Betrayers(54)

Not long, fortunately. Not much more than fifteen minutes.

Headights appeared around the curve behind me, the fourth set I’d seen since I’d been here, but this vehicle was going more slowly than the others; and as soon as it passed me, it coasted over to the curb just up ahead. Old, beat-up van, light and dark two-tone in color.

The lights flicked off, and a stick of a man wearing a sleeveless down jacket got out and came around to open one of the rear doors, take something out. Two somethings—a two-foot-long cardboard mailing tube, looked like, and a package about the size of a shoe box. I’d been thinking Ullman was waiting for the Man, but cocaine doesn’t get transported in mailing tubes, or in shoe boxes unless the buyer is stocking up by the kilo.

I watched the stick figure cross the street with his two parcels. In the foggy darkness I couldn’t tell much about him except that he seemed middle-aged and had stringy shoulder-length hair that the wind whipped around his head. Nothing furtive about him—just a guy on his way to somebody’s house, invited guest or deliveryman.

Ullman opened up right away, as he had with me. Let the long-haired man inside, poked his head back out to look up and down the street—if he noticed my car, it didn’t hold his attention—and then quickly shut the door.

For a minute or so I kept my eyes on the window curtain. Neither corner moved. I reached up and unscrewed the dome light, waited another minute, and when Ullman’s door stayed shut I got out and walked up close enough to the van to read the license plate. Personalized: DDTDAWG. Easy to remember, even with a porous memory like mine.

Back in the car, I rolled the window all the way up; I’d done enough freezing for tonight. I thought about following DDTDAWG when he left, but why bother? The license number was enough for me to find out who he was. But I waited anyway, out of curiosity as to how long he’d stay with Ullman.

Too long to be an average deliveryman, not long enough to be an invited guest. A little less than ten minutes. The door opened, out DDTDAWG came, the door closed. He climbed into his van without a glance in my direction, drove away into the fog.

Two minutes later, when the light in Ullman’s front window went out, I took myself out of there, too, with the heater going full blast. I was almost warm by the time I got home.





19


JAKE RUNYON


It was only four thirty when Runyon left Bud Linkhauser and walked out of the trucking company warehouse, but when he called the agency he got the answering machine. Either Tamara was with a client or she’d closed up early for some reason. He put on the Bluetooth device he’d bought when the no-hands cell phone law went into effect, tried again as he was dead-stopped in commute traffic on the San Mateo Bridge approach. Machine again. She must have gone for the day.

He called her cell number. Voice mail. Then he tried her home number. Answering machine.

So he’d have to run a property search himself when he got back to the city. He’d done it before. Easy work if you knew which city and county the property was in, harder when you didn’t, but if Coy and Arletta still owned the rental, it shouldn’t take him too long to find out.

Wrong.

In his cold apartment on Ortega, he booted up his laptop and went through the property records for San Francisco first; then, when that didn’t turn up anything in either Coy or Arletta Madison’s name, he searched the rest of the Bay Area counties one by one. No listing.

Linkhauser had said the property might’ve been inherited by Arletta Madison. Since she controlled the family purse strings, it was possible she’d kept it on the tax rolls under her maiden name. Runyon checked his files. Maiden name: Hoffman. He repeated the county-by-county search. No listing.

Two possibilities, then. The rental property had been sold. Or one or both Madisons still owned it, but the ownership was listed under a different name, such as a family trust. Tamara could find out either way, but he didn’t have her computer skills or search engine knowledge.

He tried her cell number again; she still wasn’t answering. She wasn’t home, either: her machine again.

Wait until tomorrow? That would mean sitting around the empty apartment all evening with the TV on for noise. Bryn had an art class tonight, wouldn’t be home until late. Better to be out and moving. The Madisons might not be willing to talk to him about the rental property, but there was no harm in trying. At least he’d be able to judge by their reactions, Coy’s in particular, whether or not that was where Troy Madison and his girlfriend were hiding out.



There were lights on in the Queen Anne Victorian, but nobody answered the bell. Could be one or both of the Madisons were holed up inside, but if that was the case, why leave all the lights on? And why not check to see who was waiting out here? There was a peephole in the door, but Runyon didn’t hear any footsteps on the hardwood floor inside.