A neighbor reported having seen a man, with a package "as big as a suitcase," ringing the Boghosian's doorbell a few minutes ealier. The man had worn a brown shirt and trousers like a deliveryman's uniform. Apparently the package had held the bomb.
It could have been a coincidence, of course, but right from the start, neither of us had any doubt that the bomb had been meant for us. For me specifically and for Tuuli by association. I put it together for her this way: The Gnostie that took her license number had then reported seeing us at Pie Are Square. Maybe he'd even been sitting in his car watching, and saw us come out and drive away. We'd been speaking a foreign language, but according to Nerisa were able to speak perfectly good English.
Tuuli admitted that she hadn't sent her change of address to the Department of Motor Vehicles after we got married, and she hadn't had to reregister her car yet, so their records still showed the old Hollywood Boulevard address. Someone in the church either hacked or bought their way into the DMV's computer and got that address; not an easy thing to do. The guy who delivered the bomb would even have been met at the door by a burly guy with a foreign accent, though presumably that made no difference in what happened.
Thomas would have watched this morning's news, or maybe last night's, and read the morning paper. And he'd know from the DMV records that Tuuli's car wasn't registered to any Boghosian. Besides, except for the build, Boghosian's picture didn't look like me. He'd know they'd hit the wrong target.
When I'd run through it, we sat looking at each other over our coffee. "How'd you like to take a vacation in Arizona?" I asked her.
"If you'll come with me."
"Honey, I can't; I've got a case. This is the best lead I've had on it, and if I solve it, I'll have the people who want to kill me. This is real evidence, circumstantial but real, that the church is behind Christman's disappearance."
"Let Carlos handle it."
"Honey, Carlos is good, very good, but he's not as good as I am. The firm will rent me a room somewhere; maybe a series of rooms. You can go stay at Diacono's. I'll bet the firm will cover the cost. If they won't, we'll cover it ourselves."
She looked thoughtful. I could almost see the wheels turning: she was thinking about studying or whatever with a guru. She'd already told me that Bhiksu was psychically very advanced, and had done some remarkable things that evening at the Merlins', after I'd fogged out and gone to sleep.
I remembered the dream that maybe hadn't been a dream.
She'd also told me that Mikki was a psychic whose powers had been expanded and stabilized by Tory and Vic.
A lot of people, Tuuli said, had occasional psychic moments, probably most people. With some of them, these were explicit, but mostly they were vague, like a notion with no apparent source. With her, they were only occasional, unless she deliberately looked for one. Then she'd often get something, often sharp and clear.
And one of the things they did at Diacono's Spirit Lodge, she said, was train people in that sort of thing—people with a talent for it. My natural tendency was to be skeptical, but if believing would get Tuuli out of L.A. for a while, great. Besides, I couldn't doubt that Vic had some sort of power, not after what he'd done for me. And apparently Tory did too.
After a minute, Tuuli nodded. "All right. I have appointments with clients on Monday and Tuesday. Surely the people that want to kill us won't have our new address by then, will they?"
"I've assumed they got your name and old address from DMV. And now that they know the address was wrong . . ."
Suddenly I realized there was something I needed to do. Right away! I got up from the table and called GTE. Had them remove both of us from directory assistance—Tuuli's business listing as well as our residential listings. I used my investigator's credentials to have it done immediately. In fact I didn't disconnect till it was done. The big question was, had it been in time?
Tuuli hated to have her listings removed, but she recognized the need. If Thomas or whoever hadn't checked yet, being unlisted would stall them for a while, maybe quite awhile, and we could get listed again when it was safe. There were phone books, of course, but most people didn't have one. If your phone wasn't computerized, you got the books free, white and yellow pages separately. Otherwise you had to order and pay for them. Presumably the church didn't have phone books, and wouldn't think to check one anyway. If someone wasn't in the electronic directory, they'd rarely be in the book either.
Of course, if they'd already checked . . . "Hon," I told her, "I think you should leave today. Call and notify your clients that you've had an emergency of some kind."
She frowned, considering. "This is a security building," she countered, "and Prudential has the contract. I don't like to be driven out of my home by some criminal. And I hate to lose business."
"There are worse things to lose. And building security isn't intended to prevent determined terrorist-type attacks. It's to prevent nuisance entry and discourage crime on the premises. Utilities people, delivery personnel, clients who come to see you—anyone who seems to have a proper reason to enter—they let in."
I shifted my approach then, and phoned the Diaconos to ask how much they charged. Frank answered. For Tuuli, he said, they'd only charge for meals and housekeeping: fifteen dollars a day. When I objected that that seemed awfully cheap, he laughed. "We've got unoccupied rooms, and our food is nothing fancy. If it was you, we might charge twenty-five."
While we were talking, I remembered where I'd known Diacono before. Not personally, but on television, when I'd been a kid. He'd been an all-pro NFL linebacker before I was born, and I'd seen his antidrug spots on television when I was little.
I generally liked people who fought drugs. The guy who'd gunned down my parents had been a drug smuggler dad had caught, and who'd nursed his grudge for eighteen years in prison. As if it was dad's fault, not his. He'd only had about half a minute to enjoy it before I unloaded a charge of number four shot into his back from my twelve-gauge. It severed his spinal cord. Then I'd kicked and stomped him very thoroughly to death. Something I used to revisit in nightmares.
I told Frank what our situation was, and that conceivably Tuuli's presence could be a risk to them. He grinned and said so was a tornado or Lucifer's Hammer, and not to worry about it.
She talked to him then. He finally agreed to accept twenty. She also arranged to be picked up at Flagstaff on Wednesday—made the decision on her own and without discussing it with me. When she disconnected, she turned, expecting me to blow up. "I won't postpone my clients," she said. I surprised her. "Okay. I'll call Joe and tell him what's happened. I'll ask him to intensify security here for a couple of days. If we have to, you and I can pay for an extra guard or two."
Joe agreed without hesitating. He'd add a third guard on each shift, seasoned people with superior ratings, and send out a scanner they could use to check packages. Then I called the building manager and had him take our names off the directory. I told him we'd had some harassment calls.
We did get to the zoo that day, only later than we'd planned. By the time we got back, I'd thought of something else I needed to do. I'd called myself Martin Eberly for my appointment with Lon Thomas. Presumably he'd checked afterward, when he'd decided I might be a threat, and concluded that the name was false, but I wouldn't take it for granted. So I checked for possible Martin or M. Eberlys, Eberleys, and Eberles listed in metropolitan L.A.-Riverside-Long Beach. There weren't any. If there had been, I'd have had the firm warn them of possible danger.
17
TUNNELS
On Monday I talked with Carlos about the bombing and the encounter at Pie Are Square, and he agreed it pointed to the church. Joe called the LAPD, told them the firm might have a lead on the bomber, and asked for a contingency contract on the bombing case. A contingency contract pays nothing unless you get information that at least contributes to an indictment, but it doesn't commit you to anything, either.