The Timer Game (7 page)

And know I love you!

All the day!”

“That was fast today,” Katie said wistfully.

Grace was silent, thinking about how she still had to tell her daughter what had happened, how her instinct was to delay. “Come on, sweetie, maybe you can practice at breakfast.”

_____

“Okay, so the front page is the section you don’t want to read,” Jeanne said. She turned to a new section. “Oh, and also Metro. You can skip right over that part today.”

Grace shot her a look.

“Why?” Katie asked. She looked up from her bowl, where she had been picking out all the letter
M’s
and putting them in a soggy row on the table.

Grace reached for a hairbrush on the counter and moved behind her. “Tip your head.”

“Why doesn’t Mommy want to read the front page or Metro, either?” Katie said more loudly. Grace brushed through a golden tangle, snapping a tie around Katie’s ponytail.

“You want to practice now? Pretend you’re holding Yin up in front of the class?”

Jeanne glanced pointedly at the kitchen clock. She was wearing a blue muumuu that matched her vivid blue eyes. Her eyebrows rose in penciled wings that waggled, giving Grace the clear message that time was passing and she had a job to do. Katie was absorbed in the soggy cereal, oblivious.

“I’ll tell everybody Jeanne did it. She’s a scientist and she did it.”

“Was,” Jeanne corrected. She reached across the table and snapped a dead leaf off an iris. She’d brought a bouquet the night before. Jeanne’s home overlooked a canyon and she cultivated flowers in her backyard.

Part of what Grace had learned from her sponsor during the three years they’d been paired in AA was the names of flowers. The other part was more subtle, and had to do with how to live life. Grace was working on not beating herself up so much. She’d never drunk when she was pregnant, no matter how bad the flashbacks; that was the big one. But she was still working on facing things head-on. She had no idea how she was going to tell Katie.

“And it didn’t hurt them,” Katie said.

“No,” Jeanne said.

“Okay, pretend I’m holding Yin.” Katie stroked a finger down an imaginary back. “See, we each carry these things inside—these fighter things…” She looked to Jeanne for help.

“T cells.”

“Right. And they’re like commandos, like Rambo or something, and they fight with everything they think’s bad. So…” She stopped, her knowledge exhausted.

“So what happened was,” Jeanne picked up the thread, “scientists figured out a way to make it be okay.” She hesitated and cut a quick look at Grace. “Your mom actually did this kind of thing when she was a doctor.”

Grace froze over the paper, waiting, always waiting for Katie to ask why: why she’d quit doctoring. Jeanne shot her a look of apology, a shrug, a
what was I thinking?
look.

Katie beamed at her mother, oblivious, and crowed, “But now she does CSI, like on TV.”

Jeanne’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s right. So. This little guy started out brown. And Yang, the one in the cage—”

“He bites, that’s why we left him there. He’s the all-white one,” Katie said.

“Usually, you can’t take white fur and put it on a gerbil that’s brown.”

“They’d fight,” Katie said. “Not gerbils. Those fighter things. Those T things.”

Jeanne nodded. “So we figured out a way to fool the brown fur into thinking the white fur was okay. It’s called ‘breaking the immunity barrier’ and it’s a pretty big deal.”

Katie grinned and Jeanne reached across the table and gave her a high-five.

“Great, you did great,” Grace said. She hesitated and took a sip of coffee. “Honey, you know how we had to leave Party Saver yesterday?”

Katie’s eyes warily shot up. “You want to put the treat in my shoe?”

Grace took the curled balloon off the table, lifted Katie’s feet easily onto her lap and pried apart a tiny pocket on the shoe. There were two secret pockets on each shoe, flat and sealed with Velcro, where Katie liked to stash emergency treats. Grace reached in and pulled out a dime.

“Something bad happened yesterday. At work.”

She felt a small tremor run through Katie’s foot. She sealed the dime back up and opened the next pocket. Bubblegum. She closed the pocket and opened one on the other shoe. It was empty. She rolled the small pink balloon and stuffed it carefully into the pocket, sealing the Velcro, taking her time.

“That’s why I got the bruise. I’m fine. That’s the thing. I’m okay.”

Katie’s eyes dilated to almost black. Grace knew it was Katie’s oldest fear, losing the only parent she’d ever known.

“A man hurt some people—”

“No! I won’t hear!” She clamped her hands against her ears.

“—and Mommy ended up having to hurt him.”

“NO!” Katie scrambled out of her seat and flung herself into Grace’s lap, her small arms tight. Grace held her and could feel her heart beat.

“Don’t talk. Don’t.”

“I won’t. But somebody might at school. That’s why I brought it up.”

“What happened?”

Here it was. In a perfect world, no terrified kids ran screaming out of schools, no splintered car bombs mangled babies, no planes crashing into buildings crumpling into a blue sky.

“Some people died yesterday.”

“Oh.” It was a wail, low and heartrending.

“Mommy’s fine.”

“Daddy died.”

“It wasn’t like that, honey.”

“No, no,” Katie moaned. “Daddy died. You can’t die, you can’t.”

Grace murmured over and over like a song, a prayer, “It’s okay, Katie, it’s okay, everything’s fine, Mommy’s fine, nothing bad’s going to happen.”

Another lie.

Chapter 6

Grace stopped at the post office on Canon and mailed Katie’s letter, feeling a sharp stab of anxiety. Katie should have nothing more important to worry about than holding Yin by his neck so he didn’t nip her during Show and Tell, not thinking about whether something terrible would happen to her mother.

He’s coming for you.

Not if Grace could find him first.

The vehicle-processing storage facility was across from Lindbergh Field on Aerodrive. Grace parked, identified herself to the guard on duty, and told him what she needed.

“Can’t miss it. It’s outside around back.”

The taco van was wrapped in a tent of visqueen supported by a wooden frame. It was a mideighties modified Volkswagen, originally dark blue, layered with grime and paint. She caught the reek of stove grease and Super Glue.

“Grace.” Paul stepped around the van, gripping a bologna sandwich. “You okay?”

“Little shaky. Nice.” She surveyed the tent. “Christo should be worried.”

“He is,” Paul said mildly. “Looks just like the Reichstag after he wrapped it in silver fabric, only smaller and cheesier.”

He took a bite of sandwich and his eyes went to the bruise on her jaw.

“It’s taking what? Twenty pouches to print it?” The police Super Glue came in foil pouches, simple to use, but costly on something this big.

“Nah, the bean counters wouldn’t approve that, even on this one. I got creative. Used aluminum pie pans at each corner with a couple of vaporizers and squeezed out Super Glue I bought at Staples. Everybody wins.”

“Yeah, right, except Eddie Loud.”

“Hey, he’s the whacked-out bad guy, Grace. Not you.”

Looking at the tent made her realize what Paul wasn’t saying. How much the department was putting into processing this one. And the reason why.

“Not many senators’ sons drive taco vans and wind up dead.”

“You can play this one through any way you want, Grace, but it’s still going to stink. We should have good prints by late afternoon.”

“What do you expect to find?”

“At this point? I’m not sure.” His jowls sagged and his eyes drooped, his usual look after a good night’s sleep. “I heard the first toxes from the ME said Loud was cranked.”

“Makes sense.” Grace had a flash of Eddie’s jangly energy. “Mind if I take a look?”

“Have at it. There is something you might find interesting.” Paul put down his sandwich and positioned his face against the cloudy plastic, looking through the window into the dim interior. Grace squinted next to him. She made out vague shapes, open chip bags, the stove. Soft white particles dusted the grill and cabinets.

“What am I looking at?”

Paul pointed at something through the filmy visqueen and Grace took another look.

“The kitchen timer? Is that it?” It was a small white timer with big black numbers, sitting on the counter next to an open bag of taco shells. Grace had used an almost identical one that morning playing the Timer Game.

Paul shook his head. “No, that.”

She still didn’t see it.

“Loud was wired.” Paul pulled a Dr Pepper out of his jacket and drank.

“Wired. What are you talking about?”

“Right out of the Spy Shop Catalog
.
A tiny video cam attached to his shirt button. We think from the setup, there was a mixer right there on the counter, and I don’t mean the Martha Stewart kind.” He pointed. “Whoever was in here left behind a connector cable.”

“You think somebody was in here? Recording this?”

Paul shrugged. “Too soon to say. Eddie Loud’s minicam button in his shirt could turn out to be a prop, not real, not with a signal transmitting what was recorded.”

He took another swig of his drink.

“Or it’s out there, in cyberspace, the killings.” She stared at Paul, her gaze troubled.

“You okay?” he asked again.

“He said my name, Paul, right before he tried to kill me. He warned me about somebody called the Spikeman who was coming to get me.”

“We don’t know yet what we have here,” Paul reminded her. He finished the sandwich and drained the can, crushing it and tucking it into the pocket of his brown polyester jacket.

A short fat man rounded the building, moving like his hip joints were killing him. His shiny bald head caught the light and for a second, Grace saw the taco van reflected like a miniature hologram. Tan work pants ballooned over a huge belly, cinched with suspenders the colors of a Portuguese flag: green, red, yellow. He was scowling and waving his fists.

“Oh, shit. I told the guard not to let this guy in.”

The man was yelling in a torrent of Portuguese, fury mottling his face.

“Calm down, Mr. Esguio.” Paul moved forward cautiously, his palms raised and flat.

“Calm down!” Esguio cried in English. “You have stolen my van! My work! How can I calm down when you have stolen my van and won’t give it back!”

“Okay, Mr. Esguio, I know you’re upset—”

Esguio lunged toward Paul and shoved him backward. They grappled. It was like watching a strongman contest where the leading contestant was charged with pushing a semi. Paul skidded a half step back, losing ground as Esguio moaned and smacked a hand to his heart and flopped forward. Paul managed to brace himself and catch Esguio before he toppled.

“Oh, my God,” Paul said. “He’s having a heart attack. Is he okay? Ask him.”

Grace asked him in rapid-fire Portuguese. Esguio cracked open an eye and answered, his voice pitiful. His eyes were the same dark brown as hers, making him look vaguely familial. He was as old as her aunts. They probably all went to school together. Dated. Divorced each other at least once.

“What’s he saying?”

“He wants to know how long you’re keeping the van.”

“About his health.”

“He’s fine.”

“The van,” Esguio prodded. Paul tipped him to his feet.

“Try two or three years,” Paul said. “He’s okay, though, right? You okay?”

“Two or three years!” Esguio moaned in English.

“You should have thought of that before getting a killer to drive it,” Paul said. “Did you even check Eddie’s license? Did Eddie even have a license?”

“Now listen here,” Esguio bristled.

Grace laid a hand on his arm and smiled winningly at him. “How about I take you out for breakfast. Would you like that, sir?”

Esguio stiffened with pride and yanked his arm free. He started moving through the cars and Grace fell into step next to him.

“Wait.” Paul trotted after them. “Mr. Esguio. Sir. You can’t go with her. You’re not supposed to tell anybody anything.”

“Paul.” Grace stopped, her voice reasonable. “Say for a second maybe there was a TV-remote setup in there. Was there audio and video equipment in your taco van, Mr. Esguio?”

“What?”

“TV stuff. To take pictures.”

“No TV. Just a grill and a refrigerator. What are you talking about?”

She turned back to Paul. “Say there was a TV-remote setup. Say Eddie really
was
trying to warn me. That means somebody very bad might be after me. And if he is, Eddie’s made it clear the bad guy doesn’t have plans to invite me to his mother’s house for dinner either, unless she lives in the Bates Motel. So if Mr. Esguio can help me find the bad guy first, before he finds me and kills me—and that could be the plan here, Paul, to kill me—that’s good. Works for me.”

Mr. Esguio looked from Paul to Grace. His chins moved like a hula dancer.

“I could use a cup of coffee. Decaf.”

Chapter 7

Esguio tapped three pills into his hand and swallowed them dry. “Thyroid, heart. Cholesterol. Take my advice. Never get old.”

“I'll remember that.”

They sat in a vinyl booth at the back of Denny’s on Rosecrans, a couple of blocks from where Esguio said he lived. Grace ordered French toast; Esguio stuck with coffee. He had wide lips and took small sips of air as he talked, as if breathing was hard work.

"Descanso. You one of Francisco Descanso's grandkids?"

"You knew my grandfather?"

"Sure. Everybody knew him. Terrible thing, what happened to his son."

Grace blinked and looked away.

She could feel his face change. She should have expected it. Esguio was Portuguese. Of course he’d know about her father. Back then everybody Portuguese lived in a tight community in Point Loma, fished on boats passed down to their sons.

"Must have been, what? Thirty years ago?"

"Twenty-one. I was eleven when he washed overboard."