Goodbye to the Man Who Betrayed Us novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: The Assistant

The doors opened on the second parking level.

There was a camera on the ceiling with a red light.

"Not here," he said, barely moving his lips. "There's a diner by the Daly City BART station. Open all night. Ten o'clock."

"How do I know you'll come?"

"Because I've been carrying this for five weeks," he said. "And I can't sleep."

He pressed the button and went back up alone.

I called the detective from my car.

"Don't touch it," she said. "Don't take it from him. Don't let him give it to you. Listen, and call me after."

At nine-fifty Raymond parked his dented beige sedan across the street from the diner and turned off the engine.

"I'll be right here," he said.

"If he sees you, he'll run."

"Then he won't see me." He slid down in his seat until his hat was at the bottom of the window. "I used to repo cars in 1981. I know how to sit in a car."

He was already in the back booth.

I sat down.

The waitress came, and I ordered two coffees and a slice of apple pie.

When it came, I pushed the pie across to him.

"I'm not hungry."

"You look like you haven't eaten since March."

He looked at the pie.

He ate the whole thing in about six bites, and then he put the fork down and started talking, and he didn't stop.

"He called me at five after eleven that night," he said. "From his cell. He never calls me from his cell."

"He said bring the company car to an alley off Fulton by the park. The Mercedes was there with the lights off."

"The windshield was smashed in a star. There was blood on it. She was in the passenger seat."

"Vivian?"

"She'd moved over. Or he moved her. She was screaming that she couldn't see. There was glass in her eyes. In her hair."

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