SPYWARE BOOK (13 page)

“Sure thing,” said Johansen, “Brenda took a chance on an accessory charge by doing that.”

“Well, at least he has friends that believe in him,” she said.

Johansen reached over the breakfast table to take the note from her. As he took it from her, he touched her hand for a lingering moment. It was just a light touch, but it went on for just a half-second longer than necessary. She felt a flash of heat across her face, then the contact ended. Without raising her head, she slid her eyes up to look at him. He appeared intent upon the note. She frowned and briefly wondered if he was trying something new, something more subtle. She forced such thoughts from her mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand. She forked the last sausage on her grand-slam plate.

The restaurant had the haunting and somehow reassuring familiarity of that every Denny’s possessed. Overhead, sputnik-like lamps that dated from the seventies hung suspended from a ceiling that was plated with beige acoustic tiles. Booths lined the windows and the counter was manned by an army of truckers and cops. On every table the napkin-dispenser huddled-up with its team of condiments.

“I received some interesting e-mail this morning,” she began. She quickly told him about the message from Vance. She was gratified that he didn’t laugh at her for getting caught by her own game.

“Hmph,” he said, munching on one of her pieces of diagonally-cut white toast. “Sounds like he spotted us first.”

“Exactly.”

“So what’s our next move?”

“I think we should press the wife for her help. Maybe she can talk him into giving himself up before he sinks himself more deeply into this. After all, if he’s innocent, he should give himself up.”

“It’ll only work if she thinks that we’re doing a good job of finding her kid,” said Johansen, “I get the impression that neither of them care about anything else right now.”

“Naturally enough,” she said, “but I think I can convince her.”

 “Right. In any case, it’s better than just waiting around for one of the uniforms to pick him up by chance.”

She glanced at him again. He didn’t sound overly confident in her persuasiveness. “We’ll get her to come around, it might just take a few days.”

“Right,” he repeated. “In the meantime, what about this Nogatakei guy?”

“I suppose we’ll have to check it out.”

“Huh,” he said, “so our fugitive suspect is now feeding us leads. He’s typing them, no less.”

“The irony isn’t lost on me.”

“But is this tip just a red herring? Something to keep us busy while he works his own plans?”

“That’s what we’re paid to find out,” she said, sliding out of the booth.

Johansen stood up with her and picked up the check. On the way out the waitress, a gum-snapper in her twenties, gave them an up-down glance. Vasquez grimaced, having seen it before. Everyone automatically assumed they were a couple, and invariably people thought it odd to see that one of them was a good fourteen inches taller than the other. Not to mention a good deal more pale in complexion. At least the waitress had the good grace not to smile in amusement at them.

By a long-standing agreement between the two of them, Johansen always picked up the tab when they ate together. He said it was to keep a low profile as a couple, but she always suspected that he wanted to play the male role. Recently, she had begun to suspect he wanted more of that role than she had realized.

Following his towering form through the glass doors, she recalled his light touch. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant memory.

. . . 59 Hours and Counting . . .

Sarah hardly knew she was dropping tears into her breakfast until the doorbell rang. She blinked awake and dabbed her eyes. She glanced down at her cereal. The milk had sat too long in the bowl and turned rice squares to swollen mush. Then the doorbell rang again, and she got up to answer it. Her newly installed peephole revealed Mrs. Trumble’s permanently worried face. She opened the door.

“Mrs. Trumble?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, dear,” said the old woman. She wore slippers and a quilted housecoat.

“What is it?”

“I have a message for you, I got a call from Ray quite early this morning.”

Sarah’s mouth sagged open, then shut again. “When?”

“Oh, about six. Abner answered the phone, you see, and he’s so hard of hearing now that it took a few minutes before he knew who it was. Then he handed it to me.”

“Six?” snapped Sarah, “Why did you wait so long to tell me? It’s after eight.”

“Oh, my stars, I’m sorry! I thought that I shouldn’t wake you. What with Justin gone missing and all... I thought you could use your sleep. I’m sorry if it’s important. Abner said that I should come over right away, but I didn’t —”

Sarah fluttered her hands in exasperation. Normally, she could put up with hours of Mrs. Trumble’s ramblings before she got to the point, but today wasn’t like any other day. “Please. What’s the message?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Trumble, seeming put out, “he just asked that you get hold of a person called: ‘Magic Avila’ and ask them to meet Ray for lunch at, um, dot-com somewhere.”

Sarah closed her eyes and restrained herself from grabbing the woman’s sleeve. “Do you know the exact address?”

“Address?” asked Mrs. Trumble in bewilderment. “You mean the address of the restaurant?”

“The restaurant?”

“Well, I assume that’s where they’d be meeting,” she said.

“No, no,” said Sarah, “dot-com is part of an internet address. He wants this person, Magic, to meet him on the net, not in person.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Trumble blankly.

“Dot-com is only part of the address, and a very common part indeed. Do you have the rest?”

“Well, I don’t see how you can meet for lunch and not be in the same room, but I suppose I’ve heard everything else. Now, let’s see...” said Mrs. Trumble, digging in her purse. “Abner told me I should write it down, so I think I did. Yes.”

She produced a scrap of paper. On it was scrawled the internet address: NO CARRIER DOT-COM. Sarah automatically translated it in her mind to the internet form: nocarrier.com.

Now all she had to do was figure out who and where Magic Avila was.

#

Nogatakei’s apartment was horrific. Vasquez, who loved nothing more than a clean house, was speechless. Stuff was everywhere, disks, magazines, unwashed clothing, half-eaten food in various states of decay and just plain dirt. It was impossible to walk two feet without stepping on something disgusting. Bizarre toys of rubber and springs squeaked and hopped by themselves when they were nudged. A cobweb caught her full in the face as she tried to make it to the kitchen.

“Yaah!” she cried out in annoyance.

“You said it,” said Johansen, “I’ve seen nicer looking murder scenes.”

From the door way the landlady called in, “I told you. I always knew the boy was wrecking the place, but when I complained he just doubled the deposit. Paid me cash, too. After he doubled it twice, I stopped bothering him. And if he’s skipped out or headed for jail, I’m gonna keep it all, let me tell you.”She rattled a thick ring of keys, and haunted the hallway, but was reluctant to enter. Vasquez didn’t blame her.

“If this is his place, I’m going to love meeting the man himself,” she said. The fridge was zoological exhibit of microbial flora and fauna.

“Ah, here’s evidence of Vance, I’ll bet,” said Johansen. He pointed to a tire iron that had skewered a keyboard neatly. Vasquez made her way back to the living room and had to stand on her tiptoes to see past a bank of dusty computer monitors.

“Take a few shots of it,” she suggested. “Are there any other signs of a struggle?”

“Who can tell in this place? If they had a fight in here, I’m not sure I could tell the difference. At least I don’t see any bloodstains,” said Johansen. He pulled out a digital camera and went to work. “I’ll bet you this tool came from the trunk of a Honda Civic.”

“I’ll bet you’re right, and I’m almost sorry we found it. Now we’ll have to get a warrant to really search the place.”

“No warrant?” squawked the landlady. Evidently, she had been quietly listening out on the doorstep. “You people are crazy.”

“We just asked you to let us in for a look around, ma’am,” called Johansen, “just following up a lead.”

“You think you’re on TV?” laughed the landlady. Vasquez was reminded ever more distinctly of an unpleasant, squawking bird. “When the cops get here, they’re going to be pissed.”

“Cops?” asked Johansen. The two agents exchanged glances.

“This place is alarmed to the hilt and bugged, too. I thought you were legit, otherwise I wouldn’t have let you in,” she squawked.

Vasquez ground her teeth and they both struggled through the junk to the door. Outside, they blinked in the sunlight. She imagined that Nog rarely came out by day.

Johansen pointed out to the parking lot where a squad car was pulling up, lights off. “This will cost us two hours, I’d say.”

“Davis is a small town,” said Vasquez, “I’d guess three.”

. . . 57 Hours and Counting . . .

Spurlock awakened groggily. He owned no alarm clock, and birdsongs had no effect upon him. It was the sun that had finally ended his slumber. Beaming in the cracks of his cardboard fan-fold sun visor, it tickled his face with tiny hot streaks and assaulted his optic nerves behind his closed eyelids.

“Oh shit,” he sighed. He heard a movement in the back. The kid. It had to be the kid. He heaved himself around.

“What are you up to, you little rat-bastard?” he asked the gloomy interior of the van. It was about ten, he figured, and the van was getting hot already. He tried to climb out of his ripped-vinyl seat. He failed on the first attempt, betrayed by a nerveless left leg.

He collapsed back into his seat and cursed while massaging the prickling leg back to life. He craned his neck around and thought to see movement back there.

“You’d better not be out of your cage,” he chuckled, shaking his head, “or they’ll be hell to pay, little bastard.”

After that, there was silence behind him. He finally got up and managed to limp into the back. The kid was still there, locked in his cage. His eyes were big and round with fear, which caused Spurlock to grunt in approval. But something appeared odd about his gag. He opened the top of the cage and reached down to grab the kid by the neck. Checking the gag, he found it had been damaged, and now only hung there by a thread.

“Oh, now you’ve done it, boy!” he roared. “This is gonna be good!”

He resecured the gag, this time cruelly tight. He reached in and lifted the kid by his neck, but the little shit struggled and wriggled free, dropping to the bottom of the cage. Spurlock growled and took hold of his hair.

Outside came the sound of an engine, then the crunch of tires on gravel. Spurlock froze. A door crumped. Someone approached the van.

He scrambled back to the driver’s seat and looked into the side mirror. A California Highway Patrolman approached. Spurlock could see the black and white parked behind him. He could hear its engine idling.

Immediately, his mind went to the cheap .22 he kept under his seat. He pulled it out and slipped it under his right leg. It looked like a black squirt-gun. It wasn’t much; the barrel was so short that he couldn’t hit a beer can with it at five feet. Still, he knew a quick spray of bullets at close range would drop anyone.

The patrolman came up to his window slowly, taking his time. Spurlock thought about faking sleep, but rejected the idea. Just as the patrolman came even with his window, he reached over and dug around in his glove compartment box for his registration. He had once saw one of those cop shows in which of the smug pigs explained he always suspected trouble when a driver wasn’t moving. Most people, he explained, were digging about for their license, proof of insurance and car registration when they were pulled over. Those who were waiting to blast you didn’t bother.

“You’ll probably be wanting my ID, sir,” he said over his shoulder. “I know my papers are somewhere in here.”

The cop didn’t say anything, he just frowned and ran his eyes around the interior of the van. Spurlock could feel those eyes, burrowing into his back. There was no way to miss the curtains. He knew all too well how a cop’s mind worked. What was behind them? Drugs? Smuggled parrots from Brazil? A cage full of kids? Any pig would be dying to know. He hoped desperately that this fucker didn’t have to die to find out.

“Got it right here, sir,” he said, passing a handful of paper out the window. He prayed the cop hadn’t bothered to type his license number into his computer yet. His record would do nothing to improve the pig’s mood.

The cop eyed the papers dubiously. “Is the van broken down?”

“No sir,” said Spurlock, shaking his head emphatically. “I was just about to get on my way up to Redding. I’ve been driving all night up from L.A., sir and I stopped to take a nap.”

The cop continued to stare at the papers and didn’t appear to have heard him. Perhaps a half-minute passed. Spurlock smiled on the outside, but inside he was a screaming wreck.
Why did this fucking cop have to find me? Why doesn’t the little rat-bastard kid just kick the wall already and get it over with? Just one kick, and it’s all over. The cop’s dead, I’m probably dead, the kid is definitely dead and it’s all over with. WHY DOESN’T ONE OF THESE TWO ASSHOLES
DO
SOMETHING?