Blood Hunt

EIGHTEEN

REEVE DIDN’T HANG AROUND for the aftershock.

He flew out to Los Angeles that morning, grabbed a cab at the airport, and told the driver he wanted a cheap rental service.

“Cheapest I know is Dedman’s Auto,” the cabbie declared, enjoying showing off his knowledge. “The cars are okay-no stretch limos or nothing like that, just clean sedans.”

“Dead man’s?”

The cabbie spelled it for him. “That’s why he keeps his rates so low. It’s not the sort of name would leap out at you from Yellow Pages.” He chuckled. “Christ knows, with a name like that would you go into car rental?”

Reeve was studying the cabbie’s ID on the dashboard. “I guess not, Mr. Plotnik.”

It turned out that Marcus Aurelius Dedman, the blackest man Reeve had ever seen, operated an auto-wrecking business, and car rental was just a sideline.

“See, mister,” he said, “I’ll be honest with you. The cars I get in here ain’t always so wrecked. I spend a lot of time and money on them, get them fit for battle again. I hate to sell a car I’ve put heart and soul into, so I rent them instead.”

“And if the client wrecks them, they come straight back for hospitalization?”

Dedman laughed a deep, gurgling laugh. He was about six feet four and carried himself as upright as a fence post. His short hair had been painstakingly uncurled and lay flat against his head like a Cab Calloway toupee. Reeve reckoned him to be in his early fifties. He had half a dozen black kids ripping cars apart for him, hauling out the innards.

“Nobody strips a vehicle quite like a kid from the projects,” Dedman said. “Damned clever mechanics, too. Here’s the current options.” He waved a basketball player’s arm along a line of a dozen dusty specimens, any of which would be perfect for Reeve’s needs. He wanted a plain car, a car that wouldn’t stand out from the crowd. These cars had their scars and war wounds-a chipped windshield here, a missing fender there, a rusty line showing where a strip of chrome had been torn off the side doors, a sill patched with mastic and resprayed.

“Take your pick,” Dedman said. “All one price.”

Reeve settled for a two-door Dodge Dart with foam-rubber suspension. It was dull green, the metallic sheen sanded away through time. Dedman showed him the engine (“reliable runner”), the interior (“bench seat’ll come in handy at Lover’s Point”), and the trunk. Reeve nodded throughout. Eventually, they went to Dedman’s office to clinch the deal. Reeve got the feeling Dedman didn’t want the project kids, no matter what their mechanical skills, to see any money changing hands. Maybe it would give them ideas.

The office was in a ramshackle cinder-block building, but surprised Reeve by being immaculately clean, bright, air-conditioned, and high-tech. There was a large black leather director’s chair behind the new-looking desk. Dedman draped a sheet over the chair before sitting, so as not to dirty the leather with his overalls. There was a computer on the desk with a minitower hard disk drive. Elsewhere Reeve glimpsed a fax and answering machine, a large photocopier, a portable color TV, even a hot drinks machine.

“Grab a coffee if you want one,” Dedman said. Reeve pushed two quarters into the machine and watched it deliver a brown plastic cup of brown plastic liquid. He looked around the office again. It had no windows; all the light was electrical. The door, too, was solid metal.

“I see why you keep it padlocked,” Reeve said. Dedman had undone three padlocks, each one barring a thick steel bolt, to allow them into the office.

Dedman shook his head. “It’s not to stop the kids seeing what’s in here, if that’s what you’re thinking. Hell, it’s the kids who bring me all this stuff. They get it from their older brothers. What am I supposed to do with a computer or a facsimile?” Dedman shook his head again. “Only they’d be hurt if I didn’t look like I appreciated their efforts.”

Reeve sat down and put the cup on the floor, not daring to sully the surface of the desk. He reached into his pocket for a roll of dollars. “I’m assuming you don’t take credit cards,” he said.

“Your assumption is correct. Now, there’s no paperwork, okay? I don’t like that shit.” Dedman wrote something on a sheet of paper. “This is my name, the address here, and the telephone number. Anyone stops you, the cops or anybody, or if you’re in a crash, the story is you borrowed the car from me with my blessing.”

“Insurance?”

“It’s insured.”

“And if I break down?”

“Well”-Dedman sat back in his chair-“for another thirty, you get my twenty-four-hour call-out service.”

“Does it stretch as far as San Diego?”

Dedman looked at the roll of notes. “I guess that wouldn’t be a problem. That where you’re headed?”

“Yes. So how much do I owe you?”

Dedman appeared to consider this, then named a figure Reeve found comfortably low. Reeve counted out the bills and made to hand them over, but paused.

“The Dart isn’t hot, is it?”

Dedman shook his head vehemently. “No, sir, it’s aboveboard and legal.” He took the bills and counted them, finding the sum satisfactory. He looked at Reeve and smiled. “I never rent a hot car to a tourist.”

Dedman had warned Reeve that he might get lost a few times on his way out of Los Angeles, an accurate assessment of Reeve’s first hour and a half in his new car. He knew all he had to do was follow the coast, eventually picking up I-5, but finding the coast was the problem initially, and keeping to it proved a problem later. The freeway system around Los Angeles was like a joke God was playing on the human brain. The more Reeve focused his mind, the less sense things made. Eventually he let his eyes and mind drift into soft focus, and found himself miraculously on the right road, heading the right way. He wasn’t on the coast, he was inland on I-5, but that was fine. I-5 was fine.

He had both windows open and wished he had a radio. One of Dedman’s mechanics had offered him one, installation included, for fifty bucks, but it would’ve meant hanging around the breaking yard for another hour or so, and Reeve had been keen to get going. Now he wished he’d taken the teenager up on the offer. Everything about the Dart was fine except the axles. The steering wheel juddered in his hands at speeds above fifty, and it felt like the problem led directly from the axles, either front or back. He hoped a wheel didn’t spin off and roll away ahead of him.

Once on the interstate, it was a quick run to San Diego. He came off near the airport and took Kettner Boulevard into the downtown district. He wanted a different hotel from last visit, and something more central, something much closer to the CWC building. His first choice, the Marriott, had rooms. Reeve swallowed hard when told the price, but was too tired to go looking anywhere else-the previous night had been a long one, after all. He took his bag up to the room; pulled open the curtains, flooding the room with light and a spectacular view of the bay; and sat down on the bed.

Then he picked up the telephone and rang Eddie Duhart.

He didn’t identify himself. He just asked, “What’s happening?”

Duhart couldn’t wait to tell him. “Everything’s happening! Allerdyce is running around like there’s a cactus up his ass and all the proctologists are in Hawaii. He knows something happened to him last night, only he doesn’t know what.”

“He’s back to himself?”

“Seems to be. First thing he did was sack the bodyguards. Then he decided that was too lenient, so they’re back on the payroll till he can find a worse fate. Next he phoned for a vet and a van to take away the carcass.”

“But he doesn’t remember any details from last night?”

“Not a one. Man, I should get my hands on some of that stuff. He’s spent all day trying to put together the pieces. You should hear him. Man is he wild! He dropped into a private hospital, checked in as an emergency. He wanted them to run tests on him. He’s been doing everything. He thought maybe he’s been hypnotized, so he’s got a hypnotherapist coming over to the house to try to get him out of it.”

“Hmm, he may have stumbled onto something.”

“You think the hypnotist can help him remember?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anyone trying it before.”

“Christ, I hope he doesn’t remember. He’s been to my apartment!”

“Don’t fret, Eddie. Has he been into the office?”

“No, and nothing from the bugs in Dulwater’s office either, except that whoever he shares the space with has a flatulence problem.”

“Allerdyce hasn’t tried contacting Dulwater?”

“Well, he’s made some calls and not gotten an answer; maybe he’s been trying to catch him.”

“And he hasn’t contacted the police?”

Duhart clucked. “No, sir, no cops.”

“Which tells you something.”

“Yeah, it tells me a man like Jeffrey Allerdyce doesn’t need cops. He knows someone broke into his house last night; it won’t be long before he gets a gang in to sweep for clues. They’ll find the bugs.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“How are you doing anyway?”

“Fine.”

“Where are you?”

“Best you don’t know. Remember, if… when the bugs are found, I want you to lie low, okay? That’s the point at which you drop the investigation.”

“Yeah, you said.”

“I mean it. Allerdyce will be cagier than ever. He’ll know he’s being watched. Just step back and leave it alone.”

“And then what?”

“Wait for me to get back to you. You’ve got other clients, right? Other cases you could be working on?”

“Sure, but I could work till I was a hundred and seventy, I’d never get another case like this. Hey, what if I need to contact you?”

“I’ll phone twice a day, morning and evening.”

“Yeah, but-”

Reeve broke the connection. He wasn’t sure he’d ever call Duhart again.

There was a low late-afternoon sun beaming in on downtown San Diego, casting shadows between the blocks and lighting the windows of the buildings. The streets were busy with shoppers on their way home, standing sag-shouldered at bus and trolley stops. No office workers-this was the weekend. Reeve had an espresso in a coffee shop right across the street from the Co-World Chemicals building. There was an office-supply store next door to the coffee shop. It sold computers and other machines, plus mobile communications equipment. A cheap sign in the window said that it rented, too.

Reeve had rented a cellular phone. It wasn’t much bigger than the palm of his hand. He’d put it on his credit card and handed over some cash as a deposit. The man in the store hadn’t been too bothered about Reeve’s lack of credentials. Maybe that was because he dealt with a lot of foreign business. Maybe it was because he knew he could always cancel Reeve’s personal cell phone number, negating the little black telephone altogether. Hookup to the system was immediate.

So Reeve sat in the coffee shop and punched in some numbers. He tried Eddie Cantona’s home first, but there was no answer. With the coffee shop’s phone book in front of him on the window-length counter, he tried a couple of the bars Cantona had said he used. At the second bar, whoever had answered the call growled Cantona’s name. Eddie Cantona picked up the telephone.

“Hello?” It sounded like he’d said “yellow.”

“So they let you out?”

Cantona sucked in breath, and his voice dropped to a mumble. “Soon as you left town. That nice detective said I could go, but not to go talking to strange men anymore.”

“This was Mike McCluskey?”

“The same. Where the fuck are you?”

“You think anyone’s keeping tabs on you?”

“Well, hell, it wouldn’t be hard. I only knew you a coupla days first time around, and how long did it take you to find me?”

“Three calls. This is the third.”

“There you go. I got to tell you, Gordon, I’ve been drinking steadily and seriously for some days now. My excuse is that it’s in memory of Jim-a one-man movable wake. But maybe it’s because I took a jolt myself.”

“I don’t want to get you mixed up in anything. I just want to hire you for a day or so.”

“Oh, is that all?” Cantona said, slipshop voice full of sarcasm. “Maybe you didn’t hear what I just said.”

“I heard.”

The voice dropped low again. “I was scared back there, Mr. Reeve.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything dangerous.” Reeve had his free hand cupped around his mouth and the mouthpiece. Nobody in the coffee shop seemed interested in him; they were buying takeout cups for the walk to the bus stop. Traffic rumbled past, and the air-conditioning rattled like teeth in a glass. Reeve was in no danger of being overheard. “I just want you to sit in a coffee shop for a while. I want you to keep watch. If you see a man answering the description I give you, call me. That’s it.”

“You want me to follow him?”

“Nope.”

“You just want to know when he leaves this building?” Cantona sounded far from convinced.

“Well, I’d rather know when he goes in. Come on, who else in this town can I trust? The only danger you’d be in is from caffeine poisoning, and they do a great decaf espresso here.”

“No liquor license?”

“No liquor license. Hey, I’d want you sober.”

“I don’t work drunk!”

“Okay, okay. Listen, what do you say?”

“Can we meet? Maybe talk about it over a beer?”

“You know that’s not a good idea.”

“In case they’re watching me, right?”

“Watching you or watching me. Safer if we don’t meet.”

“You’re right. Okay, let’s give it a stab.”

This would not have been Reeve’s favored choice of words.

He gave the details over the phone to Cantona-once Cantona had located some paper and a pen that worked. He told Cantona the address of the coffee shop, gave him its opening hours, and then described Kosigin, closing his eyes and picturing the photographs in Allerdyce’s file. On the off chance, he described Jay, too. Finally, he gave Cantona his mobile number, and checked for him-Cantona was sobering fast-not only that there was a public pay phone in the coffee shop, but that it was working, too.

“Oh-seven-thirty hours,” Cantona said. “I’ll be in position. Guess I’d better go home now and dry out.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey, you’d do the same for me, right?”

Reeve wasn’t sure about that. His next call was to the San Diego Police Department. McCluskey wasn’t in the office, and they said they couldn’t patch any calls through to him.

“Well, can you get a message to him? He’ll want to hear it, believe me.”

“Go ahead, I’ll see what I can do.” The woman had a high, whining voice, utterly without personality.

“Tell him Gordon Reeve would like to speak to him.” He spelled his surname for her. It took three goes. “I’ll keep trying.”

“Sure.”

“Thank you very much.”

The young woman in charge of the coffee shop was relieved by the next shift. She seemed furious about something, maybe the fact that she’d been working on her own and they’d been really busy. Two people her own age-one male, one female-took her place, and soon had a rhythm going. One of them took the orders and the money, the other worked the machine. When the line had been served, the female walked over to Reeve with a pot of coffee and asked if he wanted a refill. Reeve smiled at her and shook his head, then watched her retreat, clearing a couple of the cramped tables as she did. He felt touched by her offer. He knew a lot of places in the United States had the same policy, the offer of coffee refills, but it seemed an act of kindness, too, and he hadn’t been close to much kindness recently. He could feel defenses inside him, barricades he’d hastily erected. They tottered for a moment, but held. He thought of Bakunin and Wagner again, side by side on the barricades of Dresden. The anarchist Bakunin, and Wagner-the friend of Nietzsche. Nietz-sche: the self-proclaimed first amoralist. When necessary, when events dictated, they had fought alongside each other. The anarchists would call that proof of the theory of mutual aid. They would say it repudiated Nietzsche’s own theory, that the will to power was everything. Opposites reconciled, yes, but momentarily. Look at the role of Russia in World War Two: what happened afterwards was a descent into mistrust and selfishness. Just be-cause you were allies didn’t mean you didn’t hate each other’s guts.

“Jay,” Reeve said quietly, staring at nothing beyond the smudged glaze of the window, the words “Donuts ‘n’ Best Coffee” stenciled on it in muted red.

Then he tried McCluskey again, and got through to the same woman.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Reeve. He said for you to give me your number there and he’ll get back to you.”

“No,” Reeve said, and broke the connection again. He got up to leave the coffee shop, and realized by the stiffness in his legs how long he’d been sitting there. As he passed the cash register, he saw a glass tumbler beside it, half-filled with tips, nothing bigger than a quarter. He reckoned the shifts were college kids, and pushed a dollar into the glass.

“Hey, have a nice evening,” the young woman said. She was choosing some music for the tape machine.

“You too.”

Reeve crossed at the lights with the other pedestrians and checked his reflection in the windshield of a stopped bus. He didn’t look any different from anyone else. He kept pace with a short woman in clacking high heels, so it almost looked like they were together but didn’t know each other real well. He was half a step behind her as they passed the steps up to the glass revolving door, which led into the foyer of the CWC building. Above the revolving door, the CWC symbol was etched into the glass. It looked like a child had taken a line for a walk, so that a single doodle managed to spell out the letters CWC, like the CNN logo on a bad night.

The woman scowled at him eventually, figuring he was trying to pick her up by mime alone, and at the next street crossing, he took a right as she went straight ahead. It was another half a block before he realized someone was keeping half a pace behind him. He didn’t look around, didn’t make eye contact; he kept his gaze to the pavement, and that way could watch the man’s feet: polished brown shoes with leather soles, charcoal suit trousers above them. Reeve took another right, into a quieter street. The shoes and trousers kept with him.

Must have picked me up outside the CWC building, he thought. It had to be Jay or one of his men. Thing was, they were too close for it to be mere surveillance. They didn’t just want to follow him, they wanted contact. Reeve started fast, shallow breathing, oxygenating his blood, and loosened his shoulders, tightening his fists. He walked briskly, hoping he could get his retaliation in first. A couple of pedestrians were coming towards him. He stared hard at them as though trying to see into their souls. He was seeking accomplices. But all the couple saw was an angry man, and they moved out of his way.

It was as good a time as any. Reeve stopped abruptly and swiveled on his heels.

He hadn’t noticed that the man in the charcoal suit had slowed his pace a few yards back, and was now standing still, seemingly at ease, his hands out in appeasement. He was a tall man with slick black hair, thinning at the temples. He had a sharp face and sallow cheeks, and the slightly narrowed eyes of one who sported contact lenses.

“This is just where I’d have chosen,” the man was saying, “for the showdown, the confrontation.”

“What?” Reeve was looking around upwards, looking for an assassin’s gunsight, a slow-moving car with tinted windows, looking for danger. But all there was was this tall well-dressed man, who looked like he’d be comfortable trying to sell you a spare vest to go with your suit.

“Who the fuck are you?” Reeve snarled.

“I knew you’d come back here. That’s why I flew direct, saved time. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just felt it.”

“What are you, a clairvoyant?”

“No, Mr. Reeve, I study personalities, that’s all.”

Reeve blinked. “Dulwater?”

The man made a small bow with his head. “I’ve been watching outside CWC for three hours.”

“You should’ve stopped for a coffee.”

“Ah, you were in the coffee shop?”

“What do you want?”

“Well, you seem to know who I am. I’m guessing you know what I want.”

“Indulge me.”

Dulwater took a step forwards. “I want to know what you did to my employer, Mr. Reeve.”

Reeve frowned, trying to look puzzled.

Alfred Dulwater just smiled. “Might I make a guess?” he said.

“Go ahead.”

Dulwater pouted thoughtfully. “I think it’s know as burundanga.”

Reeve tried not to look impressed.

“I’ve heard of it,” Dulwater continued, “but this is the first occasion I’ve known someone to use it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mr. Allerdyce caught up with me an hour ago, by telephone. He had a very strange story to tell. Did the two London operatives tell you my name?” Reeve said nothing, which seemed to be what Dulwater was expecting. “They told me they hadn’t, but I didn’t believe them.”

Though Reeve had been looking Dulwater in the eye, his peripheral vision had all been for the man’s clothes. Dulwater didn’t look armed, and he didn’t look particularly dangerous. He was tall, a head taller than Reeve, but while his face showed cunning and intelligence there wasn’t anything else there, nothing physical. Reeve reckoned he could take him out. He didn’t relax, but he felt a little better.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Dulwater said.

“What?”

“You’re thinking about violence. In particular, you’re thinking of violence which might be perpetrated by you upon me. I shouldn’t take that thought any further.” Dulwater smiled again. “I’ve seen the psychiatric report.”

Reeve remembered that Dulwater had been in his house. He knew what the man was talking about. He was talking about the warning. Any more fits of violence and Reeve might well be committed.

“I mean,” said Dulwater, “after the scene in the bar…”

“Your men started it. I’ve got witnesses.”

“Terrible mess those two are in-and you, Mr. Reeve, you don’t have a scratch on you. How’s the foot by the way? Kaprisky says he stomped on the intruder’s bare foot.”

Reeve stared levelly at Dulwater. “Nothing wrong with either foot,” he said.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“So, what now?”

“Now? Now we go somewhere and have a talk. You see, we have a lot in common. We’re both after information on Kosigin. And more than that…”

“Yes?”

Dulwater smiled. “Neither of us much likes Jeffrey Allerdyce.”

They went to a bar. It might’ve been a bar Jim Reeve used to drink in, Gordon Reeve couldn’t remember. While Dulwater went to the men’s room, Reeve tried the Police Department again. This time he got through to Mike McCluskey, who sounded out of breath.

“Hey, Gordon,” McCluskey said as if they were old friends, “where are you?”

“Near San Diego,” Reeve told him.

“Yeah? Any reason for that?”

“I never do anything without a reason, McCluskey. I want us to talk.”

“Sure, no problem. Let me take down your-”

“Later tonight.” A waitress was advancing with the beers they’d ordered. Dulwater, rubbing his hands, was right behind her. “Say midnight.”

“Midnight? Well, that’s a funny-”

“ La Jolla, remember that place we went for a drink after you showed me where my brother was murdered?”

“Now, Gordon, you know there’s not one shred of evi-dence-”

“Outside there at midnight. If you’re not alone, I don’t show.”

Dulwater sat down as Reeve cut the call. “What was that?” he asked.

“A sideshow,” said Reeve, taking one of the glasses. He gulped an inch of liquid and licked his lips. “So why are we having this good-natured drink, Mr. Dulwater? How come you don’t have me trussed up in a crate on my way back to Washington?”

Dulwater lifted his own beer but did not drink. “I like my job, Gordon; I like it fine. But I have ambition just like anyone else.”

“You want to set up for yourself?”

Dulwater shook his head. “I want a promotion.”

“Well, if you take me back to Allerdyce, I’m sure you’d be well placed…”

“No, that’s not the way Allerdyce works. He’d only want more. Besides, what are you to him? You’re a one-night irritant, like a mild allergic reaction. You’re not the prize.”

“Kosigin?”

Dulwater nodded. “I get the feeling if I stick close to you, I’ll get Kosigin.”

“And then you hand Kosigin to Allerdyce?”

“But not all at once. He wouldn’t be grateful if I just handed that bastard over. One little piece at a time.”

Reeve shook his head. Everybody wanted something: Duhart wanted something on Allerdyce; Dulwater wanted something over Allerdyce; Allerdyce wanted Kosigin; Kosigin and Jay wanted Reeve.

And what did Gordon Reeve want? He thought of Nietzsche again: the will to power. Power was what most of these games were all about, the desire for power, the fear of loss of power. Reeve wasn’t a part of the game. He was on another board with different pieces. He wanted revenge.

“You know,” he said, “I’m not even sure I should be talking to someone who broke into my damned house.”

Dulwater shrugged. “I wasn’t the first. Alliance didn’t plant those bugs, Kosigin’s men did. Besides, what have you to lose by cooperating? You surely don’t think you can do anything to harm Kosigin on your own.”

“I’m not on my own.”

“You’ve got help?” Dulwater thought for the merest second. “Cantona?” Reeve’s face failed to disguise his surprise. “Cantona’s a deadbeat. You think you can put him up against Kosigin?”

“How do you know about Cantona?”

“You forget, Kosigin hired Alliance to compile a dossier on your brother. We’re very thorough, Gordon. We not only did a full background check, including family, we watched him for a couple of weeks. We watched him get to know Cantona.”

“Then you handed the lot over to Kosigin and he had my brother killed.”

“There’s no evidence-”

“Everybody keeps telling me that!”

Dulwater still hadn’t touched his drink. He ran his thumb around the rim of the frosted glass. “A good argument for letting me help you. The courts aren’t going to be any use. You’re never going to have enough evidence to go to court with. The best you can hope for is that someone else makes Kosigin’s life hell. Kosigin lives for power, Gordon. If someone else gains power over him it’s the worst torture he could ever imagine, and it will last the rest of his life.” He sat back, argument over.

Reeve sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” he lied. “Okay, what exactly do you propose?”

Dulwater stared at him, measuring his sincerity. Reeve concentrated on the beer. “Why did you come back here?” Dulwater asked.

“I wanted to speak to a few people. I intend speaking to one of them tonight. You can help.”

“How?”

“Two things: one, I need a video camera, a good one, plus a couple of recorders, more if you can get them. I want to make copies of a videotape.”

“You need these tonight?”

Reeve nodded.

“Okay, I don’t foresee a problem. What’s the other thing?”

“I need you to keep lookout for me.”

“Where?”

“In La Jolla.” Reeve paused. “About two miles away from where I’ll actually be.”

“I think you’ve lost me.”

“I’ll explain later. You’re sure you can get the equipment?”

“Pretty sure. It may take a few phone calls. It may have to be brought down from L.A. Are you in a hotel here?”

“Same one I stayed in last time, the Radisson.”

“I’m in the Marriott,” Dulwater informed him. Reeve’s face was a mask. “It’s more central. We’ll set the gear up in my room if that’s all right with you.”

“Fine,” Reeve said dryly.

At last Dulwater took a sip of his beer. He pretended to savor it as he framed another question. “What is it you’re going to video exactly?”

“A confession,” Reeve said. “One man unburdening his soul.”

“Film at eleven,” Dulwater said with a smile.

NINETEEN

REEVE PARKED THE DART a couple of streets away from where he wanted to be.

There was a pizza delivery van parked curbside, a little boxy three-wheeler which looked like it might use an electric motor. He hadn’t seen anyone inside it as he’d driven past, and he didn’t see anyone in it now. He gave it another couple of minutes-maybe the delivery boy was having trouble making change. But he knew there was no delivery boy really. What there was was an undercover cop, keeping watch on the bungalow, except he’d been called to another job just a couple of miles away. The electric motor wouldn’t take him there, so his buddies had come and picked him up.

Reeve checked his watch. It was quarter to midnight. He didn’t have much time. Having already noted the delivery van, he hadn’t bothered bringing the video camera with him. It was still locked in the Dart’s trunk. He walked down the street then back up the other side. There was no one about, no neighborhood patrol or crime watch. Reeve stopped for a moment beside the delivery van. It boasted a radio with handset attached. He saw now why they’d used a delivery van: there was nothing particularly odd about such a van having a radio. It might have been so the driver could keep in touch with base.

Indeed, that was just what it was for.

Lights were burning in the bungalow, but not brightly. A reading lamp maybe. The curtains were closed, the light seeping out from around the edges of the window. Reeve opened the slatted wooden gate, hearing bells jangle from a string attached to the back of it. He walked up to the bungalow and rang the bell. He was hoping there would be someone home. With the journalist dead, he was betting they’d have let the scientist come home. He heard a chain rattle. A security chain. The door opened a couple of inches, and Reeve stepped back to give it the meat of his shoe heel. It took two blows till the door burst open.

He had wanted the elderly man shocked, surprised, scared. He was getting all three.

“Dr. Killin?” he said to the figure cowering in the short hallway, holding a book over his head. The title of the book was something to do with molecular biology.

The old man looked up, blinking spaniel eyes. Reeve hit him just hard enough to send him to sleep.

He left the body where it lay and went back outside. There was still no one about. The houses were separated by high hedges. Somebody might have seen him from the house across the way but it was in darkness, and besides, the pizza van hid Dr. Killin’s doorway from general view. Reeve jumped the gate rather than bothering to open it, and jogged back to his car. He brought it around to Dr. Killin’s house, parking next to the pizza van. The old man didn’t weigh much and was easy to carry out to the car. Reeve dropped him onto the backseat, then went back to the house, switched off the lamp beside Killin’s chair, and pulled the front door closed. In the shadow of the covered porch, you could hardly notice the splintered wood of the surround. From out on the pavement, you couldn’t see it at all.

Reeve got into the Dart and drove north on a local road that seemed to parallel I-5 but kept closer to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Just south of Del Mar, he pulled the car into a rest area sheltered from the road but with a view of the ocean. Not that you could see anything much, but with the window rolled down Reeve could hear the waves. He got out of the car and opened the trunk, bringing out the video camera and the replacement for Lucky 13. Back in the driver’s seat, he swiveled so he was facing Killin. Then he switched on the car’s interior lights. Dulwater and he had discussed lighting, but this camera had a good low-light facility and even a spot beam of its own-though using it would drain the batteries fast. Reeve switched the camera to ready, removed the lens cap, and put his eye to the viewfinder. He watched the old man stirring. The needle on the viewfinder told him the lighting was poor, but not unusable. Reeve put the camera down again and picked up the dagger. It was the first thing Dr. Killin saw when he woke up.

He sat upright, looking terrified. Reeve wondered for a moment if the knife would be enough to slice the truth from the man.

“What’s going on?” the doctor asked shakily. “Where am I? Who are you?”

“This knife,” Reeve said quietly, “could bisect you from skull to scrotum and still have an edge on it.”

The doctor swallowed and licked his lips.

“I have some questions,” Reeve said. “I want answers to them. You’re being watched, round-the-clock protection. Why?”

“That’s absurd. Why would anyone watch me?”

Reeve smiled without a trace of humor. “You worked for Co-World Chemicals, didn’t you? Did you ever meet Dr. Owen Preece?”

“I’m sorry, I want to help you, but I don’t know that name.”

Reeve angled the dagger so light glinted off the blade, causing Killin to squint. The doctor licked his dry lips again.

“Fear can do that,” Reeve told him. “It stops the saliva getting to your mouth. Here.” He reached into his left-hand jacket pocket and handed Killin a small plastic bottle of mineral water. Killin took the bottle and stared at it. “Can’t answer questions with a dry mouth,” Reeve said. He drew out an identical bottle from his right-hand pocket. “Can’t ask them either.” He broke the seal and unscrewed the top. Killin was still staring at him. “You don’t want it?” Reeve said. “Want mine instead?”

Killin thought about it then shook his head, broke the bottle’s seal, and unscrewed the top. He sipped at the water, tasting it, then gulping a mouthful. Reeve put his own bottle on the passenger seat and lifted the video camera. To do so meant putting down the dagger.

“Now,” he said, “I hope you’ve noticed this car has no back doors. Your only exit is past me, and I don’t think you want to try that.”

“Look, I’ll answer your questions if I can, but I want to know what’s going on.”

Killin was growing either testier or more confident-confident that Reeve wasn’t the type to kill him.

“I’ll tell you,” Reeve said. “I want to know about Co-World Chemicals. I want to know about Dr. Owen Preece and the work he did for CWC. I want to know about a man called Kosigin who set the whole thing in motion. I want to know about pesticides, Doctor. I want to know what you know.”

Killin took his time answering. “It’s true,” he said, nursing the bottle, “that I worked for CWC. I headed the R & D team for four years, but I’d worked for the company for fifteen years before that. You are correct that a man called Kosigin also works for CWC, though in what capacity I’m not sure. He may not still be there; I don’t keep in touch with CWC, and I believe executives in most companies flit about from competitive salary to competitive salary. And that,” he said, “is all I do know.”

“Did a man called Reeve ever come to see you?”

“I don’t recollect.” Killin sounded impatient.

“A British journalist? He came to your house wanting to ask questions.”

“If he did, I didn’t let him in.” He tapped his forehead. “My memory’s not what it…” His fingers stayed on his forehead, rubbing at beads of sweat which were appearing there. He blinked hard, as though trying to focus. “I don’t feel well,” he said. “You should know that my heart has been giving me trouble. There are some pills back at my home…”

“You’re all right, Doctor. You’re just drugged.” Reeve hadn’t started the tape running yet, but he had his eye to the viewfinder. Even in color, Killin’s face looked gray, like he was acting in a black-and-white movie. “You don’t need to break the seal to inject something into a plastic bottle. You just need a dot of glue to seal the bottle up again.”

“What?” The doctor lost the faculty of speech for a moment. Reeve took the doped bottle from him and replaced it with his own.

“Here, drink this, it’ll help.”

“I don’t feel well.”

“You’ll feel a lot better when you clear your conscience. The birdy will help with that. Now, where were we? Yes, Co-World Chemicals.” Reeve started the tape running. “You were telling me, Dr. Killin, that you worked for CWC-what was it-nineteen years?”

“Nineteen years,” Killin agreed, his voice dull and metallic.

“The last four of those heading the company’s R & D?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you know a man called Owen Preece?”

“Dr. Preece, yes, he was a psychiatrist.”

“Well respected?”

“They might have invented the word eminent with him in mind.”

“Did he do any work for CWC?”

“Yes, he headed a research team looking into pesticides.”

“Specifically?”

“Specifically side effects.”

“And these pesticides were…”

“Organophosphorus.”

“So he was looking at PrPs?”

“Well the team examined all aspects of a great many pesticides. Its conclusions were published in several journals.”

“And those conclusions were accurate?”

“No, they were faked.” The doctor stared out of the car’s back window. “Is that the ocean out there? Doesn’t it sound angry?”

“Yes, it does,” Reeve said.

“It should be angry. We dump so much dangerous trash into it. Our rivers trickle mercury and other poisons into it. You wouldn’t think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we’ll do it one day. That’s how negligent we are.”

“Is CWC negligent?”

“Monstrously so.”

“Why haven’t you spoken out about it?”

“To protect my career, for one thing. I discovered early in my professional life that I was a coward, a moral coward. I might seethe inside, but I’d do nothing to upset the status quo. Later, after I’d retired, I could have done something, but that would have meant admitting my silence, too. You see, I’m just as culpable as anyone. Preece was a psychiatrist, not a scientist; it was easy for him to believe that the cause of certain diseases might lie in the mind itself. Even today there are people who refuse to acknowledge the existence of ME as a valid disease. They say it’s psychosomatic. But Preece’s group, the scientists-we had proof that pesticides and certain neurological diseases were causally linked.”

“You had proof?”

“And we let them cover it up.”

“Who’s them?”

“CWC.” He paused, gathering himself. “Kosigin primarily. I’ve never been sure whether those above him knew about it at the time, or are any wiser now. He operates within his own sphere. Those above him allow him this leeway… Perhaps they have an inkling of what he’s like, and want to distance themselves from him.”

“What is he like, Doctor?”

“He’s not evil, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I don’t even think he’s power-mad. I believe he thinks everything he does is in the genuine interests of the company. He is a corporation man, that’s all. He’ll do all he can-anything it takes-to stop damage being done to CWC.”

“Did you tell him about the journalist, James Reeve?”

“Yes, I did. I was frightened.”

“And he sent men to guard you?”

“Yes, and then he told me to take a short vacation.”

“There’s still a man guarding your house, isn’t there?”

“Not for much longer. The threat has disappeared.”

“Kosigin told you that?”

“Yes, he told me to put my mind at rest.”

“Do the guards work for CWC?”

“Oh, no, they’re policemen.”

“Policemen?”

“Yes. Kosigin has a friend in the police department.”

“Do you know his name?”

“McCluskey. If there’s any trouble, any problem, I can always phone this man McCluskey. You know something? I live about a half a mile from the ocean, but I’ve never heard it sound so angry.”

“They’re just waves, Dr. Killin.”

“You do them an injustice.” He sipped undoped water. “We all do.”

“So let me get this straight in my head, Dr. Killin. You’re saying you were part of a cover-up instigated by Kosigin?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re not sure whether anyone higher up in CWC knew about it at the time, or knows about it now?”

The old man nodded, staring out of the window. Reeve recorded his face in profile, the face of a sad old man who had little to be proud of in his life.

“We’re poisoning everything. We’re poisoning the very food we eat. All over the world, from the biggest agribusiness to the smallest sharecropper, they’re all doing business with the chemical companies, companies like CWC. In the richest countries and the poorest. And we’re eating the results-everything from daily bread to a nice juicy steak. All tainted. It’s like the sea; you can’t see the damage with the naked eye. That makes it easy to hide the problem, easy to cover it up and just deny, deny, deny.”

Slowly, methodically, Killin started to beat his forehead against the side window.

“Whoa,” Reeve said, pulling him away. “It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, but it is. It is!”

“Look, everything’s going to be all right. You’re going to forget all about this.”

“I can’t forget.”

“Well, maybe not, but trust me on this. What about Agrippa? What does it have to do with any of this?”

“Agrippa? Agrippa has everything to do with it, don’t you see? Agrippa has several patents pending on genetically engineered crop strains, with many more patents to come in the future. Do you realize what those will be worth? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say billions. Genetics is the industry of the future, no doubt about it.”

Reeve nodded, understanding. “And if Kosigin’s dirty tricks came to light, the licensing authorities might take a pretty dim view?”

“CWC could lose existing patents and be banned from applying for others. That’s why the cover-up is imperative.”

“Because it’s good for the company,” Reeve muttered. He made to switch off the camera.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about Preece?”

“What?”

“Preece. That’s what the reporter wanted to talk about.”

Reeve stared at Killin, then put the viewfinder back to his eye and watched as the lens refocused itself on the old man. “Go on, Doctor. What about Preece?”

“Preece had a reputation to think of. You think he’d have worked for Kosigin, covered everything up, and signed his name to the lies if there had been an alternative?”

“There wasn’t an alternative?”

“Kosigin had information on Owen. He’d had people do some digging. They found out about Preece and his patients. The ones at the hospital in Canada.”

“What about them?”

“Preece had for a time advocated a kind of sexual shock treatment. Sex as a means to focus the mind, to pull it back to reality.”

Gordon Reeve swallowed. “Are you saying he raped patients?”

“He had sex with some of them. It was… it was experimental. He never published anything, naturally enough. Still it was never the best-kept of secrets. These patients were unpredictable. Preece had to have orderlies in the room to hold them down.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“The psychiatric community got to know about it, and the stories spread out until even people like me heard them.”

“And no one kicked up a stink?”

“These patients were incarcerated. They were fair game for experiments.”

“So Kosigin found out and used the information as a lever?”

“Yes. He had a private detective work on Preece’s history.”

“Alliance Investigative?”

“I don’t know…”

“A man called Jeffrey Allerdyce?”

“The name sounds familiar.”

Reeve thought for a moment. “My brother knew this?”

“Your brother?”

“The reporter.”

“Yes, he knew some of it.”

“How could he know?”

“I take it he’d talked to a few people. As I said, it was not the world’s best-kept secret. If the reporter had been looking into Owen’s past, he would have stumbled on it eventually. I mean, he would have known about Owen and his patients.”

And would have put two and two together, Reeve thought. Jim hadn’t only been trying to blow the pesticide story open, he’d made things more personal. He’d been homing in on Kosigin as manipulator and blackmailer. Kosigin wasn’t protecting CWC, he was protecting himself. Reeve turned the camera around so it was pointing at him, and waited for the autofocus to pick out his face. Then he spoke.

“This is being kept nice and safe, a long way from you,” he said. “I drugged the old man, that’s why he’s been talking. The drug’s called burundanga; it’s Colombian. You can check on it. You might even want your R & D people to do something with it. But listen to this; if you do anything to Dr. Killin I’ll know about it, and a copy of this tape goes straight to the police. And I don’t mean the San Diego PD. We know now how much of that outfit you own, Kosigin. Okay?”

Reeve sought the right button and turned the recorder off. He wound it back a little and pressed Play. Peering into the viewfinder again, he saw his own face, muddy but definable. His voice came from the small built-in speaker.

“You can check on it. You might even want your R & D people to-”

Satisfied, he switched off the camera and laid it on the passenger seat. “Dr. Killin,” he said, “I’m going to take you back now.”

They drove in silence, Killin nodding off in the backseat, his head sliding lower and lower down the backrest. Reeve stopped the car three streets away from Killin’s bungalow, opened the passenger door, and pulled the back of the passenger seat down. Then he shook Killin awake.

“Get out of the car, Doctor. You’ll know where you are. Just walk home and go to bed. Get some sleep.”

Killin staggered out of the car like he was drunk. He stood up straight, staggered a little more, and looked around him like he was on the moon.

“Look at all the stars,” he said. There were plenty of them up there. “So many,” he said, “you’d never think you could poison them all.” He bent down to peer into the car. “But give us a chance and we’ll do it. There are hundreds of tons of space junk flying around up there already. That’s an excellent start, wouldn’t you say?”

Reeve closed the passenger door and drove off.

Dulwater sat on his bed, watching the television. He’d boosted the brightness and adjusted the color and contrast. There was nothing wrong with the sound. Dr. Killin was on the screen, saying his piece. Dulwater was watching the performance for the third time, and saying “This is fucking unbelievable” for the seventh or eighth.

The tape that was playing was simultaneously being recorded onto the third blank tape of a box of five.

“Fucking unbelievable,” Dulwater said.

Reeve watched the tape counter. Dulwater’s room was three floors down from his own. He’d been nervous coming here, but none of the staff had recognized him. It was a big hotel after all, and he’d done nothing to make himself memorable.

“Of course,” Dulwater said, “you could never use this in a court of law. Killin’s obviously been drugged.”

“You already said we’d never get Kosigin into a courtroom anyway.”

“Well, that’s true, too.”

“I don’t particularly want him to stand trial. I just want him to know I have this on record.”

They’d come to the bit where Killin asked if Reeve didn’t want to hear about Preece.

“Anyway,” said Reeve, “what do you care? You’ve got what you wanted right there. Your boss compiled one of his famous dossiers on the dark side of Owen Preece’s history, and this opened Preece up to blackmail.”

“Yes.”

“You should be happy. You’ve got something on your boss.”

“I suppose so.” Dulwater swung off the bed and went to the table. He had a bottle of whiskey there, and helped himself to another glass. Reeve had already refused twice, and wasn’t going to be given a third chance. “What about you?” Dulwater asked between gulps. “What’re you going to do with the tapes?”

“One for me, and one for Kosigin.”

“What’s the point of sending him one?”

“So he knows I know.”

“So what? He’ll only send that buttfuck Jay after you.”

Reeve smiled. “Exactly.”

“Doesn’t that bastard have a surname?” Dulwater sounded three-fifths drunk.

“Jay is his surname.”

“You really know him then?”

“I know him. Tell me again about the bar.”

Dulwater smiled. “Half the damned police department must have been there. You told McCluskey you wanted one on one? You got a hundred on one. Cars, vans, armed to the teeth. Man, he was ready for you and then some. You should have seen how angry he was when he figured it was a no-show. And his pals weren’t too happy with him either.”

“He’ll be worse when he finds out I’ve walked into Killin’s house after he pulled the guard away.”

“Oh, yeah, he’ll pop some blood vessels. And then Kosigin’ll pop him.”

“I hope so.”

The tape was coming to its end, Reeve’s face on the screen. Dulwater finished his drink and crouched in front of the machine. “You know, Gordon, I called the Radisson. I thought it was pretty dumb of you to stay in the same place you stayed last trip. But you’re not that dumb, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Reeve said. He was right behind Dulwater, arms stretched out, when Dulwater stood up. As Dulwater turned, slowed by the alcohol, Reeve brought his hands together in what would have been a sharp clap, had Dulwater’s ears not been in the way. Dulwater’s face creased in sudden excruciating pain, and his balance went. He bounced off the bed and crumpled onto the floor, trying his best to rise again quickly.

Reeve kicked him once in the head and that dropped him.

“No, I’m not,” he repeated quietly, standing over Dulwater. He didn’t think he’d hit him hard enough to burst an eardrum. But then it wasn’t what you’d call an exact science. The Nietz-sche quote came to him: “Must one first shatter their ears to teach them to hear with their eyes?” Well, maybe he was one of Nietzsche’s gentlemen after all.

He spent a few minutes getting everything ready. Then he called McCluskey.

“Hey, McCluskey,” he said.

“You sonofabitch, where were you? I waited hours.”

“Well, leastways you weren’t lonely.”

There was a pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean all your boyfriends.”

Another pause, then a sigh. “All right, Gordon, I admit it-but listen, and this is a friend speaking now, you’re on Interpol’s list, man. It came through after we spoke. The French police want to talk to you about some murders. Hell, when I read that I didn’t know what to think.”

“Nice story, McCluskey.”

“Now wait-”

“I’m gone.”

Reeve dropped the receiver onto the bed. He could hear McCluskey asking if anyone was still there. To drop a bigger hint, Reeve put the TV volume up. It was the insomniacs’ shopping channel. It would take McCluskey time to trace the call, once he figured the phone had been left off the hook. Time enough for Reeve to check out of the hotel and into another. He took three copies of the video with him, leaving just the one.

He knew that if McCluskey and Dulwater sat down to watch the video together, they might find out it was better all around to destroy it. Or rather, McCluskey would want it destroyed, and he’d tell Dulwater that if he didn’t let him destroy it, then Mr. Allerdyce might be appraised of the situation-such as what Gordon Reeve had been doing phoning from Dulwater’s hotel room, and what part Dulwater had played in the videotaping…

So in all, Reeve felt he needed three copies. One for himself, one for Kosigin.

And one just to let Allerdyce know the score.

TWENTY

REEVE HEADED NORTH OUT of town on I-5, citing a “family crisis” as the reason he had to leave the Marriott at such an odd hour. On the way down from Los Angeles, he had picked out a number of dreary-looking roadside motels, just off I-5 on the coastal road which ran parallel with it. He checked the mileage as he drove, and came off the interstate near Solana Beach. He was twenty miles out from the Marriott. The motel had a red neon sign which was making a buzzing sound as he parked beneath it. The reception was all locked up, but there was a sign drawing his attention to the machine attached to the wall alongside. It looked like a cash machine but was actually an Automated Motel Reception. Reeve slipped his credit card into the slot and followed the onscreen instructions. The key which appeared from another slot was a narrow plastic card with holes punched in it. The machine flashed up a final message saying it wished him a pleasant night’s sleep. Reeve wished the machine a pleasant night, too.

The rooms were around the far side of the building. Reeve drove slowly and picked out his room number with his headlights. There were four cars parked, and about twenty rooms. Reeve guessed they weren’t doing great business at the Ocean Palms Resort Beach Motel. He also guessed that resort and beach were misnomers; the motel was a tired motorist’s overnight stop, nothing more. The 1950s cinder-block construction told its own story. The building was in a gulch, closer to I-5 than any beach. The Cinder-Block Last Resort Motel would have been a more accurate name.

But the locks on the doors were new. Reeve slotted home his card, turned the handle, and pulled the card out. He had his bag with him and slung it over a chair. He checked the room over, tired as he was-just the one door and one window. He tried the air-conditioner and wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work. The lightbulb in the lamp fixed into the wall over the bedhead was dead, too, but he took out the dud and replaced it with a working bulb from the ceiling light. He went back out again, locking his door, and prowled the area. There was a small well-lit room at the end of the row. It had no windows and no doors and a bare concrete floor. There were humming machines in there, one dispensing cold drinks, another snacks, and the last one ice. When he lifted the lid he saw there was no ice, just a small metal paddle on a chain. He looked in his pocket for quarters, then went back to the Dart and found a few more. Enough for a can of cola, a chocolate bar, and some potato chips. He took his haul back to the room and settled on the sagging mattress. There was an ugly lamp on the table beside the TV, so he moved it where he couldn’t see it. Then he switched on the TV and stared towards it for a while, eating and drinking and thinking about things.

When he woke up, the morning programs were on, and a maid was cranking a cart past his door. He sat up and rubbed his head. His watch told him 10:00 A.M. He’d been asleep the best part of six hours. He ran a tepid shower and stripped off his clothes. He stayed a long time in the shower, letting the water hammer his back and shoulders while he soaped his chest. He had fallen asleep thinking, and he was thinking now. How badly did he want Kosigin? Did he want Kosigin at all? Maybe Dul-water was right: the proper torment for Kosigin was to give someone else-Allerdyce, in this case-power over him. It was a right and just fate, like something Dante would have dreamed up for one of the circles of Hell.

But then Reeve liked Allerdyce little better than he liked Kosigin. He wished he had a solution, something that would erase them all. But life was never that simple, was it?

Checking out of the motel was as easy as dropping his key into a box. He’d been there about eight hours and hadn’t seen a soul, and the only person he’d even heard was the chambermaid. It was everything he could have asked for.

By now he guessed McCluskey would be tearing up every hotel room in the city. He’d want details of Reeve’s car, but Dulwater wouldn’t be able to help him, and neither would anyone else. If he checked the automobile registration details at the Marriott, he’d see that Reeve had put down a false license plate attached to an equally fictitious Pontiac Sunfire. Reeve drove the Dart down to a stretch of beach and parked. He pulled off shoes and socks and walked across the sand to the ocean’s edge. He walked the beach for a while, then started jogging. He wasn’t alone: there were a few other men out here, mostly older than him, all of them jogging along the waterline. But none of them ran as far as Reeve did. He ran until he was sweating, then stripped off his shirt and ran some more.

Finally, he fell back onto the sand and lay there, sky swimming overhead, waves pounding in his ears. There were toxins in the sky and in the sea. There were toxins in his body. So much for the Superman. So much for Mutual Aid. Reeve spent the rest of the day on the beach, dozing, walking, thinking. He was letting McCluskey and Dulwater sweat. His guess was that they wouldn’t go to Kosigin, not right away. They’d try to find Gordon Reeve first. At least McCluskey would. Reeve wasn’t so sure about Dulwater; he was the more unpredictable of the two.

That evening he ate at a roadside diner, his waitress not believing him when he asked for soup, a salad, and some orange juice.

“That all you want, sweetheart?”

“That’s all.”

Even then, he wondered about additives in the juice, chemicals in the soup stock, residues in the salad vegetables. He wondered if he’d ever enjoy a meal again.

Reeve took the Dart back into San Diego. His face was still stinging from his day on the beach. The traffic was heavy heading into town. It was a work week, after all. Eventually Reeve hit the waterfront, parked in the first space he found, and went for a walk.

He found the Gaslamp Quarter. He accosted the first non-crazy-looking beggar who approached him and laid out his scheme. The beggar forced the fee up a couple of notches from the price of a drink to the price of dinner and a drink, but Reeve reckoned he had dollars to spare. The beggar walked with him up Fifth Avenue and west to the CWC building. Reeve handed him the package.

It was pretty crude: a plastic carrier bag sealed shut with Scotch tape, and MR. KOSIGIN: PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL in felt-penned capitals.

“Now, I’m going to be watching, so just do what I told you,” he warned his messenger. Then he stood across the street, on the corner outside the coffee shop. He could see Cantona inside, dunking a doughnut. But Cantona couldn’t see him, and Reeve kept it that way. He kept an eye open for Dulwater or anyone else, but Dulwater was probably still tied up sorting out his own problems. It was a risk, using the coffee shop. After all, Dulwater knew Reeve himself had used the premises, and Dulwater knew what Cantona looked like. But Reeve reckoned he was safe enough. Meantime, the beggar had entered the CWC building.

Reeve waited a few minutes, then walked to another vantage point and waited a few more. Nobody left the CWC building. As he’d guessed would happen, an unmarked police car eventually screamed to a halt outside the entrance. McCluskey got out, and was met halfway up the steps by Kosigin himself.

It was Reeve’s first real look at Kosigin, Allerdyce’s photographs aside. He was a short, slim man who wore his suit like he was modeling in a commercial. From this distance, he looked as dangerous as a hamburger. But then after what Reeve had learned lately, he couldn’t be sure anymore just how safe a hamburger was.

Kosigin led McCluskey into the building. McCluskey looked tired, pasty-faced. He’d had a very long couple of days. Reeve wondered if the detective had slept at all. He hoped not. He knew the beggar was inside, probably sandwiched between two security men. They’d want to ask him questions. They’d maybe take the money away from him; or threaten to, if he didn’t give a convincing description of his benefactor.

Reeve’s mobile rang. He held it up to his ear. Unsurprisingly, Cantona’s voice came over loud and clear.

“Hey,” he said, “your man just came out of the building. But get this, only as far as the steps where he met up with that fucking detective. They’ve both gone back inside.”

Reeve smiled. Cantona was doing his job. “Thanks,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Keep watching.”

“Sure. Hey, do I get to take a lunch break?”

“What? After that doughnut you just ate?”

There was silence on the line. When Cantona next spoke, he sounded amused. “You sonofabitch, where are you?”

“I’m just leaving.” Reeve put away the telephone, turned on his heels, and headed into the shopping district.

The first thing he did was get a haircut. Then he bought some very plain clothes which all but made him invisible. The barber had given him a shave, too. If he hadn’t been in fear of his life, Reeve would have felt great. He found a nice restaurant on the edge of Gaslamp and had lunch with the other businesspeople. His table was near the window, facing another table laid for two with a single woman eating at it. She smiled at him from time to time, and he smiled back. He had the sense that rather than flirting with him, she was acknowledging her right-and his, too-to dine alone. She went back to her paperback novel, and Reeve watched the street outside. During dessert, he saw his messenger slouch past, a dazed scowl on his face. The world had given him another punch in the teeth, and the man was trying to figure out how he’d walked into it. Reeve vowed that if he saw him later, he’d slip him a dollar without stopping.

Hell, maybe he’d make it two.

He gave Kosigin a couple of hours, then telephoned from his mobile. He was guessing they’d try to trace any calls made to Kosigin. Reeve sat on a bench in a shopping mall and made the call.

“Mr. Kosigin’s office, please.”

“Just one minute.” The switchboard operator transferred him to a secretary.

“Mr. Kosigin, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“Sure, my name’s Reeve. Believe me, he’ll want to talk to me.”

“I’ll try his office, Mr. Reeve.”

“Thanks.”

The secretary put him onto one of those annoying music loops. He started to time how long he was kept waiting. He could visualize them setting up an extra telephone set so McCluskey could listen in, could see McCluskey busy on another line trying to get a trace on the call. Reeve gave it thirty seconds before he cut the connection. He walked to a coffee stand and bought a double decaf latte. He peeled off the plastic cover until he had a hole big enough to sip through, and window-shopped the mall. Then he sat on another bench and made the call again.

“Mr. Kosigin’s office, please.”

“Just one minute.”

And then Kosigin’s secretary again, sounding slightly flustered.

“It’s Reeve again,” he said. “I have an aversion to waiting.”

“Hold the line, please.”

Fifteen seconds later, a male voice came on the phone. “Mr. Reeve? This is Kosigin.” The voice was as smooth as the suit Kosigin wore. “How can I help you?”

“What did you think of the video?”

“Dr. Killin was obviously drugged, delirious. I’d say he’d almost been brainwashed into that crazy story. Abduction is a very serious offense, Mr. Reeve.”

“What did McCluskey think of it?”

That stopped Kosigin for a moment. “Naturally, I sent for the police.”

“Before you watched the video,” Reeve stated. “That’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it? Almost like you were expecting something. I take it you’re recording this call, that’s why you’re acting innocent. Fine, act away. But Kosigin, I’ve got the tape. I’ve got lots of copies of it. You don’t know who’s going to receive one in the mail one of these fine mornings. Maybe they’ll believe your version, maybe they’ll believe Killin’s.”

Another pause. Was Kosigin taking instructions from someone? Maybe McCluskey.

Maybe Jay.

“Perhaps we should meet, Mr. Reeve.”

“Yeah? Just the two of us, same as I was supposed to meet McCluskey? Only McCluskey turned up with his private personal army, and you, Kosigin, you’d turn up alone-right?”

“Right.”

“Apart from Jay, of course, training a laser sight on my forehead.”

Another pause.

Reeve was enjoying this. “I’ll call back in ten minutes,” he told Kosigin, then hung up.

He walked out of the mall into bright afternoon sun and a warm coastal breeze. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more alive. He made the next call from outside the main post office.

“So, Kosigin, had any thoughts?”

“About what? I believe you’re a wanted man in Europe, Mr. Reeve. Not a very pleasant situation.”

“But you could do something about that, right?”

“Could I?”

“Yes, you could hand Jay over to the French authorities, you could tell them he set me up.”

“You two know one another, don’t you?”

“Believe it.”

“There’s some sort of enmity between you?”

“You mean he hasn’t told you? Get him to tell you his version. It’s probably so fake you could install it as a ride at Disneyland.”

“I’d like to hear your version.”

“I bet you would, and at length too, right?”

“Look, Mr. Reeve, this is getting us nowhere. Why don’t you just tell me what you want.”

“I thought that was obvious, Kosigin. I want Jay. I’ll phone later with the details.”

Reeve walked back to the office-supply shop and handed over the mobile, signing some more documents and getting back his deposit.

“Any calls will be charged to your credit card,” the assistant told him.

“Thanks,” Reeve said. He went next door to the coffee shop. Cantona was reading a crumpled newspaper. Reeve bought them both a coffee.

“Hell,” Cantona said, “I didn’t recognize you there.”

Reeve reached into his pocket and drew out a miniature of whiskey. “Here’s something to pep you up.”

“I meant what I said, Gordon.” Cantona’s eyes were bloodshot and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His stubble was silver and gray. “I don’t drink when I’m working.”

“But you’re not working anymore. I’m heading out.”

“Where to?” Cantona received no reply. “Best I don’t know, right?”

“Right.” Reeve handed over the money from his mobile de-posit.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s for looking after Jim, and taking some shit on my behalf last time I was here.”

“Aw hell, Gordon, that wasn’t anything.”

“Put it in your pocket, Eddie, and drink up.” Reeve stood up again, his own coffee barely touched. Cantona glanced out of the window. It had become a reflex.

“There’s McCluskey,” he said.

Reeve watched the detective get into his car. He didn’t look happy. Reeve kept watching. If Jay walked out of the building, Reeve would finish it now. He’d leave the coffee shop, sprint between the traffic, and take the bastard out.

But there was no sign of Jay.

“Go home,” Reeve told Cantona. It was like he was telling himself.

He drove to L.A.

It took him a while to find Marcus Aurelius Dedman’s Auto-Breakers. He’d phoned ahead, and Dedman was waiting for him.

Dedman gave the car a cursory inspection. “She drive all right?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“No problems at all?”

“No problems at all,” Reeve echoed.

“Well in that case,” Dedman said. “I might as well use her to give you your ride.”

Dedman had agreed to drive Reeve out to the airport. He insisted on driving, and Reeve was quite happy to rest in the passenger seat. On the way, Dedman talked about cars, using a language Reeve only half understood. He’d done a course in car mechanics as part of his SAS training, but that had been on elderly Land Rovers, and had been cursory at best. It seemed a long time ago.

Reeve shook Dedman’s hand at the airport and watched him drive off. He didn’t think they’d be expecting him to leave so soon. Kosigin would be waiting for the next call. Reeve walked around the concourse until he found a bulletin board. He scribbled a note on the back of a napkin he’d taken from the coffee shop, then folded the note over, wrote a surname in large capitals, and pinned the napkin to the bulletin board.

Then he checked himself onto the next available flight and made straight for the departure gate. There wasn’t much to do at LAX; it was no Heathrow-which these days was more department store than airport. Reeve ate a pizza and drank a Coke. He bought a magazine, which he didn’t read. There was no duty-free shop, so he sat by the row of public telephones until just before his flight was called.

Then he called Kosigin.

“Yes?” Kosigin said impatiently.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I don’t like games, Mr. Reeve.”

“That’s a pity, because we’re deep in the middle of one. Have somebody-Jay preferably-go to LAX. There’s a public bulletin board in the departures hall, near the information kiosk. There’s a note there.”

“Look, why can’t we just-”

Reeve cut the connection. His flight was being called over the loudspeaker.

He had probably got one of the last places on the aircraft. He was seated by the aisle in a middle row of three. Next to him were an Australian couple heading over to Ireland to trace the wife’s ancestors. They showed Reeve some photographs of their children.

“Old photos, they’re all grown now.”

Reeve didn’t mind. He smiled and ordered a whiskey, and watched the sharp blue sky outside. He was just happy to be away from San Diego. He was glad he was going home. When the in-flight movie started, he pushed his cushion down so it was supporting his lumbar, and then he closed his eyes.

Old pictures… He had a lot of those in his head: old pictures he would never forget, pictures he’d once dreamed nightly, the dreams breaking him out in a sweat.

Pictures of fireworks in Argentina.