Thirty

Artie Wu would later say that the car was a black Chevrolet Caprice sedan. Booth Stallings would later say that although he could identify any American car manufactured between 1932 and 1942, he could no longer tell one postwar car from another. But he agreed with Wu that the black car had been a sedan and that the low-in-the-sky, 4:12 P.M. February sun had splashed a blinding reflection across the car’s windshield, making it impossible to identify the driver who tried to run them down.

The car had backed out of a space at the bottom of the motel’s U-shaped layout as Wu and Stallings walked toward unit number 424. They paid little attention to the car until it picked up speed and veered toward them at 30 miles per hour, according to Wu, and 50 miles per hour, according to Stallings.

They went to their left, but so did the black Caprice, and it was Stallings who first leaped between two parked cars, tripped, fell and landed mostly on his hands and knees. After Wu’s great leap to the left, he stumbled over Stallings, fell, but bounced up and hurried out from between the parked cars to catch a brief glimpse of the black Caprice as it turned right and disappeared down the street.

Wu hurried back to Stallings and helped him to his feet. “Break anything?” Wu asked.

“Bruised some ego. You get the license?”

“No.”

“Think it was them — the Goodisons?”

Wu shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

As they continued toward the bottom of the motel’s U, Stallings wrapped a handkerchief around his left hand, which he had skinned on the asphalt. When they reached 424, neither was surprised to find that the black sedan had backed out of the space directly in front of the unit.

Although Wu had the room’s key in his hand, he said, “Let’s knock first.”

“What for?”

“Never hurts to be polite.”

Stallings knocked on unit 424’s lime-green door with his undamaged right hand. When there was no response, he stepped back to let Wu open the door with the key. Wu went in first. Stallings followed, closed the door behind him and sniffed the room’s air.

“Smell it?”

Wu only nodded.

“Exploded cordite,” Stallings said. “That means somebody pulled a gun and shot at somebody. And if somebody got hit and killed, the next thing we’ll smell is loosened bowels. Ever since the war, whenever I smell cordite, the next thing I expect to smell is shit. And somehow I know if I go through that bathroom door over there, I’ll smell ’em both, cordite and shit, together again.”

“Then stay here while I look,” Wu said.

“Death, cordite and shit don’t bother you, Artie?”

“Not as much as your babbling.”

“My mouth runs when I’m nervous. Not scared. Just nervous. When I’m scared, I clam up.”

“Stay here,” Wu said, crossed the room, opened the bathroom door, looked inside, turned and said, “You’d better come look.”

Stallings saw the woman first. She was huddled in the southwest corner of the shower stall, her knees drawn up to her chest. She wore a white blouse, black jeans and tan sandals on bare feet. There was a small neat hole just above the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were open.

The man was scrunched up against the bathroom wall between the sink and the toilet. His hands lay in his lap. His face was turned up toward the ceiling. There was a neat hole in his left temple and his eyes were also open. So was his mouth.

“They do look alike, don’t they?” Stallings said.

“Very much.”

Stallings, who had been holding his breath, sniffed twice, then began breathing through his mouth. “God, I hate that smell.”

“Don’t leave any prints,” Wu said.

“Hadn’t planned to,” Stallings said, then asked, “Now that we’ve found them, what next?”

“Let’s see what else we can find.”

Two minutes later, Stallings discovered a crumpled-up computer-produced receipt in a wastebasket beneath four empty diet Coke cans. He lifted the empty cans out with a handkerchief, picked up the receipt with his fingers, smoothed it out, read it and handed it to Wu. The receipt was from an Oxnard company called The You Store. After deciphering it, Wu said the Goodisons apparently had rented a store-and-lock compartment for a month at a cost of f 106.50. They had paid cash. The number of their storage space was 3472.

“Think that’s where they stashed the tapes?” Stallings asked.

“Probably.”

“Think they’re still there?”

“Probably not.”

“So how do you figure it?”

“The same way you do, Booth. The shooter killed one of them, then promised not to shoot the last one left if he or she would tell where the tapes were hidden. The one still alive told all and was shot dead.”

“Then the last words of the last one left weren’t words, just numbers.”

“Maybe not,” Wu said. “Maybe the last words were ‘Please don’t’ or ‘Please don’t kill me’ or just ‘Please.’ ” He turned toward the motel room’s door and said, “Let’s go.”

“What about the dead folks?”

“We’ll stop by the office, pay Deason his five hundred and tell him that the Goodisons — what’d they call themselves?”

“Mr. And Mrs. Reginald Carter.”

Wu nodded. “That the Carters must have stepped out. We’ll also tell him to call us at that fake number on our business card when the Carters return.”

“The shooter killed the young limo driver, right?” Stallings said. “He made the kid tell him where he’d driven the Goodisons, then cut his throat.”

“What makes you so sure the shooter’s a he?” Wu said.


As they drove through east Oxnard toward The You Store, using directions Stallings had extracted from a sullen gas station attendant, the same thought occurred to them simultaneously.

“The driver of that black car—” Stallings began.

“Knew us,” Wu said. “One of us anyway.”

“Unless he thought we were cops.”

“We don’t look like cops. You’re too old and I’m too, well, too exotic — especially with my shirt open halfway to my navel.”

“Undercover vice cops maybe?” said Stallings hopefully.

“Okay. We’re vice cops. You’re pretending to be the aged John and I’m pretending to be the fat Chinese pimp who’s steering you toward an afternoon of sensual delight with a couple of thirteen-year-old demi-virgins. If whoever was in the black Chevy thought that, he’d’ve driven right past us. But he didn’t and that means what?”

“That he not only knew us, but we also know him. Or one of us does.”

“Or her,” Wu said.

“I keep forgetting the ladies,” Stallings said. “Even though the size of the wounds back at the motel are small enough to suggest what a sexist would call a lady’s gun.”

“Probably a twenty-two- or a twenty-five-caliber revolver — which is also a favorite of the professional shooter.”

“Why not a small semiautomatic?”

“No shell casings. I looked.”

“Maybe he or she picked them up,” Stallings said. “There were only two.”

Wu sighed. “Maybe.”

Stallings glanced out the passenger window, saw the street number of a machine shop and said, “It should be two blocks up on the right.”

“Good.”

“How do we play it?”

“Just follow my lead,” Wu said.


Before they got out of the Mercedes, Wu borrowed Stallings’s necktie and put it on. Stallings kept his own shirt buttoned all the way up, at Wu’s suggestion, and unzipped his fly — also at Wu’s suggestion.

The You Store office was in a small mobile home. The storage spaces themselves were metal shipping containers, almost the size of boxcars and painted in gaudy reds, blues, greens and yellows. Wu guessed the containers occupied at least two acres.

Taking Stallings by the left hand, Wu led him up three steps and into the mobile home office. A young redheaded woman stared up at them from behind a gray metal desk. Wu smiled at her reassuringly, let go of Stallings’s hand, turned to inspect him and murmured, just loudly enough for the woman to hear, “Frank, you forgot to zip.”

Stallings giggled, looked down, zipped up his pants and, when Wu turned toward the woman with an apologetic smile, zipped them down again. The woman pretended not to notice.

Still smiling at the woman, Wu said, “Good afternoon.”

She didn’t return the smile. “Can I help you?”

“I’m the Reverend Dudley Chang of the Roundhill Methodist Church and I’d like to rent storage space for one of the members of my congregation who’ll be going away to — uh — rest for a while. He’s Mr. Jeffers here. Mr. Frank Jeffers. While he’s — away, he’d like to store his belongings.”

“Leakproof,” Stallings said. “Gotta be leakproof. Ratproof, too. Don’t wanta find rat shit all over everything when I come back.”

“Do you have space available?” Wu asked with a faint embarrassed smile.

“Depends on how much you need,” she said. “We only rent whole containers. They’re each eight by eight by forty and provide twenty-five hundred and sixty cubic feet. If you’ve got a lot of stuff, they’re fine.”

“I got sixty-five-fucking-years’ worth of stuff, little lady,” Stallings said.

“He can use an entire container,” Wu said. “But there’s a small problem.”

“How small?”

“Mr. Jeffers believes in numbers.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I don’t get it.”

“Numbers, little lady,” Stallings said. “Numbers control our lives, direct our destinies, determine our future. Use the right numbers and you’ve got it made. I’ve used numbers all my life and they never let me down yet.”

This time Wu’s smile was one of sincere apology. “We understand your containers are numbered?”

“Yeah. They are. So?”

“The number he wants is the same number of his combination lock in junior high school.”

“Three right, forty-seven left, two right,” Stallings chanted. “Three right, forty-seven left, two—”

“Please, Frank,” Wu said. Stallings fell silent, hung his head and stared at his shoes.

“The number he wants, if it’s available, is thirty-four seventy-two. I do hope you’ll be able to indulge him.”

“How long’s he want it for?” she asked.

“Till two thousand twenty-six,” Stallings said. “When I hit a hundred.”

“Six months,” Wu said.

The woman turned to her computer, tapped out some numbers, studied them briefly, turned back to Wu with a cool smile and said, “You’re in luck. Three-four-seven-two just came vacant this afternoon.”

Wu turned to Stallings with a broad smile. “Hear that, Frank? It’s available. Old three right, forty-seven left, two right.”

Stallings gave him a sly look. “Wanta see it first. Wanta make sure everything’s all hunky-dory.”

“Zip up, Frank,” Wu said, turned back to the woman and whispered, “How much for six months?” He put a finger to his lips. She nodded and wrote a number on a pad, then turned it around so Wu could read it. The number was $100 per month plus tax.

After glancing at Stallings, who was now engrossed in pulling his zipper up and down, Wu reached into a pocket, brought out some crumpled bills and handed the redheaded woman $700.

Wu whispered, “I’ll pick up the change later.”

She used a whisper to ask, “What’s wrong with him?”

Wu smiled sadly and whispered, “Just age.”

She handed over a key along with a photocopy map of the container’s location and, no longer concerned that Stallings could hear her, said, “I’ve got a granddaddy just like that.”


The color of the storage container was green and there was nothing in it. Stallings and Wu wandered around inside for a few minutes, but there was nothing to see, nothing to pry into. When they came out, Stallings said, “Well, what d’you think, Reverend?”

“Two things,” Wu said. “One, Ione Gamble’s going to be hearing fairly soon from whoever was driving that black Caprice. And two, you’d better zip up your pants.”

Загрузка...