Magic Line (15 page)

‘Not always?'

‘Just as Ray said, he likes to change names.' All the other detectives were packing into his office now, so he read his info off the screen. ‘He did a short stretch five years ago in the Juvenile Detention Center for petty theft, where they all start. He was plain Robin Brady then, had a school record and a birth certificate in that name. Since then his identity has been getting more indistinct. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday he served a few months under the same name in Pima County Jail for shoplifting. But the next time he went there it was to await sentencing, and he was carrying ID that said his name was Rolly Burgess—'

Ray said, ‘Yeah, it's Rolly, not Roland, isn't it?'

‘That's right. He had documents, a driver's license and bank account under the name of Rolly Burgess, was arrested and charged under that name. But when his fingerprints brought up a match to his juvenile record and then two other arrest records under different names, the judge stopped the proceedings and directed his lawyer to sort out his identity. And somebody did, obviously, because he served twenty-two months at the State Prison on Wilmot under the name Robin Brady. That last arrest record indicates he was also carrying a driver's license for Richard Bacon, but he claimed he was just holding it for a friend.'

‘Whose picture was on it?' Sarah asked.

‘Doesn't say,' Delaney said. ‘He's probably good at changing the way he looks, too. You're right, Ray, the guy's evidently a chameleon.'

‘You can say that again,' Sarah said. ‘Dead one minute, alive the next.'

‘Just like my snitches told me,' Ray said. ‘Changes identity whenever he feels like it. I'm starting to love this bozo – he's crazy like a fox!'

Ollie said, ‘Anything on that .22 he's packin'?'

‘No firearms mentioned in any of these records.'

‘My guess,' Ray said, ‘it's whatever he just stole.'

‘Anyway, your snitches delivered the straight stuff this time, Ray. We owe them a big one,' Delaney said. Coming from him it was remarkable praise, Sarah knew. He always insisted they troll their snitches, ‘for the news that never makes the papers.' But then he could hardly stand to listen when they brought it back. He believed in forensic evidence, stuff you could take into court, and he despised the idle gossip of crime groupies. ‘They're always trying to make mopes into Hollywood stars,' he would say. ‘Bring me something I can bag and tag.'

A thoughtful silence fell in Delaney's office till Ollie said, ‘It's not much of a record. Considering.'

‘Considering what?'

‘That he's a real badass. Look what he's done just since Monday.'

‘Yeah, I've been wondering that too,' Sarah said. ‘Why don't we already know all about a guy with as many boss moves as this one has?'

‘Fair question,' Delaney said. ‘Where'd he spring from?' Anyway, now that they had a name, he said, tomorrow they'd get addresses, cell phones, maybe even a bank account. ‘Every law enforcement agency in the country will help – we'll tighten the noose until we get him.'

But in the meantime, he said, the chief had decided not to wait any longer to announce the big forfeiture that the work of the TPD homicide squad had enabled. ‘He's got the stuff all laid out in the meeting room – money and guns and some of the coke, and a photographer's on his way, so everybody comb your hair, we're going to go get our pictures taken, right now.'

‘Oh, this ought to be rich,' Sarah muttered, walking over. ‘I know what I look like: death three times over.'

‘None of that, now,' Delaney said. ‘I want you all with your game faces on. Try to look like the crew that just won a battle in the drug war – but there's so much more to do. You know the drill.'

‘Nightly Pentagon report,' Jason said. ‘Gotcha.'

TV news crews were on hand with punishing lights. The chief and Delaney took turns fielding questions. When it was over the chief shook everybody's hand and patted Delaney on the back. Walking back to their own work spaces, Oscar Cifuentes said, ‘The chief is a lot more down-to-earth than his wife, isn't he?'

Delaney, his face a mask of dread and distaste, asked: ‘You know his wife?' Oscar's success as a swordsman was a joke in Homicide, and had almost cost him his spot on the crew.

‘Oh,' Oscar said, looking sorry he'd brought it up, ‘just to say hello to.'

THIRTEEN

Z
eb wasted ten minutes trying to figure out why he couldn't pull the cover off the Buick before Doris came out of the house and said, ‘You have to crawl under and . . . you know.'

‘What?'

‘Undo the ties.'

He laid on his back and pushed under with his heels. Pebbles bit into him, and cobwebs brushed his face. The ties had some kind of metal fasteners that clipped them to each other in a mysterious way.

Doris kept saying, from somewhere near his feet, ‘What's the problem? They're not complicated.'

‘They are when you're upside down with crap falling in your face.' Every time he moved, dirt fell off the bottom of the car. Something had just crawled over his arm. Besides, he didn't trust the cement blocks holding up the front left corner – what if this old heap fell on him? His brain parodied his own answer from yesterday's argument about light bulbs:
Then you won't need any more money ever – won't that be a saving?

Just before whatever was biting his ankle bored all the way in to the joint, he figured out how to squeeze the end of the clip so the jaws opened and— ‘OK, I got it,' he said, and scooted around undoing ties as fast as he could so he could slide out of there while he still had some skin left.

He stood up and pulled. The cover slid off at his feet. He kicked it aside, or started to, but Doris yelled as if he'd kicked her personally. She grabbed one end and started a show-and-tell about how she wanted it folded. It took a steady stream of instructions – back up a little, keep it taut so it won't wrinkle, now put these two sides together like
this.

‘Folding lessons are fun,' he said, ‘but I was counting on fixing the car some time today.'

‘Me, too,' she said, ‘right after we finish the folding.'

He got the jack out of the wheel well where the spare tire wasn't. ‘Seems to be missing,' Doris said, looking vaguely around at the yard as if the spare might have wandered out of the car and curled up by the shed. ‘Have to see about that.'

But then setting up the jack . . . he tried it from the outside, kneeling on the cement, reaching in. He couldn't tell when he had it centered under the frame. And now that he'd been under there he couldn't stop thinking that if the jack wasn't set right, this junker was going to fall on him.

So in the end he got under the car again with the saber-toothed ants and stayed there till he was sure the jack was placed just right under the spot that was marked for it.

‘Um,' Doris said, when he set the crank in place on the jack, ‘let's be sure the hand brake is on.'

Goddamn, she was right. He had taken one of those ‘Car Repairs for Dummies,' courses in high school and he remembered that admonition now. If the brake wasn't on the car could back off the jack and . . . he got another distinct vision of his body spreadeagled under a metallic gray Buick LeSabre.

But the rest of the job went all right. His heart almost failed him when the jack lifted the car two inches above the cement blocks, but Doris showed him how to set the teeth on the jack so it wouldn't slip. Holding his breath, he pulled the cement blocks away from the car and they lifted the wheel onto the lugs together. Then Doris stood by him, handing him lug-nuts and watching to be sure he got them on straight. They argued over all but one. When he got them as tight as he could by hand she said, ‘Wait,' and darted into the shed. In a minute she was back and handed him a four-way lug wrench.

‘How come you've got one of these?' he said.

‘Well, you see, if you take care of your things and put them back where they belong, you have them when you need them.'

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,' he said. ‘Always a lecture.' But he felt good, releasing the jack. The car had not fallen on him and the tire was on good and tight. Doing his best to sound like Zebulon, your go-to guy for car repair, he said, ‘Now, what's this other thing we have to fix?'

‘Oh,' she said, ‘that isn't going to take long.'

He lifted the hood after she showed him where the catch was. She pointed to the battery where the wire had been pulled off one terminal and handed him a pair of pliers. With Doris watching closely and giving plenty of free advice, he loosened the bolt, twisted the wire on and tightened it back up again. ‘There,' he said, ‘what else?'

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘Let's have a cup of coffee before we go shopping.'

Inside, enjoying a piece of cake with his coffee, he decided to risk it. ‘You going to tell me why you disabled your car?'

‘Maybe later,' she said. ‘Right now I need to make a list.' She pulled a lined tablet and pen out of a drawer and sat over it, thinking. When she stopped thinking and began to write, she bent her head till her eyes were about two inches above the paper.

She isn't driving herself to the store because her eyes have gone bad. This old lady's running out of options
.
Maybe that's why she hasn't asked if I've got a driver's license. But then, think about it, how often do I ask anybody if he's got a driver's license? People just take it for granted. So let's be cool about the license. You don't get stopped, you don't get asked.

When Doris finished writing she stood up and said, ‘Would you like to wash your hands before we go?'

‘Oh . . . sure.'

He was off the stool, headed toward the bathroom, when she said to his back, ‘Your shirt got kind of dirty under the car. I put one on the bed in the spare room back there, I think it'll fit you close enough. Why don't you use it today?'

Zeb had spent the last night under a jojoba bush in an empty field behind the Circle K, and washed up in the restroom of the Waffle House where he ate breakfast. He had been vaguely aware that his clothes were very dirty, but they fit right in to the general disorder of his life so he hadn't thought about it. He had plenty of clean shirts in storage, but getting his stuff out had not been a priority since he had no place to live. Oh, and he was probably wanted by the police.

He had made his bold move to become a hoodlum and failed miserably. He had never given any thought to what it took to be a good man, but this week had shown him he didn't have the stones to be a bad one. Now if this feisty old castoff queen was being kind to him, evidently he wasn't even making the grade as Mr So-so, the dorky odd-jobs man. Shee-it.

Washed up and wearing her clean shirt, he came back from the bathroom and stood at the top of the hall, embarrassed, afraid she would smile and say some TV-granny-type thing like, ‘Well, that's better!' But she just said, looking at her list: ‘Ready to go?' She picked up her purse and that little string bag with a couple of books in it, walked out and got in the passenger's seat cool as you please, looking like she'd had a chauffeur all her life.

They went to Eddy's Conoco first. While Zeb gassed up the car and washed the windshield Doris went inside and talked to Eddy. They were cordial at first and then serious, and she paid with a credit card. So she had a bank account. She might not be rich but she was not the bag lady he had first taken her for.

The Valencia branch library was their next stop. Zeb waited in the car. She didn't take long but she came out with two books. So evidently she could still read, although it must be hard, holding a book two inches from her nose like that.

She directed him every inch of the way, including which lane to drive in, to a tailor's shop where she picked up a skirt. It was much too short for her – she must be getting something repaired for Valerie. Kid can't even take care of her own clothes, he thought, and then remembered hearing a neighbor say, to his mother when she was sewing buttons on his shirt, ‘When's he going to grow up?'

‘Groceries next, I guess,' Doris said, hanging the skirt in the back.

Zeb said, ‘I was wondering . . . there's a self-storage place not too far from here . . . you think we could stop by there? I could pick up some of my stuff.'

He brought out one box – mostly clothes. ‘That's all?' she said.

‘Enough for now,' he said, and put it in the trunk. No use making her think he was trying to move in on her, but he was pretty sure she'd let him keep it in the shed until he found a place.

She said, ‘You just moving to town?'

‘Nope. Lived here all my life.' He couldn't stand to talk about his childhood and didn't dare discuss the recent past. And she had not explained the crippled car, so there was no hurry about blurting out secrets. ‘So, which grocery store?'

They made two stops because she liked the meats in one place and the produce in another. ‘And since I don't have to get everything on and off a bus today,' she said, ‘I might as well get plenty.'

He wondered as the carts filled up,
Is she expecting company?
Whatever the plan was she seemed to be enjoying herself.

On the way into the second grocery store he noticed a rack of newspapers and bought a copy of the
Star.
‘That's yesterday's paper,' Doris said when she looked at it.

‘Close enough for catching up on things,' he said. ‘Haven't seen one all week.'

‘I miss it myself,' she said. ‘But I cancelled my subscription after I couldn't read it any more.' She looked sad for a minute. He loaded all the groceries in the trunk for her, and ran the carts back.

At home she said, ‘Oh dear, it's past lunchtime.'

‘Go ahead, I'll get this in.' By the time he had it all in the house she had a big sandwich waiting and a twenty dollar bill beside his plate. Halfway through his sandwich, he put it down, took a deep breath and said, ‘I've been thinking.'