The Timer Game. Susan Smith Arnout

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СКАЧАТЬ on the counter, and I don’t mean the Martha Stewart kind.’ He pointed. ‘Whoever was in here left behind a connector cable.’

      ‘You think somebody was in here? Recording this?’

      Paul shrugged. ‘Too soon to say. Eddie Loud’s minicam button in his shirt could turn out to be a prop, not real, not with a signal transmitting what was recorded.’

      He took another swig of his drink.

      ‘Or it’s out there, in cyberspace, the killings.’ She stared at Paul, her gaze troubled.

      ‘You okay?’ he asked again.

      ‘He said my name, Paul, right before he tried to kill me. He warned me about somebody called the Spikeman who was coming to get me.’

      ‘We don’t know yet what we have here,’ Paul reminded her. He finished the sandwich and drained the can, crushing it and tucking it into the pocket of his brown polyester jacket.

      A short fat man rounded the building, moving like his hip joints were killing him. His shiny bald head caught the light and for a second, Grace saw the taco van reflected like a miniature hologram. Tan work pants ballooned over a huge belly, cinched with suspenders the colors of a Portuguese flag: green, red, yellow. He was scowling and waving his fists.

      ‘Oh, shit. I told the guard not to let this guy in.’

      The man was yelling in a torrent of Portuguese, fury mottling his face.

      ‘Calm down, Mr. Esguio.’ Paul moved forward cautiously, his palms raised and flat.

      ‘Calm down!’ Esguio cried in English. ‘You have stolen my van! My work! How can I calm down when you have stolen my van and won’t give it back!’

      ‘Okay, Mr. Esguio, I know you’re upset –’

      Esguio lunged toward Paul and shoved him backward. They grappled. It was like watching a strongman contest where the leading contestant was charged with pushing a semi. Paul skidded a half step back, losing ground as Esguio moaned and smacked a hand to his heart and flopped forward. Paul managed to brace himself and catch Esguio before he toppled.

      ‘Oh, my God,’ Paul said. ‘He’s having a heart attack. Is he okay? Ask him.’

      Grace asked him in rapid-fire Portuguese. Esguio cracked open an eye and answered, his voice pitiful. His eyes were the same dark brown as hers, making him look vaguely familial. He was as old as her aunts. They probably all went to school together. Dated. Divorced each other at least once.

      ‘What’s he saying?’

      ‘He wants to know how long you’re keeping the van.’

      ‘About his health.’

      ‘He’s fine.’

      ‘The van,’ Esguio prodded. Paul tipped him to his feet.

      ‘Try two or three years,’ Paul said. ‘He’s okay, though, right? You okay?’

      ‘Two or three years!’ Esguio moaned in English.

      ‘You should have thought of that before getting a killer to drive it,’ Paul said. ‘Did you even check Eddie’s license? Did Eddie even have a license?’

      ‘Now listen here,’ Esguio bristled.

      Grace laid a hand on his arm and smiled winningly at him. ‘How about I take you out for breakfast. Would you like that, sir?’

      Esguio stiffened with pride and yanked his arm free. He started moving through the cars and Grace fell into step next to him.

      ‘Wait.’ Paul trotted after them. ‘Mr. Esguio. Sir. You can’t go with her. You’re not supposed to tell anybody anything.’

      ‘Paul.’ Grace stopped, her voice reasonable. ‘Say for a second maybe there was a TV-remote setup in there. Was there audio and video equipment in your taco van, Mr. Esguio?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘TV stuff. To take pictures.’

      ‘No TV. Just a grill and a refrigerator. What are you talking about?’

      She turned back to Paul. ‘Say there was a TV-remote setup. Say Eddie really was trying to warn me. That means somebody very bad might be after me. And if he is, Eddie’s made it clear the bad guy doesn’t have plans to invite me to his mother’s house for dinner either, unless she lives in the Bates Motel. So if Mr. Esguio can help me find the bad guy first, before he finds me and kills me – and that could be the plan here, Paul, to kill me – that’s good. Works for me.’

      Mr. Esguio looked from Paul to Grace. His chins moved like a hula dancer.

      ‘I could use a cup of coffee. Decaf.’

       SEVEN

      Esguio tapped three pills into his hand and swallowed them dry. ‘Thyroid, heart. Cholesterol. Take my advice. Never get old.’

      ‘I’ll remember that.’

      They sat in a vinyl booth at the back of Denny’s on Rosecrans, a couple of blocks from where Esguio said he lived. Grace ordered French toast; Esguio stuck with coffee. He had wide lips and took small sips of air as he talked, as if breathing was hard work.

      ‘Descanso. You one of Francisco Descanso’s grandkids?’

      ‘You knew my grandfather?’

      ‘Sure. Everybody knew him. Terrible thing, what happened to his son.’

      Grace blinked and looked away.

      She could feel his face change. She should have expected it. Esguio was Portuguese. Of course he’d know about her father. Back then everybody Portuguese lived in a tight community in Point Loma, fished on boats passed down to their sons.

      ‘Must have been, what? Thirty years ago?’

      ‘Twenty-one. I was eleven when he washed overboard.’

      Eleven when Lottie dragged her and her kid brother, Andy, out of the warmth and safety of Point Loma, into a life on the road. Grace had spent the last of her childhood shuttling from one beer-soaked bar to another, living out of cardboard suitcases while Lottie warbled in bars, living out her fantasy of becoming a country-western singer.

      If her father had lived, Grace wouldn’t feel so damaged today. By any standard but her own, Grace had done well, but every step along the way had been punctuated with failure and despair and terrible doubts. Goodness was a fragile thing, chipped daily out of the rocky soil of her spirit. Lottie, on the other hand, soared like a vast overwrought blimp, gliding over the wreckage of Grace’s childhood, never coming down to earth long enough to be tethered to anything as pesky as consequences.

      ‘Your father was a good man,’ Esguio said. ‘You know that.’

      Grace СКАЧАТЬ