crass and unimaginative,” he said. “I have no idea who you’re talking about, or what you think my connection to all this is.”
“Then why’d you drag me all the way out to this place?”
“To introduce you to plant life,” he said. “And also to tell you not to disturb me again, or try to interfere with my affairs. I like to keep a low profile, as it were.”
“It won’t be so low if I subpoena you, will it?”
He didn’t flinch. “I found you, remember? If I don’t wish to be served, I won’t be. I am going to wish you luck with your trial, Mr. Buchanan, and tell you, in very polite terms, to lay off. No hard feelings.”
He walked away with a conversation over finality.
Or maybe it was case over.
I was in a foul mood driving away. I wanted to kick a squirrel. Nothing was clicking and I was getting that running-in-mud feeling, like in bad dreams. What else could go wrong now?
Glad you asked.
I was almost to the 118 when I got the call from Father Bob.
“We got another e-mail,” he said.
65
I COVERED THE rest of the way as if in a dark tunnel. I was making like an Andretti. It was a wonder I wasn’t pulled over by the CHP and slapped in cuffs.
It was road rage, but not leveled at another driver. It was at this e-mail guy, a coward, looking to instill fear from afar.
When I finally got to St. Monica’s the sun was just about to drop behind the hills. A few of the Sisters were in the courtyard, including Sister Perpetua. As I approached the office she put her hand out to me. “It’s the devil,” she said. “He’s after Sister Mary.”
I patted her wrinkled hand and continued to the office. Father Bob met me outside the door and we went in together.
Sister Mary was in front of the computer, staring at the monitor.
I went to the desk and turned the monitor my way.
Mary, Mary,
not OK
just a whore
with hell to pay
someday
I bit the insides of my cheeks.
She shook her head. “I just wish I knew why.”
“Let’s find this guy and beat it out of him,” I said.
She looked at me reprovingly.
“In love,” I said.
“Will the police be able to find him?” Sister Mary said.
“Maybe we can help,” I said.
66
JONATHAN BLAKE BLUMBERG works on the top floor of his own building on the west side, with a killer view of Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean.
He is in his fifties but looks like he could tow a boat with his teeth. When I entered his office the next morning, he jumped up, slapped me on the back, and handed me a one-page printout.
“Nicholas Molina,” B-2 said. “Ezzo Cement. You’ll find his home address and phone there.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Now take a look at this.” He motioned to his enormous desk, which was packed with prototypes.
His R&D people had come up with a great stun gun that B-2 playfully called the iProd. I’d actually used it to great effect.
Then there was his pepper spray, which I called the iFog, but he called Face Melter. It was not yet legal. Which wouldn’t stop either of us from using it if we had to.
Now he picked up an item that was the size and shape of a toilet-paper tube, only capped at both ends and made of some sort of plastic.
“I call this the iFist,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“You remember that Chuck Norris joke? How Chuck Norris doesn’t have a chin under his beard, he has another fist?”
“How could I forget it?”
“That’s what this is. It’s sort of like those cartoons, too. Remember, where the boxing glove shoots out of a box or something, attached to a collapsible extension?”
“Right. It’d always hit Sylvester in the chops.”
“That’s this baby.” He held it like a light saber, pointing it away from us. “You trigger it with a little button, here.”
Boom. The iFist split, and the top third shot out about five inches.
“The secret is what we use for the extension,” he said. “A new alloy. Flexible but firm, like a good nanny. Only the impact is like being hit by Tyson on his best day.”
“Did Tyson have a best day?”
“Good point. Then you just collapse it back in.” He pushed it into place with a click. “See?”
“It’ll make bar fights a thing of the past.”
“Not,” he said. “But it might settle ’em faster. You like it?”
“Ahead of its time, as always.”
“You got to move fast if you want to catch