Fugitive Nights(39)

Then Lynn caught himself, and Breda saw the expression change on Jack Graves' face. You didn't talk about shooting anything with this man.

Breda covered for Lynn by saying, "So the ankle's fine?"

"Yeah, I must be getting old," Jack Graves said. "And I tripped coming out of the market the other day and landed on my hip." Then to Lynn, "Remember when I told you about that hip pointer I got in the car wreck where I went in pursuit?"

"Yeah, same hip?"

"Uh huh. It's bothering me a little bit."

"Can you walk around okay, and maybe sit at a bar for a few hours tonight?"

"A bar?"

"We got a job for you," Lynn said. "Not big money, but something to do."

"Well, I don't know," Jack Graves said. "I really oughtta take care of my washing and ironing tonight."

"Please, Jack," Lynn Cutter said, in a gentle voice that Breda hadn't heard him use before. "It's a little job that has to be done and I don't have anyone else to do it for me."

"Okay, Lynn," Jack Graves said. "I guess clean underwear can wait."

Lynn took five minutes to explain The Unicorn bartender-watch to Jack Graves, and Breda realized that this was a Lynn Cutter scheme to help the man.

Breda saw six photos of a child on the wall, from when the boy was a chubby two-year-old to a lad of twelve or thirteen. She figured that Jack Graves was a divorced man with a son, perhaps a boy close to the age of the one he'd killed when they'd raided the wrong house.

When Breda and Lynn were driving back to her office, Breda said, "That was a nice thing to do for him. And I can use the help."

"Jack's gotta get out," Lynn said. "He's dwelling on that shooting. I been with him when we drive past Mexican kids and he gets a look on his face. Jack's in trouble."

"Whadda you make of all his accidents?"

"Same as you," Lynn said. "You didn't hear the half of it. He also accidentally cut his hand while slicing onions. That one took about thirty stitches. He broke two toes when he dropped a five-pound sledge trying to put up a fence. All this in a period of a couple months. That guy's carrying so much guilt the next accident might be fatal. If you could maybe come up with any other little job he might do for you, I'd appreciate it."

"He needs psychiatric counseling."

"He needs body armor. Unless he can get busy and take his mind off it. You can't be alone like that, not all the time."

"I could use some help with the surveillance on Clive Devon. Could he take your place while you go sleuthing with Nelson?"

"Sure," Lynn said. "Nelson promised he'll give up and forget the whole thing in two days if we don't get a lead on his smuggler. I mean his terrorist."

"Of course his fee would come out of your share."

"Yeah, I figured." Lynn surprised Breda when he added, "It's worth it if it gets him away from himself. You can't be alone all the time."

"If Clive Devon hooks up with that Mexican girl again I'm risking a dog bite," Breda said. "I'm gonna sneak and peek and find out what they're doing."

"Be careful," he said. "That dog's goofier'n a blind date."

"I think he's just a big puppy."

Lynn looked at his watch and said, "Time to face up to an evening with Nelson Hareem. You're right, Nelson's adorable, but why is it every time I look at that kid I hear the shower music from Psycho?"

Out-of-towners equated Palm Springs with glamour and money, and there was still a lot of it around. But the big money was relentlessly moving south in the valley, to Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, and even La Quinta now that PGA West was there. One didn't find the Forbes Four Hundred bucks around the Las Palmas neighborhood anymore, but there was still old quiet money, like Clive Devon's. It was in the downtown commercial section of Palm Springs that the big change showed, more than in the residential areas. Many of the shops were vacant now, even in season. There were signs in too many windows saying, "Moved to Palm Desert," to El Paseo, a shopping area with pretensions of becoming another Rodeo Drive.

Most desert residents are blue collar, or live on fixed incomes, in places like north Palm Springs, or Desert Hot Springs or Cathedral City. It was in such off-the-avenue districts, whose motels were both low profile and low-priced, that Lynn Cutter and Nelson Hareem were searching.

"We'll max out with the fifty-buck-a-nighters," Lynn suggested. "In fact, thirty-five-a-nighters would be a better bet if there are any that cheap in season."

The first few were easy enough. The employees on night duty showed Lynn and Nelson the motel registers with hardly a glance at the badge Lynn presented, and despite the fact that Nelson-in a Los Angeles Lakers blue and yellow T-shirt with Magic Johnson's number 32 on the back-looked more like one of the weekend, student hell-raisers than a cop.