by Robert Crais
“We had a secret, and you told. We promised we wouldn’t tell anyone, and you told.”
“I didn’t tell her about you. I didn’t.”
“You did. You told her even without saying my name. Don’t you get it? We are blessed. We have all this money and cool friends and we go to great clubs and we’re having so much fun, and nobody knew. Everything was fine. Perfect. Then you told and now we’re hiding at my sister’s and you’re peeing your pants about hitmen.”
The dude at the next table looked again, and this time he stared.
Amber noticed, and stared back. She slowly stood, never looking away, and leaned toward him so far she seemed boneless.
“Did I get loud? So sorry. Please enjoy your oolong and stay the fuck out of our business.”
The dude turned his chair.
Amber sat, made an ‘eek’ face only Tyson could see, and took a bite of her tofu.
Tyson said, “I’m sorry.”
“I know. I don’t blame you, baby. She caught you off guard. She jammed you up with that guy she hired.”
Tyson said, “Yes.”
He didn’t know what else to say.
“We’re having a blast, aren’t we? Please don’t screw it up.”
“I won’t.”
“You haven’t eaten your breakfast.”
“I’ll grab a couple of tacos.”
She smiled.
“Then pay up, cowboy. I want to go shopping. There’s a great taco place on the way. You’ll love it.”
She was on her feet in an instant.
“Meet you at the valet. Gotta pee.”
Tyson studied the people on the patio as Amber left. Heads turned. Girls checked her out. The dude at the next table stared at her ass.
Tyson signaled the waitress for their check, and reread the texts from Cole. He had wanted to show Amber the texts, but Amber was so weird about it he didn’t. Tyson hadn’t told her about Cole, or the texts and messages his mother left. Amber didn’t want them using their old phones, so he kept his hidden or turned off unless he was alone, which was usually in the bathroom. Sometimes, when he listened to the voice mails his mother left, he covered his face with a towel. He didn’t want Amber to hear him cry.
Amber wouldn’t talk about Alec or how he died, and totally weirded out when he mentioned the hitmen, but Amber had recognized Louise August, and the old lady was murdered three days before Alec was killed.
They killed a woman named Louise August to find you.
The more Tyson read about Alec and the old lady, the more he believed Cole and his mother. Alec had been killed by a couple of guys who wanted one of the laptops they stole, and now they were looking for him and Amber.
They’ve searched your homes. If your mother had been there, she would be dead.
The waitress placed a dish with the check by his arm, and walked away. Thirty-four dollars.
Tyson reread Cole’s message again. He had read it so many times he knew it by heart, but reading it made him feel stronger.
They will find you and Amber, and it won’t matter whether you have their computer. You’re smart. Think.
Tyson had thought about it a lot, and was still thinking. If these guys were killing people to find a laptop, something pretty damned valuable or really bad dangerous was on it. Either way, the person who owned it was scared shitless someone would find whatever was on it.
Tyson tucked the old phone into his pocket, and stood to pay the bill.
The dude at the next table glanced over. The dude had this face, and Tyson knew what he was thinking. Loser. Geek. Must be her brother.
Tyson took out a roll of cash, peeled off a hundred, and tucked it under the bill.
The smirker watched. His eyes followed the money.
Geek.
Tyson peeled off a second hundred, then a third, and dropped them onto the first. He glanced at the smirker, and walked away.
Keep the change.
Loser.
29
HARVEY AND STEMMS
STEMMS CALLED YESTERDAY. Harvey called earlier that morning, twenty minutes after the law office opened for business. Both times, a receptionist told them Devon Connor was unavailable.
The Law Offices of Klinger & Klinger occupied a small, three-story building on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. Six partners, four associates, and staff. A parking level beneath the building was accessible from the street and elevators in the lobby. Security cameras covered the lobby and the parking level, but Stemms sauntered into the lobby the day before and checked the garage. Harvey checked again ten minutes ago. Devon Connor’s Audi had not been present on either occasion. Her son’s brown Volvo had not been present at school.
Harvey and Stemms were parked outside the Klinger & Klinger building. Stemms dialed, with Harvey watching from the passenger side.
Female. Not young, but not old.
“Klinger and Klinger. How may I direct your call?”
Stemms said, “Ah, we’re delivering a gift of tropical fish today. I’d like to confirm your address and hours, please.”
The woman said, “Tropical fish?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s right. Three tetras, a cherry barb, and two angelfish.”
Harvey shook his head.
The woman said, “They’re alive?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I have to confirm. Wouldn’t do if no one’s home, would it?”
Stemms made a friendly chuckle.
“Who’s the gift for?”
“Ah, they were ordered for delivery to, ah, a Ms. Devon Connor. Is Devon a lady’s name? I might be wrong about the Ms.”
“Ms. Connor isn’t in.”
“Well, okay. Will someone be there to accept delivery for her?”
“They’re alive?”
“In a little bowl. Live delivery is guaranteed.”
“I’m sorry. We can’t accept delivery.”
“I understand. What time tomorrow would be good?”
“We can’t accept delivery.”
“I understand, but the gift is for a Ms. Connor, the gift of living creatures. So if she isn’t available today, what time tomorrow may we deliver?”
“She won’t be in tomorrow.”
“Okay. That’s fine. If tomorrow won’t work, when should we bring her fish? They’re alive, you know.”
“Ms. Connor will be out for several days. We can’t be responsible.”
“Alrighty then. I hope they don’t die.”
Stemms winked at Harvey and ended the call. Harvey burst out laughing.
“The gift of living creatures? You asshole! I hope they don’t die? And you call me an asshole!”
Harvey laughed like a hyena.
Stemms didn’t like it.
“Something’s up. She’s out for a few days.”
“She’s helping her kid. Watch, she’s probably getting him out of the country.”
“They’re here. No one’s tried to arrest the kid. No one’s dropped a warrant. Why leave the country?”
“Let’s swing by the house, and see what’s what. Maybe they’re watching TV. Sound better?”
“Don’t be patronizing.”
“I’m serious. If they didn’t split for Manchuria, they should be home, right? If not, we can plant a gizmo.”
Stemms nodded. Grudging.
“Makes sense.”
“Of course it makes sense. I am the Master and Commander of sense. Then we can drop the box downtown, and get to work on the honeys.”
The box being a laptop they pulled from the Gurwick home, the honeys being Amber and her sister, Jasmine. Jasmine was a new discovery, and likely to prove fruitful.
After checking Tyson Connor’s school the previous day, they had driven to a house in the Palisades where they hoped to find Amber. Instead
, they found a tasteless, five-bedroom home, and learned Amber had a sister named Jasmine.
Amber and Jasmine had separate bedrooms and baths in the Palisades house, but the absence of soiled clothes and linens, near-empty closets and drawers, and undisturbed dust in their bathtubs made it clear the sisters lived elsewhere. Harvey and Stemms had searched for their current addresses, but found nothing.
Unlike the Connor boy’s mother, Nora Gurwick kept almost no financial or billing records, which meant an accountant probably paid her bills. What she kept were huge, poster-sized photographs of herself plastered all over the house. In some, she wore bikinis, in others, yoga pants, and in others, skin-tight silvery dresses cut so high they rode her butt cheeks. Fake tits, a spray tan, and duck lips gave her the look of a third-rate showgirl.
Harvey considered one of the posters and shook his head.
“Is this the picture of low self-esteem or what?”
They scored two vials of coke from her nightstand, a third vial in an enormous walk-in closet, a couple bottles of Adderall, and two tabs of what Harvey believed was MDMA, not to mention the medical marijuana they found in a yoga room filled with candles and crystals and prisms.
They took a laptop from the mother’s bedroom, which was the only computer device in the house. It wasn’t the laptop they were sent to recover, but it might give them a lead to the girl.
The real leads came from Amber’s room, and Jasmine’s. A couple of photographs left in a drawer, a couple of names, and matchbooks from bars and dance clubs a barfer would frequent.
Stemms found some old snapshots of Jasmine. She appeared to be three or four years older than Amber. Nice-looking girl. Ponytail. Played soccer in high school. One in particular, he liked.
Now, outside the law office, Stemms was thinking about Jasmine when Harvey interrupted his thoughts.
“I agree.”
Stemms fired up the Chrysler.
“Agree with what?”
“I can read your mind, Stemms. Like a swami. I agree.”
Stemms pulled away from the curb.
“Second time. What?”
Harvey settled back and crossed his arms.
“Jasmine. You’re thinking Jasmine’s our go-to lead.”
Stemms nodded. Impressed.
“Damn, Harvey. You’re right.”
“So let’s get this other stuff out of the way, and go find us some Jasmine.”
Stemms glanced at Harvey, and grinned.
“Outstanding idea, Harvey. Outstanding.”
Stemms turned north toward the Connor house, thinking about Devon’s absence from work and the boy’s absence from school. She would want to know if a warrant had been issued for her son’s arrest. They had likely gone into hiding, and would remain in hiding until she knew.
Stemms believed their home would be empty, but Stemms was wrong.
The Connor home was not empty.
Someone was waiting.
30
JOE PIKE
THE BLACK SEDAN APPEARED at ten fifty-five. A shiny four-door Chrysler with tinted windows.
The car approached from behind him, so Pike didn’t see it until the car passed the RV, heading toward Devon’s home. Brake lights flared. No plate. The license frame held a dealer’s cardboard filler, too far to read.
The car picked up speed as it passed the house and turned at the next corner. Gone.
The RV was warm and growing warmer. Heavy dust on the windshield and windows cast the interior with ocher light. Pike wiped sweat from his face. If these were the men who searched Devon’s home, they would have returned for more than a drive-by. Pike decided the slow pass was a first pass. He moved to the opposite peephole, and sipped from a bottle of water.
Two minutes later, the black car reappeared. Man driving, man in the shotgun seat. Pike couldn’t make out their faces, but they wore jackets and ties. No plate in front, same as the rear. A white rectangle showed in the windshield’s lower left corner. This would be the car’s registration, which any police officer would expect on a new car without plates.
Pike moved fast to the opposite peephole.
This pass, the black car slowed to a crawl. Devon’s garage door opened, stopped halfway up, and closed. Pike was impressed by the forethought. They had paired a remote to the garage door opener. Now they knew her garage was empty.
The car reached the corner, and once again turned.
Pike considered returning to his Jeep, but an empty garage meant little. Pike decided to wait.
Four minutes later, the black car surprised him. He expected it to approach from behind, same as it had the first two passes, but this time it reappeared at the corner where it had turned. The car stopped, and a man wearing a sport coat, tie, and slacks got out of the passenger side. The car continued across the intersection, and the man walked up the street toward Devon’s house.
Pike readied his camera.
The man was tall, bigger than Pike, but not so big he would draw attention. Fit. Dark hair, trimmed close. Lean cheeks and broad shoulders. Pike snapped three pictures with a telephoto lens, checked the focus, snapped two more, and stowed the camera.
When the man reached Devon’s drive, he pulled on vinyl gloves. The garage door lifted. The man ducked under the rising door, and the door trundled down. Pike phoned Cole.
“They’re here. One in the house, one in the car.”
“What’s the tag?”
“No tag. Looks new. Four-door, black, the dark tint.”
“Think they’re cops?”
“Does it matter?”
Cole hesitated.
Pike said, “It isn’t a D-ride.”
“Get pictures. Let’s see where they go.”
Pike stowed his phone.
The garage door opened a little over three minutes later. The man ducked out, and went to the side of the garage. He checked to see if anyone was watching, took something from his pocket, and placed it high on the garage by a sidelight. He made an adjustment to whatever he put by the light, then walked to the street as the black car appeared at the corner.
Pike slung his pack, bailed out of the RV, and saw the tall man get into the sedan. He waited until the car turned, then ran for his Jeep. He pulled a tight U and powered hard to the corner, and saw the black sedan three blocks ahead. Pike closed the gap, and they made it easy.
They were men in no particular hurry. They drove within the speed limit, stopped for yellows, and were careful to use their turn signals. Pike moved close only once, to take a telephoto shot of the dealer card in the license plate frame.
The two men rolled south into Hollywood, and stopped for Thai food in a strip mall on Hollywood Boulevard. Pike parked across the street outside a convenience store. Forty minutes later, the two men came out, and Pike saw the driver. He was smaller than the passenger, but still big. Square jaw, hard eyes, strong neck. The bigger man laughed, but the driver didn’t laugh with him. His face was empty, like a man who kept himself hidden. Pike snapped his picture, but the angle was bad. When the driver turned to get into their car, his jacket opened. Something gold shone on his belt. It looked like a badge, but Pike wasn’t sure.
They drove east on Hollywood to Sunset, and down through Silver Lake and Echo Park past Chavez Ravine. Their drive across the city seemed casual, but when they entered the maze of one-way streets in downtown L.A., Pike knew they were nearing their destination. He edged closer. Overcrowded streets and swarms of pedestrians blocking traffic at badly timed crosswalks made following difficult.
The black sedan finally stopped in a red zone outside a tall, imposing office building, not far from Pershing Square. Pike pulled into a loading area across the street, and readied his camera.
The black car sat motionless for almost ten minutes, then the passenger door opened and the taller man climbed out. When he closed t
he door, Pike saw he carried a laptop computer. A man in a gray business suit broke through the streams of people entering and leaving the building, and approached. The big man flashed a big smile. The businessman took the laptop and tucked it under his arm. Pike snapped a picture.
The two men were talking when a DOT cop rolled up behind the black car and beeped. The big man and the businessman glanced at the cop, and the big man made a little wave at the car. The black car pulled away, and the big man and the businessman continued talking. Pike figured the Chrysler would circle the block.
The big man and the businessman spoke for another few minutes, then went into the building.
Pike got a bad feeling, and sensed something was wrong. The two men wouldn’t have talked on the sidewalk for so long if they had planned to enter the building. Going inside was a change in their plans.
Pike worked across lanes, turned, and circled behind the building. Streams of people entered and left a second entrance identical to the first. The office building was so big it had entrances on both streets. The taller man could have walked through the lobby, and found his friend idling on this side of the building.
The black sedan was gone.
The two men were gone.
Pike thought, he should have killed them when he had the chance.
31
ELVIS COLE
PALISADES VILLAGE was a pleasant collection of low-key shops and unassuming restaurants along Sunset Boulevard at the bottom of the hill. Maybe because the beach was so near and the city was far, the Village had a relaxed, small-town vibe I liked. The meandering drive down from the Gurwick house felt longer than the climb, but the topaz blue sky and brilliant sun were encouraging.
I parked across from an elementary school, bought coffee and a scoop of gelato at an ice cream shop, and sat in a little park. The Information operator found no listings for Amber Reed or Jazzi Reed anywhere in Los Angeles County. A friend at the DMV found an Amber Reed on the DMV rolls, but Amber’s address of record was the Gurwick address.
The search for Jazzi Reed produced even fewer results. The DMV had no record of anyone by that name, which meant Jazzi had never been issued a California driver’s license, which was unlikely, or she was licensed under a different name.
