Steven Thomas - Criminal Carma

“When will I see you again?” he asked at the door.

“It may be a while.”

“Ma’a salaame,” he said. Go in peace.

“Allay salmak,” I said. May God keep you safe.

Back at the car, Mary and Reggie were swapping stories about where their alcoholic mothers hid the bottle.

“Whud we clear?” Reggie asked causally, playing it cool in front of the pretty girl.

“A hundred and forty grand after expenses.”

“Holy cow!” Mary said, snuggling up to me and making a purring sound in my ear that sent shivers down my spine.

“That the gold, too?” Reggie asked.

“That’s everything but the bonds.”

“Not too shabby for a night’s work,” he said, as if six-figure jobs were run-of-the-mill for him.

Mary turned her head slightly so that Reggie couldn’t see and rolled her eyes.

I laughed and hugged her, then reached back and gave Reggie a solid punch on the shoulder.

“It’s the best fucking score either one of us has ever made by a long shot,” I said. “You did great.”

Reggie shrugged. “What now?”

“I have one stop to make, then we’re in the wind,” I said. “We’ll leave the car here and take the Surfliner to San Diego. We can pick up some wheels there and cross the border at Tecate.”

“Let’s swing by Chavi’s, too,” Reggie said. “She’ll worry if we just disappear.”

“You got it, brother. Anything you need to do, Mary?”

“I’m ready to ride, sweetie.”

A promising double entendre, if ever there was one.

I drove south to the canal district and pulled up in front of Evelyn’s bungalow. She would have to get someone else to fix it up if she stayed.

“Who lives here?” Reggie asked, mystified.

“Evermore,” I said. “You’ve been here before.”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Whadaya want with her?”

“I’m going to give her Christina’s diary,” I said. “And there is something I have to tell her.”

Evelyn answered the door the instant I knocked, same as she had on my earlier visit, as if she spent her time poised at the threshold of her empty house, waiting for someone to arrive and fill it with life and meaning. She looked like she had been crying.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I have something for you. What’s wrong?”

“Baba called me.” Grabbing my arm, she pulled me inside, shutting the door behind us.

When we came back out a little while later, new hope was twisted tightly with old fear in her expression.

Reggie got out of the car as we came down the walk.

“Everything all right?” he asked, glancing around the neighborhood to see if a trap was about to be sprung. “What took so long?”

I opened the back curbside door of the Seville and Evelyn got in.

“What the hell is going on?” Reggie said after I closed the door. “Are we kidnapping her? What’s she boo-hooing about?”

“Baba Raba took Ozone Pacific hostage.”

“Why? What’s he want with him?”

“He’s trying to collect a ransom. He wants the necklace, or a hundred and fifty thousand bucks.”

“Yer not going to give him the moolah, are you?” Reggie asked, horrified.

“No, but I am going to make sure he doesn’t hurt that kid.”

“Fuck that,” Reggie said. “Play Dudley Do-Right on your own time. What’s a homeless kid to us-or to her?”

“Oz is Evelyn’s grandson.”

“Her grandson?” His brown eyes went flat as he looked inward, thinking hard, then got bright as he glared at me. “So what? How’s that our problem?”

“Baba told her we stole the necklace.”

Reggie stiffened, hearing the clank of cell door in his skull. I nodded. “He has some evidence, too. But Evelyn will let us keep the necklace if we get the kid back and she’ll do what she can to stop the police investigation. If she and her lawyer don’t cooperate, the cops will be hamstrung.”

Baba had seen Evelyn and me talking at the ashram on Sunday. Grasping at straws after I got away, he came up with the idea that she might have hired me to steal the necklace so that she wouldn’t have to live up to her agreement with him. When he called, he told her that he had found her grandson but that if she didn’t turn over the jewels or $150,000 in cash or securities by five that afternoon when he was scheduled to meet Discenza at the appraiser’s, the boy would be lost to her forever.

Evelyn didn’t believe him at first, but he used his powers of persuasion to convince her, claiming he had DNA evidence proving Ozone Pacific was her grandson. He also told her that he knew exactly where Christina was and would give her the girl’s location as soon as the real estate deal closed. Evelyn told him she didn’t know anything about the necklace being stolen but that she would get the money if he swore to reunite her with Kelly and tell her where her daughter was. She tried to call Hildebrand for advice and help in getting the funds together, but his office was in an uproar and she couldn’t reach him.

When I showed up and admitted that I was, in fact, a burglar and not a contractor, Evelyn’s confusion whirled faster, but then gradually subsided. I convinced her that I was on her side and wanted to help her. She was too desperate to bother about moral judgments. When I showed her Christina’s diary, she saw that Baba had been lying to her all along.

I told her about Ganesha’s murder and confirmed that Baba was telling the truth about Ozone. I also made it clear that he could not be trusted to return the boy. Even if she had been able to raise the money on such short notice, even if I was willing to use the money in the briefcase, I didn’t think it would get him back. Baba was going off his rocker, resorting all at once to murder and kidnapping. There was no telling what he might do-kill Oz to keep him quiet about the snatch, or hang on to him so that he could extort more money from Evelyn, or use the threat of harming the boy to keep her from going to the cops.

With me coaching her, Evelyn called the guru and told him that she would be at the ashram with the cash by four-thirty. She swore that she hadn’t told anyone else about the meeting and that she didn’t care about the money, only her grandson and daughter.

“Don’t hurt him, Baba,” she said. “I know you need the money for your work, and it’s worth it to me to get Kelly and Christina back.”

I hoped the phone call would be enough to put him off guard.

“We’re going to help her, aren’t we?” Mary said when Reggie and I got back in the car. In her eyes I could see our future together hanging in the balance. If I had been undecided about what to do, her attitude would have tipped the scale.

“Of course we are.”

It was 3:35 when I sparked the Northstar engine. My instinct was to charge. Go straight at the ashram, where I believed Oz was being held and take Baba by surprise while he waited complacently for Evelyn to deliver. We’d rescue the boy, find out if Baba really knew where Christina was, and then leave him incapacitated for Discenza to deal with.

“Stop by the flop,” Reggie said grimly after I explained the plan. “I got a piece there.”

“What’s wrong with Baba’s gun?”

Reggie shook his head. “Um used to mine.”

“You live in this dump?” Mary said when we pulled up in the alley.

“Not anymore,” I said. “Slide over here behind the wheel. I’m going in with Reggie. If any shit goes down, take Evelyn back to the hotel and wait for us there.”

The back door was unlocked and we went in through the kitchen, slow and careful. I had the Tomcat in my hand. As we crossed the living room toward the stairs, Budge came rushing down the hallway from his room.