Part 22 (1/2)

”I know,” I said. ”We can talk more then.”

With Latin book in hand, Ari joined me not long after. We sat at the kitchen table and looked out the window at our new view of a driveway and the flat wooden side of the apartment building next door. The gray cold light told me that the fog hung thick across the sky.

”What time are you meeting Caleb?” Ari said.

”One o'clock.” I paused for a yawn. ”What are you going to do while I'm there?”

”Wait outside, somewhere where he can't see me, but close enough to intervene if I have to. After what you told me about Caleb's reaction to the rogue waves, I'd rather not let you do this at all.”

”Let me?” I set my hands on my hips.

”Sorry. I'll amend that. How about this: I feel a real need to provide backup.”

I considered arguing, but I had to admit that I agreed.

”Okay,” I said, ”I can accept that.”

”Good. I've got a pair of sungla.s.ses for you,” Ari went on. ”They have a video camera in the frame. Wear them in, then set them down on the table with the lenses pointing at Caleb. I'll carry the monitor with me. It looks like a cheap phone. No one will think anything of it if I sit somewhere and stare at it.”

”Will the gla.s.ses record the conversation?”

”No, but the monitor will.” He smiled briefly. ”Although all I really want to do is keep an eye on how things are developing.”

I spent the rest of Sat.u.r.day morning working LDRS sessions and getting nowhere. I checked my Internet sources, as well, but again, no stories about a dead homeless man turned up.

”I wonder if Sarge has seen Zeke,” I said, ”I hope he's not going to stay away forever. I want to read that letter.”

”So do I,” Ari said. ”If he's so afraid of returning to prison, he can't have gone back to that same world.”

”He may know of other ones, or, come to think of it, he could have just gone back to Israel via GateExpress. This is not going to be easy. All I can do, I guess, is to keep looking for him. Regular scans and LDRS sessions should turn him up.”

”Eventually, yes. You know your own business best.”

”Thanks. How many gates are there in San Francisco, I wonder?” A fragment of a folk song came back to me. ”Twelve gates to the city, alleluia!”

Ari grimaced. Singing was not one of my talents.

”That song derives from the Book of Revelation,” I said. ”From a description of the heavenly Jerusalem-four gates each to the north, east, south, and west.”

”That makes sixteen.”

”Oh. Yeah, you're right. I was never very good at arithmetic. Okay, three gates each.”

Yet I wondered about that mistake, if maybe the CDS was sending me a message. A fragment of an old song floated to the surface of my memory. ”Sixteen candles on her cake tonight”.

”What?” Ari snapped.

”Uh, sorry about that. I don't know what it means.”

He rolled his eyes. I filed the number sixteen away in my memory, just in case it proved significant.

”If there are other gates in San Francisco,” Ari said, ”they can't all lead to the same place, or Doyle and Johnson wouldn't have been trapped here when their escape route closed.”

”You're right, yeah.”

Around noon, I got dressed for my lunch date. Since theoretically I had a job interview in hand, I wore the gray skirt suit with a teal silk s.h.i.+rt and heels. I also took a small notebook in my shoulder bag to write down the details of Caleb's offer, should he make one.

When we left, I drove our souped-up Saturn. I got onto the Great Highway going north, which led us along the beachfront. Even though the fog hovered thick, and a cold wind blew in from sea, we saw a good sprinkling of cars in the parking strips. Bundled in heavy jackets and long pants, people walked along the tide line or played Frisbee on the sand. I even saw a few surfers in full wet suits. Just before the road began to climb up the hill to the Cliff House, I pulled into the parking area and let Ari out. He handed me a pair of wraparound sungla.s.ses that appeared perfectly ordinary, though they weighed oddly heavy in my hand.

”I suppose you'd better put them on top of your head for realism's sake,” Ari said. ”This sodding weather! It's nearly April. It should be warm.”

”When the fog goes out, it'll be warmer,” I said. ”Where are you going to be?”

”I'm not going to tell you, in case Caleb can pick that up.” He gave me a brief smile. ”I'm learning.”

Rather than mess up my hair, I put the sungla.s.ses on, then drove up the hill. The G.o.ds favored me that day, because I found a head-in parking place above the complex in the curve of the road. As I walked downhill toward the restaurant, I pa.s.sed a sleek white sedan that looked oddly familiar. I stopped and looked it over, because I could feel a memory starting to rise. I'd seen it in a similar context-the ocean, the Great Highway, the day the girl had drowned. The car had zipped past me without slowing down when other drivers on the road were gawking at the police cars and ambulance.

I took out my cell phone and snapped a shot of the license plate. Ari could check with the Department of Motor Vehicles and find out who owned the white sedan. The driver of the car I'd seen before had been blond, just like Caleb. Had he driven on by without slowing down because he already knew what had happened to those children? I put the phone away and walked on, but I stayed on guard.

For a San Francisco landmark, the Cliff House lacks pizazz, at least when you see it from outside: a wide stretch of concrete sidewalk, and behind that, a low white building housing a couple of restaurants joined by a lobby and gla.s.s doors. It appears to perch right on the edge of the cliff; I've heard tourists say that that they weren't going in because it looked so unsafe. From inside, it appears even more precarious, because it's actually built down the side of the cliff. Several levels hang lower than the street.

The formal dining area sits on the lowest level, a two-story high room lined with floor to ceiling windows. It seems to float right over the ocean and the sand below. White linen cloths and chrome fixtures add to the oddly empty ambience the restaurant projects even when crowded. As I walked down the ramp toward the hostess station, I could look out over the heads of the Sat.u.r.day lunch crowd to the sea beyond and the cold gray sky.

Caleb was waiting for me at a table beside a west-facing window. He'd dressed for the location in a pair of gray wool slacks, a white s.h.i.+rt with a striped tie, and a navy blue blazer with the crest of a Boston yacht club on the chest pocket. The blazer sat too loosely on his shoulders. Either he'd lost weight since it'd been tailored, or he'd bought it secondhand. Now that I knew his record, I suspected the latter.

As I made my way across to join him, he rose from his seat and smiled, then held out his hand and shook mine when I offered it to him. His palm was sweaty. I noticed half a gla.s.s of white wine sitting at his place with the uncorked bottle nearby. We sat down, and he picked up the gla.s.s for a sip.

”Would you like some wine?” he said. ”A c.o.c.ktail?”

”No, thanks,” I said. ”Mineral water will be fine.” I took off the sungla.s.ses and set them down, lenses toward him, on the table between me and the window. ”I guess I didn't need to wear these today.”

”Well, the glare from the d.a.m.ned fog can be annoying,” Caleb said. ”I was wondering if you'd had a chance to talk with Jack about our plans.”

”I haven't, no. I haven't been out to see them since the party. They're going up to Sonoma soon, I think.”

”Yeah, yeah. He mentioned that to me.”

The waitress arrived to hand us menus and rattle off a list of specials, then fled before we could ask questions. For a few minutes we studied the menus in silence. I could feel that Caleb was running an SPP on me. I was annoyed enough to drop caution and turn it back on him. He looked up from his menu and laughed, a short bark of honest amus.e.m.e.nt.

”I think we both know where we stand, Nola,” he said. ”Can we skip the fencing?”

”Sure,” I said. ”It'll save time.” I glanced around. No one sat at the table behind ours. The crowd in the dining room was thinning out. Eavesdroppers seemed unlikely. ”We both have talents that could come in handy for your venture. We know that.”

”Good.” He smiled again. ”Then we can get down to business.”

The waitress, however, interrupted, bearing Welsh spring water in a dark blue bottle. She filled my gla.s.s, then smiled impartially at us both. I ordered a fancy salad and, as a nod to the chilly day, soup. Caleb turned in his chair toward her and began asking earnest questions about every main dish on the menu. I took the opportunity to study the view, a seemingly endless stretch of gray sea flecked with white foam.

The ocean surged around the ma.s.sive hulk of Seal Rock, iced white by generations of seabirds. I could just make out a few dark specks that might have been seals in the water around it. Like white wings waves broke just offsh.o.r.e, then charged with swirls of foam onto the pale beige beach. Silvery horses rose out of the waves, tossing their manes, galloping onto the sand only to disappear. Some thirty yards out from land a chariot of green gla.s.s emerged from the water. A towering blue-green G.o.d held the reins of four moon-pale horses.

”Uh, Nola?” Caleb's voice cut into the vision. ”Are you okay?”