Civil Twilight (27 page)

The cameraman looked as shaken as I felt. He nodded.

“Won’t know till I check the monitor, but I’ve got a good feeling. Good save. Yeah, great save.” He threw an arm around my shoulder. “Trust me, it’s going to be great! Good work, girl! Go get yourself cleaned off. You look revolting.”

I grabbed a handful of wet gel that had been dripping off my elbow and rubbed it on his cheek.

Around me the crew, the onlookers were shivering in their down jackets, but I was roasting inside the cocoon of gel. The sting had to go now. Onlookers were already drifting away; in minutes the streets would
be empty and the necessary cover gone. I was desperate to look toward Market Street, to where I’d spotted Munson before. But I didn’t dare. The timetable wasn’t mine. I walked toward the wardrobe wagon, pulled open the door.

Lights burst on behind me. I turned. Across the set, at Market, I could see the tableau. Two small figures, a slight, dark-haired woman pulling open a car door. “Police! Freeze!” Munson ran; a cop tackled him and threw him to the ground. I could make out John now, running in. The woman shoved the girls into the car. John was almost there. She slid into the driver’s seat. He was heading straight at the front of the car.
She won’t stop! John! She’ll hit you and keep going!

The engine roared, the car jolted. John leapt around it, yanked open the door and pulled her out. The crowd didn’t know what was happening, but they gasped and then they cheered. I leaned back against the wardrobe wagon and smiled. The onlookers cheered John. And it was all on film. A clip Mom would show every Thanksgiving and Christmas, till we all put our hands over our eyes and the star actually blushed.

I turned back toward the wagon. Something moved in the distance, in the half dark. I stopped, peered across the street. It was Broder, striding away from the scene, moving fast, but not running. At the curb, thirty yards in front of him was a dark car. An unmarked?

I started to call out, but John would never hear me.

Broder was picking up speed. He’d be out of town before anyone realized he was gone.

Frantically, I looked around for Korematsu.

Broder was twenty yards from the car. Dark-suited man in the night fog.

He was now almost running.

I grabbed a handful of gel, smeared it on my arm, set my towel on fire and ran toward him. “Help! Fire!”

He stopped.

I was slipping from the gel. I leaned forward. “Help!”

I could hear calls of
Fire!

Broder turned, ran for the car.

My feet were sliding. I was too far forward, going to fall. The flaming towel flapped near my face.

Broder was almost at his car.

My feet flew out from under me. Dropping the towel I fell, skidded and slammed into him.

THE ONLOOKERS WERE mostly gone by the time I finally got a chance to get into the wardrobe wagon, clean up and dress in clothes suitable to the season. When I emerged, fog had reduced the world to a square block. The crew was packing up fast.

“Dinner’s in ten. Drinks on me, to celebrate.” Jed slipped an arm around my shoulder. Every class I took, every gag I auditioned for, every broken bone and torn ligament, every scut job I’d had all these years was for this. I wanted to bask in the camaraderie, lap up the praise and be part of the crew, but there was still Karen Johnson. Despite everything I’d learned about her past, there was still something I needed to do for her in the present.

I walked across the nearly empty street. The police who, minutes ago, had filled the area with flashing lights and loud arguments till John produced a couple of feds, were gone. John was gone, too. The crew was already at Harrington’s and all the tourists had vanished. All but one.

“Claire, I’m so glad you stayed.” She was leaning against her car, her loose hair blowing in the gusts of fog. She was wearing black slacks and a thick gray hoodie. She looked as nervous as I was. “At least you knew enough to dress warm.”

“When I was being treated here, it was summer. I spent a lot of time shivering then. I thought it was the drugs. But I wasn’t cold tonight. Not with all that was going on here. You were amazing.”

“Thanks.”

“No really. Tell me!”

“Sure, but listen, Sonora and I were going to go for dinner after my stunt the night she died. You and I are the people who cared about her, so let’s go have a drink for her, a fancy drink, something special.”

“A drink to her?” Claire nodded, considering, as if this new plan required adjusting the creaky mechanism of her mind. It reminded me how sheltered she’d been growing up under her aunt’s thumb, being institutionalized, and then living back in that isolated house. “Yes. Yes, that would be really nice. My car’s here. We can put the heater on high.”

She pushed open the passenger door for me. “Are you okay? I thought you were on fire when you ran into that guy. And then the police, what was all that? You must be wiped out?”

“Yeah, actually.” I leaned back against the seat. “The guy I was running toward, Broder—it was the only way I could stop him. Draw attention. The one who got to us first was my brother. He’s a detective.”

“Your brother’s a detective?”

I didn’t know if she understood I meant police as opposed to private like Wallinsky, but I just nodded.

“So that’s good, huh?”

“Yes and no. Broder’s in custody, but getting him meant John had to take his eye off Graham Munson, Sonora’s husband’s friend and a pretty bad guy. Of course, Munson vanished. Now he and Matt, her husband, could be anywhere, and pissed at me.”

I thought she might show some surprise or ask who Sonora married, but she was focused on me. “Like they might be coming after you?”

“If they’re smart, they’re already out of town.”

She glanced over at me—as if she was waiting for an opening to ask some key question—then pulled away from the curb and cut across three lanes into the right lane.

“You drive well in a city.”

“It took a while, but now I do. Where to?”

“Take a right on Embarcadero.” A car started up behind us. “It’s impressive what you’ve done, Claire. You’ve really got your life together. Your own cookbook. Lots of people would give their right arm for that.”

She nodded. “I’ll never stop feeling guilty about Sonora, though. I should never have let her come back to the house.”

The Bay Bridge was almost overhead but the fog obscured its lights. It was a moment before muted disks of headlights shone in the side mirror.

“But her survey, it was just a shield. You know that, don’t you? She was investigating the migrants. The ones that worked for your aunt.”

“I don’t know.” She crossed over to the right. “Maybe. I guess. They weren’t much different from me.” She was leaning forward, peering through the windshield, as if trying not to out-drive the headlights. “What did Wallinsky say?”

“About?”

“About Sonora.”

So that was her question. In another day, when word of Seward hit the news she wouldn’t have had to ask me anything.

“Sonora worked for Wallinsky. Your aunt must have known him, right?”

She glanced in the rearview mirror. “She wouldn’t let him near the house. She thought he was a reporter . . . Sonora worked for him. Huh. He must have liked her.”

That was a leap. “Yeah, he did. He liked you, too. That’s why he kept up with what you were doing.”

“What’d he think?”

“About your aunt’s death?”

“Yeah.”

“He couldn’t believe Sonora killed her. He thought one of the migrant workers did it.” I paused. “What do you think?”

She hesitated, as if yearning for that theory to work but finding it wanting. “No. She killed my aunt.”

“But you didn’t actually see it, right?”

“I went out the back, was running around the side of the house. I—I may have stopped. I shouldn’t have, but I was afraid.” Again, she checked the rearview. “Someone’s following us. Do you see the lights?”

I looked back. “You’re right! Could be someone following your tail lights because the fog’s so thick.”

“No. They’ve been with us. I saw them as soon as I picked you up.”

“From the set? Really?”

“Yeah. It’s a man driving, another in the passenger seat.”

“Can you make out a face?”

“No. Why?”

I craned my neck, trying to see.

“Too foggy. Why are they interested in you? You really think it’s them, Sonora’s husband and his friend?”

“They had a trafficking scam going and I helped bust it up.”

“People trafficking?”

“Yeah.”

She hit the accelerator. Behind, the headlights stayed steady. “Omigod. This is serious, isn’t it?”

“Claire,” I said shifting to face her. “They were both here, in San Francisco, the night Sonora was killed. They flew in from Las Vegas. Her husband left that night.”

“Are you saying . . . they killed her?”

“I’m thinking . . . I’ve been putting together a plan . . . I wasn’t sure it would work, but now there are the headlights behind us. They’ll keep following us. My idea, it’s extreme, and dangerous. But it could tell us who killed her.”

She swung into the right lane in front of a bus. The wipers were on but the windshield was fogging inside. I cracked my window, but it didn’t help.

“You can say no, Claire. Not a problem. There’s no reason why you should endanger the good life you’ve built for yourself. I don’t even know what made Sonora throw away the safe life she’d built. Okay, wait, this is crazy! Forget I even mentioned it!”

“No. Wait. What?”

“Headlights. Other lane now.”

“I see them. What’s the plan?”

“Lead them to the scene of the crime. Drop me off. Wait’ll they get out, then you follow and be the witness. It’s a big open slab five stories high. You must’ve seen it on the news by now. It’s dangerous up there, but Matt Widley’s a big guy, he’s not going to worry about me. Munson either. If it’s him in that car, he’ll figure he can handle me. He’ll be desperate to find out what I know, glad for a dark open space. I’ll take the elevator. He’ll use the stairs to surprise me. You need to come up the stairs, too. But keep quiet, stay in the shadows. If things go wrong, you have to promise me you won’t try to help me. Do you have a phone?”

“No. I didn’t think—”

“Here’s mine. But this is too risky . . . too crazy . . .”

“It’s okay. Sonora gave me my life. It’s the least I can do for her.”

“You sure? Things could go seriously bad. They could throw me over the edge, too. Then you’d be alone with them . . .”

“No! I want to. This way I can maybe get my life back.”

“Okay. Turn here.” I pulled out my phone—all or nothing!—and put it in the cup holder. “There’s the building. Pull up into the lot. Drive off fast. Park around the corner. Don’t forget the phone.” I got out and didn’t look back.

The building was dark. On the ground, the site lights barely blurred the thick gray of the night. Crime scene tape across the driveway had fallen. Yellow plastic strips flapped listlessly in the wind. I ran up the incline, into the elevator and pushed 5. The plan wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. Why did I feel so sure the killer would actually turn up on the dark open construction slab?

The elevator inched slowly upward, rattling loud enough to be heard across town at the zendo. Had it been this sluggish before? A guy could do the five stories faster on tiptoes. I hadn’t factored this in at all.
Be quick, Claire!

The door opened. Ahead was gray-black nothingness. For an instant I thought I was in the Bardo, the Tibetan passage between death and life. A sharp wind strafed my face. Distant creamy circles of light were nothing more than dots in the darkness. I thought there’d been a light by the elevator, but if so it was burned out or broken.

I walked straight ahead. My eyes were adjusting, turning the black to fuzzy shades of gray.

Anyone could be climbing the stairs; I couldn’t hear footsteps. Anyone could be behind a pillar, staking out their claim on me.

I walked on. The edge was twenty feet away, visible not by a fence or even tape, but by the darker gray of emptiness.
What was I doing here?

I stopped, strained to hear distant rattle of the elevator below. Was there a rattle of metal below? It sounded more like a car grunting up the incline. I leaned in, as if being two inches closer would make a difference.

A car. It sounded like a car.

A car like the one that sent a woman flying to the pavement below.

I walked on. An updraft poured over the edge. I saw Sonora’s face in my mind’s eye.

An engine raced. Being gunned on the turns. Definitely a car.

Only one reason to drive a car up the ramp of an empty construction sight in the dark.

I stared around, peering at the huge support poles, hoping to spot a figure half in shadow behind. I was desperate to call out: Are you here? Yet it would take more than a single would-be rescuer if . . . headlights veered around the elevator cage, shining on the ceiling, turning the cement slab below black.

My feet were inches from the edge. I leaned over into nothingness, peered down, looking for something to grab for if things went bad. But there was nothing. Nothing but a straight shot five floors down.

Headlights hit the floor, shone on the unmarked gray cement, on the thick pillars, on me. They seemed warm on my skin, but I had to be imagining that.

The car picked up speed.

I didn’t move.

It shot between pillars, coming right at me. I was inches from the edge, from the five-story drop. The roar of the motor reverberated off the cement ceiling and floor. The headlights were in my eyes. I didn’t move.

It was thirty feet away, coming fast. Twenty feet.