the ways he had failed himself, but with a final dim hope that he had done right by the boy.
25
Invasion
Frederick loitered outside Cole's building until cars bled from the parking garage, then hustled up to the fifth floor, where he hid in the men's bathroom until almost eight o'clock. When Frederick sensed everyone was likely gone, he crept down to the fourth floor and back to Cole's office. He worried that a security guard or cleaning crew might find him, so he used the direct approach-he pried open Cole's door with a jack handle. Cole would immediately know that someone had broken into his office (as would a passing security guard), but Frederick moved quickly. He scooped up Cole's Rolodex and blew through the desk for bills, letters, and other correspondence. He grabbed anything that could even possibly contain Cole's home address, then ran back down the stairs, and out to his car. He had worn gloves. He didn't take the time to go through the things he stole until he was safely at home. It had been a helluva bad day, so he was relieved to be home. He enjoyed sleeping in his own bed. He felt safe. Best of all, the third bill he inspected was addressed to Cole's home. He dreamed about Cole that night. He dreamed about what he would do. He dreamed about Cole's screams.
26
At three-thirty that morning the traffic moved with professional grace. That time of day, big-rig truckers who knew the rules of freeway driving moved cleanly, content to let me drift among them. The city thinned and the eastern sky lightened as I reached the Coachella Valley and curved south between the jagged shoulders of the mountains.
The Salton Sea was the largest, lowest lake in California, filling the broad, flat basin of the Salton Sink like a mirror laid on the desert floor. It was shallow because the land was flat, and surrounded by barren desert and scorched rocks like some forgotten puddle in Hell. When the periodic algal blooms died, it smelled like Hell, too. During the worst of summer, the temperature could reach one-thirty on the lake's shore, but now the air rushing over me felt cool and good, and the smell was clean.
I dropped down the west side of the lake past pelicans and fishermen lining the rocks for tilapia and corvina. The valley floor rose quickly when I passed the lake, cut by irrigation canals and small farming roads without many signs, and dotted with small towns that all looked the same. At six-fifty that morning I entered Anson. Imperial was another twenty miles south, but I wanted to find George Reinnike's original homo first. A neighbor might have maintained contact with his family.
Anson was a sleepy collection of hardware stores, video rental shops, and small businesses. Eighteen-wheelers laden with tomatoes and artichokes lumbered through town, kicking up enormous clouds of dust that covered buildings and cars with a fine white powder. No one seemed to mind.
I stopped at a gas station where an overweight man behind the counter nodded past a burrito bulging with beans and eggs and cheese.
I said, "'Morning. I need a local map. You have something like that?"
He shoved the burrito toward a tattered map taped to the glass. He didn't put down the burrito. Once you get a grip on something like that, you can't set it down.
"Right up there. Help yourself."
The map was from the Bureau of Land Management, and had been taped to the glass so long its colors were bleached.
"Do you have one I can take with me?"
"Nope. You can try the Chamber of Commerce. They might have something."
"Okay. Where's that?"
"Second light down next to the State Farm office, but they don't open for another two hours. I could probably tell you how to get wherever it is you want to go."
I gave him Reinnike's address. He studied the map, then tapped L Street with his knuckle.
"Well, this here's northwest L Street, but there ain't nothing out there but fields. No one lives out there."
"Is there another L Street?"
"Not that I know of, and I've lived here all my life. You passed it on the way in."
I used his rest room, bought a cup of coffee, then followed his directions back out of town. L Street was at the three-mile marker, just as he told me. I turned left onto the northwest side and drove until I reached a county sign that said END. Two silver tanks stood quietly near