Dark Rivers of the Heart (14 page)

The data related to casino-employee work permits was divided into three primary files: Expired, Current, Pending. Because Valerie had been working at The Red Door in Santa Monica for two months, Spencer accessed the Expired list first.

In his rambles through cyberspace, he had seen few files so extensively cross-referenced as this one—and those others had been related to grave national defense matters. The system allowed him to search for a subject in the Expired category by means of twenty-two indices ranging from eye color to most recent place of employment.

He typed
VALERIE ANN KEENE.

In a few seconds the system replied:
UNKNOWN.

He shifted to the file labeled Current and typed in her name.

UNKNOWN
.

Spencer tried the Pending file with the same result. Valerie Ann Keene was unknown to the Nevada gaming authorities.

For a moment he stared at the screen, despondent because his only clue had proved to be a dead end. Then he realized that a woman on the run was unlikely to use the same name everywhere she went and thereby make herself easy to track. If Valerie had lived and worked in Vegas, her name almost surely had been different then.

To find her in the file, Spencer would have to be clever.

While waiting for Nella Shire to find the scarred man, Roy Miro was in terrible danger of being dragooned into hours of sociable conversation with David Davis. He would almost rather have eaten a cyanide-laced muffin and washed it down with a big, frosty beaker of carbolic acid than spend any more time with the fingerprint maven.

Claiming not to have slept the night before, when in fact he had slept the innocent sleep of a saint after the priceless gift he had given to Penelope Bettonfield and her husband, Roy charmed Davis into offering the use of his office. “I insist, I really do, I will listen to no argument, none!” Davis said with considerable gesturing and bobbing of his head. “I’ve got a couch in there. You can stretch out on it, you won’t be inconveniencing me. I’ve got plenty of lab work to do. I don’t need to be at my desk today.”

Roy didn’t expect to sleep. In the cool dimness of the office, with the California sun banished by the tightly closed Levolors, he thought he would lie on his back, stare at the ceiling, visualize the nexus of his spiritual being—where his soul connected with the mysterious power that ruled the cosmos—and meditate on the meaning of existence. He pursued deeper self-awareness every day. He was a seeker, and the search for enlightenment was endlessly exciting to him. Strangely, however, he fell asleep.

He dreamed of a perfect world. There was no greed or envy or despair, because everyone was identical to everyone else. There was a single sex, and human beings reproduced by discreet parthenogenesis in the privacy of their bathrooms—though not often. The only skin color was a pale and slightly radiant blue. Everyone was beautiful in an androgynous way. No one was dumb, but no one was too smart, either. Everyone wore the same clothes and lived in houses that all looked alike. Every Friday evening, there was a planetwide bingo game, which everyone won, and on Saturdays—

Wertz woke him, and Roy was paralyzed by terror because he confused the dream and reality. Gazing up into the slug-pale, moon-round face of Davis’s assistant, which was revealed by a desk lamp, Roy thought that he himself, along with everyone else in the world, looked exactly like Wertz. He tried to scream but couldn’t find his voice.

Then Wertz spoke, bringing Roy fully awake: “Mrs. Shire’s found him. The scarred man. She’s found him.”

Alternately yawning and grimacing at the sour taste in his mouth, Roy followed Wertz to the data processing room. David Davis and Nella Shire were standing at her workstation, each with a sheaf of papers. In the fluorescent glare, Roy squinted with discomfort, then with interest, as Davis passed to him, page by page, computer printouts on which both he and Nella Shire commented excitedly.

“His name’s Spencer Grant,” Davis said. “No middle name. At eighteen, out of high school, he joined the army.”

“High IQ, equally high motivation,” Mrs. Shire said. “He applied for special-forces training. Army Rangers.”

“He left the army after six years,” Davis said, passing another printout to Roy, “used his service benefits to go to UCLA.”

Scanning the latest page, Roy said, “Majored in criminology.”

“Minored in criminal psychology,” said Davis. “Went to school year-round, kept a heavy class load, got a degree in three years.”

“Young man in a hurry,” Wertz said, apparently so they would remember that he was part of the team and would not, accidentally, step on him and crush him like a bug.

As Davis handed Roy another page, Nella Shire said, “Then he applied to the L.A. Police Academy. Graduated at the top of his class.”

“One day, after less than a year on the street,” Davis said, “he walked into the middle of a carjacking in progress. Two armed men. They saw him coming, tried to take the woman motorist hostage.”

“He killed them both,” Shire said. “The woman wasn’t scratched.”

“Grant get crucified?”

“No. Everyone felt these were righteous shootings.”

Glancing at another page that Davis handed to him, Roy said, “According to this, he was transferred off the street.”

“Grant has computer skills and high aptitude,” Davis said, “so they put him on a computer-crime task force. Strictly desk work.”

Roy frowned. “Why? Was he traumatized by the shootings?”

“Some of them can’t handle it,” Wertz said knowingly. “They don’t have the right stuff, don’t have the stomach for it, they just come apart.”

“According to the records from his mandatory therapy sessions,” Nella Shire said, “he wasn’t traumatized. He handled it well. He asked for the transfer, but not because he was traumatized.”

“Probably in denial,” Wertz said, “being macho, too ashamed of his weakness to admit to it.”

“Whatever the reason,” Davis said, “he asked for the transfer. Then, ten months ago, after putting in twenty-one months with the task force, he just up and resigned from the LAPD altogether.”

“Where’s he working now?” Roy asked.

“We don’t know that, but we
do
know where he lives,” David Davis said, producing another printout with a dramatic flourish.

Staring at the address, Roy said, “You’re sure this is our man?”

Shire shuffled her own sheaf of papers. She produced a high-resolution printout of a Los Angeles Police Department personnel fingerprint ID sheet while Davis provided the photos of the prints they had lifted from the frame of the bathroom window.

Davis said, “If you know how to make comparisons, you’ll see the computer’s right when it says they’re a perfect match. Perfect. This is our guy. No doubt about it, none.”

Handing another printout to Roy, Nella Shire said, “This is his most recent photo ID from the police records.”

Full-face and in profile, Grant bore an uncanny resemblance to the computer-projected portrait that had been given to Roy by Melissa Wicklun in Photo Analysis.

“Is this a recent photo?” Roy asked.

“The most recent the LAPD has on file,” Shire said.

“Taken a long time after the carjacking incident?”

“That would have been two and a half years ago. Yeah, I’m sure this picture is a lot more recent than that. Why?”

“The scar looks fully healed,” Roy noted.

“Oh,” Davis said, “he didn’t get the scar in that shootout, no, not then. He’s had it a long time, a very long time, had it when he entered the army. It’s from a childhood injury.”

Roy looked up from the picture. “What injury?”

Davis shrugged his angular shoulders, and his long arms flapped against his white lab coat. “We don’t know. None of the records tell us about it. They just list it as his most prominent identifying feature. ‘Cicatricial scar from right ear to point of chin, result of childhood injury.’ That’s all.”

“He looks like Igor,” Wertz said with a snicker.

“I think he’s sexy,” Nella Shire disagreed.

“Igor,” Wertz insisted.

Roy turned to him. “Igor who?”

“Igor. You remember—from those old Frankenstein movies, Dr. Frankenstein’s sidekick. Igor. The grisly old hunchback with the twisted neck.”

“I don’t care for that kind of entertainment,” Roy said. “It glorifies violence and deformity. It’s sick.” Studying the photo, Roy wondered how young Spencer Grant had been when he’d suffered such a grievous wound. Just a boy, apparently. “The poor kid,” he said. “The poor, poor kid. What quality of life could he have had with a face as damaged as that? What psychological burdens does he carry?”

Frowning, Wertz said, “I thought this was a bad guy, mixed up in terrorism somehow?”

“Even bad guys,” Roy said patiently, “deserve compassion. This man has suffered. You can see that. I need to get my hands on him, yes, and be sure that society’s safe from him—but he still deserves to be treated with compassion, with as much mercy as possible.”

Davis and Wertz stared uncomprehendingly.

But Nella Shire said, “You’re a nice man, Roy.”

Roy shrugged.

“No,” she said, “you really are. It makes me feel good to know there are men like you in law enforcement.”

The heat of a blush rose in Roy’s face. “Well, thank you, that’s very kind, but there’s nothing special about me.”

Because Nella was clearly not a lesbian, even though she was as much as fifteen years older than he, Roy wished that at least one feature about her was as attractive as Melissa Wicklun’s exquisite mouth. But her hair was too frizzy and too orange. Her eyes were too cold a blue, her nose and chin too pointed, her lips too severe. Her body was reasonably well proportioned but not exceptional in any regard.

“Well,” Roy said with a sigh, “I’d better pay a visit to this Mr. Grant, ask him what he was doing in Santa Monica last night.”

Sitting at the computer in his Malibu cabin but prowling deep into the Nevada Gaming Commission in Carson City, Spencer searched the file of current casino-worker permits by asking to be given the names of all card dealers who were female, between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty, five feet four inches tall, one hundred ten to one hundred twenty pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Those were sufficient parameters to result in a comparatively small number of candidates—just fourteen. He directed the computer to print the list of names in alphabetical order.

He started at the top of the printout and summoned the file on Janet Francine Arbonhall. The first page of the electronic dossier that appeared on the screen featured her basic physical description, the date on which her work permit had been approved, and a full-face photograph. She looked nothing like Valerie, so Spencer exited her file without reading it.

He called up another file: Theresa Elisabeth Dunbury. Not her.

Bianca Marie Haguerro. Not her, either.

Corrine Sense Huddleston. No.

Laura Linsey Langston. No.

Rachael Sarah Marks. Nothing like Valerie.

Jacqueline Ethel Mung. Seven down and seven to go.

Hannah May Rainey.

On the screen, Valerie Ann Keene appeared, her hair different from the way she had worn it at The Red Door, lovely but unsmiling.

Spencer ordered a complete printout of Hannah May Rainey’s file, which was only three pages long. He read it end to end while the woman continued to stare at him from the computer.

Under the Rainey name, she had worked for over four months of the previous year as a blackjack dealer in the casino of the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. Her last day on the job had been November 26, not quite two and a half months ago, and according to the casino manager’s report to the commission, she had quit without notice.

They—whoever “they” might be—must have tracked her down on the twenty-sixth of November, and she must have eluded them as they were reaching out for her, just as she eluded them in Santa Monica.