Try Dying Page 28

  He booted me in the ribs, the air went away, and I thudded in the dirt again.

  I didn’t wait for him to order me up again. Somehow I made it to my feet, wobbly. I focused as best I could, saw nothing but desert all around. Mountains off in the distance.

  Vargas stepped in front of me. My head was hanging and I saw his hands. And what looked like a knife. Only the blade wasn’t steel. It looked like stone.

  I thought I might be going out of my mind.

  “Tell you somethin’,” he said. “You listenin’?”

  I said nothing. Watched the stone blade.

  “Look at me,” he said. He tapped under my chin with the flat of the blade. I looked at him. He smiled.

  “Want you to know,” he said. “Want you to know she looked at me. Didn’t know what was goin’ on. Looked in my eyes and said help. Then I snapped her neck. Like a stick.”

  115

  I DON’T KNOW if my body led, or my mind. Somehow it just happened this way—

  I bowed my head. Like his words took the last drop of will from me.

  “You gonna cry now?” he said.

  Cry and fold and die and dry up—that could wait. It would wait, because now everything was without a thought as I took a short step forward and shot my head up, under his chin, hard as I could.

  The impact told me I’d scored, hit his jaw flush. I pivoted, like I was in the low post, my back to him now, raised both hands up and elbowed him in the face.

  In one motion I went around him and threw my hands over his head. Looking back on it now, this was another roundball move, a hot dog play. I used to hold the ball and the defender would come to my face, and I’d actually put the ball behind his head, then bring it back.

  That instinct had served me enough to get Vargas around the neck. I pulled hard.

  He flailed. He grabbed my wrist with his left hand. With his right he slashed back with the knife. It grazed my hip.

  Before he could do it again I wrapped my right leg around him and forced us both down. He dropped beneath me.

  I kept pulling. Kept it up until he weakened, wheezed, and went limp.

  Why didn’t I finish the job? I don’t know. I only know two people shot through my mind—my dad and Jacqueline—and that somehow restrained me.

  I used the strange knife, which was amazingly sharp, to cut my wrists free. With every bit of strength I had left, I managed to get Vargas up so I could push him into the trunk of the car. A Lexus. Blue.

  Blue Lexus.

  A blue Lexus followed me on Sepulveda one evening. Was it this one?

  I wasn’t going to ask. I slammed the trunk closed.

  It was a good ride. In the fading light, I took a road leading away from the setting sun. Eventually shacks and single homes started to appear, then a paved street and a housing development. When I reached the first strip mall, I started to breathe a little easier.

  It was evening when I reached the grounds of St. Monica’s. I drove the Lexus all the way to the back of the property, behind the trailers. Father Bob must have heard me because he was out in two seconds as I emerged from the car.

  He looked at me up close. “Mother of mercy,” he said just before I fell into his arms.

  116

  I WOKE UP calling Jacqueline’s name.

  A cool hand touched my head.

  “It’s all right,” Father Bob said. I was in the bed in my trailer. Father Bob sitting there like a nurse.

  “How long have I been out?” I said.

  “Half hour or so.”

  It started coming back to me. I started trembling, like I’d just been fished from the ice. Father Bob pulled the blanket up to my chin.

  “I need a phone,” I said.

  “That can wait.”

  “No, now.” My head was a bowling alley.

  “You’ve been—”

  “Please.”

  “Sister Mary has a cell phone.”

  “Would you mind getting her for me? There’s also a card on the table, says Secret Service on it.”

  Father Bob found it. “What is going on, Ty?”

  “There’s a man in the trunk of the car outside. I want to get him out of here before he asks for hospitality. Can you get Sister Mary now?”

  117

  I USED SISTER Mary’s phone to call Cisneros. Left a voice message. As we waited, Father Bob asked me if I’d like to explain.

  “Not really,” I said. Then, for some reason, I jumped in. “I almost killed a man,” I said.

  “The man in the trunk?”

  I nodded. “The man who murdered Jacqueline. He was going to kill me and leave me in a hole in the desert.”

  “But you didn’t kill him.”

  “Maybe I should have. I feel like I’ve crossed over. That I could have killed him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  I grabbed his wrist. “But I could have. I was never like that before. I don’t even know who I am now.”

  “You want me to tell you?”

  I waited.

  “You are loved by God,” Father Bob said. “You are not the exception.”

  “I wish I could buy that.”

  “Someday you will.”

  Cisneros called back.

  “I’ve got somebody for you,” I said.

  “A name?”

  “A body.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It’s Vargas.”

  “You have Vargas?”

  “I got him.”

  “Dead?”

  “Only close. He’s in the trunk of a very nice Lexus.”

  I drove the Lexus to the corner of the Abbey lot. Vargas was yelling and pounding on the interior. I parked and looked down at the Valley, an innocuous blanket of colored lights.

  Killer view. I listened to the breeze and the occasional sound of caged Vargas.

  When Cisneros pulled up in a black Ford, he had someone with him. Another agent. Introduced him as Smith-his-real-name.

  Smith nodded, all business.

  Cisneros looked at my face in the single light of the parking lot. “Vargas do that to you?”

  “They took me out to their ranch and worked me,” I said. “They knew I was talking to somebody like you. They were going to bury me out there. Vargas killed Jacqueline. But I don’t know how to prove it.”

  Cisneros pulled a sidearm from under his coat, as did Agent Smith. “Why don’t we start by popping the trunk?”

  I did.

  Vargas had his hands in front of his face. “Get me outta here,” he said.

  “Slowly,” Cisneros said. “No sudden moves.”

  He struggled out of the trunk, his legs rubbery under him. Smith whipped him around and had cuffs on him in two seconds. Vargas turned back and looked at me. That heart of darkness stuff? I was looking at it then.

  Smith shoved Vargas in the back of the Ford.

  I’d brought the Bonilla journal from the trailer. I got it from the back of the Lexus and handed it to Cisneros. “This is probably going to interest you. It’s something that came from Ernesto Bonilla’s house. I think it was kept by his wife. I think that’s maybe why he killed her, then himself. It’s mostly in Spanish, but there’s a very interesting spreadsheet. I had a sister here do a printout.”

  “You’ve done some pretty amazing things,” he said. “Thanks for not giving me up.”

  “What are you going to do with Vargas?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “He’ll know I got him. Barocas. He’ll come after me.”

  “Let me give it some thought.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” I said, “if you could think real fast.”

  118

  NEXT DAY I ran up Sister Mary’s phone bill by calling my lawyer. He was in court, but I got through to Gabrielle.

  “Do you know how much trouble you’re in?” she said.

  “I think I do.”

  “Have you been watching the news?”

  “I’ve been a little sidetra
cked.”

  “Sidetracked?”

  “Will you have Marty call me at this number, please? And one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Would you mind going down to the parking garage, level two?”

  “Why?”

  “See if there’s a red Taurus, circa 1995, down there? And maybe a cell phone?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a little complicated.”

  “I don’t know if I want to hear it.”

  “You don’t.”

  119

  MY BODY FELT like David Hasselhoff’s career. New places would start to hurt spontaneously. Instead of sitting around groaning, I called Fran, told her a sweet little lie about my being just fine. She didn’t sound convinced.

  What else could I say? I was a man on the run. How does that happen to a guy like me?

  Something Jacqueline said to me kept rattling around in my mind.

  We were going to go out to dinner, and I showed up at her apartment and found her in tears. What I finally got out of her was she’d been watching the news. They had the mother of an American soldier on. Her son had been captured by terrorists in Iraq. Tortured, killed.

  “Evil is so real,” she said.

  I didn’t pause for a philosophical discussion. She was distraught.

  But now I knew she was right. Eggheads and Dr. Phil could pussyfoot all they wanted. Evil was real, and it did things to people. And sometimes it went after you.

  The phone call was not from Marty Latourette. It was from one of the last people I expected to hear from.

  “Where are you, boy?” Jonathan Blake Blumberg said.

  “How did you get this number?” I said.

  “That assistant of Latourette’s, she—”

  “Wait. Why is she giving that information to you?”

  “Come off it, will you? Who do you think’s paying Latourette?”

  Stunned, I hardly knew what to say.

  So I didn’t say anything.

  “Listen, it’s getting hot,” Blumberg said. “Marty told me you gave him the name Lattimore. He’s a P.I., does a lot for big-name clientele. How’d you get that name?”

  My brain jumbled around like Yahtzee dice.

  “You there?” Blumberg said.

  “I got the name from David Townsend.”

  “Good for you. This Lattimore has a rep. I know about him. He’s a little too sold on himself.”

  “How so?”

  “Dresses up in silk shirts. Parades around with all that curly hair and attitude. Guy like that starts to rest on his—”

  “Whoa whoa whoa. Did you say curly hair?”

  “It’s sort of like steel wool.”

  The dice banged around even louder.

  “What’s going on?” Blumberg said.

  “Where are you?”

  “My office. Why?”

  “I think I’m going to need your help.”

  “For what?”

  “To hunt some meat.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  120

  IT WAS B-2 who came up with Warren Lattimore’s phone number and office location. We drove down in one of B-2’s vintage Corvettes, something of a hobby with him, after he called Lattimore to set up a “discreet” appointment.

  The office was in the back of a converted Beverly Hills duplex, the kind they turned into offices in the sixties. The front structure was Spanish-style and housed a hair salon. A black security gate on the side was the only indication there was a back office. No name on the gate either, or anywhere else that I could see.

  Blumberg pressed a button on the call box and announced himself.

  The gate buzzed open.

  We followed a sandstone path under a trellis covered with clinging vines until we got to another Spanish building, a smaller version of the first. The oak door opened before we knocked.

  Warren Lattimore was fifty-ish, about five-eight, and wore a black silk shirt open to midchest. Tufts of gray chest hair sprang out like ocean spray. The full head of sleet-gray hair was curly all right. I wondered if he had it permed by the folks in front.

  “I’m Warren Lattimore,” he said, extending his hand. He had a Brooklyn edge to his voice. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Blumberg. I know a lot about you.”

  “And I you, Warren.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh sure. You’re one of the best.”

  “The best.” Lattimore looked at me. “Hi.”

  I took off my shades. It took Lattimore about a second to recognize me. He looked at Blumberg. “What’s this?”

  “You know Mr. Buchanan, do you?”

  “Sure, he’s all over the news.”

  “Photographs well, doesn’t he?”

  Lattimore’s face did a little tightening, like a poker player drawing to the inside straight. The bluffs were about to begin. “It would be a kick to help out Mr. Buchanan in his defense.”

  “I just bet it would,” I said.

  “I don’t come cheap, but I could work out something. High-profile cases are my specialty. Come on inside.”

  Lattimore’s office was done up in black and silver, leather and chrome. His large black desk held a computer monitor on one side and a console the size of a toaster on the other.

  Which caught Blumberg’s eyes. “That’s a Z-11,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Lattimore said.

  “I make those.”

  “Right. I forgot. Great piece of equipment. I can call anywhere in the world and record anything, and it comes out clear as crystal. Well made.”

  “That’s what I do,” Blumberg said, “when I’m not killing people.”

  Lattimore, who was on his way behind the desk, froze. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Killing people. I used to kill for the CIA.”

  I almost burst out laughing. But Jonathan Blake Blumberg did not grin. He stared at Lattimore, who made it to his chair and slid into it. “That’s news to me,” he said. “Now how can I help you out?”

  “You want to start?” Blumberg asked me.

  “Sure,” I said. “I appreciate your offer to help me, Warren, but we’re here to listen.”

  “To what?”

  “To you unloading your soul.”

  He looked chagrined and shook his head.

  “You killed Channing Westerbrook,” I said.

  It took a second, but when his cheeks flushed it produced a nice glow. He looked at Blumberg. “What is this?”

  “I think you better listen,” B-2 said.

  Lattimore shot to his feet. “Don’t waste my time.”

  “Sit down, Warren,” said B-2.

  “Hey, you don’t come into my office and tell me what to do.”

  “Sit down, Warren.”

  “Why don’t you just turn around and—”

  Jonathan reached under his coat and withdrew a gun. Just like in the movies. I think I was more surprised than Lattimore. I had no idea Blumberg was packing.

  He pointed the gun at Lattimore. Lattimore put his hands in front of him and fell back onto the chair.

  “Did I mention,” Blumberg said, “that I used to kill for the CIA?”

  I sidled up to Blumberg. “Jonathan, maybe it would be a good idea to put that thing away for now.”

  He shook his head, keeping his eyes on Lattimore. “Not until he hears what you have to say. I won’t shoot him until you’re finished.”

  Lattimore now looked to me for relief. “He’s crazy. Make him put it away.”

  “I better get right to it, Warren,” I said. “I’m going to tell you a little story, and then I’ll let you decide what to do about it. I think I can even get Mr. Blumberg not to shoot you. Fair enough?”

  Lattimore was openmouthed and silent.

  “Maybe you could hold the gun at your side,” I said to B-2.

  He lowered the gun. I started my spiel. Lattimore listened. Blumberg didn’t shoot him. Lattimore became quite amenable when all was said
and done.

  Now there was only one more person I had to see.

  121

  DR. LEA EDWARDS commanded the stage as usual. Speaking without notes, pacing back and forth, she looked more impressive than ever. Even from the back of the ballroom of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel I could sense the vibe. This was a professional woman at the zenith of her career.

  “Just remember,” she said, “when it comes to human interactions and recall, things are never as they seem. Divide up that perspective among twelve jurors, and your task becomes monumental. In a sense, because of the limited reliability of memory, you must create the reality for the jury. You do not just reveal, you shape the facts. We would all like to believe there is objectivity when it comes to truth, justice, and the American way. But that’s for the comic books. You are for the courtroom.”

  This time there was no stunt. No shill yelling from the gallery. Just a standing O for Dr. Lea Edwards, holder of the golden key, who had just created about half a million dollars in more business for herself.

  I hung back while a few stragglers made obeisance and got her to autograph her book for them. As the last one was fawning, I stepped closer and took off my shades. When she saw me, her head did a Richter—shaking before settling into uneasy disbelief.

  She finished with the straggler, came over, and embraced me. “I don’t believe it,” she cooed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Never too late to learn something.”

  She stepped back. “What’s happened to you?”

  “Somebody did a little work on my face.”

  “Aren’t they looking for you?”

  “I’m on the lam, as they used to say. Shall we go to the bar and live dangerously?”

  We went to Twist, on the second floor, and took a little round table by a polychromatic window. It was almost as if Lea had planned the design herself. It set off her champagne colored suit perfectly. The jacket’s embroidery almost bubbled in the dim light.

  “I can’t tell you what a pleasure this is, Ty,” she said. “I’ve been so worried about you. Miss working with you.”

  “Al doing a good job for you?”

  “Oh yes, workmanlike. But nothing like you.”

  A waitress stopped by the table and put a couple of square napkins down. Lea ordered a manhattan. I asked for Pellegrino.