More exhaustion, his brain wires frazzling from too much information, too few connecting threads. Danny took to looking at his luminous wristwatch dial to stay awake; 3:11 had just passed when he heard the outside lock being picked.
He got up and padded to the curtains beside the light switch, the door a foot away, his gun arm extended and braced with his left hand. The locking mechanism gave with a sharp ka-thack; the door opened; Danny hit the switch.
A fortyish fat man was frozen by the light. Danny took a step forward; the man pivoted into the muzzle of a .45 revolver. His hands jerked toward his pockets; Danny toed the door shut and barrel-lashed him across the face, knocking him into wallpaper zigzagged with blood. The fat man let out a yelp, saw the wall gore for real and hit his knees, hands clasped, ready to beg.
Danny squatted beside him, gun aimed at the trickle of blood on his cheek. The fat man mumbled Hail Marys; Danny fished out his cuffs, slid his .45
out of trouble, worked the ratchets and slapped them around prayer-pressed wrists. The bracelet teeth snapped; the man looked at Danny like _he_ was Jesus.
“Cop? You’re a cop?”
Danny gave him the once-over. Convict pallor, prison shoes, secondhand clothes and grateful that a policeman caught him breaking and entering, a parole violation and a dime minimum. The man looked at the walls, brought his eyes down, saw that he was kneeling two inches from a pool of blood with a dead cockroach basted in the middle. “Goddamnit, tell me you’re–”
Danny grabbed his throat and squeezed it. “Sheriff’s. Keep your voice down and play straight with me and I’ll let you walk out of here.” With his free hand, he gave Fats a pocket and waistband frisk, pulling out wallet, keys, a switchblade and a flat leather case, compact but heavy, with a zippered closure.
He eased off his throat hold and examined the wallet, dropping cards and papers to the floor. There was an expired California driver’s license for Leo Theodore Bordoni, DOB 6/19/09; a County Parole identification card made out to the same name; a plasma bank donor slip stating that Leo Bordoni, type AB+, could sell his plasma again on January 18, 1950. The cards were racetrack stuff–voided betting stubs, receipts, matchbook covers with the names of hot horses and race numbers jotted on the back.
Danny let go of Leo Theodore Bordoni’s neck, the fat man’s reward for a parlay–reaction to the gore, blood type and physical description–that eliminated him as a killing suspect. Bordoni gurgled and wiped blood off his face; Danny unzipped the leather case and saw a set of bonaroos: pick gouger, baby glass cutter, chisel pry and window snap, all laid out on green velvet. He said, “B&E, possession of burglar’s tools, parole violation. How many falls have you taken, Leo?”
Bordoni massaged his neck. “Three. Where’s Marty?”
Danny pointed to the walls. “Where do you think?”
“Oh fucking God.”
“That’s right. Old Marty that nobody knows much about, except maybe you.
You know about Governor Warren’s habitual offender law?”
“Uh . . . no.”
Danny picked up his .45 and holstered it, helped Bordoni to his feet and shoved him into the one chair not soaked red/brown. “The law says any fourth fall costs you twenty to life. No plea bargains, no appeals, nada. You boost a fucking pack of cigarettes, it’s a double dime. So you tell me everything there is to know about you and Marty Goines, or you hang twenty up at Quentin.”
Bordoni flicked his eyes around the room. Danny walked to the curtains, looked out at dark yards and houses and thought of his killer leaving him, clued to a trap by the light burning. He flipped the wall switch; Bordoni let out a long breath. “Really bad for Marty? That the truth?”
Danny could see neon signs on Hollywood Boulevard, miles away. “The worst, so tell me.”
Bordoni talked while Danny looked out at neon and dwindling headlights.
“I came out of Quentin two weeks ago, seven out of seven for heists. I knew Marty when he did his turn for reef, and we were buddies. Marty knew I had a parole date, and he knew my sister’s number in Frisco. He’d send me these letters every once in a while after he got out, phony name, no return address,