of the booth. He grabbed Johnny’s arm and pointed him back to the door. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you.”
They went outside, with the guy still hanging onto Johnny’s arm, and walked up to one of those new-style Impalas. The guy stopped by the passenger door and bleeped the bleeper and said, “Get in.”
“What about my car?” Johnny asked.
“It’ll still be here. Or it won’t.” He opened the door. “I said get in.”
Johnny had a beer and a half in him—and where had the rest of that second one gone to?—and so he was thinking a little fuzzy, and so this seemed like a good idea. The guy slammed the door after him and went around the front and got in the car. He put on his seatbelt. He said, “Yours too.”
“I don’t wear them,” Johnny said. “Someone told me—“
“Put on your goddamned seatbelt.”
Johnny did. He had a little trouble with the buckle, and the guy had to help him.
They got out of the lot and back onto the road. Johnny asked, “Is she gonna be okay?”
“You asked me that already.”
“What’d you say?”
“I said she’d live.”
“Who are you, anyway? How come you know about Tiff?”
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll tell you later.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
They didn’t say anything for a while, maybe a mile. Then Johnny spoke up. “So have I been a good boy?” he asked. “You said if I was a good boy, you’d tell me who you were and why you know stuff about Tiff and me.”
“You’re being a very good boy, Johnny. But you’ve got a way to go. So just forget about who I am and let’s go visit your sister.”
Another mile, and they hit the freeway. Johnny sat there and worried about Tiff, about how it must hurt. He didn’t like it when Tiff didn’t feel good. Whoever had done it was going to get his.
The freeway ran into the Golden State. The guy driving said, “So who might’ve done this to your sister?”
“Damned if I know. Everyone likes her.”
“Tell me about her.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything you want to tell me.”
“Well … first thing is, she’s not really my sister.”
“Jesus, Johnny, this is not the way to build trust.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
“She’s my half sister. My mom had me, and then my dad got run over, and then she married Tiff’s dad and had Tiff.”
“What does she do?”
“She works at the Rite-On in Pacoima. She’s gonna be assistant manager soon.”
“Sounds like you’re pretty proud of her.”
“Hell, yes.”
“And what do you do, by the way?”
“I’m …” Well, what was he, really?
“Unemployed?”
“Yeah, mostly. I do a little day labor.”
“And a little illegal stuff?”
“Huh? No. Not me. Never. Not since I was in Folsom. I’m figuring you know about Folsom, right?”
“Right. And I’m figuring you’re lying.”
The guy was right. Johnny was a bad liar to start with, and this guy seemed like he’d be good at picking that out.
“So talk to me. I told you, I’m not the police. I don’t give a rat’s ass about whatever you’re into.”
“Then why do you want to know?”
The guy gave him a look. “What I mean is, I’m not going to do anything about it. I want to know, though. To get a better picture of someone I’m going to be working with.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s you and me, Johnny. We’re going to track down whoever did this to your sister.”
Johnny and the beer and a half thought about it. They said, “That sounds good.”
“So tell me what you’re into.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out like a girly giggle. Jesus. “It’s like what I do that’s legal, sort of. It’s like day labor. Only it’s mostly night labor, on account of it mostly happens at night. Some guy calls me to unload trucks. I mean, I don’t know for sure that the stuff’s hot, but when you’re unloading an IKEA truck in the middle of the night at some crappy old warehouse somewhere, you got to think that ain’t what IKEA had in mind. Right?”
“Right. And how do you get paid?”
“They give me some cash when it’s done.”
“How often do you do this?”
“Couple times a month.” Another giggly noise came out. “Pays a hell of a lot better than the day stuff.”
The guy pointed to a sign for the hospital and got off the freeway and a couple minutes later there they were in the lot. The guy called somebody named Steve on his phone. They talked a minute, and then the guy told Johnny to get out of the car.
They walked to the hospital and met Steve in the lobby. He had a green hospital uniform and a kind of pointy shaved head.
“You look terrible,” the guy who’d picked up Johnny said.
“Double shift and a three-fatality crash. Little boy’s going to find out he’s an orphan and an only child. Who’s this?”
“The emergency contact.”
Steve gave Johnny a funny look. “Oh?”
“He didn’t do it. She’s his sister. He wants to see her.”
“That’s going to be difficult. What with it being the middle of the night.”
“But you can arrange it, right? Because I need to talk to her, and I think it’ll be a lot easier if he’s with me.”
“It can’t wait till morning?”
“I probably could. But Johnny here’s kind of worried, and I’d like to ease his mind.”
Johnny didn’t know if he really did or if he was using it to get in to see Tiff sooner. Either way was fine with him.
Steve was acting all worked up, but Johnny thought it was phony. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Stay here.” He walked away.
“Why are you helping me?” Johnny said.
“It’s what I do.”
Johnny wasn’t sure what that meant. There had to be an angle. “I’ve been good,” he said, “What’s your name?”
“Call me Logan.”
“Well, thanks, Logan. You’re okay.”
There was a candy machine near them, and Logan caught him looking. “You want something?” he said.
“If they got a Snickers. I like Snickers.”
He left, and Steve came back. Then Logan came back. He didn’t have a Snickers, but he had a couple of Paydays.
“Come