“You’re on, Shake. Spill it and grow rich.”
Then the big man’s arm fell to the mattress, and his expression relaxed. Shephard got off and pulled him up, propping him against the cell wall. Face to face, Shake’s lips trembling into a smile. Still, he kept the money, clutching it away from Shephard like a child.
“Mercante … just died. Like I told you.”
“Shake, you disappoint me.” Shephard wrenched the man’s money hand from behind the bed and tore away the bills. He put them in his pocket and retreated to the far end of the cell. Then, a sound more agonized than any he’d managed to beat out of him, a high-pitched sorrowful keen that came from deep inside.
“Nooo … oooh nooo! I earned that. It’s miiine.…”
“Death and taxes, Shake. I’m charging you this sixty plus the twenty more I was going to give you. For feeding me a bunch of shit and making me break a sweat. Deal’s off.”
Shake scooted up against the wall again, eyeing Shephard with a heartbroken pout. His chin trembled. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
“You broke the deal.”
“Shut up, Matusic. Have a nice life.” He leaned toward the cell door, looking for the guard.
“Wait! I can maybe tell you something.”
“I just about strangled you. Now you want to talk.”
“It’s a matter of honor.”
“Tell me about it. I’m all ears.”
“The money?”
“Stays where it is until I hear what I need.”
Shake buried his fleshy face in his hands. Shephard heard him sigh. “Okay, but when I tell, you pay. Right?”
“That was the deal ten minutes ago. Weren’t you paying attention?”
“This is it. Come here. Come a little closer and I’ll tell.”
Shephard sat on the end of the bed. Shake scrunched up closer to the wall, hugging his legs to his chest. It was almost a whisper: “Azul didn’t die in ’eighty. He just played a little cut and run.”
“Cut and run?”
“Get somebody else’s tags. Get their clothes and cell. Be them, if they’re up before you. You know … out before you.”
“Won’t work unless they’re twins, Shake. Am I going to have to keep your money?”
Shake leaned forward, licking his lips, boring into Shephard with his tiny eyes. “They practically were twins, except for a beard. Azul grew a beard, and when I saw him do that I knew what he was gonna try. Knew it. They were real alike. Enough to make it work. And Azul worked in Records, so I’ll bet that helped. He could change shit. Azul even cut off his middle toe—right behind the first joint—because that’s how—”
“What was his name?”
“Manny Soto … because Manny had a joint missing. Azul pulled it off during the riot. Caught Manny alone, then shanked him, dragged him off to his own cell. Changed everything with him and left him there. I was the only one who ever knew. I … swore I’d never tell.”
“And he helped your money collection to make sure.”
“Five hundred dollars. It’s still under the bed, with my books.” Shephard stood up, his mind racing but his body heavy, as if in a dream. “I never thought he’d get away with it. After the riot was done, bunch of us got transferred out so they could rebuild what we wrecked. I think Azul went to Lompoc. I never saw him again. He just got lost. I thought they’d find out, send him back. After a year I quit even thinking about it. Azul gave me money lots of times.”
“I’ll bet he did.”
“Wanna see it?”
Shephard went to the door and called the guard, yelling over the din of the music and singing. The prisoner below was still mangling the Dylan song, but the harmonica had wandered off to its own wild melody.
“Hey … what about our deal?”
Shephard tossed the sixty on the bed, then chased it with one more twenty. He had eight dollars left. “Shake, Azul bought a lot of honor for five hundred bucks. I almost strangled you and you wouldn’t give. But I take away sixty dollars and you squeal. Why?”
Matusic gathered up his hard-earned pay, organizing the bills in a neat stack. “I told you. I collect it.”
“But what the hell for, if it’s sitting there under the bed?”
The damaged grin again, self-satisfied and cruel. “Don’t you know anything about the world? Shit man, money is freedom.”
TeWinkle was in his office, halfway through dinner. “Ah, Shephard. Find anything?”
“Manny Soto. Remember him?”
TeWinkle rearranged his diced carrots, frowning into the plate, then looked back up with a nod. “Vaguely. I think we relocated him after the riot. In for murder too, I think. You keep some nice company, Shephard.”
“Lompoc?”
“Think so. Here. Try ’em yourself.” He pushed his telephone toward Shephard, who dialed and was put on hold. Five minutes later, he was put through to the assistant warden. No need to check the files, said the assistant, Manny Soto was released two weeks ago.
Shephard hung up, retrieved his Python from the desk, and walked out.
TWENTY-THREE
As the last boarding call for Flight 321 droned through the Sacramento terminal, Shephard repeated the three names to Pavlik. Judge Francis Rubio, District Attorney Jim Peters, Wade Shephard.
A condemned trinity, he thought. “Carl, you’ve got to get them out of wherever they are, and into someplace else. Anyplace. Just get them out. You got that?”
Pavlik’s voice came back thin and unsure over the long-distance wires. “Tom, would you mind telling me—”
“I can’t, Carl, buddy. My plane’s leaving without me, and this is one I don’t want to miss. Trust, Carl. Call me at my father’s in an hour and a half.” He gave the number. “And Carl, try Wade last. I just called the church and he’s gone home. Should be there in half an hour.” He hung up, hustling toward the gate with a sweat-drenched boarding pass in his hand.
The landing at Orange County was vicious and abrupt, the jet buffeted by winds that still howled in from the desert. Even the LaVerda seemed tentative as he sped down 405, for the first time in his recent life keeping an eye out for cops.
Wade’s car wasn’t on the street, nor was it in the garage. Shephard wheeled in his motorcycle and closed the door. He let himself in with a key he hadn’t used for a decade and a growing sense of dread.
The house smelled of dried eucalyptus, and of Sunday bacon and eggs. He realized he had been expecting smoke.
“Pop?”
The living room was empty, the kitchen as spotless as ever, the den door closed. He listened, then pushed it open. The evening sunlight slanted through the blinds, ribbing the wall in light and shadow. He passed down the hallway with a faintly growing optimism, went through the main bedroom to the bath. “Pop?” When he pulled back the shower door, he saw only the glistening tub and a bar of soap that had slid off its tray and now covered the drain. Shephard picked it up and set it back in place. Wade’s secretary had said he’d left, he thought. Almost two hours ago, for home. Dinner? Date? A party?
He heard a car pulling into the driveway, and went to the window. His .357 clunked against the frame as he moved aside the curtain and watched his father step from the car, then lean back in and take out two big bags of groceries. Shephard could not remember being so happy to see him in all his life. He met him at the door and took a bag, Wade studying him intently. “You look like a young cop with something on his mind,” Wade said.
While his father put away the groceries, Shephard told him the story. Wade’s face tightened, and he feigned concentration on the chore at hand. The toothpaste went into the refrigerator. Shephard outlined his evidence: the threats to witnesses Tim and Hope, the cobalt and cadmium traces used in paints, the near match between the Identikit and the old Surfside photograph of Mercante, Ed Matusic’s tale of violence and cunning at the Folsom riot, and “Manny Soto’s” release two weeks ago from Lompoc. Wade leaned against the counter, the
color draining from his face. “Mercante … simply can’t be alive. He died, five years ago.”
“The cons call it cut and run, pop. Azul raised it to an art form.” Shephard filled a glass of water from the tap and handed it to Wade. “It’s Mercante. He may as well have signed his name. You said it yourself once. Money, a woman, silence, or revenge. He wants revenge. He wants you. By the way, pop, Helene Lang is dead. She killed herself this morning.”
He watched his father close his eyes, try to stand straight and reconstitute himself. Wade labored into the dining room and slumped into a chair. Shephard followed.
“She may have been a crazy old woman,” he said, “who thought Joe was in love with her, that Joe killed Burton. But she believed it right to the end.” When Wade looked up he seemed smaller, as if what part of him had slumped into the chair had continued into the fabric and vanished. Shephard wondered if he would ever get it back.
“I suppose she did,” Wade said, in hardly more than a whisper.
When the phone rang, Shephard answered it. Pavlik’s voice came through, rushed and excited: “Tom, I did your homework. Jim Peters doesn’t have anything to worry about today. He died a few years back in an auto wreck. But the Honorable Francis Rubio is alive, somewhere. I got in touch with his son, Francis Junior, but he won’t give us the old man’s address. Did you find Wade?”
Shephard looked into the dining room. “He’s here.”
“What next?”
“Give me Rubio Junior’s number. Maybe I can … make an impression.”
Wade eyed Shephard quietly while he hung up from Pavlik and then dialed. On the fourth ring a woman answered hastily. “One moment,” she snapped.
A very long moment later, Shephard found himself talking to Frank Rubio, Jr., who spoke in a clipped and irritated voice. “He doesn’t live with us any more,” he explained. “I’m handling medical and estate matters now. I suppose that’s what you’re calling about.” Mr. and Mrs. Rubio are in the middle of a nasty one, Shephard thought.
“Not exactly. Can you tell me where he lives?”
After another long silence, Francis Rubio, Jr., said that his father was now in a very fine house in Santa Ana, but had all but lost his mental faculties. His Newport Beach home was in escrow, his finances in order, and visits by old friends, new friends, and financial sharps of any kind would be useless. Was this clear?
“Clear as day, Frank,” Shephard answered. “How about a visit by an old enemy?”
“For what purpose?” Rubio demanded, losing patience.
“To kill him,” he answered flatly. He waited for the click of the receiver. “Rubio, are you alone right now?”
“No.”
“Can you get that way?”
The phone hit something hard. Shephard heard their voices in the background, then Frank Rubio was back. “Okay. Now just what the fuck is going on? Who are you?”
Shephard explained. He told Frank Rubio that his father had heard a case thirty years ago, that he had sent the defendant to prison, and the man had been let out. He explained that two of the witnesses had been murdered, and Francis Rubio stood a good chance of being next. Rubio listened without comment, then grunted.
“Sounds pretty farfetched to me,” he said. Years of experience had taught Shephard that the best antidote for stupidity was silence. He waited and Rubio grunted again, but with less conviction. “You’re not kidding?”
“I’m not kidding, Frank, buddy. And this isn’t my idea of a fun Sunday. Give me your father’s address. How much longer do I have to sit here and beg you to help me save his life?”
Another long pause, then: “Maybe you’re not who you say you are. How do I know you’re not the one who’s after him?”
“Francis, I’m a detective. My badge number is two-seven-one-eight, my partner is Carl Pavlik, and you can call him at the station right now to check me out. I’m demanding your help. And I’m telling you, the more time you waste, the sorrier you might be.”
“It’s called … Ross Manor. He’s… in a nursing home, a very good one, though. Ross Street in Santa Ana, it’s in the book. The director is Claire Bailey. I—”
“Don’t even think of going out there. Stay put and wait for my call.”
When Shephard heard the woman’s voice again, he realized Rubio was speaking under pressure. “Maybe we could bring him back here,” he said quietly.
“You might have to.” Through the line, Shephard heard a door slam.
“I can do that,” Rubio said finally. In the background, the woman’s voice barked impatiently. “I can at least goddamned do that much.”
Wade had disappeared down the hall. When he came back a few minutes later, with his white suit hanging on him and his eyes remote in thought, he gave Shephard the least convincing smile he’d seen in thirty years. Shephard had never seen him so dispirited, as if something inside him had slowed. Even his voice was brittle. They agreed—though Wade argued until his arguments made no sense—that he would leave town. “And what do you plan to do, Tommy?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ve got to get to Francis Rubio. Get him out of Santa Ana for a while. Take a vacation, pop. Let your assistant deliver the sermon next week. Your ratings will soar when you get back.”
His father smiled feebly, his eyes still gazing inward, lost on some solitary vision. He brought a .38 snubnose from his coat pocket, and a box of ammunition. “Don’t look at me like I’m a helpless old man,” he said finally. “I can still take care of myself. I think I’ll go down to Mexico for a few days. See the hospital site. I’ll leave you a note, here on the table, when I leave.” He stood up, hugged his son, and walked down the hallway toward his bedroom.
“Dad, your toothpaste is in the refrigerator.”
The LaVerda carried him out Laguna Canyon Road, onto Interstate 5, and through Irvine, Tustin, into Santa Ana. The wind continued unabated, casting him from one lane to the next without warning, stinging his face with sand. At Irvine Boulevard he angled to the off ramp, caught the green light, and headed downtown. A tumbleweed, strangely out of context in the city, rolled across the street in front of him and ran up against a chain-link fence. The elm trees that lined Ross Street tossed in the wind while two children on skateboards held out their coats to harness a free ride through the darkness.
Ross Manor was a converted Victorian-style home with a sprawling green lawn studded with empty white chairs. As Shephard pulled his motorcycle to the curb, he noted that two old men were sitting on the wide porch, facing each other, rocking slowly in the porch light. They eyed him silently as he came toward them.
Inside, he faced a large, hotel-style desk, behind which an elderly woman sat knitting. Not far in front of her was a television set with the volume turned up. She looked at him through thick glasses, put down her needles and yarn, and stood up. Her badge said Claire Bailey.
“Miss Bailey, I’m Tom Shephard. I’d like to see Francis Rubio.”
The woman turned down the volume on the TV, and when the music dissipated, Ross Manor lapsed into silence.
“I’m the director,” she said, pulling a sweater around her thin neck. “Francis Rubio?”
“Please.”
She checked a ledger of some kind. “The former judge is with his attorney right now,” she said with polite firmness. “He asked me to let them conduct some personal business undisturbed.”
There was a giddy swirl in Shephard’s stomach. Business at nine o’clock?
“Mr. Rubio asked you, or the attorney?” He smiled, praying it didn’t look false, as he scanned the ledger for a room number. Nothing but orange yarn and blue needles; Claire Bailey had set her knitting on the book.
“The attorney,” she said. “His new attorney, in fact.”
To hell with the Santa Ana police, Shephard thought. He brought out his badge. “Claire, I’m a policeman and I must see Francis immediately. Please, it’s extremely important.” When she hesitated, he lifted his coat away and exposed the Python. Her eyes
widened and she stepped back.
“Two-oh-six.”
Shephard looked to his right, then to his left: two stairways leading up in Victorian symmetry.
“It’s in the middle of floor two,” she said hurriedly. “Take either one. The room is right in the middle of the hallway.”
Shephard chose the right. His footsteps echoed in the silence of Ross Manor, the click of shoes on wood. Halfway up, he heard a door close. Then footsteps away from his direction, deliberate, unhurried. They found the stairs and began down.
A faded green runner split the hallway in half. The narrow passage was lit by a lamp fastened to the ceiling midway, emitting a dull yellow glow that seemed to come more from the polished wood of the hallway than the bulb. There was a smell of disinfectant and old bedding. Odd numbers on his left and even on his right. Somewhere, a TV droned. Outside 206, he tried the knob and found it locked. Downstairs, a door slammed.
Then a muffled thrashing from inside the room, followed by muted groans, as if someone were screaming from under water.
Shephard pushed off from the wall behind him, aiming his shoulder at the door. He smashed against the old wood, a solid, bone-jarring collision that sent a wide throb of pain through his back and stopped him as decisively as if he had hit cement. The door shuddered and held. He charged again, this time with his other side, and again the thick wood punished him. Inside he could hear a high-pitched popping noise, then a hiss followed by splattering. The muffled groans had turned to thick, choked yelps. Against the wall again, Shephard pushed off and hurled himself again. He hit, rebounded in a shudder of pain, and watched the door swing open slowly before him.
Smoke and water pelted him from inside. Flames ate upward from the bed, growing from the white blanket toward the ceiling. A sprinkler showered the room, the water hissing violently as it streamed down on the fiery bed. He picked up a chair and threw it through the window. Under the flaming cover Shephard saw movement, a stifled struggling that sent sparks popping to the floor. The yelping sounded desperate, abandoned. With one quick movement that sent a puff of heat into his face, Shephard grabbed the end of the bedspread and flung it into the middle of the floor. The covers below, body-shaped, shook and trembled. He gathered them up and caught a glimpse of the man bundled underneath as he threw them down with the bedspread and trampled the heap. The sprinkler began to do its work. The sparks popped up, the water showered down with a fierce hissing. Shephard stuck his foot into the cooling stream.
Laguna Heat Page 24
