He was so tired. He didn’t want to think about the boy. Put one foot in front of the other. He held the gun, though. He wasn’t going to give up the gun. But he stayed with the cop. She was the leader.
Did that mean he would be turning himself in?
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t kill anybody.” Amended it. “Except for the boy, and that was an accident.”
She said nothing.
“You believe me, right? Those guys that died in the house—I saw the woman and the boy searching the house. They were there. I could put them there. I’m a witness.”
“What about the two men at the mine?”
“What two men? What mine?”
The detective said nothing.
He reached for her arm, but stopped short of grabbing her. It was as if she were protected by a force field. “What’s going on? They killed someone else?”
She looked at him, her face inscrutable in the gloom and the rain. “Are you just being a good actor?”
He stepped back. “Actor? No! I didn’t kill the guys in the house. I did not! Why should I? Why would I? I have everything I want in the world. I have a career. I’m well paid—very well paid. I have a wife and…”
He faltered. He knew she could read through him. He knew the question that was coming.
She said it. “Then why are you in rehab if your life’s so good?”
“You don’t believe me?”
She started walking again. “It’s not what I believe. It’s what the county attorney will believe.”
“Then I’m under arrest?”
“Look at it this way: you’ve got a chance to tell your story.”
He laughed. “It’s a moot point, isn’t it? You can’t hold me if I don’t want to stay. What are you going to do? Shoot me? If I try to escape, are you going to shoot me?” He glanced at her holstered weapon. “You might need those bullets, if that woman wakes up and comes after us.”
Silence.
“Who else did she kill?” he asked. “Who else is dead?”
“Ah, the right question at last.” She looked up at him. Those steady eyes, so calm. Calm and in control. “We think she killed a man named Hogart and a man named Riis. They were the men who kidnapped you in the limo.”
And that was when he knew he was well and truly fucked.
DAVE FINLEY CHECKED his watch for the hundredth time. He’d been parked on the street by the tamarisk tree for almost an hour, had walked over to check out the Subway twice and the Pizza Hut once. He’d driven around the parking lot and up and down the main drag of Paradox and onto the patchwork of intersecting streets, which petered out quickly into desert. Not much of a town, that was for sure.
Now he just sat in his truck, waiting.
He’d tried the number Max had called him from, but it just kept ringing. Max wasn’t answering his cell either.
“Where the hell are you, buddy?”
Dave took a drag off his cigarette (his fifth—he always smoked more when he was nervous). He had the radio on, but so far all he was hearing was country music.
For all he knew, Max was on a nice cushy jet heading back to LA. While he sat out here waiting.
But he doubted it.
Max had always attracted trouble. Look at that wife of his, Talia. Now ol’ Max had painted himself into a corner with that baby from Africa and no matter what he did, he was screwed.
Dave flicked the cigarette out into the street and watched the cherry bounce. He needed to quit. In fact, he needed to do a lot of things. Dave stared into the rain and darkness, watching the light show over the mountains. Still keeping an eagle eye out for Max, but he had the feeling Max was gone. Had no idea where he was, or what he should do now.
He’d already done that little favor for Jerry—Dave had found a woman and her daughter who fit the bill. The mother and daughter had been ahead of him in line at the Safeway, believe it or not, and he had seen the mother using a food stamp card. He’d struck up a conversation with the mom and handed her a line of bullshit about an audition for a small part in a film, that it would mean good money—“union scale.” She was starstruck, all right. He told her not to tell anyone because they were behind schedule and didn’t want to audition too many people—they wanted to cast the film as soon as possible.
He got her number and told her he’d call her with the where and when.
Dave didn’t know why Jerry had asked him to go looking for a woman and a girl. Jerry was always scheming over something, and Dave figured anything that could hurt Max was fine with him. When he brought Max back—if he could bring Max back—he’d get the whole story later tonight.
Revenge was a dish best served cold.
And so he waited for Max. After all, he was Max’s buddy, his wingman, the guy who could always be counted on to look the other way while his best friend boffed his wife.
UP AHEAD MAX saw an old gas station by the side of the road. The pumps had been torn out. The place was now an antiques and curios store. Just beyond it was a ramp up to the freeway. The building had a colorful sign that said “Jeepers Creepers.” All sorts of weird stuff had been stuck to the outside walclass="underline" dolls, farming implements, serapes, small appliances. Max walked with the cop, only because he didn’t know what else to do. He was an American. He was innocent. He hadn’t killed anybody—except for the boy. (And that was an accident.) He could take off and hitch his way out of here, but then what would he do?
He would be a fugitive.
He had to think about this.
When he’d escaped the Desert Oasis, he’d wanted to be a sort of everyman. Live out of the spotlight, do a good day’s work. Be normal. But what was normal? Because he knew that even though he lived in America, even if he was innocent, there were plenty of people on death row all over this country who were innocent. Plenty who had been executed. He’d been on the mailing list to save Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas. And look what happened there.
No, he didn’t want to be everyman. Everyman had the odds stacked against him. Max had power. He had fame. He had influence. All the things he’d disdained recently.
Now he needed them.
So he would go with the female cop. He would act like an innocent man because he was an innocent man. And he would get the best fucking defense lawyer in the business.
Once Gordon fixed him.
And so he walked with her, an innocent man, and relied on her strength, her presence. Her straight back, the way she moved.
He knew and she knew that he had a gun. He could take her any time. But of course he wouldn’t. Because he was innocent.
But she didn’t seem to mind that the man who’d held a gun on her before was now walking alongside. Maybe because of his condition.
He looked back at the truck again. Dim in the dark and the lashing rain. Smaller and smaller. The truck didn’t move. Nothing moved. Maybe the woman was dead.
He hoped so.
They were on the porch of Jeepers Creepers. The old door rattled in its frame as the cop knocked on the door. The clock in the door was turned to 5:00 p.m. He glanced at his watch. It was going on five-thirty.
It was good to be out of the rain.
I killed that kid.
He couldn’t get away from it. It kept coming back. In the culvert he’d wanted to kill the kid, and now he had. And here he was in the gloom and the rain coming down like a waterfall around them, completely untethered from the world, everything still going in slow motion, and his only thread to reality was the cop.