Free Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel by Robert Crais Page A

loading dock on the side of the building where two men were wrestling a dolly stacked with about ten thousand pounds of boxed paper into a six-wheel truck. “You guys know where I can find Wilson Brownell?”
    One of the men was younger, with a thick mustache and a hoop earring and a red bandana tied over his head like a skullcap. “Yeah.” He pointed inside. “Down the aisle, past the desk, and through the swinging door. You’ll see him.”
    “Thanks.”
    I followed an endless aisle past shipping flats stacked with boxes of brochures and magazines and pamphlets. I picked up two boxes and carried them with what I hoped was a purposeful expression, just another worker bee lugging paper through the hive.
    A balding guy with a potbelly and tiny, mean eyes was sitting at the desk, talking to a younger guy with a prominent Adam’s apple. The balding guy was thin in the arms and chest and neck, but his belly poked out beneath his beltline as if someone had slipped a bowling ball in his pants. He squinted at me the way people do when they’re trying to remember who you are, but then I was past him and through the swinging door and into a cavernous room filled with whirring, ka-chunking, humming machines and the men and women who operated them. A woman pushed a dolly past me and I smiled. “Wilson Brownell?”
    She pointed and I saw him across the room, standing at a large machine with two other people, one a kid in a KURT LIVES T-shirt, and the other a middle-aged guy in a suit. A large plate had been removed from the side of the machine so that they could see inside.
    Wilson Brownell was in his early sixties, and taller than he looked in the pictures at his home. He was dressed in khaki slacks and a simple plaid shirt, with short hair more gray than not and black horn-rimmed glasses. Professorial. He was using a pen to point at something inside the machine. The guy in the suit was standing with his arms crossed, not liking what he heard. Brownell finally stopped pointing, and the suit walked away, still with crossed arms. Brownell said something to the younger guy, and the younger guy got down on the floor and began working his way into the machine. I walked over and said, “Mr. Brownell?”
    “Yes?” Brownell looked at me with damp, hazel eyes. You could smell the booze on him, faint and far away. It was probably always with him.
    I positioned myself with my back to the kid so that only Wilson Brownell would hear. “My name is Elvis Cole. I’ve phoned you twice trying to find a man named Clark Haines.”
    Brownell shook his head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
    “How about Clark Hewitt?”
    Brownell glanced at the kid, then wet his lips. “You’re not supposed to be here.” He looked past me. “Did they let you in?”
    “Come on, Mr. Brownell. I know that Clark phoned you six times from Los Angeles because I’ve seen his phone record. I know that he’s been at your apartment.” He wasn’t just stonewalling; he was scared. “I’m not here to make trouble for you or for Clark. He walked out on his kids eleven days ago, and they need him. If he isn’t coming home, someone has to deal with that.” Elvis Cole, detective for the nineties, the detective who can feel your pain.
    “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shook his head, and the booze smell came stronger.
    “Jesus Christ, those kids are alone. All I want to do is find out if Clark’s coming home.” You’d think I wanted to kill the guy.
    He held up both hands, palms toward me, shaking his head some more.
    “This isn’t an earthshaker, Wilson. Either I’m going to find Clark, or I’m going to turn his kids over to Children’s Services, and they’re going to take custody away from him. You see what I’m saying here?” I wanted to smack him. I wanted to grab him by the ears and shake him. “Clark is going to lose his kids unless he talks to me, and you’re going to be part of it.” Maybe I