by Robert Crais
The red-haired man lowered his badge.
“Daniel Trehorn?”
Danny was scared.
“Ah, yeah. What did I do?”
The woman said, “My name is Nancie Stendahl, with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Let’s step inside.”
She didn’t ask. She ordered.
Danny never thought to let the club know he would be late until well past his tee time when the government agents left, but by then it didn’t matter and Danny didn’t care. They were looking for Jack. Danny wanted to help.
Elvis Cole:
forty-two minutes before he is taken
29.
Wander Lawrence Gomez drove a midnight blue Audi coupe with dark smoky windows and mag wheels, which was what I told Pike and Jon Stone to expect, only he pulled up beside me at the Cathedral City Burger King driving a sun-bleached gray panel van. No plan of action ever survives the first contact with the enemy.
Wander peered over with his terrible rolling eye. A blank smile twisted across his face like a snake crossing a road.
“Les go. Doan want to keep him waitin’.”
“What about my car?”
“We ain’t gonna be that long.”
Pike and Stone were in separate vehicles somewhere nearby, but I did not know where and did not look for them. I had arrived at the Burger King an hour before Wander. Pike and Stone set up an hour before me.
I walked around to the van’s passenger side, and got in. The van was a rolling desert tragedy, but the AC worked well.
“What happened to the Audi?”
“The man gimme this. So you can’t see where we goin’. You left your phone in your car?”
“Yeah. Like you said.”
I wasn’t to bring a phone, watch, pager, or anything electronic. He had warned me I would be searched. The man had rules, and there were no exceptions.
“I find somethin’, we’re gonna toss it or you goin’ home.”
“I heard you. I paid attention.”
“Okay. It’s on you if you blow the deal.”
Wander Gomez was six feet two, part Salvadoran and part African-American. He was the color of strong latte except where his father had caved in his right cheek with a cinder block when he was twelve years old. The orbital bones circling his right eye had been crushed, which left his cheek sunken and the surrounding skin scaled with black and pink dots. The eye looked like a coddled egg. It had been cast free to go its own way, and wandered endlessly in a permanent glare, sightless and angry. That’s where he got the name. Wander. He called it his magic eye. Said it could see the truth.
Two days earlier, Fredo pointed him out leaning against the Audi across from a bar not far from Echo Lake. The bar was a gathering place for undocumented Salvadorans to share news and information from home. It was also frequented by newly arrived coyotes, who drummed up business before heading south by handing out contact info to anyone who had friends or relatives back home. Wander used his Salvadoran background and magic eye to pick up information about inbound pollos, which he then sold to the Syrian or other bajadores. Feasting on his own.
I approached him, floated my story, and did not mention the Syrian or suggest where Wander might find a ready-made workforce. My only rule was I would not do business with the Sinaloas. By suggesting there was bad blood between me and the cartel, I had given the Syrian something to check. He did, and decided I looked good in the business department.
Two days later, Wander and I met at the Burger King. One and three-quarter miles after I got into his van, we turned off the highway into an undeveloped area near Rancho Mirage and stopped on the service road.
“Get out. Easier than doin’ it in here.”
“Right here?”
“Sure, here. These people can’t see shit.”
We were in open view of the passing cars, but Wander passed an RF wand over me. He did a professional job, which suggested he had scanned people before.
“All right. Get back in, and I’ll check the shoes.”
I climbed into my seat and started to pull off my shoes, but Wander stopped me.
“In back. Climb between the seats here, ’fore you take off your shoes. You gotta ride back there anyway.”
I twisted between the seats, pulled off my shoes, and handed them forward.
Panel vans were working vans. There were no windows behind the front seats, and the rear bay was a dirty metal box smelling of pesticide and grease. Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi had used an identical van as a place to torture and murder their victims, and record their screams.
Wander checked my shoes as thoroughly as he scanned me—searched inside, removed the insoles, and examined the soles and laces. He checked each shoe by hand, and also inserted the wand. Then he handed them back, and held out a black pillowcase.
“Put this on.”
When he called that morning, Wander told me I would have to wear a bag so I couldn’t see where we were going. I had agreed, but now I was in a dark van that smelled of pesticide and reminded me of the Hillside Stranglers.
“How about we forgo the bag? I can’t see anything from back here.”
“You kiddin’ me, startin’ this shit now?”
The angry eye glared at me, then drifted away, then returned before rolling up into his head. The eye looked furious as it came and went, and I wondered what it saw through its rage.
Wander shook the pillowcase.
“Put on the bag. I warned you, an’ you said you was cool. Put on the bag or we goin’ back to the Burger King.”
I took the pillowcase and pulled it over my head. It smelled clean, and might have been Egyptian cotton.
“How does it look?”
“Learn to love it, ’cause you gonna wear it a couple of times today.”
“What couple of times?”
“There’s never a straight line to the man. That’s how he stays safe. You got a couple of rides ’fore you get where you goin’.”
Wander started the engine, and guided us back to the highway. Even with the bag over my head, I felt his eye on me, angry and glaring. His magic eye.
I felt trapped in the bag, and easy to kill, and hoped Joe and Jon Stone were close.
Joe Pike:
the day Elvis Cole is taken
30.
Joe Pike
Pike watched Elvis Cole’s Corvette from a Shell station on the opposite side of the highway a quarter-mile from the Burger King. Jon Stone’s black Rover was on Cole’s side of the highway a quarter-mile beyond the Burger King. Whichever direction Cole left, either Pike or Stone would be on the correct side to keep him in sight.
Stone’s voice came in Pike’s ear.
“Movement.”
They were on cell phones, each with a Bluetooth bud in his ear. They had satellite phones, but the regular cells were easier so long as they had a signal and military-grade GPS units.
“No joy.”
Meaning Pike didn’t see the vehicles. Stone had a better view, and was using binos.
“Van’s backing out—”
The dingy van crept into Pike’s sight line as Stone said it. Pike started the Jeep, and nosed toward the street.
“Got’m. Cole on board?”
“Affirm. Man, you gotta check the driver. This is one ugly fucker.”
The van left the Burger King and turned onto the highway, heading away from Pike.
Pike said, “Coming your way.”
Pike gunned his Jeep out of the Shell station, and turned onto the highway at the first intersection. He lost sight of the van when he slowed for oncoming cars, but slalomed between traffic and quickly caught up.
“Eight lengths back. I’m by a yellow eighteen-wheeler.”
“Looking.”
Pike was still settling into a groove when the van’s right-turn indicator flashed. They had gone less than a mile.
“Blinker.”
“Shit, I don’t have you.”
“Las Palmas. West side.”<
br />
“I’m looking.”
Pike slowed to put distance between himself and the van. A horn blew behind him, then another, but Pike braked even harder, hanging back as the van turned onto a street between large, undeveloped lots. It stopped in plain sight of the highway.
Pike left the highway, but turned in the opposite direction, watching the van in his sideview mirror. A hundred yards later he turned into a parking lot surrounding a home furnishings outlet.
“They stopped at an empty lot.”
“I see’m. They’re out of the van. Dude’s checking him. Shit, right out in the open.”
“I’m north. Set up south.”
“Rog. Doing it.”
Pike knew the search wouldn’t take long and it didn’t. Cole and Wander climbed back into the van, and once more rolled south on the highway, then east, leaving the monied areas of Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert behind for the working-class neighborhoods of Indio.
Pike and Stone changed positions frequently so Wander would not notice a single vehicle lingering in his mirror. Pike had fallen back when Jon Stone’s voice came in his ear.
“Blinker.”
Pike was seven lengths behind Stone’s Rover. Five sedans, two pickup trucks, and a biker on a chopped Harley were scattered between them. Stone’s left-turn indicator blinked on, and Stone spoke again.
“Turning left at the Taco Bell.”
“Yes.”
“I gotta slow. Tighten up.”
Pike nudged the Jeep closer.
The van turned past the Taco Bell into a mixed area of small residential homes and light-business properties. This made following more difficult because there was less traffic, so Stone dropped farther back. Pike followed two blocks behind Stone, noting parallel streets on his GPS in case he had to maneuver.
Stone said, “Blinker. He’s stopping. Three blocks up. I’m stopping, too.”
Pike made an immediate right, jumped on the accelerator, and screamed left onto the parallel street, watching for kids and oncoming cars. Five blocks up, he jammed the brakes, turned left twice, and finished on the original street, slow-rolling in the opposite direction. The gray van sat in a driveway three houses ahead on his left, waiting as the garage opened.
Pike said, “Yellow stucco on your right side. Address three-six-two.”
The houses along the street all sported light-colored composite roofs over stucco, with attic vents on the gables, two-car attached garages, and weathered chain-link fences. Most of the houses showed trees and some kind of vegetation, but the yellow’s yard was parched sand and rocks.
Stone rolled forward as Pike crept past the house. The garage door was open, but a large green SUV filled the garage, leaving no room for the van. Pike glimpsed Cole climbing from the passenger side as he passed.
“Garage open. They’re getting out.”
“Got’m. Wander and Elvis. They are in the garage. The door’s coming down. Stand by—”
Pike turned right at the first cross street, and made a fast K-turn. He stopped short of the intersection with a view of the house. Stone would have done the same at the next cross street.
Pike’s view allowed him to see the garage door, the front door, two front windows, and two side windows. The windows were closed, and the shades were down. All the shades in every window, none showing even an inch or two gap at the bottom.
Pike rolled down his window, and recalled the Masai hunters he knew in Africa. He wondered if they could hear the house speaking. He stared at the house, and listened.
Pike was in position for less than five minutes when the garage door jerked into motion.
“Jon.”
“Yep.”
The door was still climbing when Wander ducked under and returned to the van.
Stone said, “You see that fuckin’ eye?”
“See Elvis?”
“Just the geep.”
The door rumbled down.
“Was anyone in the garage?”
“Negative. Just the geep.”
Wander backed out of the drive and departed past Pike, leaving the way he arrived.
Stone said, “What the fuck?”
They waited. One minute. Two minutes.
“You think they have hostages in there?”
Pike didn’t answer.
“Think al-Diri’s in there?”
“Shh.”
Three minutes after Wander departed, the garage door jerked to life again, and once more climbed its rails. When the door was open, a dark green Ford Explorer carefully backed out. The windows were so dark they looked black.
Stone said, “Field trip. What do we do now, follow or stay?”
The garage door closed. The garage was now empty, but this didn’t mean the house was empty.
The Explorer backed to the street, then departed past Jon.
Pike said, “See anyone?”
“No, man. Not through that glass. You think he’s in there?”
Elvis.
“Don’t know.”
“Say again, what do we do?”
Pike stared at the house. There was no way to know if Elvis was inside or gone.
“Take the Explorer. I’ll sit on the house.”
“On it.”
Pike watched the house, and strained to hear voices no one could hear.
31.
Jon Stone
The Explorer dropped south out of Indio down through Coachella and into the desert. It stayed in the right-hand lane, never varied its speed from the normal flow of traffic, and did nothing out of the ordinary. Jon found this suspicious.
Stone dropped so far back he cruised along with the Zeiss binos between his legs. Every few minutes he took a quick peek to make sure the Explorer was where it was supposed to be, and, yep, there it was.
They passed Thermal, California, which has the coolest name ever for a desert town, and Jon thought they might be rolling all the way down to Mexico, but not far past the Thermal airport, the Explorer turned east.
Jon tightened it up easy enough, his big black Rover having a supercharged mill, and followed the Explorer along the top of the Salton Sea into a small residential neighborhood surrounded by farms. He called Pike.
“Looks like we’re going to another house. I’m in a little town called Mecca, at the north end of the Salton.”
Pike didn’t respond, which was pretty much like Pike.
“You get any movement up there?”
“No.”
“The geep come back?”
“No.”
No. One word answers. Typical Joe Pike non-conversation.
“Okay. I’ll keep you advised.”
“Jon.”
“Yeah?”
“I three-sixtied the house.”
This meant Pike had circled the house, checking it out. Jon knew this also meant Pike was worried. Pike was the best recon man Stone had ever known, but circling a house surrounded by nothing but sand and dirt was asking to be seen. Pike would know this, too, and understood the risk.
“The shades aren’t just pulled. They’re tacked in place. The house is locked down.”
“You hear anything?”
“No.”
“AC running?”
“Yes.”
“You want to go in, I’ll come back. We’ll bust that fucker wide open.”
“No. Stay on the Explorer.”
“Rog.”
Stone dropped farther back when the Explorer’s blinker came on. He had to be even more careful now in the confined residential streets. His eighty-thousand-dollar Rover stood out in the shabby area like a gleaming black diamond, not that this bothered him. It was another challenge, and Stone loved challenges. They made life interesting.
He checked his GPS, and saw the surrounding neighborhood laid out in a rectangular grid. Easy-peasy.
Three blocks ahead, the Explorer turned right. Stone gave it two heartbeats to let them disappear, then pulled a hard right and stood on the supercharged mill. The Rover bu
cked like an F18 catapulting off a carrier. When he reached the first cross street, Stone jumped on the brakes, nosed forward, and saw the Explorer crossing the parallel intersection three blocks away.
Stone leapfrogged the Explorer another three blocks, but the Explorer didn’t appear at the fourth intersection. Jon banked left to the Explorer’s street, then left again, then smiled.
“Dead man, you bitch.”
Right side, four houses away, the Explorer nosed into an open garage. Another vehicle was in the garage, but Jon couldn’t tell the make or model. He waited until the garage door closed, then cruised past the house.
The Explorer disappeared into a faded pink house with a red composition roof. Stone drove past, turned around, then backed into a spot across the street and three houses down. He parked between a Dodge pickup and a Toyota Cruiser, hoping the truck and the SUV would help the Rover blend in.
Jon studied the house, and paid particular attention to the windows. The shades were down and tight as at the Indio house, and no sound or sign of movement came from the property. The attic vents under the gables were framed to look like small doors, and one was ajar as if it was off its hinges. Unlike the earlier house with its barren yard, this house had two ragged oaks in the front yard, a broken line of cedars along the side, a white basketball backboard mounted on the roof above the garage. The backboard was peeling and the net was long gone.
Stone was wondering how long it had been since someone sank a ball through the hoop when the garage door jerked to life, revealing the dark green Explorer and a black Escalade. Jon slumped behind the wheel.
The Escalade backed out and drove away directly in front of the Rover. Jon glimpsed the driver and saw a shape in the passenger seat, but the passenger was only a shadow.
Stone was torn between following the Escalade and staying with the Explorer, but decided to stay. You danced with the girl you brought to the party.
Stone crawled into the back seat and unzipped a green nylon duffel. He dug through it until he found a hard plastic Pelican case, and considered its contents.
Jon’s security work often required him to use various bugs and monitoring devices to acquire intelligence. Jon was thinking about taking a look inside the house. He would do this by drilling a hole two-point-five millimeters in diameter through the wall, and inserting a camera and microphone on a wire the size of a #2 pencil lead.
