The Traveler

21

Gabriel walked up the drainage ditch that ran alongside the San Diego Freeway. It was almost dawn. A thin line of orange sunlight glowed on the eastern horizon. Cars and trailer trucks raced past him, heading south.

Whoever had attacked Mr. Bubble’s clothing factory was probably waiting for him to return to the house in West Los Angeles. Gabriel had left his Honda back at the factory and needed another bike. In New York or Hong Kong-any vertical city-he could lose himself on the subway or in the crowd. But only homeless people and illegal immigrants walked in Los Angeles. If he were on a motorcycle, he would be absorbed by the traffic that flowed from the surface streets into the anonymous confusion of the freeways.

An old man named Foster lived two doors down from Gabriel’s house. Foster had a toolshed with an aluminum roof in his backyard. Gabriel climbed up on the concrete wall that separated the freeway from the houses on his street, and then jumped onto the toolshed. Looking over the rooftops, he saw that a repair truck from the power company was parked across the street. He stood there for a few minutes, wondering what to do, and a yellow flame flashed inside the truck cab. Someone sitting in the shadows had just lit a cigarette.

Gabriel jumped off the shed and scrambled over the wall to the freeway. Now the sun was up, emerging like a dirty balloon from behind a line of warehouses. Better do it now, he thought. If they’ve been waiting all night, they’re probably half asleep.

He returned to the wall, grabbed the top, and pulled himself over to his weed-filled backyard. Without hesitation, he ran to the garage and kicked in the side door. His Italian-made Moto Guzzi was parked in the middle of the garage. Its large engine, black fuel tank, and short racing handlebars had always reminded him of a fighting bull waiting for a toreador.

Gabriel slammed his fist on the button that activated the electric garage-door opener, straddled the motorcycle, and kick-started the engine. The metal garage door made a grinding sound as it rolled upward. The moment Gabriel saw five feet of clearance, he gunned the accelerator.

Three men jumped out of the truck and sprinted toward him. As Gabriel roared down the driveway, a man wearing a blue jacket raised a weapon that looked like a shotgun with a grenade attached to the muzzle. Gabriel bumped across the sidewalk to the street and the man fired his weapon. The grenade turned out to be a thick plastic bag filled with something heavy. It hit the side of the motorcycle and the bike lurched sideways.

Don’t stop, Gabriel thought. Don’t slow down. He jerked the handlebars to the left, recovered his balance, and roared down the street to the end of the block. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the three men running to the repair truck.

Gabriel turned the corner at a steep angle, the Guzzi’s back wheel spitting up gravel. He gunned the engine and a burst of speed pulled him back on the seat. His body seemed to become part of the machinery, an extension of its power, as he held on tightly and raced through a red light.

HE STAYED ON surface streets, traveling south to Compton, then turned around and rode back to Los Angeles. At noon, he cruised past the corner of Wilshire and Bundy, but Michael wasn’t there. Gabriel rode his motorcycle north to Santa Barbara and spent the night in a run-down motel several miles from the beach. He returned to Los Angeles the following day, but Michael still wasn’t at the street corner.

Gabriel bought several newspapers and read every article. There was no mention of the shooting at the clothing factory. He knew that newspapers and television announcers reported on a certain level of reality. What was happening to him was on another level, like a parallel universe. All around him, different societies were growing larger or being destroyed, forming new traditions or breaking the rules while citizens pretended that the faces shown on television were the only important stories.

For the rest of the day, he stayed on the motorcycle, stopping only once for fuel and drinking water. Gabriel knew that he should find a hiding place, but a nervous energy kept him moving. As he got tired, Los Angeles broke apart into fragments: isolated images with no tissue connecting them. Dead palm fronds in the gutter. A giant plaster chicken. The wanted poster for a lost dog. Signs were everywhere: PRICES SLASHED! NO OFFER REFUSED! WE WILL DELIVER! An old man reading the Bible. A teenage girl chattering on her cell phone. Then the stoplight clicked green and he raced off to nowhere.

Gabriel had gone out with several women in Los Angeles, but the relationships rarely lasted more than one or two months. They wouldn’t know how to help if he showed up at their apartments looking for shelter. He had a few male friends who liked skydiving and others who raced motorcycles, but there wasn’t a strong bond between them. In order to avoid the Grid, he had cut himself off from everyone but his brother.

Riding east on Sunset Boulevard, he thought about Maggie Resnick. She was an attorney and he trusted her; she would know what to do. Turning off Sunset, he followed the winding road that led up through Coldwater Canyon.

Maggie’s house was built on the side of a steep slope. A garage door was at the base of the house, then three glass-and-steel floors of diminishing size were stacked on top of each other like the tiers of a wedding cake. It was almost midnight, but the lights were still on inside. Gabriel rang the bell and Maggie opened the door wearing a red flannel bathrobe and fuzzy slippers.

“I hope you’re not here to offer me a motorcycle ride. It’s cold and dark and I’m tired. I’ve got to read three more depositions.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“What happened? Are you in trouble?”

Gabriel nodded.

Maggie stepped away from the doorway. “Then come on in. Virtue is admirable, but boring. I guess that’s why I practice criminal law.”

Although Maggie hated to cook, she had told her architect to design an extra-large kitchen. Copper pots hung from ceiling hooks. Crystal wineglasses were in a wood rack on the shelf. There was a huge stainless-steel refrigerator that held four bottles of champagne and a takeout carton of Chinese food. While Maggie brewed some tea, Gabriel sat at the kitchen counter. Just his being here might be dangerous for her, but he desperately needed to tell someone what had happened. Now that everything was so volatile, memories from his childhood began to force their way into his thoughts.

Maggie poured him a cup of tea, then sat on the opposite side of the counter and lit a cigarette. “All right. At this moment, I’m your lawyer. That means that everything you say to me is confidential unless you’re contemplating a future crime.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

She waved her hand and a line of cigarette smoke drifted through the air. “Of course you have, Gabriel. We’ve all committed crimes. The first question is: Are the police looking for you?”

Gabriel gave her a brief description of his mother’s death, and then described the men who had attacked Michael on the freeway, the meeting with Mr. Bubble, and the incident at the clothing factory. For the most part, Maggie just let him talk, but occasionally she asked how he knew a certain fact.

“I thought Michael might get you into trouble,” she said. “People who hide their money from the government are usually involved in other kinds of criminal activity. If Michael stopped paying them rent on his office building, they wouldn’t contact the police. They’d hire some muscle to track him down.”

“It might be something else,” Gabriel said. “When we were growing up in South Dakota, men came looking for my father. They burned down our house and my father disappeared, but we never learned why it happened. My mother told us this wild story before she died.”

Gabriel had avoided telling anyone about his family, but now he couldn’t stop talking. He gave a few details about their life in South Dakota and described what his mother had said on her deathbed. Maggie had spent most of her life listening to her clients explain their crimes. She had trained herself not to reveal any skepticism until the story was finished.

“Is that all, Gabriel? Any other details?”

“That’s all I can remember.”

“You want some cognac?”

“Not right now.”

Maggie took out a bottle of French cognac and poured herself a drink. “I’m not going to discount what your mother told you, but it doesn’t relate to what I know. People usually get into trouble because of sex, pride, or money. Sometimes it’s all three things at the same time. This gangster Michael told you about-Vincent Torrelli-was killed in Atlantic City. From what you’ve told me about Michael, I think he might be tempted to accept some illegal financing and then figure out a way not to pay it back.”

“Do you think Michael’s all right?”

“Probably. They need to keep him alive if they want to protect their investment.”

“What can I do to help him?”

“You can’t do much of anything,” Maggie said. “So the question is-am I going to get involved in this? I don’t suppose you have any money?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“I do like you, Gabriel. You’ve never lied to me and that’s been a pleasure. I spend most of my time dealing with professional liars. It gets tiring after a while.”

“I just wanted some advice, Maggie. I’m not asking you to get involved with something that could be dangerous.”

“Life is dangerous. That’s what makes it interesting.” She finished her brandy and made a decision. “All right. I’ll help you. It’s a mitzvah, and I can display my unused maternal instincts.” Maggie opened a kitchen cabinet and took out a pill container. “Now humor me and take some vitamins.”