Broken (2 page)

His lips tightened. “I know you’re making fun of me, but
she has done this kind of thing before.”

“Fair enough. Then why are you so concerned about it
this time?”

He sighed. “Ordinarily she’d call me to make threats.
Tell me I’ll never see my daughter again, that kind of thing. This time, not a
word.”

I poured myself another drink, wondering what my limit
on mimosas was. Then I remembered I didn’t believe in limits. “And what if I
said I don’t believe you?” I asked. “What if I said it’s far more likely that
you’re an abusive criminal thug and you want me to track her down because she’s
hiding from you and you can’t find her?”

“I’d say Dan Evans never would have given me your name
if that was even a possibility,” he replied.

I had to admit, he made a pretty good point. Dan was as
upstanding a guy as you could find. He’d never have helped Davies if he thought
he was hurting his wife or the child. He’d have slapped handcuffs on him and
dragged him off to a holding cell.

“All right,” I said. “So what is it you’re asking me to
do here? Find her and tell her to come home?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Find them and confirm they’re
safe. That’s all. Then report back to me.”

“Oh, so you can send your goons to go get her?” Davies
cocked his head at me like a confused dog. “I’m going to keep saying
goons
,”
I told him. “I like the way it sounds.”

“You don’t need to tell me where they are if you don’t
think it’s appropriate,” Davies said. “My wife will come home when she’s ready.
I just want you to confirm that they’re safe. And the reason I don’t send my…
goons
…is
because I’m trying not to escalate things with her. Believe it or not, I’m the
good guy here.”

“Yeah, you seem like a pretty reasonable guy,” I said.

“Thank you. I…” he peered at me. “You didn’t mean that,
did you?”

“No,” I said.

He let out a long sigh. I tended to have that effect on
people. “Will you help me?”

I considered it. Something wasn’t sitting right with me.
“Why don’t you hire a private detective if you don’t want to use your own
people?”

Emerson cleared his throat loudly. Davies gave him an
annoyed glance, then looked back at me. “He’s fun,” I said to Davies. “Chandler
Emerson. Did you go through the phone book and pick the lawyer with the most
pretentious name? You had to figure he was good, with a name like that.”

“Chandler is an excellent attorney,” Davies said. “But
despite his advice, I don’t trust private detectives.”

“Why not?”

“They’re motivated by money.”

“
I’m
motivated by money,” I said. “Money got me
up here, not the chance to ride in a Lincoln, as exciting as that may have been.”

“But you are motivated by…” he looked at me carefully
and I could see that he was debating with himself whether he should cross a
line. “My daughter is a ten-year-old girl. She may be in danger. Will you help
her?”

My hand tightened around my champagne glass and for a
moment I thought I might accidentally break it. I sat it down slowly on the
table and removed my hand, trying to keep it from trembling. This time the shaking
wasn’t a symptom of withdrawal.

I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was
no way I was going to let Davies see me lose control. “Dan told you to say
that, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Davies admitted. He looked almost ashamed of
himself.

I nodded. That would have been the only possible reason
Davies would have known to say that. Dan had given him one of my triggers.

Dan would be getting a visit from me today. He wasn’t
going to enjoy it.

“I’ll find your family,” I said. “I won’t tell you where
they are if they don’t want to be found.”

“That’s fi…” he began.

“No,” I interrupted. “I’m going to check you out. If I
even get a hint that you’re lying to me, we’re done, and you have a new enemy.”

“I under…”

“No!” I interrupted again. “You
don’t
. You don’t know
what that means. You’re used to intimidating people. You’re a big guy and in
your little gangster world I’ll bet you’re pretty scary.” I leaned forward and
pointed at him. “You don’t ever want to imagine that I’m afraid of you. After
what I’ve gone up against, you’re a…you’re a fucking
pedestrian
. Do you
understand me? I don’t give a shit about you.”

That had been more words then I’d spoken all at once in
weeks. I was a little bit proud of myself.

Davies looked uncertain of what to say to that. He bit his
lip. “I don’t think anyone has ever spoken to me that way,” he said.

I shrugged. I could already see that he wasn’t going to
make a move on me. I almost wished he would. I’d never get out of here alive,
not in my condition, not surrounded by so many men with guns, but that didn’t
bother me. I’d been living with death for a long time. This was as good a day
as any.

“I accept your terms,” Davies said. “Find my family and
do whatever you think is appropriate with the information.”

“Fine,” I said. “Money.”

He motioned to the briefcase next to the table. “Ten
thousand dollars.”

“That bought you a conversation,” I told him. “That’s
all.”

Chandler Emerson took a step forward to protest but
Davies held up a hand and he stopped in his tracks. “Five more,” Davies said.

“Fifteen,” I said. “No, twenty. Make it thirty thousand
all together.”

“Thirty thousand dollars?” Davies asked, eyes wide.

“It’s nothing to you,” I said. “Look at what you spent
on that thing you call a house.”

Emerson looked like he was about to have a seizure, but
Davies hesitated only a fraction of a second. “Done. Thirty thousand.”

That had been easy. I should have asked for fifty. But I
had no right to complain. Thirty thousand dollars would keep the bill
collectors off my back for a very long time. Probably longer than I’d live,
given the questionable state of my health these days.

“I’ll need information,” I said. “Legal name, her
address in La Jolla, names of friends. Whatever you can tell me.”

“Chandler has prepared a dossier for you.” I snickered.
“What?” Davies asked.

“
Dossier
.”

“It’s a word,” Davies said. “People say it.”

“When they’re telling James Bond where to go, sure they
do.”

“Fine,” he said. “We have some
papers
for you to
look at.”

“That’ll work.”

“How long do you think it will take you to find
anything?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “I was a homicide
detective. I’ve never done a missing persons case.”

“So…” Davies raised his eyebrows hopefully. “A few
days?”

“Maybe. I’ll call you.”

“Please let me know the minute you have something.” He
reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a business card. “That number will
work for the rest of the week,” he said, handing it to me.

I looked at the card. It had a handwritten telephone
number on it, and nothing else. I recognized the area code. “That’s a cell
phone in New Jersey,” I said.

“The rest of the week,” he repeated, patting a small
bulge in his shirt pocket where I assumed the corresponding cell phone was
tucked away. They were using disposable phones, of course. Probably picked them
up in a 7-11, used them for a few days, and then tossed them into the ocean.
But shipping them across the country first? That was a new one for me.

“Todd will drive you home,” Davies said. “Can I assume
you’ll start right away?”

“Todd?” I asked.

He nodded at the chauffeur who had driven me up here.
The other man was now standing on the grass a few yards to my right. I hadn’t
seen him approaching. Booze really had dulled my senses. In the old days, when
I was on my game, he’d never have gotten within twenty yards of me without my
knowing about it.

I stood up and took the briefcase from next to the
table. It felt nice and heavy. Later I’d have to take the cash out and look at
it. I had no idea what ten thousand dollars looked like. Maybe I’d throw the
bills up in the air and make it rain. “Home first,” I said, “then I have to
make another stop.”

“He can take you to La Jolla to have a look at her
condo, if you like?”

“No,” I said. “I have to go see an old friend first”

“Who’s that?”

I looked at Davies, my expression hard. “Oh,” he said,
nodding. “Well, tell Dan I said thanks for his help.”

“I’m going to tell him a lot of things,” I said. “I’m
pretty sure ‘thanks’ isn’t going to be one of them.”

Chapter 3

I resolved
to stay awake and pay attention to the route we were taking as Todd drove me
away from Davies’s estate. It was reasonable to assume that I’d need to come
back here at some point. Not that I expected to be invited over to any gangster
parties, but you never knew what was going to happen.

“Nevada
James,” Todd said.

I
glanced up at him. He was staring straight ahead at the road. Had he meant to
say that out loud?

“What?”

“That’s
a funny name.”

“My
parents were hippies.”

“Oh.”

I looked
at the thin manila file folder Emerson had presented me with before I’d gotten
into the car. I hadn’t bothered to open it yet, but the name HEATHER DAVIES was
written across the front in thick black pen. I didn’t know what constituted a
dossier
these days, but I imagined I wouldn’t find much more than the same information
you’d get off of a driver’s license. The folder wasn’t thick enough to hold
much else.

We
turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway and I looked out at the ocean for a few
minutes as we drove south. I could make out people wading in the water near the
shore, and farther out a few surfers were trying their luck. San Diego wasn’t
known for great waves, but people did get lucky now and then.

I looked
back at Todd. He was still staring ahead at the road, eyes fixed as if he
expected it to disappear at any moment. “Nice day,” he said.

That was
Todd’s second attempt at small talk, but his knuckles were white on the
steering wheel and he hadn’t turned his head or looked at me in the mirror
either time he’d spoken. Why was he nervous? Either he was working up the nerve
to ask me out, or…

“Any
idea where I should start looking for her, Todd?”

“For
Heather?”

For
Heather
.
Not for Mrs. Davies. That was what I’d thought. “I’d love to know what you
think about all of this,” I said.

“Ma’am?”
Now he
was
looking at me in the rearview mirror, but that wasn’t
curiosity I saw in his eyes. He knew he’d screwed up, but I doubted he knew
exactly how.

“You
guys were pretty close. What do you think is going on?”

“Close,
ma’am?”

“You
were sleeping with her. That seems pretty close to me.”

“I
wasn’t…”

“Where’s
that number your boss gave me?” I asked, pretending to search my pockets. “I
better call him.”

Todd
jerked the steering wheel to the right and we skidded to an abrupt stop on the
side of the road. The first two cars to pass by us honked angrily. I watched
Todd, trying to conceal my amusement. He was breathing hard now and his eyes
were frantic. “You can’t tell him. Please!”

“Tell me
what’s going on, Todd.”

“Promise
you won’t tell him first. He’ll kill me if he finds out.”

I
suppressed a sigh. This was going to be far too easy. At this rate I’d be
collecting my fee and buying myself a magnum of something cold and dry by the
end of the day. “I really couldn’t give a shit, Todd. Tell me the truth and
he’ll never hear about it from me.”

Todd
sounded like he was about to hyperventilate. I waited for him to get himself
back under control. I suppose I could have been more reassuring, but that had
never been one of my strong points.

When he
got his breathing under control Todd said, “We were just screwing around, you
know?”

“Sure I
do.”

“She’s…well,
she’s fucking
hot
, you know? And she wanted it. I knew it was a bad
idea, but…”

“You
couldn’t help yourself?”

“Yeah.
And even if I’d said no, Heather is pretty aggressive. She’s used to getting
what she wants.”

“Women,”
I nodded. “I hear ya, Todd. Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“You two
aren’t running away together?”

“No.”

“I don’t
care, don’t get me wrong. But if I find you two shacked up in a motel room
together after we’ve just had this conversation, I’m going to be pretty pissed,
Todd. You don’t want me to be pissed, do you?”

“I swear
I have no idea where she is!”

I
watched him sweat for a minute. “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Over a
month ago.”

I
thought it over. “She broke it off with you?”

“Yeah.
It was just a fling, you know? We weren’t a couple.”

“How did
you feel about that?”

“Not
great, but what was I going to do? Argue with her? She told me it was over, and
if I made trouble for her, she’d tell her husband about it.”

“And
then you’d be sleeping with the fishes.”

He
looked at me in the mirror, confused. “What?”

“Sleeping
with the fishes. What, you’ve never heard that one before?”

“Once.
On television. I never heard anyone say it in real life.”

“Next
you’ll be telling me you never heard anyone say
goons
, either.”

He
frowned. “I haven’t.”

“It was
rhetorical, Todd.”

“Okay.”

I had
the idea Todd really didn’t want me to ask him what
rhetorical
meant.
“Do you have any idea where she’d go? A friend? A favorite vacation spot. A
hotel?” Maybe Davies had been right and she was holed up in a resort somewhere,
sipping margaritas and working on her tan.

Todd
shook his head. “No. I don’t think she has any real friends. Her parents are
dead, as far as I know. She was a dancer when she met the boss, but I don’t
think she kept in touch with any of those people.”

I
sighed. Maybe I wouldn’t be buying that magnum tonight, after all. It could
wait. “Fine,” I said. “Drive.”

Todd
looked back at me. “You won’t say anything, will you?”

“No,” I
said. “Not unless I find out you lied to me.”

“I
didn’t lie.”

“Then
you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Todd put
the car back in gear and we pulled up outside my house twenty minutes later. It
wasn’t my house, strictly speaking. I’d been renting it from an elderly couple
in La Mesa since back when I’d been a police officer. I had no idea how far
behind on the rent I was, but they’d never exercised their right to kick me out
to the street. I imagined they must have felt sorry for me after watching me go
from the SDPD’s bright star to the train wreck I was now. And there was the
fact that I’d helped them out, years ago, when their teenage delinquent son had
gotten into some very serious trouble with some very serious people. They
probably felt the need to go easy on me. Even so, I owed them a great deal of
money and I intended to pay it very soon. I was sure they wouldn’t mind taking
the back rent in cash, and maybe I’d give them a few months extra in advance. I
could afford it now.

I told
Todd to wait for me and went inside to hide the briefcase of cash under my bed.
That wasn’t going to be enough to stop a determined thief, but any thief who
had the stomach to make it past the smell in my living room without fainting
deserved whatever he could find.

Todd had
kept the car running and seemed to have calmed down considerably when I got
back inside. “Where to?”

“Police
headquarters,” I said. “You know where it is?”

“Sure,”
he nodded.

“Yeah,
of course you do.” I imagined that given his line of work, he had almost
certainly been there before.

SDPD
headquarters was fifteen minutes away, in a building that looked like that
Tetris block you don’t want to get because it never fits in anywhere. It took
up most of the city block on Broadway between 14
^th
and 15
^th
Avenues downtown, just a stone’s throw from where I-5 snaked through the city.

Todd
parallel parked in front of the building. “Here we are.”

“Wait
for me,” I said.

“I’m not
a taxi,” he complained. “I have things to…”

“What’s
that?” I cupped my hand to my ear. “Did you say I don’t need to be discreet
anymore about that affair you had with Alan Davies’s wife?”

Todd
grunted. “Nothing.”

“Damn
right, nothing.”

I
stepped out of the car and took a good look at the building where I’d spent my
entire adult career. How long had it been since I’d been back here? It had been
three years since the Laughing Man. Two and a half since I’d gotten out of the
hospital. And then I’d been back on the force just long enough to demonstrate I
was too unstable to be a cop anymore. Two years, maybe, since they’d shown me
the door for good.

It had
been a long time, I thought. Two years ago I’d sworn I’d never set foot inside
this building again. But as I looked at the building now, I had to admit a tiny
part of me missed it. Wasn’t this just a little bit like coming home after a
long absence?

Maybe.

Then I
leaned forward and vomited on the sidewalk.