“I don’t think that’s a real address,” Marcus said.
I said, “He used a reverse on the numbers, but the street will be real.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The address starts with the last number first. You read it backwards.”
“There’s still too many numbers.”
I indicated a space between the numbers that was a little wider than the others were. “See that?”
“Yeah…”
“The street address stops here. These others can indicate something else, or may mean nothing at all and just be camouflage.”
Marcus said, “How do you know?”
“My, aren’t we Mr. Twenty Questions today?”
Hondo stepped over and said to Marcus, “He’s irritable because we haven’t fed him this morning.” He leaned closer to Marcus and said in a lower voice, “It’s his tapeworm. You remember.”
“Oh yeah,” Marcus nodded.
“Would you quit that? I do not have a tapeworm. I have a very high metabolism and need to eat regularly to maintain my energy level.”
Hondo put his fingers and thumbs together to make a circle the size of a large grapefruit. He looked through it at Marcus and the camera and said, “Thing’s this big around.”
Marcus said, “Ack,” with the camera still rolling.
“Okay you two,” I said, “We don’t have to get anything to eat. I’ll just starve if that’ll make you both happy.”
Hondo smiled, “That, my brother, was the correct answer. Let’s go.”
The address was a bus station in Culver City. Hondo said, “My guess, the other numbers are a locker.”
I said, “Then the key won’t be there.”
“We’ll locate the locker first, then see what happens after that.”
We found a place to park and walked into the station. People were everywhere, some sitting, others standing, a few pacing back and forth and others asleep in the corners or on benches. The lockers were along the back wall.
Then I saw Jett Sunday.
I pushed Hondo and Marcus behind a rack of periodicals. “She’s here,” I said.
We peeked around the corner, but made Marcus stay out of sight with the camera. Jett wore sunglasses and a baseball cap with her now-changed-to-dirty-blonde hair pulled through the back in a very short ponytail. A windbreaker over a Rolling Stones T-shirt and baggy, faded army surplus pants completed her cover, and it was good. If I hadn’t seen her in person before, I would not have recognized her.
Jett walked into the center of the station and took her time, looking around at everyone and everything but being casual about it, like she was waiting for someone.
After a good five minutes she worked her way toward the lockers, stopping to sit and read a discarded paper for several minutes, then moving again to a candy dispenser, and finally to the lockers.
The locker we watched was number 42, centered on the top row. Jett stopped in front of it and raised a key. Two men came off a bench and walked toward her.
I started out toward them but Hondo pulled me back just as Jett moved to the next locker, 43 and put in the key.
The two men stopped, looked at each other and went back to the bench.
“She…is good,” I said. Hondo nodded.