So he gives the facts to Hereford in as casual and efficient a tone as he can muster. Hereford pulls at his lean jaw, scratches his silver hair, straightens a five-hundred-dollar tie. His face remains impassive. “This man McPherson is good, you say?”

“Yes. But he’s a bit of a perfectionist, and in the art of presenting a proposal, balancing all the factors involved … well, he’s still an engineer at heart.”

Hereford nods briefly, his aquiline nose wrinkling. “I understand. In fact, I was wondering why you described him as good, when his previous two proposals lost.”

Yes, yes; Lemon is perfectly aware of Hereford’s powerfully retentive memory, thanks. He shrugs, scrambling mentally, says, “I meant from the engineering standpoint, of course.”

Hereford looks down at Manhattan. Finally he speaks. “Cut everything by five percent, and the management and data costs by ten. Any more than that and the MPCs are likely to be embarrassing. But that’ll bring it down into the range of the other bids, right?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Good. When’s the proposal due?”

“A week from today.”

“Talk to me then. I’ve got to go now.” And the video screen goes blank.

Chapter 30

30

Abe and Xavier are driving back from Buena Park Hospital after working a nasty head-on in Brea, and Abe can feel that Xavier has about gone over the redline. The torque has been too heavy for too long, all the parts are fatigued to shear points, Abe can hear the gears grinding within and it sounds like all the teeth are about to strip out and fly away.… The truth is that they’re both stressed, to the burnout point and beyond. Making up for clumps of vacation time in the past, setting up clumps of vacation time in the future, filling in for other friends on the squad: one way or another they have arranged for too many hours on in the last month, and the effects are showing.

So they get a call from the radio dispatcher and they both groan and then just stare at the thing. Tapped out again. Slowly, very slowly, Xavier presses the transmit button. “What do you want.”

They’re directed to a side street near Brookhurst and Garden Grove avenues, in Garden Grove. “How could anybody get up enough speed in that neighborhood to make more than a fender-bender?” Xavier wonders.

“The call was not too coherent, I’m told,” says the voice of the dispatcher. “No idea of the code or anything. There might even have been a relevant address—1246 Emerson.”

“Sure this one isn’t a police matter?”

“Said rescue squad.”

Xavier clicks off. “Don’t kill us getting there. This one has got to be bullshit somehow.”

So Abe drives then to Brookhurst and Garden Grove, and they find no sign of a wreck. They see only:

A Jeans Down discount clothing store.

A Seedy audio outlet, a See-All Video Rental.