The Last Detective

by Robert Crais

  Commander Blood fired his rifle into the air and jumped up and down, howling like his men. The rest of the rebels jumped up and down, too, caught up in the frenzy.

  “Now you know the wrath of the RUF! This is the price you pay for defying us! We will fill the well with your heads!”

  The white demon and the tall scarred warrior turned toward the huddled villagers. Ahbeba felt their gaze sweep over her as if their eyes held weight.

  The white demon shook his head.

  “Stop jumping around like a baboon. If you kill these people, then no one will know what happened here. Only the living can fear you. Do you understand that?”

  Commander Blood stopped bouncing.

  “Then we must leave living proof.”

  “That's right. Proof that will scare the shit out of the other miners. Proof that your enemies can't deny.”

  Commander Blood walked over to the headless bodies of the South African guards.

  “What could be more terrible that what we have done?”

  “This.”

  The white demon spoke to the scarred warrior in a language that Ahbeba did not understand, and then the drug-crazed rebels ran forward with their axes and machetes, and hacked off the hands of every man, woman, and child in the village.

  Ahbeba Danku and the others were left alive to tell their story, and did.

  21

  time missing: 49 hours, 58 minutes

  I called Starkey from the parking lot while Pike phoned the San Gabriel Information operator. Starkey answered her cell on the sixth ring.

  I said, “I have two more names for the BOLO. Are you still at the river?”

  “We're gonna be here all night with this mess. Hang on while I grab my pen.”

  “The man Mrs. Luna saw with Fallon is named Mazi Ibo, m-a-z-i, i-b-o. He worked for Fallon in Africa.”

  “Hang on, Cole, slow down. How do you know that?”

  “Pike found someone who recognized the description. You'll be able to get his picture off the NLETS for a positive with Mrs. Luna. Did Richard cop to the ransom?”

  “He still denies it. They tore outta here an hour ago, but I think you're onto it, Cole. That poor bastard was shitting bullets.”

  Pike lowered his phone and shook his head. Schilling wasn't listed.

  “Okay, here's the other name. I don't know whether he's involved, but he might be in contact.”

  I gave her Schilling's name and told her how he was connected to Ibo and Fallon.

  She said, “Hang on. I gotta get to my radio. I want to put this stuff out on the BOLO.”

  “He keeps a mail drop in San Gabriel. We just checked with Information, but they don't show a listing. Can you get it?”

  “Yeah. Stand by.”

  Pike watched me as I waited, then shook his head again.

  “He won't be listed under any name we know.”

  “We don't know that. We might get lucky.”

  Pike studied the mail drop address, then flicked it with his finger, thinking. He looked up as Starkey came back on the line.

  She said, “They got squat for Eric Schilling. What's that address?”

  I gestured for the address, but Pike slipped it into his pocket. He took my phone and turned it off.

  I said, “What are you doing?”

  “They'll have a rental agreement, but she'll have to get a warrant. This place, it'll be closed by the time everyone gets there. They'll have to find the owner, wait for him to come down, it'll take forever. We can get it faster.”

  I understood what Pike meant and agreed to it without hesitation, as if the rightness of it was obvious and beyond debate. I was beyond hesitation or even consideration. I had become forward movement. I had become finding Ben.

  Pike went to his Jeep and I went to my car, my head filled with the atrocities that Resnick had described. I still heard the flies buzzing inside the van and felt them bumping my face as they swirled up from the blood. I realized that I didn't have my gun. It was locked in my gun safe because Ben had been staying with me, and was still there. I suddenly wanted a weapon badly.

  I said, “Joe. My gun's at the house.”

  Pike opened his passenger door and reached under the dash. He found a black shape and walked over with the shape palmed flat against his thigh so that bystanders wouldn't see. He passed it to me, then went back to his Jeep. It was a Sig Sauer 9mm in a black clip holster. I clipped it onto my right hip under my shirt. I thought it would make me feel safer, but it didn't.

  The I-10 freeway stretched across the width of Los Angeles like a rubber band pulled to its breaking point, running from the sea to the desert, then beyond. Traffic was building and heavy, but we drove hard on our horns, as much on the shoulder as not.

  Eric Schilling's mail drop was a private postal service called Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes in a strip mall in a part of San Gabriel where most of the people were of Chinese descent. The mall held three Chinese restaurants, a pharmacy, a pet store, and the postal business. The parking lot was crowded with families on their way to dinner at the restaurants, or lingering outside the pet store. Pike and I parked on the side street, then walked back to the mail drop. It was closed.

  Stars & Stripes was a storefront business in full view of the mall, with the pet store on one side and the pharmacy on the other. An alarm strip ran along its glass front and door. Inside, mailboxes were set into the walls in the front part of the store, divided from the back office by a sales counter. The owner had pulled a heavy steel fence across the counter to divide the store into a front and back. Customers could let themselves into the front after hours to get their mail, but not steal the stamps and packages that were kept in the office. The curtain looked strong enough to cage a rhino.

  Schilling's box number was or had been 205. We wouldn't know if the box still belonged to Schilling until we were inside. I could see box 205, but I couldn't tell whether it held any mail. For all I knew, Fallon had sent him a treasure map leading to Ben Chenier.

  Pike said, “The rental agreements will be in the office. It might be easier to get in through the back.”

  We walked around the side of the mall to the alley that ran behind it. More cars lined the alley, along with Dumpsters and service doors for the shops. Two men in white aprons sat on crates in the open door of one of the restaurants. They peeled potatoes and carrots into a large metal bowl.

  The name of each business was painted on its service door, along with NO ENTRANCE and PARKING FOR DELIVERY ONLY. We found the door for Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. It was faced with steel and set with two industrial-strength deadbolt locks. The hinges were heavy-grade, too. You would need a truck and chains to pull them out of the wall.

  Pike said, “Can you pick the locks?”

  “Yeah, but not fast. These locks are made to resist picks, and we have these guys over here.”

  Pike and I looked at the men, who were doing their best to ignore us. It would be faster to go through the front.

  We walked back to the parking lot. A Chinese family with three little boys was standing outside the pet store, watching the puppies and kittens inside. The father held his smallest son in his arms, pointing at one of the puppies.

  He said, “How about that one? You see how he plays? The one with the spot on his nose.”

  Their mother smiled at me as we passed and I smiled back, everything so civil and peaceful, everything so fine.

  Pike and I went to the glass door. We could wait for someone to come for their mail and walk in with them, but hanging around for a couple of hours was not an option. Starkey could have arranged a warrant and roused the owner to open the place if we wanted to wait until midnight.

  I said, “When we break the door, the alarm is going to ring here in the store. It might also ring at a security station, and they'll call the police. We have to pop the face off his mailbox, get past the curtain, then go through the office. All these people here in the parking lot will see us, and someone will call the police. We won't have m
uch time. Then we have to get out of here. They'll probably get our license numbers.”

  “Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

  The evening sky had darkened to a rich blue and was growing darker, but the street lights had not yet flicked on. Families walked along the narrow walk, coming out of the restaurants or waiting for their names to be called. An old man hobbled out of the pharmacy. Cars crept through the little parking lot, hoping for a space. Here we were, about to break into some honest citizen's place of business. We would destroy property, and that property would have to be paid for. We would violate their rights, and that was something you couldn't pay for, and we would scare the hell out of all these people who would end up witnesses against us if and when we were brought to trial.

  “Yes, I guess I am. Let me do this part by myself. Why don't you wait in your car?”

  Pike said, “Anyone can wait in the car. That isn't me.”

  “No, I guess not. Let's put our cars in the alley. We'll go in the front here, but leave through the back.”

  We put our cars outside the service door, then walked back around to the front again. Pike brought a crowbar. I brought a flathead screwdriver and my jack handle.

  The family from the pet store was standing directly in front of Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. The man and the woman were trying to decide which restaurant would seat them faster with the kids.

  I said, “You're too close to the door. Please step aside.”

  The woman said, “I'm sorry. What?”

  I pointed at the door with my jack handle.

  “There's going to be glass. You need to move.”

  Pike stepped close to her husband like a towering shadow.

  “Go.”

  They suddenly understood what was going to happen and pulled their children away, speaking fast in Chinese.

  I hit the door with my jack handle and shattered the glass. The alarm went off with a loud steady buzz that echoed through the parking lot and across the intersection like an air-raid siren. The people in the parking lot and on the sidewalks looked toward the sound. I knocked the remaining glass out of the door frame, and then I went in. Something sharp raked my back. More glass fell, and Pike came in after me.

  Pike went for the curtain and I went for the mailbox. The boxes were built sturdy, with bronze metal doors set flush to a metal frame. Each door had a small glass window so you could see whether you had mail and a reinforced lock. Schilling's box was packed with mail.

  I worked the screwdriver's blade under the door, then hammered it open with the jack handle. None of the mail was addressed to Eric Schilling or Gene Jeanie; it was addressed to Eric Shear.

  “It's him. He's using the name Eric Shear.”

  The alarm was so loud that I shouted.

  I shoved the letters into my pockets, then ran to help Pike.

  The metal curtain ran along tracks in the floor and ceiling so that you couldn't climb over or under, and was stretched between two metal pipes anchored into the walls. We used the crowbar and the jack handle to break away pieces of the wall from under one of the pipes, then pried the pipe from the wall. It bent at a crazy angle and we pushed it aside.

  Outside, someone shouted, “Hey, look at that!”

  People were gathering in the parking lot. They crouched behind cars or stood in small groups, pointing at the shop and craning their heads to try to see what we were doing. Two men gawked through what was left of the front door, then hurried away. I didn't know how long Pike and I had been inside, but it couldn't have been long: forty seconds; a minute. The alarm clouded the little store with noise. It was so loud that it would cover the sound of approaching sirens.

  We shoved through the collapsing curtain and into the office. Towering stacks of packages crowded the floor and an enormous bag of Styrofoam packing peanuts hung from the ceiling. A file cabinet stood in the corner beside a small desk cluttered with what looked like unsorted mail and UPS receipts. Pike checked the service door as I went to the files.

  Pike shouted over the alarm that the way was clear.

  “We're good. The deadbolts open with levers.”

  I opened the top file drawer expecting to see folders filled with paperwork, but the drawer contained office supplies. I pulled the next two drawers, but they only held more supplies. Pike peeked out the back door to see if anyone was coming. Our time was running out.

  “Faster.”

  “I'm looking.”

  I scattered papers, magazines, and envelopes from the desk, then opened its drawer. It was the only drawer left. The drawer had to contain rental agreements for the customers who rented the boxes, but all I found were ordering records for the services and supplies that Stars & Stripes needed to conduct its business; nothing referred to the boxes or the clients who rented them.

  Pike tapped my back, and looked toward the parking lot.

  “We got a problem.”

  An overweight man in a yellow knit shirt was surrounded by people in the parking lot, all of them pointing our way. The shirt was too tight, so his belly bulged over his belt like a Baggie filled with jelly. The word SECURITY was stenciled on the shirt over his heart like a badge, and he wore a pistol in a black nylon holster clipped to his right hip. So much flab spilled from his pants that the pistol was almost hidden. He crept forward with his hand on his gun. He looked scared.

  I said, “Jesus Christ, where'd he come from?”

  “Keep looking.”

  Pike slipped past me with his pistol out. I caught his arm.

  “Joe, don't.”

  “I'm not going to hurt him. Keep looking.”

  The guard knelt behind a car and peered over the trunk. Pike moved into the door so that the guard saw him. That was enough. The guard threw himself to the ground and curled up behind the tire. At least he didn't start shooting. Discretion is the better part of valor when all you get is minimum wage.

  Pike and I heard the sirens at the same time. He glanced back at me, and I waved him back. We had run out of time.

  “Let's go.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “No.”

  Pike fell back past the counter to the service door.

  “Keep looking. We have a few seconds.”

  “We can't find him from jail.”

  “Keep looking.”

  That's when I saw the brown cardboard box under the desk. It was just the right size and shape for storing file folders. I pulled it out from under the desk, and pushed off the top. It was filled with folders that were numbered from one to six hundred, and I knew that each number corresponded to a box. I pulled the folder marked 205.

  “We're out. Go!”

  Pike jerked open the door. Outside, the air was cool and the alarm wasn't so loud. The two men with their potatoes shouted into their kitchen when they saw us, and others came out as we left. We turned our cars onto a service street behind a Cineplex theater eight blocks away, and looked through the file. It contained a rental agreement for Eric Shear. The rental agreement had a phone number and his address.

  time missing: 50 hours, 37 minutes

  Eric Shear lived in a four-story apartment building on the western edge of San Gabriel called the Casitas Arms, less than ten minutes from the mail drop. It was a large building, the kind that packed a hundred apartments around a central atrium and billed itself as “secure luxury living.” Places like that are easy to enter.

  We parked in a red zone across the street, then Pike got into my car. When I turned on my phone I found three messages from Starkey, but I ignored them. What would I tell her, that the next BOLO she received would be about me? I dialed Schilling's number. An answering machine picked up on the second ring with a male voice.

  “Leave it at the beep.”

  I hung up and told Pike that it was a machine.

  He said, “Let's go see.”

  Pike brought the crowbar. We walked along the side of the building until we found an outside stairwell that residents could use instead of the l
obby elevators. The stair was enclosed in a cagelike door that required a key, but Pike wedged the crowbar into the gate and popped the lock. We let ourselves in, then climbed to the third floor. Eric Shear's apartment number was listed as 313. The building was laid out around a central atrium with long halls that T'd into shorter halls. Three-thirteen was on the opposite side of the building.

  It was early evening, just after dark. Cooking smells and music came from the apartments along with an occasional voice. I heard a woman laugh. Here were these people living their lives and none of them knew that Eric Shear was really Eric Schilling. They probably smiled at him in the elevator or nodded in the garage, and never guessed at what he did for a living, or had done. Hey, how are ya? Have a nice day.

  We followed the hall past a set of elevators until we reached a T. Arrows on the facing wall showed the apartment numbers to the left and right. Three-thirteen was to our left.

  I said, “Hang on.”

  I edged to the corner and peeked into the adjoining hall. Three-thirteen was at the end of the hall opposite an exit door that probably led to a set of stairs like the one we had climbed. Two folded sheets of paper were wedged into Schilling's door a few inches above the knob.

  Pike and I eased around the corner and went to either side of the door. We listened. Schilling's apartment was silent. The papers wedged into the jamb were notices reminding all tenants that rent was due on the first of the month and that the building's water would be turned off for two hours last Thursday.

  Pike said, “He hasn't been home in a while.”

  If they had been put in the door on the dates that were shown, then no one had been into or out of Schilling's apartment in more than six days.

  I put my finger over the peephole, and knocked. No one answered. I knocked again, then took out the gun and held it down along my leg.

  I said, “Open it.”

  Pike wedged the crowbar between the door and the jamb, and pushed. The frame splintered with a loud crack and I shoved through the door into a large living room with the gun up and out. A kitchen and dining area were across the living room. A hall opened to our left, showing three doorways. The only light came from a single ceiling fixture that hung in the entry. Pike crossed fast to the kitchen, then followed me down the hall, guns first through each door to make sure that the apartment was empty.