The Boys from Santa Cruz

CHAPTER THREE
1

Pender dragged himself out of bed around eight o’clock on Sunday morning, still logy after only five hours of sleep. Donning the shapeless old corduroy bathrobe Skip had loaned him, he padded barefoot down the quiet, dawn gray hallway to the kitchen. Skip was sitting at the kitchen table in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, poring over the photocopied enlargements of Luke Sweet’s Pocket Pal and making notes on a legal pad.

Blessedly, there was fresh coffee on the stove. “What are you doing?” Pender carried a mug imprinted with a Far Side cartoon of the Boneless Chicken Ranch over to the table, where Skip was working by the yellow light of an overhead lamp with a stained-glass shade shaped like a mushroom.

“I’m compiling the late Mr. Sweet’s so-called fantasy revenge list, which I’m presuming Asmador is using as his guide.”

As much as he hated the ’suming words, ass and pre, Pender told Skip, he had to agree that sounded likely enough.

“He never actually makes the list,” Skip pointed out, “he just adds to it. But here’s what I’ve come up with.” He tilted the legal pad toward Pender. There were six names on it: F. Harris, E. Harris, Pender, Brobauer, Oliver, Epstein; Skip had drawn a line through the first two and the fourth. “From what I can tell, there was no particular order to the first three attacks. Or at least nothing obvious or chronological that would give us a hint as to who’s next.”

Pender took a thoughtful slurp of coffee. “I can think of a set of circumstances under which the question of who comes next is irrelevant, no ’suming required,” he announced. “Care to take a guess?”

Skip, an only child who unconsciously tended to assign older males the role of surrogate big brother, really wanted to get this one right. Stalling, he took a sip of the now lukewarm coffee in his mustard yellow mug. And another, and another, until it came to him: “If we’re all three in the same place at the same time!”

“Bingo!” Pender raised the Far Side cup in a mock toast to Skip, who gave him a strained smile. “You know, you don’t have to do this,” Pender told him. “You have no client-nobody’s going to think less of you if you decide to take a pass.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…” Skip picked up the photocopied pages and riffled idly through them. “I’ve been through this two or three times since yesterday, and I can’t help wondering-don’t laugh now-but I can’t help wondering, what if Little Luke was telling the truth?” He absentmindedly jogged the pages until the edges were lined up, then carefully put them back down on the table. “I mean, taken as a whole, his story kind of holds up in a way, doesn’t it? So what are the chances he was just some poor kid who had a shitload of hard luck, and got railroaded all the way to the funny farm? With our help, I might add.”

Pender blew a blubbery raspberry and blithely waved away the possibility with his free hand. “Remember how Hillovi said the kid racked up a thirty-nine on the Psychopathy Checklist when he was admitted?”

“Vaguely. Why?”

“The PCL scale only goes as high as forty. Charlie Manson barely made thirty-eight.”

“No shit?” said Skip, brightening visibly.

“Scout’s honor,” said Pender, who had of course pulled the Manson number out of his enormous ass. “And now that we’ve got that out of the way, do you think you can locate Dr. Oliver’s whereabouts for us? If not, I could try contacting a friend of mine at the CJIS, but I’m not sure-”

Skip cut him off. “Let me put it this way: if I can’t find him, neither can Asmador.”