The Emerald Cat Killer (23 page)

They headed farther up San Pablo, toward Richmond. Bobby dragged Red across the wide avenue at a traffic light near a freeway ramp. They sat together on a bus bench but the buses didn't stop as they passed. Just as well.
We're rich,
Bobby thought. He took one look inside his corrugated box and grinned happily, and then folded down the four cardboard rectangles to keep the box closed.
We're rich, except we don't have any money. Once we move the merchandise, though, we'll be set but good.

He got to his feet, pulled Red up beside him, walked her to the curb and put out his thumb.

*   *   *

Carolyn Horton left the Lexus in a commercial parking lot on Piedmont Avenue and walked the rest of the way to Kaiser Hospital. As she headed for Joseph's room she recognized Claudia Chen hurrying down the corridor. She called her name and Dr. Chen stopped and gave her an I-should-know-you-but-can't-remember look.

“I'm Carolyn Horton. My husband—”

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Horton.”

“Doctor, how is he? I came to visit.”

Dr. Chen took a minute to sort through the cases in her mind. “I'm a little worried, Mrs. Horton.”

“But you said … you said no vital organs were damaged. You said he would recover.”

“I still think so. I don't mean to alarm you.”

“But then … you're not telling me something, are you?”

Dr. Chen looked at her wristwatch. “I only have a minute. I'm expected in—never mind. Come over here. Sit down and I'll be as fast as I can.”

There was another of those waiting rooms where exotic fish distracted terrified family members, or tried to.

“Your husband has a concussion but not a severe one, and the knife wound could have been a lot worse than it was. That's the good news. The bad news is, apparently the knife wasn't very clean. We don't know exactly what kind of bacteria were on it, but there was something pretty nasty. You've heard of the staph epidemic and Mersa—”

“Mersa?”

“Methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. It's a particularly dangerous bacterium. It's very hard to treat and it can lead to septicemia. It's potentially fatal. Your husband is on massive doses of an antibiotic cocktail. Penicillin, ciprofloxacin, and clindamycin. Penicillin is one of our oldest antibiotics and it's still the medication of first choice. The others are much more recent, and they're two of our most powerful antibiotics.”

“Then he'll recover. He'll be all right.”

“We hope so.”

“Is he conscious? Can I see him?”

“I don't see why not.”

Carolyn Horton got to her feet. “Doctor, is this—” She couldn't find the word.

“Mersa.”

“Yes. Is it contagious? Will I get it?”

“Wash your hands thoroughly before you touch your husband and again afterward. You should be all right.”

Dr. Chen hurried away, almost running to her next meeting.

Carolyn Horton reached into her purse, came up with her cell phone, and placed a call. She ended the brief conversation with, “All right. Please hurry.” She went on to her husband's room. He was lying on his back, a bandage around his head and, she knew, another on the wound in his back.

He did not look good. His eyes were closed, his skin had a pallid appearance, and his breathing was ragged.

She washed her hands thoroughly, as Dr. Chen had instructed, using the antiseptic soap she found in the adjacent bathroom. She touched her husband on the shoulder, making contact only with his hospital gown and not his flesh. He stirred and made a vague sound. She shook him by the shoulder and he opened his eyes, looking puzzled.

Then his expression changed to one of recognition. “Carolyn?”

“I'm here, Joseph. How are you feeling?”

He took some time before answering the question. When he'd made up his mind he said, “Lousy. My back hurts, and my head hurts, and I just feel totally lousy. And what's this?” He looked up at the IV bottle that was feeding a steady drip into his arm.

“How's—” He paused and drew a deep breath. When he'd exhaled he started again. “How's Rebi?”

“I don't know, Joseph. I don't know where she is.”

“I thought … oh, I forgot. I was thinking.… They've got me on morphine, you know.”

“No, I didn't know that. I saw Dr. Chen. She says you're on antibiotics. I forget their names. Antibiotics. Everything sounds like science fiction. She didn't mention morphine.”

“Miserable stuff. It makes my mind … I can't think straight. What did you say, how's Rebi doing?”

“Joseph, you were the last one to see her. Don't you remember? You went looking for her and you claim that you saw her on MacArthur Boulevard before someone hit you from behind.”

For several minutes Joseph Horton didn't move. Carolyn wasn't sure whether he was processing what she'd just told him, or was simply in a morphine-induced fugue. She decided to push him a little.

“You took the Prius and you said you were going to look for her. You came down here to Oakland and you wound up in Kaiser.”

More silence, but then, “I remember. Yes. There was a police officer here and a district attorney. They threatened to arrest me as a child molester.”

“Thank heaven that didn't happen!”

“Is she safe?” he asked.

“I don't know, Joseph, but she's alive. At least I think she's alive. But that's what I want to talk to you about.”

The door swung open and a broad-shouldered individual limped into the room. “Mrs. Horton. Mr. Horton.” He offered a tentative smile.

“Mr. Jamison.”

“I came as soon as I could. I was on a stakeout. There was … well, never mind the details, it was sordid but it's a living. Anyway, I got a man in to take over. What can I do to help?”

Carolyn Horton nodded toward her husband. “He says he saw her.”

“Rebi? Really! Mr. Horton, what about that?”

Joseph Horton muttered something unintelligible.

Carolyn Horton said, “They've got him on morphine. I don't think he knows if he's awake or asleep.”

Kellen Jamison pursed his lips. “Maybe you could tell me, then.”

“He says he was looking for her on MacArthur. Over there somewhere.” She gestured vaguely toward the freeway.

“Hot-sheet row. All right. And then?”

“He claims he saw her. He parked the Prius and ran after her. She was with this … man, and—”

“Either a pimp or a john. Possibly an undercover cop. Did your husband get a good look at him?”

“Not much. He was concentrating on Rebi.”

“Not surprising. Perfectly understandable. And then?”

She told him the story.

Jamison rubbed his jaw with a callused hand. “What do you think, Mrs. Horton?”

“About his story? I don't know. He might be hallucinating. It might have been some other child who bore a resemblance to Rebi. Or it might have been her. What do you think, Mr. Jamison?”

He shook his head. “No way of telling. But it's a definite possibility. No question, it bears following up.”

“You think she might actually be staying in one of those horrible places?”

Jamison repeated his gesture. “She might have been but she certainly isn't now. After a violent incident and police involvement, that's the last place she'd be. It's possible that her pimp got her out of town. Or, more likely, he's got her hidden away in some safe place. Someplace that's as safe as he can get her.”

Carolyn Horton pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I don't know what to do now.”

“Mrs. Horton, that's what you've got me for. Now's the time to turn up the heat.”

SIXTEEN

Kellen Jamison stepped closer to Joseph Horton's bed.

“Don't touch him,” Carolyn Horton commanded.

“Is he conscious?”

“Never mind. We need to talk.”

They headed for a lounge. They sat on ugly plastic armchairs. Carolyn Horton said, “If he really saw Rebi, we may be able to find her.”

“I agree. Nothing else has worked very well. I've talked with the Berkeley police and I'm pretty sure that she has a male partner. If your husband really saw her on MacArthur, and I'm inclined to think that he did, then she's engaged in prostitution.”

Carolyn Horton clutched her purse tightly, her fingers whitening with stress. She bit her lip but did not interrupt Jamison.

“Her partner works as her procurer. That's what was going on the night your husband was attacked. But I've been doing some surveillance at the schools in Berkeley. There's a major trade in drugs there. Everything from the old standbys to the latest invention. But the biggest items are prescription drugs. Kids steal them from their parents, or they get prescriptions for themselves, and they peddle them to their classmates.”

“Rebi wouldn't do such a thing.”

“Mrs. Horton, you know the old saying, ‘Never say never.' Of course your little flower would do that. Given the right motivation, anybody will do anything. That's the way of the world. I was a San Francisco cop for twenty-two years, and believe me, I saw things that would curl your hair. Things I would never have imagined until I saw them with my own eyes.”

She opened her Versace purse and found a handkerchief. Kellen Jamison waited until she'd finished crying. She wiped her eyes and nose, and closed the purse on the handkerchief. “I should go and fix myself up,” she said.

“That can wait.”

“Mr. Jamison, for all the money my husband pays you, you haven't done much. You haven't found my daughter.”

“There are no guarantees in this business, Mrs. Horton. If you want me to stop I'll submit a final report and invoice. Just say the word.”

He got to his feet.

She clung to her Versace purse with one hand, clutched his wrist with the other. She noticed that he was wearing a cheap drugstore wristwatch and his white shirt-cuff was beginning to fray.

“No. No. We have to keep trying. You must tell me what to do. I want to help you find her.”

“All right. Here's the good news. If your husband really saw her in that hookers' parade, we know that she's alive and in the area. Or at least that she was within the past few days.”

Carolyn Horton managed a feeble smile.

“The bad news is that she's spooked now. She and her boyfriend, or partner, or pimp, or whatever you want to call him. So they've probably gone to ground. That's going to make it harder than ever to locate her.”

“But then, what can we do?”

“We go back to basics. She's probably not in a crack house. Not if she mixes pill-peddling with whoring.”

Carolyn Horton shuddered. “Do you have to use that ugly word?” Her breathing was rapid and shallow.

Kellen Jamison said, “I call it what it is. Now take a deep breath. We don't want you in a hospital bed, too!”

She forced herself to obey. “Thank you.”

“I have a couple of operatives looking for her. But you and I can start a little surveillance of our own. We start at the school where she'd most likely try to mingle with the kids and move her merchandise. A little foot patrol. If that doesn't work, we start moving in circles. We'll drive together, passenger and navigator. We'll be ripples in a pond, Mrs. Horton. Ripples in a pond.”

“All right, I want to see Joseph once more. Then we'll get the Lexus and start.”

But Joseph was gone from his room. The first medical worker Carolyn could stop directed her to the nearest nurses' station and the duty nurse told her that he was back in Intensive Care.

Kellen Jamison told her to go home when she'd finished her visit with her husband. He'd do the day's work, the foot patrol, alone. She was to rest. He would come by the house in the morning if nothing developed today, and they would perform what he called ripple surveillance.

*   *   *

“Rich and poor at the same time,” Bobby muttered.

Red couldn't make out what he was saying but she didn't want to ask him to repeat it. He got mad when she did that and she didn't want to make him mad.

She knew she'd feel better if she had a jolt, and she knew that the corrugated box that Bobby was holding was full of what she needed, full of enough jelly beans to keep her high and happy for a very long time. She wanted to ask Bobby to let her have a jolt right then. What would he say? She'd helped him at the Ruby Red Pup, she'd distracted Morty and helped Bobby make Morty give them what they wanted.

At least that was what she thought had happened in the storeroom at the Pup. It had all happened so fast, she'd been so confused, and she really needed a jolt. Something else had happened, she thought. She held up her hands and looked at them. Her parents would have approved, they were so clean. But how had she got so clean? Her clothes were damp, drying out in the sunlight. How had they got wet?

“Bobby,” she said. “Bobby, I need a jolt. Don't we have any in that box? A jelly bean, that's all they really are. They're just candy. Just a couple of them to make me feel better.”

Before he could reply a car pulled to the curb. Bobby looked at it. The same Beamer ragtop that they'd ridden in once before. It was really designed for two people, but Red was so skinny she hardly took up any room and Bobby wasn't much bigger around than she was. They could share a seat and click the shoulder belt over both of them.

There was the same dude who'd given them the ride. And there was that funny vanity plate, BMRMEUP. “Hey, kids, need another lift?”

They piled into the car. Bobby asked the dude how his visit to Santy had gone and they all had a laugh.

The guy was really nice. He asked where they were going and when Bobby told him Acton Street in Berkeley, he swung down University, cut over to Acton, and dropped them off. Bobby thanked him, Red wasn't talking, and they climbed the stairs from the musty lobby of the Van Buren to their room.