I LEFT HOLLIS AND THE others and let myself out of Corcoran’s building. Dono’s truck was parked down the street at a meter. I’d had to take his truck. The headlights on my rental Charger were smashed after the collision with the Ryder van the day before.
It had turned into a clear morning, cold and sharp. Traffic on I-5 Northbound was just starting to ease out of the morning jam. To edge around a rusty hatchback, I changed lanes. A hundred yards behind me, a large burgundy-colored Ford SUV did the same.
Maybe my nerves were just keyed up after the story about Dono following Corcoran all the way across the state. Or maybe I was just paranoid.
I changed lanes again, as if I had suddenly decided to take the next exit. The burgundy SUV hastily did the same, cutting off a minivan. I heard the outraged blare of the van’s horn in the distance.
It wasn’t paranoia.
It wasn’t the cops either, unless they’d sent rookies to tail me. Whoever was driving the SUV was clumsy on the brake. And he kept edging out to see around the cars in front of him. Either he was very bad at following people or he didn’t give a damn if I knew he was there.
Was it the burglar from the house last night? Or maybe the three stooges who had tried to stomp my head when I’d met Hollis. I was making friends all over town.
Dono’s little revolver was in the truck’s center console. I took it out and put it in my coat pocket.
I took the next exit ramp. Its long upward slope ended in a stop sign. I stopped at the end of the line waiting to go through the intersection.
The SUV joined the line four cars behind me. Mud or something like it was spread over his license plate. By the time I’d reached the stop sign, there were more cars stacked up behind the SUV, blocking him in.
I set the parking brake of the truck and edged over to the passenger side and got out, keeping my head down. My hand was on the revolver in my pocket.
The BMW coupe behind me started leaning on the horn even as I moved quickly past him. The noise must have alerted the driver of the SUV. Its engine revved, and it lurched forward and to the left, smashing into the back of the Lexus hybrid in front of it with a hollow thump and the crash of taillight glass.
I started to run toward it. I couldn’t see the driver through the glare off the windshield. The SUV lurched again and forced its way out of the line with a squeal of anguished metal.
And for the second time in less than ten hours, I caught a glimpse of curly white hair. The burglar.
He didn’t hesitate, hauling ass straight down the steep grassy incline and onto the side of the freeway, tires spinning and throwing up big rooster-tail gouts of wet earth. I watched as he floored the accelerator and joined the northbound stream of traffic. Mud on the rear license plate, just like in the front.
As I walked back to the truck, half the people in the line got out of their cars to better hear the railings of the unlucky driver whose Lexus had taken the brunt of the SUV’s sudden departure. Nobody paid much attention to me, except for the guy in the BMW behind my truck. He was still hollering obscenities at me from the safety of his car.
I considered shooting the asshole, just so the day wouldn’t be a total loss. Instead I got into the truck and drove to the nearest gas station.
Whatever skills the burglar had, tailing people wasn’t one of them. He’d just been stumbling along after the truck. I knew he hadn’t been behind me earlier in the morning when I’d driven from the house to Corcoran’s apartment.
So how had he found me now?
I parked the truck by the station’s air and water pumps and opened the back of the canopy to take out the toolbox that Dono kept there. I lay down on the wet asphalt and shimmied under the truck with a flashlight.
It was easy to see. A plain black rectangle of plastic, about the size of a paperback book, bound with metal-reinforced tape to the cross brace of the chassis. I cut the tape away with a utility knife and edged myself back out to get a better look at it.
A GPS transmitter. Handmade from separate components, as the bugs had been. Judging by the dirt on the black box, it had been taped under Dono’s truck for at least a few days. The power light shone green.
Why would the burglar follow me so closely if there was a tracking device already on the truck? Most transmitters allowed for online tracking. The burglar should be able to see anywhere I drove just by looking at a Web site.
Unless he couldn’t afford the few minutes’ delay while the Web site map caught up to my real location. There was more to the burglar’s motive than just wanting his expensive toys back. He was acting desperate.
He’d broken into Dono’s house to reclaim his bugs. Maybe he wanted this transmitter back, too. Wanted it enough to risk following me closely, hoping I’d stop somewhere long enough that he could steal it out from under the truck.
I kicked myself for not thinking earlier that there might be a tracker planted on Dono’s truck. The old man had been under some serious surveillance—of course whoever was after him would want to follow his movements.
If I had found the transmitter immediately, I could have laid a trap. Now the fucker was spooked. He probably wouldn’t try again.
I pried the plastic lid off the transmitter and popped its lithium battery out. The little green light went dark.
Before I drove away from the gas station, I checked every inch of the truck, over and under. I didn’t put it past the clever white-haired bastard to have planted a backup somewhere.
*
AT HARBORVIEW THERE WAS no cop outside Dono’s door. Or even a chair where a cop would sit. I called Guerin. He didn’t answer, so I called Kanellis.
“Yes?” he said after I’d identified myself. Not trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“Where’s the detail on my grandfather’s room?” I said.
“We can’t keep a uniform on his door around the clock. The sergeant at East said they’ve warned hospital security not to let anyone but family into his room.”
The casing creaked on my phone as I gripped it. “Dono might be able to ID his shooter. A two-week wonder strolling by every twenty minutes isn’t going to cut it.”
“We could take him into protective custody.”
“What would that mean? A prison hospital?”
“Or the infirmary in County. He’d be downtown.”
“Forget it.” Dono needed neurologists, not some intern working a triple shift to pay off his tuition load.
“Harborview will allow a private cop. Celebrities do it all the time, I hear.”
I hung up. I’d already pissed off the detectives once today. If I stayed on the line with Kanellis, I was going to say something that would make it two for two.
Hire a rent-a-cop. Jesus.
With what was in my bank account, I might be able to swing a week of twenty-four-hour coverage from a reliable security firm. I didn’t want to go cheap. Just like with most skilled jobs, you got what you paid for.
I turned my phone back on, pulled up local branches of national firms, and started calling. When I found one called Standard Security Services, which employed off-duty cops and would allow me to contact the guard on duty directly at any time, I gave them my credit-card number for the thousand-dollar deposit. They promised to have someone meet me at Harborview within two hours.
Dono hadn’t twitched once during my conversation with Kanellis. I sat down by his bed to wait. The room smelled of astringent over the thicker, grassy scent of a wilting bouquet of daisies in a plastic vase by Dono’s bed. No card, but the vase had a Harborview price sticker on it. Probably from Addy Proctor, on one of her frequent visits. I owed that old woman.
Dono looked about the same as yesterday, like his long body was half melted into the thin mattress. The lines around his eyes might have been a little deeper. I listened to the rasp of the ventilator, up and down, and closed my own eyes and tried to breathe in time with the sound.