At the third hour, things got interesting.
Evan had parked himself across Brand Boulevard, Glendale’s commercial thoroughfare, on the second-floor terrace of a career college. Flopped open before him were several dog-eared study guides he’d bought used downstairs. To blend in with the denizens, he’d picked up an abomination of an iced-coffee drink with whipped cream and caramel streaking the insides of the clear plastic. It reminded him of the cheapo peanut-butter-and-jelly combo jars they used to get at the foster home around Thanksgiving when the churches donated baskets. The drink was the size of a fire hydrant and contained enough caffeine to make a racehorse’s heart explode. Or to fuel Joey for fifteen minutes.
Up the street the Alex Theatre’s gaudy Greco-Egyptian façade funneled into a hundred-foot art deco column, lit with neon and topped with a spiked ball befitting a medieval flail. The theater was hosting a Buster Keaton marathon, the signage bringing Evan back to late nights in the study with Jack watching Buster scurry around a locomotive like an ant surveying a leaf. Jack rarely laughed, but he’d prop his cheek on his fist, the wrinkles at his temple conveying something like pleased contentment. It was rare to see Jack at peace with his place in the world, even if only for the two-hour running time. Every other waking second was spent striving for the ever-receding horizon of perfection. Evan drank up those precious moments of leisure with Jack. He imagined for most people that was what life generally felt like. He sensed that once this mission was completed, that would be the sensation he’d search for.
But today Evan wasn’t here for the movie theater. Or the steroidal coffee.
He was here because of the view, as clean a vantage as he could have hoped for across four lanes of traffic onto the entrance of the Three Monkeys Café.
Half of Glendale’s population was composed of folks with Armenian roots. The café, with its overpriced khash and khorovats, seemed to cater to the upper slice of the community. The whole area had an upscale gleam not unlike that of Violet’s South Pasadena neighborhood. Sun-kissed buildings, breeze-ruffled foliage, pop-up shops selling artisanal ice cream or hemp purses or accent tables made out of driftwood.
It brought to mind how far Los Angeles proper had slid. From downtown sidewalks cloaked in a forever haze of freeway exhaust to Eastside shanties ready to topple from a strong wind or a stray bullet. These surrounding towns and incorporated neighborhoods with their own taxes and budgets fared better than the great wheezing city, a beast of burden bearing the load of four million souls.
A convoy of Town Cars interrupted Evan’s musings. Three heavy-duty Lincolns, black as pitch, rolled up to the valet. Six doors opened in concert. Twelve loafers set down on the asphalt. Even at this distance, the clunk of the closing doors was audible, armored metal reseating in reinforced frames.
The large men formed a rugby scrum that moved without obvious purpose but still encapsulated the passenger in the middle car as he emerged. Evan caught only a fleeting glimpse of a man with silver hair and a dark beard before his men cocooned him and conveyed him into the café. Everyone else knew the drill as well, swinging into motion as if mechanized, the valets nodding deferentially, a hostess materializing to hold the door, the maître d’ standing at attention inside, armed with a leather-bound wine list.
The scrum swept inside without a hitch. One of the men had peeled out of formation to stand at the curb, overseeing the parked Town Cars.
Evan left the used workbooks on the table. As he jogged down the stairs, he felt no residual dizziness from the concussion. As long as he took it easy, he seemed to be functional.
He crossed the street. The valets didn’t nod at him deferentially. No hostess appeared to hold the door for him. The maître d’ didn’t bother to look up from his reservation ledger, which he pondered Talmudically.
All that pointed inattention gave Evan a moment to scan the bustling café. Tables spread artfully across a Moroccan tile floor. A few sleek wooden fans circled leisurely overhead. French doors let onto a small courtyard with a single table where the convoy’s sole passenger sat with two other men, sipping espresso. The bodyguards stood around the courtyard and at the French doors, on alert.
The diners didn’t seem to take notice. A mother ate with one hand on a baby stroller, rolling it gently back and forth. Her husband lolled in his chair and jabbed at a molar with a toothpick, his stomach a testament to suburban sprawl. Near the door to a unisex bathroom, a family of six rimmed a round table, their heads bowed as if in prayer, each lost to a different screen.
No one seemed bothered in the least by the bodyguards.
Which meant Unidentified Caller was well known in the community, his presence here a dash of local flavor: the neighborhood connected guy who ate where the good food was.
The patrons were unaware that they were providing him protection, allowing him to hide here in plain sight. Cops and rivals would be less willing to make a move with such a high likelihood of collateral damage. And in the event that they did? Having civilians around to distract, confuse, and catch the occasional stray bullet would provide useful protection.
At last the maître d’ pried himself from the ledger, looking up through his wire frames. “Yes, sir?”
“May I sit in the courtyard?” Evan asked.
“I’m afraid that table is taken.”
“Today?”
“Always.”
“Oh. Is that the owner?” Evan flicked his head toward the silver-haired gentleman. The cut of his suit was impeccable, the fabric breaking in all the right places, as if the folds had been penciled by a sketch artist.
Evan had looked into the café’s business records but found only a snarled fishing line of parent companies, subsidiaries, and loan-outs.
The maître d’ said, “I’d be happy to seat you inside, sir.”
Putting a name to Unidentified Caller would take a bit more hoop-jumping, then.
“That would be fine. I’d prefer something away from the door. Maybe there?” Evan pointed to an open table with a partial view of the courtyard.
The maître d’s grin looked as if he’d read about how to smile in a textbook and was trying it on under duress. But he seated Evan where he’d asked.
Evan ordered an Armenian coffee and settled in to observe.
The bodyguards were on point, focused on movements, windows, doorways. The courtyard looked to be sheltered from the view of the surrounding buildings. The armored Town Cars out front were under constant watch.
Unidentified Caller hadn’t lied. This wasn’t some dogfighting ring Evan could walk into like a third-rate gunslinger.
For this he’d have to bring at least his second-rate game.
These men seemed to be stitched into the fabric of the community. Kids in private schools, gated houses with circular driveways, three-year leases on luxury SUVs for the missuses. Nicer suits, finer espresso, a courtyard of one’s own.
When acoustics allowed, Evan could make out the occasional snatch of conversation from the table, though only the voices of the other men.
Removing the Turing Phone, he texted Unidentified Caller: ANY HEADWAY WITH THE KAMA SUTRA?
He stared across the dining room, past the bodyguard, through the French doors.
Waiting for confirmation.
It took a few seconds for the text to skitter its way through the encryption. But at last the silver-haired man reached inside his lapel. He removed a matching rectangular slab of Liquidmorphium. Eyed the screen.
His lips pursed with amusement.
He held up a finger, and the men around him ceased talking.
He typed.
A moment later his text appeared: IF YOU STILL HAVE YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR, YOU DON’T COMPREHEND THE FATE YOU’RE FACING.
Evan: THE TERROR TRIED TO TELL ME THE SAME THING. RIGHT BEFORE I PUT A HOLLOW POINT THROUGH HIS FOREHEAD.
The man stared at the screen, the amusement fading from his face. As if he’d taken a joke too far with a child and was no longer willing to countenance any acting out.
He returned the phone to his lapel pocket, nodded at the men, and the conversation resumed.
Evan had to identify him. He needed a name. If not Unidentified Caller’s, then at least that of one of his associates or bodyguards. He could backtrack from there.
Were Evan not sitting in clear view of two of the bodyguards, he might have risked raising his phone to take a picture.
But the facial-recognition route would not be an option.
There were three men at the table, and a lot of espresso sipping was going on.
Which meant it was only a matter of time.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t one of the associates who moved first. It was the bodyguard from outside, the one watching the vehicles. He entered and nodded at the man by the French doors, who nodded at one of the redundant guards in the courtyard, who slipped outside to cover as the first guy headed into the bathroom. A seamless rotation.
Evan waited a moment. Then he rose and entered after him.
It featured only stalls, as befitted a unisex bathroom.
From behind the closed stall door came the sound of a torrent of urine.
Evan quietly threw the dead bolt behind him. He cupped his hands under the sink, sprinkled some water on the concrete, and then entered one of the vacant stalls. As he waited, he noted that his body temperature felt higher than usual, and then all of a sudden he was sweating as if someone had ramped up the heat. A familiar fogginess rolled over him, altering his perception, fuzzing the edges of the stall, the latch lock, his own hand held before his face. He didn’t know what an ideal time was to have a flurry of concussion symptoms, but this was not it.
The guy finished, zipped up, and cleared the stall, moving to the trough sink.
Evan closed his eyes, focused on his breathing, willed his body temperature to lower. He had to be swift and precise in order to avoid any kind of physical altercation. He couldn’t risk another knock to the head.
Once he felt steadier, he emerged, giving a neighborly nod when the guard looked up to eye him in the mirror.
As the man reached for the paper-towel dispenser, his weight shifted forward, moving him up onto his toes on the water-slick concrete. Evan grabbed the nape of his neck, swept his ankles back, and slammed his forehead into the lip of the sink.
The man’s knees buckled forward, and he sat froggy style, his torso flopped back over his legs. His eyes were open a sliver, showing a seam of white, and his breath came evenly and jaggedly. He would come to in a few seconds. The overwhelming likelihood was that he would remember nothing and dismiss it as an unusually painful slip in the bathroom.
Evan lifted the unconscious man’s weighty arm, adjusting his grip around the right index finger, and rolled the finger pad onto the back of his own right thumbnail.
A nice hard surface that would hold the print.
He released the arm, and it slapped to the floor.
Evan adjusted his hair in the mirror and exited.
He hooked left through the lobby and was out on the street in seconds. Too late he realized that in his slightly dazed state he’d inadvertently dined and ditched, which would make him memorable, especially to the snotty maître d’. Now he’d be unable to return to surveil the area if the mission called for it, the first concrete cost of the concussion he’d sustained. He vowed it would also be the last.
Next door a concrete office building the color of sandstone rose five stories to a steep slope roof. The building probably didn’t offer a useful view of the courtyard, but it was the best and only option.
Evan gauged it from outside and then rode to the top level. The lights of the elevator seemed unnaturally bright, aggravating the aching in his brain, making him squint.
A dermatologist and an internist shared the floor. A bathroom conveniently took up the center of the southwest side.
Evan entered the bathroom, slid open the window, and stuck his head out.
He could see down onto the top of the courtyard but not quite to the table.
Another five feet or so would get him there.
But he didn’t have five feet. There was only open air. The ground gave a vertiginous swirl, and he took in a lungful of fresh air and moved his gaze upward.
A faint commotion stirred on the sidewalk outside the Three Monkeys Café, the valets rushing to assist one of the bodyguards as he helped his fallen comrade out the door and into the front Town Car. He was squeezing his forehead and staggering. Evan could relate.
The bathroom door squeaked open behind him, a few workers entering. He pulled back from the window, offering a bland smile to their inquisitive stares. It was a busy bathroom on a busy floor.
Evan went back downstairs, walked two blocks, and got into his truck.
Driving home, he was careful to keep his right hand fanned off the steering wheel so as not to brush the fingerprint invisibly preserved on his thumbnail.