I finished the bagel and tugged on that thought until Randall appeared, walking up the other side of Prospect. His plaid short-sleeve button down, white shorts, and tan boat shoes were standard issue if you were going for a walk in La Jolla.
I crossed the street quickly and cut him off before he reached the hotel.
He didn’t look happy to see me. “What the hell do you want?”
“A small bag of heroin. Got any on you?”
The blood drained from his face, and he took a step back.
“Guess not,” I said. “Then I guess a private conversation with you will have to do for now.”
“I’m not talking to you,” he said, trying to regain his composure.
I slipped my gun out of the back of my shorts and held it casually in front of me. “Then I’m going to shoot you.”
He took another step back, but I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him toward me, jamming the barrel of the gun into his stomach.
“Choose,” I said, our faces inches apart. “Right now. Talk or get shot.”
Randall was a big guy who I’d managed to reduce to a little puddle of fear. I hated him for it.
“Okay,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Talk. I’ll talk.”
I slipped the gun back into my waistband, and we walked into the hotel and took the elevator up to his room. He pressed himself up against the far wall of the enclosed space as we rode. I stared at him.
His room was at the top, a magnificent view of the ocean out his window and balcony. The room was bright and large. A wet bar stood in one corner, and Randall went over to it.
“Drink?” he asked.
“No,” I said, standing in front of the doors to the balcony in case he wanted to throw himself over it. If he got any wild ideas, like trying to charge at me, I knew I had enough space between us to draw my gun.
He dropped some ice cubes into a glass and poured four fingers of Scotch over the ice. He sucked half of it down immediately, then took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Why did Kate take the hit for you?” I asked.
He swirled the ice and alcohol in his glass. “What hit?”
I grabbed the small digital clock off the nightstand, ripped the plug out of the wall, and fired it at him.
He ducked and it sailed over his left shoulder, smashing against the wall.
He came up, flushed. “Jesus!”
“I talked to Ken,” I said, the anger and frustration pouring out of me. “He explained to me exactly what kind of piece of shit you are.” I walked toward him. “You wanna drag this out? Fine. I will keep throwing things at you until you tell me what the hell was going on.”
He took a step back and bumped into the counter behind him. His eyes were twitchy and he looked like he was trying to make a decision.
He set his drink down. “Kate covered for me.”
“I know that. Why?”
“Because I made her.”
We stood there, staring at one another, his words hanging in the air between us.
“How?” I asked, resisting the urge to hit Randall as hard as I could.
Randall took a deep breath, looking nervous and pale. “I’d already had a run-in with…the police. I couldn’t afford another. I’m sure Ken told you that.”
I didn’t say anything.
“She was using again,” he said, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left. “Not enough for others to catch on, but just enough to stay in the groove. I told her if she didn’t cover for me, I’d tell Ken and Marilyn that she was off the wagon.”
I just looked at him, wondering what Kate had ever seen in him.
“She didn’t want them to know,” he said. “Disappointing them was always her biggest fear.” He smirked over the glass at me. “I think you learned that firsthand, though, didn’t you?”
I took another step forward and Randall nearly dropped his glass. It wasn’t as good as punching him, but it would have to do for the moment.
“She knew they’d insist on rehab again and there was no way she was gonna do that crap again,” Randall said after a moment, his cocky bravado still there, but toned down a bit. “It was either help me or deal with her parents. I knew she’d choose me.”
“So you blackmailed her,” I said.
He shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as taking advantage of the situation, but you’re probably right.” Randall emptied his drink and poured another. “She always helped me out of my problems.”
I tried to stay under control. “She didn’t at the hospital.”
He smiled at the glass. “No, that was one she couldn’t fix. That was all mine.”
I stayed quiet, not letting him off the hook.
“I went to the hospital, coming off a weekend binge,” he said, settling back against the counter. “It was a mistake. We’d been high all weekend. Almost operated on a patient before somebody stepped in.”
“Shouldn’t you have been arrested?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “No doubt. At the very least, fired. But I have a great attorney. Hospitals and insurance groups are very frightened of good attorneys.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that it couldn’t have been a lie.
“I was admonished,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Written up. Warned that if it happened again, I was done.” He paused, looking like he was trying to remember the scene. “When she got stopped, she didn’t know it was in the car. So I gave her the choice. Take the blame and tell your parents the truth, that it was mine. Or tell the cops the truth and deal with everything I would tell Ken and Marilyn.”
I tried to picture Kate and what she might’ve been thinking. Maybe it was a last-ditch attempt to save her marriage, no matter how perverse in its thinking. As I stood in the room with her husband, I became certain that he was nowhere near worth the effort she had made.
Or perhaps she simply couldn’t stomach the thought of disappointing her parents again.
“Ken set the deal up,” he continued. “I wasn’t implicated. It seemed like it would work out fine.”
“Sending your wife into a foreign country with the guy who controls the drug corridors between the U.S. and Mexico seemed fine?” I asked, my voice rising. “You seriously thought that?”
He finished off the second drink and set the empty glass on the counter. “They assured us she would be completely protected. The DA, the police, the DEA agents all told us that she wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“Famous last words.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “They made it sound like she’d never be alone, never without protection.” He paused. “Kate wasn’t afraid.”
That I believed. The Kate I had known was fearless. Try anything once. Live for the moment.
“After the first time, we relaxed,” he said, his voice straining a bit. “She said it was fairly easy. Everyone was friendly. There were guns, but she said it was like being in a bank. A little security, but very professional.”
“What did she say about Costilla?” I asked.
“Not much. Polite, friendly, somewhat intimidating, but nothing like what she expected. She said he looked like a rich businessman.”
I remembered Costilla in the empty storefront in San Ysidro. Until the shooting started, I probably could have agreed with that description.
“When did you realize she was missing?” I asked.
“When the DEA called me,” Randall said, his face sagging slightly. “They thought she might be with me.” He stopped and rubbed his chin. “Obviously, she wasn’t.”
“Obviously?” I asked.
He refocused on me. “What?”
“You didn’t see her after she disappeared?”
A fire started to burn in his eyes. “No, I didn’t see her. And I don’t think I like the implication.”
I laughed. I had to. The way rich people talk can be amusing. I’m not sure that I had ever used the word “implication” in a sentence before.
“You don’t, huh?” I said. “Well, let me tell you what I don’t like. I don’t like the fact that you are a junkie. I don’t like the fact that you pulled Kate into that life with you.”