Seeing me watching, she said, “Go back to sleep,” like a mother who’d come into a child’s bedroom to put away folded laundry.
After two days and three nights of rest, I woke up at half past five in the morning, feeling better, alert and clearheaded. I kicked the covers aside and stood.
I did some stretches, then got down to the floor and tried some military-style push-ups, hands close enough together to make a diamond of my thumbs and forefingers. It wasn’t as hard as I’d expected. I’d lost muscle in my chest and shoulders from lack of use, but at the same time, I’d lost weight, so it evened out. I did ten push-ups and then sat on my heels, feeling my heart subside into normal rhythm.
When I was fully dressed, I quietly opened the door and came out. Serena’s living room, always messy, was bathed in the cool gray light of morning. On the couch, Serena slept in a pile of blankets.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand her. Three days ago she’d told me that if she’d felt it necessary, she could have shot me to death in her driveway and not felt guilty afterward. Yet here she was, sleeping on her couch so I could have her room.
I was quiet going into the kitchen, but when I pulled my head back out of the refrigerator after surveying the contents, Serena was at the terminator of the hallway carpet and the kitchen linoleum, hair disheveled, eyes violet-shadowed underneath from inadequate sleep.
“Hey,” I said. “Why don’t you go get in your bed, get some more sleep? I’m up.”
She shook her head. “I’m all right,” she said. “A lot of nights I don’t get eight hours.” She moved into the kitchen, stood behind me at the refrigerator. “You hungry?”
“Let me fix something,” I said. “You’ve cooked for me enough.”
Not long after, we were at her table, having Diet Coke and omelets.
“I was thinking,” Serena said, slicing into the center of her omelet, releasing steam, “that I was wrong the other night, to push you about finding out what happened to Nidia. It’s not your problem.”
“I know it’s not,” I said, “but I’m going to try, anyway.” I paused. “Because the thing is, what if she’s still alive somewhere?”
“You think she is?”
I hesitated. “If I had to guess, I’d say no. It’s probably been too long. If they took her alive intending to let her go later, she’d probably have turned up somewhere by now.”
“Unless they’re still holding her.”
“Unlikely,” I said. “Back east, we learned a little about terrorism and overseas kidnappings and hostage situations. As a rule of thumb, shorter is always better for kidnappers. The longer you have people, the greater the chance of an escape, or a rescue, or a hostage finding a way to stick something sharp in you, or to despair and commit suicide. And then there’s the logistics of feeding and guarding a hostage. It’s a labor- and planning-intensive mission.”
Serena considered this. “But maybe they’re capable of it. You said these guys acted like pros.”
“They did,” I admitted. “They were following us for a while. Babyface, the lead guy, he walked right up to me in El Paso and exchanged pleasantries. The scary thing is, he didn’t ask me any questions about where I was headed; he wasn’t fishing for information. He didn’t have to. He already knew.”
Serena looked curious. “So what was he doing?”
I shrugged. “Nothing,” I said. “As far as I know, he was amusing himself at my expense. These guys are beyond my league.”
“Yet you want to take them on.”
“Well, if I get killed,” I told her, “at least you won’t have wasted money on that tattoo on your leg.”
“There is that,” she agreed.
nineteen
Several days later, I got off a Greyhound bus in San Francisco. Compared to the way I’d arrived back in L.A., I was generously outfitted for my expedition: a pay-as-you-go cell phone with two hundred minutes on it, a pint of Finlandia, a SIG Sauer P228, and two thousand dollars from Serena. Most of that was my per diem for taking Nidia to Mexico. I hadn’t gotten the job done, but no one could say I hadn’t earned the pay. Serena had thrown in a little extra for my expenses going forward, a gesture that said this wasn’t just a private vendetta of mine, but that I had la veterana Warchild at my back.
The SIG was also a loan from Serena. It was chambered for fifteen rounds and was heavier than the Airweight, about two pounds, which was entirely worth it. Since the tunnel, I’d lost interest in guns with five-shot capacities.
I’d already programmed Serena’s number into my cell phone and made sure that she had my new number. Maybe I needed to feel like I had a home base. Like if I disappeared this time, someone would report me missing.
I got off the city bus in Japantown and walked to Aries’s offices. When I got there, Shay was sitting behind his desk, and when he looked up from the phone conversation he was having, his brows rose toward his hairline, like my old guidance counselor. When he hung up, he said, “Where the hell have you been?”
“I was in an accident.”
Serena and her girls could take the news of a shooting in stride; for them, it was just a bad day at work. But when I was dealing with other people, accident was going to be my euphemism for the ambush.
Shay said, “An accident? I thought you were going out of town on personal business.”
“It started out that way,” I said. “The accident was accidental. Hence the name.”
A new girl, olive-complected with springy black hair and a nose ring, was watching us now, alert to the prospect of drama.
“Why didn’t you call in and let me know what was going on?”
My tone sharpened. “I couldn’t, Shay. I nearly died; I was in the hospital a long time.”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Listen,” I said, quickly moving on, “I lost all my personal stuff, too. I’m going to need a new key to the room.”
“The room?”
“My stuff’s still up there, isn’t it?”
My Wheelock’s, my birth certificate, the picture of my father, my class ring, and cadet sword. Irreplaceable things. I didn’t have any rental contract with Shay. If he’d assumed I wasn’t coming back, and had pitched my things into the trash, I probably didn’t have any legal recourse.
Shay let me wonder a long moment. Then he said, “Yeah, it is. I didn’t think you were coming back, and I kept meaning to look into the law about how long I had to keep your stuff, but I never got around to it, and it seemed easier to store it up there than anywhere else.”
“Thanks.”
He said, “What about the rent, by the way?” He kicked his legs up on his desk. He was wearing shorts with sandals, revealing the impressive undiminished muscles of his legs. “I’m full up on riders, so I can’t let you pay it off that way,” he said.
“No problem,” I said. I pulled out the two thousand dollars I had from Serena, kept in a rubber-banded roll. “I’m two months behind, right?” I began counting it out, enjoying the slight ripple of disbelief on Shay’s face. For all he knew, I’d been laid up and not working for two months. He hadn’t expected me to be flush; in fact, he’d probably wanted me to grovel for the chance to work.
When he brought the spare key, he said, “Look, if you’re around a lot, maybe there’ll be some work I can throw your way. You know how it is.”
I understood why he was hedging. Shay always had new people walking in the door wanting to ride, but often they lost interest when they learned what demanding work messengering really was. Shay always needed riders he knew were reliable.
The truth was, I didn’t know how much time the search for Nidia would leave me. And after two months of immobility, I wasn’t sure I was in any shape for the street. But there was no point in antagonizing Shay. The most likely scenario in my search for Nidia was that I’d never find out who shot me or why, the money would run out, and then I’d be nothing but an unemployed bike messenger.