Unless, of course, the police read the call, realized which "Weisner" I was interested in, and got a federal court order requiring the branch supervisor to turn it over to them. Which might—should—require convincing answers to some awkward questions.
I drove back to Molly's. I still didn't know what I was going to do next. I'd had ideas, but none of them felt good.
* * *
Molly and Myers and Katey and I sat around playing cards for a while, with the radio tuned to KFWB News. All we heard of any relevance was that the body count at the apartment was up to thirty-three, and so far no one had been found alive in the rubble. At about two-thirty, Myers started yawning. I lay down on one sofa and he on the other, and went to sleep.
The clock read 1640 when I woke up from busy dreams. I couldn't remember what they were about, but I'd awakened with the germ of an idea. After buckling my shoulder holster back on, I found the hyysikkään, then went to the kitchen for a drink of water. Molly heard me and came out of her office.
"So," she said, "what's happening?"
"I think it's time for me to move."
She started rustling around the kitchen, got out a plate of the great temptation, brownies, put them on the kitchen table, and was in the middle of pouring coffee when she stopped abruptly, scowling.
"Get your goddamn ass out of my space!" She didn't yell it, just said it loudly and firmly, with a distinct tone of annoyance. It embarrassed me, even though she wasn't looking at me when she said it. Then she finished pouring, and sat down as if nothing had happened.
"Reel your eyes back in, sweetbuns," she told me. "I wasn't talking to you." She tested her coffee with her upper lip, and sipped. "Now and then," she went on, "someone, some entity, some being, will show up in my space. If I don't like the way they feel, I send 'em packing. And if they don't git when I tell 'em to, I blast 'em. That gets rid of 'em every time."
"You mean—ghosts?"
"Not usually. Not in the usual sense. But someone without a body, or out of the body."
I got a rush of chills. "Do you know who it was?"
She snorted. "Don't know, don't care." She dunked a brownie and bit it in two. "D'you feel like telling me what you're going to do? Or would you rather keep it to yourself?"
I shifted my attention to my present problems. "Keep it to myself for now."
We sat there eating brownies and sipping coffee. Molly's blast had wakened Myers in the next room. He'd peeked in worriedly, saw us talking normally, and after a trip to the bathroom, joined us. Neither Myers nor I had much to say, and Molly wasn't being talkative either. I finished my coffee and stood up. "It's time for me to go," I said to her. "If you'll let Myers hide out here temporarily, the firm will pay. Fifty bucks per diem. How about it?"
Molly scowled. "For a couple of days tops; I'm not into house guests. I don't even let my kids stay more than two or three days."
"Is that okay with you, Robert?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Good. If I'm not back day after tomorrow . . ." I looked in my billfold; I didn't have a lot of cash, but enough to give Myers a hundred. "Catch a flight out of town, to Phoenix maybe, or San Francisco, and tell your story to the FBI."
He nodded again.
I got the jacket and Dodger cap that Molly had loaned me, and went out to her old Dodge. She'd been damned generous to someone she hardly knew. Then I got in and started it up, but before I could drive away, it seemed to me someone was there, watching me. So I looked in the back, and saw no one.
Then I got out and looked in the enclosed luggage compartment. As I closed the hatchback, I suddenly realized.
"Get your goddamn ass out of my space!" I didn't shout it, but it slashed out of me with snap and anger. Waves of chills washed over me then, as intense as orgasm, and after half a minute, when they'd settled out, I realized there was no one there but me.
But there had been! I didn't doubt it. I hoped I'd blasted him out of his ectoplasmic socks.
32
PICTURE AT A PARTY
I got back in the Dodge and drove down Hollycliffe to Bronson. In some respects, Los Feliz and the I-5 Freeway was the most logical route to take, but Los Feliz was continually patrolled because of speeders, so instead I took Franklin west, and then the Hollywood Freeway. The freeways were safer for me than surface streets. They were patrolled by the California Highway Patrol, and I was pretty sure the bad apples in the LAPD wouldn't invite the CHP in on their game. They could order their own officers without questions getting asked, at least out loud, at least for a while. But the CHP or the sheriff's department would want explanations.
I crossed Cahuenga Pass and left the Hollywood for the Ventura Freeway westbound, then exited onto Coldwater Canyon and drove north. LAPD territory again. I hadn't gone far, hadn't crossed Tujunga Wash yet, when I heard a siren growl, the sort of little growl patrolmen use to get your attention. I looked in my rearview mirror, and sure as hell, there he was, coming up on me from behind, flasher spinning.
I'd been careful not to speed or break any other traffic laws, and it was still daylight, so it couldn't be a taillight out or the telltale wrong glint from an out-of-date license sticker. The first thing they'd want was to see my driver's license, and even if they didn't remember the all-cars bulletin, they'd check the name on their computer. Standard practice. And there I'd be.
I didn't think it all out like that, of course; that's simply the data I acted on. Instead of pulling over, I swerved through a short gap in the oncoming traffic. Horns blared; tires squealed. Someone sideswiped me and caromed into the police cruiser. Someone else broadsided me. I was pretty well shaken up. There were other crashes, half a dozen or more, then relative quiet. Molly's van was on its left side, and the right side was smashed in, so I unbuckled, crawled quickly to the rear and out the back door, which had sprung open. I needed to separate myself from the Dodge, hopefully before the patrolmen worked their way to where they could see me get out of it. The scene was turning into an ants' nest. People were running over, helping people out of smashed cars, and for half a minute I pretended to be part of them. The patrol car was on its side, too, and it looked as if the officers hadn't been able to get out yet. There were enough smashed cars there, and stopped cars, that it looked as if I'd get away with it. And I didn't even seem to be injured, just shaken up.
I walked over to the sidewalk, where a crowd of people stood staring at the wreckage. There were too many of them to have gathered since the pileup; they'd been there before. Mostly they were young; we were right next to Valley College. A small group of them, about eight or nine that seemed to be together, started walking away then, and I joined them. I didn't want to be around when more police arrived.
"Quite a pileup," I said to a couple of them, a guy and a girl.
"You ain't just glibbin'," the guy answered. "I wonder what started it?"
I shook my head. "No telling. Someone lost control, I suppose. Went to sleep, maybe. What's the crowd about?"
"We just left the ball game. We beat Pierce."
"Pierce? Are they good?"
"They're the defending league champions."
"Huh! That's pretty good! Now what? Parties?"
"You got it."
Of the group I'd attached myself to, one or two looked to be still in their teens, but most were in their twenties. We crossed Tujunga Wash on Victory Boulevard, and after a few more blocks turned north on a residential street, and went in a small house rented by several of them. Someone got a jug of wine out of the fridge and poured. Someone else went out for more. Three or four other people came in, one of them with a giant bag of tortilla chips, and opened it. A joint got passed around.