Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

5:24 PM

I am absolutely prepared and organized and ready to tell you my story.

5:26 pm

I am San Diego — based and can meet at any reasonable time and place. We need privacy and quiet. Setting is not important as we will not be final taping. I will shoot some video on phone for Nell. DO NOT bring any person, as distractions ruin auditions. DO bring your A-game.

Five minutes went by, then ten more. Big rigs rolling in and out, people walking their dogs to and from the “pet stop.” I browsed through the pictures Daphne had given me. The family struck me as oddly ordinary, given the immense fortune that Rex Hickman had inherited and multiplied. Clay looked just as I’d been told and seen in other photos: sickly when young, then growing healthier and stronger through the years.

I checked my watch and I figured I’d lost him again. I thought my impersonation of a story editor was pretty good, but Clay was smart, borderline paranoid, and still coming off his meds. But no. My notifications bell chimed and the skies parted, a great light shone from above, and I read:

5:48 PM

A-game ready, David. Room 14, Harbor Palms Motel, Oceanside, 7 PM

I was right about my luck. After a week of near misses, of violence on the Hickman estate, and the murder of John Vazquez, I was now one hour and twelve minutes away from locating my missing person.

The only catch was, I didn’t know what I was going to do after I’d let him tell his story.

I could shake his hand and walk out, call Briggs Spencer, find a safe place to watch the action, and never show my face. What might that action be? In my mind’s eye I saw DeMaris knocking on the door of room 14, Donald Tice standing by with a tranquilizer gun, and the guys from the Range Rover and Charger ready for shock and awe. And of course Spencer himself, well back in the shadows, enjoying the capture.

I thought of DeMaris, ordering me to call him first when I located Clay. Why?

And Paige Hulet, Clay’s lead psychiatrist, asking me to do likewise. Over and over. Again, why?

I thought of Rex and Patricia Hickman. If I’d heard them right that day, they were perhaps willing to take their son back into their home. Maybe.

Plots in motion. Human engines. Gears within gears.

I’m old-fashioned. I believe in doing the right thing, even if it’s difficult and unprofitable. But what was the right thing? What I came up with, sitting there in my truck in the I-5 rest area, lucky white straw fedora on the seat beside me, was Clay. What was best for Clay would be the right thing.

Returning him to his family seemed both practical and ageless. Brittle as they seemed, who could know better than blood what was best for him? Arcadia was out of the question. Paige Hulet seemed genuinely devoted to making Clay better, but what could she do? Hide him in her spare room? Should I just let Sequoia stash him in her Airstream?

Personally, I had little say in the matter. I’d never known Clay, or laid eyes on him, or even heard of him until seven days ago. And yet Clay Hickman had circled us all around himself — as if he were some beautiful and endangered creature and we were collectors, each wanting to put him into a different zoo.

In the end, this was Clay’s show.

Switching phones, I called Rex Hickman.

“Ford. What do you have for me?”

“Do you want your son back?”

“Of course we do,” said Hickman.

“I’ll tell you what he decides.”

“I expect good news.”

“You’ve had twenty-eight years to earn his trust. I can’t change his mind about you now.”

I heard an amplified scuffle, then Patricia’s voice: “Please bring him home.”

“You’ll hear from me either way.”

I punched off, checked the time. One hour, three minutes. I clicked off Alec DeMaris’s transmitter and set it back in the console.

The Harbor Palms Motel was on the beach side of the Coast Highway, south of the pier. It was 6:55 p.m. and the sun hung low over the horizon, spreading an orange blanket on the town. I drove past cafés, bars, convenience stores, surf shops, two exotic pet shops, a gun store, a bait-and-tackle store. There were plenty of military-specific retailers set up for the Camp Pendleton Marines — barbers, dry cleaners, used car lots, car rentals, new and used furniture — MILITARY WELCOME! Both U-Haul and Penske because the Marines are always on the move.

I passed the motel and found a parking place three blocks down. Pocketed the burner and locked my other phone in the truck-bed toolbox with my gun. Story editors rarely go to meetings armed.

I swung on my coat and headed down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. Strolled past the motel, just another citizen doing who knew what. No sign of Sequoia Blain’s beat-up silver pickup truck. I stopped outside a tae kwon do studio, admired my hat in the window. Watched the children practice their forms. Through the glass I heard the muffled snapping of the gis. I took a hard look up and down PCH. No silver pickup. A deep breath, the kind of breath you take getting off the stool for round one. If Clay had decided to include Sequoia in his audition, and she recognized me and failed to hide it, I would have to talk fast and hope for the best. I reminded myself that Clay Hickman had mental health issues, a mission, and a gun.

I stood straight and knocked firmly. The door opened a few inches, and the dead-bolt chain clunked straight. A vertically cropped face — one blue eye, one hazel — with weak orange lamplight in the background.

“David Wills,” I said.

“Clay Hickman. I’ll open the door.”

The chain rattled away and I stepped in as Clay moved back. Curtains were drawn and the room was dim except the lamplight. I registered his face and the autoloader in the waistband of his jeans. A gun is an ugly thing unless it’s yours. “You don’t need the gun.”

“I’ll decide.”

I held my coat wide open. “Nell hates guns.”

“You’re not Nell.”

He stepped forward and tapped up and down my body with his free hand. Odd light in his eyes. Weird, the sudden closeness to a stranger who has consumed your life for an entire week. Someone you know much better than he knows you. In this small space I felt a jagged energy coming off Clay Hickman.

All in a glance: The motel room was cheap and simple and poorly lit. No Sequoia unless she was under the bed or in the bathroom. Two open suitcases on stands. Bathroom door open. A laptop computer open on a small desk. Desk lamp on. In the down-cone of lamplight, like on a stage, two cloth dolls posed in combat, swords raised. And next to them, two more swordfighter dolls locked in their own separate contest. Behind the desk was a mirror in which I could see the swordfighters and Clay looming above them. He looked no older than in the Arcadia head shots. Twenty-eight years, I thought. Still a young man, and his white forelock made him look boyish. He wore a tight gray T-shirt, the low-slung jeans, and a pair of desert camo combat boots.

“All I have is coffee and soda.”

“All I want is a good story.”

“I watched some Nell shows to see your name. You’re not in the credits.”

“I work for Nell, not the show.”

This seemed to satisfy him. “How long?”

“Two years plus.”

Clay stood lightly — arms relaxed, feet comfortably spread — a light heavyweight ready to hit and move. “Let me see your ID.”

From my wallet I produced my David Wills driver’s license, a very good forgery made by a pro down in Otay Mesa. Wills was a well-rounded individual: criminal defense lawyer, reporter, financial adviser, MLB scout, owner of a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants, trucker, public relations flack, and now story editor.