Ted wrote all of that down. “Anything else?”
“Not that I know of right now,” I said. “Will Mick be able to tell recent from older stuff?”
“Yes. Everything on the hard drive is dated.”
“Should be from yesterday. Either a new file, or she might’ve printed out her research and then deleted it.”
“Mick can find it either way. And I’ll have him check all her entries and searches for the past week or so, just in case.”
“How long do you think it’ll take him?”
“When it comes to computers, he’s even more efficient than I am. I’d say no more than an hour at the most. He’ll call you as soon as he has anything to report. Do you have a cell number?”
I did now, thanks to Kerry; her Christmas present had been a cell phone. I read it off to him. “I really appreciate this, Ted.”
“Friends as well as business associates-you’d do the same for us. And I like Tamara, I hate the thought of anything happening to her. Not that anything has or will. I’m sure she’s all right.”
He wasn’t sure, any more than I was. Just trying to be upbeat, reassuring. But the truth was in his eyes, in the grave set of his features. No one who deals with crime and criminals on a daily basis can fool anybody else in the business on a thing like this.
18
JAKE RUNYON
He waited at the office until 5:35. Dead time, but necessary; until close of business there was always a chance, however small, that Tamara or somebody who knew her whereabouts might call. Then he switched on the answering machine, locked up, went down to the garage for his car.
On his own time now. Ready to jump when Bill called, but until then the priority flag was down. He let himself think again about Troy and Tommy Douglass. Keep moving, keep busy, pick up where he’d left off earlier.
South San Francisco, sprawled out in a little valley under San Bruno Mountain, was an industrial city that billed itself that way in huge white letters cut into one of the flanking hillsides. Nearly half of it was given over to factories, steel mills, maintenance shops for the airlines at SFO, meat-packing plants, paint and chemical and plastics companies. The other half was largely blue-collar and lower-income, white-collar residential-housing that was crazily overpriced, like all Bay Area real estate these days, but given its proximity to San Francisco, still affordable and desirable. Runyon knew all this because he’d driven around and familiarized himself with South San Francisco, as he’d taken the time to do with all the cities and towns within a hundred-mile radius. You couldn’t operate effectively in a metropolitan area as large as this one unless you built up a good working knowledge of its component parts. Besides which, it had given him a purpose during his off-duty hours.
The usual commuter snarl on 101 turned a twenty-minute trip into thirty-five. He left the freeway on Grand Avenue, the main South City exit, and then had to make three stops, two service stations, and a convenience store, before he found a phone directory that hadn’t been vandalized or stolen. Phone booths and phone books-vanishing breeds in this age of cell phones and widespread disrespect for public property. Common courtesy: another vanishing breed.
There were a pair of listings for Douglass, two esses. One was residential, G. Douglass, no address to go with the number. The other was commerciaclass="underline" Douglass Auto Body, on Victory Avenue. In the car he tapped out the residential number on his cell. Nine rings, no answer. He located the South San Francisco map among the pile in the glove box, found Victory Avenue. It intersected with South Linden over near the Bayshore Freeway.
Douglass Auto Body turned out to be a tumbledown frame garage, its barbed-wire-fenced side yard cluttered with junker cars. Still open for business even though the time was nearly six-thirty. Railroad tracks ran a couple of blocks away; he could hear an engine whistle and the clatter of rolling stock as he drove slowly past the garage. None of the handful of older pickups parked in the vicinity had a Confederate flag in its rear window. But parked near the set of double doors facing the street was a sporty white Chevy Camaro, vintage 1980.
Runyon parked next to the Camaro, walked inside. The overhead lighting, high up on the rafters, was dim enough to create pockets of shadow along the walls. One man was working in there, fiftyish, gray-haired and gray-bearded, the upper part of his face obscured by goggles, using a hissing acetylene torch on a Jeep Ranger’s rear fender. To the left, just inside the double doors, brighter lighting illuminated a glass-partitioned office cubicle. The office had one occupant shuffling papers at a desk-a young guy with curly blond hair, lean and muscular in a blue shirt.
Runyon veered over into the cubicle’s doorway. The blond kid looked up, an unsmiling look that catalogued him briefly and without much interest. The eyes were blue and innocent, the face smooth and beardless. Angelic wasn’t a term Runyon would’ve used to describe it. More apt was clean-cut All-American College Boy, circa 1960. He could pass for twenty-one, all right.
“Yessir?” he said. Deep, soft voice. “Help you?”
“Your name Troy? Troy Douglass?”
“That’s right. Do I know you?”
“No. I’m looking for your brother.”
“Tommy?” The name didn’t seem to taste right; his mouth quirked a little when he said it. “He’s not here.”
“Where can I find him?”
“You a friend of his?”
“No.”
“He owe you money or something?”
“Does he owe a lot of people money?”
“Well…”
“I’m not one of them.”
“Why’re you looking for him then?”
“Personal matter.”
Furrows marred the flawless complexion. Troy pushed his chair back, got to his feet. “Maybe you better talk to my father. He’s right out there.”
“It’s your brother I’m interested in. What kind of car does he drive?”
“… Why do you want to know that?”
“Older model pickup, Confederate flag in the rear window?”
“No, that’s Bix’s wheels.”
“Bix. Red hair, freckles? Tommy’s buddy?”
“Yeah. Why’re you asking all these questions?”
“The two of them are in trouble, that’s why.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“They’ve been on a rampage the past couple of weeks, beating up gay men in the Castro district. Gene Zalesky, Larry Exeter, Kenneth Hitchcock.”
Shock turned Troy’s face the noncolor of Crisco. He said, “Oh, Jesus!” and sat down hard enough to make the chair squawk loudly.
“You didn’t know?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“Put all three of them in the hospital,” Runyon said. “Hitchcock’s still there, still in critical condition.”
“Because of me, of what I…?”
“Looks that way.”
“But it’s not their fault! How can he blame them?”
“Easier than blaming you, hating you, beating you up. This way, you’re just a victim and he feels justified.”
“I knew he was a homophobe, but a basher…”
“How’d he get their names? You tell him?”
“He made me tell him. Wasn’t enough he had to come looking for me, force me to move back home… he wanted names, addresses, everything about the men I… but I never thought… Goddamn him and that speed freak Bix!”
“What’s Bix’s last name?”
“Sullivan.”
“Does Tommy use drugs, too?”
Brief nod. “I don’t, I never hurt anybody, and he thinks what I do is sick!”
“Where can I find him and Bix Sullivan?”
“Why? What’re you going to do to them?”
“Stop them from attacking anybody else, maybe killing the next man they go after.”
“Put them in jail? Are you a cop?”
“Don’t you think they belong in jail?”
“Yes, but-” Troy’s face warped again, this time showing fear. “Oh, shit!”
The kid was staring past him, out into the garage. Runyon realized that the hissing sound had stopped, and when he half turned he saw that the gray-haired man had shed the acetylene torch, removed his goggles, and was approaching the office.