‘See you in a half-hour,’ said Tom, and hung up.

Halo took forty minutes, just to show Tom he wasn’t some goddamn kiss-ass Thai bride. He’d had to park up the street for those extra ten minutes, which was boring, but what the hell.

‘Fixed your mirror,’ was all Tom said by way of greeting.

‘Well, hello to you too,’ countered Halo, and pulled into traffic.

‘Stop for breakfast if you want. I’ll buy.’

Halo passed three diners before pulling into Rosie’s on Bellflower.

‘What was wrong with the other places?’ Tom asked.

‘They’re kinda cheap,’ said Halo.

‘You’re so fucking petty,’ Tom said mildly, as he got out of the car.

‘Why are you limping?’

Tom waited until they were served before telling him about the Thunderbird, the barn and his trips to Texas and Oklahoma.

When he’d finished, Halo leaned back in his chair and gave him a suspicious look through slitted eyes. ‘Man, I don’t know. Either you just had, like, Three Days of the fucking Condor, or you been out of your head in Tijuana.’

Tom picked up the cheque. ‘Talking of which, your buddy show up?’

‘Niño? No. Sylvia’s going nuts.’ Halo toyed with his coffee spoon. ‘She blames you, you know.’

‘Whatever,’ said Tom. Sylvia Alvarez could blame him for global warming; he didn’t give a shit. He frowned at the cheque. ‘Did you have a fruit salad?’

‘To go.’

‘Jeez! You want me to get your groceries while I’ve got my wallet out? How about dinner and a fucking movie?’

Halo doggedly ignored his sarcasm. ‘I mean, she’s in the middle of decorating and all, and Niño just ups and runs off. Cos of us going round there. I mean …’

Tom stopped in the middle of counting out a tip, and grinned suddenly at Halo.

‘How much wallpapering d’ya do?’

‘Nothing!’ Halo protested. When Tom wouldn’t stop grinning, he gave up and admitted, ‘Jus’ the living room.’

Tom waited.

‘And the kitchen.’

*

The Sawmill wasn’t open and the Buick was the only car in the lot. He hoped Lucia had seen it there last night and known he wasn’t lying. About that part, at least.

‘So what do we do now?’ Halo said, as he pulled up alongside it.

‘You mean what do I do now, right? Cos as far as I can tell, you just sit around and fuck your dead friend’s wife while I get my ass kicked.’

Halo shook his head and murmured, ‘Dick,’ under his breath as Tom got out of the car. ‘I’ll wait until it starts,’ Halo said.

‘Smartass.’

‘You should take better care of that car.’

‘It gets me from A to B.’

‘When it’s not stuck at C,’ said Halo, but the Buick gave a polite cough, then turned over wheezily, and Tom gave him the finger by way of thank you and goodbye.

He half thought of hanging around Santa Ana until the Sawmill opened at seven but he couldn’t think of anything to fill the time until then so drove slowly back to Long Beach, his leg complaining every time he put his foot on the gas past fifty.

Driving so slowly was mind-numbingly boring so to spice up the journey he called Ronaldo Suarez.

‘Hey, Tom, I was just gonna call you,’ said Suarez.

‘Oh, yeah? I was thinking about Nicholas Nicholas.’

‘Same here,’ said Suarez.

‘With Chuck gone—’

‘They might approach him to steal the ARC forms.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Great minds!’ said Suarez.

‘And fools,’ Tom reminded him. ‘You get any prints off the pads?’

‘Chuck Zhong’s prints were on all three pads in that office but not on any of the pads in the senior engineers’ rooms.’

‘Maybe he figured the new kids would take the fall if missing paperwork was discovered.’

‘Probably true.’

‘Anyone else?’ asked Tom.

‘Yeah, got Lyle Parker on two of the pads, and a previous guard, Steven Jones, on one.’

‘So the dockets are what they were all targeting.’

‘As far as we can tell.’

‘What does WAE say?’