Wild Meat (24 page)

“You think she’s okay?” Amy asked.

“I can never tell. She doesn’t speak. This neighborhood…there are a lot of people like her living on government subsidies, halfway between institutions and the outside world. Social workers make the rounds throughout the week. Lucinda here sits and watches the street all day.”

He went the rest of the way up onto the porch and Amy followed.

The neighbor still didn’t speak, but looked at them as though trying to communicate. She nodded at the overhang above the porch, then pointed up.

Stephen looked at Amy. “I don’t know what it is, but let me go see.”

The doors to both flats were side by side in the middle of the porch. Stephen opened the screen door and reached for the inner door to his apartment, then stopped.

“It’s open,” he said.

“Then don’t go in,” Amy said. She leapt down the three stone steps and took her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll call the police.” She looked at the second-floor windows and saw that someone had just turned off a light in Stephen’s place.

Heavy footsteps were coming down the inside stairs now. Amy had her keychain out in half a second, beeping open the locks on her car. She bolted toward the Buick and shouted for Stephen to follow her.

The screen door banged open and a deep male voice shouted, “Freeze!”

Then Stephen was calling after her, “Amy Amy AMY! Stop!”

She halted halfway to the curb and turned around to see two police officers. One of them, a crew-cut blond, was already aiming a pistol at her. He shouted for her to lie on her stomach, hands over her head. The silent neighbor was just disappearing into the lower apartment.

“Wait, wait, officers,” Stephen said. His own arms were raised in a big ‘V.’ “I live here, and she’s with me.”

Amy had already sunk to one knee when the blond cop lowered the gun. The other one, also crew-cut, but with dark hair, aimed a flashlight in Stephen’s face. “You Stephen Stokes?”

“Yes.”

The beam moved to Amy’s face next. “Your name?”

“Amy Kellet.” She squinted against the bright light.

“You live here too?” The flashlight beam moved away.

“Visiting.”

By the time her eyes recovered, both guns were holstered again, and Stephen was showing his ID.

The blond cop said there had been a report of someone going into his place through a side window.

Amy and Stephen followed the officers back up into the apartment. It was obvious where someone had gotten inside. A window had been broken, and someone had reached through to undo the latch.

The 911 call had come from someone in the next building. The burglar had parked a vehicle on the street with the stereo cranked up and thumping,
presumably trying to mask the sound of the glass breaking. It would have worked, but the neighbor had been on his own roof having a smoke and had heard the glass go. He’d looked over just in time to see someone slipping in through Stephen’s window. Right before the police arrived, the same neighbor had seen someone charge away from the front of Stephen’s building, hunched over and carrying something bulky, but still managing to run. The thumping music had receded down the street.

Books were all over Stephen’s floor, and above the largest pile of them were three empty shelves.

“Computer gone?” one of the police asked, pointing at the bare spot on the desk and the cables that were left behind.

Stephen nodded. “And maybe some of the books, but I can’t tell yet.”

“Was the computer worth much?” the same officer said.

“Not really. It was a couple of years old. It wasn’t worth half as much as the monitor.” He pointed toward a 34-inch flat screen. “Or the printer. I wonder why they didn’t take those instead.”

Amy was beginning to think she knew why someone had taken the computer. The TV was still in the room, and so was the stereo. None of it looked like very expensive stuff, but someone might have gotten a couple of hundred for it. If Stephen’s computer was a few years old, it probably wasn’t worth fifty bucks to people who buy and sell what burglars have to offer.

Stephen walked to the window and look out. “How on earth did he get up here?” he wondered aloud. “Did he bring a ladder along?”

“Burglars can be pretty resourceful,” the blond cop said. “A lot of them are small and light, and they can get in and out of places you wouldn’t think a cat could squeeze through.”

Stephen’s eyes widened and he muttered, “Cats.” He raced over to a door that was already ajar, pushed it open, flipped on a light. Amy followed and saw him drop to the floor, searching under a double bed. One cat was perched on the pillow but fled when it saw her in the doorway. Beyond the bed, on a dresser, she could see an iguana sitting on a mound of clothing. Its eyes were open, but it seemed unperturbed.

Stephen stood up and said, “They’re all here.”

“You have three, right?” Amy asked. She already felt awful about the possibility that she’d lead her pursuers here, although she didn’t know how that could be. She hadn’t told anyone where she was going, not even Rita.

“Yeah, three.”

“Oh, good,” Amy said. “I’d hate to think….” She stopped herself, probably too late, because Stephen and the cops were looking at her now.

The dark-haired, less talkative officer spoke up. “Anything you need to tell us?”

Before she could answer, Stephen said, “Amy, there’s no way this could be connected to the break-in at your place. L.A. is four hundred miles away. And besides….” He turned to the officers. “Burglaries aren’t exactly rare around here, are they?”

The blond cop shook his head. “Not even slightly out of the ordinary. And I meant to tell you a minute ago – you were wondering why they only took your old computer and nothing else? Well, a lot of times they come back to the same place to get what they couldn’t carry before. I mean a
lot
of times. So I’d do something about that window, and maybe see if you can get a burglar alarm or something installed in here. Or you might think about having someone be here at times when you can’t, just so that if the thief does come back, he’ll see that there’s always someone around and hopefully just give up on the place after a while.”

“Thanks,” Stephen said.

The dark blond officer sat and took information, then gave Stephen a copy of the report form and pointed to a line near the top.

“There’s my name, in case you have any questions or if you think of any more information that’ll help us. And there’s the case number. We’ll send someone out to try and take prints. He’ll call you tomorrow to set up a time.” He turned to Amy. “If you just had a break-in, somebody’s probably already explained to you that we can’t always get reliable prints in a situation like this. It’s not like when you’ve got a bloody murder weapon.”

“Thanks,” Amy said.

When both officers were gone, Stephen asked, “Did you tell anyone where you were going? Give anyone my name or number?”

“No. Not even my neighbor. She knew I was going to see you eventually, but I didn’t tell her I was leaving town today. I even erased your number from my regular cell phone, and I know there’s not another bill coming anytime soon. The only place I have your number now is on my new burn phone, and I’ve got that with me. And I didn’t even know your address, because I must have accidently thrown out the packing paper that—” She fell silent.

“What?”

“They found your address at my place.”

Stephen seemed to think about it for a long moment. “But how could they have known you were coming here? And that you would come today?”

“No, Steve. They didn’t come here for me. They came for you. They broke into my place to ambush me, and they found the textbook lying open to a picture of a tarsier. It was sitting open right on top of the packing paper, and they found your address that way. They came here because they think you’re onto them. Just like they think I’m onto them because I reported seeing one of their animals dead on the truck. They think that somehow I went to that logging camp to find out about the trade in this ‘boof’ drug, and now they think you’re working with me.”

Stephen stared blankly at her.

“Don’t you see?” she said. “Why would someone go to all the trouble of breaking into your second-story flat, and then take nothing but an old PC? They wanted you, and they wanted to know what you know. That’s why they took the computer. Now they’re going to look at all your scans of the Baja papers, all your notes and translations, probably all your emails to me…. Shit, Stephen, we’ve got to get you out of here. Pack a bag, get your animals, and let’s go. The cop was right; they’ll be back. But it won’t be for your TV or your printer.” 

“Well, you should definitely go,” he said.

“No,” she practically barked. “Wrong. We should both definitely go. Right away.”

Stephen shook his head. “I think I’ll be okay. If they look at what’s on that computer, they’re going to see that…that I’m just some bookworm who dabbles in old texts. They’ll realize I’m not some kind of government agent, or…or some rival drug dealer.”

“Stephen, they don’t give a shit what you’re interested in. They probably won’t even get around to looking at the files before they come here again. They’re probably two blocks away right now, waiting for the police to leave the neighborhood, and then they’ll come back and shoot you, or smash you with a club, or throw you out your own window. These are killers, Steve. Probably the only reason I’m alive is that they decided to get fancy about it and use one of the animals. They lost control of it and they blew the…the
hit
.”

Stephen finally nodded and said, “Okay. I’ll pack some things, and then we’ll take the cats down last.”

“Now that I think about it, don’t even pack clothes. Just get the cats. I’ll buy you what you need. I got you into this trouble, and I’m going to finance your way to safety. So lets get out of here before we get killed. You got a planner or something with phone numbers of people you need to call?”

He turned to the desk where his PC had been a few hours ago, picked up a slim planner, then tucked it in a pants pocket along with his copy of the police report.

“Where are all your phone bills?” Amy asked. “And all your personal letters? We can’t leave anything that will point these people toward your friends or family.”

Stephen opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of bills, then another drawer full of letters and cards. Amy was already coming back from the kitchen with two cloth shopping bags. “Dump it all in here and sort it out later,” she said. “You sure that’s everything?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get the animals.”

“The cats aren’t too bad about scratching things up, but let me put the iguana in the cardboard carrier, because she’ll definitely poke holes in your car seat.”

“Steve, I promise you, the upholstery doesn’t mean shit to me. It really doesn’t. If I cared about things like that, I would have bought a prettier car.”

She grabbed the long-haired black cat, which didn’t at all appreciate being manhandled by a stranger, and charged downstairs. Stephen followed with the iguana and the Abyssinian, then headed back upstairs for the hyperactive young tabby. Amy fished around among some newspapers on the floor of the back seat, where she’d hidden the Finnish pistol. She found it, then went to the trunk for the ammo clip stashed in the spare tire well.

She loaded the gun, then straightened up and closed the trunk. Stephen was already there, leaning into the back seat, and a smallish hooded figure was coming up behind him.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE  

The
nationally syndicated TV interviewer half twirled in his chair and glanced down at his notes. He wore a medium blue sport coat with no tie, and his upper three shirt buttons were undone.

“Hugh Sanderson,” he began, “you have challenged a family member, who is also your senior within the corporation, to make moral choices regarding the environment. To the shock and delight of many, he has been persuaded. Now you are trying to accomplish the same thing with other corporate leaders, not only in the logging business but in many other industries. Do you really think that enough of them will join you to make a difference?”

Hugh allowed his eyes to flicker away from the interviewer for half a second, indicating contemplation. He appeared vastly calm and comfortable for his first appearance on a national news show. Hands folded on crossed thighs, eyes penetrating but serene, he smiled as if to show a condescending variety of compassion for anyone who didn’t yet get The Message.

He looked good today, despite the physical stresses he’d endured
of late. His tan was smooth and monochrome, really the darkest possible for a fair-skinned man. The cuffs, neck and hem of his off-white flannel shirt flared out just enough to suggest a robe rather than Old Navy casual. As holy men’s garments sometimes do, it hinted at some ancient form of underclothing. Had his eyes been harder, he might have seemed like a Hugh Hefner clone dressed in something that could be easily shed when he summoned his harem. But his expression was far too wise and gentle for that.