Locked In

JULIA RAFAEL

The late supper Judy Peeples had promised her had been good, their guest room was super-comfortable, but it was too damn quiet in the country. She could sleep through the wail of sirens and the grumbling of buses and people shouting on the city streets, but here in rural Sonoma County, where the only sound was a rooster that kept crowing all night, she tossed and turned. Weren’t roosters supposed to crow only at dawn? What was wrong with the thing?

Around three in the morning she got up and sat on the window seat looking out at the oak grove between the house and the stables. She focused on the slight movement of the branches in the breeze, and after a while she felt sleepy. The bird had finally shut up. Maybe she could-

Motion under the oak trees.

Julia tensed up. An animal? What wild kinds did they have here? Deer, raccoons, opossums. For all she knew, coyotes and mountain lions. Well, she was safe inside…

But this shape didn’t move like an animal, it moved like a human. Larry or Judy Peeples, going to check on the horses? No, she’d have seen them or heard the back door close if they’d left the house.

The dark figure kept moving. In the direction of the stables? She got up quickly, pulled on jeans, and tucked her sleep shirt into them. Went out into the hall. A night-light burned there, showing her the way to the stairs. She crept down them, guided by another light on the first floor, then felt her way back to the door off the kitchen.

The night air was warm and felt like silk against her skin. Something tickled her nostrils, and she had to stifle a sneeze. From her second-floor bedroom the night hadn’t seemed so dark because of a scattering of stars, but out here it was inky. She started toward the oak grove, and the damn rooster went off again. Nearly made her jump a foot.

She moved through the grove, keeping to the path, wishing she’d thought to put on shoes.

Estúpida. When will you learn?

The stones cut into her soles; a couple of times she had to hop on one foot. Finally the stables came into view. Dark, but the horses sounded restless.

So here she was-barefoot and unarmed. Unarmed because after all the violence she’d seen growing up on the streets of the Mission district, she hated guns and had opted out of getting firearms-qualified. And suddenly scared. What had she been thinking of, coming out here like this?

Movement by the stables-slow, stealthy. A bulky shape slipping off to the left. Unarmed or not, Julia took off running in pursuit.

The person-she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman-plunged into the vineyard that bordered the stables, heading toward the road. Feet pounded the dirt between the plants, branches snapped and rustled. Julia followed through the rows of gnarled old vines.

After a moment she stopped to get her bearings. The person she was following must’ve stopped too: there was no noise except for the distant cry of the rooster. Then another bird joined the chorus. No one moved among the vines.

Julia wiped beads of sweat from her forehead, looked around. Blackness, crouching shadows. Narrow paths stretching in all directions. Then, off to her left, a faint rustling. The intruder was on the move again.

She went toward the sound, took a path, and ran down it, kicking up clods of dirt. The intruder’s footsteps now sounded uneven, labored.

Julia was gaining, gaining-

Then in the darkness something slammed into her. An upright grape stake. Pain erupted on the bridge of her nose, and she fell to the ground, the gnarled vines scratching on her way down. She lay there stunned for a few seconds. By the time she regained her senses and her feet, a car’s engine had started up in the distance.

Lost them, whoever he-or she-was.

Mierda.

She put her hand to her nose, felt blood welling. Injury to insult. This was a great beginning to her day.

SHARON McCONE

Pale pinkish light seeping around the drawn blinds. Must be very early in the morning. There’s been a shift in the weather, I can feel it. Today will be beautiful.

But not for me.

I lay there, depression gathering again. After the nightmare flashback to when I’d been shot, I’d had a peculiar dream in which Hy was looking into my eyes, but he couldn’t speak any more than I could. Then others appeared-Mick, Rae, Ted, Ma-and they couldn’t speak either. And finally I realized it wasn’t that they couldn’t-they wouldn’t. Keeping something from me.

I thought back to Hy’s behavior the day before. At first he’d been elated to connect with me. Then they’d done a CT scan and some other tests, and he was a little subdued but still upbeat. But later he’d been quiet, wrapped up in his own thoughts, and his smile was slightly off.

Definitely holding something back. Something those tests had revealed.

Dammit, if that was the case, I deserved to know. When he came in today, I’d ask him-

Right. I couldn’t ask him anything. All I could do was respond to questions.

All I could do was lie here. Silent. Motionless. Afraid.

CRAIG MORLAND

The sky was glowing over the eastern hills when he awoke, cramped and cold, in his SUV at a pullout on Highway 1 near Big Sur. He’d driven almost to the Spindrift Lodge, where San Francisco’s president of the board of supervisors and the state representative had arranged their secret meeting, then parked about ten miles north. No reason to arrive in the middle of the night and roust the innkeeper from his or her bed; no need to attract attention to himself. Amanda Teller and Paul Janssen would probably check in in the afternoon, and by then he’d be tucked away, hopefully in an adjoining unit.

He ran his hands over his face and hair, then got out of the car and breathed in the crisp salt air. Fog misted the gray sea; its waves smacked onto the rocks some thousand feet below. But the pink light to the east indicated the day would clear. He turned that way and looked up: towering pine-covered slopes, through which a waterfall had cut a channel. Now, because of the dry summer conditions inland, its flow was barely a trickle. Come the rainy season, it would be a torrent.

All around there were reminders of the 2008 wildfire, sparked by lightning, that had burned more than 160,000 acres in the area: blackened sections, redwoods with charred branches, deadfalls. Many residents had lost their homes, even more had been evacuated, and the Pacific Coast Highway had been closed to traffic. People in the Big Sur area were strong and resilient, though; it had always been subject to floods, mudslides, and avalanches. Often in winter it was cut off from the surrounding territory, but no matter how bad the disaster the community clung together and regrouped quickly.

Craig loved Big Sur, but he and Adah had spent little time there. It was remote, down a very dicey part of the coast highway, and there really wasn’t much to do. Better to go to Carmel, with its interesting shops and good restaurants, for a getaway. Still, there was something magical about this long stretch of tall trees and rugged sea cliffs; if he were a believer, he’d say being here was akin to a religious experience.

But he wasn’t a believer. His exposure to religion had been limited to Christmas Eve and Easter services at the Methodist church in Alexandria, Virginia, where he’d been raised. He never contemplated the existence of a deity or eternal life; it simply wasn’t in his makeup. Adah was the same: she’d been reared in the religion of her parents-communism-but she hadn’t taken her radical parents’ beliefs too seriously. In fact, when they’d become disillusioned and begun labeling themselves as “wild-eyed liberals,” she’d been relieved.

He thought of Shar: what did she believe? She’d been raised Catholic, but he’d never known her to go to church. And the beliefs of her Indian ancestors hadn’t been passed on to her. He hoped if she had any faith at all she was leaning heavily on it now, during the toughest battle of her life.

Nature called. He went into a stand of pines clinging to the clifftop, out of eyeshot of early passing motorists. Returning, he looked at his watch. Six-thirty. He’d grab breakfast somewhere, even if it meant driving north, then play tourist till around ten, a respectable time to arrive at the Spindrift Lodge for a spontaneous weekend getaway.

RAE KELLEHER

She was starting her search for Bill Delaney, the name she’d found in the phone book in Callie O’Leary’s hotel room, when the fog showed signs of breaking over the Golden Gate. Delaney’s cellular had been out of service consistently when she’d called it last night during breaks in a family evening with Ricky and the girls.

She was surprised how much she enjoyed the times when Molly and Lisa, their older sister Jamie, and even their troubled brother Brian were in residence. The eldest girl, Chris, was a student at Berkeley and dropped in often. So did Mick.

Family had never played a big part in Rae’s life-unless you counted the people at All Souls and, later, at the agency. Her parents had died in an accident when she was just a kid, and she’d been raised by her grandmother in Santa Maria-a cold, begrudging woman who had died of a heart attack while trying to murder a perfectly good rosebush.

Maybe that was why she could put up with the trials and tribulations of the Little Savages: they were so much more of a family than Nana, as the old lady had insisted Rae call her.

Of course, there was Jamie’s abortion last year: Rae had finessed that so Ricky hadn’t made it more stressful than was warranted upon his second daughter. And while Brian’s OCD, which had surfaced shortly before Charlene and Ricky divorced, was difficult to deal with, he was a sweet-natured boy and lately Rae had become close to him. Brian seemed better all the time; he did get manic once in a while, dusting and washing everything in sight, but Rae kind of appeciated that. In spite of their having a full-time housekeeper and a maid, chores at the Kelleher-Savage home were often left undone, what with the band members and recording company people and friends constantly traipsing through the house.

Back to the search for Bill Delaney. She’d called his cellular minutes ago. Same lack of response. No way of knowing whether it was Callie who’d written down the number or when. The phone could’ve been a throwaway or the account canceled long ago. With no information on Delaney, an ordinary name in this city with its high Irish population, locating him wouldn’t be easy.

Okay, if a hooker had his cell number, what could he be?

A fellow sex worker. A pimp. Someone in the porn industry. A lawyer…

Yes!

Google search of ABA members. Many Delaneys. She worked her way through them, both in the city and around the state. Narrowed it down by type of law practice. Came up with two possibles, one on Forty-eighth Avenue near Ocean Beach, the other on Shotwell Street, close to where the former All Souls Victorian stood on Bernal Heights. It was Saturday, but ambulance chasers who bailed hookers out of jail were always reachable.

As she passed through the living room on the way out, she called to Ricky, Molly, and Lisa, “When you go to the zoo, tell the baby giraffe hello for me.”

Ricky had an arm around either daughter. They were watching something on TV that sounded nonsensical. He grinned and said, “Good hunting, Red.”

HY RIPINSKY

She has got to be told today, before the visitors start coming,” he said to Dr. Saxnay.

The older man sighed. “You’re right, of course. We’ll give her the weekend to take it in, then allow the first visitors on Monday.”

“I’d rather they start coming right away.”

“The diagnosis is going to be a shock.”

“She’s aware it’s bad. All that time when she could hear and no one knew it. Besides, with Sharon, even knowing the worst is better than uncertainty.”

Ralph Saxnay said, “Well, you can attest to that better than I.” He got up from the desk and led Hy toward McCone’s room. “You go in first.”

It was an attractive room-he hadn’t paid attention to that before-with pale blue walls and matching blue upholstery on the visitors’ armchair near the high hospital bed. None of this backache-making plastic hospital-room stuff that he could swear was designed to drive family and friends away. Today the room was fragrant, filled with the flowers and plants from well-wishers that had arrived steadily since word got out that she’d been admitted here. The blinds were raised, giving a view of the silver-leafed eucalyptus grove, and the nursing staff had apparently completed their morning routine.

Shar was awake, propped against the pillows. He went to her, kissed lips that were moist with Chap Stick. Looked into her eyes.

She was blinking frantically.

Yeah, she knows something’s wrong. And she wants me to tell her what.

Saxnay had come up behind him. He seemed to intuit what was going on.

“I’ve come to talk with you about your CT scan results,” he began, moving to where Sharon could see him.

McCone blinked once.

“Frankly, they are not as good as we’d hoped. Now that we know you’re conscious and aware, we can put a name to your condition: locked-in syndrome.”

The doctor proceeded to explain: the same litany of symptoms and causes Hy had been given: awareness, ability to reason, to feel emotion and touch. Saxnay didn’t downplay the seriousness of the prognosis, and throughout his speech, McCone’s gaze remained fixed and unblinking on the doctor’s.

“I don’t mean to say your condition is hopeless,” Saxnay concluded. “Patients have made partial recoveries. Much depends on you-your spirit, your determination. And, of course, you have friends and family to rally round you. That means a lot.” He paused. “Have I explained clearly enough for now?”

McCone blinked once.

“Then I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Hy said, and pulled the upholstered chair close to the bed.

A single tear slipped down his wife’s right cheek. Gently he wiped it away, then did the same with one that appeared on her left cheek. He touched her arm, wished he could take her hand, but it was under the covers, stuck with an IV.

“This isn’t as bad as he made it sound,” he said.

No blink or eye movement.

“We’ll get through it.”

No response.

“Doctors don’t know everything.”

Eye movement-questioning the statement, he thought.

“Would you like me to go? Be alone for a while?”

Two blinks.

“Then I’ll stay and tell you what the folks at the agency are doing to ID whoever did this to you.”

SHARON McCONE

A vegetable. A fucking vegetable.

I remember when I was younger, laughing at people with disabilities, the horrible words we used: feeb, spaz, veg.

Well, join the club. For the rest of your life, somebody somewhere’ll be laughing at you.

Tears slipped down my cheeks again. God, I hadn’t cried this much in my life!

Actually, what I felt like when the doctor was talking to me was a lab rat in a cage. Saxnay seemed like a good surgeon, but in my case he didn’t have much to work with and he knew it.

A lab rat. No, that wasn’t right. Lab rats could move, make sounds, eat on their own. I was more like a mummy. I liked that term better than the veg word.

The effort the agency people were putting into my case touched me, though. At least I was a cherished mummy. Hy said they’d be coming by and starting to report to me tomorrow; relatives would arrive, too.

Ma… At first I’d thought, Jesus Christ, not Ma on the first day! But Hy had said he’d arrange for the RI jet to pick her up in San Diego tomorrow afternoon; he’d take her to dinner and put her up at an expensive boutique hotel downtown that she liked. The former Katie McCone had become used to her creature comforts since she’d remarried and become Kay Hunt, but she still had a good heart and I loved her. It was just the drama I couldn’t take.

Rae and Ricky, John, Charlene and Vic. Mick, Ted, Julia, Craig, Adah. And everybody else. God I missed them!

I’m starting to look forward to something…

This case. That was what I was particularly looking forward to. Hearing the details of how they’d go about finding the bastard who’d altered my life-maybe irrevocably.

But could they do it without me? I thought about that for a while. Something light rose in my chest, like a shiny bubble, and I would have smiled if that had been possible.

You’ve heard of an armchair detective, folks? How about a locked-in investigator?

JULIA RAFAEL

She took the exit from the Bay Bridge and drove toward the pier, fussing over whether she’d done the right thing to leave the money in the Peepleses’ safe and agree not to report it to the authorities. Wished she could ask Shar about it. Of course Shar-who claimed to be a by-the-book investigator-probably would’ve said it was wrong. But then Shar’s own actions didn’t always follow what the book said.

She’d left the vineyard early, leaving a thank-you note and creeping out into the predawn light before the Peepleses stirred. She didn’t want to explain her injury or tell them that someone-maybe their missing son-had been sneaking around the stables, probably trying to retrieve the cash; the news would only increase their anguish, and Julia doubted the person would return.

Her nose hurt and she had a bloody scab, partially concealed by makeup. She wouldn’t be surprised if her eyes were blackened within a few hours. She’d taken punches to the nose before, and that was the inevitable result.

Julia parked in her slot on the pier’s floor and hurried up the stairs to the catwalk. Half an hour late for the staff meeting, and she felt like shit. She rushed into the conference room. Stopped. Where was everybody?

Back down the catwalk to Ted’s office. He and Patrick Neilan were there, Ted sitting in his chair, Patrick perched on a corner of the desk. Ted’s bright red Western-style shirt-the latest of his ever-changing fashion statements-contrasted sharply with Patrick’s goth black.

“Is the meeting over?” she asked.

“Never got started,” Patrick said. “Adah and Derek and Thelia showed, but none of the folks who are actively working the case. Hy-who requested the meeting-was on time, but left when we realized it wasn’t going to happen.”

“Craig wasn’t home when Adah got there last night,” Ted added, “and there’s been no word from him. Mick’s cellular is out of service range. Ricky said Rae went out in a hurry around ten. What the hell happened to you?”

“Hostile encounter with a grape stake.” She explained about her visit to the Peepleses. “Did I do right, leaving the money there?”

Patrick shrugged, running a hand through his spiky red hair.

Ted said, “It’s what Shar would’ve done.”

“So what do we do now?” she asked.

“Other than you icing your face? I’ll keep calling around,” Ted told her. “Maybe I can gather the troops this afternoon. In the meantime, Shar’s entertaining visitors.”

Julia entered Shar’s room hesitantly, an ice bag that the nurse on the desk had provided pressed to her nose. It would help to keep her eyes from blackening, the woman said. Ice hadn’t done anything for her in the past, but she accepted the bag gratefully.

Shar was turned on her side before a window overlooking a eucalyptus grove. The room was quiet and fragrant with flowers. Julia skirted the bed, drew up the single chair, and looked into Shar’s eyes.

Light filled them, and Shar blinked.

“You’re awake,” Julia said.

Another blink.

Dios, it was creepy! She’d never seen Shar so motionless and silent. How the hell did they know she was in there anyway? This blinking could be a reflex.

No. Ted had said she was completely aware, that one blink meant yes and two meant no.

Still, it was creepy.

A questioning light came into Shar’s eyes. She stared steadily at Julia’s ice bag.

“Oh, this,” Julia said, “de nada. I’ll explain.”

She gave Shar a full report on her cases. Asked the same thing she’d asked herself, Ted, and Patrick. “Did I do the right thing leaving the money with the Peepleses?”

One blink. Yes.

“What should I do now? Oh, hell, I know you can’t answer me. But I just don’t…”

Shar’s gaze fixed on hers, strong and compelling.

“Okay, I could turn it over to the police.”

Two blinks. No.

“Right. We’re not even sure it’s stolen.”

Blink.

“But I don’t think this guy who worked in the stockroom at Home Showcase saved that much out of his salary. Or won the lottery. And if he had, it’d be earning interest in a bank, rather than stuffed in a duffel bag under the floorboards of his parents’ tack room.”

Blink.

“We don’t even know he’s the one who put it there. Right?”

Blink.

“Or if he was the one I chased through the vineyard?”

Blink.

“So what do I…? Dig deeper, way deeper into the guy’s life?”

Blink. Then Shar closed her eyes. Tired.

Julia sat by the bed a few minutes more before leaving quietly only when she was sure Shar was asleep.

MICK SAVAGE

God, these tracking devices were getting better and better!

He sat on his Harley-a more powerful version of the one he’d wrecked last fall-across from the Spindrift Lodge near Big Sur. The lodge was old and sprawling, its logs washed silver-gray by the elements. Woodstove chimneys protruded above each unit, and the ice plant lawn between the semicircular driveway was strewn with driftwood. Craig had just checked in-unit twenty. Mick wasn’t about to go up and knock on the door, though; he’d wait it out, see what happened.

Last night after he left Craig and Adah’s apartment he’d located Craig’s SUV where it was parked a block away and slapped a tracking device under the bumper. At three in the morning Mick’s monitor showed the vehicle was in motion. Mick left his condo and followed.

Why, he wondered on the long drive down, was Craig being so damn secretive about his line of investigation? Sure, it was politically sensitive, but it might have something to do with Shar getting shot and paralyzed. Well, maybe it was just the old FBI training kicking in. Or maybe Craig wanted to score a big one for himself.

No, Craig wasn’t like that. What he was looking into had to be something major. And he wanted to be sure of his facts before he enlisted the rest of them.

An hour passed. The sky was clear, but a cold wind was blowing in and the sea was beating against the cliffs, throwing up big fans of spray. Good weather in Big Sur didn’t last long.

As he waited and watched, Mick thought back to the night last November when he’d been on a similar stretch of highway, drunk out of his mind and stoned on grief because he’d lost the woman he’d considered the love of his life, Charlotte Keim. So drunk and stoned he’d decided to see how high the Harley could fly above the Pacific. He’d misjudged and landed hard on the roadside, hard enough to injure himself seriously and knock some sense into him. Sweet Charlotte had done the same: she was seven years older than he, and during repeated conversations over the next couple of months she’d convinced him that life and love didn’t end at twenty-two.

She was getting married next month to an old college sweetheart. He wished her well.

Activity at the inn. A car-plain, gray, probably a rental-pulled in. A woman in jeans and a dark-colored jacket, her head covered with a scarf, got out and went into the office. She returned quickly, retrieved a bag from the car, and entered Room 19, next to Craig’s.

Mick took out his binoculars, noted the license plate of the car. Jotted down her time of arrival.

Half an hour later another inconspicuous sedan arrived. White this time. A man in jeans and a parka, its hood pulled up and resting low on his brow, got out and went to register. When he came out, he moved the car and entered Room 21, to the other side of Craig. Mick noted down the plate number and time.

For an hour after that, nothing happened. It was getting cold on the clifftop: icy gusts of wind ruffled his hair and permeated his leather jacket. Finally he started the Harley and drove into the inn’s parking lot. The pleasant woman at the desk agreed to give him Room 22.

“That’s the second request I’ve had today for a certain room number,” she said. “Man came in this morning and took Room Twenty, said he was meeting two associates; he described them and asked they be put on either side of him. Said not to mention he was here-it was a surprise. You a member of his party, too?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am.” He wanted to ask her the names all three had registered under, but didn’t want to arouse her suspicions. “Any good takeout places that deliver around here?”

“There’s a pizza joint, but I wouldn’t recommended it.” There was an ominous tone to her voice.

Mick was glad he always carried a couple of nutrition bars. It could be a long night.

RAE KELLEHER

The second of the Bill Delaneys turned out to be Callie O’Leary’s attorney. He had his office in the front room of his shabby Victorian on Shotwell Street in Bernal Heights, two blocks from All Souls’ former headquarters. When Rae came to his door and said she was an investigator hired to locate Callie so she could claim an inheritance left her by her grandmother, Delaney let her in, but the small eyes that peered out of poochy folds of flesh were shrewd and wary.

He probably didn’t believe her but hoped there might be something in it for him.

Delaney urged her to take one of his clients’ chairs and sat behind his old oak desk. The room’s sagging shelves were lined with law books, but the bindings looked brittle and were faded by the sun coming through the unshaded bay window. The air smelled of dust and stale cigar smoke; the collar and cuffs of Delaney’s blue oxford cloth shirt were frayed. Rae felt much better dressed in her jeans and sweater.

“So Ms. O’Leary is an heiress,” Delaney said, folding his stubby-fingered hands on a file in front of him.

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but the sum is substantial for a… woman of her means.”

“And how would you know about Ms. O’Leary’s ‘means’?” “I’ve been to her last address. And from what people tell me, she was a hooker.”

Delaney frowned reprovingly. “A sex worker, Ms. Kelleher. There’s a difference.”

She ignored his correction. “Can you provide me with Ms. O’Leary’s present address?”

“She doesn’t wish it to be made known. She calls me periodically, however. Perhaps you could leave the check for the inheritance with me, and I’ll hold it for her.”

Right. Did she look like she had an IQ of twenty?

“Sorry, no. First she’ll have to sign some documents in the presence of a notary.”

“Then I can’t help you, Ms. Kelleher.”

“Will you at least pass on a message asking her to call me?” Rae extended one of her cards.

“Certainly.” He took it, tossed it carelessly on the desk, and stood up. “More than anything else, I’d like to see my client financially secure and out of her present dubious occupation.”

Sure he would. But only if she’d go halves with him.

When she got back to her car-a lovely black BMW Z4 that Ricky had given her on her birthday two years ago-Rae checked her cell phone for messages. One from Ted, asking why the hell she’d missed the staff meeting, and another from Maggie Lambert of Victims’ Advocates. She wanted a report.

The Advocates had their offices only a few blocks away on Valencia Street. Rae decided she might as well go there and talk with Lambert in person.

The offices were up a dimly lighted, mildewy-smelling staircase above a taqueria. While many blocks of Valencia Street were now lined with good restaurants and chichi shops, the economic upturn hadn’t reached this pocket of poverty. At the top Rae pushed through the door and entered a room full of cast-off furnishings. Maggie Lambert-short, gray-haired, and clad in faded jeans and a red flannel shirt with one button missing-sat at her desk leafing through a thick file. When she looked up and saw Rae, her face became stern.

“Rae, thank you for coming. Is there any progress in the Angie Atkins case?”

Trust Maggie to get right to the point. Rae said, “I’ve got a lead to that friend of hers I told you about-Callie O’Leary.”

“And that’s it?”

“Her attorney will put us in touch when he hears from her.”

“This is very unsatisfactory.”

Rae bit back a tart retort about asking a lot of someone who was working pro bono. Said, “I’m not happy with it myself. If I could talk with Callie, she might be able to tell me more about Angie. From the police report, I gather that’s not her true identity, but there’s no guarantee she told Callie anything other than her street name.”

“What about dental records? DNA? Did you ask the police about them?”

Maggie must’ve been watching too many episodes of CSI. “In order to compare dental charts, you need to have some idea of who the victim was. DNA samples were taken and stored, but they didn’t match any in the current databases.”

“So exactly what is it you intend to do?”

“Wait for Callie O’Leary’s attorney to call. Talk with the investigating officers at the SFPD again. Comb through my files for overlooked leads. Especially anything that may connect this case with my employer’s shooting.”

Maggie’s face softened. “How’s she doing?”

“As well as can be expected. In fact, I’m going to visit her now: even though she can’t speak, I suspect she’ll be a great source of inspiration.”

SHARON McCONE

I closed my eyes after Rae left my room. Even with brief naps I was exhausted. Besides Hy and her, I’d had three other visitors: Julia, my sister Charlene, and my brother John. Enough already.

I was beginning to understand the routine of this place. The sun was slanting low on the eucalyptus grove, which meant the nurse would soon come in, check my vital signs, catheter, and feeding tube, and turn me onto my other side. I’d doze, and when I woke Hy would be there. He’d leave late, and then there’d be another visit from the nurse. If I was lucky, I’d sleep deeply for a few hours. If not, I’d face my demons alone in the dark.

My demons were large and numerous: looming figures from the past, including the dark one who had shot me. Vague shadows of the future-fleeting, unreal, frightening. And my present…

Good God, is this going to be my life?

No. No way I could face that.

So what’s your alternative? Suicide?

I’d always considered suicides to be cowards, heedless of the damage they did to those who loved them. Leaving messes behind for others to clean up, as my brother Joey had done when he’d overdosed on booze and drugs in a lumber-town shack outside of Eureka. On one level I hated Joey for the pain he’d inflicted on my family members and me-particularly for causing the shadows that, even on a happy day, never left my mother’s eyes. But Joey had been facing demons he apparently couldn’t control; now, facing my own, I began to wonder if he hadn’t done us, as well as himself, a favor.

And if I were to remain in this state indefinitely? No way I could endure that. I’d rather just check out.

But California didn’t have an assisted-suicide law. And asking assistance from someone I loved-namely Hy-would put a terrible burden on him.

Besides, I wanted to live. I’d reached a point in my life where I could say I was happy and looking forward to a good future. At least I had been, until someone fired a bullet into my skull.

I felt the rage bubble and boil over again. I wished I could scream invectives, hit something, smash the vase of roses placed prominently within my range of vision.

Slowly I regained control. Calm and purpose returned. I would not die a suicide, even if it was possible, because that would be giving in to the scumbag who shot me.

I began going over everything I’d been told so far, hunting for a lead that might ID him.

Slow, soft footsteps creeping toward me. Then a noisy rush.

Flash of light. Pain, pain, pain.

Chains pulling at me.

I wasn’t dreaming; it was another hideous, very real flashback.

HY RIPINSKY

He waited under the shelter of the Cessna’s high wing, in his tie-down space at Oakland Airport’s North Field. The afternoon was clear but windy-windy enough to make the wings of the neighboring aircraft, a homebuilt, creak and groan. After a while a man cut through the rows of planes and approached him: near six feet five, heavily muscled, wearing a brown leather flight jacket as battered as Hy’s own and a plain blue baseball cap pulled low on his forehead.

Len Weathers, an acquaintance from the old days in Bangkok. Weathers kept a Cessna Citation here at the field, and Hy and he had exchanged nods over the years, but they’d never spoken. Neither wanted to acknowledge those old days, and Hy didn’t want to acknowledge Weathers because of what it was rumored he’d become.

The word was that Weathers freelanced as an enforcer for various unsavory elements in California and Nevada. Among his alleged services were kidnapping and murder for hire. The same forces that had operated in Southeast Asia during the post-Vietnam era-greed, ruthlessness, and preying upon the weak and helpless-had affected both him and Hy in vastly different ways. Hy had returned with a load of guilt and nightmares enough to last his lifetime and-in time-a desire to make the world a better place. Weathers had continued in an ugly, downward spiral.

Hy had been certain he’d never again exchange a word with Len Weathers. But now he needed one of the man’s services.

Weathers ducked under the wing. Shook Hy’s hand. Said, “I understand you’ve got a problem.”

Hy had relayed his desire to talk with Weathers through one of the line men at the fuel pumps.

“Yeah,” he replied. “My wife-”

“I know what happened to your wife.”

“Her agency and I are working on finding whoever did it.”

“How does that concern me?”

“It doesn’t until we find the person.”

Their eyes met and held, each man taking the other’s measure. Hy flashed back to Bangkok: Weathers had been a hotdog pilot for K-Air, the flight service Hy was employed by, and a tough man. But there’d been a good-natured, humorous side to him. Now there was no trace of that; he was cold and hard and exuded the scent of danger.

Weathers also had not aged well; although he was only in his forties, his face was deeply lined. A scar from a knife fight in Bangkok cut crazily across his forehead, and Hy had noticed a limp as he approached. A few more years and he’d look like an old man.

What happened to you, Weathers? What happened to me that I’d be standing here about to ask you to do this thing?

Well, he knew what had happened to him. McCone had been shot and might die.

“Okay,” Weathers said after a moment. “You want me to take him or her out?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because this person is mine. But I want to know if I can call on you if there’s a problem.”

“Call on me any time you want. I’ve got to warn you-I don’t come cheap.”

“I don’t care about price; it’s dependability I’m after.”

“Deal.” Weathers held out his hand.

Hy took it, thinking, My God, I feel as if I’m shaking hands with the Devil.

CRAIG MORLAND

He’d spent the afternoon replaying the videos he’d taken from Harvey Davis’s condo. Young women and major players in state and city politics, engaging in all sorts of explicit sex acts. No clue as to who the women were-save one-but surprise and outright shock about the male participants. By the time the doors opened and closed in the rooms to either side of him, he felt both grim and outraged. Dirty all over again.

He picked up the earpieces to the listening devices he’d earlier installed.

Supervisor Amanda Teller sighed, unzipped her travel bag, and ran a bath.

Representative Paul Janssen went out for ice, opened a bottle and poured into what sounded like one of the plastic glasses provided in the bathroom. A chair groaned.

Teller bathed. Janssen drank. Craig fiddled with the volume on the earpieces and their connections to his recorders.

The phone rang in Janssen’s room. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be right there.”

Noises from Janssen’s room; his door closed and his footsteps went toward Teller’s unit. He tapped on the door, and seconds later was admitted.

“Good trip down?” she asked.

“As if you care.”

“No need to be hostile in these beautiful surroundings.”

“Why not? Did you hear about Harvey Davis being killed?”

“Yes. Poor man.”

“That’s all you can say? Don’t you understand what his murder means to you and me?”

“Suppose you spell it out.”

“Harvey knew, or maybe only suspected, what was going on. But he was an insatiable information gatherer; the reason he was shot is that they knew he had those videos. If they know you’ve figured it out-”

“Don’t be nonsensical, Paul. I didn’t tell Harvey anything he didn’t need to know.” Teller paused, and there was a rustling of papers. “I have the document right here. I’ll go over it with you.”

“I’m perfectly able to read legal documents by myself.”

“Whatever.”

Silence. Pages being turned.

“This clause-it’s vaguely worded.” Janssen.

“Let me see… Oh, yes, of course. Go ahead and insert clearer wording and initial it.”

“All right-you bitch.”

“Paul, do you have to be so unpleasant? Let’s have a drink-I have a bottle of good single malt.”

“I wouldn’t drink with you-”

“But you used to.”

“Much to my disadvantage.”

“You should learn to hold your liquor a lot better.”

“There are many things I should learn. You too, Amanda.”

“Meaning?”

“You think you’ve pulled off a big coup, but these people are dangerous. Consider what they did to Harvey.”

“You’re an alarmist, my dear. The document will remain safe with me, so long as you hold up your end of the bargain. Speaking of that…?”

“The transfer will take place Monday morning.”

“Good. Now sign the document.”

“Gladly. It may be your death warrant.”

“You know, Paul, you really ought to get some help for your paranoia. It’s beginning to cloud your judgment and make you unpleasant to deal with.”

“I ought to tear this up and shove it up your ass!”

“Just sign it.”

A long pause and then, “Done.”

“How about that drink now?”

“I’d sooner drink with Hitler.”

“Whatever.”

A chair moved. Footsteps went toward the unit’s door.

Teller said, “In spite of your insults and acid tone, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Go to hell!”

Door opening and closing. Janssen returning to his room.

Teller was silent. Then Craig heard her laughing softly.

Something thudded into the wall between Janssen’s unit and his.

“Filthy bitch! Cunt! I hope to God you get yours!”

In her room, Teller was pouring a drink. Then she called a pizza delivery service. No sound except ice clinking and liquor pouring from either unit until the pizza arrived. Then Janssen’s room went totally silent, and Teller switched on the TV to a cop drama. Craig ate the deli sandwich he’d brought with him, continued to monitor both rooms, and when the TV went off in Teller’s, he went to bed with the earpieces on.

He’d been up since seven on Friday morning, and he sank immediately into a deep sleep.