Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [52]
“No, just give me the address. This is something I have to handle by—”
“No, it’s not.” He straightened, went to the desk, and rummaged in a cashbox. “It’s a rough area down there, and you shouldn’t—”
“Exactly what do you think I’ve been doing all these years? Traveling with a bodyguard?”
“Obviously you haven’t. In those years, you’ve been stabbed, almost drowned, and shot in the ass. Christ knows what else has happened that you haven’t told me about.”
“John, I can take care of—”
“All right—you can. But why make things harder on yourself than you have to?”
“I’m thinking of you. This is a potentially dangerous situation, and I’m not just talking about muggers. It’s not your problem, and I don’t want to involve—”
“I’m already involved.”
“No, you’re not.”
He spread his arms wide in exasperation. “Look, do you want me to get down on my knees and beg you to take me? All right, I will.” Dropping to one knee, he raised his hands in supplication. “Dear sister, please take me with you.”
“This is ridiculous. Get up!” I tugged at his arm.
He stayed where he was, grinning idiotically.
For a moment I considered telling him I had Pa’s .45 in my bag, but my use of firearms had erected a barrier between us in the past—had erected a barrier between me and other people I cared about, too. “Oh, hell!” I exclaimed. I supposed I could take him along, have him watch for a possible tail as I drove. But some ground rules would have to be set right now. “All right,” I told him, “you can come. But you cannot go inside with me when I talk to the woman. You will do exactly what I tell you. And you will navigate while I drive.”
“It’s my Scout.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“One beer.”
“One’s enough. You want to come or not?”
He thrust out his jaw belligerently. I was reminded of him at ten, pouting because Ma had swatted him for trying to climb into the polar bear pit at the zoo.
“You want to come or not?” I repeated.
He got off his knees. “You know, you’ve turned into a bully.”
“Are you going to obey the rules and do exactly what I tell you?”
“Since when do you make the rules, anyway?”
I just looked at him.
“All right, dammit, I’ll obey them! Somebody’s got to protect you from yourself.”
Thirteen
Before we left, I asked John if Karen, who is roughly my size, had stored any clothing in the cartons. He told me to take a look, and in one I found a treasure trove of jeans and shirts and T’s and sweaters—perhaps not suitable for a new bride on her way to a romantic sojourn in Italy, but perfect replacements for the things I had on, which by now were barely presentable. I changed and went outside to find John in the driver’s seat of the Scout. It took a fait amount of wheedling and, finally, threatening to move him over, but eventually we set off for the South Bay with me at the wheel.
National City is sailor town, a blue-collar town, an immigrant town, home to light-manufacturing plants, warehousing operations, trailer parks, and the famed mile of car dealerships. Ana Orozco’s address was an old-fashioned apartment court on F Avenue, a couple of blocks off Highland. The narrow street was roughly paved and without sidewalks, overhung by very old pepper trees and dead-ending at the freeway. Most of the buildings were California bungalows built in the 1920s, and the apartments—one-story stucco, U-shaped, with cracked-concrete center sidewalks cluttered with toys and tricycles—were about the same vintage. I left John in the Scout, after making him promise he wouldn’t stir unless he heard bloodcurdling screams in a voice clearly recognizable as mine, and made my way through the obstacle course to apartment number six.
It took Orozco a while to answer the door. When it opened, the eyes that scrutinized me across the security chain were red-rimmed and underscored by dark half-circles. I told her who I was, showed her the seventy-three dollars, and she let me inside a linoleum-floored, cheaply furnished room whose drapes were pulled against the hot afternoon sun. Orozco motioned at the