? ? ?
Almost two hours later, I had taped my first segment and was back in my dressing room, studying up on my second book, a small, charming, slightly shabby leather-bound copy entitled The Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius. He was an early Roman emperor who was said to be wise and relatively kind—for an early Roman emperor.
A sudden knock on the door caused me to jump again.
“Stop it,” I said to myself. I was still so agitated, I was driving myself nuts. Standing up, I shook my hands and shoulders loose as I crossed the room to get the door. I whipped it open and almost leaped into Derek’s arms.
“The door was locked.”
“Sorry,” I whispered. “Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it.”
“You’d better get used to seeing me around here,” he murmured, his breath ruffling the strands of hair near my ear. “Because I’m not leaving your side until the danger is over.”
“I’m so glad.” I didn’t care how wimpy that sounded. After a few minutes of catching up with Derek and retelling my story of being followed and taunted by Lug Nut’s doppelganger, I went back to my research. Derek sat down on the couch and opened his briefcase to finish up some work before starting in on two conference calls. In between the business calls, he telephoned Inspector Lee for a quick update on Lug Nut’s brother.
Clearly, Inspector Lee had plenty of information for him, because Derek began to jot down notes. I was glad Derek was the one who’d called her, because I knew she would be willing to give him much more scoop than she would ever give me.
“What did she say?” I asked as soon as he hung up the phone.
He scanned the notes he’d taken. “The man who followed you this morning is Larry Jones’s brother, Gary.”
“Gary,” I repeated in disbelief. “That’s so . . . normal.”
He glanced at his notes. “Better known by his street name, Grizzly.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I almost laughed, but nothing about this situation was funny. “It suits him, though. Lug Nut and his brother, Grizzly. What a charming family.” I couldn’t believe their real names were Larry and Gary Jones. Such ordinary, down-to-earth names for two extraordinarily vicious creeps.
“The brothers grew up in the Tenderloin, and according to the authorities in that area, Grizzly is reputed to be even more dangerous than his little brother.”
“He looked it.” I rubbed my arms to calm down the goose bumps that sprang to life at the memory of my brief confrontation with Grizzly.
Inspector Lee had told Derek that the two men weren’t twins, but looked enough alike to have caused plenty of grief for their parents, teachers, and local law enforcement throughout their teenage years. They had both landed in the prison system and had been in and out of jail for years. They were known to be major screwups and mean sons of bitches.
“Do they still live in the Tenderloin?” I asked, wondering how in the world Lug Nut could’ve held a garage sale. The Tenderloin was mostly filled with seedy hotels and disreputable apartment buildings. There were plenty of bars and pawnshops, but I couldn’t picture any houses in the area suitable for a garage sale.
The neighborhood was located a few blocks west of upscale Union Square and had long been known as one of the most seamy, dangerous parts of town. That reputation was changing slowly, though, as the area became marginally safer, thanks to an influx of immigrant families. But it was still said to have the highest concentration of parolees in the city.
It was also home to some of the best Indian restaurants in town, but that was beside the point.
The point was: how in the world had a no-good lowlife loser like Larry “Lug Nut” Jones gotten his hands on an exquisite and rare copy of The Secret Garden? Had he stolen it? But if he’d stolen it and knew its value, why would he ever sell it in a garage sale? Of course, he had denied selling it to Vera, but he would’ve said anything to get his hands on the book. It was clear from the short conversation I’d had with him the day he attacked me that he’d discovered the book’s value only on the night he saw our short segment on the evening news.
Maybe his brother, Grizzly, had stolen it. Maybe Lug Nut had discovered it among his brother’s belongings and sold it at the garage sale for a few bucks, not realizing how much it was worth.
If that scenario was true and Grizzly had found out that Lug Nut sold the book, he might have threatened his little brother with severe bodily harm unless he got it back. Under those circumstances, Lug Nut might have been willing to do whatever it took to retrieve the book—even commit murder.
My mind was spinning off in ten different directions.
“They moved out of the Tenderloin last year,” Derek explained, “after they came into some money. Found a small house in the Sunset District, close to the beach.”
“Came into some money? Is that code for robbing a bank?”