Last shot

Chapter 64

The Nextel felt hot against Tim's cheek; he realized he was pressing it harder than necessary. "How firm," he asked, still reeling from the news, "is the ID?"

"DNA firm," DeSquire said. "The concrete bath? We been seeing it lately from the Colombians. The Piper did a hit on one of their launderers in January."

"I remember." Tim braced himself as Bear veered over the edge of an island to U-turn onto the freeway. If the Piper was dead, then who'd crushed a paintball on the curb outside Tess's house? And if the low-rider with the unusually large hood ornament existed outside the senile haze of the neighbor's mind, who'd driven it? Someone had picked up the money Ted Sands had dropped at Game, and the contract for Tess's life that went along with it. "Listen," Tim said, "would you consider keeping this from the press?"

"No way, pal. This is a big find." DeSquire lowered his voice. "Someone's looking to make chief, get his mug in front of the flashing bulbs. I wouldn't mind bumping up to supervisory deputy myself. Why you want a lid on it anyways?"

"If Walker Jameson doesn't know, I'd prefer to keep him chasing after a ghost."

One-handing the wheel at high noon, Bear shot Tim an unamused glance across the meat of his shoulder. "Kinda like us?"

When Bear's boot hit the lock assembly, the entire motel shuddered. The door flew open, knob punching through the drywall. A thin, bald guy leapt off the bed like a goosed cat and crashed to the base of the wall, clutching his wife-beater undershirt at his chest. Bear hauled him up and threw him onto the bed, but the mattress was so bouncy he soared off the other side. Tim frisked him on the floor and sat him on a chair as Bear cleared the closet and bathroom. A Dodgers game blared on in the background until Bear, die-hard Giants fan, smacked the power button, zapping Gagne and the pitcher's mound into blackness. Aside from a pair of sneakers by the door and the open laptop on the opposite twin, the room was empty. Tim stared at the floating aphorism on the screen saver-If we'd have known it would be this much trouble, we would've picked our own damn cotton-and resisted an urge to ping-pong the shitheel off the bed a second time.

"You're on Walker Jameson's trail?" Tim said.

The guy scratched his bald pate, fingers flickering as if over piano keys. "Dunno."

Bear looked from the abandoned sneakers-huge and floppy, size thirteens at least-to the lanky guy in the chair. Normal-size feet.

"Wait a minute," Bear said, "this ain't Caden."

The phone shuddered in Tim's pocket, and he opened it to watch a booking photo download on the small screen. Caden Burke was a hulking man, six-three by the markers behind him. His thick chest dwarfed the neckboard. He had a mouth like a seam, no lips, and a pronounced chin that gave the effect that his face was folded around the black slit.

"Hell, no, I ain't Caden. My name's Phil Xavier. I'm just the fucking driver."

"So where's Caden?" Bear stood over Xavier. "Where is he?"

Tim said, "You'd better tell us everything you know, right now, or we'll nail your ass for conspiracy to commit murder." Xavier bunched his mouth, biting the insides of his lips. Tim leaned over him. "Right now, this moment, this is one of those decisions you don't want to spend twenty years rethinking at Lompoc."

Sweat streaked down the sides of Xavier's head just behind the ears, lending a sheen to the inked shamrock low on his skull. The tattoo was still scabby-Xavier was a newbie, which meant he wasn't so far in he couldn't see a way out. "And if I tell you?"

Tim made an on-the-spot call for expediency's sake. "Hey, you're just the driver, right?"

Xavier cleared his throat nervously. "Caden's the guy, like I said. I just drive. But I heard him making calls on the way out, pieced together a thing or two."

Bear: "Like?"

"After the escape, Jameson made some underground calls checking out a hitter named the Piper. It trickled back to us-we'd put it on the street we wanted any word on Walker Jameson. Turns out the Piper's dead. Jameson found out someone snaked his commission."

"Does Jameson know who? Maybe someone gave him a name?"

Xavier's eyes shifted. "He might have gotten a name, sure, but not us."

"What did you get?"

"A time and place."

"For what?"

"Where Jameson could find the guy."

"The time?"

Xavier pulsed his hands into fists, working out tension. "Right now."

"Where?"

"You guys gonna hurt Caden?"

"If he's going after Jameson, we're probably going to save his life."

"You don't know Caden." Xavier had one of those nervous smiles where the lips touched at the middle but gapped at the sides.

Bear palmed Xavier's head, his massive hands enclosing either side, and forced eye contact. "Where?"

"I swear I don't know. Caden looked something up and took off outta here."

"Looked something up? In what?"

But Tim was already across the room at the laptop. The odious screen saver vanished when he hit the space bar. Explorer was open to Yahoo!'s TV page, the schedule highlighting the Dodgers-Marlins game. Tim clicked the browser's back button, passing a baseball stats page and a news story before a Mapquest page started to load, slowed by the phone-line connection. As the driving directions popped on-screen, one line at a time, Tim tracked them impatiently with his finger.

Caden's route ended at Game.