Fugitive Nights(50)

"A lotta the police in this town work the security jobs at the big hotels when they're suspended or on medical leave. I thought about trying to get a security job like that. Trouble is, after you do real police work for a long time you feel over-qualified for the other stuff. I wish I could work with my hands, but I'm not so good with my hands."

Breda looked at the long bony hands of Jack Graves. The first three fingers of his right hand were bruised and swollen. She was almost certain that last night his hands were okay.

She was afraid to ask what happened. "You make good coffee," was all she said.

"That I do," Jack Graves said, smiling. "I guess I could get a job as a short-order cook, couldn't I?"

Breda finished the coffee and the last bite of Danish, and said, "You're set then? You can read the profile I've done on him. It's not very helpful, but if he heads into the barrio down in Indio and loses you, you can figure he'll go to the Soltero house. How about meeting me at The Furnace Room at seven o'clock if he's safely tucked in at home."

"The Furnace Room?"

"Yeah, it's Lynn's home, office and refuge. I've learned to go with the flow, far as he's concerned."

"Okay, see you at seven unless I'm involved with something worthwhile. If I am you won't see me, but I'll call when I can."

"I hope these goodies weren't made with saturated fat," said Breda, enjoying the last crumb.

He liked the blue Buick very much indeed. He would love to have a car like this at home. He believed they wouldn't look for him in a car like this. Besides, he liked big American cars.

The used car had been far easier to buy than his comrades told him it would be. He had a forged California driver's license, obtained in Mexicali. And he had a Mexican license, also counterfeit, in case he needed it. He was simply a Mexican national, in California to do a bit of business with a Los Angeles firm that was trying to set up a maquiladora factory south of the international border, using cheap Mexican labor for the assembly of circuit boards.

The Palm Springs men's shop had been expensive beyond belief. His shoes alone-white loafers with little tassels-had cost him $185 U. S. He'd never even bought a suit of clothes that cost that much, not in his whole life. But the clothes made him feel more confident.

The salesman in the shop had chosen a maroon blazer for him, cream-colored trousers and three casual shirts. He'd told the salesman he wanted to be well dressed for Palm Springs evenings. He decided that when he returned home he'd give the coat and trousers to his brother-in-law, who would be only too happy to wear a wine-red coat with gold buttons. He would keep the shirts though; they were cotton, the finest cotton he'd ever seen. The pink one lay softly against his skin. He looked in the rearview mirror as he drove and was relieved to see that his upper lip was healing nicely. The shaving rash was all but gone, and the only evidence of absent facial hair was that his upper lip was not as tan as the rest of his face.

He'd bought two hats, one a Panama, which the salesman in the shop had insisted was "your type of hat." And he'd bought a gray straw snap-brim like the ones he'd seen some of the Palm Springs tourists wearing. There were many bald men in this city, what with so many older people walking about; still he thought he should keep a hat on his head at all times.

He had refined his cover story for two weeks and had no fear in that regard; the only real fear he had was that somehow he'd left a trail after he'd panicked at the airport. He just had to continue reminding himself what he knew to be true, that they were not superdetectives, the U. S. police. It was so easy to feel inferior. In fact, that's what most people in his country did best: feel inferior to Americans.

Real life wasn't like the television shows where the U. S. police could solve any crime with the most sophisticated technology imaginable. The one thing his comrades kept telling him in preparation for this mission was that the U. S. police were no better than he. They were just ordinary police who failed to detect the vast majority of their serious crimes. And he spoke English probably better than any one of them could speak his language. So who was inferior to whom?

He made a right turn on a street in Desert Hot Springs, a street whose name he'd committed to memory. He was in a commercial district with a great deal of light industry, but even in an industrial area there were beautiful trees and plants. On each side of the building there were fan palms, nearly thirty meters high. A heavy thatch of dead palm fronds hung down around their trunks like a young girl's petticoat. It was reassuring to see the fan palms. They were very prevalent in his country. Perhaps it was a good omen. He put on the jacket with the gold buttons and entered the office.