I looked back at the highway, downshifted for a turn, and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face Bad Bob and caught a big right hand studded with signet rings square in the face.
Blood blinded me; my foot hit the brake; the car jerked into a hillside and stalled out. I swung a haphazard left; another sucker shot caught me; through a sheet of crimson I saw Murikami grab the money and hotfoot it.
I wiped red out of my eyes and pursued. Murikami was heading for the bluffs and a path down to the beach; a car swerved in front of me and a large man jumped out, aimed, and fired at the running figure–once, twice, three times. A fourth shot sent Bob Murikami spiraling over the cliff, the money bag sailing, spilling greenbacks. I pulled my roscoe, shot the shooter in the back, and watched him go down in a clump of crabgrass.
Gun first, I walked over; I gave the shooter two good measure shots, point blank to the back of the head. I kicked him over to his front side and from what little remained of his face identified him. Sergeant Jenks, Bill Malloy’s buddy on the Alien Squad.
Deep shit without a depth gauge.
I hauled Jenks to his Plymouth, stuffed him in the front seat, stood back and shot the gas tank. The car exploded; the ex-cop sizzled like french-fried guacamole. I walked over the cliff and looked down. Bob Murikami was spread-eagled on the rocks and shitloads of sunbathers were scooping up cash, fighting each other for it, dancing jigs of greed and howling like hyenas.
* * *
I tailspinned down to Tijuana, found a flop and a bottle of drugstore hop, and went prowling for Maggie Cordova. A fat white lezbo songbird would stick out, even in a pus pocket like T.J.– and I knew the heart of T.J. lowlife was the place to start.
The hop edged down my nerves and gave me a _savoir faire_ my three-day beard and raggedy-assed state needed. I hit the mule act strip and asked questions; I hit the whorehouse strip and the strip that featured live fuck shows twenty-four hours a day. Child beggars swarmed me; my feet got sore from kicking them away. I asked, asked, asked about Maggie Cordova, passing out bribe pesos up the wazoo. Then–right on the street–there she was, turning up a set of stairs adjoining a bottle liquor joint.
I watched her go up, a sudden jolt of nerves obliterating my dope edge. I watched a light go on above the bottle shop–and Lorna Kafesjian doing “Goody, Goody” wafted down at me.
Pursuing the dream, I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.
Footsteps tapped toward me–and suddenly I felt naked, like a litany of everything I didn’t have was underlining the sound of heels over wood.
No eighty-one-grand reunion stash.
No Sy Devore suits to make a suitably grand Hollywood entrance.
No curfew papers for late-night Hollywood spins.
No P.I. buzzer for _the_ dramatic image of the twentieth century.
No world-weary, tough-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside sensitive code of honor shtick to score backup pussy with in case Lorna shot me down.
The door opened; fat Maggie Cordova was standing there. She said, “Spade Hearns. Right?”
I stood there–dumbstruck beyond dumbstruck. “How did you know that?”
Maggie sighed–like I was old news barely warmed over. “Years ago I bought some tunes from Lorna Kafesjian. She needed a stake to buy her way out of a shack job with a corny guy who had a wicked bad case on her. She told me the guy was a sewer crawler, and since I was a sewer crawler performing her songs, I might run into him. Here’s your ray of hope, Hearns. Lorna said she always wanted to see you one more time. Lor and I have kept in touch, so I’ve got a line on her. She said I should make you pay for the info. You want it? Then _give_.”
Maggie ended her pitch by drawing a dollar sign in the air. I said, “You fingered the B of A heist. You’re dead meat.”
“Nix, gumshoe. You’re all over the L.A. papers for the raps you brought down looking for me, and the Mexes won’t extradite. _Givesky_.”