We Know

Chapter 20

Back in my apartment, I stood well away from the sliding glass door and scanned the neighborhood with night-vision binoculars. I'd picked them up from the overpriced spy store on Sunset that catered to weekend warriors and paranoid music executives. The store's gear wasn't as top-shelf as what Frank used to bring home, but it was better than the mail-order junk Liffman used to play around with.

No one was watching me. No one I could pick out, at least.

Now that I had a functional front door double-locked behind me, I moved the sheet of numerals and the cash from the dishwasher into Charlie's rucksack. Then I stored the whole thing beneath the counter in the giant pasta pot Evelyn had given me for Christmas last year, wrapped in Star of David paper.

Collapsing onto my ripped mattress, I felt wrecked from the day and the menace I'd churned to the surface. Charlie's head-and certainly his dentistry-had been blown to pieces, but there'd been plenty of his DNA to scrape off the power-plant walls. They'd managed to switch or lose a lot of evidence and slot Milligan, a loner with the right rap sheet, into fall-guy position. Had they murdered Milligan, too? Or had he been the best candidate who'd died at the right time? Either way, I had to get back into Callie's attic and go through the rest of Frank's things to see if any other photos or documents could tell me anything about Charlie; I needed the real name of the man who'd pulled me into all this.

I turned on the TV to shut off my head and channel-surfed. My thumb stopped when I saw Jasper Caruthers on The Daily Show, palling around with Jon Stewart. After a NAMBLA joke that Caruthers wisely skirted, Stewart settled down into a straight-man role.

"Why do you believe you're less susceptible to special-interest groups?"

Caruthers shifted forward in his chair, his mouth firmed in a bit of a grin. "You may not have heard, but I'm obscenely wealthy."

Even Stewart cracked up. When the applause finally died down, Stewart said, "In your ex-wife's expose-"

"Which one?"

"Which ex-wife or which expose?"

"I've only got one ex-wife, unless June's been busy this afternoon."

"This one." Stewart held up a book whose title screamed from the jacket. "She makes a number of new claims, including that you drove under the influence of prescription drugs once when the two of you were first dating. Is that true?"

"Absolutely. I've also watched pornography, smoked pot twice in college-and inhaled- cheated at checkers, gave up on a marriage, and shoplifted a candy bar from a newsstand. If anyone thinks that makes me unfit to contend with a nuclear-armed North Korea, please don't vote for me."

I smiled in the darkness and couldn't help wondering what the staffer with the horn-rimmed glasses would have to say about the pornography crack.

Wearing his bankable smirk, Stewart signaled to quiet the audience. He feigned incredulity. "How old were you when you shoplifted the candy bar?"

Caruthers settled back, laced his hands over a knee. "Fifty-five." He waited through the laughter, then said, "I was seven, I think. Or eight. My father was driving me to school on his way to work, stopped off for a morning paper. We were two blocks from my school when he caught me with the candy bar, and he turned around, drove back, and made me return it."

"That was before three-strikes legislation."

Caruthers chuckled. "Well, it still scared the hell out of me. My father had an appointment with-I think it was with the president of Sears Roebuck that morning. And he made himself late over a ten-cent candy bar. Personal accountability. It was ground into me from an early age." Caruthers shook his head. "To this day, I see a Mr. Goodbar, I break into a cold sweat."

I found myself liking Caruthers more than I wanted to. Frank had certainly thought a lot of him. Could he have admired him so much that he'd gotten pulled into something shady on his behalf? Whatever Frank and Charlie had gotten into, it didn't appear to have been proper, to hang a prissy word on it, and it didn't seem like Frank. At least the Frank I knew.

The swirl of unease left me feeling achy and heavy-lidded, a stress hangover. I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I finally gave in, hoping to grab a few hours' sleep.

I jerked awake with more unease than usual. Not the familiar heart-thrumming anxiety of that small-hours ritual, but a sense of imminent danger. The air sat cool and heavy across my sweat-clammy face.

Rolling to my side, I glanced at the clock-1:37 A.M.

I stopped my hand, which was instinctively reaching for the lamp. A slight chill blew across my face. Moving air.

As quietly as I could, I slid from the bed onto the floor. Once again in my pajama bottoms, shirtless, I moved through my dark apartment silently. Six steps and a shuffle to the bedroom window. The lock was fine. Nine strides across, three and a half diagonally into the bathroom-window closed, security hook secure. I picked my way into the living room. Both new front-door locks were as I'd left them, the chain notched safely in its catch. I sidestepped the couch, arriving at the sliding glass door, muscle memory guiding my fingers to the handle's security lever. Unlocked.

My entire body tensed. I stared down at that raised metal lever as if I could make the fact of it go away. I sensed something-some vitality-in the darkness over my shoulder. With deep foreboding, I turned. A man's outline, barely discernible in the darkness, stood backed to the kitchen counter. The form tensed, registering my focus, then sprang at me.

His shove hurtled me into the wall. I collided hard, bouncing off and swinging. He'd already thrown the sliding door open and was halfway out, but I clipped his chin. He reeled back, the door screeching along the tracks. Though the overhang shadowed the balcony, the lower half of his face passed through a band of yellow light from the opposing streetlight, and what I saw froze me with shock. I was still for just an instant, but it was time enough for him to get off a kick to my chest.

My view tilted, and then the carpet was there like a horizon. Through the swirl of dust raised by my cheek, I saw the dark form leap recklessly from the balcony and strike the telephone pole. A grunt at impact, limbs scrabbled for purchase, and then he lurched down out of view.

I got up, clutching my ribs, each inhale aching.

Staggering to the balcony, still short of breath, I peered down in time to see him sprinting away, flashing into view at intervals beneath the streetlights. His footfalls-rubber soles shushing across asphalt-rasped back from the unlit carports in half echoes.

I'd caught my breath but still felt winded. Not from the pain, not anymore, but because the wide, wild mouth I'd seen illuminated in that band of light belonged to Charlie.