California Schemin' (19 page)

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked for the
tenth time as I tried to get him down the hall to the limo.

“Everybody’s sick,” I lied. “I need to get
you to the hospital. I’m the only one left who’s well enough to
drive.”

“But why are we sick?” He put the emphasis on
why, like a child.

“Ate something bad, I guess. Maybe it was the
shrimp cocktail, I didn’t have any of that.”

“Maybe the shrimp.” He sounded as if he was
drifting off again, and I could feel him growing heavier. “Senator
Wallace.” I shoved him upright. “You have to stay awake until you
are in the car.” I pushed him along the hall. If he passed out, I’d
never get him down the steps in the garage or into the limo for
that matter.

“Car,” he said.

“Yeah, car. Come on.”

I opened the door to the garage with my left
hand while steadying him with my right. I edged out the door and
stepped down the stars backward. Luckily there were only three of
them, and he didn’t fall flat on his face. He was leaning on me
heavily and dragging his feet. I leaned him against the side of the
first limo and opened the door. His knees gave way, and he slid
down the side of the car and sat on the floor of the garage.

I grabbed an arm and tugged.

“Senator! Get in the car. We have to get you
to the hospital.”

“I’m coming.” His words slurred and his head
dropped.

“Shit!” I left him sitting there and ran back
into the house. The kitchen was a disaster of dishes. I grabbed a
half-empty beer mug off the island and topped it off with water. I
took it back into the garage and threw it in the senator’s
face.

He spluttered and coughed.

“In the car, Senator Wallace. Get in the
car.”

He gave up trying to stand and crawled to the
door of the car, where he rested his forehead on the edge of the
seat.

“In you go.” I prodded him with my foot, and
he crawled into the back and collapsed on the back seat. “Stay
there. I’ll be right back.”

At the driver’s door I scanned the controls
until I found the one I thought locked the back doors from the
inside. I found Moose in the bathroom sitting on the edge of the
tub, his head between his knees.

“Moose.”

Moose slowly raised his head and looked at
me.

“I need the keys to the limo.”

“In the laundry room.” He swallowed hard.
“Was it the chocolate or the beer?” he asked.

“Both.” I felt a small twinge of guilt. I’d
seen him sample both.

“Oh, God. I’ll never eat chocolate again.” He
dropped his head to his knees and then sat up and lunged for the
toilet.

I backed out of the bathroom. A cell was
ringing. I heard Hammie answer as I walked past the living room. I
slowed to listen.

“Yeah? You’re in the limo? Can you tell where
you are?” He paused, and I could hear him taking deep breaths. His
stomach was probably cramping, but he hadn’t had much of the poison
margaritas. I heard him take a drink of something. Most of the
drinks in the living room were now laced with Valium. I almost felt
bad for him.

“You’re in the garage? The garage here at the
house? The car is locked. Well, sit tight, someone will come out to
get you in a bit.” I moved on. I needed to be out of there before
he pulled himself together.

“No, she can’t take you anywhere, she doesn’t
know where the keys are kept.”

I left him to reason with Wallace and trotted
down to the laundry room and stopped dead. Where in the laundry
room? I pulled out drawers and rummaged through the cupboards in a
panic. Nothing. I stopped and looked around, scanning the walls.
There was a cabinet-sized mirror set into the wall next to the
door. I tried pulling it open, but I couldn’t get my fingers around
the edges of the frame. I put my palm on it and pushed. It popped
out, revealing a wall full of keys.

Not knowing which were the keys to the limo
Wallace was in, I pulled a set of every key chain with a push
button fob and headed out to the garage. Once in the driver’s seat
of the limo, I almost chickened out. There were a lot of buttons
and doodads that were a mystery. But I found the place to stick the
key, and the shifter was right where it should be. To hell with it,
the rest of that stuff could just take care of itself.

I pressed the remote for the garage door and
started the car. So far, so good. I put it in gear and eased out
through the door and down the drive. Except for being really long,
it handled pretty much like any other boat. I turned right onto the
street and heard something scrape the side of the car. The mailbox
toppled. Great. By the time this was over, I’d be replacing half a
mil’s worth of stuff.

The gate to the complex went up as we
approached. I drove through without looking at the guardhouse. I
braced myself for the gate to come crashing down on us, but we got
through free and clear. Hammie must not realize the seagull had
left the building.

I maneuvered the big car out onto the freeway
and headed north. If Wallace had a cabin, I was betting it was not
far from Foresthill—more specifically, the Foresthill Bridge. The
privacy window was up between the front and back seats. I pushed a
likely looking button, and the sunroof rolled back. Okay, don’t
need that at the moment. Closed the sunroof and tried again.

This time the privacy window slid down. I was
worried about Wallace coming over the seat and trying to throttle
me, so I stopped it at about five inches. Enough so he could hear
me, not so much that he could get through the window and kill
me.

“Senator Wallace. Wake up.”

He didn’t move.

“Hey. Wake up!”

Still nothing. I turned on the radio full
blast.

“What!” Senator Wallace sat up. “Turn it off!
Turn it off!”

I turned the radio off.

“Are you trying to make me deaf?”

“I need to know where your cabin is.”

“Like I would tell you where my cabin is. You
must think I’m stupid.”

Yep, I did think he was stupid, but I wasn’t
telling him that.

“I put something stronger in Wendy’s drink.
It’s potentially lethal but slow acting. You take me to the cabin,
and I’ll call and tell Hambecker to take her to the hospital. You
don’t take me, and there’s a chance that she dies. It’s up to you.”
I was feeling ruthless and desperate.

“No. I won’t be blackmailed.” He was shaking
his head, but his eyes were closed.

“What will your constituency think of you
when they find out you could have saved your daughter but didn’t?
Don’t think you’ll be in office too long, do you? Could you recover
from that? Not without seeming like a callous bastard.” I sounded
pathetic even to myself.

“Fuck you. All you had to do was implicate
two slimy cheese balls, and your life would have gone back to
normal. They’re crooks, rapists, thieves, fucking scum. And you’re
too high and mighty to finger innocent men. Let me tell you,
Sweetheart, those guys are nowhere near innocent.”

“Don’t care what they are. I. Don’t. Lie.
Period.” I crossed my fingers as I said it, trying not to think
when the last lie was. Almost everything I’d said since we’d been
in the car, but not the essentials, the essentials were true. At
least that way I could justify myself.

We were coming into downtown Sacramento. I
put on the signal and pulled onto the off ramp.

“Where are you going?” Wallace asked.

“Jail. No point in driving all over the
foothills looking for a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I’ll take
you to the police and let them deal with you.” I followed the signs
toward the courthouse and Police Department.

“All right,” he said, “all right, I’ll take
you. Just get back on the freeway and go east.”

We drove up Interstate 80 for an hour. We
passed Auburn and the Foresthill exit. I was in familiar territory
now. I’d spent a month driving around this area scoping out photo
opportunities. It was another forty-five minutes before Wallace
told me to get off the freeway, and we followed winding back roads
into the woods. The condition of the roads got steadily worse until
we were bouncing along a barely paved road in the pines.

We came to a place where the road petered
out, narrowing down to a track that the limo was too wide to
navigate. It didn’t feel right to me. I stopped the car and turned
to look at Wallace.

“What now? The car won’t make it down this
track.”

“We have to walk in from here. It’s not too
far, a quarter mile or so. Let me out of the back, and I’ll show
you the way.”

Somehow I didn’t see the Senator as the type
of guy who would want to walk into his ski cabin. If it was a
hunting cabin, maybe, but if I’d heard Fogel correctly, this was
their base for hitting the slopes. They’d have all kinds of gear to
carry besides suitcases, food and beer.

“No, I think I’ll leave you here. I don’t
want to have to watch you while I’m helping Beau get back to the
car.” I rolled up the privacy window and looked at him in the
mirror. His face was red with fury. He began pounding the window.
He turned and kicked at the door, but this car was built to keep
people in. He was trapped.

I wasn’t about to crack open the privacy
window, so I found the button for the intercom and pressed it
on.

“I take it this isn’t where your cabin is
located? I’m going to back out of here. If you don’t take me
straight to Beau, I’ll take you straight to Fogel. I take that
back. First I’ll call the
Sacramento Bee
and tell them my
story, and then I’ll take you to Fogel. You may be able to get him
to hush things up, but you’ll have a hard time hushing up every
paper in the state.”

The cabin, when we reached it, was about what
I’d expected, a scaled-down ski lodge built above a huge two-bay
garage. A group of people in jackets and beanies were sitting on
the deck, enjoying the late afternoon sun. Beau wasn’t among
them.

I cracked the window and called out.

“Hey! Can one of you come to the railing,
please?”

A rough-looking man of about forty walked
over. He managed to look menacing just standing there. I took a
look at his face and realized it was the city boy I’d seen from the
tree. He was the suit from the river.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’ve got your boss in the back of the car.
He needs you to bring Beau down.”

“I’m not bringing anybody down until I talk
to the senator.”

I cracked the back window, just enough so he
could see the senator’s face, and spoke into the intercom.

“Tell him to bring Beau down to the car.”

“Bring our guest out to the car,” Wallace
said, “and make it quick. I’m in a hurry.”

“Are you sure, Senator Wallace? This wasn’t
in the instructions.”

“Plans change, bring him out.”

I sat on pins and needles as the minutes
ticked by. The longer it took, the more antsy I got. Finally I
pushed the intercom button.

“Where were your guys keeping him? You got a
dungeon under this place?” If they had damaged a hair on Beau’s
head I was going to be really upset.

“I have no idea what’s taking him so long.
Not my idea, I assure you.”

We sat a minute more before the door opened
onto the deck, and Beau walked out followed by the senator’s
henchman. My heart leapt. Beau was on crutches, but otherwise he
looked normal, at least at first glance. When my eyes lit on his
face, I knew something was wrong. His mouth was tight and jaw
clenched. That was when I saw the gun.

“Good man, Guy.” I could hear the smile in
Wallace’s voice.

“Bastard. Shit.” I locked the doors, and my
mind went into overdrive trying to figure out how I was going to
get Beau away from Guy. I started the car and revved the engine and
put it in gear. I could miss Beau and hit Guy, couldn’t I? Guy put
the gun to Beau’s head, and my stomach clenched.

For one crazy moment I imagined myself
throwing the car into gear and taking the bastard out, but it was
fleeting. I couldn’t risk Beau. On a whim I reached over and opened
the glove compartment, but unless I could knock Guy on the head
with the owner’s manual, I was out of luck.

Beau was yelling at me to drive away, but
what was the point? If I drove Wallace away, chances were they’d
hurt Beau. He didn’t deserve that. Crap, crap, crap. I could drive
Wallace to Fogel. There was a chance that Beau would be okay.

“You put that limo in gear, I shoot the guy.”
Guy stuck the barrel of the gun against Beau’s cheek. “It’s time
for you to let Senator Wallace out of there.”

It was probably my imagination, but I’d swear
I saw his trigger finger tighten. I popped the locks on the rear of
the car. Wallace shot out before I could change my mind.

“Give me the gun.” He motioned for Guy to
hand him the firearm. Guy looked confused, but when the senator
held out his hand, he gave him the gun. Beau jerked out of Guy’s
grasp the moment Wallace took possession. The look Wallace gave me
was of pure hatred. He leveled the gun at me and pulled the
trigger.

I had no idea what happened when bulletproof
glass took a hit. I threw myself down on the seat, covering my head
with my arms. I expected glass to go flying. There was a huge
crack, but nothing happened. I rolled over and looked up at the
window. The bullet had left a spider web of cracks.

I sat up just in time to see Wallace throw
the handgun on the ground and kick it into the trees.

“Shit! Shit!” He was hopping around holding
the foot that kicked the gun. He was wearing leather house
slippers, and he had kicked the gun hard. I figured he’d broken a
toe at the very least. I looked over to where Guy was standing. He
was staring at Wallace with his mouth open. You’d think he had
never seen a senator kick a gun and hurt his toe.