At KFC she was “front of shop,” which meant taking orders, bagging them up, and running a cash register. Just a few minutes ago, on her bus trip here to the ATF office in Buenavista, she’d seen a help-wanted sign at the In-N-Out Burger. They had better food than KFC except for the mashed potatoes and coleslaw, but the idea of her working in Buenavista and Skull being a few short miles away in El Centro didn’t feel right at all. If their paths crossed, she might be able to convince him that she had come here because she missed him, because Skull had large ideas about his charm and desirability. He also might suspect something and just flat-out beat the truth out of her. Or worse. Her phone vibrated again and she saw the number and didn’t answer.
A minute later she stood and looked down at the native. “’Til we meet again, chief.”
“Never answer a phone.”
“You ain’t kidding.”
• • •
The lobby was spacious and the floor was shiny black marble with glittery shavings of something in it. The security guard was a large, muscular man with a scarred but not unfriendly face and a very crisp blue uniform. He was armed. His nameplate said OSCAR. Mary Kate signed in and Oscar gave her a hard look as he dialed the phone.
Charlie Hood led her back to his cubicle and pulled out a chair for her, then sat behind a small desk. On the desk were a computer with a rolling-river screen saver and a cup of coffee on an electric warmer. Mary Kate had called Hood specifically because he was cute and had diamonds in his teeth and no ring on his finger, and because his boss, Dale, was a fool. “He’s been calling,” she said. “Skull. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Twice yesterday, twice today.”
“Does your phone have GPS?”
“It’s your basic flip, comes with the plan.” She held it out and Hood took it and checked it over, then handed it back.
“No GPS. Skull thinks you’re in Missouri?”
“I don’t ever know what he thinks. Last time he called I didn’t answer. His voice does kind of send a chill down my spine.”
Hood nodded. “You can help us. It’s up to you.”
“I wouldn’ta called you if I wasn’t ready to help. I get the feeling he’ll keep calling me ’til you put him away.”
“If you can just let him believe that you’re in Russell County, you’ll be safe and he might get loose with information.”
“His Achilles tendon is that he brags.”
Mary Kate watched Hood unlock one of the file cabinets that stood beside his desk, and rummage through a shallow cardboard box. His hair was dark and long and it fell over his forehead when he leaned down. He wore strangely alluring suits and shoes, but when he smiled it was uncomplicated and boylike despite the showy diamonds. He brought out a small digital recorder and opened the back and spilled out the batteries. He got a new package of triple A’s and took two. He did things patiently and seemed to concentrate.
“Do you ever put him on speaker when you talk?”
“If I’m busy.”
“If you can put him on speaker without making him suspicious, and use this, we’ll have his words, too.”
“For court?”
“We can’t use them in court. He’s got an expectation of privacy. We can use them to help us find and arrest him, though.”
“I got a job at KFC in downtown San Diego.”
“I’m glad to hear that. So you were serious about staying in Southern California.”
“I was serious about the movie star, model, or nurse. I kid a lot but not about the important stuff. I’m at the Winston Arms downtown and it’s a real pit.”
“Maybe you’ll make some friends, find a roommate or two.”
“In San Diego they got the Old Globe Theatre, and a theater in La Jolla that wins awards. Jersey Boys got started there, not in New Jersey like you’d think. And The Wizard of Oz got written on some island near San Diego. The book, not the movie.” Her phone rang and she checked the number. “Skull.”
Hood pushed a black button on his desk phone and a red button on the digital recorder. “Answer and put him on speaker.”
She sighed softly, answered, and went to speaker. “I got one hundred percent of nothing to say to you.”
“Don’t hang up. I miss you, Mary Kate. That’s all I have to say. I wish I was back there with you. California isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Doesn’t look like it does on TV.”
Hood had a half smile and he was nodding. He looked to her like Spider-Man and she wondered if she looked like Mary Jane next door. She let a beat go by and thought again how truly easy it was to act so long as you believed your part. “Russell County looks just fine without you in it. You never even said you were sorry.”
“I am so darned sorry, honey.”
“You know how much that hurt? You should see me now.”
“I’d do anything in the world to make you feel better.”
She winked at Hood. “Well, that’s easy to say from two thousand miles away.”
“Come on out. I’ll pay for the ticket and we’ll be together. We were meant for that, Mary Kate. You and I both know it.”
“And the worst hurt was I trusted you, Skull. I was so fooled and surprised when you started hitting me. I had your baby inside.”
There was a long silence. Mary Kate watched Hood, who was staring at the recorder intensely enough to hypnotize it.
“I can make it right again.”
“It wasn’t right to start with.”
“Mary Kate, sometimes a man does things he regrets. I regret everything I did wrong to you. With all my heart. I’ll be home soon. I’ll make us right again.”
“Sounds like my invite to California just got canceled.”
“Where are you? What are you doing? What are you wearing? Did your lips heal up yet?”
Now Mary Kate let the silence grow again. She glanced at Hood and smiled slightly, though her lips still hurt. She winked at him again because she was about to deliver some very crafty words. “Lyle? I’m tired of talking to you. How ’bout you talk to me? Tell me something that won’t hurt. Where are you? You making any money out there? Have you sold anything or not?”
“It’s going okay. You know that big-ass thing we took out to the woods? The watermelons? I got us some good money for it. There’s other sales pending. And we’re about to get some new. . items. Friends of mine out here, from the service. They got military stuff from the Naval Weapons Station. Big stuff, big money.”
“You mean like bombs?”
“I could say MANPADS but that might not mean much to you.”
“Nope. But I’m happy for you.” Mary Kate reached across Hood’s desk and took a pen out of a coffee cup and wrote on his legal pad: “See? Has to brag.”
Hood smiled. The diamonds glittered. But Mary Kate could tell something had just hit him, and hard.
“You always had good luck, Skull.”
“Luck enough to get you.”
“Those days are most insuredly gone.”
“I don’t want them gone.”
“Then when you coming back?”
“When the job is done, honey.”
“I do not qualify as your honey anymore. We were on brand-new footing as of the second you hit me.”
She heard Lyle sigh. As a bully he had no endurance. He had very finite levels of patience and forgiveness. When they were gone was when he started hitting people or whatever else was handy.