An Absence of Light

They passed under the Southwest Freeway. Graver was looking at everything, the side streets, the parking lots of restaurants, service stations, but trying not to let Lara see what he was doing. Suddenly he was seeing something suspicious in everything. Everything seemed to be a collusion between a car he had seen five blocks ago and the one he was approaching down the street, or the one parked on a side street with the one parked in the shadow of a service station.

“What is it you want me to do?” she asked, shifting in her seat “You want me to sit in the car during this meeting, is that it?”

“No, not in the car,” he said, pulling his mind back to the moment “I’ve got to meet a man named Victor Last. Last was an informant for me years ago when I was still an investigator. He was a good source, productive, but I haven’t seen him or heard from him in about eight years. Then late Sunday night, after the ordeal with Tisler was over, after Westrate had finally left the house, Last called me. Sometimes informants do that, years later. If you’ve had a good relationship with them, they crop up, get in touch with you. Since his call I’ve met with him twice. I met him at a tavern Sunday night, and then last night he showed up at my house.”

“At your house? Christ You didn’t know he was going to be there?”

Graver shook his head. “No. And he’s an intelligent man; he knew better than that. The fact that he did it anyway worries me. He never would have done it in the past. Last claims to have ‘Accidentally’ come across some information about a security breach somewhere in the police department. Thinks it might have been in the CID. But he was vague about the details. Now, I think, he wants to give me a little more information.”

“But you don’t trust him so much now,” Lara said.

“That’s right. Though maybe I should. I just find it hard to believe he happens to be at the right place at the right time.”

They were driving south on Montrose. There were only a few cars on the streets, and though there was no threat of rain, the humidity was high enough to make faint, hazy orbs around the streetlamps.

“So, what is it you want me to do?” Lara asked.

“I’m meeting this guy at a small restaurant called La Facezia?”

“In the museum district? Yeah, I know that place.”

“All I want to know is whether there’s someone watching us. Normally that would be a tricky thing to do. I mean, it’s a countersurveillance job. But there’s an odd intersection there that gives us an edge. Three streets come together, roughly in the shape of the letter “K,” forming three corners. La Facezia sits on the bottom corner. There’s another corner to the right, with a residence behind a high wall. Directly across from the restaurant, on the third corner, there’s an old brick apartment building. Two floors. There’s no security system. Front door’s always open.”

His right hand left the steering wheel, and he picked up a pair of binoculars that had been sitting beside him next to her purse. He handed them to her.

“I think they’ll fit in your bag,” he said. “They’re night-vision binoculars. Everything will look greenish through them, but you’ll get used to it.”

She took the glasses and held them up to the window and looked outside.

“I’m going to drop you off about a block from the restaurant I’ll watch you from down the street, make sure you get to the building safely. I want you to go up the stairs. On the second floor, opposite the landing, there’s a window that overlooks the intersection. You’ll have a clear view of the entrance of the restaurant and the sidewalk tables. You should also be able to see all three streets for quite a ways.”

“What do I look for?” she asked, putting the binoculars into her purse.

“Anybody hanging around, in cars maybe. Make a note-you have a steno pad?-of the kinds of cars you see, get license numbers if you can. Just be observant.”

“And what if somebody comes out of one of the apartments, wants to know what I’m doing?”

“Just flash your CID photo identification. Give them some bullshit about ‘security’ and ‘criminal intelligence.’”

She was quiet. He glanced at her as he slowed for the intersection of Main and the Mecom fountains.

“Are you okay with this?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m up for it,” she said, taking a deep breath and looking at him.

“But…?”

“No ‘buts’… It’s just… Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows in subdued surprise, “me doing this, this really is on the edge, isn’t it? I mean, it’s kind of like coming in on a wing and a prayer, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Graver said, turning onto the heavily wooded Cerano Street. “That’s exactly what it is.”

Chapter 35

Graver had been going to La Facezia for years, ever since the owner’s daughter had provided him with information on a protection racket in the Oriental restaurant business where her boyfriend’s parents owned several establishments. The restaurant was in an old stone building that sat on a neighborhood corner where three quiet, tree-shaded streets came to an intersection.