“It’s there all right,” he said. “And yes, I can make hard copies. Let me put the images on a disk and take it back to the printer in the lab. It’ll take a few minutes.”
“Thanks, man.”
“I hope it helps.”
“More than you know.”
“What’s the guy doing anyway? Dressing up like a Mexican and doing good deeds?”
“Not really. Someday I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
Banks let it go and went to work on the console, transferring the video images on the screens to a computer disk. He backed up the videos and transferred the headshots as well.
“Be back in a few minutes,” he said, getting up. “Unless I have to warm up the machine.”
“Hey, is there a phone I can use while you’re gone?”
“In the left drawer there. Hit nine first.”
McCaleb called Winston’s home number and got her machine. As he listened to her voice, he hesitated about leaving a message, aware of the consequences to Winston if it was ever proved that she had worked with the subject of a murder investigation. A tape of his voice could do that. But he decided that the discoveries he had made in the last hour made it worth the risk. He didn’t want to page Winston because he didn’t want to wait around for her to call. He had to move. He hatched a quick plan and left a message after the beep.
“Jaye, it’s me. I’ll explain all of this when I see you but for now just trust me. I know who the shooter is. It’s Noone, Jaye, James Noone. I’m heading to his address now-the address on the witness report. Meet me there if you can. I’ll run it all down for you then.”
He hung up and called her pager number. He then punched in her home phone number and hung up. With any luck, he thought, Winston would get the message and soon be heading toward Noone’s address to back him up.
McCaleb pulled his leather bag onto his lap and opened the zippered center pouch. The two guns were there, his own Sig-Sauer P-228 and the HK P7 he now knew James Noone had planted under his boat. McCaleb reached into the bag and took his own weapon out. He checked the action and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. He pulled his jacket down over it.
He slowly crawled north on the 101, back through the Cahuenga Pass, and finally picked up some speed as he switched to the 134 north. He exited on Victory and drove west until he found Atoll Avenue. The neighborhood he turned into was decidedly industrial. He could smell a bakery and he passed a fenced yard where slabs of jagged granite were stacked and pointing at the sky. There were warehouses without names on them. There was a pool chemical supply wholesaler and an industrial waste recycling center. Just where Atoll dead-ended at an old railroad spur with tall weeds poking up between the rails, McCaleb turned the Taurus down a driveway bordered on both sides by a long row of small, single-garage-bay warehouses. Each unit was a separate small business or storage lockup. Some had the names of businesses painted over the aluminum roll-up doors, some had no identifying marks at all and were either unrented or used anonymously for storage. McCaleb stopped the car in front of the rusting door marked with the address James Noone had given deputies three months before. There were no other markings on the door but the address. He killed the car’s engine and got out.
It was a black night. No moon, no stars. The row of warehouses was dark save for a single floodlight down at the entrance. McCaleb looked around. He heard the tinny sound of music-Jimi Hendrix singing
He checked Noone’s unit, dropping to a crouch to study the line where the garage door met the concrete pavement. He wasn’t sure but there appeared to be a dim light emanating from within the warehouse. He stepped closer and could make out the padlock that attached a steel ring on the door to a matching ring embedded in the concrete.
He stood up and banged the door with an open palm. The noise was loud and he heard it reverberate inside. He stepped back and looked around again. Other than the sound of the music, there was only silence. The air was still. The night wind had not found its way down to the space between the rows of garages.
