We Know (32 page)

Carefully I lifted the handset. It was the heaviest I'd ever held. I unscrewed the cap over the receiver, then the one protecting the transmitter, and checked inside. The cuffs made it difficult, but I managed. Sever and Wydell looked ready to fit me for a straitjacket.

The phone shrilled off the concrete walls, and we all started. I lifted the disk of receiver to my ear, cupped the transmitter entrails by my mouth. "Hello?"

"I'm with the president." A deep voice, one I'd never heard before. Mr. Pager?

"At the moment?"

"No. I'm a member of his team."

"What's your name?"

"That's not your concern."

"I see he's no longer quite as eager to talk to me personally," I said.

He continued as if I hadn't spoken. "I understand you're making wild claims against the president of the United States."

"They're not so wild if you're on the phone with me."

"President Bilton asked that we extend you the courtesy because of your role in the terrorist threat at San Onofre."

"It wasn't a terrorist threat."

For a while I heard only the faint crackle of the line. Then the voice said, "Give the phone to the agent in charge."

I offered the dissected handset to Wydell, who stepped forward and bobbled it to his face with great irritation. "Yes, sir? No, sir, I'm not sure that's advisable. Yes, sir."

He laid down the pieces of the handset respectfully on the table before me, then jerked his head at Sever, who followed him out. I pressed the receiver to my ear again, and somehow the man knew I was there.

"Talk," he said.

"I know that President Bilton fathered an illegitimate child in 1991."

"You're delusional."

"As I'm sure Agent Wydell explained to you, I have evidence of this. And that evidence is due to

be faxed in about an hour and a half. I'm being held for crimes we all know I didn't commit. If I'm not released, right away, that fax will send."

"Are you actually threatening me?"

"I don't even know who you are. I'm giving you facts on which to base a decision."

"You' re an exceedingly troubled young man. You should strongly consider professional help."

"Then why bother talking to me?"

"Because of the role you played in last week's sensitive affair, President Bilton wanted us to hear you out and ascertain if you have credible intel. You do not. Good night, Mr. Horrigan."

The line went dead. The man had spoken with such smoothness and confidence that I felt my own conviction shaken. Had I gotten it all wrong? Had I put together the fragments to form a reflection of my own paranoia? Either way, the chips were all on the table and the roulette wheel was spinning.

I didn't have to marinate long in slow-motion panic. The door opened, and Wydell entered, his lips thin with anger. He tugged a key from his pocket and unlocked my handcuffs.

"I don't know what kind of bullshit you pulled." He threw down the cuffs on the table with disgust

and walked out.

The door was open. Tentatively I poked my head into the hall. A few workers, going about their business. Someone at a copy machine in a nearby office. I walked down the hall. The elevator doors were open, waiting--I assumed--for me. Sever was standing in the back, leaning against the metal rail. I was not surprised.

"You got some friends in high places," he said.

I stepped into the elevator, and he hit the button for the lowest parking level.

He said, "Whatever black magic you worked on that phone call got you free and clear."

"Free and clear?" I hit the lobby button, and we whistled down in silence.

"You have a car?" he asked.

"No. I don't."

"I'll give you a ride."

Accommodating.

The elevator slowed, reaching the lobby.

Sever came forward, rested a shoulder against the panel of buttons. "Why don't you come to the garage with me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"There are always choices."

The doors slid open. Sever stiffened, coming off the wall. I stared out at the reception console, the street beyond the heavy glass doors. At the same time, I counted. One . . . two . . . three . . . four. . . five. Then the doors slid shut on my glimpse of freedom.

"I've been charged with recovering certain items," Sever said as soon as we were descending again.

"What items?"

"Whichever items you were planning on faxing at midnight."

"No one seems to know what those items are," I said, "but they're sure getting a lot done."

"Apparently they're classified."

"I doubt it," I said.

"Whether they're fucking classified or not, you're gonna tell me how we get them back."

"Can I drop you a line from Ketchikan, Alaska?"

The elevator doors dinged open. I stepped out into the dark garage, and Sever grabbed my arm. "It might not be that easy."

Behind us the elevator doors remained open. One . . . two ... "I didn't figure," I said. Three . . . four . . . "Okay," I said. "Let's take a ride."

He smirked and let go of my arm. He stepped forward and I stepped back. Neatly, like a square
-
dance move. I punched the lobby button again, and the doors slid shut with Sever turning, baffled, five feet away, a red blush of anger coming up through the tan.

It seemed to take forever for the elevator to climb three stories. I bounced on my feet, urging it to rush. As soon as the doors parted onto the lobby, I slipped through, the rubber bumpers dragging across my shirt, and hustled past the security guards. One of the radios chirped, and he raised it from his belt, but I forced myself not to run, not until I was through the doors. Then I was sprinting. Across Figueroa, dodging headlights, and then

along the sidewalk, flying around corners, passersby skipping out of my way.

I reached the grocery store's parking lot and took the keys from the wheel well my own damn self. I couldn't get into the car fast enough, couldn't stop checking the rearview. Blocks away I finally unclenched my claws from the steering wheel and allowed myself a full exhale. Flying along, I rolled down the window to let the wind blast me in the face. Cleansing night air, even a few stars through a murky L.A. sky I'd been unsure I'd ever see again.

There was no fax machine or motel room, but there remained plenty of loose ends to tie down.

Chapter
39

Homer was right where I might have guessed--in front of Hacmed's, sucking on a pint of Beam. I looked around before climbing out of the Jag, my wrists still tender from the cuffs.

He was halfway gone, lying on his side, his eyes pink, his lips--barely visible through the tangle of beard--twitching. On the ground next to his cheek was a small puddle of puke. Tracking my approach, he tipped up the empty bottle, letting the last drops fall. Then he threw it toward the Dumpster. It fell short, shattered with a pop.

He scooted himself back until he hit the wall and used it to shimmy up to a more or less seated posture. I crouched in front of him.

"You came in," he said. "For me. You came back." He shook his head in disbelief. "Why'd you'd do something so stupid?"

I started to answer, but he cut me off.

"I was scared, Nick." He continued to shake his head. "They were talking so hard. I didn't ... I can't do much anymore. It was a lot of questions and people. I gave you up." A tear cut a track through the dirt of his cheek. "I gave you up."

"You didn't tell them anything they didn't already know, Homer. They were using you to get to me. It's my fault for dragging you into this."

"You didn't drag me into this. I got dragged." His crow's-feet deepened--a hint of amusement. "There's a difference."

"I involved you in this. Without giving you all the facts."

"We can't know. How and when. What we do. The fallout. We can't." A film came over his eyes. He wiped his nose from the bottom, shoving it up piggy style with a ragged sleeve. "You can't live without hurting people."

"I guess not."

"That's why I don't recommend it."

"Recommend what?"

"Living."

I thought of Homer in the park, jumping on the back of that red-eyed schizo, or at least trying to. I'd always thought it revealed some hidden reserve of courage. But maybe he just didn't give a shit

anymore whether he lived or died. Here we were, two refugees from God knew what, defined by what we'd lived through and tried desperately not to acknowledge. I regarded those half-mast eyes. Losing traction, he slid down the wall a few inches.

I looked away at the street, half expecting to find Sever screeching up in a sedan. "We have to get you out of here. Can you stay underground for a few days?"

"Please. I live underground."

"Come on, I'll give you a lift to the tunnel."

I took his arm and tugged him up, staggering under his weight. The odor was fierce, overpowering. His layers of tattered sleeve, damp with something I didn't want to identify, clamped across my shoulders, the bare skin of my neck. The reek of booze pushing through his pores made my eyes water. It was messy business, but I finally got him on his feet, propped against the wall. The low
-
sitting globe of his belly swayed. I started for the car.

"Buy me a bottle?" he said.

"You sure you need another?"

"Yes, I'm fucking sure."

I held up my hands, conceding defeat, and went inside.

Behind the counter Hacmed was all cranked up. "Get him out of here, Nicolas. I will have to call cops. He vomit everywhere, scare off two customer. I cannot run business with drunk man in doorway."

I said, "The honeymoon's over, huh?"

"I am very glad he is well. That he is safe. But let us be honest, Nicolas. No one wants man like that around."

I pointed at a pint of Jim Beam behind the counter, then pulled the last prepaid cell phone from the rack and set it beside the bottle.

Hacmed waved me off--an unprecedented act of generosity. "For whatever you did to get him free." As I turned away, he wagged a finger at me and said, "And for whatever you do to get him now gone."

Pocketing the items, I walked out. It took some doing to get Homer across the parking lot and into the passenger seat. He sat in silence on the drive to the beach, looking out his window. I had to keep mine rolled down to cut the smell. At one point his shoulders shook, and I wondered if he was crying.

I pulled over by the concrete steps leading down to the tunnel. It looked different now. More mundane and sadly municipal. The damp air tasted of the sea and car exhaust. Overhead, cars whined by on PCH. He directed his pink eyes at the dashboard. I handed him the pint bottle. He didn't take it. I pressed it to his arm, and finally he reached over and closed a dirt-crusted hand around the glass.

"You came back." His voice was gruff, cracked

with dehydration. He got out and slammed the door, angrily. A dirt imprint remained behind on the leather seat. He stumbled past the headlights, pausing by my window, his gaze on the freeway and the maw of the tunnel below. His eyes were moist.

I knew so little about him. His past was all over him, like a pack of dogs, but I'd learned nothing of it. He was all present tense. Jim Beam. Corner
-
mart parking space. Shower every Thursday. He hadn't been married. He hadn't been a dentist. Those were lies invented by Kim Kendall. Or maybe they were truths that Homer no longer acknowledged. I didn't know what he'd fled or why. I didn't know if he'd lost friends. I didn't know if he'd left behind a wife or a son or an elderly parent. I knew only that it was no business of mine.

He started to trudge off, then halted, his shoulders hitching as if the momentum break had caught them by surprise. Still he didn't look back. But I heard his voice clearly, even over the traffic and the rush of distant waves. "If it happens again," he said, "just leave me."

I watched him descend the stairs and fade into the mouth of the tunnel.

I was driving to drive, unsure of where I should land. I took San Vicente away from the beach, the coral trees rising out of the lawned median,

catching fog in their twisted branches. Then I hooked up to Sunset and rode the turns past the northern edge of UCLA, the campus I used to daydream about during high-school classes. North through a canyon run, passing Bel Air mansions with their Gothic fences, Tudor gables, and Santa Barbara-sandstone driveways, the confused architecture mirroring my own fragmented thoughts. I reached perilous Mulholland, blinking into headlights around the tight turns, a craggy rise to the side and then suddenly gone like a dropped curtain, revealing the breathless stretch of the Valley at night, glowing under a pollution haze.

The radio recycled Caruthers's afternoon chatfest with Sean Hannity. Caruthers: "Back to family values, are we?"

The talk-show host's quick reply: "You're the one who trotted out the discussion on the campaign trail."