Chapter 8

Rudy called me on my cell phone not long after I got back into the Blazer. He's one of the few people who have that number, and usually he calls the house or the office – but he knew where I was, after all. He'd located someone – not a cop, but a retired Air Force cop – who could relieve Straight the next morning.

"You gettin' lazy already, Rudy?" I asked him, joking.

"I need my beauty sleep if I'm going to hang around with Sara," he said.

"I don't think any amount of sleep is going to make you look that good."

He laughed. "I guess both of us look bad next to our wives." And we hung up. Rudy's one of the few men I know who genuinely thinks Cecelia's good looking. Straight is one of the others, though Cecelia doesn't like him – she's less tolerant of his criminal activities than I am. She's never worked in my field, and hasn't had to use crooks as sources – nor do I, really, want her doing my work. I keep the volume of cases down partly because I don't want to get cynical and cold about things, and I certainly don't want Cecelia getting that way.

But Rudy does like her looks. He didn't always, of course, anymore than I did. Cecelia's face has to grow on you; I've only known one person who liked her looks at first sight, and Tina's an unusual woman anyway. Most people take a while to begin thinking of Cecelia as good looking. Me, I think she's the most beautiful woman on earth, and I leave it at that. Cecelia's the analyst in the family.

It doesn't matter, I guess, whether you're walking around a darkening parking lot, or sitting in a dark vehicle listening to music – your thoughts can go all sorts of places. I'd swapped out Eternemente for John Anderson's Country 'Til I Die CD, and was listening to that in between attempts to find something worthwhile on the radio. Between several rock stations, and a couple of stations that play disco occasionally, and three Spanish language stations, I found a lot less I liked than you might think. Sometimes it seems that every station in town plays uselessness simultaneous for two or three hours at a time. And there isn't a real country station in Albuquerque, not since the Range switched formats – again. "New country" is a phrase that's only half right – the stuff's new, but it's not country. Some of it's mediocre soft rock, and some of it's fair to middling southern rock, but none of it's country.

Anderson was singing when I spotted the movement at the corner of the building that sat across from me and just to the right. I'd backed into the parking space not just out of old cop habit, but also so I could see whatever might happen, and it had worked. I didn't move. The lights from the CD player were just bright enough to see the buttons and such; if I remained still I would be invisible. No matter how well you light a parking lot there are areas of darkness, and I was in one, with the Blazer around me as well. And where I'd seen the movement was in a dark area too. I remembered from seeing the area in daylight that there was a bush at the corner of the building; I must have seen someone easing around the bush and taking a look. If it hadn't been for the motion, I'd never have known anyone was there.

Nothing happened for a minute or so, so I reached out and shut off the CD player, turned the ignition from Accessories to Off, and carefully opened the door. Almost the first thing I'd done when I bought the Blazer was disconnect the door switches so that the dome light wouldn't come on when the doors opened. It's an old cop trick which comes in handy for PIs too – and Cecelia's adopted the habit as well, though she's never done anything in law enforcement.

I slipped out of the Blazer, keeping my head down to reduce the amount of movement that would be visible across the way. I didn't close the door either, for the same reason, and to prevent any noise from reaching whoever it was. It might just be someone wandering around with insomnia. On the other hand it might be Jacob Bestwick.

I eased out from behind the door and slid around the car I was parked next to – not Cinda's, which was three spaces on the other side of the Blazer. From this angle I could see the bush better, as a dark shadow in the darkness, and the shape seemed out of harmony with what I remembered. This is the kind of thing I'm good at, though it seldom becomes a part of my work. I'd grown up playing cowboys and Indians with my cousins in Lanfair Valley – I was always the Indian, which was fine with me since, though I don't look like it, I'm a breed – and I can sneak and hide and stalk better than just about anyone I've known since then. An apartment parking lot isn't the same as the desert – there's less cover, for one thing – but I had no doubt that I could stalk Bestwick or whoever it was all night and never get caught.

A shadow moved and the bush resumed the shape I remembered. Whoever it was had left the shelter of the shrubbery and was walking – more or less quietly –toward Cinda's building. As the figure emerged from the shadows by the side of the building I saw that it was indeed Jacob Bestwick. I wondered if he'd see the open door of the Blazer, but he seemed to be headed for Cinda's car, or at least in that general direction. I was at the corner of the car I was using for cover, and eased out from behind it as he reached my side of the lot. His back was to me now, and I stood upright, watching.

There was a spitting sound, and he turned toward the building. Knowing now who I was dealing with, I dropped the sneakery. My boot heels knocked on the blacktop as I came up behind him. He turned, startled.

"Your name's Jacob Bestwick," I said.

"So?"

"My name's Darvin Carpenter." He didn't seem to know the name, not that there was any reason he should. "You're in violation of a restraining order, and I'll have to ask you to leave." I'd gotten closer, but stopped out of easy hitting range. Bestwick had thus far shown me no violent inclinations, but you don't survive unscathed for 20 years in law enforcement work without being careful.

"Who's gonna make me leave?" Bestwick asked.

I smiled at the typical pointless bravado. "We can do this a couple or three ways," I said, falling myself into a species of cliché. "You can obey the law, and split. You can hang around while I call the cops, and then hang around some more till they arrive and arrest you. You can hang around while I call the cops, and then split, which will simply mean that they find you later and arrest you. Or you can be really unwise, and try to tackle me." I shrugged. "I'd much rather you just left out of here."