The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [14]
She nodded.
“You watched a man texting into his phone from across an entire restaurant, and you could tell what he was writing?”
“Well, not every word. Even when I’m reading lips, I don’t get every word. But numbers are easy.”
“When did you learn to do this?”
“David had one of those frigging things. That’s how I found out about Sandy.”
Bea realized she wasn’t so surprised.
“I already did the reverse lookup.” Nada took another slip of paper from her tiny black purse and held it over her head. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t want my help.” She put it back. “Have Jerry do it. It’s a house in Marin County. Kerry Meadows went to Stanford, right? He’s probably got friends in that area. It’s worth a drive by the place. Maybe a knock on the door. See if Meadows is hiding up there.”
Nada either didn’t understand the potential trouble facing Bea or she didn’t care. Still, the ten digits scribbled on the Post-it felt electric between her fingers. Over the past three years, she’d learned to doubt Nada’s judgment but never her abilities. Bea glanced at her cell phone on the coffee table and she just knew that on the other end of this number, Kerry Meadows was slumped into a beanbag chair in some college buddy’s condo with a PlayStation and a case of Miller High Life. Kerry Meadows was the difference in her case. The difference between he said/she said and he said/they said.
Bea had told Nada on multiple occasions that it could be frustrating to be her friend. But it wasn’t only frustrating; it was often exciting. Frequently, it was both.
This was one of those times.
“You might have to testify.”
Nada waved away the worry on Bea’s face as if it were secondhand smoke. “English won’t trace this number to me. You know he spent the afternoon bragging to all his partners at Becker how he outsmarted the despicable Canada Gold. They’re probably at Zefferino’s right now fellating Cuban cigars over it. Even if he suspected it, he’d never admit I got the better of him. Besides, if English is claiming that he’s not hiding Meadows, how can he object if you find him? Tell the judge it was an anonymous tip. English’ll blame his client. He’ll just figure Truman blabbed too much around a pretty girl.” She opened her arms in a parody of modesty. “Which is technically true.”
“I just can’t believe you’re putting me in this position. For Chrissake.”
“Yeah, I’m terrible,” Nada said. “And by the way, I wouldn’t waste my time getting to that address. One of the other words I saw Truman typing in his e-mail was Cozumel. I’m pretty sure.”
6
WEDNESDAY, JULY 14
AS RESTAURANTS GO, Mr. Beef was even less fancy than it sounded, with no chairs and a narrow, peeling counter at standing height and the best “wet meat” in the city, which was what Bobby Kloska liked to call an Italian beef sandwich. Photos of famous customers, mostly actors formerly of the Goodman or Steppenwolf or Second City, hung along a grease-stained wall in cheap plastic frames. Elbow off the countertop, facing the street, Bobby’s old and unlikely acquaintance Reggie Vallentine gripped an overstuffed bun in his left hand and made a pair of false starts before shoving a fat end over his jaw.
“Watch the drip,” Kloska said. “What’s your suit worth? About five hundred wet meats?”
Reggie mumbled a reply, his mouth full of bread and peppers.
Kloska was the cop who had pulled the Erica Liu murder investigation, and he was one of two detectives who arrested Solomon Gold for the crime. He and Reggie had a sharply adversarial relationship at trial, which softened after Bradley Spelling tried to place much of the public blame for Gold’s acquittal on what he alleged was Kloska’s sloppy work at the crime scene. “You treat me with more respect than the frigging state’s attorney,” Kloska had whispered to Reggie in the courthouse halls. “Makes me wonder whose side I’m supposed to be on.”
Neither had been to the other man’s house. Neither had met the other man’s family. Still, Kloska considered Reggie something other than a professional acquaintance. Somehow friend didn’t exactly describe him,