The Lost Witness (14 page)

But Lena wasn’t really thinking about the money anymore.

She was playing back her telephone conversation with Lieutenant Barrera in her head. The one she’d had after leaving Fontaine’s office last night. The one that included a brief
description of the messenger who walked into Parker Center with the package from the witness. The kid in the leather jacket wearing a Dodger cap, who didn’t ask the cops at the front desk to
sign a log book and didn’t bother to leave a receipt.

She studied the monitor, watching their witness work the keyboard and rip off the cash. His head was lowered, his face partially concealed by the bill of his cap. He knew where the camera was,
and he knew that he was committing a crime. Still, she could see enough of his mouth and chin to know that he was young. Eighteen or nineteen with long dark hair. She could see enough to know that
it was him.

N
athan G. Cava strode down the long row of cars
in his suit and tie, worrying that maybe Vinny Bing the Cadillac King had
been the wrong choice in a dealership. He could feel a punk salesman tagging along, nipping at his ankles like a stray dog. And something was going on in the main showroom. He hadn’t been
inside yet, but he could see some sort of commotion through the glass and sensed that there was a problem.

He glanced back at the salesman—the mealymouthed man jabbering away on autopilot—and regretted giving the idiot his name.

He had chosen Vinny Bing’s dealership because it was on the south side of town. Poor people lived here, and he hoped that he might get a better deal. He already knew which car he wanted.
An SRX Crossover. Not as big as his beloved Hummer, but enough car to feel at home in. He particularly liked the size of the sunroof. The retractable glass extended from front to back, taking up
most of the roof of the car. Cava thought it might come in handy for surveillance work. Still, he would be sorry to see the Hummer go. It was almost new, and he liked the way it drove. The fact
that people got out of his way and left him an open road. Even those creeps in their BMWs.

Cava continued his march down the aisle, ignoring the salesman. He knew the car he wanted, but couldn’t decide on the color. In the best of all worlds he would have chosen black. But for
someone in his line of work, he thought that it might be safer to go with something less stark. Something that would blend a little better in the neighborhood. He had narrowed his choice down to
two, and as he continued walking, he spotted them parked side by side.

He stopped and gave the two cars a long look, then turned to the salesman and waved his hand in a call for immediate silence.

“What color is that car?” he asked.

“Oh, you’ve picked a good one, sir. That’s an SRX, and it’s priced just right. It’s on sale today. If you buy it in the next hour you’ll save even
more.”

“What color is it?”

“We call that one ‘Light Platinum.’ And it’s the best.”

Cava pointed to the second car. “What color’s that one?”

“That’s ‘Radiant Bronze.’ You couldn’t make a better choice, Mr. Cava. It’s the best.”

“How can two cars be the best?”

“They’re all the best. That’s all we sell here. Just name your price and I’ll run it by Vinny—simple as that. Want the keys? Let’s test her out.”

Cava turned and looked down at the salesman. He was dressed in a ratty suit and his wrinkled shirt needed a hot iron.

“I don’t want a test drive. I want the car and I want it in Radiant Bronze. Now, go get Vinny.”

“We need to do this inside, Mr. Cava. We’ve got a deal room.”

Cava paused a moment. He didn’t know what a “deal room” was.

“I’m okay with that,” he said finally. “But I don’t work with a translator. If you want the deal, bring Vinny.”

“Okay, okay. But don’t come in until I give you the signal.”

The man winked at him, then cantered ahead and disappeared into the showroom. Cava didn’t get it. But then, he hadn’t understood anything the man had been saying for the past ten
minutes.

He started walking toward the showroom, worrying again. Thinking that maybe he should head back to the Hummer and bolt. Take his chances that he wouldn’t get stopped. The witness probably
saw his face and knew that he drove a Hummer, but that’s as far as it would go. No one had his plate numbers because he had taken the precaution of lifting a temporary set from the C Lot over
at Los Angeles International Airport earlier that night, then switched back.

He could split right now and take his chances. But was it worth the risk?

He held out his hands and realized that they were trembling. Not enough that anyone would notice, but not rock steady, either. Not kill steady. He heard the salesman call out his name and looked
up.

The little guy was holding the showroom door open and waving at him. Cava guessed that this was
the signal.

He took a deep breath and stepped through the door. Heard Ray Charles singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” Saw the bright lights hanging from the ceiling, and a man moving in
from the right with a video camera. A second camera was pointed across the room at a man with a grotesque smile slowly descending a staircase from the management offices on the second floor.

Cava tried to keep cool and focused in spite of the confusion. The man making his runway entrance down the stairs was wearing some sort of weird costume. At first, Cava thought that he might be
dressed up as Santa Claus or maybe even the Burger King. But after a while he put the scene together with the cameras and music and decided that the bizarre-looking jerk was just Vinny Bing, the
Cadillac King.

Cava turned to the camera in his face and covered the lens with his right hand. When the cameraman tried to pull away, he tightened his grip on the lens. Then, a kid in jeans and a T-shirt ran
over and started hyperventilating in his ear.

“Be cool, man. You’re on the show.”

“What show?”

“Vinny’s show. We’re shooting the second season. We’re on cable TV, man.”

Cava met the prick’s eyes, ready to snap the lens off the camera. “This is
live?”

“No. It won’t be on until next year. The season starts in January. Not this coming January, the next one. If you wanna make the cut, you gotta be cool. You cool?”

Cava’s eyes swept across the showroom as he thought it over. He spotted the tent pitched in the middle of the floor—the neon sign that read let’s do da deal blinking over the
entrance. The king was still working that staircase, his smile growing from cheek to cheek with each new step. A year from now and Cava would be the invisible man living thousands of miles away. No
one would be looking for him anymore. Still, he wondered if this might not be a hallucination, or even a side effect from taking that sleeping pill last night and waking up too soon. Either way,
unloading the Hummer had become a fucking nightmare.

“I’m cool,” he said.

“Then let go of the camera and shake Vinny’s hand.”

Cava released his grip, ignoring the angry look on the cameraman’s face. After another deep breath, he crossed the showroom floor. The king had hit ground level and was approaching him
now. As Cava moved closer, he noticed the letters VB dangling from the king’s necklace. The letters were two inches high and encrusted with diamonds. The king extended a weak hand and Cava
shook it.

“My name’s Vinny Bing, the Cadillac King. I heard you want an SRX Crossover in Radiant Bronze.” The king turned his head, looked into the camera, and flashed a TV smile.
“Let’s do da deal.”

People started clapping. Salesmen standing at their desks and the video crew. Cava didn’t say anything, noting the cheap rings on Bing’s fingers and sizing up the man as they entered
the deal tent. That speck of ketchup on the side of his mouth filled out the profile pretty good. His read was so clear that it felt like it came right out of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Vinny
Bing was an overweight, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing motherfucker in his early thirties. A first citizen from Generation Over and Out. Generation Done. One of the eighty percent crew who had
given up the use of utensils and ate all three meals with their hands. Given up reading in favor of watching and consuming until their brains turned into guacamole and a bowl of broken tortilla
chips with too much salt.

Both video cameras followed them into the tent, along with a short, round man holding a boom mike. Bing moved behind the desk and sat down on what looked like a toy throne. Then the irritating
salesman who had been hounding Cava ran in and handed Bing a spec sheet on the car.

“Where we at?” Bing said, smacking his lips. “Whatta we gots?”

Cava watched the king’s eyes glide over his name on the sheet of paper. After a moment, he tossed it aside, pulled his pad and pen closer, and batted his eyes at the camera like he was
ready to do big business.

“Okay,” he said. “Customer Cava wants the SRX Crossover in Radiant Bronze. Are we talkin’ about the V6 economy package, or the four point six Northstar V8? With the eight
you get three hundred and twenty horses under the hood and feel like you’re in a rocket ship.”

“I want the rocket ship,” Cava said.

Bing smiled at the camera again. “Sweet,” he said. “I like this guy. He’s the quiet type, but I like him anyhow.”

Then Bing cupped his left hand and jotted down a number on the pad so only he and the camera could see it. He tore off the sheet, folding it over and passing it across the desk.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “A special price ’cause you’re Vinny Bing’s special friend. And I’m gonna give you even more. Just say the word and the king
throws in the Convenience Package, the Driver’s Package, even the Seating Package. I don’t care because it’s Christmas. I’m throwing it all in for free.”

Cava unfolded the paper and glanced at the secret number—well aware that the three packages went with the V8 and were part of the base price. He had test-driven the car at the auto strip
in Glendale, researched the numbers on the Web, and knew exactly what Vinny Bing had paid for the car. The king was beginning to smell a lot like a grifter.

“What about the sunroof?” Cava said. “How ’bout throwing that in, too?”

Bing laughed. “That sunroof’s part of the Luxury Premium Pack. It’s an ultra-view.”

“But I thought we were friends.”

Bing paused a moment. “Your name’s Nathan, right?”

Cava nodded, his eyes pinned on the grifter. “Nathan G. Cava.”

“What’s the G stand for?”

“Good.”

“Anyone ever write a song about you?”

“Not yet.”

Bing laughed again. “Well we can still be friends, Nathan. But it’s gonna cost you an extra five K.”

Cava did the math. The package went for forty-two hundred, not 5K. The king wanted to steal another eight hundred dollars.

“What if we’re talking cash,” he said.

“Then we’re friends again, Nathan. Real good friends. Let’s do the deal while everybody’s watching. Let’s show ’em the cash.”

Unloading the Hummer had become more than just another L.A. media nightmare. It had been painful. The back-and-forth bullshit lasted for more than an hour, so long that the
shake in his hands was visible now. Even the king had mentioned it when the cameras shut down.

Cava exited the Financial Services office and followed the salesman out to his Hummer so he could collect his things. He had paid the balance between the two cars in hundred-dollar bills.
Although he regretted having to buy another car so soon, he could afford the additional expense. Between the cash he’d found buried in the Iraqi desert and the money he would receive from his
three-part Hollywood deal, Cava would be set for life.

It would be a modest life. Not like the generals who said they were looking for Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, the ones who always knew that they weren’t there and were really
searching for the man’s cash. Not like his superior officers who were loading coffin after coffin with greenbacks by the millions and shipping them home with tears of joy dripping down their
cheeks. But enough to lay on a beach somewhere. Enough to keep medicated and to spend the rest of his life trying to forget old memories and create new ones.

Coronaville.

Cava hit the door locks on his key ring and walked ahead of the salesman. As he emptied the glove box into his briefcase, he tried to ignore the smell of the leather seats. Tried not to look at
the teched-out dashboard and stainless-steel gear shift. All the things he loved about the car. He reached over the passenger seat and cleared out the center compartment. He worked as quickly as he
could, aware that his hands were shaking so hard he came off like a drunk. When he finished, he scanned the interior and spotted his Ray-Bans clipped to the sun visor. Slipping them over his eyes,
he stepped back and handed the salesman his keys.

It felt more like a funeral than anything else. Watching the little guy in the cheap suit get behind the wheel of his baby and start her up. Listening to the machine purr. Facing the reality
that his road-warrior days were over.

The salesman turned to him and laughed. “Hey, this thing’s got less than seven thousand miles. How come you unloaded it?”

He called it a
thing.
Cava bit his lip.

“Doctor’s orders,” he said. “High blood pressure. I’m tired of people flipping me the bird.”

The salesman laughed and shot him a look like he was crazy. Then Cava snapped shut the passenger door and watched the Hummer pull off into the bright sunlight. When it disappeared behind the
building, he slipped off his shades, shouldered his briefcase, and trudged back into the building. The king was making another entrance, working that staircase again. This time the victim was a
sixteen-year-old girl standing beside her father. They looked like innocents. Grifter bait mesmerized by all the lights and cameras. Cava felt sorry for them.

He checked his watch. His new wheels wouldn’t be ready for another fifteen minutes. When he glanced inside the waiting room and found it empty, he walked over to the couch in front of the
TV, opened his briefcase, and fished out his daily planner. Paging through the week, he made an effort to settle down and focus on his medication schedule. He kept meticulous records because he had
to. He had been on the Iraqi version of the zone diet ever since he hit the desert.