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people under forty with so little hair. And it wasn t like his head was shaved
or anything. He was seriously bald.
Abigail was clearly thinking about Leo again, but even when he d been alive
there was no way anyone could have described him as skinny and bald, at least
not based on the picture I d seen. If anything, he seemed like the poster
child for hirsute. Still, it was easy to understand how a teenaged
skateboarding enthusiast would label anyone an old dude if he looked the way
Hilary had described Petite Fleur.
Once off the highway, we were only a few minutes from the Mission
neighborhood, where Chez Bechet occupied a small storefront on Valencia
Street. Posters in the window promised live jazz, which under normal
circumstances would have been enough to keep me far, far away, but tonight
something else in the window made equally sure that nothing would keep me from
going inside: a hand-lettered sign advertised a two-for-one drinks special
lasting the entire month of June.
Two drinks for the price of one had an unquestionable appeal, but it wasn t
the prospect of a bargain that drew me in, or the fact that the offer was
written in big block letters in a hand that was becoming as familiar to me as
my own. It was the occasion for the special that caught my attention namely,
Che Guevara s birthday, some eighty years ago this month.
We filed through the door into the sort of dark interior that would have been
smoky if smoking were allowed in public establishments in California. A bar
area occupied the front of the club and then opened up into a floor crowded
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with small tables and chairs, all facing a compact stage at the end. It was
early still, and it was also a Monday night, so we weren t surprised to find
the stage empty and only a scattering of patrons taking advantage of the Che
birthday special.
He was sitting in the back the last time I met him, said Hilary, leading the
way past the bar. I got the sense he s a regular. Everyone seemed to know
him, and he mentioned that sometimes he performs here, too. I think he may
even be one of the owners.
We hadn t advanced more than ten feet when a dog began barking, and there was
something familiar about the bark. A moment later, a Great Dane bounded up
from the rear of the club, and there was something familiar about him, too.
Dogs the size of small ponies aren t that common, and his white coat with its
black markings was distinctive. I realized I d seen him before, being walked
by a bald man on the sidewalk in front of the Forrests house.
More importantly, the dog had evidently seen Abigail before and seemed to know
her well. He made a beeline for her, rising up on his hind legs to lick at her
face and then circling her excitedly, bumping up against her hips and barking.
Abigail, meanwhile, had gone as pale as a ghost. In fact, she looked as if
she d seen a ghost. As far as she knew, she had.
Scat? she said faintly. She was rewarded with another round of licks and
barks.
And then she looked up to see the skinny bald man now standing in front of us.
Leo? she asked.
It turned out that if you wanted to fake your own death, it helped to be a
hacker.
But what about the dental records? asked Abigail. And the bone fragments?
We d joined Leo at his usual table in a back corner of the club, and since the
first jazz combo wasn t scheduled to go on for another couple of hours, it
seemed like as good a choice of venues as any for the time being. He shrugged
in response to Abigail s question. The dental records were my dad s I hacked
into my dentist s network and replaced the files of my own X-rays with his.
When he was sick, he lost some of his teeth. It happens with certain types of
cancer. I saved the teeth after he died, and I also had the remains from when
both he and Scat s mother were cremated. That s what they found after the
cabin burned.
This was gross but apparently effective.
But why? asked Abigail. If you wanted to leave, or change your life, or
whatever you were trying to do, why didn t you just do it? Why go to all the
trouble of faking your own death?
Because someone wanted me dead. Iggie had been threatening me, and while it
was hard to take threats from Iggie seriously, I had a couple of close calls
that made me think it would be better to make myself scarce.
Like what? I asked.
Like getting home to my apartment and smelling gas. Somebody had left the
burner on and blown out the flame. I don t cook, and I hadn t used the stove
in months, but if I d lit a match man, the entire building would have blown
up. And then another night I was up at the cabin and Scat started going nuts,
barking like mad. I ran outside just in time to see someone take off, but he
was on a bike and I couldn t catch him, and it was too dark to get a good look
at him. The next morning I found a can of gasoline and a bunch of old rags by
the side of the driveway.
On a bike? Do you mean a bicycle or a motorcycle? I asked, just to be sure.
A bicycle. And the cabin was at the end of a long road, at the top of a steep
hill. Whoever it was had to have pretty good endurance to pedal up there with
a big can of gasoline. He must have had it strapped to the back of his bike
somehow, or maybe he carried it in a knapsack.
Then it definitely wasn t Iggie, said Abigail. I don t think he could ride
a bike that didn t have training wheels, much less up a hill in the dark with
all of that added weight.
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But Alex Cutler is in a bike club, I said. He probably would have enjoyed
the challenge.
The venture-capital guy? asked Leo. You think it was him?
It took only a few minutes to tell him about what had happened to Hilary, and
to confide our suspicions about Alex.
It all fits, I said. And it explains why he would have freaked out when he
heard Hilary was digging up the rumors about your death. He was worried about
more than her screwing up the IPO he couldn t let her find out he d tried to
kill you.
But he didn t. I burned the cabin down myself. And I m not dead.
He doesn t know that, and even if none of his attempts were successful, the
last thing he d want is anybody looking into what happened all over again.
I never did like that guy, Leo said. He was always talking about rates of
return and exit strategies. He could care less about what the technology
actually did as long as his investment paid off.
Why didn t you just call the police? Ben asked. When you thought someone
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