We Know

"I seen him once or twice the past couple days. And now up here. Why's he so interested in you?"

"Mistaken identity."

"Don't think so," Homer said firmly. His beard shifted as he chewed, then he noticed I was looking at him and said defensively, "You notice things in my profession."

"Profession?"

"Homeless drunk."

"What kinds of things do you notice?"

"People on the run. People with something to hide." He lifted the spoon from the pot and ticked it at me, and I noticed how much he resembled

Liffman while looking nothing like him at the same time. "What are you hiding?"

"A hundred eighty grand in the dishwasher."

His smile held little amusement. "You like to avoid questions."

"What are you, the homeless shrink? Eat your fucking food."

"You call this food?" But he lowered his face and ate in silence.

After a while I said, "Sorry."

"You should be. That's no way to talk to a guest."

"Don't push it."

He finished scraping cheese goo off the bottom of the pot and handed it back. I set it steeping in hot water. Later it would need a good scouring, as would the bathroom, which generally looked as if two street dogs had fought in there by the time he got through with it.

His assessment of me continued to chafe. "How can you tell that about someone?" I asked.

He gestured around the condo. "Look at this. Look at you. A perfectly all-right-looking guy. Reasonably smart. Everything's there for you. But it's like you left something behind somewhere along the way."

My face grew hot. "Left something behind?"

"Some people dig in and fight. Some of us run. You're a runner. Like me."

I knew better than to ask what he was running from. We'd covered that ground, and he skirted his past almost as well as I did mine. "Maybe once," I answered, a little too sharply.

"People don't change." He lifted a snowy eyebrow at me, observing the impact of his words. "Truth hurts?" he asked, not unkindly.

"C'mon," I said tersely. "I'll walk you out."

"Of course."

We headed down and out onto the street, and Homer started trudging off. I stared after him. Was I a runner like him? In light of Bilton's not-so-indirect threats, did I dare to keep digging? Could I stop?

I called after him, and he turned back. I asked, "You're buddies with the homeless guys who live around the VA, right?" The VA was a big operation with federal funding, so I didn't have any contacts over there.

"'Buddies' might be a stretch, but we have common interests."

"Such as?"

He frowned thoughtfully. "Abandoned shopping carts, empty soda cans, Night Train."

"A lot of Vietnam vets around there?"

"Ya think?"

"Can you ask the administration if they have a system for keeping tabs on soldiers from specific infantries? I'm trying to find anyone who served in Company C of the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry. I need to get a name of one of the guys they served with."

"Half those guys are prob'ly dead or on the street, and I doubt the government gives a shit where the other half lives, but it can't hurt asking. Sir." He snapped off a salute and a smirk and kept walking.

When I turned back to my building, a glint overhead pricked my peripheral vision, something on the balcony of the unrented unit next to Evelyn's. I glanced up in time to see a long-lens camera withdraw from view, disappearing behind the orange tile balustrade.

Chapter 18

I teetered on the ledge between balconies, doing my best to ignore the pavement three stories down. Hugging stucco, I inched farther along. I'd climbed from my balcony to Evelyn's and on toward the unrented unit from there. It was a reckless play, but I was goddamned tired of being spied on and angry enough to risk a deadly plummet in order to force a confrontation.

Two abandoned lawn chairs sat by the sliding glass door, which had been left open. The screen cut the sunlight, but I could see that there was no one in the living room. I eased down onto the balcony and through the screen door, which gave off the faintest chirp in the tracks. The sound echoing in my head, I froze for a solid minute, so tense that my shoulders cramped.

The living room smelled of fresh paint. Outlets still taped off, sheets of drywall on the counter. The condo, a mirror image of mine, was undergoing a remodel to be put on the market. The workers had taken off for Labor Day last week and not come back. Sensing movement in the bedroom, I crept over, flattened myself against the wall beside the jamb, and peered in.

She sat cross-legged in the middle of the faded carpet, facing away. Her brown hair was pulled into thick, girlish braids, and her head was bent as she fussed over something in her lap. The camera? A gun? Her arms, poking from a black tank top, were pale and thin, though not without muscle. A sun tattoo stood out on the back of her slender neck. Her posture and manner seemed that of a child, though she was probably in her mid-twenties.

I stepped into the doorway. "Why are you following me?"