The First Rule

by Robert Crais

  “What’s that address?”

  Stone cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Okay, now listen, we can’t have any blowback here. You go barging in and it comes back to me, the SIS guys will know who gave them up. You ruin their play, my guy is fucked.”

  “No blowback. They’ll never see me.”

  Stone laughed again, still too loud and too long, and now more than a little nervous.

  “Only you could say that, Pike, talking about SIS. Jesus Christ, bro, only you.”

  Stone was giving Pike the address when light exploded into the office, so bright the walls and furniture were white with glare. Pike, still in the chair with his back to the window, did not move. The patrol car had returned.

  Pike said, “Sh.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  An enormous blue shadow crossed the office wall as if someone had moved in front of the light. Pike heard faint radio calls, and listened for approaching footsteps.

  Stone’s tiny voice came from the phone.

  “You sound weird, man. Where are you?”

  Pike whispered, as still as a fish at the bottom of a pond.

  “Frank’s. The police are outside.”

  “You break in?”

  “Sh.”

  The light swung away, moving to another part of the house like an animal tracking a scent.

  “What the fuck are you doing at Frank’s?”

  “I wanted to see what his life was like.”

  “You’re a strange cat. I mean, really.”

  The light snapped off. The yard plunged into darkness. The radio chatter faded. The patrol car rolled on.

  Pike said, “Okay.”

  “Hey, is it nice?”

  “What?”

  “Frank’s house. Does he have a nice place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fancy?”

  “Not like you mean. It’s a good family home.”

  Pike heard Stone swallow. Heard the glass tink the phone.

  “You think it’s true, he went bad?”

  “Chen thinks the people who did this got the wrong house.”

  “Like, what, they got confused about which house they wanted to rob?”

  “It happens.”

  “What do you think?”

  “ Doesn’t matter.”

  “No. No, it surely doesn’t.”

  Stone made a deep sigh. Pike thought it might have been a sob, but then Stone had another sip of whatever he was sipping, and went on.

  “Assholes like this, they go in these houses, right house, wrong house, murder people like they were nothing, probably sleep like a baby after it’s over. How many times have they done this?”

  “Frank was the seventh.”

  “You see? This is my point. Six times before, they got away clean. Murdered some poor bastard, and there have been no consequences. Hence, these people do not fear the dead. They LOVE the dead, Joe, because the dead—and I apologize if my assessment here seems harsh—but, the dead have not been effective when it comes to consequence and retribution.”

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Scotch. I am drinking scotch in honor of our friend Frank. I would rather rip off a twenty-one-gun salute out in the backyard, but my neighbors prefer the drinking. Where was I?”

  “Consequence and retribution.”

  “Right—”

  Jon Stone was grieving, so Pike let him continue.

  “But then . . . then they hit Frank the Tank, them not knowing he was Frank the Tank, them thinking he was just another ordinary dead guy without recourse to consequence. So dig this—and this is my favorite part—those assholes are somewhere right now, shootin’ up, corn-holing each other, whatever—they are somewhere right now, and they do not know a shit storm is on the horizon, and it is coming for them.”

  Pike said, “Jon? Do you have photographs on your walls?”

  “What, like naked chicks?”

  “Pictures of your family. Friends.”

  “Shit, yeah. I take pictures of everything. I got pictures of fuckin’ human heads. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  “Hey, man. Those fuckers. Those fucks fucked the pooch this time, didn’t they, fuckin’ with Frank?”

  “Get some sleep.”

  “I want in on this, bro. I mean it. Whatever.”

  “Get some sleep.”

  “I’ll call Colin. Colin will be on the first plane.”

  “Don’t call Colin.”

  “Wallace would come.”

  “ Don’t.”

  “Fuck it. Hey, Joe? Joe, you there?”

  “What?”

  Stone was silent for so long Pike thought he had fallen asleep.

  “Jon?”

  “None of us had families. You never married. Lonny, Colin, not them, either. Wallace got divorced. I’ve been married six fuckin’ times, man, what does that tell you? None of us had kids.”

  Pike didn’t know what to say, but maybe Stone voiced it for him, soft, and hoarse from the booze.

  “I really wanted Frank to make it. Not just for him.”

  Pike closed his phone.

  He sat in Frank’s office for almost an hour, alone with himself and the silence, then walked back along the hall to Cindy’s desk. He took the framed picture of Frank in the pool, tucked it into his pocket, then let himself out the way he had entered, and drove home for the night.

  They call this the city

  The city of angels

  All I see is death-dealin’ dangers.

  —TATTOOED BEACH SLUTS

  Part Two

  The First Rule

  8

  PIKE RETURNED HOME AFTER leaving Frank’s house and found a message waiting from Elvis Cole, who was Pike’s friend and partner in a detective agency. Pike listened while he drank a bottle of water.

  Cole said, “Hey. A cop named Terrio came by the office today, asking about you and someone named Frank Meyer. Felt like he was fishing, but he also said this guy Meyer was murdered. Call me.”

  Pike deleted the message, then looked up Rahmi’s address on his computer. He was hungry, he wanted to exercise and return Cole’s call, but he needed to keep moving. Movement meant progress, and progress meant finding the men who killed Frank.

  The Google Maps feature was like having a spy satellite. Pike typed in Rahmi’s address, and there it was—all of Compton spread out thousands of feet below. Pike zoomed in for a closer look, then went to the street view, which allowed him to see Rahmi’s building as if he were standing in the street. Faded paint. Dying grass. Big Wheel on its side. The Google pictures had been taken on a bright, sunny day, and might have been taken months ago, but they were a good place to start.

  Rahmi Johnson lived in a green two-story apartment building 1.67 miles north of the Artesia Freeway in Compton. His building was shaped like a shoe box, with three units on bottom, three on top, and a flat, featureless roof. Rahmi had the center ground-floor apartment. Single-family homes and similar buildings lined Rahmi’s side of the street, set on lots so narrow that some of the homes were turned sideways. Rahmi’s building was sideways. Almost every yard was protected by short chain-link fences, and almost every house had security bars on its windows. The opposite side of the street was lined by single-story commercial buildings.

  Because of the sideways orientation, the side of Rahmi’s building faced the street and the front of the building faced the next-door neighbor’s property. Residents entered through a chain-link gate, passed the Big Wheel, then went along the length of their building to reach their apartments. This sideways orientation made it difficult for Pike to see Rahmi’s door from the street. He considered this, and knew the police would have the same problem.

  Pike was studying the buildings surrounding Rahmi’s apartment house when his cell phone rang. He saw it was John Chen, and took the call.

  “Yes.”

  “We confirmed a fourth gun to go with the fourth set of shoe prints. Three of th
e four guns were used in the earlier murders, but the fourth gun was not. That fourth gun showed casings in the nanny’s room and the family room.”

  “How many?”

  “Three. The fourth gunman shot Frank Meyer once, and put both bullets in the girl—Ana Markovic. We’re still matching the other bullets and casings, but that’s the prelim. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks.”

  Pike put down the phone, and thought about the fourth shooter. The new guy. Someone who had not taken part in the earlier invasions, but had gone to Frank’s house. Pike wondered why a fourth man had joined the crew. Had the original three members known about Frank’s background, and expected more resistance?

  Pike finally put it out of his head, and returned to his computer. He studied Rahmi’s building, then the surrounding structures and the commercial properties across the street. He noticed that both sides of the street were lined with parked cars, then went back to the overhead view and realized why. Neither Rahmi’s building nor the other small apartment buildings had driveways or spaces for off-street parking; residents parked on the street. This meant Rahmi’s new Malibu would probably be parked in front of his building.

  No building in the area was more than two stories, and most were only a single story. With no overlooking vantage point, the spotter would have to be close. The high density of residents, the on-street parking, and the long-term nature of the surveillance meant the spotter was housed in a nearby building. You couldn’t park a Crown Vic out front for three weeks and expect the neighbors not to notice. Ditto repair vans, delivery trucks, and phony cable trucks. After forty-five minutes of studying the area, Pike believed the surveillance options for SIS were limited. He had a pretty good idea where they would place their spotters, and also how he could reach Rahmi without being seen. He would have to see the area at night and during the day to be sure, but he knew what he had to do.

  Pike changed into his workout gear, stretched to warm himself, then eased into the meditative state he always found through yoga. He moved slowly, and with great regard, working deeply through asanas from hatha yoga. He breathed, and felt himself settle. His heart rate slowed. Forty-two beats per minute. His blood pressure, one hundred over sixty. Peace came with certainty, and Pike was certain.

  When Pike finished, he eased awake like a bubble rising to the surface of a great flat pond. Dinner was rice and red beans mixed with grilled corn and eggplant; the rice and beans he had made, the corn and eggplant were from a restaurant. After dinner, he showered, cleaned himself, then dressed in briefs and a T-shirt. He returned Cole’s call, but Cole didn’t pick up, so he left a message.

  Pike poured a finger of scotch in a short glass, then shut the lights. He sat on his couch, alone in the dark, listening to water burble in the black granite meditation fountain. Listening to the water, it was easy to imagine he was in a natural world where wild things lived. He sipped the scotch, and listened.

  After a while, Pike went upstairs to bed. The mattress was hard, but he liked it that way. He was asleep almost at once. Pike fell asleep easily. Staying asleep was difficult.

  His eyes opened two hours later, and Joe Pike was awake. He blinked at the darkness, and knew sleep was done. He remembered no dreams, but his T-shirt was damp with sweat.

  Pike rolled out of bed, dressed, got together his things, then drove south to Compton across a landscape brilliant with unwavering lights.

  9

  PIKE KNEW RAHMI was home the first and only time he drove past in his Jeep because the shiny black Malibu was wedged to the curb. Three in the morning on a weeknight, traffic was nonexistent and the streets were dead. Pike pulled his jacket collar high, his cap low, and slumped behind the wheel. Everyone else in the world might be sleeping, but SIS would be watching. One pass, they would ignore him. Two passes, they would wonder. A third pass, they would likely call in a radio car to see what was going on.

  Pike drove to a well-lit, twenty-four-hour Mobil station by the freeway, parked, then called a cab service. While he waited for the cab, he went inside. The attendant was a middle-aged Latin guy with a weak chin who looked scared even though he was behind an inch and a half of bulletproof glass. As soon as Pike walked in, the attendant’s right hand went under the counter.

  “Engine trouble. I’m going to leave my Jeep here for a while. Okay?”

  Pike held up a twenty-dollar bill, then slipped it under the glass. The attendant didn’t touch it.

  “Ain’t nothin’ bad in there, is it?”

  “Bad?”

  “Like . . . bad?”

  Dope or a body.

  Pike said, “Engine trouble. I’ll be back.”

  The attendant took the twenty with his left hand. He never revealed his right. Pike wondered how many times he had been held up.

  Pike went outside and stood in the vapor light breathing cold mist until a lime green cab showed up. It appeared lavender in the silky light.

  The cab driver was a young African-American with suspicious eyes, who did a double take when he saw his fare was a white man.

  He said, “Car trouble?”

  “I have a friend nearby. You can take me to her place.”

  “Ah.”

  Her. A woman made everything better.

  Pike gave the nearest major intersection, but not Rahmi’s address. Pike didn’t want the cabbie to know it if he was later questioned. When they reached Rahmi’s street, Pike told him to cruise the block.

  Pike said, “Go slow. I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “I thought you knew this girl.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  The SIS spotters would be watching the cab. This time of morning, they didn’t have anything else to watch. Pike slumped in the shadows of the backseat as they passed Rahmi’s building. The SIS spotters would be on alert now, but Pike wanted to see how Rahmi’s apartment was lit. The lighting was crucial in helping Pike determine where the spotters were hiding, and in planning how to defeat them.

  Pike said, “Slower.”

  The cab slowed even more. The watch officer was likely keying his radio or kicking his partner, saying they might have something here.

  The entry side of Rahmi’s building was lit by six yellow bulbs, one outside each of the three doors on the ground level, but only one outside a door on the second floor. The others appeared to be out. Pike was more interested in the back of the building than the front. The Google images showed the back of Rahmi’s building was very close to the neighboring home, and now Pike saw the area caught only a small amount of reflected glow from the neighbor’s porch. This was good for Pike. The heavy shadows, along with the distance from the street and the narrow separation between the two buildings, meant the area behind Rahmi’s apartment was a tunnel of darkness. Pike would be able to disappear into the tunnel.

  The cabbie said, “Which one?”

  “Don’t see it. Let’s try the next block.”

  Pike had the cabbie slow in front of two more buildings to throw off the spotters, then headed back to his Jeep. During his days as a combat Marine, the helicopter pilots used the same technique when inserting troops into enemy territory. They didn’t just fly in, drop off Marines, and leave. Instead, the pilots made three or four false inserts along with the real drop to mask the true drop point. If it worked in hostile jungles, it would work in South Central Los Angeles.

  Pike took another cab past the apartment just before dawn to check the lighting again from the opposite direction, and made six more cab rides before noon, different cabs each time, twice having the cabs stop nearby so he could study the street. One of the cabbies asked if he was looking for a woman, another stared at him in the rearview with marble eyes, finally saying, “You down here to kill a man?”

  They were parked outside a different apartment house on the next block. Pike now believed the primary SIS spotter was located in one of two commercial buildings directly across from Rahmi’s building. The only other building with a view of Rahmi
’s door was the house it faced, but Pike had seen a tall, thin woman herd three children out of the house for school. The two commercial buildings were the only remaining possibilities. SIS wanted to see Rahmi’s door. They would want to see who entered, and who left, and with the bad angles this meant they had to be directly across the street in one of two places. Pike hadn’t found their exact location, but he now believed it wasn’t necessary.

  The cabbie said, “I don’t want no shootin’ in this cab. Don’t you be gettin’ me involved in some crime.”

  “I’m cool.”

  “You don’t look cool. You look so hot a man could fry just bein’ next to you.”

  Pike said, “Sh.”

  “Just sayin’, is all.”

  Pike pushed a twenty-dollar bill onto the man’s shoulder. The cabbie grunted like he was the world’s biggest fool, but the bill disappeared.

  Rahmi’s Malibu was parked outside his building almost directly in front of the chain-link gate. Tuxedo black with double-chrome dubs covering the wheels that probably retailed at two thousand dollars each. Every time Rahmi drove away, SIS would follow. They would have placed a GPS locator on the car, and they would use at least three vehicles to maintain contact. Their cars would be nearby and ready to roll.

  The Malibu was Pike’s key. SIS had to watch Rahmi’s apartment, but Pike only needed to watch the Malibu, and a place to hide without being seen.

  The driver made a loud sigh.

  “Ain’t you seen enough?”

  Pike said, “Let’s go.”

  Pike picked up his Jeep, then drove north into East L.A. A friend of his had a parking lot there, where he kept vehicles he rented to film companies. Vintage cars, mostly, but also specialty vehicles like dune buggies, decommissioned police cruisers, and customized hot rods. Pike rented a taco truck with faded paint, a heavy skin of dust, and a cracked window. A flowing blue legend was emblazoned along the side: ANTONIO’S MOTORIZED RESTAURANT—HOME OF THE BBQ TACO! The legend was faded, too.

  Pike put it on his credit card, left his Jeep, then drove the taco truck back to Compton. He parked three blocks from Rahmi’s on the opposite side of the street in front of what appeared to be a tow yard and a row of abandoned storefronts.