The driver was already out of the van and advancing toward me, reaching his right hand into a blue Dodger warm-up jacket like he was going for a weapon. He was about thirty and on the thin side, with a long loping stride, shaved head, milk chocolate skin, moon face, ballistic-shooter sunglasses. I drew my revolver, threw open the Jag’s passenger door and, shielding myself behind it, squared his chest in my gun sights.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” He slammed on the brakes like some cartoon character. “Ain’t no need for none of that, brother. C’mon now.”
“Get your hands up where I can see ’em.”
“No worries. Take it easy.” He reached for the clouds.
“Now turn around with your fingers interlocked on the back of your head.”
“Anything you want, brother. Be cool now. C’mon.”
I advanced on him in a two-handed combat crouch and ordered him to spread his legs shoulder-width. When I got close enough, I patted him down from behind with one hand, my gun trained on him with the other. He was unarmed.
“What’s under the jacket?”
“Legal papers.” He turned his head and eyeballed me, his hands still in the air. “Are you Mr. Cordell Logan?”
“Only if you’re from Publishers Clearing House.”
“Publisher’s what?” He realized I was messing with him. “No, man, I’m a—”
“Process server,” I said, finishing his sentence for him and stuffing my revolver back in my belt. “No balloons. That should’ve been my first clue.”
I apologized for nearly killing him. He professed no hard feelings.
“In my line of work, comes with the turf,” he said, handing me a temporary protective order with my name printed on it. “You’ve been duly served.”
“Duly noted.”
He backed his van up and sped off down the hill in search of his next litigant.
The protective order, signed by one Ronald Jablonsky, district court judge from Clark County, Nevada, accused me of harassing my former father-in-law, his assistant, Miles Zambelli, and Savannah. It ordered me to cease and desist in the matter of Arlo Echevarria, warning that I would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law if I failed to do so. I wondered how big a bribe Carlisle had slipped the judge. I crumpled the paper, tossed it in the backseat, and headed east, out of the city, the sun in my eyes.
Savannah called.
“My housekeeper just told me there was some big commotion down on the street.”
“Your father served me with a cease and desist. How’d he know I was at your house?”
“I told him.”
“Thanks a bunch.”
“Whatever you may think of him, Logan, he’s still my father.”
She’d called him after she’d gone to bed, she said, because she was confused about her feelings for me and needed to talk it through with someone. Her father, she said, had offered to buy her a first-class ticket and put her up at his flat in Paris for a month, all expenses paid — enough time for her to come to her senses and realize that she had no business ever giving me the time of day again.
“So what did you tell him?”
“I told him I’d have to think about it.”
“Personally, I would’ve gone with the place in Paris.”
“Of course you would’ve,” Savannah said.
I promised I’d have her car back the next day, if not sooner.
TWENTY
As the objective observer motors across much of rural America, he is often struck by the thought, “How could anyone with half a brain ever live in a hell hole like this?” Certainly, the extreme eastern reaches of Southern California, where the desertscape turns more lunar-like with the passing of each bleak, interminable mile, embody the very definition of such godforsaken places. Places where the reception on one’s car radio becomes limited to Mexican border blaster mega-stations, gospel-thumping fearmongers, and twangy country-western tunes like, “There Ain’t Enough Room in My Fruit of the Looms to Hold All My Lovin’ for You.” Places better flown over than driven through.
I was listening to Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart,” pondering the profundity of the Man in Black’s lyrics, when Miles Zambelli telephoned. Much as I disliked Zambelli, I was happy to talk to him. Given that I still had another two hours of boring, featureless desert ahead of me, I would’ve been happy to talk to just about anybody.
He said he was speaking on behalf of Carlisle, who was concerned that my making “unfounded and inflammatory” inquiries in Echevarria’s death threatened to derail the oil deal with Tarasov in Kazakhstan.
“Neither Mr. Carlisle nor Mr. Tarasov appreciates you continuing to make these ridiculous inquiries,” Zambelli said, “and, quite frankly, neither do I. You will cease and desist, or Mr. Carlisle will have no choice but to demand reimbursement in full of the monies he paid you which, if you’ll recall, required you to do nothing more than very briefly apprise the police as to the nature of Mr. Echevarria’s employment history.”
“Please inform Mr. Carlisle I am in receipt of the court order issued by Judge Jablowme, and that I have filed it accordingly. Also please inform Mr. Carlisle that any and all monies paid me to date have already been expended on cheap wine and even cheaper women.”
“If you think this is a joking matter, Mr. Logan, I would advise you to think again. As you continue to cast outrageous aspersions on wholly innocent individuals in the death of Mr. Echevarria, including Mr. Carlisle and myself, you’re also interfering with an ongoing police investigation. And I can assure you, sir, we will not stand for it.”
“That is some mighty fine speechifying, Miles. Did you learn that at Harvard Law or watching Law and Order?”
I wasn’t sure if the connection was lost before or after he hung up on me.
Emma Emerson arrived twenty minutes late for our rendezvous in the mini-mart parking lot on Phoenix’s west side. She was driving her late husband’s red Silverado. Though it was still daylight, I flashed my headlights three times to let her know it was me she was looking for, then got out and walked over.
She was an anorexic, fifty-something brunette in jeans and a goose-down vest, even though it was eighty degrees outside, and bulging, slightly misaligned green eyes that never quite met mine.
“Got any ID on you?”
I dug the driver’s license out of my wallet and held it up for her inspection. Resting on her lap was a nine-millimeter Beretta. A vintage Winchester carbine rode in a gun rack mounted on the inside of the truck’s rear window behind her, along with a .223-caliber Ruger survival rifle with a plastic laminate stock.
“I don’t remember Robbie ever saying anything about serving with Cordell Logan, no middle name,” she said, peering at my license photo. “Sounds like one of them made-up Hollywood names to me.”
“The studios made me change it. My real name’s Norma Jean Baker.”
She eyed me suspiciously without so much as a rumor of a smile. Grabbing a pack of unfiltered Camels from the truck’s center console, she eased one between her lips, fired it up with a match, and said, “I’m gonna ask you two questions. Get either one wrong, we’re done. Got it?”
“I just hope they’re true or false. I don’t do well on multiple choice.”
Tendrils of smoke shot out of her nose. “True or false: The standard-issue weapon of Alpha tactical teams was the MP-5 submachine gun.”
“There was no standard-issue weapon. Every man carried whatever he qualified on, as long as it shot standard NATO ammunition.”
If she was impressed, she didn’t show it.