I FINISHED MY beer, now bitter and sour, while Gadd went back to wooing the woman on the other side of him. I put ten dollars on the bar and walked stiff-legged out into the parking lot, my mind in a world of confusion.
Once in the car, I came up on the radio. “He’s sitting at the bar with a woman he just met. I think we’re going to be here awhile.” I stopped short of telling them that I’d just recognized Gadd as the Darkman. I needed to think some more about it. What would it gain by telling them now? We were already up on him for too many felonies to count. None that we could prove until the case broke.
I sat in the parking lot of the Harbor Town Pub with the others and watched the black Lincoln and the front door of the bar. Gadd stayed in there another two hours. He came out with the woman on his arm and drove with great deliberation to an apartment complex on 213th and Avalon in the city of Carson, a cheap, run-down apartment probably belonging to the woman. Did we owe an obligation to warn her, to advise her of her possible ruinous choice in men? A tough decision nobody spoke of as we let the situation play out all on its own.
We stayed on watch until midnight when Coffman came up on the radio. “Bruno, you and Gibbs go get some shut-eye, four hours, then come back and relieve me and Ned. We’re not gonna lose this guy again.”
I didn’t acknowledge on the radio; I started up and let the headlights of my car coming on let him know I heard the orders. I drove home by rote, my mind struggling with the decision not to notify Compton and to let Gadd fall prey to our surveillance and eventual takedown.
I pulled up, stopped in front of my house, and remembered about Chelsea. I slugged the steering wheel. I’d forgotten all about her. I should’ve found a pay phone and paged her with a code that said I wouldn’t be able to make it. She’d probably come and gone after waiting too long. But how long would she have waited? The longer she’d waited, the more she cared. Only a kid with a high school crush would want to know that kind of information to further assuage a wounded ego.
I hadn’t slept a lot the night before, just a scant few hours. Not a complaint at all. I wouldn’t have missed the time being with Chelsea for anything in the world. But now fatigue hung off me like a warm, wet blanket beckoning me to lie down anywhere. Right there in the front yard would be fine. Curl up and sleep for two days straight.
Before leaving the street and walking into my front yard, I checked the street one more time for dangerous interlopers and spotted a car that didn’t belong parked four houses down. I turned to face it, stared into the darkness as I stepped backward into the front yard, out from under the streetlight and deeper into the shadows.
The headlights came on. The car started. The tires chirped as it sped right toward me. I pulled my shirt back from over the gun on my hip and put my hand on the stock, ready to draw and fire.
The car, a nice silver BMW four-door—out of place for the neighborhood—pulled up and stopped on the wrong side of the street, nose to nose to my FBI car. I couldn’t see inside, the window tint too dark.
I shifted my footing, drew my gun, and held it along the side of my leg. The driver’s door opened to a woolly looking male, with big hair, and a full beard. He wore a black leather jacket, also out of place in this kind of summer heat. He wore a dress shirt and slacks, and the foot emerging from the car sported the in-vogue penny loafer. I watched his hands—empty—or I’d have pointed my gun at him. He climbed the rest of the way out. “Bruno—hey, man, take it easy, it’s me.”
“I don’t know who the hell you are so don’t make any quick moves. Step back by the car and into the light.”
“Come on, you know me. We worked the street together. It’s me, JB.”
“Ah, shit.” I reholstered my gun. I didn’t like JB. He’d cuckolded Ned. Ned caught JB in flagrante delicto with Hannah four years ago. I’d been there, seen it for myself. Ned had since reconciled with Hannah. No way did I want anything to do with JB.
“Get back in your car, JB, you’re not welcome here.”
“Come on, don’t be that way. Can we just talk? I need to talk to you for just a minute.”
I turned to go in the house. “You got nothing I need to hear.”
He raised his voice as if he wanted witnesses to come closer and listen, a real punk’s move. “I wanted to do this friend to friend, but if you force me, I can call the cops, and you’ll be arrested as an accessory.”
I turned back and walked quickly up to him. “You can’t have me arrested if I’ve done nothing wrong. Now get the hell off my property before I take you to the ground and arrest you for trespassing.”
The other door to the BMW opened. Hannah’s head popped up looking across the roof of the car. “Hey, Bruno.”
“Ah, shit.”
Behind me, the front door to the house opened a crack, Dad peeking out. The porch light went off so he could see better. Or maybe he knew about backlighting and did it to protect me.
Hannah closed the car door and came around. As she did, JB asked, “Have you seen Ned?”
I hesitated, trying to catch up with what was happening and didn’t like the way the puzzle started to go together.
Ned had never reconciled with Hannah—or had Hannah recently gone back to JB?
Hannah walked over. She wore a dynamite pair of black leather pants that looked like someone designed them just for her body. She wore a tight pearl-colored satin blouse unbuttoned down almost to the bottom of her ample cleavage. Her leather jacket didn’t have the zippers on the sleeves like JB’s. Her long blond hair fell loose on her shoulders. She was nothing short of stunning.
I swallowed hard. “What’s going on, Hannah?” But I thought I knew; I just couldn’t believe Ned would put me in this situation. It all flooded back at once, Ned suddenly showing up after all those years, needing a babysitter for Beth. Wicks not wanting to tell me what was going on with Ned, that it was personal. And that it could become a problem for the department. All of it made sense now.
Hannah reached out and took my hand, her bright blue eyes burning right through me. “I think you know, Bruno. Ned’s kidnapped my baby. He’s taken Beth.”
“Ah, shit.”