Hot Wire (9 page)

"Kind of a mess, though," Baldy said. "What happened to you?" he asked me. "You get in a fight with one of your dollies?"

"Go screw yourself."

They just stared at me, bored.

"She's a regular Snow White," Baldy went on. "Assault with a deadly weapon, possession with intent, trafficking in stolen goods, known organized-crime connections. She spent 11 months pretrial detention on Grand Theft Auto a couple years ago, but they dropped the charges on an illegal search and seizure." He frowned at the wall mirror, scratching his chin. They both needed a shave. "That's the American way," he said to me. "You're no carjacker. Kind of impulsive, though. Your sheet claims you're smarter than the usual smash-and-grab joyrider, but you fucked up last night, didn't you, squirt? Boy, did you fuck up. You really had us going until your buddy told us who you were."

"Arn?" I blurted. "Where is he?"

"Never mind Willis," he said. "Who put you up to it?"

"Up to what? Who are you?"

Crewcut glanced at him. Coded signals passed back and forth.

"You know," Baldy said. "The Lexus."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"C'mon." He smirked. "I saw you drive it away. Even followed you for a while, but you didn't want to stop for some reason. Ring a bell?"

"Who are you? Show me some ID."

"Somebody hired you to steal it," Baldy said. "You might as well tell us what you know. We're going to find out one way or another, so just give us a break, OK? I'm not up for any child abuse until I've had some lunch."

"Nobody hired us," I said. He'd seen me take the car. No point in denying it. "It was pure chance we saw you drive by."

"That's what Willis told us, but we didn't believe him, either."

"Where is he? You got some ID?"

"Yeah," he said. "I got some ID."

"This is a waste of time." Crewcut snuffed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bedside table, then leaned closer to me. "Listen, Emma. We already have a good idea who hired you to steal the car, but we'll leave that aside for the moment. We're not interested in your extraneous activities and we don't intend to pursue your connection with Deacon and Gonzalez and any operation they might be running out of the port. That's for the local authorities, if and when they ever come out of their stupor. All we want is the car. Return it and we'll drop the matter."

"So where is it?" Baldy asked, staring at his fingernails. "Don't make us call your mommy."

I didn't say anything. If they wanted the Lexus, they could have it, but I needed time to think. They smelled like feds on the take; I couldn't see them letting me go. Steffy must've told them where I was staying, but they had to beat it out of her. They tortured her and killed her – just to get an address. The little tramp had tried to protect me.

"C'mon, squirt." Baldy dropped my key ring on the desk and picked up his coffee. "You got it stashed somewhere or dumped it on the street, so just tell us where it is and you can go back to the playground."

"What about the keys?" Crewcut asked him.

"Not on her." Baldy shrugged.

"OK." Crewcut checked his watch. "We'll have to pursue this at a different location. This is too public."

"Deke's probably got the keys," I said, giving in.

"You mean Deacon?"

"Yeah. I left them in the glove box, but Buster probably turned them in. If he did, they're locked in the safe in Deacon's office."

"Who's Buster?" Crewcut asked.

"That nigger they got at the lot," Baldy said. "Big fat drunk. Shouldn't be much of a problem."

"OK. So the keys are either in the glove box or they're locked up in Deacon's office at the gas station."

"Yeah." I stared at my shoes. "As far as I know."

"So where's the car?"

"They run a storage lot down the street," I said. "It's locked up in a garage in the alley unless Deacon moved it somewhere."

"Would he do that?"

"Maybe. I don't know. He said he was going to leave it there last night."

"Does anyone else know about it?"

"Just Deacon and Heberto."

"Gonzalez? The partner?"

"Yeah."

"Has anyone else approached you?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?"

I just shook my head. I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Screw this." Baldy finished his coffee and tossed the cup at my head. "We already know it was Chase and Matthews hired the little twat. Ain't that right, four-eyes?"

"Shut up," Crewcut said.

"Who else then?"

They huddled for a while, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Then Crewcut told me to stand up and he gave me back my stuff. Wallet, keys, change. I stuck them in my pockets.

"OK," he said. "We'll check it out. Two cars. I go with you in your car and we'll take a look at this garage. A nice careful look." He nodded at Baldy. "He'll be right behind us, so just keep that in mind, all right?"

They put on their jackets, then went through the room and cleaned it up, stuffing my clothes and junk into a plastic bag. Baldy dumped the ashtray and trash into another bag while Crewcut wiped the door knobs and furniture with a towel, cracking the window to clear out the smoke. It was a vanishing act. Some kind of routine.

"Let's go," Crewcut said when they were finished. "We'll deal with her registration later."

Baldy opened the door, checked the hall, then they walked me down the corridor and through a side entrance into the parking lot. The sun hurt my eyes. A box kite hung in the air over Cesar Chavez Park.

"Nice and easy," Crewcut whispered in my ear while a pack of tourists waddled by on the sidewalk, laughing and jabbering in Spanish. We walked through the rows of parked cars to a dark blue Hummer parked under some trees on the far side of the lot. Baldy unlocked the doors, put the bags on the back seat, then got in behind the wheel and started the engine. Crewcut walked me around to the passenger side, opened the front door, shoved me in, then he slammed the door and climbed into the back where he could breathe down my neck.

"OK," he said. "Now, where's your car?"

"Other side," I mumbled. "Over by the Marina."

Baldy drove us to the other side of the lot to find my car, but we had to circle around for a while because I couldn't remember where I had parked. My head was screwed up and I was thinking so fast it was just a blur. Dirty feds. Oakland detectives. Whoever they were, I had to take them back to the garage and give them the Lexus. Buster was off by now, but the day guy might see us drive into the alley. Maybe he'd call the station. Maybe I could get away when they opened the garage.

"Stay close," Crewcut told his partner when we pulled up next to my Dodge. "We'll hit rush hour, most likely."

"No problem." Baldy gave me a wink. "See you later, squirt."

Crewcut got out and opened my door.

"OK, Emma – you're driving."

#

We got in the Dodge and I pulled out, the Hummer right behind me. Crewcut rolled down his window and lit a cigarette while I followed the boulevard around to University and headed back towards the highway. Gulls clouded the South Sailing Basin. The commute flickered on the Bay Bridge: thousands of windshields and bumpers catching the sun as it rose over the city.

"Watch your speed," Crewcut said. "We'll cross I-80 and take Ashby over to Emeryville."

I checked the rearview. The Hummer was right on my tail.

"Who approached you?" He came off bored. "Chase or Matthews?"

"I told you what happened."

"Chase or Matthews? Which one?"

"I never heard of them."

"I think you have." He was watching the traffic. "Your timing was too precise to be a coincidence. Somebody pointed you in the right direction, so just tell me how it worked."

"That's all it was. A coincidence."

"Nobody cruises around the West Oakland bottoms at that time of night just for the hell of it."

He didn't know we'd gone down to Heberto's warehouse. Arn must've held that back because he was scared to say anything about the
locos
.

"That's what we do," I said. "Cruise around looking for cars on Deacon's list."

"He tells you which models to look for?"

"Yeah."

"Based on what?"

"I don't know. The market in South America."

"And Gonzalez ships them out through the Port."

"Yeah."

He shook his head. "I don't buy it. Somebody hired you to steal the Lexus and you're going to have to tell us what you know if you want to get out of this in one piece. Chase was playing a double game – understand? If you cooperate, we can give you protection. You can walk away – Willis, too – but if you don't cooperate, you won't last another week. They have to eliminate you now that the operation's blown. Get the picture?"

"Screw you." I had no idea what he was talking about. "Why'd you have to kill her? You staked out my place and tried to set me up. You were just waiting for me to come home and find her."

"What do you mean?" He sat up, frowning. "Who was waiting for you to come home?"

He didn't ask me who'd been killed.

"You tell me," I said, trying to stay calm. "You're the one who sent them."

He shook his head, pretending to look baffled.

"Someone staked out your apartment building?"

"You know they did. You sent them yourself."

"This happened this morning?"

"You know when it happened."

"Describe them." His eyes bored in.

"Steffy didn't know anything,” I said. "She didn't have anything to do with it."

"Just tell me what they looked like."

"What're you asking me for? They were driving black SUVs and they were just waiting for me to come home so you could pin it on me."

"We didn't send them."

"You're a lying scumbag."

"Just watch the road."

He sat back, looking thoughtful. I pulled up to the light at West Frontage Road and stared into space, blinking to clear my eyes. The traffic was getting bad, cars all around us now, the exit ramp backed up with commuters trying to escape the gridlock on I-80. When I checked the rearview, I saw that the Hummer had fallen behind a FedEx truck in the right lane. Then the light changed and we crossed over the highway – eight lanes of parking lot backed up for miles in both directions. I could feel Crewcut watching everything I did.

"Nice and easy," he said, blowing smoke out the window. "Turn right on Seventh and get us out of this traffic."

We passed over the tracks and dropped down the ramp into Berkeley. I made the light at Seventh and turned right, checking the rearview again. The Hummer was a couple cars back on the left, its turn signal blinking. Then a patrol car came out of nowhere, cherries flashing as it switched lanes and passed the Hummer. I got this cold buzz and eased over a little to give the cop room to pass, but he pulled up right beside me and hit his siren, waving me over to the side of the road.

"Shit," Crewcut said. "Is this piece of junk legal?"

"Yeah." I turned off on the next street and parked at the curb, staring blankly at the dash. I felt completely calm. It was weird. "The registration's clean."

"You're a popular girl, Emma." He got on his cell phone and called Baldy. "We've been pulled over...I don't know...something extraneous." Meanwhile, the patrol car pulled in behind us and the cop just sat there for a while, finishing off his donut or something. Watching the rearview, I saw the Hummer go by on Seventh.

"Just relax," Crewcut said after he finished talking to his partner. "We've still got Willis, so don't do anything stupid, all right?"

Nothing happened for five minutes. The cop must've been running my plates and yakking on his radio; I could hear the static over the traffic noise on Seventh. Then a second patrol car turned the corner and double-parked in front of us, and two cops got out with their hands on their holsters. One of them waited by their car and the other one moved to the sidewalk while the cop behind us strolled over and leaned down by my window.

"License and proof of insurance, please."

He checked us out, scanning the dash and back seat while I got my wallet and dug through the glove compartment. I gave him my driver's license and papers and he looked them over, frowning like a clerk at the DMV, then he handed them back and fixed me with his X-ray vision. A typical burrhead cop, he looked like one of those flag-waving hot dogs straight out of a Criminal Justice class at some community college.

"Emma Martin?"

"Yeah."

"Would you mind stepping out of the car, please?"

They didn't search me because they didn't have a female cop handy and they were probably afraid of getting sued, but they cuffed my hands behind my back and read me the Miranda. They said I had a warrant for Grand Theft Auto, which could've been true, I guess, not that I cared right then. I was just glad to get away from Crewcut. After they dumped me in the back of one of the squad cars, they talked to him for a while, but he opened his wallet and showed them something and they let him go. Just like that.