Chapter Seven

The two men sat across from one another in an empty hospital cafeteria. The soft sound of institutional breakfasts being prepared seeped from the kitchen. Rayford’s notebook sat open on the Formica surface, the cover damp from the earlier swipe of a wet cloth. He twirled his pen across his fingers like it was a baton in the hands of a cheerleader.

 

“I get that you’re pissed. I get that you wanna go find whoever did this. But you’re not gonna get there any faster being the Lone Ranger.” Rayford didn’t get his own unintended pun right away, then remembered what little he now knew about Brin. “You know what I mean.”

 

Jarvis drained the last half-inch of bad coffee and looked the detective hard in the eye, not unsympathetically. “I don’t know much about Brin’s life except when I see him, which isn’t often. He just shows up. What he does the rest of the time, I don’t know – but I’ll find out. He wasn’t the kind of guy to circumvent trouble.”

 

Rayford’s brow went up. “Circumvent trouble?”

 

Jarvis laughed and stood. “That trait could piss some people off. I’ve got your number. If I come across anything that’ll help, I’ll call.”

 

Rayford stood, too. “We don’t need a vigilante. If you interfere with my investigation…” It was a threat, but Jarvis read behind it to the offer of mutual help. He nodded and walked out of the cafeteria and through the hospital to the parking lot. It was late morning and the inside of his car was already hot. He didn’t turn over the engine, just sat with the door and windows closed, absorbing the heat. He watched an ambulance pull up and an old sedan limp in behind, a grim-faced woman behind the wheel. A couple of doctors crossed the lot toward the entrance. Jarvis closed his eyes and leaned back, the hot leather satisfyingly burning his neck.

 

After Brin had provided unexpected back-up a few months earlier, they’d had a brief chat. Waiting for the ambulance to arrive and wondering if it would get there before the guy expired, they’d nodded at one another.

 

“How ya been?” Jarvis folded his arms.

 

Brin stood like a soldier while Jarvis leaned against the hood of his car. “Pretty good, pretty good.” He kept swiveling his head, in case there were a sniper or approaching armored tank in the tree-lined neighborhood.

 

Jarvis pulled out a pack of gum and offered it to Brin. Brin took one without breaking his vigilant scanning of the surrounding area and split-level homes. A shadow passing overhead caught his attention and he displayed slight disappointment that it was a large black crow and not an unmanned drone armed with sidewinder missiles.

 

The moaning of the man on the ground caught no one’s attention. The faint hum of a siren became audible and threatened to turn into a wail within moments.

 

“You know we’re even now, right? No more of this commando Ninja shit.” Jarvis unwrapped a piece of gum and put the pack back in his pocket.

 

Brin had already pocketed his. “Yup, totally even.” Jarvis smiled around his gum. It was the same conversation they’d had for almost a decade.

 

“Wanna have dinner? We’ll get some girls and you can cook at your place.” Jarvis had never been to Brin’s place. He wasn’t entirely sure that Brin’s “place” wasn’t a bed of leaves in a well-hidden spot ten miles out in the Angeles Forest. He had a way of reaching Brin if need be, and it didn’t quite involve beaming an image of bat wings onto a cloud in the night sky. There was a phone number that no doubt was a dozen steps removed from Brin but had a voicemail he could check. Jarvis had been meaning to introduce him to the wonders of the Internet.

 

Brin’s smile was only in his voice. “Sure. I’ll send out an invite.”

 

Jarvis looked away, following the flight of the crow as it hunted for an open trashcan. Jarvis counted to ten and turned back. The empty space where Brin had been gave Jarvis a clear view of the man writhing on the ground. As the ambulance pulled up, the crow spotted a broken trash bag half a block away, the bird’s attention drawn to the spot by a figure quickly jumping over a fence and disappearing into a wooded area.

 

Sitting in his car now outside the hospital, the memory made Jarvis smile. The car seat had cooled and he turned over the engine with the punch of a button. He needed to find out why Brin had been eating at the deli in Beverly Hills. He might have liked pastrami, but he wouldn’t have chosen to catch an early breakfast with a bunch of early-rising old Jewish men at Nate and Al’s at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday unless it was related to something he was working on. And since that was the only lead, with no residence or papers or cell phone records, Jarvis headed down Doheny toward the restaurant.