Backfire

He healed amazingly fast, she’d thought, when she’d tended his wound earlier. The flesh around the wound was pink, and healthy-looking. She hadn’t seen any blood crusted around the stitches. And now Joe was sleeping. He’d sworn to her he could drive. She’d told him he should get rid of that blue Honda he’d lifted in Sausalito. As soon as they were away, he’d told her—best not to leave it at the motel. Well, if he got himself killed because of that stupid car, it was his business. She was driving her own car, bought and paid for in Stockton from a little old man going into a nursing home.

The bell tinkled when Charlene pushed open the door and strolled into the motel office, cash in her hand. Jerol was sitting behind a counter loaded down with piles of brochures for local sights. Joe was spot-on about him—Jerol was playing a computer game, all his attention on some military figures fighting on the screen, its gunshots, loud bangs, and booms punctuated by his grunts and cheers.

Joe’s Beretta was snug against her side, just in case, since you never knew when some snake might up and try to bite you.

She spotted an ancient TV propped up on a portable serving table. It was tuned to a local news channel. The weather report was segueing into the news. The spit dried in her mouth. Her photo appeared on-screen followed by Joe’s. The volume was turned low, but she could hear the newsman talking about Joe. Hurry, get checked out or the moron might look up, see the photos, and call the cops. She moved to stand squarely between the kid and the TV.

“Hey, I was looking at that bad guy on TV.”

Well, that settles that, she thought, feeling the Beretta warm against her palm. No choice now.

She smiled and said, her voice loud to drown out the TV, “Hey, do you have any brochures on Six Flags Discovery Kingdom up in Vallejo? That’s the new name of the place, right? I’m thinking my friend and I would like to check it out tomorrow.”

“Who’s your friend?” Jerol Idling said, his voice impatient. He’d been close to scoring another hundred points and needed only one more good kill, but he’d happened to look up at the TV when she came in and there was a photo of some guy and they were blaring how dangerous he was, how he’d set off the Fairmont fire and murdered some people, and the weird thing was, the man looked familiar. Jerol knew he’d seen him, but where?

Charlene studied his face as she said, “My friend’s name is Joe—” She stalled. What had Joe called himself when he’d checked into this place? Cribbs, that was it. “I’m with Joe Cribbs. He’s in two-seventeen.”

Jerol wanted to see the man’s photo again on the TV, but this woman was standing right in front of him. “Mr. Cribbs didn’t say anything about a friend coming.” His mom hated guests coming in unannounced ever since six college students had snuck into one room to spend the weekend. He’d been only seventeen at the time, but he still remembered the mess they’d made. Not that this old lady was likely to make a mess, not like those beer-guzzling yahoos, but still. “When did you show up?”

Rude little bugger, Charlene thought, leaned toward the kid, showing him a cleavage she’d learned to make by pushing in her elbows and leaning over. She could push them nearly to her tonsils, and there weren’t that many wrinkles. The two truckers in Bakersfield she’d tried it out on were distracted quickly enough. “Last night. So you got any brochures?”

“Yeah, we even got brochures for mud baths in Calistoga if you want. Is Mr. Cribbs feeling better? He looked pretty bad when he checked in yesterday. I mean, he was all hunched over, and I knew he didn’t feel good. Do you know, he looks kind of like—”

Charlene said quickly, “He’s fine, only a flu of some sort.”

“Hey, aren’t you a little old for Mr. Cribbs? I mean, like his mother?”

Well, now, that’s quite enough out of you. Charlene raised her hand and shot him in the face with Xu’s Beretta. As she fired, she jumped back. She didn’t want his blood to splatter on her clothes.

Judge Sherlock’s home

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

Thursday night

Savich punched off his cell. He watched Sean happily playing an NFL video game with his grandmother, who knew squat about football, and he was winning. He wondered if Sean was smart enough to be on the 49ers’ side in the game and not the Redskins’. He leaned down and said quietly to Sherlock, “Cheney said they’re getting about fifty calls an hour on the hotline with sightings of Xu and/or Charlene. The SFPD has provided some manpower to sift through the calls, since the field office hasn’t the staff to do it.”