Blood and Sand Read online

  I set a hand on his shoulder. “Nice try,” I say, and walk away, feeling slightly guilty but mostly exasperated. It never ceases to amaze me — a kid missing and I’m supposed to play Love Connection with the local PD. I get back to my bike where it’s sandwiched between a Vespa and a convertible. I check in all directions without moving my head, running a hand around the Ducati’s frame.

  I needed an excuse to stop, a reason Jones wouldn’t question — confronting Tuttle seems like the kind of thing a lone gumshoe would do when she’s out of ideas. It bought me my present opportunity to search the bike, and under the seat, I find a nub that doesn’t belong. I palpate for the seam of the tape, find it, peel it, and hold the tracker where the seat will hide it.

  If I had Nico here, I’m sure he could tell me all kinds of fascinating things about this technology. It’s a tiny disc — bigger than the tick I put on Gus, but still no wider than a pencil eraser. I remember Dane saying Jones is like me, the best at what he does. It felt like a compliment at the time, albeit a backhanded one. Now it’s irritating. I’m used to having an edge with this stuff.

  I pretend to retie my boot laces and stick the tracker under the convertible’s front tire. That takes care of only fifty percent of the problem. I’m sure Jones isn’t far away, and that he’s watching with his usual dedication. If I beat it out of here now, he’ll know I’ve moved the bug. Not that I’ve got some fantastic next step planned, but if I think of one, I want to be able to take it without a hitman piggy-backing me.

  Through all of this, I maintain an eyeline to Tuttle. I’m pretending to surveil him, but in the process, I wind up surveilling him. He’s gone back to the fisherman, a lot more hangdog than before.

  Now it’s a waiting game. My least favorite kind.

  I don’t budge from my seat. If Jones wants to plant another device, he’s going to have to work for it. I tap on the handlebars, annoying myself, seeing Tuttle’s sad-sack face again and again in my mind’s eye.

  It happens at least every third case I work. Men love shiny new toys. They think the lights are going on when, in fact, they’re simply mesmerized by a woman who’s not their everyday. A woman who’s not counting calories or coordinating outfits or waiting by the phone for anyone to call. A woman who threw out the ticking clock a long time ago, or maybe she simply wasn’t outfitted with one. Instead she was given a mission, a purpose, and the ability to pay her own bills just fine.

  Plenty of men look at me and say: Yes, that’s what I want. They think it’s so exotic, see, that my independence isn’t an act. But the sadistic part is, that makes my independence something they want to vanquish. They see it as a dragon they’ll wind up standing over with a sword raised high.

  I’m a challenge to them. I’m a trophy, a potential stuffed head for their wall.

  Tuttle’s not like that. He’s much more dangerous. He looks at me and sees someone he wants to save. Dancing? A Ferris wheel? Planning a date that’s a perfect imitation of a Ryan Gosling movie is supposed to melt my cold, cold heart. What he’s missing is, I like my heart cold. I like it frosty, something you’d get stuck to if you tried to kiss it, something you’d have to pour warm water on to get free — and you’d still lose some skin.

  The sun’s clouding over, dropping the temperature ten degrees. I check my directions without moving again, suppressing a smile, because the beach bums are packing it in and rolling it out. I watch them pass me by, and I’m drumming on my handlebars harder, my mind stuck on the alliteration of beach bum. My lips mumble a string of buh-buh buh-buh sounds, passing the time.

  And suddenly, I make one of those connections that really makes me wonder if I’m going at this alone.

  You’d better be better.

  You’d better be.

  Doris in the interrogation room. You’re a star at it, she said. A star at it? Who says that? At the time, there wasn’t time to think about it. But I’m thinking now.

  Who were we talking about when Doris used those terms? Lani’s mom. Lani’s mom wanted her daughter to be a star. If you’re running a phony talent agency and you want this kid’s mom to believe the line you’re feeding her about auditions, where do you book her a room? Somewhere the stars stay.

  Or better yet, somewhere they stayed. Somewhere that’s still trading on that gilded past, somewhere that calls itself old-fashioned when it’s really just old. Maybe somewhere with a whole mini-museum featuring photos from its heyday.

  “You’d better be,” I say.

  You’d better B.

  The letter B.

  I dial with shaking fingers.

  “My balls are fine,” Dane says. “Thanks for asking.”

  “Listen to me. Don’t talk, listen. That time you went to a wedding and called me at 3 a.m. drunk, remember? You’d snuck out of a bridesmaid’s room and you got turned around and wound up on the roof? Do you know what I’m talking about? Answer yes or no.”

  “Yes.”

  I would think so. He forgot his pants, and the roof’s door locked behind him. I had to buy him sweats in the gift shop before he’d come down. I got him the pink lacy ones and made sure to take a picture. “That hotel is where Lani’s mother is.”

  His voice is flat as he says, “Copy.”

  I hang up. The Biltmore isn’t far from the field office, but that’s not accounting for traffic. Even if Jones planted audio on this bike somewhere, he still wouldn’t be able to get to Dane in time to follow him. And here, for once, traffic is going to work for me.

  A bickering couple throws their lawn chairs and cooler in the convertible’s back seat, barely glancing at me as I start the bike. Everybody’s trying to back up at once. The sky is gunmetal now, and growling. Car horns add to the chorus, but mine stays silent. I stow my helmet, the better to see, and I advance in perfect tandem with the convertible, though I could squeeze through easily. I’m watching for an anonymous silver car, and I finally find it when we’re almost out. Jones is trapped in one of the parking lot’s feeder lanes. He’s not worried; he’s got my motorcycle bugged, or so he thinks. I don’t let on that I’ve made him. The convertible and I hit the boulevard together and cruise at the same sedate twenty miles an hour.

  Until we round a corner. Then I ride like hell.

  LA raining is like librarians partying: it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s serious. I’m soaked in minutes. It might as well be the dead of night as I park, shivering, in the Cedars Sinai visitor’s lot. My phone has a text message from Dane, four words: “Got her. En route.”

  I flash the name badge they gave me last time and go straight to the observation room, where Sylvia’s sitting, nibbling at a tray of hospital food.

  I nod at her creamed corn. “It ain’t the Ritz, huh?”

  She’s got a clever retort; I can see it as she’s turning to me. But it’s forgotten as she takes in — I mean, take your pick at this point. I’m sopping wet, I look like I lost a title fight, and I haven’t slept in three days.

  “Her mom’s on the way.” I fall into a chair and steal Sylvia’s Jell-O.

  “It’s true, I guess,” Sylvia says, sipping a tiny carton of milk. “What they say about you.”

  I’m sure they say a lot of things about me, but I couldn’t care right now if my hair were on fire and caring would put it out. I unzip my jacket pocket and take out a spoon, nodding at Lani through the glass. “Has she said anything?”

  “What you’re looking at is what she’s done since you left.”

  Lani’s fetal, thumb in her mouth. The Kindle has progressed to The Prisoner of Azkaban, and she watches, rapt, still humming every twenty seconds or so like it’s the song that keeps the dementors away.

  “Did you get the guy?” Sylvia says.

  “This one’s not that simple.”

  “Sure it is.”

  I think of Gus in that trunk under heavy rain, the thuds of the drops drowning out whatever screams he’s got left. I think of all the sharp-clawed wildlife wanting shelter from the st
orm, smelling bloody meat as they decide where to scurry.

  “Off the record?” I say. “He’s very sorry.”

  Sylvia lifts her milk carton, and I tap it with the side of my Jell-O cup. “What about Polly?” she says. “Any sign of her?”

  There’s lots of quippy shit I could answer with, but all at once it’s stuck in my throat. I think of Gus in that trunk, and I think of Polly in a dark, damp nowhere. Trying to keep her eyes open or maybe not, not anymore. Maybe she’s slipped into some sweet delusion: her grandmother in the kitchen, cooking eggs on a Saturday; front row at a One Direction concert, the band back together at last; or just a warm weekend afternoon with nothing particular to do, nowhere special to go. The sun on her skin and the magic of kid-time, which ticks by at a different rhythm, not necessarily slower but more gradual, every second like syrup dripping from a spoon.

  I pocket my spoon, no longer hungry. “Stay ’til Lani’s mom shows, okay? Then go home. You did great.”

  I’m grabbing the doorknob when I hear, “Beth?”

  I stop, though I don’t want to.

  “It drives me insane sometimes,” Sylvia says. “When politics get in the way or the paperwork is more important than human lives, I’m ready for the rubber room myself.” She drains her milk and shuts the carton. “A lot of us are rooting for you. For whatever that’s worth.”

  I smile wanly, walking out. I’m passing the door to Lani’s room, but again, my feet don’t cooperate. I let them do what they want.

  What they want, apparently, is to go inside, negotiate that wobbly rubber floor and sit next to Lani one last time. She glances fast to verify who I am, humming a random note. Then she goes back to Harry. He and Hermione are setting the time-turner so they can go fix the past.

  “You mom’s coming,” I say.

  Lani blinks.

  “She’ll be here really soon.” I think of Jones slinking through a world where this little girl has seen him, and I know my job’s not done yet. “Lani?”

  She hums.

  “Lani, there was a girl who looked like you. She was hurt. I’m trying to find her.” I shut my eyes and say an uncharacteristic prayer. “Do you know where she is?”

  And it’s because my eyes are shut, or maybe it’s because I’m so tired that it’s dropped me into a half-asleep state where sounds are heightened — it’s because of some kind of impossibly elevated level of attentiveness that I realize Lani’s humming has gotten a tiny bit louder. I frown, keeping my eyes closed. It gets a tiny bit faster, the random notes seeming less random the longer I listen. When I open my eyes, Lani’s looking up at me, her face wild, humming eight notes in the same succession over and over and over, begging me to understand.

  I’m nodding, trying to seem calm and failing spectacularly. It’s this, I think — my near-hysteria as I get up and run — that makes Lani fold back to the floor, silent. And finally asleep.

  Chapter 21

  There was this coin donation thing that sat outside the drugstore when I was a kid. Anytime we went, I’d beg my parents for a penny so I could drop it in the plastic slot at the side and watch it fall to the widest part of what was essentially a great big funnel. It amazed me, first of all, that the coin could stay on its edge, not falling flat and simply sliding to the little hole at the funnel’s center. Instead, it would start with a wide circle, then a smaller one and a smaller one, its revolutions getting quicker for the shrinking circumference until, near the bottom, it began to spin. By the time it fell to the pile of loose change enclosed underneath, it wasn’t a coin anymore. It was the base of a tornado, solid and powerful.

  Kid cases are like that. At least, they are when the solutions are complicated and the stakes are sky-high. These are the cases I take. They tend to be a lot of grunt work until you get that one piece of information, that one piece that turns out to be a tornado. Then you’re plucked up and spinning, and whether you fail or prevail is going to hinge on how well you can keep your cool when there’s nothing whatsoever to hang onto besides your own iron will.

  The rain’s gotten worse. The temperature has sunk right along with it, but I feel like I’m on fire as I’m gunning the bike through sodden streets, murmuring “Hang on, hang on” on a loop, not talking to myself but talking to her, feeling underneath the facts for the person at the heart of them who’s maybe not dead yet.

  It’s slower going than I’d like. LA drivers don’t get much experience navigating rain, and one jackass can do a lot of damage. I don’t know what time it is, but night is falling. Headlights and taillights and streetlights and stoplights are a kaleidoscopic mess, and drivers are losing their minds, inching over into lanes they have no business trying. I’m scooting along, being careful. I could call Dane and tell him where to go, but I can’t take it for granted that Jones hasn’t spoofed my cell somehow. Nico’s done it for me before.

  That’s why I have to arrive there in one piece.

  The only good thing about my relative snail’s pace is that I notice the other bike snaking through traffic behind me. I don’t know how — even at fifteen miles per hour, I’m taunting death by being out in this on my Ducati. This model is for speed, not stability.

  And it looks like Jones went practical. His Honda sprays water to either side as the tires carve the rain, while I’m essentially hydroplaning toward the 405, correcting my balance like my life so very depends on it.

  At the on-ramp. I do a quick debate of what’s more important — speed or safety.

  “I’m coming, Polly,” I say, and rip up through my gears, riding the shoulder into freeway gridlock. My eyes are on the look-out for any debris, my brain screaming that this is suicide. But I don’t have a choice. I need the head start.

  In the back of my mind is the self-reassurance that, with all my years of practice, I have to be better than Jones on a motorcycle. I am, but not by much. He knows he’s been made, he’s trying to keep pace, and he’s correcting minor swerves here and there that anybody but an excellent rider would be taking to a ditch.

  Still, I buy myself some space. Not enough to mask the exit I’m taking, but I had no hope of that anyway.

  Polly’s neighborhood in the rain: it’s all shut doors, dark windows and streetlamps with burned-out bulbs. I’m slowing to take the turn onto her street when my luck runs out. The bike dumps sideways. I push off so I don’t wind up underneath it. I skid on wet gravel, rolling with the momentum. Most of it’s gone when I hit the curb, but not enough to save my elbow from a hit that could be my crazy-bone or could be a fracture.

  I’m facedown in a gutter river. I try to get on my hands and knees, but they won’t hold me. I collapse, then feel a strong grip pulling me up. I wonder why Jones is bothering when I hear, “Hey, white girl. This is why I don’t want your damn motorcycle.”

  “Don’t,” I tell him. He’s trying to lift me. As I noted the first time I saw him two nights ago, he’s jacked. Resisting isn’t easy. “Don’t. Don’t help me.”

  “What do you mean, don’t help you?”

  I hear an engine revving. Somehow I manage to run. “Get inside!” I shout over my shoulder.

  He sees Jones round the corner. He slips into an alley. I turn, sprinting, hearing the buzz of bullets that are whizzing by my head. Jones has guessed about the lining in my jacket. He won’t try to shoot center-mass this time.

  I don’t even peek at where I really want to go. There’s no question of leading Jones there, straight to her. He thinks that’s what I’m doing, so fine, let’s pick an arena to fight in. I’m looking for a spot when I realize I’m being ridiculous. I barely survived going hand-to-hand with him last night. With the weakest little slip of something that could be called a plan, I head for Polly’s apartment building, hoping that nobody’s beefed up the locks on the back door or else I’m finished.

  They didn’t. It takes two hard kicks to break it in. By the time my wet boots are sliding up the hall I can hear Jones running inside. More importantly, I can hear the gun go off. That’s w
hen my luck runs out again.

  My head abruptly feels like somebody’s put it in a vice with the crank turned all the way over. The pressure is incredible. I’m blind for a second, my feet continuing by some absurd principle of physics. I blink the world back into focus, aware it’s moving by me very quickly. There’s the laundry room, there’s Gus’s door, there’s the back stairs. A flash flood is raging down one half of my face, salting the eye on that side. I look down and see bright red splashing the stairs — which I’m climbing, unbelievably. I literally can’t believe it, but that’s fine; I don’t have to believe it. I just have to do it.

  Jones is a quiet runner, but this building is dead-silent. I can hear his breathing. It’s syncopated with mine. He’s arriving at the bottom of the back stairs as I’m blurring past Polly’s apartment. He’s maybe far enough back that he doesn’t see me skidding to the front stairway, tearing free the CAUTION tape and throwing it over the railing.

  The railing is worn smooth. I slide down on my ass, doubting my balance is up to this. It isn’t — I fall about two-thirds of the way down into a graceless heap by the front door. But as I do, Jones appears at the top of the stairs. He’s smiling. It’s awful. Much more importantly, he’s running, and that’s wonderful. He doesn’t look down.

  I’m fading. It’s undeniable, but I deny it. It’s like I’m a kid staying up late to watch her favorite movie, and I refuse to fall asleep until I see the best part.

  The best part is: his smile changing to confusion as the stairs give way. His gun hand flying upward, squeezing the trigger reflexively and showering him in a puff of ceiling. His body versus gravity: it’s not the slightest contest, not even for Jones, and splinters of wood and strips of rats’ nests and a couple of dislodged cockroaches spit up into the space he was occupying one second ago. If I get out of this, I’ll have to thank Laughlin for softening up the stairs.