“Where’s your car?” Frank asked, putting his shades on again.
“Parking lot,” Vince said. He felt awkward standing in the alley in his business attire, especially standing next to the heavily tattooed, swarthy Frank Black.
“Anybody follow you out here?” Frank asked.
“Um, no,” Vince said. “I don’t think so. I tried to make sure of it.”
“Think!” Frank breathed, clenching his teeth. He faced Vince, glaring down at him through the mirror shades, putting him on the spot. “This is serious Vince, deadly—”
“If it’s so serious, why are we—”
“Our lives are in danger, Vince,” Frank turned to him. His face was intense, menacing. His raven hair blew over his shoulders from a slight offshore breeze. “Yours, mine, maybe others. The same people that killed Laura—”
At the words the same people that killed Laura, Vince felt as if a freight train slammed into him. He gasped. “What do you know about my wife!”
“Everything,” Frank said, gritting his teeth. “Now, the longer we stay here arguing about this, the more of a chance we may be spotted. Do you want me to help you or not?”
Vince almost hesitated again, then nodded. “Yes.” He had to know what Frank meant by Laura being murdered.
“Okay.” Frank accepted this easily enough. “Now, let’s go through this again. Were you followed?”
Vince didn’t think he was, and he retraced his thoughts of the drive over. As far as he could tell he hadn’t been followed. He shook his head. “No.”
“Okay.” He looked up and down the alley. “We need to go somewhere quiet where we can talk.”
“We can go to my place,” Vince suggested.
“I wouldn’t mind that, but I don’t think that would be safe,” Frank said, turning back to Vince. “Is there a public park around here?”
Vince tried to think of where the closest public park would be. There was a nice park near his home in Mission Viejo, but that was a good fifteen minute drive down the San Diego Freeway. He had to factor in the time spent away from the office as well; he didn’t want to arouse suspicion by being gone so long. He wracked his brain for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said.
“Then we’ll find one,” Frank said, stepping into the alley, motioning for Vince to follow him, away from the parking lot. “I parked on the other side of this strip mall. Why don’t we drive around until we find someplace quiet and we’ll talk?”
Vince shrugged and reluctantly followed the big tattooed man down the alley, his heart beating heavy in his chest with impending dread.
Chapter Nine
FRANK BLACK DROVE a car that didn’t fit his image: a dark, four door Saturn sedan. There was a baby seat in the back, positioned in the middle. Frank looked more like the type of guy that would drive something sleek and powerful; a Corvette, a TransAm, a Camaro, a Jaguar. Something sporty and powerful. A Saturn suggested he was a family man; it also eased the tension from Vince. A guy driving a Saturn with a baby-seat in the back wasn’t the kind of guy that was going to lure you somewhere so you could be murdered. Vince was about to ask Frank if he was married and had a kid, but decided not to. He wanted to hear about Laura more than anything.
They drove around Irvine for ten minutes, making small talk as Vince navigated Frank around the city, trying to find someplace they could pull over. Frank didn’t want to talk in a public place like a bar or restaurant, and he was reluctant to go to Vince’s home, and especially his office. Vince thought it was odd that a man that looked like he wouldn’t be afraid of anything could be so nervous and scared about talking to him about Laura and the mystery surrounding his mother’s death. But then his mother had been pretty paranoid in the end, hadn’t she?
For the first five minutes, Vince’s heart raced with nervousness. He still didn’t know what Frank was up to, what his motives were, and he was tense every time the big man moved or said anything. His stomach knotted itself as they drove; Vince had an insane thought that the man was going to drive him out to a remote section of Irvine or Laguna Hills and do something hideous: beat him up, torture and kill him. Why he thought this he hadn’t the slightest idea, but he supposed it had to do with the strange nature in which the man had suddenly stepped back into his life. Why would you track down a boyhood pal you hadn’t seen in over twenty-five years and then behave real paranoid around him? It didn’t make sense.
Frank checked the rearview mirrors constantly as they drove. Apparently his paranoia wasn’t limited to just Vince being followed.
Vince relaxed more as he realized Frank was following his street directions in finding a quiet spot to pull over. Vince remembered a small park that was near a library and the Town Hall. He directed Frank to it and they drove in silence as the Saturn purred down the suburban streets. It was a nice, warm day. The sky was blue with specks of white fluffy clouds scattered about, and there was a nice offshore breeze blowing from the west. It was probably close to eighty degrees and it was only twelve o’clock. Vince figured he could get away with being away from the office until at least two, so he hoped Frank would tell him what was on his mind so Vince could go about the task of asking his own questions.
They approached MacArthur Boulevard, and Vince directed Frank across the intersection. The park was just ahead of them, to the right. Frank pulled the Saturn into a parking slot away from other cars and killed the engine. Outside, a group of kids played scratch baseball in the open field of the park. To their right a group of women were seated at a picnic table scurrying about like busy bees, unloading baskets of food and talking as children played around them and on the playground. In short, it was a normal summer afternoon in the park.
Frank turned toward Vince, his mirror shades menacing in the closed space. “Okay, I think we’ll be cool here.”
“Nobody followed us?” Vince asked. He felt silly asking, but it seemed like a joke to him. He tried not to let his skepticism creep into his tone of voice.
“No,” Frank said. Then he jumped right into the subject at hand. “Do you remember any part of our childhood?”
“I thought you were going to tell me about my mother?” Vince asked, the cockiness of their earlier encounter at the restaurant creeping in. “And what do you know about Laura being—”
“First things first,” Frank said, holding up one leather clad hand to halt Vince’s flow of questions. “I’ll get to your questions as soon as I can. I promise. Please, just bear with me. How much of our childhood do you remember?”
Vince sighed and backed off from his confrontational stance, realizing it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Might as well play Frank’s game his way. “I just remember snatches of it.”
“Like what?”
Vince shrugged. “Kindergarten through second grade basically. I remember playing with a bunch of other kids after school. I think you were one of them. There was a little girl with blond hair… our parents were friends with her parents—”
“Nellie,” Frank said. At the mention of that long lost childhood name of the little girl Vince had played with, he felt a sense of nostalgia.
“Yes,” Vince said.
“What else?”
“I remember…” Vince thought hard about this, dredging up long buried memories. “Just various people that used to come by. I don’t remember who they were.”
“Do you remember any names?”
“Just you and Nellie,” Vince said, trying hard to dredge his memory. “I remember a guy named Tom… I think he was your father.”