If Angels Fall (5 page)

“FBI?”

“On their way. Tom, do you think it’s connected to Donner?”

“Wallace is dead, Molly.”

“Copycat, maybe?”

“Who knows? Call you later.”

Reed and Wong shouldered their way to the tape, where a cop lifted
it, directing them to a police an in the distance where reporters were
clustered around an officer. On the way there, Reed nudged Wong. Across the
street, a pony-tailed woman in her thirties, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt,
stepped out of Roman’s Tub & Shower Boutique. An ID card was clipped to her
waist, and she was instructing an officer, pointing somewhere, as they hurried
away together.

“Let’s go in there,” Reed said.

“What for?”

“A hunch.”

Bells jingled as they entered. Roman’s smelled of jasmine and had an
exquisite Florentine storefront displaying overpriced towels. A slim, tanned
man with bleached hair was sitting at a small table in one corner of the store
with a distraught-looking man. The thin man rose instantly, approaching Reed
and Wong.

“I’m sorry, we are closed,” he said, arms shooing them away.

“Door’s open and there’s no sign,” Reed said. He noticed a woman at
the rear of the store on a telephone. She was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt,
with a laminated ID clipped to her waist. Reed moved quickly. Approaching the
distraught man at the table. His widened eyes were horror-stricken, his short brown
hair messed. He had a long, bloody scrape on one cheek. His clothes were
streaked with black greasy smudges. He was staring at nothing.

“Please, you’ll have to leave,” the thin man said.

“We’re here to speak to Mr. Nathan Becker.”

Bewildered, the distraught man said, “I am Nathan Becker.”

The woman on the phone materialized, and pegging Reed and Wong for
press, inserted herself between them and Becker.

According to her tag, Kim Potter was a volunteer with a victim’s
crisis group. “Leave now. This man isn’t giving any press interviews.”

Wong looked at Reed. They didn’t move. Reed looked around Potter.

“Is this true, Mr. Becker? Does this woman speak for you?”

Becker was silent.

“Please leave now!” Potter raised her voice.

“Mr. Becker, we’re with
The San Francisco Star
. Do you wish
to tell us what happened? I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but I will
respect your answer.”

Nathan Becker rubbed his hand over his face, tears streaming down
his cheeks. “We have to find him. We have to find Danny. Maggie will be
destroyed. He’s all we have.”

“Yes. What happened?” Reed stepped closer.

“Go get Inspector Turgeon,” Potter ordered the clerk. She glared at
Reed, angrily punching numbers into the store phone, shouting into it about “a
press problem.”

Reed would have to hurry.

Trapped alone in his nightmare, Becker began.

“They won’t let me search. It was a man, I saw him for less than a
second. Bearded, white, about six feet, medium build, sandy hair, wearing a
cap. I stopped the train, I ran, it was too late, it happened so fast. I only
looked away for a few seconds. He wandered to one end of the car and ... -- ...
damn it! Why wasn’t I watching him?”

Reed took notes, softly asking questions. Becker was clutching a
wallet-size snapshot of himself with Danny on his shoulders, laughing as
Danny’s mom looked up adoringly. The radiant, white, upper-middle-class,
professional family. Police were going to duplicate the photo. Wong took shots
of it, and of Becker holding it.

“Why would somebody want to take Danny, Mr. Becker?” Reed asked.

Becker didn’t know. His face disappeared into his hands. Wong’s
camera clicked and the store’s entrance bells pealed.

“That’s enough!”

It was the pony-tailed woman who left earlier. Flanked by two
uniformed officers, she faced Reed.

“This interview is over,” she said. The uniforms pulled Reed and
Wong aside and she copied their names into her leather-bound notebook. She had
hard brown eyes. “Tom Reed,” she said. “Why am I not surprised? Pull this stunt
again and you’ll be charged.”

“Ever hear of the constitution?” Reed shot back. Glimpsing her waist
and id. He couldn’t get her name without being rude.

Ignoring Reed, she stepped back to the front.

“Sorry about this, Mr. Becker,” she said.

The bells rang and Sydowski filled the doorway, then walked to the
store’s rear. “Well, well, well, if this isn’t a curse.” He looked at Reed.
“Everything in order...Inspector Turgeon, is it?”

“Turgeon, correct. Yes, all in order.”

“You should have taken Mr. Becker here to Ingleside Station.”

“Mikelson in General wanted him near the scene for now.”

“Yeah. I’ve just spoken with Gord. We’ll be moving Mr. Becker
shortly. Now, if no one objects, I’ll take care of Mr. Reed.” Sydowski clamped
Reed’s arm firmly, escorting him out the rear of the shop. The two patrolmen
followed with Wong.

Alone in the back alley, Sydowski backed Reed against a wall and
winced. His heartburn, the price he paid for eating that dog, was irritating
him. He jabbed his finger into Reed’s chest.

“Just what the hell are you doing?”

“My job.”

“How’d you find Becker?”

“Instinct. How are you anyway?”

“Delirious. See you’re still getting paid to kill trees?”

“Sure, I’ve been promoted. I am now the patron saint of reporters
who trusted their police sources.”

“Thomas. Thomas, ask me if I give two shits,” Sydowski said.
“Listen,
voychik
, you fucked yourself so beautifully you would’ve made a
million as a freak act. I told you to sit on the stuff you had. Didn’t I? I was
doing you a favor, remember that.”

“Still raising little birdies, Walt?”

An unmarked car inched its way up the alley. Sydowski raised his
hand, stopping it at the rear of the store.

“We’re taking Becker home now. The wife collapsed at the news.”

“What have you got?”

“Beats me.”

“C’mon.”

“A kidnapping.”

“Why did they call you to this? You’re Homicide.”

He blinked several times. “What do you think, Tom?”

“Do you think it’s a copycat?”

Sydowski looked away, and swallowed. His Adam’s apple bounced and
his face saddened. “Who knows?” he said, his eyes burning from the hotdog, the
onions. The unknowns. “I have to go.”

Dropping his
last fare
of the day at City College, Willie Hampton sighed at the wheel of his cab and
began humming a tune from
South Pacific
. Old Willie couldn’t restrain
his bliss. In three hours, he would strap his vacation-starved butt into the
seat of an Oahu-bound 747 and leave the driving to the hacks who didn’t look
back. Take me to Pearl and step on it, Willie chuckled. Gonna get me a lei.

Seaman Hampton of the U.S.S.
California
would pay his
respects in person to the boys of the
Arizona
. He would pin on his
Distinguished Service Medal and let them know he never forgot. No, sir. Then,
for three weeks, he would ride at anchor. Willie switched off his radio and was
headed for the shop when he spotted a fare near Balboa Park at San Jose and
Paulding. A curbside.

No dice, pal.

Willie looked again. The guy had a kid, a little girl draped over
his shoulder. Maybe she was sick or something. What the hell? But only if it
was on his way. Maybe keep it off the books.

Willie pulled over.

“Logan and Good.”

That’s Wintergreen. The man didn’t look like a rez of that war zone.
He had dark glasses, was stone faced. The kid was sleeping, long blond hair.
Balloon still tied to her hand. Must’ve come from the park. Okay, it was on his
way.

“Hop in.” Willie reached back, popped a rear door. The man placed
the kid down to sleep, her head in his lap. “Too much fun for your princess
today?” Willie said to his rearview mirror.

“Yes.”

Half a dozen blocks later, two SFPD black-and-whites, with lights
wig-wagging, screamers yelping, roared by Willie in the opposite direction. He
stifled his usual comment on San Francisco’s criminal vermin. His fare had
dropped his head onto the rear dash.

Aww, let ‘em sleep.

Edward Keller was not sleeping. He was praying. Thanking God for His
radiant protection in helping him secure the Angel. All of his devotion,
watching, planning—the chloroform, the wig, balloon—it had worked. Gloriously.

Keller floated with his thoughts back, months back, even though time
was meaningless to him. His mind was floating ... to ...
a watery death
.

He repeated it to himself as if it were an incantation.

It was April.
April, death’s chosen month
.

Standing at the edge of the pier, gazing upon the Pacific. All that
he was, all that he had been, looked back from the still water.

Eyes that haunt my dreams
.

Prolonged severe grief reaction, the doctor had called it.

Keller remembered the doctor staring at him, twisting a rubber band.
“Accept that you cannot change reality, Edward. And understand that at this
institute, those self-admitted take a lower priority. Move on with your life.
Find solace where you can.

Keller had found it.

In his visions.

And out there among the fog-shrouded Farrallon Islands, where his
life ended, and where he would resurrect it. His heart now knew his destiny. It
had been revealed to him.

Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Dominus Deus sabaoth
.

Filling the tanks of the boat, Reimer studied him standing there at
the dock’s edge, clutching the big paper-wrapped package.

Edward.

That was the guy’s name. Reimer couldn’t recall his last name. The
guy looked—what? Late forties, early fifties? Slim? No. Gaunt, really. About
six foot. Could use a haircut and lose that shaggy beard. If Reimer had to be
honest, old Ed there looked bad. Seemed to get worse every year. A shame. One
of the smartest people Reimer had met. Talked about religion, philosophy,
business—when he talked. Sounded like some sort of professor.

But he wasn’t.

Reimer knew what he was. Yes, sir. It was a damn shame about him,
something the old-timers at Half Moon Bay, those that knew, rarely talked
about. Not to Ed’s face anyway. What good does talk do? What’s done is done.
Reimer only wished to hell the guy wouldn’t come to him every time he wanted to
go out there.

“How you making out with that twenty-eight-footer I put you on to?”
Reimer tried not to sound obvious. “She was in pretty good shape when you bought
her. Lapstrake with twin Mercs, wasn’t it?”

Keller nodded.

“Where you got her docked?”

He didn’t answer.

Reimer shrugged, replaced the fuel nozzle on the Shell pump. The
clank-clank
echoed in the morning stillness. The odor of gas wafted from the gas tanks’
openings as he wiped the caps with a rag.

“All set,” Reimer said.

Keller stepped into the boat, clutching his package. Reimer untied
the lines, climbed behind the wheel, adjusted his grease stained ballcap,
scratched his stubble, and surveyed the Pacific. Fine morning. Fog was light.
Season would begin soon.

“The usual place?” Reimer said.

Keller nodded and placed two one-hundred-dollar bills in Reimer’s
hand. It wasn’t necessary, Reimer had told him. But why argue? What good would
it do? He turned the ignition key. The motor rumbled and he eased the throttle
forward, leaving a white foamy wake to lap against the dock.

San Francisco’s skyline stretched across the starboard side, the
spires of the Golden Gate jutting majestically through a blanket of fog as they
made their way to the Farallons. Reimer was born in San Francisco. His father
had earned a living running a charter to the gulf from Half Moon for whale and
bird-watchers long before it was fashionable. Reimer loved the region, the
Pacific’s moods and hues, the taste of salt air. He glanced at Keller, his eyes
fixed to the horizon. Looking for ghosts. No point in talking to him. Why
couldn’t he just say no to the man? Reimer shrugged and gave her a touch more
throttle, enjoying the wind in his face.