T Parker - L. A. Outlaws

“Lister, what do you think?” asked Wyte.

Lister wrapped a USB cable around his hand as he looked at the screen. “Your call. But either way, thanks to that locator you can find Jones whenever you want.”

Hood remembered how many cars Allison Murrieta had allegedly stolen-Patmore had it at twenty-two-and doubted if she’d transfer the locator with each newly stolen car so they could keep up with her. No, it was sayonara to the transponder the next time Allison jacked a ride.

Lister set the cable in his briefcase, clicked it shut and with a curt wave walked out of the apartment.

Wyte sat back and watched the screen. “If we bring her in and can’t crack her, she’ll walk. We don’t have prints, we don’t have DNA, we don’t have a witness except her own mother and Hood here.”

“Not exactly,” said Hood. He told them about Suzanne calling herself Allison in talking to Ronette West about Barry Cohen’s diamonds. And about the faceless phone-only Allison who had followed Ronette’s lead back to Melissa and learned everything she could about Barry’s payoff. Then delivered ten grand in cash to Melissa a few days after Miracle Auto Body. He felt that he was betraying Suzanne but he couldn’t let her break the law and get herself killed.

“You think Jones is Allison and she has the diamonds?” asked Marlon.

“Yes.”

Marlon laughed. “Some history teacher, Charlie.”

Hood nodded.

“Look, you did some pretty good detective work, Hood, but what you got is a rope made out of smoke.”

Hood said nothing, looked at Wyte.

“Really?” asked Wyte quietly. “I think Charlie has come up with more than smoke.”

“Can’t you just unscramble the voice on Boyer’s video?” asked Marlon. “Or maybe scramble Jones’s voice the same way as Allison’s, and see if they match? Then we’ll know for sure. No more moms and cokeheads and pissed-off girlfriends and maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If you can’t convince me-the homicide sergeant-how are you going to convince a DA or a jury?”

“I’m working on the voices,” said Wyte. “There’s dozens of scramblers she could have used. Some of them you can buy for six bucks in toy stores. Some of them render a human voice one hundred percent unrecognizable, by any means.”

“Well, if Jones is Murrieta then we got the transponder on her car,” said Marlon. “We can catch her right in the middle of one of her stickups.”

“A good way to get someone shot,” said Wyte.

“Then let her pull the job,” said Marlon. “We’ll have helicopters in the air and we’ll spike-strip her car.”

Wyte seemed to ignore Marlon. But he gave Hood a long look. “You sleeping with her?”

“No, sir.”

Now Marlon stared at Hood. “What? You’re not, are you, Charlie?”

“I just said I wasn’t, sir. I can say it again.”

Marlon looked hard at Wyte. “Where’d that come from?”

Wyte shrugged and very small smile lines ringed his mouth. “Sorry, Charlie. Things get into the air. Must have been just me.”

“ You’re fucking her?” asked Marlon.

Hood didn’t laugh with the other two men, and he stayed seated though he knew he was giving off bad heat. Lying about Suzanne Jones felt something like not filing charges against Lenny Overbrook but in Hamdaniya he had been covering a fellow soldier’s ass and now he was just covering his own.

“None of us is fucking her but Lupercio’s trying to kill her,” Hood said quietly.

“After we’ve got him in custody we can figure Suzanne and Allison Murrieta,” said Wyte. “We’ll have a little time to get it right. Some wiggle room-I like that.”

“I do too,” said Marlon. “Just a laugh, Charlie. Lighten up. We’ll stop this guy.”

Lupercio watched the scenery in the lenses of Suzanne Jones’s sunglasses. She was part of the evening news that was now playing on a large screen behind the Bull. The picture was vibrant and clear and Suzanne Jones’s face was almost as tall as Lupercio’s entire body.

“Marina del Rey,” said Lupercio. “One place I know not to look.”

“Exactly,” said the Bull. “She won’t be hard to keep track of now.”

“Why not?”

The Bull shrugged.

Lupercio was used to having his questions dismissed by the Bull but this gesture seemed particularly brief and disrespectful. After much thought, Lupercio had decided that the Bull had once been a law enforcer, perhaps still was. Little else could explain his arrogance and his abundant information. That the man was also a successful criminal set off no alarms in Lupercio-witness to the disappeared, finder of loved ones’ bodies in the human piles of Puerta del Diablo, brother and son of El Salvador, the Savior.

The Bull sat above Lupercio as usual, surrounded by his aluminum-cased computers and peripherals, the low-voltage bulbs overhead throwing shadows down his face. He rolled his chair across the dais, casters echoing lightly upon the wood. He tapped at a keyboard.

Lupercio turned, and through the windows of the big office he could see the Port of Long Beach, its legions of trucks and trailers tending the immense walls of stacked containers. The sun was still high and the harbor was silver and the great cranes cast black reflections on the water.

“Watch,” said the Bull.

Lupercio turned back and watched the big TV screen split. On the right side of the screen Suzanne Jones’s face froze in all its oversized beauty. On the left side appeared another face of equal size and similar shape. This one had straight black hair and wore a jeweled mask.

“Allison Murrieta,” said Lupercio. He enjoyed her exploits and liked it that she gave some of her money to the poor. She had saved the life of an old man. Lupercio’s wife and daughters were much more interested in Allison stories than in the “reality” shows they watched. Lupercio hoped that the cameras would be there when she died in a hail of bullets.

“What do you see?” asked the Bull.

“What can anyone see behind a mask?”

“Are they the same woman?”

“I don’t know. That is why she wears it.”

“Are they the same woman?”

Now Lupercio shrugged. There was too much in the world that went unseen to speculate on what was not even visible.

“A mask can hide many faces.”

“This only hides one.”

“Jones has the diamonds unless she sold them,” said Lupercio. “If Allison Murrieta also has them, it is not my concern.”

The Bull stared down at him. “I admire your economy of thought.”

“Yes.”

The Bull still stared down at him. “Are you feeling pressure, Lupercio? Because of the attention in the news, your pictures being shown on television, the various law enforcement agencies all focused directly on you, the reward money?”

“I do what I must do to remain unseen.”

The Bull smiled. “You cut your hair.”

Lupercio nodded.

“I find it very entertaining,” said the Bull, “that here in the twenty-first century, some of our deadliest enemies hide from us in caves. And that here, in this huge city, with all of our manpower and technology, all of our vast and fast lines of communication, our most wanted man simply cuts his hair to remain invisible. And our most wanted woman wears a simple mask. And for a time, it works.”

“Few see.”

“True. But then where did they get the drawing of you they showed on TV? Someone not only saw you, but observed you closely. Right down to the hair you had to cut.”

“Her son. The shirt in the drawing I have worn only one time.”

“Why did you let the boy see you?”

“He was my opportunity to search for the diamonds.”