Page 72

CHAPTER 72

BABY TOOK HER TIME getting Arthur set up in the veterinarian’s waiting room — she bought him coffee from a local place, a newspaper to read while he waited for updates about the poisoned dog — and then went back to the house on Waterway Street. She parked his car a few blocks away from his house, away from the chaotic new landscape his street had become. Baby turned off the car, sat and breathed and took a moment for herself, then pulled some cucumber-scented wipes out of her handbag, adjusted the rearview mirror, cleaned and refreshed her face and neck, and fixed her hair and makeup.

Baby understood what Su Lim Marshall was trying to do. Marshall knew that Baby would see her on the hidden cameras. The corporate vampire wanted Baby to rush home, exhausted and brain-fried, mentally and physically a mess.

It was all mind games with these people. Strategy. Baby might not have read many of the books assigned in English class, but her father had made her read The Art of War, and one line had stayed with her: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Baby was not beaten. She just hadn’t had a chance to make a countermove yet. It was a struggle to stay straight-backed and confident. But she’d be damned if she’d let Marshall think the last move had penetrated her armor.

Baby restarted the car, drove over to the house, parked, unlocked the front door, and went inside. Everything seemed untouched. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Baby greeted Marshall and the guy in the coveralls and was unsurprised to see a County of Los Angeles Public Health badge pinned to the man’s chest.

“Hello, ma’am,” the guy said. “My name is Richard Desmond. I’m from the public health department. I’m here to conduct an inspection on this dwelling in response to a complaint.”

Baby held the door without inviting them inside. She looked at Marshall, noticed how her pin-striped skirt suit gripped her little body the way a surgeon’s glove clings to skin.

“You know,” Baby said to the woman, “calling in the health department is a cute move. But you spoiled it by coming along. You should have watched from the car, out of sight, or had one of these scumbags film it for you.” She gestured to the corner boys, then to the junkies and pimps watching from distant porches. “You got no subtlety, Marshall. No sophistication. That’s your problem.”

“Ma’am,” Richard the health department guy said, tapping his clipboard with a pen to draw Baby’s focus back to him. “I’m going to ask you if you have knowledge of any of the following health hazards on your property: mosquito breeding zones, sewage discharge, insect or rodent infestations, damaged walls, floors, or ceilings. Do you have running water at this property? What about your electrical system? Are there any known faults?”

“Yes, the electricity.” Marshall smiled. “That’s what worries me most, as a concerned neighbor. The wiring on the side of the house looks old. Is it faulty? Because there was a fire in the area this morning. We’d hate to have another one.”

Baby chewed the inside of her cheek.

“How about hazardous substances?” Marshall said. “We wouldn’t want anybody to get sick.”

Baby squeezed the edge of the door, tried to focus on the tendons in her wrist flexing so that she didn’t lose control.

“Is this the way you really want to go?” Baby asked Marshall when she felt she could speak without growling. “Because there are laws against the furnishing of criminal activity within residential households in this county, Ms. Marshall. Just like there are with the health department. You might’ve sicced this spineless minion on me” — Baby gestured to Richard — “but what happens when it’s discovered that Enorme is accommodating drug traffickers at a string of their properties?”

Marshall’s hand flew to her chest as if she were shocked. “Drug traffickers?” She laughed, looked down the street. “Here? You’re kidding. It’s such a nice area.”

Almost on cue, someone fired a gun a couple of houses down. The public health guy tapped the clipboard against his leg, looking increasingly nervous. His eyes locked on Marshall’s for guidance. Baby felt for the man. He’d probably been offered a sizable envelope of cash to fudge the inspection and assumed he’d be walking into a run-of-the-mill neighborly dispute. He couldn’t have known that this was an all-out David and Goliath battle.

“If you suspect criminal activity in any of these houses, Ms. Bird, you should call the police.” Marshall gave an earnest shrug. “But I’m certain the men and women you see here have no violent or malignant intentions whatsoever. I’m sure they’re simply homeless people taking shelter in these abandoned houses.”

More gunshots. The health inspector tugged at his collar. “If you wouldn’t mind, Ms. Bird?” Baby let him in. Richard was already slipping the bright orange UNSAFE TO OCCUPY notice to the front of the clipboard as he passed her.

“This doesn’t solve your problem,” Baby said to Marshall, who had been walking toward the street. Marshall stopped on the path and looked back as Baby continued. “So you get the house condemned and you kick Arthur out. Okay. Then what? He still owns the property.”

“The increasingly worthless property.” Marshall held up a finger. Shouting was coming from the house with the gunshots. “The property that will, in a few minutes, be written up for several municipal code violations that will incur fines in the tens of thousands of dollars if not seen to. You know, it’s a real shame that Mr. Laurier didn’t take my offer on the house when I made it, because even if he tries to fix the property to get it compliant again, I have a weird feeling that he’ll have trouble getting builders in.”

Baby felt like an elephant was standing on her chest. She kept her bearing only by focusing hard on her breathing and on the pain caused by her fingernails biting into the flesh of her palm as she squeezed her fist.

“Give up now,” Marshall said, her ruse suddenly dropped. The tiny woman looked up at Baby from the cracked concrete path. “Or it’ll get worse.”

“No,” Baby said.

“No?”

“Arthur is old. He’s tired. You killed his wife,” Baby said. Her voice was like black ink in the bright daylight. “I won’t take that. I will never, ever let something like that slide. It’s not who I am.”

Marshall appraised her. Baby thought she saw a flicker of something in her eyes — annoyance and, hopefully, fear. But it was gone so fast, she might have imagined it. Marshall had been doing this a long time, and she was practiced at hiding her weaknesses. She smiled cheerfully at Baby and walked off as if she had somewhere better to be.