"What?" Kip gave him a grin. "Things are cool. I'll deal with Calitri tomorrow. Work a deal—get some kind of extension. This is handled, man."

  "Handled?" Memphis was incredulous. "You just got crushed in your car. You're bleeding all over yourself...."

  "Okay, it wasn't the best day," Kip allowed.

  Memphis stood up and went to the window. A crane was unloading a container of Hondas--legit-imate cars—at the harbor below. "Does Mom know about any of this?"

  "Hey, now, this is none of her business," Kip said.

  "Other than the fact that she's our mother."

  Memphis was restlessly wandering around the room now. He eyed an old baseball trophy of Kip's, then picked it up and looked hard at it. What had happened to Kip in the last six years?

  "You know," Memphis said slowly, "I can understand the silence, the unreturned phone calls... but what is really confusing me is how, since I've been gone, you went from being this guy"—he indicated the trophy—"to a guy with his head all the way up his own ass."

  Kip was visibly stung. "Look, this is just a speed bump," he said. "Don't rub my nose in it."

  "By the way," Memphis added dryly, "you're getting blood on your olives."

  At the docks in San Pedro, Castlebeck and Drycoff were conducting a police interview on the bleached planks of a small commercial wharf. The subject was Fuzzy Frizzel, lowlife and police informant.

  "Get off my back," Fuzzy complained. "I told you, I don't know shit about it." He looked around nervously, wishing for a little more privacy. He had his reputation to worry about. "All I know is, two weeks ago an order was put on the street for a lot of top-end cars."

  "Who's doing the boosting?" Drycoff needed to know.

  "No clue," Fuzzy told him.

  Castlebeck looked skeptical.

  "I do not fucking know!" Fuzzy insisted. Drycoff detected a trace of earnestness and gave Castlebeck a questioning look.

  "Get outta here," Castlebeck said, through with Fuzzy.

  They still didn't know who was doing the boosting.

  Helen Raines, dressed for work in a pink Quality Cafe uniform and chunky shoes, was clear-eyed and still attractive in her sixties. She carried three plates across her arm to a booth of kids in UCLA shirts and spread them across the table from memory according to their orders.

  "Enjoy," she said. Then she turned and noticed a figure in the doorway that gave her heart a pang of joy and a stab of anger and resentment as well.

  Randall.

  She went to him, tentative, started to hug him but didn't. Instead she ushered him to an empty table by the doors to the kitchen where they could talk. Memphis noticed she was wiping her eyes.

  "You're here about Kip, aren't you?" she said when they'd sat down.

  "What happened?" Memphis asked her.

  "I don't know," she said honestly. "He met some people and he changed. He lost that sweetness. He'd stay out late. Sometimes he wouldn't come home."

  "Why didn't you tell me? I would've come back," Memphis said.

  "I'm the one who asked you to leave in the first place," she reminded him. "To save him. But you were the one who was saved—you got away from here. Away from the life. I was afraid if I told you, you'd come back and it would start all over again." She took a deep breath. "Tell me, how deep in is he?"

  "Deep," Memphis told her.

  "Can you get him out?"

  "It means doing things. Things I swore to you I'd never do again."

  Helen looked away. There was a line at the door now; they needed the table.

  "Let's get up," she said, and they did. Helen touched his arm. "Do what it takes, Randall," she told him. "Do what it takes to get him out." He nodded and started to go. She stopped him and this time hugged him tight.

  Outside the cafe a new Mercedes S500 pulled up in front of the hydrant by the curb. Castlebeck and Drycoff got out and approached Memphis.

  He stopped. "The new Mercedes S500? Very nice."

  "Hot off the shelf," Castlebeck said, emphasizing the word hot.

  "Mercedes improve it?" Memphis asked.

  "More leg room, nicer stereo," Castlebeck said, beginning to sound like Consumer Reports.

  Drycoff changed the subject. "When'd you get back?"

  "This morning."

  "What for?"

  "No particular reason," Memphis said. "Catch a Lakers game. I heard we got Shaquille."

  Castlebeck's irritation showed. "Tell you a story. This is funny."

  "What?"

  "I get a call from a uniform cop. Axton. Smart guy. Iron-trap memory. Remembers everything— birthdays, criminal records, faces."

  Drycoff nodded. "He's amazing. He even remembers Kajagoogoo."

  "You're right, Detective Castlebeck," Memphis said. "That is funny."

  "I haven't told you the funny part yet," Castlebeck said. "Axton says, 'Guess who's in town? Randall Raines.' I say, 'Randall Raines, the car thief? Impossible.' And Axton says, 'Hey! I'll bet you two hundred bucks I just saw him!'"

  "Wait a minute, Detective," Memphis said.

  But Castlebeck kept going. "The irony is, two nights ago, we snared thirteen fresh stolens waiting for export. And I actually thought, 'Hey! This feels like Randall Raines!' It was sloppy, not up to your former flash. But still, it just felt like you. And now—hey, here you are."

  Drycoff nodded. "It's uncanny."

  Memphis gave them a pained expression. "Look. I don't know what you boys are looking for," he said. "I just got back last night. Family emergency."

  Castlebeck wouldn't quit. His answer: "Me, too—I gotta go tell the wife I just lost two hundred bucks."

  "And she's mean," Drycoff said, playing along.

  "Scorpion-mean," Castlebeck said, but he wasn't talking about his wife now. He wasn't playing or kidding or screwing around now. He was threatening.

  "Six years ago, you made the smart play and retired from a life that was going to get you caught or killed. Not putting you away for the big hit is a bug up the ass of my otherwise distinguished career."

  "Without disappointment, you can't appreciate victory," Memphis pointed out.

  Castlebeck bristled. "You learn that from Eleanor?"

  "That's hitting below the belt," Memphis said.

  "Roll through a stop sign, Randall. Jaywalk. Use an aerosol can in a method other than directed on the label. I don't care what it is—you make one slip-up and I'll send you away for a long, long time."

  Drycoff added, "By the time you get out, asshole, there won't even be cars. We'll all be cruising around in spaceships."

  "Okay, guys," Memphis said. "Have a nice day." And then he disappointed them by walking away instead of getting in a car.

  Castlebeck and Drycoff went back to the Mercedes. "Who's Eleanor?" Drycoff asked as he pulled away from the curb. "Girlfriend? Wife?"

  "Eleanor?" Castlebeck said, smiling. "A car."

  The sign on the door said as much about the owner as the business inside—a business of restoring old cars.

  Otto hallowed himself, in his late sixties, was the grease-soaked one who could be seen examining the four-inch top chop on a 1954 Ford Vic; or managing the blueprinting of a Chevy engine being installed in a 1961 Buick Invicta; or inspecting the welting and top-stitching on new upholstery for a 1947 Chevy convertible; or pinstriping the flame on a 1934 Ford three-window coupe.

  Otto's woman, Junie, was the striking one-early forties, body of a thousand dances—who could be seen wiping Otto's brow like a scrub nurse as he worked.

  Otto's mutt dog, Hemi, was the roguish one, age indeterminate, who could be seen mangling in his jaws the leather-wrapped, two-hundred-dollar SpeedMart aftermarket steering wheel.

  Memphis Raines stood in the doorway, taking it all in.

  "Am I dying?" Otto cried when he saw who it was. "Are all the angels of my life returning to bid a final farewell?" He wiped his hands, held Memphis at arm's length, and looked him over. "And have my angels completely lost their fashion sense?"

  Memphis smiled, thinking about the signature black leather duster he had long since packed away in a box. "Hello, Otto."

  "Randall, Randall, Randall. Good to see you." He was serious now. They were family, connected not by blood but by memories of battles they had fought and won together.

  "You, too, Otto."

  "You remember Junie?"

  "Of course." Memphis nodded her way. "Hi, Junie."

  "Hello."

  How long had it been? Six years? "I got your postcard at Christmas," Otto said, showing him the bulletin board. Up there with the receipts and For Sale notices fringe-cut for removable telephone numbers.

  "See how good it goes with the other one you sent me? Six years ago. Two postcards in six years. You lose your pen?"

  "You never wrote me," Memphis pointed out.

  "No. But once a week, I telepathically send you warm thoughts."

  "Those I got," Memphis assured him.

  On the wall near the bulletin board, the framed photograph of a car captured his attention. It was a Shelby Mustang GT-500, white with red pinstriping.

  Eleanor again.

  Otto saw him looking. "You ever catch her?"

  Memphis turned away from the picture. "Eleanor? Haven't tried since I left." He surveyed the shop, the stockpile of collector cars, the feast of tools and machinery, the craftsmen at work. "What happened here?"

  "Whatever do you mean?" Otto said. As if it had always been this way. But of course, it hadn't. If the walls in Otto's shop could speak, to the police in particular, he and Memphis and several others they knew would not be free men.

  "The chop shop," Memphis said. "Where are the stripped cars? The rolled-back odometers? The part bins? What happened?"

  "What happened? I'll tell you what happened." Otto removed the ball cap from his head and ran his hand over the thinning hair on top. "Old age happened!"

  Both men smiled. Then Otto said, in all honesty, "I tired of killing them. I woke up one morning and thought, 'I am no longer a destroyer. I am a means of resurrection.' Now we restore. We revive. There are so few things in this life we can prevent from decay. Most must die." His eyes went to the cars. "These don't have to."

  Memphis knew the feeling. He'd walked on both sides of the tracks—the wrong side in L.B., the right side in Independence. Otto was right. You had a choice. You could destroy, or you could build.

  It made him question his motivation for seeing Otto again. Thanks to Kip, Memphis was getting ready for another walk on the wild side, back to the life. Why bring an old friend into it with him? If Otto went to jail now, at sixty-something years of age, he might never come out. Otto had made a beautiful world within these walls—why risk destroying it?

  Maybe for the same reason that Memphis was risking everything that he had built. Otto's world here and Memphis's world in Independence were not stand-alone places. They weren't autonomous worlds, unaffected by everything else that was going on around and in between them. They were parts of the bigger world, the imperfect world that included men like Raymond Calitri. That included black markets, vehicle registration blackouts at national borders, corrupt customs officials, greedy politicians, fraudulent parts distributors, chop shops, and boost rings that victimized and wasted impressionable kids like Kip in the name of the almighty dollar. That's why he was here. If he and Otto didn't build in the world, then men like Raymond Calitri would surely have it destroyed.

  Otto was speaking to a Mexican man standing at a compressor. "It's three coats of primer and twelve coats of black acrylic lacquer before laying out the flames—and fill the cab top with mylar flakes. They'll sparkle like the stars."

  Then he led Memphis to an automotive audio display built into a plywood wall near the door to the office. He punched the play button on a cassette deck, and instantly engine sounds ripped from the shop's stereo speakers. Otto listened as if it were a Mahler symphony.

  "The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona. At Le Mans, 1971. The quad-cam V-12! Hear how they got the engine up? Hear those exhaust notes? That's a very wide rev range. Here, it peaks at fifty-five hundred rpm." They listened for a few seconds more before Otto stopped the tape and invited Memphis into the office.

  Otto poured coffee into Styrofoam cups and set them out on the calendar paper blotter on his worn wooden desk. Then the men sat down. Memphis took a sip, Otto looking at him appreciatively. He hated to spoil the mood.

  "What do you know about Raymond Calitri?" Memphis asked him.

  Otto's expression changed only a little, just enough to give Junie a look. "If you'll excuse us, sweetness," he said. She hesitated. "Go, go... we're fine here," he said.

  Junie went, and so did Otto's good mood.

  "She gets nervous, anyone from the old days comes by," Otto told Memphis, reassuring him that this was nothing personal. His assessment of Raymond Calitri was brief and to the point. "He's a jackal," Otto said. "Tearing at the soft belly of our fair town. He's amplified much sorrow on these streets. And he's an asshole, to boot."

  At least they were on the same wavelength. The time to ask for Otto's help was now. But still, he felt strange about it, asking for something so abruptly after so much time apart. There was a long silence between them.

  "I heard about Kip," Otto said finally. "Are you considering a comeback tour?"

  Otto already knew why he'd come. "Do you think it can be done?" Memphis asked.

  "How many cars?" Otto asked the practical question.

  "Fifty."

  "How many days?"

  "Four."

  "How many in your crew?"

  "One. But right now I'm negotiating for a second—"

  "Fifty cars in four days? I'd say no. It can't be done. You need time to prep, time to shop. You'd also have to hope Kip's jerk circus didn't undo Castlebeck's linkage so much that he's setting up surveillance teams on every city block. A job of this magnitude requires a good two weeks. So, no. It can't be done."

  "It has to be."

  Otto studied him, then nodded. Imperfect world.

  "What about the old crew?" Memphis asked.

  Otto leaned back in his chair and struck a wistful pose. * 'A people is a detour of nature to get six or seven great men—yes, and then to get

  around them__ ' Nietzsche said that. I don't know

  where they are, the old crew, our six or seven great men. Since I've cleaned up, they no longer come around. A pity how legitimacy makes you unpopular. Let's make some phone calls." He motioned Memphis to the phone on Junie's desk.

  Memphis thought about her and gave Otto an out. "I understand if you don't want to help me with this."

  "Look around you," Otto said. "These days? I'm all about second chances." And Otto closed his eyes and punched a button on a tape deck on a shelf behind the desk. The sound of the Ferrari tape came over the bookshelf speakers on either side of the room.

  "Ahh. Eight-point-eight to one compression."

  The Dodge Aries K with the Pleasure Cruise Driving School sign locked its left wheels between the tracks of the double

  yellow no-passing divider line perfectly in time with the approach of the oncoming pickup, missed it by inches, and caromed off the windbreak onto the shoulder. The timid Japanese girl behind the wheel negotiated the vehicle back onto the macadam in front of a tour bus, which lurched and offered her a long blast of its horn. The certified instructor in the passenger seat, Donny Astricky, was howling. "Pull over! Pull her the hell over!"

  The girl turned the Aries onto the shoulder, jerked to a stop, and twisted the key in the wrong direction. Donny Astricky rammed the shifter into park, yanked the keys out of the column, and chucked the ring out the passenger-side window temporarily.

  He then proceeded to fill out Jenny's driving school scorecard, failing her in all categories, then going into more detail at the bottom of the page.

  "Can't negotiate turns. Can't signal properly. Can't maintain speed. Can't parallel park. You can't drive. You can't! It's time to acknowledge that and move on. I can't swim. I know I can't. So you know what I do? I stay the fuck outta the pool."

  Jenny began to cry, silently at first, then louder, with soft, wet sobs. Donny was confused. On the one hand, he felt morally anguished and repentant—he was supposed to be her teacher, after all. Yet she had almost killed him several times that very morning. Thankfully, his cell phone rang.

  "Memphis! How ya doing?" Donny said, then listened for about a minute. "When? Sure, man!" He hung up. His spirits were renewed. He looked at Jenny with hope for the future. He grabbed the driving school form he'd just completed, creased it up, jammed it deep in his pocket, got out of the car, and dropped the keys back inside onto the clipboard where it lay on the passenger seat. The top page on the clipboard was a fresh, unblemished scorecard. "The effort is what really counts, Jenny, so I'm giving you a clean slate," he said. "Just go 'round the block a couple times, stay off the Interstates...."

  And then Donny ran for his own car as Jenny plowed into a sign.

  Drycoff Caught up with Castlebeck in the corridor to the GRAB task force offices at HQ. "Those three Mercedes from the boost? All were sold through Dressner Foreign Motors, downtown Newport. All employees clean except one." He handed Castlebeck a rap sheet and mug shot. "James Lakewood. Did a nickel at Folsom for auto insurance fraud."

  "Gosh," Castlebeck said. "I bet he neglected to mention that to the Dressner Foreign Motors folks."

  Drycoff shrugged. You never knew, right? "He handles all Dressner's lost key orders with Mercedes' German office."

  "Let's go to Dressner Foreign Motors and make friends with this ... James Lakewood."

  They found him at the dealership and conducted the interview in the garage, away from the prying eyes of the sales manager. Lakewood paced nervously throughout and chain-smoked.

  "This is outrageous," Lakewood told the men. "I want my lawyer. I'm not saying a word until I get a lawyer."

  Castlebeck nodded, loving his job. "That is one option, James."

 

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