Payback (20 page)

He arrived at eight o’clock. When I offered him dinner, he said he had already eaten.

He pulled a videotape from a paper bag and laid it on the coffee table. I sat beside him and picked the tape up to look at it. It was labeled Security Tape—San Ysidro Trolley Station.

My heart did a somersault inside my chest, but I coolly turned my eyes to Chris to find him studying me.

“What?” I asked, all innocence, dredging up a curious smile from somewhere, trying to act calm. Trying to act
normal
.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked, pointing to the tape in my hand.

I read the label again. “Yeah, it’s a security tape from the San Ysidro Trolley Station. Says so right here. Is this what you’re working on?”

“It’s one of the cases I’m working on.”

“I thought they didn’t give you the trolley shooting. That’s what this is, right? A tape of the guy who did the trolley shooting a while back. The scumbag that was murdered on the Blue Line?”

“Yes. I’m giving the investigators a helping hand.”

“Why? Don’t you have enough on your own plate without taking cases from someone else?”

“That’s how the force works, Tyler. We help each other.”

I gazed down at the tape in my hand. I’m not sure where I found the courage to say what I said next.

“Would you like me to play it for you? This is your
homework, right?”

Chris’s eyes narrowed. A lazy smile spread his mouth, but his eyes were wily. There was no smile in them. “Sure, Tyler. Stick it in. We’ll watch it together.”

And to my surprise, it was just like the night of the shooting. My hands were steady as I slipped the tape into the VCR. While I gathered up the remotes to carry them back to the couch, I asked calmly if Chris would like a beer. He said no.

There was no fear in me. None whatsoever. Had I so distanced myself from what I’d done to the man on the trolley that it no longer registered in me at all?

“You ready?” I asked, and Chris nodded.

I switched on the TV.

I took Chris’s hand as the tape came alive on the screen. A tiny clock in the lower left corner displayed the slow passing of seconds until Chris plucked the remote from my hand and hit Fast Forward.

He knew exactly where he was going. As the tape sped ahead, I watched the trolley stop morph from daylight to darkness in a matter of seconds. A few trolley riders raced back and forth across the platform, disappearing into the cars or flying down the stairs to the street below. Trains slid into the frame and just as quickly slid back out again. Chris hit the Play button just at the two-hour-and-twenty-minute mark on the tape, and all activity slowed to a natural rhythm in the space of a second.

Suddenly the San Ysidro Trolley stop was dark and empty. A stream of light poured over the tracks to the left, and in eerie silence, since the tape had no sound, a string of red trolley cars slid into view. Immediately, the doors opened, and from the door closest to the camera, I watched myself step through the trolley door and pull my baseball cap down over my eyes. I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder and slipped down the stairs to the right to disappear into the night. Moments later, the trolley doors closed and the train slid away in the opposite direction from which it had come.

It was the end of the line. The trolley was now moving north. With a conductor’s car at both ends, it didn’t need to turn around.

Chris hit Pause, then Rewind. We watched the sequence of events a second time. Then a third. After the third and last time, Chris hit Stop and leaned back on the couch. His hand was still in mine. With his other hand, he tossed the remote onto the coffee table.

“Was that the shooter?” I asked.

“We think so.”

“You can’t see his face,” I commented.

“No,” he said. “You can’t.”

“He’s wearing my Mickey Mouse hat,” I said calmly. “At least it looked like my hat. I guess your killer likes Disneyland too.”

Chris nodded. “I wondered if you’d notice that.”

“You want a beer?” I asked.

And again he studied my face. “Sure. Why not?”

I ran to fetch it.

He followed me to the kitchen and stood in the doorway to watch as I leaned into the fridge to extract a couple of Buds.

I straightened, twisted the caps off the bottles, placed them side by side on the kitchen table, then turned and walked directly into Chris’s arms.

His eyes opened wide in surprise, but at the same time, his arms came up to pull me against him. He bent his head to press his face to my neck, and I spread my hands over his back and tugged him close.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

His voice was muffled as his lips moved against my neck. “I’ve missed you too.”

“We’ve hardly seen each other since the night in the
Gaslamp.”

“I know, Tyler. I’m sorry.”

We stood that way for a long moment. He smelled of gentle sweat and weariness. He had had a long day. His heat was so heavenly against me I couldn’t bear to think of him pulling away. Before I could stop myself, I pressed my lips to his hair. It was about an inch long, now, and was as soft as down against my mouth.

“Tyler,” he said softly. “No matter what motivations you think you might have for doing it, I told you once not to think about taking matters into your own hands. Do you remember?” He traced a finger across the still visible mark from the cut on my cheek. It had healed now, but a thin red scar still remained. Maybe the scar would always be there. I didn’t know. Chris’s touch was gentle on my face, and I closed my eyes to feel it better.

“Yes,” I said. “I remember. Why?”

“No reason. I just…. I just want you to remember you made that promise. I don’t want you to forget it.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I’ll renew it now if you want.” I stepped back just far enough to gaze into Chris’s eyes. They were sad, I thought. Sad and leery. “Would you like me to do that? Promise you again?”

He nodded as his hand came up to caress the side of my face. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, watching me.

“I promise,” I said. “From this day forth, nothing like that will ever happen. I swear.”
And I mean it
, my voice echoed in my head.
I got away with murder once. At least I think I did. I won’t risk it again. Ever. It would mean risking everything. It would mean risking… you.

Chris couldn’t hear my thoughts, thank God, but he had heard my words. He let them hang in the air for a dusting of moments. Then he said, “Thank you.”

He slid a thumb across my temple and pushed me gently to arm’s length.

“I have news, baby.”

Something in the way he spoke the words ripped into me like a knife. I tensed in his arms. “What is it?”

He took a step backward and slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his sport jacket. He pulled out a small glassine bag, the kind cops use on TV shows to carry evidence.

Inside the baggy was a gleaming gold and diamond ring with a streak of lapis lazuli encircling it.

“Good lord.” My knees almost buckled. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I reached out for it, then immediately snatched my hand away as if Chris were holding a snake. “Where did you find it?”

“So this
is
yours,” he said softly.

“Yes. It’s the ring Spence gave me the night he…. What about the other ring? Spence’s ring. The one with a circle of onyx. Did you find it too?”

“No, Tyler. I’m sorry. We only found this one.”

“Where? Where did you find it?” I finally gathered enough courage to take the bag from Chris’s fingers and pull it open. The ring fell out into my palm, and I carefully slid it over my finger. Just as it had the only other time I slipped it on, the ring fit perfectly. Tears filled my eyes as I pressed the ring to my lips. When I turned my attention back to Chris, I saw his eyes had misted over too.

“It was hocked,” he said. “The pawnbroker reported the ring from our list of stolen items we mail out to hockshops every week. It just came in two days ago. Five months after the crime, the perps finally decided to get some money for it. Maybe they thought we wouldn’t be watching as closely now. Who knows what they were thinking. Anyway, you’ve got your ring back.”

I swallowed hard. “Thank you, Chris.”

“You’re welcome.” With a touch as light as feathers, he cupped my chin in his hand and forced my eyes to his. “Remember your promise, Tyler. Don’t test me—” He bit back on the final word he was about to speak.

But I knew what he had meant to say. He had meant to say “Don’t test me—again.”

Apologizing for the wasted beer, he retrieved the videotape from the VCR, dropped it back in the paper bag, and stepped to the front door.

“Kiss me good night,” he said from across the room.

I raced across the floor and took him once more into my arms. He pressed his strong hands to the sides of my face and held me firmly as he laid his soft lips over mine. He held the kiss until my hunger for him was whetted. Then he pulled away.

The ring felt odd on my finger. Cold. Impersonal. Heavy. It was a stranger to me now. It felt… wrong.

The man in my arms felt exactly right.

“I love you, Chris,” I said. “I want you to know that now.”

Again, his eyes opened wide as he let my words wash over him. He clutched the front of his shirt as if stilling his beating heart. “I love you too,” he said slowly. “Don’t ever think I don’t.” And stepping away, he walked out into the night, closing the door between us.

I stood in my empty house and wondered if I had lost him forever. Then I thought of the videotape and wondered what else I might have lost.

Lineup

C
HRIS
LET
me stew in my own fears for two days, and then in the afternoon of the second day, my phone rang. After a hurried conversation that did nothing to ease my fears, I found myself once again at police headquarters in the butt-ugly pea green room with the ratty table and chairs and the gigantic two-way mirror on the wall. Just like last time, the stenographer followed me in and set up her tape recorder. She then positioned herself at the table with her steno pad in front of her.

When she was settled, she nodded to me. Perhaps she remembered me from the time before. Or perhaps she was just being polite.

I motioned to the paper and pen in front of her. “Low tech,” I said.

She smiled and gave a tiny shrug, then focused her attention on the blacked-out mirror on the wall. She looked bored.

We waited in silence until Chris entered the room. I hadn’t seen him since the night he brought the security tape to the house. I opened my mouth to say hello, then slapped it shut. He stood before me with a black eye and one ear covered with gauze. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and scabbed over. He constantly flexed them as if they hurt. On closer inspection, I saw that the white part of his damaged eye was bright red. A blood vessel must have burst. Either that or he had scratched the surface of his eye.

“My God,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry,” he said quickly, his eyes darting to the stenographer, then back to me. “I’m fine. Just a little run-in with one of your perps.” Then he backtracked. “At least, I think it was one of your perps. That’s what you’re here to tell me. Are you ready?”

He reached out and laid his uninjured hand over the light switch. The moment I nodded, letting him know I was ready, he flicked off the overhead light. Immediately afterward, the two-way mirror came alive.

Once again, there were six suspects standing against the wall.

I stepped closer to the mirror, and when I did, Chris approached the mirror with me. Our shoulders touched. He whispered into my ear, “Don’t rush, Tyler. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

I could barely hear Chris’s words, for the moment the lights went on in the lineup room, my pulse began thundering inside my head. My vision narrowed to a single beam of sight that encompassed absolutely nothing but the man standing second from the left in the lineup.

The fat man. The fat man with the horrific mole on his cheek.

I reached out in the darkness and squeezed Chris’s hand. Luckily, I grabbed the uninjured one.

“Wait,” he hissed. “Take your time.”

The first man in the lineup stepped forward. If I hadn’t been so strung out, I would have laughed. He was so obviously a cop he might as well have been wearing a badge.

“Enough of this shit,” the man recited tonelessly. “Let’s kill these fuckers.”

As the first man stepped back to the wall, I heard someone out of my line of vision urge the second man forward. The fat man.

He slouched three steps away from the wall and stood there glaring belligerently into the two-way mirror. His fingers were nervously plucking at his trouser legs. It was the only display of unease he demonstrated, but it didn’t matter. Not to me. I had ID’d the fucker the moment the lights went on in the room.

“Say the words,” someone said, and the fat man turned his head to glare at the speaker. Then he turned back to the mirror. His hand came up to touch the mole on his cheek, as if for comfort. Only then did I notice scabs on his knuckles and a Band-Aid on his forearm.

I looked at Chris’s injuries, then back to the fat man. Chris gazed stoically forward, not giving me any cause to ID the man for any reason other than my own memory.

The fat man had a faint Mexican accent. His eyes were at half-mast all the time he spoke, as if to prove how unmoved he was by the proceedings.

“Enough of this shit,” he grumbled. “Let’s kill these fuckers.” Then he winked at the mirror, an action obviously directed at the person trying to ID him. When he stepped back to the wall, he had a smirk on his face as if he believed he’d won that round.

Before the third man could step forward, I tugged on Chris’s sleeve with trembling fingers. “That’s the one who held Franklin’s leash. I recognize his face. I got a good look at it when he flicked the cigarette lighter.”

Chris snapped his fingers at the stenographer seated behind us, but I already heard the tape recorder whirring and the scratching of her pen on paper.