“But, Dan, if Larry has Fazzino under surveillance in L.A.—”
“Then Fazzino has a goddamned good alibi in case he’s put out a contract on Chandra to somebody up here, you follow me?”
Giselle said into the radio in a tight voice, “KDM 366 Control calling SF-2. Come in, O’B.”
Bart Heslip, filled with sudden hatred, lunged across the empty width of bed and fell on the floor. He rolled around amid the twisted blankets until he could get the phone up to his face and snap into it.
It buzzed blandly at him.
He staggered to his feet. The shrilling had continued. His fingers closed around the alarm clock just as it stopped ringing. He stood with the fiendish little machine in his hand, thinking how good it would look bursting against the far wall, strewing its mechanical guts around the bedroom.
With his luck, he’d catch the flywheel in the eye.
He yawned and padded lithely out through the diminutive foyer and into the equally diminutive kitchen, where he shook too much instant coffee into a heavy mug and turned on the hot water. He went back through the bedroom to the tiny bathroom, started more hot water running into the tub. He wished to hell he had a shower.
In the living room he pulled aside the curtain to stare down into Divisadero, careless of the fact that he was nude. They’d have seen it before, or they wouldn’t know what it was anyway.
Gray day, even looked like rain. He checked the watch he’d worn to bed. Yeah. Time for a sandwich down on the corner before he took over from O’B. He detoured to the kitchen to run hot tap water into his mug, then into the bathroom sipping at whatever the water and instant had combined to make. It was 1:45 P.M.
At 1:45 the Jaguar once again swung into the Pepper Tree Motel entrance to park a few stalls from where it had been the night before. From across busy State Street, Ballard watched Wendy and Fazzino walk over to the restaurant for lunch. Fazzino not so elegant now, showing his age a little. Suit rumpled, tie askew, dark glasses to shield his eyes, a billed baseball cap to keep the sun off that pretty wavy hair. Ballard really didn’t like him.
He saw them seated in a front window booth, then drove several blocks to buy a malt and fries and two Big Macs while the Plymouth was serviced. Thirty-some hours in the same underwear and socks, face stubbled, and now, from eternally sitting in the goddam car, getting constipated.
At 2:30 they came back out. Ballard was parked across the street again. Fazzino started to get in the driver’s side, then straightened abruptly and gestured at Wendy across the top of the low-slung car. She objected. Neither of them wanted to drive the long grueling miles back up to San Francisco. Ballard grinned to himself. He was pretty sure who’d win the argument.
Wendy went around the Jag, got into the driver’s side with quick angry movements. Ballard grinned some more. Fazzino went around the back of the car with slow steps, yawning, the GIANTS cap pushed forward so he could rub the back of his neck.
Could the son of a bitch have spent the night in jail? It would explain his appearance, his obvious exhaustion, Wendy getting him out of the courthouse. Hell, bailing him out.
The Jag backed out with a jerk. She snapped it into low, goosed it up the access road and around the back of the building with a yelp of tires Ballard could hear from fifty yards away. She really didn’t want to drive.
He U-turned to be behind them when they came out. They should right-turn toward the freeway on-ramp. He waited. He started to fidget. Jesus, could there be another way out, something he’d missed? If...
And the Jag emerged from the passageway between the office and the restaurant. Wendy’s window was open so the wind could stir her pale hair. Fazzino had put his head back against the seat and had tipped the cap down to shield his eyes. Ballard fell in a few cars behind as they turned toward the freeway entrance.
He hoped the son of a bitch got a stiff neck. Or better yet, constipation.
In San Francisco it was gray and cold. It had started to drizzle. Heslip turned into Greenwich from Stockton, went up the hill past the Chev as he got O’B on the radio.
“Any traffic?”
“Nobody in or out, except the old gal once to water her plants and once to pick up the mail after it was delivered at twelve thirty-one.”
That figured, Heslip thought, water your plants and it starts raining. More like water your jungle, seeing what Chandra’s yard looked like. He wondered if he’d be grabbing the Caddy tomorrow.
O’B pulled the Chev out and Heslip backed into the slot. The street was slick. First rain, there’d be plenty of groundup fenders during rush hour. With the wipers off, water sheeted across the windshield. Really coming down now.
Not so bad after all, here in the car instead of out in the rain under some bastard’s hood trying to wire it up with cold-clumsy fingers. Nicer, even, than hauling ass all over the state after that blonde like Larry was. But not as nice as being in bed with Corinne. Nothing was as nice as that.
He slid lower in the seat and listened to the rain, and thought of Corinne Jones.
When 101 rejoined the coastline at Pismo Beach, the sun was close to the ruler-flat horizon where sea joined sky. Ballard would be glad to see it go: it had been hot on the side of his face ever since Santa Barbara. Sunset would be about five o’clock, he figured.
At San Luis, both cars gassed up again. Ballard had a few twitchy minutes when he missed the light trying to get back onto the freeway, and spent several heavy-footed miles picking up the Jag again. They had light to the top of La Cuesta pass, but it went rapidly on the far side with the mass of the coastal hills between them and the dying sun. Ballard had his lights on by the time they passed Camp Roberts.
It was just south of Soledad and just short of six o’clock that he got another scare. He was tooling along the new stretch of freeway, thinking they’d be back in San Francisco by about eight o’clock — and not a damned thing learned in two days of tough tailing — when the Jag veered without warning across the highway and into an off-ramp.
Ballard caught one glimpse of a lone brightly lit gas station with an incongruous rack of promotional chinaware by the phone booth under a big sign, something-something Free. Then car and station were lost in the dark behind him as the overpass cut off his view.
He pulled off on the shoulder just beyond the northbound on-ramp. He got out, stood beside the car with the door open and the motor running, looking back at the overpass.
Now what the hell did he do? If they just crossed the overpass and went back south, he had lost them, because God knew when the next off-ramp would be. Relax. Car trouble, that was all. A soft tire. Motor overheating. Switching drivers. Having a Coke from the gas station soft-drink machine...
Headlights coming down the on-ramp. Ballard was bent over kicking a tire as the car went by. Okay. The Jag. He was into the Plymouth and pulling back onto the otherwise deserted freeway. Maybe close it up a bit: Fazzino’s face, a quick pale blur, had been pressed to the window as the gray car had passed.
And then Larry Ballard laughed aloud in the car. He bet the son of a bitch had been using the gas station john. Not constipated after all. Far from it...
At 6:03 Bart Heslip unclipped his dash mike and said into it, “This is SF-3, go ahead.”
“I just talked with Chandra,” said Giselle. “She got the bank’s final notice this afternoon. She’s turning in the car. Would you go up to the house and get the keys from her?”
“10-4.”