“And I know you have a thing about no women and children, too.”
“Yes.”
“So…we’re just bluffing then.”
I nodded. “But I think when Horton understands Larison is involved in this, he won’t take the chance.”
“Well, that right there is the problem. See, I don’t think Larison is bluffing. I think that man-and no disrespect, ’cause he is obviously one capable sumbitch-I think he’s a little bit…Well, how do I put this. You know, some dogs, big dogs, they could kill you, but they don’t, because they’re good dogs. You can trust them. Other dogs, they’re looking at you, and you don’t know what the hell they’re thinking. Or which way it could go. That’s how Larison is to me. Any given moment, I don’t know what he’s going to do. I’m not sure even he knows.”
It interested me that each of them understood the other in canine terms. But I kept the thought to myself.
“Horton said something about Larison keeping too much hidden,” I said. “Being in turmoil.”
“Well, shit, everybody has something to keep hidden.”
“You have something to keep hidden?”
He grinned. “Just my midget porn fetish. Don’t tell anyone.”
“You and I are on the same page,” I said. “We’ll let Larison think what he wants, because the more scared Horton is, the better for us. But we’re not going to let him hurt anyone. If it comes to that, we’ll stop him.”
He nodded. “Thank you for that. I figured as much. Just wanted to make sure.”
We pulled our own clothes out of the pile of clean stuff and ate some of the provisions Dox had brought in. Then he napped while I watched the door, the Supergrade in hand. I watched the angle of the sun on the window curtains get increasingly sharp, and still no sign of Larison or Treven. Dox woke up and it was my turn to sleep while he stood sentry.
At a little past six, I was awakened instantly from a light sleep by three sharp knocks. I took a position on one side of the door, the Supergrade up and ready, while Dox opened it. It was Larison.
“Treven’s on the way,” he said. “Good news. I’ll wait until he’s here and then brief you. Is that grub? I’m starving.”
He grabbed a wrap and started devouring it. Treven showed fifteen minutes later. While he tucked in, too, Larison briefed us.
“We went online,” Larison said. “And found only four summer classes at the school. And only one on screenwriting, which is her thing. So we staked out the building where the class is held.”
“You see anyone?” I asked. “Anyone who looked like they were looking for us?”
“Hell yes,” Treven said. “We saw them-two of them-hanging out exactly where we would have been hanging out if we were trying to get to us.”
Larison said, “So we made sure not to be where we would have been if we’d known no one was looking for us.”
“The weird thing is, I understood all that,” Dox said.
“We picked up a couple of radios at a Radio Shack,” Larison said. “Not much range, but good enough for our purposes. We hung way back. Decided to take a chance, and it paid off.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of chance?”
“We don’t know how she gets to school,” Treven said. “Could be a car, could be a bus, could be a bicycle for all we know. We made Hort’s guys monitoring her building, so we couldn’t do the same. Which meant we had to take a guess. Car, bus, or bicycle. We guessed bus. We guessed right. Followed her onto an L.A. Metro bus.”
I still didn’t like it. “How’d you manage it without getting seen?”
“I staked out Hilgard and Charing Cross,” Larison said. “The stop right by the school.”
“And I waited at the next stop,” Treven said. “Hilgard and Sunset.”
“Totally lucky that it turns out she rides the bus,” Larison said. “But hey, sometimes you catch a break. When I saw her come out and wait at the Charing Cross stop, I radioed Treven. He got on at the next stop, right after her.”
“What about Horton’s guys?” I asked.
“One of them got on with her at Charing Cross,” Larison said. “The other stayed behind.”
I nodded. “So she’s definitely unwitting.”
“Right,” Larison said. “If she were witting, they’d both be staying close. Plus, she was wearing earbuds, listening to music, shit no bodyguard in the world would ever tolerate. As it was, the guy who got on with her was doing everything he could to keep away from her, and otherwise be unobtrusive. As we expected, they’re not trying to directly protect her, they’re trying to anticipate, and eliminate, the threat.”
I agreed with his assessment. “What else did you learn?”
Treven cracked a Red Bull. “I saw her get off at Sunset and Gordon. Hort’s guy got off with her. I waited and jumped out at the next one-Sunset and Bronson, otherwise Hort’s guy would have made me. But as the bus pulled away, I saw Kei walking north on a street called La Baig Avenue. If you look at La Baig-and we did, at an Internet place-you’ll see it leads to only two streets, Harold Way and Selma Avenue. The whole neighborhood looks super quiet, nothing but single family houses. No pedestrian traffic. No way to follow her, even if I’d gotten off at her stop, even if Hort’s guy hadn’t been there. So no way to get her exact address. But-”
“We don’t need her exact address,” I said. “Assuming she was going home on the bus, and not somewhere else, now we know her stop.”
Treven took a long pull of Red Bull. “Not just her stop, but her walking route to the stop. When you look at the map, you’ll see she must live on one of those three streets-La Baig, Harold, or Selma. Otherwise, she would have gotten out at an earlier stop-Sunset and Gower.”
Larison grinned. “But it’s even better. We did get her address.”
Treven grinned, too, looking like a kid who’d just pulled a brilliant prank. Larison gestured to him and said, “You tell them.”
“So I radioed Larison,” Treven said, still smiling, “and as I’m waiting for him, frustrated at getting so close and not being able to really close the deal, a mail truck went by. And I thought, shit, they’re just delivering the mail now. Which gave me an idea.”
“Pizza flyers,” Larison said, apparently unable to resist interrupting. “There was a guy out on Sunset distributing flyers for some pizza place. I gave him twenty bucks for his stack of flyers, then Treven caught up to the mailman.”
“Told him I was trying to reach people in the neighborhood,” Treven said. “Gave him two hundred bucks for letting me put the flyers into his mail bundles. He told me he could do it himself, but I told him hey, how do I know you won’t just throw them out? Let me put them in the bundles, it’ll only take a minute.”
“The pizza guy, and the mailman, they saw you?” I asked. “Could they remember you? Describe you?”
Treven shook his head. “We were wearing shades. Anyway, what if they could? The mailman would have to cop to taking bribes, and the pizza guy would have to admit he sold his flyers rather than giving them out. Even if someone made the connection between the flyers and Kei’s temporary disappearance, those two wouldn’t want to get involved.”
“Besides,” Larison said, “no one but Hort is even going to know Kei’s gone missing. The police won’t be involved. Even if they do get involved, we didn’t give them anything to go on. And anyway, right now, potential police, even FBI, is pretty much the least of our problems.”
He was right. “Well? What’s her address?”
“A nice little bungalow on Selma Avenue,” Treven said. “Again, we might not even need it because I think we’ll have a better shot at her by the bus stop than we would by the house. But it was good to confirm she was heading home anyway, and not to, say, a friend’s house or whatever. We’ll show it all to you on Google Maps. Looks like she’s renting a room from the family that lives there. But whatever. The main thing is, we know what time the first class is tomorrow morning, we know her bus stop, and she’s got an approximate six-minute walk along a nice quiet street to get there. Wearing her earbuds, if we’re really lucky.”
We were quiet for a moment. Dox said, “Well, I have successfully procured us food and phones, and Mister Rain has kindly laundered our gamey garments. But I believe the day’s glory goes to you.”
“Couldn’t have done it without clean clothes and food to look forward to,” Treven said, and we all laughed.
“It looks promising,” I said. “But there a few things to consider. And a few we need.”