weps, Alec, THEM.
The word
vehicle
was crossed out. He was driving it. The second note said,
Somebody’s Baby.

The voice of the GPS system said, “Make a U-turn.”

He looked up. He was at the San Francisco marina, staring out the windshield at the Golden Gate Bridge.

He turned around, drove back to the boats, parked, and got out. The sky was a happy, mocking blue, but the pines shuddered in a melancholy wind. He pulled up the collar of his denim shirt and walked toward the mooring slip.

He felt the dagger jammed in his boot. Felt a rock where his heart should be, dense and so heated that for a moment he could barely inhale.

Suck it up,
he told himself. Go past the betrayal, finish the job, and get them.

The marina looked full—only a few sails were visible on the bay. The people who moored their boats here were at work in the financial district or Silicon Valley, humping sixteen-hour days to pay for their hundred-thousand-dollar toys.

Ahead he saw
Somebody’s Baby
. Her fiberglass hull gleamed in the sunshine. He hopped aboard, descended the stairs, and jimmied the lock on the cabin door.

Ken Meiring sat in the black van and watched the Navigator cruise past him, twice, three times—Jesus, how many times was this guy going to circle the parking lot? Finally the Navigator U-turned and drove back. Ian Kanan got out and headed for the boats.

Meiring got out and followed.

Inside
Somebody’s Baby
, the cabin was sleek and quiet. Nobody was aboard. Kanan went to the galley, got a set of keys, and unlocked a cabinet built into the bench seat along the cabin wall.

“Damn it.”

No weapons. No handgun, no shotgun, not even the boat’s flare gun. Someone had taken them. He stared in dismay.

The boat rocked and shoes squeaked on the deck above.

Quietly, Kanan retreated to the galley. He pulled its half door partway closed and crouched behind it. The squeaking shoes came down the stairs. They sounded heavy, like rubber-soled boots. They stopped.

Kanan peered around the half door. A man stood, his back turned, in the center of the cabin. He was in his late thirties, white, built like a freezer. Fat circled his waist like sculpted shortening. His neck was inflamed with the grotesque acne that resulted from steroid abuse. His right hand held an HK automatic pistol.

Kanan’s skin prickled with adrenaline. A stranger with a gun. One of
them
?

He estimated his chances. The man looked slow. He had turned his back without first searching the galley. If he was a pro, he was not at the top of his game.

But neither was Kanan. This block of lard had been lying in wait, and he hadn’t spotted him.

The man was three steps and half a second away, confined in a narrow space. Kanan bunched, threw the door back, and sprang.

The man heard him and began to turn. Kanan swept the man’s left knee with his right leg and hit him in the spine flat-handed between the shoulder blades. The man pitched forward. His head cracked the edge of the bench seat and he hit the floor like a pot roast. Kanan stomped on his right hand and took the gun.