The Voice Inside

25

Dozens of people milled on the sidewalk outside the Fillmore.

Frost followed the narrow curb to the Geary Boulevard overpass, watching Uber drivers do pickups at the theater. Buses came and went. The coffee shop around the corner was doing a brisk late-night business. He saw men, women, and couples dispersing into the neighborhoods, some holding colorful umbrellas against the rain. The ones who weren’t done partying crossed the pedestrian bridge to the Boom Boom Room.

It was midnight. He was wasting his time. Cutter wasn’t here.

He tracked down Jess, who was sitting behind the wheel of her Audi a block north of the theater. He was soaking wet as he sat in the passenger seat. The windows were steamed, and she had to wipe them with her elbow.

“Anything?” he asked her.

“No. Sorry. If he was in the crowd that bolted, I couldn’t pick him out.”

“I counted about fifty brunettes in little black dresses,” Frost said. “Any one of them could have been the girl he was with. He was alone when I saw him, so he may have ditched her when he made his escape.”

Jess shrugged. “Well, that’s one good thing. You got in the way of his plans by spotting him.”

“Maybe.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not. Cutter’s smart. He led us here for a reason. We’ve been playing his game tonight. I’d feel better if we knew what this was really about.”

“Don’t overthink Cutter,” Jess replied. “After getting out of prison, his ego’s only gotten bigger. He thinks he can tell us exactly what he’s going to do and still get away with it.”

Frost frowned. “I’m not sure he’s wrong.”

“Well, I’m counting tonight as a win. You spooked him.”

“Maybe,” Frost said again.

Jess put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for doing this off the books, Frost. You know, not calling Hayden and letting me stick around here. Cutter made this personal by having the bartender call me. I hate being on the sidelines.”

“No problem, Jess.”

Frost felt the warmth of her hand, which she left where it was. She didn’t have to say anything; the invitation was in her face again. He could slide across the seat, and they’d kiss, and then they’d drive to her place, and they’d have sex. Herb had told him that Jess wasn’t his Jane Doe — his one-of-a-kind mystery girl — but Frost wasn’t sure that he had a Jane Doe waiting for him at all. The only thing that mattered was right now.

But he waited too long, the way he usually did. The moment passed. Right now was already gone, and it wasn’t coming back. Jess peeled away her hand and dug her keys from her pocket. She switched on the sedan.

“Anyway,” she said.

“Yeah, anyway.”

“Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“I will. I’ll keep you posted.”

Frost got out of the car onto the sidewalk on Fillmore and shut the door. The Audi lurched from the curb, sending up spray. Her wheels skidded. Jess always drove fast, but he thought she wanted to put as much distance as she could, as quickly as she could, between the two of them.

His own Suburban was two blocks away. He headed toward Geary past the late walkers leaving the theater. In the rain and darkness, he turned left, and the dirty asphalt glistened. He walked past an old brick post office building to the end of the block, where his SUV was parked next to a fenced soccer field.

He started the truck and did a U-turn. The red light at Geary stopped him, and he waited impatiently for a couple of drunk Japandroids fans to stagger across the street hand in hand. He was tired and wanted to get home. When the intersection was clear, he turned right into an underpass, but as his headlights swung through the crosswalk on the other side of Geary, he spotted a woman coming down the walkway from the street’s pedestrian bridge. He only glimpsed her for a second before she disappeared behind the concrete columns, but something about her made him hesitate.

She was one more brunette wearing a little black dress — but she was wearing a hat, too. The hat had a jaunty angle, pushed low on her forehead. It was a man’s hat. A fedora.

Frost stopped in the concrete tunnel, waited for a car to pass, and then bumped over the barrier and shot back uphill in the opposite direction. He reached Geary quickly, but the girl was already gone. He drove through the intersection under the pedestrian bridge and parked the SUV near the steps of a neighborhood recreation center. He got out and checked the sidewalk in both directions, but he didn’t see her.

She couldn’t have gone far.

The recreation center was locked and dark. Ahead of him was a children’s playground, leading to a fenced set of tennis courts. He jogged to the end of the building, where a narrow sidewalk led to the other side of Hamilton Square. Not far away, he heard the tap of heels on concrete, and he ran again. The sidewalk took him to Post Street.

He saw her. She passed under the glow of a streetlight in the next block, and he could see her hat clearly, just for a second. It was definitely a man’s fedora. She disappeared around the corner, and he followed. His own footsteps were loud. He reached the next block, but when he rounded the corner, he’d lost her again. The street was lined with apartment buildings, but none of the building entrances was near enough for her to have gone inside.

Frost listened and heard nothing except a patter of rain.

He took a few steps down the street. As he neared the gated entrance to a building garage, the woman suddenly stepped out of a recessed doorway directly in front of him. She had a small canister clutched in her fingers, pointed at his face.

“Stop!” she screamed. “This is Mace. Get the hell away from me, or I’ll use it.”

Frost immediately stepped back, his hands up. “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

“You were following me! You better run right now!”

“Ma’am, it’s okay, I’m a police officer.” Frost nudged the flap of his sport coat aside. He used two fingers to slide his identification out of his pocket and lay it open on the ground. Then he backed away again, giving her space. “Check it out. My name’s Frost Easton. I’m a homicide inspector.”

“Homicide.” The woman hesitated. She took a step toward the badge and knelt down to examine it. She picked it up and studied the ID under the streetlight. Her eyes went to Frost’s face. “What do you want with me?”

The fedora was askew on her head. Long brown hair spilled from underneath it. The hat had two yellow braided bands around the brim. Just as Jess had described it.

“That hat you’re wearing,” he said, “did someone give it to you tonight?”

“Yeah, I got it from a guy I met.”

“Did you meet him at an underground bar in Japantown?” Frost asked.

“How do you know that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Were you with him at the Fillmore?”

“Yeah, but we got separated. I figured he bailed on me. Guys do that, you know.”

“What was this man’s name? Did he tell you?”

“Rudy. He said his name was Rudy.”

Frost felt his breathing accelerate. He took a look up and down the street, which was empty. He forced a smile onto his face to put her at ease. He needed her calm in the next few minutes. “And what’s your name?”

“Magnolia.”

“Do you live nearby, Magnolia?”

Her eyes flitted to the badge again to make absolutely sure he was who he’d said he was. She tossed it to him, and he caught it. She slid the Mace into her purse. “Yeah. I have an apartment in the next block. Why? What’s this all about?”

“This is very important,” Frost told her. “The man you met tonight. Rudy. Did you tell him where you live?”

Rudy put the binoculars to his eyes. He examined each of the apartment balconies, to make sure no one was smoking or drinking in places where they could see him. It was late, and most of the rooms were dark, but he checked those that had lights to see if the curtains were closed. He reviewed each of the parked cars in the alley, too. No one was watching the street.

He secured the binoculars and slid his backpack onto his shoulders. He broke cover and slipped across the alley to the building wall. His hands were gloved. The first-floor apartment was protected by a gate, and he used the steel cross section between the bars to hoist himself silently up to the next floor. He swung one leg over, then the other, and dropped down onto the balcony.

The door was locked. The blinds were closed, but he saw no lights inside. He assumed the apartment was empty. He slid the black-handled revolver he’d taken from Jimmy Keyes out of his backpack and secured it in his jacket pocket. The gun was a last resort, but he wanted it accessible. Just in case.

Rudy checked the street again. It was still quiet.

He dug in the backpack for a spring-loaded window punch, which was compact and designed to fit on a keychain. Bending down, he primed it on the concrete floor of the balcony. Then he pressed the device against the window glass near the metal handle of the door. The hammer fired, punching an eight-inch hole with a quick, sharp crack. Kernels of glass sprayed inside.

He listened.

No one came running. No one shouted. Rudy reached his hand through the hole, undid the lock, and slid the glass door open. He pushed through the vertical blinds into the dark apartment, with one hand on the gun in his pocket. The blinds shuddered, flapping like baseball cards in bicycle spokes.

He was alone.

Quickly, he checked the bedroom. The bed was made, and it was empty. He returned to the living room. It was hard to see in the darkness, but he left the lights off. There was no time to waste; he had to make sure everything was ready. He held his hands in front of his face to make sure his gloves hadn’t torn and that the broken glass hadn’t cut his skin. He donned a plastic shower cap over his hair. Then he retrieved a chair from the kitchen and brought it to the front door.

He positioned the chair so that the door would block him from view of anyone coming inside. He would be invisible until it was too late.

The kitchen wasn’t well stocked, but he found a knife that would suffice in one of the drawers. It had a six-inch blade and a heavy, comfortable feel in his hand, and it was sharp. He had another knife waiting in his backpack, but that was only a spare, in case he didn’t find what he needed in the apartment. This knife, the one in his hand, would do fine.

He sat down in the chair behind the door.

He removed the Taser from the backpack. He put the knife on his thigh, where he could grab it as soon as the Taser did its work.

The setup wasn’t perfect. Nothing ever was. Where the glass door at the back of the apartment was broken, an occasional burst of city wind whistled like a witch and made the blinds go tap, tap, tap. If she stopped to listen before she came in, she might hear it. The risk couldn’t be helped.

In his mind, he rehearsed how it would go. He played out the motions one at a time, again and again. He was ready.

He breathed in and out in the darkness, and he waited for her.