place, Mr. Sunday. There’s more than just gangbangers, porn, and ingénues. A lot more.”
“’More in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’?”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t have taken you for a Shakespeare fan.”
“Is that what it’s from? Heard it in a movie once.”
So Neumann’s a big fish. How big is the pond? And what kind of sharks are swimming in it?
I know something’s wrong the moment I see my front door. It’s closed, but the jamb is broken. My porch light is out. The door swings open at my touch.
I step inside and flick the light switch. The lamp’s been knocked to the floor, casting eerie shadows through the room.
Whoever broke in did a thorough job. Cushions are sliced open, stuffing on the floor. Books in a pile, pictures off the wall.
I rush to the bedroom closet, throw it open. The safe’s sitting wide open. Nothing’s missing, not the cash, not the guns.
Nothing except the stone.
Chapter 12
I sift for half an hour before giving up. It’s not here. Neumann said I’ve got some kind of link to it. Maybe if I close my eyes and wish really hard, it’ll call my name or something.
I try it. No such luck.
What do I know? I’m starting to panic. I can tell because I’m pacing. I only pace when I’m starting to lose it. I force myself to stop moving and think.
Wherever it is, I’m not going to find it standing in a pile of busted CDs and overturned furniture. I start righting things, sift through piles of books and tossed through clothes.
The light outside my window goes from black to gray. I clean the house up best I can, but the thief did such a thorough rollover, the place looks like hell no matter what I do.
By the time I’ve got things at least livable, the sun’s poking over the palm trees.
As I’m sorting through a pile of random crap, I find something I know I’ve never had before. It’s a broken piece of a blue card. Like a credit card, but a hole punched in one corner and the words LA COUNTY DE in raised letters. A library card? I pocket it, not sure what to do with it.
So, how do I find the stone? I don’t know where to start.
The best person I know at finding stuff out is Carl. But after our fight in the gym I doubt he’ll talk to me.
Besides, he’ll want to know why I’m looking. What happened to my house. What happened last night. I can’t pull him into this. He’s my friend. Was my friend, at least. Now, I don’t know.
I push the thought aside. Focus. People, I know how to find. You ask a bunch of questions, break some fingers. Go to the last place they were seen.
That gives me an idea.
I find my toppled computer. It’s dented, and the side’s been torn off, but other than that it works fine. I run a quick internet search on the burglary in Bel Air that started this whole mess.
In a few minutes I have the name of the guy who owned the stone, Kyle Henderson, and his address.
Henderson took a bullet during the burglary. Went into Emergency with a sucking chest wound, went out in a body bag. He hung on long enough to tell the cops that it was three guys and was able to give a description of one of them.
The police have thoroughly gone over the place. I don’t doubt that. I don’t know if he was married, had children, or anything else about him. If I’m lucky maybe I can get someone to talk to me, maybe a neighbor. See if maybe there’s something anyone might not have asked.
Of course, Bel Air people don’t usually talk to folks like me. Roughing up a rich soccer mom with private security a minute away doesn’t appeal, but I’ll figure something out.
With a place to start, my mind calms down enough to think about things a little. Who’d want the stone? Anybody who knew about it, that’s who. And that list keeps getting longer. Neumann, Giavetti, Frank. I look over the card Samantha gave me, wonder what her role is in all this.
No time like the present. I wonder if she’s an early riser. I dial the phone, get her voice
“’More in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy’?”
“Exactly. I wouldn’t have taken you for a Shakespeare fan.”
“Is that what it’s from? Heard it in a movie once.”
So Neumann’s a big fish. How big is the pond? And what kind of sharks are swimming in it?
I know something’s wrong the moment I see my front door. It’s closed, but the jamb is broken. My porch light is out. The door swings open at my touch.
I step inside and flick the light switch. The lamp’s been knocked to the floor, casting eerie shadows through the room.
Whoever broke in did a thorough job. Cushions are sliced open, stuffing on the floor. Books in a pile, pictures off the wall.
I rush to the bedroom closet, throw it open. The safe’s sitting wide open. Nothing’s missing, not the cash, not the guns.
Nothing except the stone.
Chapter 12
I sift for half an hour before giving up. It’s not here. Neumann said I’ve got some kind of link to it. Maybe if I close my eyes and wish really hard, it’ll call my name or something.
I try it. No such luck.
What do I know? I’m starting to panic. I can tell because I’m pacing. I only pace when I’m starting to lose it. I force myself to stop moving and think.
Wherever it is, I’m not going to find it standing in a pile of busted CDs and overturned furniture. I start righting things, sift through piles of books and tossed through clothes.
The light outside my window goes from black to gray. I clean the house up best I can, but the thief did such a thorough rollover, the place looks like hell no matter what I do.
By the time I’ve got things at least livable, the sun’s poking over the palm trees.
As I’m sorting through a pile of random crap, I find something I know I’ve never had before. It’s a broken piece of a blue card. Like a credit card, but a hole punched in one corner and the words LA COUNTY DE in raised letters. A library card? I pocket it, not sure what to do with it.
So, how do I find the stone? I don’t know where to start.
The best person I know at finding stuff out is Carl. But after our fight in the gym I doubt he’ll talk to me.
Besides, he’ll want to know why I’m looking. What happened to my house. What happened last night. I can’t pull him into this. He’s my friend. Was my friend, at least. Now, I don’t know.
I push the thought aside. Focus. People, I know how to find. You ask a bunch of questions, break some fingers. Go to the last place they were seen.
That gives me an idea.
I find my toppled computer. It’s dented, and the side’s been torn off, but other than that it works fine. I run a quick internet search on the burglary in Bel Air that started this whole mess.
In a few minutes I have the name of the guy who owned the stone, Kyle Henderson, and his address.
Henderson took a bullet during the burglary. Went into Emergency with a sucking chest wound, went out in a body bag. He hung on long enough to tell the cops that it was three guys and was able to give a description of one of them.
The police have thoroughly gone over the place. I don’t doubt that. I don’t know if he was married, had children, or anything else about him. If I’m lucky maybe I can get someone to talk to me, maybe a neighbor. See if maybe there’s something anyone might not have asked.
Of course, Bel Air people don’t usually talk to folks like me. Roughing up a rich soccer mom with private security a minute away doesn’t appeal, but I’ll figure something out.
With a place to start, my mind calms down enough to think about things a little. Who’d want the stone? Anybody who knew about it, that’s who. And that list keeps getting longer. Neumann, Giavetti, Frank. I look over the card Samantha gave me, wonder what her role is in all this.
No time like the present. I wonder if she’s an early riser. I dial the phone, get her voice
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