“Sharmila Singh’s friend, the so-called ‘lawyer’, Bob Richmond. He killed Merry, and he’s after me.” He was panting, wild, leaning on his thighs with both hands. “Been on the run all night. I did what you said… went after him. But he’s like a machine. He’s lost it, says he’s going to take out everyone responsible for the professor and Hap Singh. Took a shot at me in a crowded restaurant! You…” He looked up at Baird, then straightened up and grabbed his boss by the lapels of his jacket. “You have to hide me, Parker!”
Baird felt his blood rising. “Calm down! You’re a grown man!” He grabbed Thomas by the wrists and wrestled him loose from the cloth. “Get hold of yourself! Where is he now?”
“I… I’m not sure. I think I lost him downtown.”
“You think?” Baird was tempted to go upstairs to his study and get his .357 Magnum. He looked past Thomas to the front door. Bob Richmond had avoided killing anyone up to that point, as far as they could tell. But he had been a consistent thorn.
Would he actually show up on the doorstep? Baird couldn’t be sure. “How long since you last saw him?”
“Maybe… thirty minutes. He came for me this morning, after I got out.”
“Got out… wait… what?”
“Police picked me up yesterday. This all started because he got away from your boy Merry and took a potshot at me in a restaurant. Cops questioned me about it. Then, when I got out this morning at five, he was waiting for me outside the police. I took off up north, see if I could stay at my friend’s place in Oildale for a few, but he kept on my tail. I slipped him near the speedway, I think.”
“There’s that expression again, as if you ever thought a goddamned thing through,” Baird muttered.
“I stopped home and grabbed some stuff, got some money out. I figured if anyone owes me a little protection, it’s you.”
I need to get this lunatic out of here. “Did you call Dyche?” Baird demanded.
“Yeah. He said he’d be here!” Baird began to pace back and forth across the lobby. “Why isn’t here here?!”
The doorbell rang again. “I’ve got it, Consuela!” Baird yelled. He moved to the door and checked the small window next to it to see who it was, then opened it.
Sgt. Gayle Dyche looked fatigued. “Gentlemen,” he said. “I had a heck of a long night…”
“I thought you were supposed to be taking care of all of this!” Thomas spat.
“Now, I did what I was told, so you just hold on there,” Dyche said. “Last I heard, Merry had him tied to a table.”
“Last you heard?” Baird said. “You mean you didn’t stay and make sure?”
“Merry didn’t pay me to stick around!” Dyche groused back.
“Clearly, something went wrong in your plan,” Baird said. “He’s at large. Greg says he took out Merry and his boys.”
“Shit,” the cop said. “I should find out what the latest is from one of my contacts.” He took out his cellphone. Then he frowned. “This is my work phone. I can’t use this for this type of call, shouldn’t even have it on while I’m here. You got a landline somewhere?”
Baird rolled his eyes. Both men were just incompetent enough to worry him. “My study. Be quick about it,” he said.
Dyche jogged up the stairs.
Thomas watched him go, then turned back to his boss. “You need to protect me. You said if anything went wrong—”
“I said if you ever got arrested, I’d bail out one of my employees. I didn’t tell you to get into a shootout with a lunatic.”
Thomas looked around frantically. “You have men? Protection?”
“That’s why I pay the two of you,” Baird said.
“That’s why—” Thomas started at him incredulously. “He’s going to find us, Parker! He’s going after everybody involved, one by one! He knows about the lab.”
Keep it cool. You’re insulated from all of this. “That’s none of my concern,” Baird said. “I’m just an investor in a project, remember?”
“Oh, cut the bullshit, Parker! Damn!” Thomas exclaimed. “You know damn well you—”
“I don’t know a damn thing,” Baird said, cutting him off. “Whatever problems this feller has, I’m sure it’s not with me or Jenkins Mechanical.”
“He doesn’t give a shit about alibis, Parker! He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill you, too, you can bet on that. Your name was on his list.”
“Then we stay calm, we call the police—”
“Can’t.”
Parker turned towards the voice. Dyche was coming down the long staircase.
“Why? You’re a sergeant.”
“Because I just checked with one of my guys and he says they’ve got a warrant out on Mr. Thomas here for his role in a shootout in a steakhouse yesterday afternoon. If they find him and me here, they’ll start asking all sorts of questions, maybe start looking into my bank account. If Bob then shows up, there’s no way they’ll believe we aren’t all tied into this somehow. And then they’ll really start digging.”
Baird felt his annoyance growing. It’s one man. “And your proposed solution?”
“We run, and you get out of town for a few days.”
“Not an option,” Baird said. “I have business, appointments to keep.”
“Then we kill him when he gets here,” Dyche said. “After that, we have someone inside pop his friend, close the book on Hap Singh’s killer as a poor unfortunate outsider who tried to rob the wrong guy, and then pissed off someone inside the joint even worse.”
