If Angels Fall (51 page)

The hobby shop
was small, its two rows of shelves were crammed with model ships,
racing cars, fighters, rockets, trains, landscapes, paints, and brushes. An
eagle-sized P-51 Mustang was suspended in a dive by fishing line tacked to the
ceiling. Soaring near it was a British Spitfire, a Japanese Zero, and a Messerschmitt.
The air was pungent with plastic, balsa wood, and airplane glue.

A sixty-year-old man, with thick sideburns drifting to
his    jaw, a Caesar’s crown of white hair, and horn-rimmed bifocals, was
hunched over the glass counter, tinkering with a dragster. The two inches of
ash on the Marlboro hanging from his pursed lips was dangling perilously over
the cockpit. His bowling-ball gut strained the buttons on his stained shirt
when he straightened to eye the ID and shield of Randall Lamont.

“I’m looking for a boy, about ten years old, blond
hair, backpack, sneakers. He was seen in this area within the last half hour.”
Keller’s face was somber behind his dark glasses.

The old man dragged hard, squinted through a smoky
cloud and nodded to the corner. “Could be the fella you want, drooling over the
Kitty Hawk
there. He just came in.” The man coughed. “Anything to do
with that gang shooting in Oakland?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter.” Keller
snapped his ID shut. He went to boy, who was kneeling before the bottom shelf
and a huge boxed model of and aircraft carrier.

Keller crouched next to him. “Are you Zachary Michael
Reed?”

Zack’s gaze darted over him, blinking before he
nodded.

“Your mother is Ann Reed and your father is Tom?”

Zach was suspicious. What was this? Who was this guy?
Was this because he ran away? Was he one of those school cops Dad used to tell
him about, the kind that chased runaway kids?

“It’s all right. I’m Randall Lamont, a state
detective.” The man reached inside his jacket and showed him his badge.

A detective?

“I’m a friend of your dad’s. He’s a reporter with the
Star
.
We’re friends from way back. I live in Berkeley.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Not at all.” Keller dropped his voice in a
confidential tone. “Zach, your dad sent me to find you. We’ve got a problem.”

“A problem?”

“It’s your mom.” Keller put his hand on Zach’s
shoulder. “She’s had an accident.”

“What? So fast? How could -- I just left.”

“Your dad went with her in the ambulance. I live
nearby and he called me to find you.”

“Wha -- I -- what happened?” His voice was trembling.
“Is she -- ”

“Tell you on the way. You have to come with me to the
hospital.”

Zach grabbed his pack. “Is she going to be okay?”

“I’ll tell you all I know on the way, son.”

They left the store, hurrying to Keller’s rental van.
Zach froze when he recognized it. It was the same van he had seen parked near
his grandma’s for the past couple of days. The guy unlocked the passenger door
and swung it open. Zach didn’t like those sunglasses. Wasn’t he the guy had seen
hanging around down the street? Something didn’t feel right. But didn’t he say
he lived down the street? Still something didn’t feel right.

“Why didn’t grandma come find me?”

“She’s on her way to the hospital, Zach.”

“Well, how did you know where to find me?”

“I saw the direction you left in just before your dad
called me.”

A distant siren sounded his dad’s warning about
strangers.

Never go with a stranger, no matter how smooth their
line is. They may say I’m hurt, or Mom’s hurt, or there’s some emergency. They
can make it sound real bad. And they’ll be the nicest people -- they won’t look
like creeps. Trust your instincts. If you don’t know the person then don’t go,
Zach. Don’t go!

“Are you scared because you don’t know me, Zach?”

That was it. But Zach didn’t know how to say the
truth. He looked at his feet, agonizing about his mom.

The man removed his sunglasses and smiled. A friendly
smile.

“Tell you what son, we can go back to the store, call
the hospital and leave word for your dad or grandmother to come for you. I’ll
wait with you if you like?”

Zach looked at him. “All right.”

Keller patted Zach’s head and they started back to the
store. No problems, no protest, which led Zach to conclude, this guy was for
real. A bad guy would not take you back. He’d try some scam to get you in to
his car while he had you on the street. He’d never take you back.

Zach stopped. “I changed my mind.”

“You’re sure, son?”

He nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

Keller bent down, eye to eye with him.

“It may be her heart. She collapsed after you left. I
guess she managed to get hold of your dad.”

Zach’s chin crumpled. “A heart attack?”

Keller put his hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know.
Your dad didn’t tell me any more than that. We should get to the hospital, if
you still want me to take you.”

He did.

“I think it’s my fault,” Zach mumbled, bowing his head
to sob as he let Keller help him into the van and buckle his seatbelt.

“The whole thing with my mom and dad is my fault.”

Keller climbed behind the wheel, slipped on his dark
glasses, turned the ignition, felt the engine come to life with glorious
victory, and pulled away.

Zach had drawn his knees to his chest, hiding his face
on them under his arms, crying softly. Keller stole glimpses as he drove south
on Interstate 80 to Oakland.

He radiates with the light of one million suns.

His face buried, Zach did not know where they were
traveling. “Is she going to die?” He sniffled from under his arms.

Keller did not answer. They approached the Bay Bridge.

“Mister, is my mom going to die?”

The new van hummed silently, save for the tires -- rhythmically
clicking along the freeway. Keller touched Zach’s shoulder.

Heaven’s warrior.

Keller kept his eyes forward. “What is it like to look
upon the face of God?”

Zach recoiled.

“Serpent slayer, chief of Heaven’s army.”

Zach’s mind gathered speed, his eardrums pounded in
time with his beating heart, for suddenly he knew. He knew what happened.

Kidnapped. He had been kidnapped by a psycho.

“You are my light and my salvation.” Keller smiled. “I
praise you, beloved of God.”

As the van moved west along the upper deck of the
spectacular bridge to San Francisco, Keller reached under his seat for the
plastic bag and the chloroform-soaked cloth.

Some days,
when the mid-afternoon sun hit it just right, the Bay Bridge glowed like a portal
to paradise. For an instant, its majestic span and spires changed from flat
silver to a surreal white against the blue-green waters of the Bay a few
hundred feet below.

Today, its beauty was lost on Tom Reed. For him, the
bridge had become a tangible span of despair between everything he had done
wrong and the futility of his future. It was his third crossing, and with each
trip, his emotional freight increased, unraveling the worn thread by which his
life was swinging. Reed was rushing east on the lower deck and wondering how
much more crap a man was supposed to stomach in one day.

His marriage lay in ruin, he was fired from his job,
he was an alcoholic, or on his way to becoming one. He had caused the suicide
of an innocent man and very nearly accused another. And now Zach pulls a first
and funs away. Nine years old and he takes off.

Could it get any worse?

Sunlight strobed through the bridge’s steel girders.
Reed glanced over his left shoulder at San Francisco’s skyline, then at the
mesmerizing whitecaps below. Why not end it all? He had considered it when he
arrived at his room in Sea Park after the blowup with Ann. It was a dumb-ass
notion, supplanted by his need to get into his room and reacquaint himself with
Jack Daniel’s. Lila had not returned. So, he kicked the door. It opened with
little damage on his second try. He’d pay for that move when Lila got back.

Reed collapsed in the sofa chair, his head pulsating.
What was he going to do? Leave town? Chicago? He had some buddies at the
Tribune
and the
Sun-Times
. He could beg for a job. He could see Molly tonight
after she finished her shift. She wasn’t the answer and he knew it.

Reed decided to take the care of his immediate needs:
shaving, showering, and changing into better-smelling clothes, ignoring the
flashing red light of his telephone answering machine until he finished, which
was half an hour later.

The first call he played back was the most recent one.

“Reed, Walt Sydowski. Give me a call a soon as you
can.” He left his cell phone and pager numbers.

Sydowski? Reed sneered. Likely found out he had been
fired and wanted to relay condolences from the Homicide Detail. Sure, I’ll get
back to you, Walt.

Next, came a panicked message from Ann: “Tom, is Zach
with you? I can’t find him! I think he’s -- ”

The phone rang. Reed stopped the machine and grabbed
the call.

“Tom, do you have Zach?” Ann was hysterical.

“No, Ann, I don’t. What the hell is going on?”

“I can’t find him! It’s my fault. He ran away. He took
his school backpack with some of his favorite stuff and his savings, about a
hundred dollars. I’m so scared!”

Ran away? He must have heard us. “How long has it
been?”

“An hour, forty-five minutes, I don’t know.”

“Did you call Jeff and Gordie’s parents?”

“But they’re in San Francisco.”

“That’s likely where he’s headed.”

“I’ll call them!”

“Call all the Berkeley cab companies. Call BART security.
He may try to cross the Bay that way.”

“All right. I already called the police. They said
they put out a description and will send a car over.”

“I’m on my way.”

Now, as Reed guided his Comet along the interstate
off-ramp for Berkeley, he could not stop blaming himself for dragging Ann and
Zach into the cesspool of the self-obsession which blinded him to the toll it
was taking on Zach. He would talk to Ann, tell her everything. Make one last
intelligent effort to work things out before it was too late. If anything,
anything happened to Zach, he’d never forgive himself. He glanced at the water
below.

When Reed turned on Fulton, the hairs on the back of
his neck stood up at the sight of a Berkeley patrol car parked in front of
Ann’s mother’s house.

Ann was sitting at the kitchen table, talking through
a crumbled tissue to a uniformed officer who was taking notes.

“Oh Tom!” she sobbed, hugging him tight. Letting him
know that she needed him. Truly needed him. Reed’s eyes stung. When was the
last time he held Ann in his arms?