My head buzzing with childish excitement, I retraced my steps, sank to my knees on the tugged-back carpet, and lowered the key into place. It fit snugly, the gears shifting in the floor safe. I blew a breath through clenched teeth. The weighty door lifted silently. Hooked to the inside handle, a rope trailed down into shadow. When I tugged, whatever it was connected to gave surprising resistance. I pulled up the rope hand over hand, not sure I wanted to see what would rise into view.
A rucksack, just like the one Charlie had brought with him into San Onofre. It was full, stuffed so the fabric was taut. I undid the buckles and flipped it over before I could lose my nerve.
Out tumbled stack after stack of hundred-dollar bills, bundled neatly in purple bands.
Chapter 12
With $180,000 slung over one shoulder, I walked as casually as I could back toward my condo. The nearest parking space I'd found was five blocks away, not bad considering that it was past nine o'clock and folks had slotted their cars for the night. I paused to glance in store windows and pretended to tie my shoelaces to check if anyone was following me. All these years later and here I was again, edgy as a fugitive.
As I approached the corner mart, a woman with pursed lips confronted a massive man, his rotund form draped with layers of ripped, dirt-blackened clothing. Even the real-estate prices hadn't driven the smart homeless people out of temperate Santa Monica.
The woman pulled a dollar bill from her purse and handed it to him. "Do not spend this on alcohol."
"Absolutely not, ma'am."
His benefactor's Lexus chirped twice, and she climbed in and drove off. He heard my footfall and turned at my approach, scratching his bloated belly. Despite a leonine mess of curly hair and a nose swollen to absurdity from weather and alcohol, he had astute, intelligent features.
His face lit up. "Nick, I'm two bucks shy of a pint."
I dug in my pocket, came up with a few crumpled bills. "Do not spend this on alcohol."
Homer smiled, showing off his true-yellows. The bills disappeared into his pawlike hand.
I'd met him not at the various soup kitchens and shelters where I'd worked but on the street. Homer was one of the stubborn ones, who preferred rooting in garbage cans and sleeping under the open sky. Foolishly, I admired him for that. Working with the homeless could drive you nuts, because you wound up liking the right people for the wrong reasons. But I think I took to Homer- and my work-because I'd also lived in the awful crush of imposed anonymity. A few times I'd been one bounced check from the street. Homer's wryness about his fate had touched a nerve with me from the start. He was as amused as he was resigned, in on the existential joke. Where I'd fought tooth and nail not to slide over the edge, he'd long ago embraced despair, and that made him a seer of sorts, a guide through an underworld I'd only glimpsed.
But Homer also stood out because, in a community of fragmented minds and souls, he'd managed to keep some part of himself intact. On an outreach shift a few years ago, I'd turned my back on a bulky schizophrenic living out of a park utility shed, and the guy had taken a swing at my head. Homer, who'd followed along with me in hopes of free lunch, had tried to flop on his shoulders but misjudged his jump and landed on a water fountain. The guy rang my bell pretty hard before I recovered and subdued him with the help of a coworker. Homer seemed utterly unshaken by the episode; his only injury was where he'd hit his funny bone on the water fountain's spout. He'd shrugged off my gratitude, but I'd never looked at him the same. Whoever said it was the thought that counts was sure as hell right when it came to going up against a 280-pound schizo off his risperidone.
I hurried into the store, Homer at my heels, and snatched a Los Angeles Times from the stack. "Have you eaten?" I asked.
"No."
"If I give you a couple more bucks, will you buy a sandwich?"
He nodded his head.
"Come on, then." I detoured to the refrigerated aisle, and Homer perused the selections with maddening thoroughness. Hacmed watched us closely from behind the counter. "How's an Italian sub sound?" I asked, shifting the cash on my back and trying to move things along.
"A lotta fat in mortadella," Homer said.
"Do you have one in the back without mortadella?" I called over.
"For Jesus sake, Homer, is there not expression about beggar and chooser?" Hacmed looked at me and I looked back, and he sighed and went through a curtain that looked like something from a drive-through car wash.
While Homer waited at the counter, staring at the alcohol cabinet, I searched out the prepaid cell phones and grabbed a few from the hook. Hacmed returned, and we paid and walked out, Homer sliding the pint of whiskey into a ragged pocket and munching away, bits of bread clinging to his beard.
"Can I get a shower?" he asked.
"Thursdays only," I said. "That's the deal. You can wait until tomorrow."
"I don't see what the difference is."
"The difference is, if you shower whenever you want at my place, then you can start paying rent or putting out."
"Okay. Tomorrow." He slid down the wall, kicking his legs out at a flung-doll angle, and readied himself for the next passerby. "Do I look sufficiently abject?"
I gave him the thumbs-up and rushed home, reading the paper. Front and center, the article about the San Onofre face-off was vague, all quotations coming from "high-placed government officials." It mentioned neither Charlie/Mike Milligan nor me. A terrorist whose name couldn't be released due to security considerations had been thwarted in a plot to blow up the nuclear power plant. Bland as the story was, it had pushed the debate roundup, more flattering to Caruthers, to below the fold.
Evelyn Plotkin was in the lobby sorting through her mail and dumping the flyers into the trash bin. She had on a neck brace.
"Evey. Are you okay?"
She was holding her eyeglasses up before an envelope, but she let them fall back around her neck. "Not really. I'm feeling very weak. I haven't eaten all day."
"Why not?"
"I didn't want my mouth to be full of food if you should call to let me know you were all right."
I'd already hurried into the elevator, but I dug deep for patience, shouldered out, and walked over. She appraised the small wound on my face with heightened gravity, then gave me a warm, clutchy hug, the kind only mothers give.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Who did that to you?"
"The Secret Service. There was a mix-up. They confused me for someone else." I got on the elevator again but stuck my foot out just before the doors closed. "By the way, did one of the agents call you to apologize?"
She looked at me like I was out of my mind, then laughed.
The elevator closed, shutting me in with my anger at Sever for ignoring my only request. I rode up, the rucksack sitting heavily on my shoulder. The hoarded cash likely took Charlie out of whistle-blower contention, which meant that his involvement was less than honorable. Given the two $10,000 stacks with matching purple bands Charlie had brought with him to San Onofre, I figured he'd started with two hundred grand. A heist? Extortion money? Terrorist funds? Or a payment? For what service? Aside from $180,000 and a key, Charlie had barely left behind an imprint. He was a phantom. A cipher.
None of that troubled me much. His association with Frank did.
The crime-scene tape across my dark doorway reminded me of the mess awaiting me. I yanked it down and stepped in, dumping the rucksack.
A rustle startled me around, the shadow on my wrecked couch resolving slowly as a feminine form, and then Induma's voice came out of the darkness. "Love what you've done with the place."