Hot Wire

by Carson, Gary

  A station wagon was backing out of a space in front of Denny's. The driver hit his brakes and I just missed him, banging on my horn and yelling out the window. I bounced over a speed bump and checked the rearview. The tow truck had turned around, stopping to pick up the loco, but I knew I could outrun them if I made the highway. They hadn't expected to find me like that. If they had, they wouldn't have brought the heavy truck with the Deacon logo all over the side panels.

  Their lights fell back on the access road to the highway. I made 580 and headed south towards Berkeley and Oakland, hitting ninety in the cruise lane, easing off to hide in front of a bus, changing lanes again, checking the mirrors. The Nissan rattled and pulled to the right, its engine banging like it was about to blow a gasket. After a mile or two, the tow truck had vanished in a swarm of headlights. There was still a lot of traffic for one in the morning.

  I took the Gilman Street exit, jumped a red light at the foot of the ramp, then drove ten blocks to San Pablo and headed back to the north, circling through the neighborhoods until I was alone again. Ten minutes later, I parked on a side street a couple blocks from Solano in Albany, turned off the engine, and slouched down in the front seat to wait for daybreak.

  #

  Stucco houses lined the street, their porch lights glowing behind windmill palms and oak trees in the weedy yards. A dog yapped somewhere. The cooling engine ticked. Closing my eyes, I felt like one of those deep-water fish, half-blind and luminous, hiding way down in the dark.

  Noon tomorrow, Deacon had said. Herb don't want to handle it like this, but I talked him into holding off...

  Deacon had lied. Maybe. He had contacts at Pac Bell who must've traced my call back to the pay phone, but that didn't mean he wanted to clip me. He'd probably radioed the tow truck and told them to check out the motel, but Castel had been driving the truck and he worked for Heberto, not Deacon. So maybe Heberto had given Castel some extra instructions.

  Whatever had happened, Jacobo must've told them I'd cut a deal with the feds. Maybe Deacon and Heberto were arguing about what to do with me. Maybe not. One way or another, Heberto's crew was looking for me now. So were Baldy and Crewcut. So was the Task Force. And Matthews was trying to use me for bait.

  That's all I knew for sure.

  I drifted off for a while, but I didn't sleep too hot, waking up every time a car passed on the street. The clouds flickered off to the west – a storm building over the Pacific. The wind picked up, shaking the palms and chasing trash across the sidewalk. It got colder. The air smelled like rain. I had these weird dreams, but when I woke up, I couldn't remember anything about them. I lay down on the front seat and crashed out again.

  Something woke me up an hour later. My watch read three in the morning and I lay there for a couple of minutes, staring at the reflections on the dash and listening to the sounds of the street. The wind rose and fell, stirring the trees and hedges. A train whistled. Railcars clattered in the distance. Then the wind died down and I heard the sound of an engine running on idle – right outside my door.

  I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

  A tire crunched gravel and twigs. There was a muffled burst of static, then the wind rose again and a light drizzle started to patter the roof and windshield. I rolled over on my back and tried to make out the sounds below the rain. A bug with dozens of legs crawled across my stomach and wormed its way up to my throat.

  Nothing happened for a while, then I thought I heard another noise outside. It sounded like a car pulling away, but I couldn't tell for sure. I rolled over on my side, trying to see the outside mirror without showing my face, but the angle made it impossible. Hunched against the door, I risked a glance out the window.

  Nothing.

  I sat up just enough to see over the dash. The street looked empty. Nothing had changed. Then I spotted the patrol car sitting at the end of the block. The cops had double-parked by the intersection with their lights off, but I could just make out the dark cherries on the roof and I could see a faint glow inside the car – the LEDs on their radio, maybe. They were just sitting there, watching the street or waiting for something to happen. Maybe they were a regular patrol. Maybe not.

  Ten minutes later, they turned the corner and drove away. I sat up for another hour, watching the street, but if they came back again, I didn't see them.

  #

  Dawn broke damp and cloudy.

  A garbage truck hissed on the corner a block away. Dumpsters banged and clattered. Drizzle spattered the windshield and trickled through the vents, dripping on my sleeve.

  I checked my watch. Six in the morning. A ceiling of gray and black clouds had rolled in during the night and a thick fog had wiped out the neighborhood. This rain could last for days.

  I started the engine and drove off to find a pay phone. The rain picked up, banging on the roof of the car and fogging the windshield. I pulled into a grocery store on Solano, bought some coffee and rolls, then called my apartment from a phone booth in the parking lot and checked my answering machine. More hang-ups – somebody had called four times in the middle of the night. I dug through my wallet for the scrap of paper with Brown's phone number and stared at it for a while, trying to decide if I should call him or blow him off. Maybe he knew something. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was just digging for another story.

  Brown knew Vincent, so I called the old man at his home in Emeryville. While I was waiting for him to answer, I remembered that he had some guns for sale: hot Glocks from that dealer job in Richmond. He had told me about it Saturday night – two nights ago. It felt like a couple decades.

  Vincent's phone rang for a long time – he didn't have an answering machine – but he finally picked up, sounding groggy and pissed off.

  "Yeah? What is it?"

  "Vincent." I kept my voice down. "Sorry if I woke you up."

  "Emma?" He coughed and cleared his throat. "You know what time it is? And don't tell me there's a problem at the Hot Box. That's the last thing I need right now."

  He didn't know what had happened.

  "Everything's fine," I said. "I wanted to talk to you about that reporter Brown. He called me last night."

  "Brownie? What the hell's he want?"

  "No idea." I didn't know what to say. "Some story, I guess. For that rag he works for. That's what he said, anyway, but you know the guy. What's his deal? I got some crap going on and I don't like him sniffing around. Is he just some drunk or what?"

  "He's smarter than he looks." A cup or saucer clinked in the background. "I met him a year ago at that dump I worked in down by the harbor. Before I got the Hot Box. It was this bar and grill had to bribe the health inspectors every year, but it did OK most of the time. We got a lot of trade from the Port workers."

  "Yeah, but do you trust him?"

  "Trust him? Hell. The guy's down and out, but he always pays his tab and he hates the cops even more than I do. He's the only reporter I ever met outside of court, but he's mostly just a bum. Knows everybody, though. Contacts all over the city." Vincent snorted. "When I met him, he was doing a story about those chinks smuggling illegals through the Port. Remember that? Just sealed them up in containers and shipped them off to America, except a bunch of them died of thirst or something on the way over. Big mess when they found them, but you know it's still going on."

  "Does he work for that NewsWire deal?"

  "Hell, I can't remember." A lighter scratched on the other end of the line and he coughed into the phone. "The NewsWire. Yeah. The Berkeley NewsWire. One of them Lefty rags. He writes about crime stuff: police brutality, sex scandals, business scams, crap like that. If some politician gets popped in a vice raid, Brownie's all over it." Vincent took a sip of whatever he was drinking and smacked his lips. "Told me he used to cover politics for one of those big papers in D.C., but he got canned for some reason – doesn't like to talk about it." He snorted. "Drunk again, most likely. He's OK, I guess, not that I ever trusted reporters. Bunch of blow-dried whores for city hall and doing good
to get their own names right, you ask me."

  "OK, Vincent. Thanks."

  It wasn't much to go on.

  "Just call later next time," he said. "And be careful."

  I told him I would. He was a nice old coot for all his bluster.

  "One more thing," I said, making up my mind.

  "Yeah?" He coughed again. "What's that?"

  "You still got those things for sale? The ones you told me about a couple nights ago?"

  "Sure do," he said. "You in the market?"

  "Yeah, but I might need some credit." I checked my watch. "Can I drop by in a couple hours?"

  "Any time," he said. "I'll be here all day."

  I hung up and took a drink of coffee, spacing on the rain and traffic. My hands trembled a little. I felt wired and burned out, too fried to think straight, but I had to make a decision and I was running out of time. I figured I had a day or two before Matthews got tired of his game or Heberto caught up with me or Baldy and Crewcut tracked me down again, so I had to decide if I was going to book or stick around. I didn't know what to do, but one thing was pretty clear:

  After last night, I needed a piece.

  #

  "Berkeley NewsWire," a chick answered when I called to make sure Brown actually worked for them. I could hear office sounds in the background – phones ringing, voices, fingers tapping on keyboards – but they could have been a tape recording for all I knew.

  "I need to talk to Adam Brown," I said, keeping an eye on the street. The rain had died down and traffic hissed through the fog, kicking up spray on Solano.

  "Mr. Brown is one of our stringers." The chick knew him, all right. She spit out his name like a scrap of gristle. "He doesn't work in this office."

  "What's a stringer?"

  "A freelance reporter," she said. "Would you like to leave a message? He has voice-mail here."

  I hung up, staring at the phone. Brown worked for this NewsWire rag, but that didn't tell me jack. For all I knew, he was fronting for the cops or Matthews or even Heberto, trying to lure me out so they could grab me or pick up my trail again. I thought I'd lost them, but there was no way to know for sure. Watching the traffic slice through the puddles on the street, I called Brown's number and got ready to run if the wrong car pulled into the lot.

  "Adam Brown." He picked up right away.

  "This is Emma Martin." No point in keeping it a secret. If somebody was listening, they'd recognize my voice, and if Pac Bell had a trace on his phone, they already knew my location. "What do you want?"

  There was a long pause.

  "Emma...you got my message." He sounded like he'd been caught off guard. "Where are you? Give me your number and I'll call you back. The battery's almost dead in this cell phone."

  "Forget it." I checked my watch. "You've got thirty seconds to tell me why I should want to talk to you."

  "I can save your life. That's why."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  Headlights passed in the fog. An old man in a tan slicker crossed the street, glanced in my direction, then walked into the grocery store.

  "Not on the phone." Brown had a smoker's rasp and he came off jumpy, but he sounded sober enough. "We need to set up a meeting. Anywhere you want, but we've got to be careful."

  "You're out of time." I scanned the street and sidewalk. "What do you want?"

  "An interview. Off the record."

  "Not a chance."

  "You're in over your head, Emma." He lowered his voice. "You got caught in the middle of something, but it's not what you think. They killed that stripper in your apartment and they'll find you again, sooner or later."

  That gave me a shock.

  "Where'd you get this stuff?" My hands were sweating. "I don't know any strippers." The cops must've told him about Steffy.

  "I can help you," he went on. "I saw you at the station, all right? I know that fed you talked to and I know the guy who was in your car when you got arrested. I know who they are, anyway." He was talking fast now, trying to keep me on the line. "This is big. The biggest. I used to work in D.C. and I still keep in touch, OK? I think this is related to a story I was working on a couple years ago."

  "What're you talking about?"

  "It's bad news, believe me. All these factions are colliding around your case, but I can help you if I can find out what they're looking for. It's something you saw, maybe. Something you have, but you don't know it. Talking to me is your only chance to get out of this."

  "How? How's that help me?"

  "They'll back off if their op goes public."

  "What the hell does that mean?"

  "Not on the phone," he said. "They'll abort their operation if the story gets out, but I've got to talk to you first. I know part of it and you know the rest. Talk to me off the record and I can blow this wide open without bringing your name into it. Getting it out in the open's your only chance." He hesitated. "You can trust me, Emma. I'm doing hack work now, but I used to be the real thing and I never reveal my sources. Just ask around. Last year, I spent a month in the Alameda County Jaill because I wouldn't give up a source to the Grand Jury. You'll get the same protection."

  Protection. Right. I was about to hang up when I thought of something.

  "You know that fed Matthews?" I asked.

  "Yeah," he said. "I've met him before."

  "Can you get in touch with him?"

  "I can reach him if I have to."

  That almost made up my mind. Brown sober came off serious and half-ass bright, nothing like the bleary drunk I'd talked to in the bar, and Vincent said he had a lot of contacts with the cops and feds. He must've had contacts with Emeryville, at least, because he knew about Steffy. It was risky, but maybe I could use Brown to give the Lexus back to Matthews without getting Deacon involved or turning myself in. If I could cut a deal with Matthews, using Brown as a go-between, maybe I could smooth things over with Deacon and Heberto, but the truth was that I didn't have much of a choice. I didn't have enough money to hit the road. Paying for motels every night, eating out all the time, buying gas, stealing cars – I'd go broke in a couple weeks if I didn't get busted first. And maybe, just maybe, I could help Arn if he was still alive.

  "OK," I said. "How do we set it up?"

  "I'll meet you anywhere you like," he said eagerly. "Find another pay phone, then call the NewsWire and leave the details on my voice mail. Berkeley NewsWire. The number's in the book. They gave me a line for confidential stuff; I can check it from here. Just tell the desk you want to leave me a message and they'll put you through." His signal started to fade. "I'm in the East Bay, so give me enough time to get there, OK? I'll be driving a dark green 1995 Chevy Lumina with a missing hubcap on the right front tire. When you see me, flash your lights."

  "They could tail you from your place."

  "I know how to check for that."

  "Yeah, well, what if you miss them?"

  "I'm a reporter," he said with a touch of pride. "I'm a hack, yeah, but I'm still a reporter and I used to be a damn good one, OK? The last thing they want is media involvement, so they'll keep their distance. I guarantee it."

  #

  I headed west on Solano, then circled through the neighborhoods below Albany Hills, driving around aimlessly and watching for tails. The exercise was pointless with all the fog and traffic. Headlights pulled up behind me at every stop sign and the vans and delivery trucks all looked the same; any one of them could have been following me and I would never know it. Giving up, I drove over to Gilman and followed it back towards the highway, pulling into a Quick Trip by the Berkeley Solid Waste Center. Neon signs steamed in the drizzle. The customers gassing up at the pumps all looked like cops.

  I backed into a space by the dumpsters and sat there for a while, watching the traffic and trying to figure out a safe place to meet Brown. Call it fifty-fifty he'd show up with the feds, but I had this feeling that they could pick me up any time they wanted, so it probably didn't matter. I couldn't run out on Arn, b
ut I couldn't stick around much longer and I couldn't just turn myself in. Getting busted was a death sentence. They'd charge me with Steffy's murder, force me to make a deal, and Heberto would hire some chola to clip me while I was sitting on my butt in jail. Besides, if I didn't meet Brown, I couldn't think of anything else to do except run around in circles until they hauled me in.

  Just then, a white van with a pair of whip antennae drove by the Quick Trip, slicing through a puddle. It stopped for a red at Gilman, then turned right and vanished in the rain and traffic. The van had looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it before. I thought about the 12 hours I'd spent crashed at the motel. Anyone could have planted a beeper in the truck while I was sleeping. The cops had them. So did the feds. And Deacon had that kind of stuff floating around all the time. Anyone could make one.

  I don't know why, but I kind of lost it. Something popped in my head and the bugs that had been crawling all over me for the last two days suddenly started up again, swarming over my arms and legs and gnawing at my skin. I couldn't breathe. My hands got clammy. I thought I was going to freak out stuck in that truck with the fogged-up windows and leaking vents, too scared to move, too nervous to just sit there. I flashed on these nasty pictures: Arn getting stomped in the rearview, Steffy gaping like a dead fish covered with burns and cuts and blood.

  I had to do something.

  I had to make up my mind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When I got my head together, I called the NewsWire from a pay phone outside the store and left the meeting instructions on Brown's voice mail. Then I split in the Nissan, a rolling target with a beeper in the tail pipe for all I knew. I drove around until I found a teller machine and withdrew the limit from my checking account: three-hundred dollars, the last of my rent money. Wallet bulging with twenties, I made for the highway.

  Traffic stalled on the 580 on-ramp. I turned on the radio, skipping past the news, a Viagra commercial, some Hip Hop and a spot for the latest diet pill. A shock jock asked a stripper her cup size, cracked a fart joke, then cut to a break. A political hack ranted about mullahs and nuclear weapons.