Los Angeles Noir - Denise Hamilton [102]
He sat on the curb, head in his hands, almost in tears. All his planning, his hope, his chance, gone. Claudia must have found out he was having an affair. She’d have searched through his BlackBerry, looking for a name or phone number. The passwords to the accounts were in the PDA. And it wouldn’t have been too hard for her to figure them out, as she’d chided him more than once that he used his mother’s maiden name, his favorite movie, or his father’s nickname way too often.
He sighed, and as if trudging through wet cement, he returned to his car. Driving aimlessly, he realized he wasn’t going home. Roger knew Nanette wouldn’t tell the cops anything since she risked trouble if he was arrested. But that nosy neighbor might have noted his license number. And for all he knew, the law was running his plate now.
He drove, alone and deliberate in his thoughts.
What if Claudia had a boyfriend? Had she run away with some young stud she met at the gym or that class she took at UCLA last year? Had she played him for the fool all along? Nanette’s phone numbers were in his PDA. Claudia was smart, she’d put it together and hadn’t given anything away. She’d waited until he’d amassed enough, and then took it from him like a vandal sacking a village.
He slowed near the 10 freeway and Fairfax Avenue. He hadn’t allowed himself to imagine the depth of the disgust she’d feel once it was known he’d stolen money and run off with another woman. But now he could be the hero. At least he could have that over Claudia.
“Your mother has done us wrong, Janice,” he told her after reaching her at home on one of his cell phones. He’d crawled through the hole in the cyclone fence to get down to Ballona Creek. It was an old tributary of water dating back to the days of the ranchos in this once small pueblo. But like everything else in this city, the creek was walled in with concrete. Ballona ran under the Fairfax Avenue overpasses from the freeway and meandered west for nine miles or so to the Pacific.
“What are you talking about?” his daughter replied. Then he heard a knock and a muffled voice. “Dad, there’s a man at the door saying he’s from the police. What’s going on?”
“Tell him your mother’s run off with another man.” Hell, maybe it was true.
“Dad, what are you—”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. She’ll get hers. I’m going to find her. I’m going to make sure she doesn’t get away with this.” He hung up and smashed both of his cell phones against the concrete walls of the creek. There were ways of tracking you with those things.
Roger started jogging through the shallow water, which barely splashed above his dress shoes. In nearby Culver City, there was a bike path that paralleled Ballona. He and Claudia and Janice had ridden it many times out to Marina del Rey. Tonight it wasn’t for recreation that he would travel it—this was his lifeline. He picked up his pace, arms pumping, legs churning. Ahead, in the dark at the curve of the concrete wall, something disturbed the water. Roger didn’t slow down. Be it a possum or human predator, he didn’t care. He was on a mission. Claudia would not escape him.
In the morning he awoke in the stale motel room with its walls bleached of color and greasy cracked windows. He took the toiletry items out of the black plastic bag from the 7-Eleven. Overhead yet another plane rattled the threadbare room. In the few pieces left of the broken mirror over the rust-stained sink, he studied his face while he lathered.
Wasn’t there more gray in those whiskers today? The bags more pronounced? And wasn’t that some gray edging into his temples? No matter. He had big things to do. Razor poised, having lubricated his stubble for