We Know

Chapter 32

Induma dropped me two blocks away and waited with Homer in the Range Rover. Wearing the rucksack, I scaled the back fence of Callie's house and crossed the patio.

I rapped on the rear door, and a moment later Steve tugged it open. The sight of him made my stomach clutch. The left side of his face was ballooned from where I'd hit him, a shiny saddle of red riding the yellow-black swell beneath.

My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Oh, great. Get your ass inside."

From the other room, Callie called out, "Is it him?"

Steve yanked me inside. He said, "Not a word in front of Em." He waited to walk behind me so he could keep me in sight. Callie and Emily were sitting at the table in front of their plates. My mom's had been polished with bread-an old Callie habit-but Emily's looked barely picked at. A tray of torn-up lasagna sat on a pig-shaped trivet I'd made my mom in high-school shop class.

Callie stood up, excited or agitated or probably both. "Nicky."

Emily said, "Great. Now can I be excused?"

Steve said, "Fine."

She slouched over to the refrigerator, cracked open a Pepsi, then glared at me. "What? You want one?"

"Sure, thanks."

She carried a can over and thumped it against my shoulder.

Steve said, "I've lived with you how many years? You've never once gotten me a soda."

Emily said, "You're not as helpless," and walked upstairs.

Callie said, "I told you she likes you. Sit down. Have you eaten?"

"Sure," Steve said. "Make yourself at home. We have a guest room upstairs, too, you want to move in for a few months."

Callie looked at him sharply, but I said, "No, he's right. I' ve brought you guys nothing but trouble."

"We're finally in agreement," Steve said.

Emily's door closed upstairs, hard. Callie's voice dropped. "You need to see something. It might be bad."

Steve: "Might be?"

They led me into the living room. The curtains were drawn. Steve fussed over four remote controls until Callie went and clicked two buttons. The TV blinked to life, and then, thanks to Tivo, she was fast-forwarding through commercials. She glanced toward the kitchen and frowned. "Em!"

A clunky black boot with an embossed skull protruded slightly from the doorjamb. And then, five or so feet above it, a scowling face. "Be grateful I'm too stupid to pick up on the fact that anything weird's going on."

"Upstairs, now" Steve said. "Go listen to Fall Down Boy or whatever."

"God, you are epically clueless."

The goth boots put out some worthy stomping on the stairwell. Callie said, "Three… two… one…," and cringed. A moment later a door slammed so hard the floor vibrated. Then Callie thumbed the remote.

A local newscaster pointed his craggy face at us. "In West L.A. today, federal agents staged a raid on an apartment, identified as operating headquarters for the group responsible for the failed attack on the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant. One suspect was killed. A second escaped."

I took a halting step back and sat, hard, on the couch.

The TV now showed firefighters getting the apartment blaze under control. "The escaped suspect detonated stockpiled explosives before fleeing the raid. In a bizarre twist, preliminary forensics suggest that the terrorist whose body was recovered had been killed prior to the blast, and police are looking into the possibility that he was tortured and executed by his confederate." Back to the solemn newscaster. "Much of the evidence authorities were seeking was destroyed."

Callie turned off the TV. "No photo has been released. Of the escaped suspect."

Steve said, "Yet."

My hands had made fists in the fabric of my shirt. "There's more." I almost didn't recognize my voice.

"I'm sure," Steve said. He walked back toward the kitchen, and we followed. Callie eased down into her chair as if it were just another family dinner, but Steve and I stayed on our feet.

"Please. Hear me out. I need your help."

Steve let out a guffaw. "My help?"

"Just listen to me. And if you don't believe what I have to say, I'll leave and you'll never have to see me again." At this, Callie stiffened. "But if you do believe me, I sure as hell could use your help. Someone else could be at risk."

Steve stared at me until I got uncomfortable. I counted twenty ticks of the kitchen clock behind me, which is a long time to be stared at. Finally he glanced at Callie. She'd been watching us silently, not saying anything, which was so out of character that that was probably what got him. He pulled the chair partway out, sat with his arm resting on the table, and angled his head at the opposing chair. I sat.

I told them the story top to bottom, filling in details I'd skipped last time, giving them my version of the confrontation at Mack's apartment. I showed them the ultrasound and the lab report and the Polaroid of Bilton and the woman. When I finished, I said, "I need to locate the mother who had the DNA analysis done. Or at least find out anything I can about her. And her daughter. And I don't have anyone else who can do that for me."

Steve said, "You have to turn yourself in, Nick. It's the only way-"

"No," Callie said.

We both looked at her, surprised.

"If he goes in and this thing is real, this'll be the last time anyone sees him," Callie said. "Help him,

Steve. Please."

"And what if he did kill that guy? Plus the money-who knows where he got that? Sure, he's your son, but let's be honest: You haven't known him for years."

Callie said, firmly, "I believe him."

Steve's high forehead was glistening. He drew a hand through his curly hair, settled back in his chair, and grimaced.

I looked down at the dirty plate in front of me. "Thanks, Mom."

Steve took a deep breath, held it, crossed his arms. Then he said to me, "I'm a police officer. I've never helped you. I've never been in contact with you. If I saw you, I would probably be obligated to arrest you. Do you understand?"

I nodded.

He tugged a detective's notepad from his back pocket, jotted something down, and showed it to me, the way people do in movies when they make some big financial offer. It was a phone number. "Memorize this," he said. "It's my cell. Do not call it unless you are about to be killed."

I studied the number and nodded.

He slipped the notepad back into his pocket. "Leave me a phone number. Preferably a mobile. I can't just go in and start asking questions without raising suspicions, but I'm working a P.M. tomorrow and can grab some desk time when it's quiet. I'll check to see if there's a BOLO out on you-that's a 'Be On The Lookout'-or if the pursuit is contained to the Secret Service. And I'll run Jane Everett through the databases, but you're asking a lot here, kid. Medical confidentiality is a mess, and I can't produce a warrant even if we knew which hospital she had the baby at, which we don't. I have to go the other route-old-fashioned slogging-see if I can find a Jane Everett in her late forties or fifties who has a seventeen-year-old daughter. If she looks like the broad in the Polaroid, even better. Though she's young enough there she'd have aged a good deal. If I get something-and that's an if-Y\\ call you. In the meantime you are to stay underground. And you were never here. Not without putting your mother and me-and Emily-at risk."

I said, "I was never here."

"How about that?" Steve said. "We agree on two things."

Induma sat, legs curled beneath her, on the enormous sofa. I could tell she was upset, because she'd pulled one of the oversize pillows into her lap. Jane Everett's paternity report rested beside her on the cushion, where she'd set it after a cursory glance. From the upstairs bathroom carried the sounds of the running shower and Homer singing, a gravelly outtake from The Pirates of Penzance. Alejandro was at his apartment for the night, a relief on many levels. Pomegranate candles were burning on the coffee table, adding a pleasant tinge to the air.

"We shouldn't have come here," I said. "They're gonna start digging into my relationships. We don't know when they'll come knocking."

"Tfthey get around to ex-girlfriends from three years ago-and that's an if- so what? They have no grounds for a search warrant, and if they are digging that hard, they'll know who's on my speed dial. At the risk of sounding smug, this isn't an address you kick the door in on. You ring the bell, inquire politely, and then go off and shore up one helluva case."

"These guys don't bother with warrants."

"I am willing to take that risk," Induma said. "Now let's focus on making that risk worthwhile."

Wisps of smoke curled from the red candles. "My only way out of this is to get more evidence in my pocket. To hand it off to someone as an insurance policy. And to disappear before they disappear me."

Induma looked down sharply. "Run away again?"

"Not before I warn Baby Everett. The more this thing heats up, the more they're gonna want to tie up loose ends. And she's the biggest one."

Induma didn't move her gaze back to me. "You slipped them," she said. "But there's no saying you can do that again."

"I'd better get well out ahead of them, then," I said. "Are your channels still open at the crime lab? Could you get a DNA analysis through there?"

She hugged the cushion harder, glanced down at the lab report. "In case you get close enough to pluck a hair out of the president's head? Probably. I configured the damn storage network. If I say there's a glitch, the director gives me the run. But even if I can get into the DNA databases, I doubt Bilton's info is in there with the general population's."

"It's gotta be on record somewhere, in case his body has to be identified after an explosion or a fire or if someone shot down Air Force One or something."

Induma said, "Even if we do confirm Bilton's DNA profile with the paternity report, he could still argue that the report's been doctored. You'd need to track down the original at the lab center or wherever."

"How about the Polaroid?"

She gestured for it, and I pulled it from the rucksack. Biting her lip, she tilted it to the light. "It looks old, way pre-Photoshop. Pretty goddamned convincing. Let's assume it's real. And let's assume this woman is Jane Everett. It's still not hard evidence of anything."

"I'm not going into court. I just want leverage. And Bilton's response to the stuff I've found proves I've got it."

"Still, it would be nice to have something concrete about any part of this whole cover-up."

"I do."

Her brow furrowed. "What?"

"Homer was a dentist," I said.

"Yeah?" She blinked. Then blinked again. "Oh, no. Oh, no."

Homer strolled down the stairs, wearing a pink puffy bathrobe. His shaggy hair, when wet, touched his shoulders. The sash was stretched to its limit, barely holding the flaps in place across his distended belly.

Induma said, "Fetching."

Homer said, "We do our best."

"I need you to do something for me," I said.

Induma said, "Buddha wept."

"This thing in my cheek is a bone fragment. I need it. And I can't go to a hospital. I know this isn't exactly your field, but I want you to cut it out of my face."

Homer stared at me, then shrugged. "Okay."

I went to the kitchen and returned with a variety of kitchen knives. Fortunately, Induma had quite a selection. She said, "I think there's an actual scalpel upstairs. Alejandro bought it for one of his sculptures."

"Great. You have a digital camera, right? We should film the thing coming out of my face so we have proof of where it came from."

Homer appraised the knives, then watched Induma lay down a sheet on the sofa.

I said, "Listen, you can do this. I know it feels like you can't. But you can."

He looked calm enough. I must have been reassuring him for my own benefit.

He said, "Do you have any anesthetic?", "For you or for me?" I said.

He didn't smile.

I looked at Induma. "I don't think we have any."

She said, "One of Alejandro's club buddies left a gram or so of coke in the glove box of my Jag. I haven't flushed it yet."

I said, "You want to blow cocaine in my face?"

"No," Induma said, "you want me to blow cocaine in your face."

She got the folded square of magazine page holding the coke, soaked the scalpel in alcohol, and we settled down, Homer standing over me in the Some Like It Hot bathrobe, eyes closed, no doubt trying to recall the principles of facial surgery. I lay on the sheet like a corpse, gripping Induma's hand in mine, waiting for the blade. The scalpel neared. His hand was trembling. He wiped his brow and stepped back.

"Do you have any scotch?" he asked. "I need a highball to settle the shakes."

As Induma started for the bar, I gazed up at his pale features.

"Better make it a double," I said.