“Another plot outline, just like in Florida,” I said. “Reads like a twelve-year-old’s diary-look at the third alternative title. ‘Daredevil
Avenger-justice for all.’ Superman fantasies. He sees himself as a risk taker, is thinking of himself as the hero who saves the world from Peake.”
Milo shook his head. “Number eleven’s the one he actually used for the name of his company-who’s to say who’s nuts asshole? I say. And you are.” He turned to the next page. Blank.
“Guess he ran out of ideas,” he said. “This kind of brilliance, he definitely could’ve gotten a legit job at the studios.”
The light changed in the room. Something yellowing the window shades.
Headlights. A car idling next to the house. In the driveway.
I thought of Marie Sinclair, cranky and paranoid. Pays to listen to everyone.
Milo moved quickly, killing the room lights, replacing the looseleaf, pulling out his gun.
The headlights dimmed; the engine dieseled for several seconds before quieting. The whoosh-and-click of the car door closing. Footsteps scraping the driveway.
Diminishing footsteps.
Milo raced through the house, made it to the front door, said something to me.
Stay put, he explained later, but I never processed it and I stayed on his heels.
He cracked the door, looked outside, flung it open, ran.
In the driveway sat a lemon-yellow Corvette.
We ran past the ficus hedge. A man was fifty feet up the street, to the north.
Walking casually, arms swinging.
Tall man. Thin. A too-big head-much too big. Some kind ofhat.
Milo set out after him. Closed the gap, bellowed.
“Policefreezedon ‘tmovepolicefreezefreeze!”
The man stopped.
“Stay right there hands behind your head.”
The man obeyed.
“Lie down slowly face to the sidewalk-get your hands back there again-up up behind your head.”
Total compliance. As the man lay down, his hat fell off.
In a flash, Milo had his cuffs out, was bending the man’s arm behind his back.
That easy.
Time for someone else to have some luck.
“Where’s Peake?” Milo demanded.
“Who?” High, tight voice.
“Peake. Don’t fuck with me, Crimmins-”
“Who-”
Keeping his gun trained on the back of the man’s head, Milo fished out the penlight and tossed it to me. “Shine it on his face-lift up your face!”
Before the man could respond, Milo grabbed a handful of hair and helped him along.
The man gasped in pain. I moved around in front and aimed the beam at his face.
Thin face. Framed by long blond hair. He had hat head from the watch cap that lay a few feet away on the pavement.
A few lights went on in neighboring houses, but the street remained quiet.
Milo held the man’s chin as I illuminated scared pale eyes. Weak chin, cottony with fledgling beard growth.
Pimples.
Adolescent acne.
A kid.
37.
His NAME WAS Christopher Paul Soames and he had I.D. to prove it.
An obviously phony California Identification Card and a student card from Bellflower
High, dated three years ago. He’d been a sophomore then, with shorter hair and clearer skin. Had dropped out the following summer, because “it sucked and I had a job.”
“Where?” said Milo. He’d dragged Soames onto the lawn behind the ficus hedge, emptied the boy’s pockets.
“Lucky’s.”
“Doing what?”
“Box boy.”
“How long did you work there?”
“Two months.”
“After that?”
Soames’s shrug was inhibited by the cuffs.
He had a twenty-dollar bill in his pocket, a marijuana roach, a partially crushed bag of Peanut M&M’s, no driver’s license. “But I know how to, my brother taught me before he went into the Marines.”
Milo pointed to the Corvette. “Nice wheels.”
“Yeah-can you take these off me, man?”
“Run your story by me one more time, Chris.”
“Can I at least get off the grass? It’s wet, I’m getting my ass wet.”
Milo lifted him by a belt loop and hauled him over to the bungalow’s front porch.
The interrogation had been going on for nearly ten minutes. No sign of any sheriff’s cars yet.
Soames shifted his shoulders. “These hurt, man. Lemme loose, I din’t do nothin’.”
“Didn’t steal the car?”
“No way, I tole you.”
“You didn’t find an address in the car and drive over to rob the house?”