Callie declined, emphatically. He insisted. Callie told him to get lost. He told her he had evidence she had driven the getaway car during the robbery of a pawnshop in which the owner had been killed.
That stopped her cold. The pawnshop job was supposed to be a quickie — in and out, no trouble. She’d driven a rental car for two guys named Marty and Jangles that she’d worked with before. They both carried guns but were kind of proud of the fact that they’d never had to use them. We’re so tough, we don’t need to shoot nobody. But the old man in the pawnshop had surprised them; instead of meekly handing over his stash, he’d pulled out a shotgun and pointed it straight at Marty. Marty shot him.
Those two idiots hadn’t even spotted the surveillance camera when they cased the place. Marty and Jangles had been caught, but neither one of them turned over on Callie. If they had, she would have been tried right along with them. The law said a murder occurring during the commission of a felony was chargeable to all participating in that felony. Callie hadn’t even set foot inside the pawnshop; but in the eyes of the law, she was as guilty of that old man’s death as if she’d pulled the trigger herself.
Callie demanded to see Bass’s evidence.
He’d showed her a photocopy of a letter Jangles had written to his brother from prison. “Me and Marty ran out of luck,” he’d said, “but Callie got away.” Bass wouldn’t say how he got the letter, but instead pointed out that there weren’t all that many Callies in Port Wolfe in her particular profession. She hadn’t been hard to track down.
Next he’d handed her an enlarged copy of her police mug shot — how had he gotten hold of that? It was the only photograph of Callie in existence. Bass waited while she read a signed statement by a clerk at the car rental; he named the woman in the photo as the one who’d rented the Ford the police had been able to identify as the “escape vehicle.” The phony ID she’d used couldn’t protect her from eyewitness testimony.
Bass had raised an eyebrow and pointed back toward the prison door she’d just walked through. So there it was. She either went to work for him, or she went back inside.
Callie didn’t plead. She knew it would do no good, and she was too proud to plead anyway. There was nothing she could do to stop him. Bass was going to force her back into the very environment that had made her what she was, the environment she so desperately wanted to escape.
She’d never been owned before. In both her marriages she’d stayed her own woman. Even in prison she’d remained remote, avoiding alliances with the other prisoners and enduring what was, after all, only a temporary setback. Never before had her life been under the total control of another person.
“I’ll find a way,” Callie whispered, staring at Hal Stanwyck sitting at the bar. “Somehow I’ll get you, Sam Bass.” She smiled at the melodramatic sound of that, but her resolution didn’t waver. She would get him. Somehow.
“And that’s it?” Kevin Craig asked. “Eat, drink, and be merry?”
“That’s it,” Callie replied. “Dinner at a harbor restaurant, followed by a couple of hours of entertainment and then home. Monday, when he was alone, the porn palace. Tuesday, a buddy from the office came with him and they spent the evening bar-hopping. Wednesday, he took a date dancing at The Lotus House. But no all-night binges or secret meetings or anything.”
“Damn.” Kevin scowled until he remembered he didn’t look good scowling. “Hal Stanwyck’s our best bet.”
“He is? How?”
“Passed over at Memotek. Big project coming up that he wanted to head. He’s the only one of the six possibles with reason to bear a grudge against the company.”
“He doesn’t act like a man with a grudge.”
“Well, he wouldn’t, would he?” Kevin snapped. “Thieves don’t advertise that they’re thieves.”
Not if we can help it, Callie thought. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Stick with him. Maybe something will break over the weekend. You don’t mind a little overtime, do you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No. And Callie... stay sharp.”
She nodded and left.
That night Hal Stanwyck was alone again.
Callie decided to try something she’d been thinking of, a little close-in investigating that Kevin Craig would have her boiled in oil for if he knew about it. Operatives were not only supposed to be invisible, they were supposed to stay invisible. But tonight Callie was going to go visible. She wanted to meet this man she’d been following for four nights. Big no-no for operatives. Mr. Do-Every-thing-My-Way Bass would pee his pants.
Stanwyck had varied his routine slightly this time. Instead of lingering over a leisurely dinner as usual, he’d wolfed down his food at the Ocean View restaurant and headed straight for Chez Stinky, where he seemed settled in for an evening of heavy drinking. He looked depressed. Bad day at work? Last night’s date said no? Depressed people often wanted to be left alone. But it could mean he was vulnerable... and approachable?
Callie backed her car into an alley that caught some of the illumination of a street lamp, but she took a flashlight and checked the part that dead-ended against a grimy brick wall. No bums sleeping among the garbage bags. With the lid of the trunk up, she was hidden from the street but still had enough light to see by.
She stripped down to her panties, tossing jeans, shirt, bra, and sneakers into the trunk. She opened one of the boxes of spare outfits she kept in the car, a habit left over from her earlier profession. On with the short skirt and low-heeled dress shoes. A sleeveless top that left her midriff bare. Money and a few odds and ends moved from the backpack to black match-everything purse. A small roll of cotton under her upper lip to give her mouth a pouty look. Bright red lipstick, which she hated. Finally she tucked her mouse-colored hair under a blond wig and added a pair of lightly tinted glasses. Even Sal Gagliardo wouldn’t know her in that get-up.
She slammed the trunk lid shut and was starting out of the alley when she heard the sound of faint applause. After a moment she spotted an old man leaning on the sill of a high second-story window. “Thank you very much, girlie,” he said. Callie laughed and went her way.
Hal Stanwyck was seated at one end of the bar in Chez Stinky, staring at a muted ball game on the TV. Callie took a seat two stools away and ordered a bourbon on the rocks. The barman tried to strike up a conversation but she cut him short. She lit a cigarette and turned to Stanwyck. “Darlin’, you look like you’re carryin’ the weight of the world on your shoulders, but could you manage to pass me that ashtray? Unless you’re plannin’ on usin’ it?”
Stanwyck came to with a start and pushed the ashtray toward her. “No, I don’t smoke”
Not much of an opening. “I didn’t either, last week,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve quit three times now.”
“And started again three times.”
“You got it.” Aha, he was cooperating. “I’m thinkin’ about gettin’ one of those patches.”
The talk proceeded — tentative, man/woman pickup talk — until they reached the point Callie could ask him why he was so gloomy.
That’s all it took.
The gates opened and the complaints came flooding out. It was his work: He was surrounded by talentless dorks, he had to take orders from people less intelligent than he, he had to give orders to spaceheads who were constitutionally incapable of following even the simplest directions. Every time he came up with a new systems modification, he had to get his work plans notarized to keep his ideas from being stolen. No one appreciated his contributions. His bosses took him for granted.