Killer Swell (22 page)

Charlie was in exactly the same pose I'd found him in before. He was in the middle of lighting a cigarette when he saw me coming.

He lifted his chin and blew out a huge puff of smoke. “You made it.”

“You told me it was ready.”

He sucked on the cigarette and brought his feet down off the ledge of his cart. “Yeah, sorry about that. Phones are dangerous, though, man. Never know who's listening.”

“Right.”

“Fucking government controls everything,” he said, rummaging around in the drawer of the cart. “You think they don't know exactly what we're doing every minute of the day?” He tossed his ponytail over his shoulder and grinned sideways at me. “'Specially a guy like me.”

“Sure.”

He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged as if I didn't understand and he didn't care either way. He produced a small white envelope from the drawer. “Here it is.”

“What exactly can you tell me, Charlie?” I said, trying to remain patient.

He held the envelope up in his hand, wiggling it as his smile widened, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“I'm gonna pay you based on what you tell me,” I said. “You tell me where that key goes, one-fifty's yours. You tell me nothing, you get nothing.”

He pulled the cigarette from his lips and looked hurt. “Dude, you're Carter's friend. I ain't gonna jack you around. Shit, I was pretty sure I knew where this little girl went when you showed it to me this morning.” He handed over the envelope.

I opened it. It contained the key and a small slip of paper with the number seven scrawled on it. I looked at him.

“Amtrak station,” Charlie said, kicking his toe on the ground. “You know the old depot?”

“Yeah.”

“One of the lockers there,” he said, breathing out the cigarette smoke. “I can't tell you exactly which locker, but it'll be one with a seven in the box number. Seventeen, twenty-seven, one-oh-seven, something like that. Look for an empty lock and that baby'll open it.”

“How do you know it's a seven?” I asked.

“Has to do with the serial number on the key,” he said, then grinned again. “I could tell you how it all works, but then I'd have to kill you.” When I didn't laugh, the grin disappeared. “Hey, man, if it doesn't open a locker there, come back and I'll give you your money back. Like I said, I ain't gonna jack around a friend of Carter's.” He shrugged. “But it's gonna open one.”

I pulled the money from my wallet and handed it to him. “I believe you. Thanks.”

He shoved the money in his pocket and squeezed the cigarette between his fingers. “Anytime.”

As I walked away, I couldn't imagine another time that I might need Charlie's help, but I guessed it wouldn't hurt to be in with a key guy.

The old Santa Fe Depot was downtown, a couple of blocks east of the harbor on Kettner. A Mission-style building with wide arches, built in 1915, it represented the old part of San Diego that seemed to be disappearing with the tremendous growth. It had undergone several renovations and now hosted not only the Amtrak trains that ran the coast, but also the trolley that connected the Mission Valley area with downtown San Diego and the Mexican border.

The station was filled in the early summer evening, primarily with tourists looking to ride out to the stadium or down to Tijuana. The noise of the hustle and bustle echoed off of the hundred-foot ceilings and worn wooden benches.

It took me half an hour of looking before I hit pay dirt. It was the next to last locker bank that I had left to look at. I had looked at seven others in various places in the station, none of them matching the key in my hand.

When I shoved the key in locker fifty-seven, the lock clicked, the key turned, and I opened the small metal door.

A brown paper bag had been squashed into the small, square receptacle, the top of the bag folded and rolled over. I pulled the sack out and nearly dropped it on the floor, its weight surprising me. I gathered the package under my arm and walked over to a nearby bench.

The first thing I saw when I opened the bag was money. Still wrapped in bands. I didn't count it, but I guessed it to be near the half million Costilla had told me he was missing.

A manila envelope was folded in half, slid in next to the stacks of money. I pulled it out and opened it. A piece of yellow legal paper was folded into quarters.

I unfolded it. I saw Kate's name signed in the middle of the page, and I froze. My stomach dropped and the hair on my neck stood at attention. I stared at her name for probably five minutes before I read what was above it:

I read the letter three times, a cold knot settling in my gut. Kate had been afraid of Randall. She'd put it on paper, just in case. She'd taken Costilla's money so she could get the hell away from him and try to rebuild her life.

But the thing that hit me the hardest was that she wanted to leave all of her past behind.

A past that included me.

It could have been Emily telling me that Kate mentioned me on her wedding day. Or perhaps it was Ken's comment about Kate possibly looking for me. Or maybe it was me getting caught up in years of missing Kate and hoping she'd felt the same.

The letter crushed that hope with the force of a hammer to the chin, and it hurt badly.

A person sliding in beside me startled me. So did the gun in my ribs.

Ramon smiled, sitting at my side. “You've found Mr. Costilla's lost package. He will be very grateful.”

Beyond Ramon, I saw the thick-headed man that had driven me to my meeting with Costilla in Tijuana. The outline of a gun under his shirt was well defined.

“You've been following me?” I asked, feeling ridiculously novice.

“Yes,” Ramon said. “From a distance, of course. But, you see, Mr. Costilla, he figured you were the guy to help us. Like he told you.”

I shifted on the bench and felt the gun press harder into my ribs.

Ramon nodded at the letter. “May I?”

I handed it to him. He read it quickly, then handed it back. “I guess I will only need the bag, unless there is anything else in there you need.”

I shook my head. I didn't want to give up the money, but I knew the letter was more important. I wasn't going to lose another battle with Ramon and his friend.

I felt the gun pull away from my body.

Ramon reached for the bag and slid his gun down to the bench between our bodies so it was hidden. “Mr. Costilla is grateful. He hopes that there are no hard feelings.”

I looked at Ramon. “He didn't kill her, did he?”

Ramon shook his head sadly. “No, he did not, Mr. Braddock. He told you that. I can see why you wouldn't believe him. But he didn't.” He nodded at me. “Good-bye.” He tucked the bag under his arm, and he and the other guy disappeared out the door.

I sat there, my mind reeling. I heard a ringing in the distance as I stared at Kate's letter in my hands. I looked at the words, not reading them, but wondering how things had gotten so bad for her.

The ringing intensified, and I looked up from the letter, irritated that some idiot didn't realize his cell phone was ringing.

Then I realized I was the idiot.

I stuck the letter in my pocket and pulled out the phone. “Yeah?”

“We've gotta talk,” Randall Tower said.

I stood up, gripping the phone tighter. “Fucking right we do.”

“I need to talk to you,” he said, and I realized he was drunk.

“Where are you?” I asked, heading for the door. “Because I'm coming.”

“Meet me at the gliderport,” he said, his words running together. “We can fly away together.”

I hung up the phone and sprinted to my car.

As I weaved in and out of the evening traffic on I-5, I called Liz on my cell.

“Guess what I found?” I said, when she picked up.

“What?”

I told her about the money and the note.

“Do you have it with you?” she asked.

“The note, yeah. The money, no.”

“Where's the money? In the locker?”

“No, Ramon has it.”

“Who the hell is Ramon?”

“Costilla's sidekick.”

“Shit.”

I passed a slow-moving van on the right as I flew past Old Town and Presidio Park. “I know. Nothing I could do, though. But you need to see the note.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “There's something else you should know though.”

“What?”

“Charlotte Truman's dead.”

My chest tightened. “What? How?”

“Not sure. After you talked to her, I called a friend in LAPD and asked him to notify me if her name popped up in anything unusual. He just called. They found her in her hotel room.” She paused. “A witness got a license plate leaving the hotel in a hurry.”

“They run it?”

“Yeah, it was rented out of Lindbergh Field. By Randall Tower.”

It was like I saw the punch coming but didn't bother ducking. “What a fucking surprise that is.”

“Agreed. Where are you right now?”

“On the five, the La Jolla Parkway exit,” I said, trying to block Charlotte's face from my mind.

“You going to see Carter?”

“No, I'm going to talk to Randall.”

The line buzzed for a moment, and I knew she wasn't happy. “This isn't for you to handle.”

“The fuck it isn't,” I said. “I just got off the phone with the asshole.”

“What? Why?”

“I don't know. He called me, said we had to meet. And I agreed.”

“You need to wait for me. Or Wellton,” she said. “He was on his way to Westwood to meet with the LA guys about Truman. I can call him on his cell.”

“Randall called me, Liz,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tighter. “I'm going to see him. And I'm not waiting. Come if you want, I don't care. But I'm not waiting.”

“Where are you meeting?” she asked, the aggravation clear in her voice.

“He says he's up at the gliderport.”

“Noah, don't do anything until one of us gets there. You got it.”

“Bye,” I said and clicked off the phone.

It rang again five seconds later. I figured it was Liz again, but the caller ID on the phone showed a number I didn't recognize. I punched the button. “Hello?”

“Dude,” Carter said. “I'm starving. Where's my dinner?”

“Carter, I'm busy right now,” I said, swinging the Blazer over into the far right lane. “I can't.”

“What's going on?”

I told him what I'd found, what Liz found, and where I was headed.

“Wait for Liz,” he said. “If you tear him up, there's gonna be nothing she can do.”

“The letter's good enough,” I said.

“No, it's not,” he said. “It doesn't mean shit. Doesn't mean he killed her.”

“She was afraid of him, Carter,” I yelled into the phone. “She was hiding the money. Charlotte Truman is dead. Ramon told me again that they didn't kill Kate. I believe him.”

“You believe Costilla's thug? Come on. You're not thinking, Noah.”

I fired the phone at the passenger door. I took the La Jolla Village Drive exit and headed toward the Torrey Pines gliderport to find Randall Tower.