The Forgotten Man

by Robert Crais

  I pushed the Dumpster aside, then picked up the card at its edges. It was a plain blue plastic card with a white triangle pointing off one end beneath the words INSERT HERE. A magnetic strip ran the length of the card on the opposite side. I was pretty sure it was a key card like they use in hotels. The name of the hotel and the room number weren't printed on the card because you don't want a stranger knowing which room the key opens, but I thought the information might be readable on the magnetic strip. There might even be fingerprints.

  I could have brought the card to Central Station and left it for Pardy and Diaz, but I didn't want to wait three days for results. I phoned an LAPD criminalist named John Chen. John and I had worked together in the past, but when I reached his office at the Scientific Investigations Division, they told me he had the day off. Perfect. I hung up, then phoned a detective I knew on the Hollywood Station Juvenile Section named Carol Starkey. Starkey had been a bomb technician with LAPD's Bomb Squad until some bad breaks made her change jobs, so she knew almost as much technical stuff as Chen.

  When Starkey answered, she said, "You finally calling to ask me out?"

  "No, I'm calling to see if you can recover information off a key card for me."

  I explained about the card, the body, and what I was doing.

  She said, "No shit? You think this guy is your father?"

  "No, I don't think he's my father. I just want to find out what's on the card."

  "Call Chen. Chen knows how to do that."

  "Chen has the day off."

  "Hang on."

  She put me on hold. While I waited, I stacked the garbage bags the man in the pink shirt had piled around my car into a huge mound against his door. Pissy.

  Starkey came back on the line.

  "Chen will meet us at SID in an hour."

  "I thought he had the day off."

  "Not anymore."

  I hung up, then checked my watch. It had been almost nine hours since John Doe #05-1642 had been murdered. The key card was about to open a door to his identity, and to far more than I wanted to know.

  PART TWO

  Father Knows Best

  8

  LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division shared its location with the Bomb Squad, where Carol Starkey had spent three years strapping into an armored suit to de-arm or destroy improvised explosive devices while everyone else hid under a tree. You've seen bomb techs in the news. They're the men and women dressed in what looks like a space suit, bent over a box or a backpack that's loaded with TNT, trying to render it safe before it explodes. Starkey was good at it, and loved it, until it finally went bad. Starkey and her supervisor were killed on the job, blown apart in a trailer park by a keg of black powder and nails. The medics brought her back and the surgeons stitched her together, but they wouldn't let her go back to the Squad. She worked in Criminal Conspiracy for a while, and now she worked on the Juvenile desk, but she still missed the bombs. Some woman, huh?

  Starkey was leaning against a dark blue Bomb Squad Suburban when I pulled into the parking lot. She was in her early thirties, with a long face, limp hair, and a dark gray pin-striped suit that went with her attitude. She was smoking.

  I said, "Those things will kill you."

  "Been there, done that. Chen's inside, sulking 'cause I made him come in."

  "Thanks for setting this up, but you didn't have to make the drive. I know you're busy."

  "What, and miss the chance to flirt with you? How else am I gonna get you in the sack?"

  Starkey is like that. She turned toward the building, and I followed, the two of us threading our way between parked cars.

  She said, "So what's the deal on the vic? You don't think he's related?"

  "No, I don't think he's related. He was just obsessed or confused. You know how people get, like stalkers when they fix on a movie star. That's all it is."

  "Lemme see that picture."

  I had told her about the morgue shots, but I was irritated she wanted to see. She looked at the pictures, then me, then back at the pictures. It left me feeling vulnerable in a way I didn't like. She finally shook her head and handed them back.

  "You don't look anything like this guy."

  "I told you."

  "He looks like a praying mantis and you look like a rutabaga."

  "This is what you call flirting?"

  Starkey squeezed between a couple of cars that were parked too close together, then waited as I walked around. She seemed thoughtful as we continued on, and maybe embarrassed.

  She said, "Listen, maybe I shouldn't've joked about it. I didn't know about you not knowing your father. I can see how this would be weird for you."

  "It's not weird. I'm not doing this because I think he's my father."

  "Whatever."

  "Don't make more out of it than there is."

  "Tell you what, let's change the subject while we're still speaking to each other. Have you heard from Ben? How's he doing down there?"

  Starkey had helped in the search for Ben Chenier. We met on the night he disappeared.

  "He's doing well. We don't talk as often as we used to."

  "And the lawyer?"

  The lawyer was Lucy Chenier.

  "We don't talk as often as we used to."

  "I guess I shouldn't have brought that up, either."

  "No. I guess not."

  Starkey badged our way past the receptionist, then led me along a hall toward a sign that read TECHNICAL LABORATORY. SID was divided into three parts: the Technical Laboratory, the Criminalistics Laboratory, and the Administrative Unit. Chen, like the other field criminalists, worked freely between the Tech Lab and the Criminalistics Lab, though he could and did refer to specialists when needed.

  Chen scowled when he saw us. He was tall and thin, with ill-fitting glasses and the hunched posture of someone sporting chronic low self-esteem. Some of the criminalists wore lab smocks, but most of them wore street clothes. Only John Chen wore a pencil caddy. He glanced around, making sure no one else was nearby. Furtive.

  "Today is my day off. I spent all morning waxing my car. I was gonna cruise Westwood for pussy."

  Chen is like that. His sole motivation in all things is publicity, promotion, and sex. Not necessarily in that order.

  Starkey said, "That's more than we needed to know, John. Just work the card."

  "I'm just saying, that's all. You guys owe me."

  He held out his hand, making a little hand-it-over gesture.

  "Let me see it."

  I was carrying the key card in my handkerchief. I laid it on the bench, then folded back the handkerchief. Chen lifted his glasses, and leaned close to see.

  "Did this belong to the vic or the shooter?"

  "I don't know. It was in the alley, so I have to follow it. It might not belong to either one of them."

  Chen peered closer, looking dubious, then glanced up at me.

  "This guy really your father?"

  I was getting a headache. I wanted whatever I could get from the key card and I wanted to get out of there.

  "He was a deluded old man who thought he was my father. That's all."

  "Starkey said he was your father."

  Starkey said, "I got it wrong, goddamnit. Cole doesn't look anything like him. I saw the pictures."

  I said, "Are you going to look at the card or not?"

  I was sorry I called them.

  Chen brought the card to a workstation that looked like a Napster geek's dream: A desktop computer was wired to what appeared to be VHS, VHS-C, BETA, 3/4", 8mm, and digital tape decks, along with DVD/CD players, mini-CD players, and several different swipe-card readers that might have come from your local supermarket. A sign on the wall read NO MAGNETS, NO INFO, NO JOB. Lab rat humor.

  Chen went to work on the computer, bringing up different windows on the screen.

  "Most of the work we do here is with counterfeit credit and ATM cards, but we can analyze commercial key cards, too. Most hotels in the U.S. buy their systems fro
m one of three magnetic-lock companies, and they all use the same coding. We'll try the commercial codes first. Who's the detective in charge?"

  "Kelly Diaz. She's Divisional Homicide at Central."

  Chen typed in her name.

  "I'll have to call her for the case number. Does she put out?"

  Starkey punched him in the back, told us she had to get back to work, then stalked out of the lab.

  I said, "Jesus, John, show a little class."

  Chen seemed disappointed with my answer, but not embarrassed that he had asked. He glanced after Starkey and lowered his voice still more.

  "You owe me for this, man. Tell your girlfriend she owes me, too."

  "Starkey isn't my girlfriend."

  Chen rolled his eyes.

  "Yeah, sure."

  Chen finished filling in the boxes, then picked up the key card with a pair of plastic forceps and swiped it through a card reader. The information embedded in its magnetic strip instantly appeared on the computer.

  00087662///116/carversystems//

  0009227//homeawaysuites047//

  0012001208//00991//

  Chen tapped at the screen.

  "Here it is, dude. It's from the Home Away Suites chain. The oh-forty-seven is probably the location. The one-sixteen is probably the room number. All this junk on the left side is just coding sequences. You don't have to worry about that."

  I copied the information into my notebook. Room 116 at Location 47.

  "What's Carver Systems?"

  "The company that made the lock. Remember I said only three or four companies make this stuff? That's them. Does Diaz know you have the card?"

  "Not yet. I was going to give it to her later."

  Chen looked worried.

  "I can't do this off the books. This is a homicide."

  "I'm not asking you to do it off the books. Diaz knows I'm working the case. She's good with it."

  "Then I'd better keep the card. I can have the CI send over the vic's prints to see if we get a match."

  "Can you make a duplicate for me?"

  "You mean make you another key card?"

  "Yeah. Now that you have the codes, can you put them on another card?"

  "Make you a key for room one-sixteen?"

  "Yeah."

  Chen looked uneasy again, cocking his head like a nervous parrot.

  "This isn't some kind of grudge thing, is it, you thinking someone murdered your old man? If you kill somebody, it'll be my ass."

  "He isn't my father."

  "I'm going to tell Diaz I made a dupe for you. I'll tell Starkey, too.

  "Tell them. That's fine."

  Chen dug around in a cabinet until he found a box of blank cards. He typed on the computer some more, swiped a new card through the reader, then handed it to me. He didn't look happy about it.

  "Room one-sixteen."

  "Thanks, John. I owe you."

  "You better not kill anyone."

  I pocketed the card and started back through the lab.

  "Hey, Elvis."

  I stopped. John Chen was staring at me with the wary parrot eyes, only now the eyes seemed sad.

  "I don't look like my father, either."

  I went out to my car, but Starkey had already gone.

  9

  Home Away Suites was a chain of cheap no-frills motels geared to drive-by salesmen and people on their way to somewhere else. They were big in the Midwest, but had only six locations in Southern California, with two in the L.A. area, one being in Jefferson Park just south of mid-city, the other in Toluca Lake. Jefferson Park was closer to downtown, so I got their number from information, and called from the SID parking lot. A chipper young woman answered.

  "Home Away Suites, your home away from home, may I help you?"

  "Is this location number forty-seven?"

  "Pardon me?"

  "You have several locations, and each location has a number. I'm trying to find number forty-seven."

  "I don't know anything about that."

  She didn't ask me to hold on, she didn't offer to find out, she simply stopped talking. Home Away probably didn't hire for initiative.

  "Could you ask someone, please?"

  "Okay. Hold on."

  Okay.

  A few minutes later she came back on the line.

  "Sir?"

  "I'm here."

  "We're number forty-two. You want the Toluca Lake location."

  "Could you give me their address?"

  "I'll have to look it up."

  "Never mind. I'll call information."

  Welcome to the exciting world of Private Detection.

  I got the address from the information operator, then headed around the north side of Griffith Park, across Burbank, and into Toluca Lake.

  Toluca Lake is a small treesy community wedged between Universal Studios and Burbank where the Ventura and Hollywood freeways merge. Most residents have never seen the lake as it is surrounded by expensive homes, but the larger community is a comfortable mix of middle-class homes, well-kept apartment buildings, and sidewalk businesses.

  I followed Riverside Drive across the back of Toluca Lake to Lankershim Boulevard, then slipped under a freeway overpass and into North Hollywood. The Home Away people had cheated the location, but I guess they figured close was good enough. So much for truth in advertising.

  Home Away Suites #47 was a gray stucco box; no restaurant, no room service, no frills. Just the kind of place for a traveling salesman or a family on a limited budget. I parked on the street, and entered a lobby as plain and simple as the outside. A bored young man in a gray blazer sat behind the registration desk, reading. An older couple was standing at a rack of tourist brochures, probably trying to decide between standing in line for the Leno show or driving to Anaheim for Knott's Berry Farm. Beyond the registration desk was a set of stairs, and a long straight hall leading to the first-floor rooms.

  I wanted to talk to the clerk, but I also intended to search the room even though the clerk probably wouldn't go for it. I knew I would enter the room when I had Chen make the duplicate key, and I knew I wasn't going to wait for the police to get it done. I crossed the lobby like any other registered guest, and went down the hall. Room one-sixteen was in plain view of the couple at the brochure rack, but not the desk clerk. I rapped lightly on the door, listened, then slipped the card into the lock. I pushed open the door, and went in.

  The room was empty.

  Like the motel, it was spare and plain, with an alcove for a closet and a small bath beyond the alcove. The lights were off, the drapes were pulled, and the air smelled of cigarettes. Everything was neat and tidy because the housekeeper had already made her rounds. Two pairs of men's slacks and two shirts hung in the alcove above a battered gray suitcase. I checked the suitcase for a name tag, but the suitcase was tagless. No telltale clues stood out on the bed or dresser to tie the room to the man in the alley, and the nightstand drawers were empty.

  The bathroom was empty, too, except for a small black toiletries case. I was hoping for a prescription bottle showing a name, but it held only the usual anonymous travel articles available at any Rite Aid. I went back to the alcove, and checked the pants hanging on the rail. The pockets were empty. The suitcase was unlocked, so I opened it. A naked woman smiled up at me. She was on the cover of one of those freebie sex newspapers filled with ads for strippers, outcall services, and massage parlors. This one was the Hard-X Times. I lifted it aside, and stared down at myself.

  In a way I didn't understand, my chest hurt, as if a pressure had built within me until some part of me cracked and the pressure escaped. The picture was part of an article about me published in a local magazine. The reproduction was poor and murky, like it might have been copied off a library microfiche; my eyes were dark smudges, my mouth was a black line, and my face was mottled, but I knew it was me. I found two more articles under the first, one I remembered from the Daily News and another from the L.A. Weekly.

  This was hi
s room.

  John Doe #05-1642.

  I put the articles aside and searched the rest of his suitcase. I felt through his underwear and three rumpled shirts, then felt along the inside lining of the suitcase for some kind of identification, but instead I found something hard and round inside a roll of socks. I unrolled the socks and counted out $6,240 in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.

  I counted the money twice, put it back in the socks, then finished searching the room. Nothing identified the occupant, almost as if he was purposefully trying to hide himself.

  I put everything back as I had found it, let myself out, and went back to the lobby. The older couple was gone. A name tag on the clerk's blazer read James Kramer.

  I gave him my best cop tone.

  "My name is Cole. I'm investigating a homicide, and we believe a person or persons involved might be a guest at your motel. Do you recognize this man?"

  I held out the morgue shot, and watched Kramer's mouth tighten.

  "Is he dead?"

  "Yes, sir, he is. Do you recognize him?"

  "He looks kinda different, like that."

  They always look different when they're dead. I put away the picture, and took out my notepad.

  "We're trying to identify him. We believe he was staying in room one-sixteen. Can you tell me his name?"

  Kramer moved to his computer and punched in the room number to bring up the invoice.

  "That's Mr. Faustina—Herbert Faustina."

  He spelled it for me.

  "Could you give me his home address and phone?"

  He read off an address on College Ridge Lane in Scottsdale, Arizona, then followed it with a phone number.