Tony Banks agreed to stay once again after closing at Video GraFX Consultants until McCaleb could get there. Crossing the floor of the Valley on the 101, he initially made good time. Most of the rush-hour traffic was going the other way, the workforce of the city returning to the bedroom communities of the Valley. But when he dipped south on the freeway to go through the Cahuenga Pass into Hollywood, the brake lights were flared for as far as he could see and he got bogged down. He finally pulled Buddy Lockridge’s Taurus into the small employee lot at VGC at five after six. Once again, Tony Banks answered the door after McCaleb had pushed the night bell.

“Tony, thanks,” McCaleb said to the man’s back as he was led down the hallway once again to one of the tech rooms. “You are really helping me out here.”

“No problem.”

But McCaleb noted that there wasn’t as much enthusiasm in the “No problem” this time. They entered the same room they had sat in the week before. McCaleb handed Banks the two tapes he had brought with him.

“On each of these tapes there is a man,” he said. “I want to see if they are the same man.”

“You mean, like, you can’t tell.”

“Not for sure. They look different. But I think it’s a disguise. I think they’re the same man but I want to be sure.”

Banks put the first tape into the player on the left side of the console, turned it on and the Sherman Market robbery and shooting began playing on the corresponding overhead video display tube.

“This guy?” Banks said.

“Right. Freeze it when there’s a good look.”

Banks froze the image at the moment the so-called Good Samaritan was looking off camera in right profile.

“How is that? I need the profile. It’s hard to do a comparison front-on.”

“You’re the boss.”

He handed Banks the second tape, which was placed in the righthand player, and soon the hypnosis session was playing on the right VDT screen.

“Back it up,” McCaleb said. “I think there’s a profile before he sits down.”

Banks reversed the tape.

“What are you doing to him on this?”

“Hypnosis.”

“Really?”

“I thought so at the time. But now I think he was playing me the whole-there.”

Banks paused the tape. James Noone was looking to his right, most likely at the door to the interview room. Banks played with the dials and the computer mouse and expanded the picture, then sharpened it. He did the same with the image on the left screen. He then leaned back and looked at the side-by-side profiles. After a few moments he spoke as he unclipped an infrared pointer from his pocket and turned it on.

“Well, the complexions don’t match. One guy looks Mexican.”

“That would be easy. A couple hours in a tanning salon could give him that look.”

Banks played the pointer’s red dot along the bridge the Good Samaritan’s nose.

“Look at the slope of the nose,” he said. “See the double bump?”

“Right.”

The red dot jumped to the left screen and found the same double bump in the slope of James Noone’s nose.

“It’s an unscientific guess but it looks pretty close me,” Banks said.

“Me too.”

“You’ve got different-color eyes but that can be done.”

“Contacts.”

“Right. And here, the expanded jawline on this guy on the right. A dental appliance-you know, like a rubber sleep guard-or even wads of tissue paper like Brando used in The Godfather could be used to make that appearance.”

McCaleb nodded, silently noting another possible connection to the gangster movie. Cannolis and now possibly wads of tissue paper as cheek implants.

“And hair is always changeable,” Banks was saying. “In fact, this guy looks like he’s got on a wig.”

Banks ran the red dot along the Good Samaritan’s hairline. McCaleb silently chastised himself for seeing this only now. The hairline was a perfect line, the telltale indication of a hairpiece.

“Let’s see what else we’ve got.”

Banks went back to the dials and pulled back on the image. He then used the mouse to delineate a new enhancement area. The Good Samaritan’s hands.

“It’s like chicks,” Banks said. “They can put on makeup, wigs, even get their tits done. But they can’t do nothing about their hands. Their hands-and sometimes their feet-always give ’em away.”

Once he had the Good Samaritan’s hands blown up and in focus, he went to work on the other console until he had an enlargement of Noone’s right hand on the opposite screen. Banks stood up so that he was at direct eye level with the screens and leaned to within a few inches of each tube as he studied and compared the hands.

“Okay, here, look.”

McCaleb stood up and looked closely at the screens.

“What?”

“The first one has got a bit of a scar here on the knuckle. You see it, the discoloration?”

McCaleb leaned in close to the image of the Good Samaritan’s right hand.

“Wait a sec,” Banks said. He opened a drawer in the console and pulled out a photographer’s eyepiece, the kind used to study and magnify negatives on a light table. “Try this.”

McCaleb held the eyepiece over the knuckle in question and looked through it. He could see a swirl of white scar tissue on the knuckle. Though the whole image was distorted and blurry, he identified the scar as almost being in the shape of a question mark.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s see the other.”

He took a step to his left and used the eyepiece to locate the same knuckle on James Noone’s right hand. The hand was not held in the same posture or at the same angle but the thick white swirl of scar tissue was there. McCaleb held steady and studied the image until he was sure. He then closed his eyes for a moment. It was a lock. The man on each of the VDT screens was the same man.

“Is it there?” Banks asked.

McCaleb handed him the eyepiece.

“It’s there. Any chance I can get hard copies of those two screens?”

Banks was looking through the eyepiece at the second screen.

“It’s there all right,” he said. “And yes, I can make hard copies. Let me put the images on a disk and take it back to the printer in the lab. It’ll take a few minutes.”

“Thanks, man.”

“I hope it helps.”

“More than you know.”

“What’s the guy doing anyway? Dressing up like a Mexican and doing good deeds?”

“Not really. Someday I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

Banks let it go and went to work on the console, transferring the video images on the screens to a computer disk. He backed up the videos and transferred the headshots as well.

“Be back in a few minutes,” he said, getting up. “Unless I have to warm up the machine.”

“Hey, is there a phone I can use while you’re gone?”

“In the left drawer there. Hit nine first.”

McCaleb called Winston’s home number and got her machine. As he listened to her voice, he hesitated about leaving a message, aware of the consequences to Winston if it was ever proved that she had worked with the subject of a murder investigation. A tape of his voice could do that. But he decided that the discoveries he had made in the last hour made it worth the risk. He didn’t want to page Winston because he didn’t want to wait around for her to call. He had to move. He hatched a quick plan and left a message after the beep.

“Jaye, it’s me. I’ll explain all of this when I see you but for now just trust me. I know who the shooter is. It’s Noone, Jaye, James Noone. I’m heading to his address now-the address on the witness report. Meet me there if you can. I’ll run it all down for you then.”

He hung up and called her pager number. He then punched in her home phone number and hung up. With any luck, he thought, Winston would get the message and soon be heading toward Noone’s address to back him up.

McCaleb pulled his leather bag onto his lap and opened the zippered center pouch. The two guns were there, his own Sig-Sauer P-228 and the HK P7 he now knew James Noone had planted under his boat. McCaleb reached into the bag and took his own weapon out. He checked the action and tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. He pulled his jacket down over it.