We Know

I pivoted abruptly and started walking away, but then I heard Sever shouting into his radio, so I dashed off again. Into the street, a bicyclist swerving and cursing at me, then across someone's terrace and through the lobby of a condo building. I spilled out the back into an alley, looking around wildly. The rev of unseen engines, eager and predatory. Two agents ran by the mouth of the alley, headed for my building. I was standing in full view, but they didn't happen to look over. I jogged the other way, rounded the corner toward Hacmed's store. Stepping out onto the street, I stared at the back of Sever's head. He was standing in the V of his open car door, gazing out at the street. I was so close I could see the white flesh beneath his freshly cropped hairline. I froze. Behind me, around the corner, I heard the crackle of approaching radios.

A dark form lunged at me from beside the Dumpster, hurling a ragged jacket over my head. I heard a muttered word-"Quiet"-and the jacket settled over my shoulders. The weight and stench were staggering. Homer threw an arm over my shoulders and tugged me, stumbling, right past Sever and out into the crosswalk. As Homer bellowed at me in a false slur, I looked at the asphalt, reducing the view of my head from behind. Just a couple of tottering vagrants. I waited for a shout, a firm hand on my shoulder, pounding footsteps.

Behind me I heard the agents convening around Sever's car. Sever said, "Concentric circles. Let's go."

Homer and I crossed the street, the jacket's hem drooping to my calves. I had a moment of weakkneed gratitude for my worn-out Pumas, a footwear accent to the slum attire. We stepped into the humid kitchen of a Chinese take-out joint, Homer nodding at the cooks, who looked up as one from their woks and greeted him with kind familiarity. Sidling past sizzling kung pao and vats of rice, we moved through a side door to the rear lot, with its three demarcated parking spots. We threaded between cars and trash barrels, moving west, staying off the main streets and finally winding up in a peaceful yard behind a church. A giant cardboard box, warped from water, sat by the rear door, filled with clothes.

I shrugged off Homer's aromatic coat and handed it back to him. Then I sat on the church's back step and put my hands on my knees. My arms were still shaking. I couldn't get the stench of Mack's burning flesh out of my nostrils.

"You probably just saved my life." My voice was thin and cracked.

Homer said, "They'll be looking for a guy in a white shirt," and pointed to the box.

I dug through. Christian-themed T-shirts. I passed over Soak Up the Son and Tougher Than Nails, settling on the more ecumenical Forgive Us Our Trespasses, with its gray scrolled letters on black. As I pulled it on, a police siren rose to ear-splitting pitch. On the far side of the fence, the vehicle whipped past, and then the sound faded. I had to consciously lower my shoulders.

Homer said, "I checked at the VA for you about finding guys who served with whatever infantry, but admin was unhelpful and stupid." A world-weary nod. "The federal government in action."

"Thanks," I said. "I got the name I needed anyway."

"We'll head to the beach, wait there till night. The tunnels beneath PCH fall between patrol routes, so the cops never check 'em. Plus, they're a pain to get to, have to leave their patrol car. Or unmarked government sedan."

We traced an equally circuitous route, winding up north of San Vicente, where the streets dipped toward sea level. Homer rushed me down a run of stained concrete steps, and then we were safe in the tunnel, a few nervous beachgoers on their way back to their cars scurrying past the homeless. It was dank and otherworldly, our footfalls bouncing back as innumerable echoes. The stale air magnified the stench of urine. Homer coughed, the warped sound commanding through the tube until the wind across the far entrance sucked it away. He hooked my arm, and we stopped at the midway point, sliding to sit, our backs to the curved wall. A ragged man wearing spectacle frames with no glass in them stumbled past, followed by a gaunt woman air-playing a stringless tennis racket like a fiddle. Several more colorless forms, rank with sweat and waste, negotiated and joked and played with their odd, broken props-a homeless circus. The breeze shifted, breathing fresh ocean air through the concrete throat. Pacific Coast Highway thrummed overhead, timpani on endless vibration. The circle of sky at the end glowed with the kinds of colors they name crayons after. It was a weirdly beautiful scene.

I turned to Homer and said, "Thanks for bringing me here."

He said, "Remember to tip the help."