The wake-up Read online

  Claire looked him over, hands on her hips. She was wearing nylon shorts and an L.A. Marathon T-shirt. "You always manage to surprise me. That's one of your best qualities."

  "I didn't know I had any others."

  An hour later, Claire gazed at him from her side of the bed. She pushed back the covers, the two of them hot and steamy. "You're just one surprise after another."

  "I said I was sorry about not getting back to you."

  "Don't flatter yourself, Frank. I can handle a one-night stand. I just didn't think that was your style." Claire put her hand on his heart. "No, what I was surprised at is… this."

  " 'This'?"

  "You were so angry before that I couldn't keep up with you, didn't want to keep up… but now… you're so tender. We were together the whole time, every minute. What happened to you since the last time?"

  Thorpe lightly stroked her belly, watched her eyes.

  "No answer?" Claire sensed the lies; she just didn't know what the truth was, and sooner or later, that would ruin everything.

  "I'm just glad I'm here," said Thorpe. He kissed her neck, slid his hand across her hips, dipping lower, his touch feathery.

  She groaned, pushed him away slightly. "Don't get me started. I have to give Pam a ride to the airport in about a half hour. She's going to New Orleans with this guy she met."

  "I thought she was celibate."

  "He's an attorney. I think they're having fun finding loopholes."

  Thorpe pulled her closer. "Tell Pam I'll pay for a cab."

  "Big spender. Don't let her find out; she'll want you for herself."

  Thorpe shook his head. "I'm already taken." If it was a lie, it was a lie to himself as well as to her.

  Claire kissed him. "Tell Guillermo you got word that Clark is making a move on him. He'll probably give you a bonus. Try answering your phone once in a while, Danny. Love and kisses."

  Thorpe hit SEND, watched his e-mail to Hathaway disappear. He glanced out the window, the courtyard empty in the soft light of evening. He had slept all day after Claire left to take Pam to the airport. Claire was working this afternoon and tonight on stuff for her Psych 101 class. They would get together tomorrow, maybe go out for breakfast, see if he could persuade her to ditch class. He could still smell her on his hands, on his face. He didn't want to wash until he saw her again.

  He called the Meachums' house, waited until the machine picked up, then began talking. "Ray? It's me, Frank. Call me at 555-0609. I've got good news." He had tried the same thing earlier, without response, but he wasn't sure where the machine was located in the house, wasn't sure Bishop could hear his voice. No sense for Bishop to stick around there until the Meachums got back. Bishop had put himself on the line; he could go home now.

  "Enjoying the evening, Frank?"

  Thorpe stared at the instant message flashing on-screen.

  "It's me, Frank."

  "I know who you are."

  "I missed you. Did you miss me?"

  Thorpe fought back his anger, thinking of himself standing in the projection room, hoping to get a glimpse of the Engineer. Thorpe had missed him all right, but not in the way the Engineer meant it.

  "Not in a talkative mood today? PMS?"

  "Could be. We should get together and discuss it."

  "I would like that."

  "How about…" Thorpe thought of his plans to spend time with Claire, but he put them aside. "How about tomorrow?"

  "Tomorrow's not good for me. Sorry."

  "Pick a date."

  "You're so abrupt. I don't remember you being so curt. We only met that one time, but you seemed like a man who loved the sound of his own voice."

  Thorpe checked his watch. "I'm a busy man."

  "Good for you, Frank. Idle hands are the devil's workshop… or something like that."

  Thorpe looked up as the gate creaked. Claire had come back, was walking toward his front door. "Let me know when you want to get together," he typed.

  "Don't go. You're always in such a hurry."

  Claire knocked.

  "Time is money." Thorpe looked toward the door, glad he had locked it.

  "Don't I know it, and never enough of either, is there?"

  Claire knocked again. "Frank?"

  "You're not still mad about Kimberly, are you? Because if you want to talk about it, I've been told I'm a good listener."

  Thorpe watched Claire leave. Halfway across the courtyard, she turned around and stared at his window, then walked quickly to her place. She knew he was there.

  "Frank? You still there? Maybe we can work out our troubles together."

  Thorpe watched Claire's door close. "I don't have any troubles."

  "Then I envy you, Frank. I truly do."

  "Got to go."

  "Let's make a date. I'm going to be out of town for the next week, but why don't we get together on the eleventh?"

  Thorpe was disappointed. A week was too long. A minute was too long. "Sure."

  "Wonderful. How about 1:00 p.m. at Black's Beach?"

  "The nude beach?"

  "You're not shy, are you, Frank? Not ashamed of the body God gave you, I hope. This way, we can be certain we're equally unarmed. Ha-ha. So, one o'clock, Black's Beach. I'll be lying on a towel, facing the large set of rocks offshore. Pelican Rock, they call it."

  "I know what they call it."

  "We're going to have a swell time. I think we have a lot in common."

  "I don't."

  "See, that's something else we can talk about. I hope-"

  Thorpe shut down the computer. It was only then that he realized how fast his heart was beating. Claire's lights were on, but he stayed where he was.

  29

  Thorpe knocked on the Meachums' front door this time. The curtains were drawn. He knocked again. "Ray?"

  There had been too many unanswered knocks in the last twenty-four hours. First, Claire rapping on his door while he was busy with the Engineer last evening, Thorpe unwilling to let her in, as though the Engineer could see through the computer screen. Then afterward, he had gone over to her place, knocked, called out her name, but she didn't answer, either. He didn't blame her. Now it was Ray Bishop who wasn't responding.

  Thorpe looked around. A man across the street was mowing his lawn with headphones on, grass spraying his shanks, oblivious to Thorpe and everything else. Thorpe went around back, uneasy now.

  "Ray?" Thorpe knocked on the back door again. "It's Frank." Thorpe used a credit card to spring the lock. It was easy. He'd barely opened the door when he caught the smell and knew Bishop was dead.

  Ray Bishop was sprawled beside the refrigerator, faceup, his head beaten in. Blood was everywhere-splashed on the floor, sprayed across the walls, dark fingers dripping down the stove and refrigerator like the hand of God. Not a forgiving God, though, but a raging, petulant God who smote believers and nonbelievers alike, women and children and tired old men who had turned their lives around.

  Thorpe knelt beside him. Bishop's face was barely recognizable: swollen and bruised, crusted with black blood, his jaw shattered, the orbit of one eye caved in. A line of tiny red ants streamed from one of the baseboards, up Bishop's arm, and to the corner of his mouth. Thorpe flicked them away, but they kept coming, and he grew angrier, squashing them with his fingers, flattening them with his shoes, smearing them to paste. They would return-there were always more ants-but not for a while.

  He kicked aside the blood-caked hammer on the floor, sent loose teeth caroming across the tile. Thorpe felt sick. He sat beside Bishop again, wondering what his last moments had been like. The knuckles on his right hand were raw-he had gotten a few punches in. It wasn't much consolation, but Bishop might have taken some small pleasure in that. He didn't go gently, and that was all Thorpe was hoping to ask for himself.

  Vlad and Arturo must have come by a couple nights ago, right after Thorpe left… or maybe they had surprised Bishop the next morning, before Clark and Missy had had a chance to call them off. Thorpe was
certain he had convinced those two, but Vlad and Arturo had already been told to kill Meachum, kill anyone else they had found there, and they had found Ray Bishop and pounded his skull apart. Bad timing.

  Thorpe looked at Bishop's ruined face, forced himself not to turn away. "I'm sorry, Ray. I'm not sorry you were here… because you made that choice yourself, and it changed you, it changed you back, and I'm glad you got the chance, glad you took the chance, because there's not one in a hundred who would have done what you did." Thorpe's vision was blurry, hot tears running down his face, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I'm just sorry I wasn't here with you when they came."

  Thorpe wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He cleared his throat, his voice a low rumble now, a prayer for the dead, and a promise. "I'm going to kill the men who did this to you, Ray. I give you my solemn word."

  A lone red ant squeezed out from under the floorboard, started toward Bishop's body. He got halfway there before another ant emerged, antennae twitching. Then another. And another.

  Thorpe couldn't even give Bishop a decent funeral, couldn't notify his family. If he called 911 to report the murder, the cops would be all over the house, and they would ask around until they found where Gina and Douglas Meachum were. The Meachums would have to fly home, right back into trouble. No, he was going to have to leave Bishop right where he was.

  Thorpe watched the ants' slow progress while he considered what to do. By the time he crushed the first ant with a forefinger, he knew. He punched in the number on his cell phone, wiped his eyes again while it rang. "Hey, girl, it's Frank." He listened. "Yeah, well, I knew we'd be talking again, too. It's hard to say good-bye, isn't it?" He nodded. "Tell Clark there's been a change of plans… That's right. That's right. Tell him you won the bet, but don't tell me what it was. I don't think I could handle it." He laughed, his finger hovering over the second ant. "Look, I don't know if Clark wants to go after Guillermo… okay. Well, I'm glad you convinced him. I wanted to let you know that I'm available. I'll work with Vlad and Arturo; that's no problem." He pinched the red ant between his thumb and forefinger. "We can work out the finances later, but I want Guillermo taken care of. He thinks we're still working out our business arrangement, but I spotted one of his homeboys cruising my neighborhood a few minutes ago, and I don't think he's planning to deliver a Candygram."

  30

  "You're sure Guillermo is going to be there this afternoon?"

  "I'm not sure of anything, Frank. Shit happens." Hathaway lay on the tanning bed, eyes protected by yellow plastic sun goggles, arms at his side. He had a Ranger insignia tattooed on his left shoulder, just like Thorpe.

  "Guillermo has to be there." In the ozone blue light, Thorpe could see faint track marks along Hathaway's forearms. Old injection sites, barely perceptible. He wasn't sure if Hathaway had moved on to more discrete veins, or if he had backed off his habit. "If Vlad and Arturo don't see the Invisible Man, this isn't going to work. I might even get myself killed."

  "So, call it off. We'll postpone things."

  "I can't do that." Thorpe remembered Ray Bishop lying on the kitchen floor, surrounded by a corona of dried blood. "I want those fuckers dead ASAP."

  "There's a difference between being stand-up and being suicidal, Frank."

  Thorpe watched Hathaway stretched out under the buzzing incandescent tubes of the tanning bed at Perfect Bronze. The room shimmered with harsh light, Thorpe's baggy white trousers and shirt turned to cobalt in the ultraviolet B. He had called Hathaway after he talked to Missy, told him to contact Guillermo. The offer to Guillermo was the same one Thorpe had made to Missy: a meeting, a face-to-face between Clark and Guillermo to reaffirm the cease-fire and settle the question of who was taking down Clark's cookers. Thorpe had assured Missy this was their best chance to kill Guillermo before he killed them. Hathaway had told the same thing to Guillermo.

  Hathaway blindly stuck a hand out.

  Thorpe slipped the cold can of Red Bull to Hathaway. "You said you had already run it past Guillermo. You said he agreed to the meet."

  "Guillermo hears he has a chance to get Arturo and Vlad served up to him, of course he's going to say he's interested, but that was yesterday. He's had a whole night to think about it, consider all the things that can go wrong."

  "What's your best guess, Danny? Is he going to show or not?"

  Hathaway took a sip from the can, his long bleached-blond hair lank and green in the ultraviolet. He lifted one of his goggles, peeked at Thorpe. "I think he'd like to see Vlad and Arturo dead as much as you do."

  Thorpe nodded. "I can hardly wait to meet the man."

  Hathaway slipped the goggles back in place. "I hope you can say that afterward."

  "Don't worry."

  "I'm not worried. Guillermo needs me… You're the one who's disposable. I told him you were my inside man, a disgruntled employee of Clark's looking to better himself. If Vlad and Arturo go down, Guillermo will be generous, full weight, too, but if something goes bad, if he thinks you're playing him loose"-Hathaway shook his head-"he'll fuck you up fast and move on."

  "I'm ready."

  "Sure you are." Hathaway stretched, kept his face pointed directly at the overhead tubes. "I thought you were chasing after the Engineer. Doesn't this business with Clark and his crew get in the way?"

  "The Engineer is out of town for the next week. We're getting together when he comes back."

  "You and the Engineer keep in touch, do you? The two of you coordinate your social calendars?"

  Thorpe smiled. "That's right. My dance card was empty, so I decided to take out Vlad and Arturo." He stared at the posters on the wall, the beaches of Jamaica and Hawaii an alien landscape in the glare. "I doubt Clark will really be at the powwow. Does Guillermo understand that?"

  "He figured as much. It doesn't matter to him. I told you that the only reason Clark and Missy are still alive is because of Vlad and Arturo. You deliver those two boys, your problems are over. It could be your own private holiday."

  Thorpe had watched Claire walk past his window on her way to work this morning. She hadn't even looked toward his apartment, but he had imagined running after her. Imagined her coming back with him. Sitting around drinking coffee and making love. That would be a real holiday.

  "Nothing like sunshine, Frank." Hathaway shifted slightly on the tanning bed. "When I'm done, you should hit the rack yourself, put that melanin to work for you. Fifteen minutes here is like two hours on the beach. Ladies love that extra-crispy look, trust me." He adjusted his white Speedo. "I still think you should just let me turn Clark and Missy over to the DEA. It will take a while to build a case against them, but-"

  "Not interested."

  "Yeah, you like the personal touch." Hathaway lifted his goggles again. "You really could get yourself killed, you know."

  "Thanks, Mom. I'll eat my lima beans and say my prayers every night."

  "Keep it simple with Guillermo," said Hathaway, serious now. "He's serene, but don't think he's not paying attention. He won't even raise his voice and you'll already be dead. I've seen it happen, Frank. Seen it with my own eyes."

  Thorpe nodded.

  "I told Guillermo that Clark will send you in first, to make sure things are up to code, and-"

  "I got it, Danny."

  The timer beeped and the tanning bed switched off, the room suddenly cool and dark by comparison. Hathaway lifted the top half of the bed, swung himself upright, and pushed away his goggles. His skin glowed silver in the after burn, his protected eye sockets bone white. He blinked at Thorpe. "What?"

  "You look like a movie star."

  31

  "He does look a little familiar," said the doughy checker at Ralphs supermarket, her tongue stuck in the corner of her mouth, as though that would help the cow think.

  "Take your time," said the Engineer. "It's an old photograph."

  The checker-her name tag said CARMEN-scanned cans of infant formula, bricks of cheese, and boxes of prepackaged noodle slop while taking another loo
k at the photo of Frank he had laid on the counter. "Thirty-nine fifty-five," she said to the mother with the screaming brat in line, then turned to the Engineer. "What do you want with him?"

  The Engineer didn't react, but he felt a wave of pleasure surge through him. She recognized Thorpe. He had already taken in her cheap jewelry, her fatigue, and the tiny photos of ugly children that dangled from her key ring in the register. "He's my brother-in-law," the Engineer said, head down, as though he were embarrassed. "Ran out on my sister and left her with a couple kids to raise. I hired a private detective, who tracked him to Long Beach, but I'm tapped out. Figured I'd try to find him myself."

  "He didn't seem like that kind of a guy." Carmen took the check from the mother, wished her a good day.

  "No one seems like that kind of a guy, Carmen," said the Engineer.

  Carmen wiped her upper lip, thinking it over.

  "I'm in a hurry, lady," said the next man in line, loading six-packs of generic orange soda onto the counter.

  "I got a smoke break in twenty minutes," Carmen said to the Engineer, scanning with both hands.

  The Engineer waited for her outside, watching the shoppers come and go. The shit that people shoved into their mouths never ceased to amaze him, but he was in too good a mood to dwell on that now. He had spent the last couple days stopping at every supermarket, mini-mart, gas station, and drugstore in Long Beach, showing Thorpe's photo without result-other than a poor fool who had tried to hold him up while leaving an all-night market last night. The Engineer knew that Thorpe lived somewhere nearby; the man's Internet signal emanated from this general area, but that was as specific a location as his equipment could determine.

  A white kid in a FUBU sweatshirt pushed a cart toward the parking lot, one wheel wobbling. He gave the cart a push, rode it for a few yards. You would have thought the moron had won the lottery.

  Thorpe's license plate number had proved to be another dead end. Not that the Engineer ever had high hopes for it. The plate was valid, registered to Frank Antonelli, but the address listed was a mail drop in Cerritos, and the clerk there said the box hadn't been used in months.