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as they approached.
    The surgeon crossed his arms and shifted as if preparing himself. They moved closer to the wall and the brother’s back was to Marquez. Still, his deep voice was easy to hear.
    ‘How can he be dead? Where is he? I need to see him.’
    The administrator started on hospital rules and how that wasn’t going to happen and the man ramped it up and got loud. Neither the surgeon nor the administrator liked that much and it drew attention from people waiting for the elevator, and everybody got a little agitated.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ the surgeon said, his voice more in command now. ‘We did our best but he went into cardiac arrest. We did everything we could to try to save him.’
    ‘Take me to him.’
    The administrator stepped away and made a call and the surgeon shook his head. No doubt he knew something of how Enrique Jordan was injured and the sanctimoniousness of the big man was probably wearing thin. Either way, there was no enthusiasm for showing the brother the body, but they did finally relent and led him into the surgery area.
    When that happened, Marquez rode the elevator down and walked out through the lobby and into cold air. He was in his car in the wide lot watching the doors along the white stucco face of the hospital building when the big man came out. He was light-footed, a boxer rolling on the balls of his feet, ready for the fight, talking on his phone, gesturing with his right hand. He had passed quickly through the stages of grief and smiled and laughed at something which the person on the end of the phone had said.
    Then he was off the phone and scanning the lot before getting in his car. He backed out slowly and sat idling as he made another call and was on the phone as he pulled out of the lot on to the street, accelerating hard but after less than a quarter mile pulled over to the curb and killed his lights. Nothing very subtle to that. It said he expected to be followed and he wasn’t too clear about how to spot them.
    Marquez talked with Waller and waited for the black Honda Civic to move again. He called the local police and gave his location and model of the Honda. He asked for help and then the big man made it easier. He came off the side of the road and back into the rightmost of three lanes on the boulevard as if coming out of a pit stop in a NASCAR race. As he approached the next green light he let it go to yellow before gunning his engine and shooting through the intersection as the light went from yellow to red.
    The Honda was registered to an Emile Soliatano. It was lowered and ran on expensive chrome wheels and run-flat tires and the Fairfield Police didn’t have any problem picking up on him. He went through two more lights with the same trick and just before the road reached the interstate he got pulled over and ticketed. The name matched the car registration. What Marquez drew from this was that Soliatano was inexperienced. He showed some chutzpah at the hospital, but he had no real cover and his efforts to avoid being followed were clumsy. He was probably scared.
    When the two SOU wardens checked in, Marquez asked, ‘Where are you guys?’
    ‘Coming down the freeway and almost to you.’
    ‘Go slow. He just got a ticket and turned law abiding, but he’s getting on I-80 westbound right now and wherever he’s going, we’re going with him.’

SIX
    S oliatano drove toward San Francisco. When he reached the bay he tracked down the east shore and broke left at the maze, hurtling through the bend onto 580 with his car drifting hard right. That move read as adrenalin-fueled paranoia to Marquez, but might also be a burst of action before getting off the freeway. When Soliatano dropped down the off ramp at Oakland Avenue and made the left back under the freeway, Marquez said, ‘Fuck, it can’t be.’ He went to speaker on his cell and conferenced in both of the SOU wardens.
    ‘For three weeks I’ve been talking to a climatologist named Matt Hauser who works for a