The Watchman

by Robert Crais

  This is Special Agent Don Pitman with the Justice Department. 202-555-6241. I got your number from Bud Flynn. Call me, Mr. Pike.

  Mister.

  Pike ended the call, then sat listening to the neighborhood. He wondered what Bud meant, saying the stiffs in Malibu weren't identified. Pike had thought the shooters would be identified as soon as they reached the coroner, which would give him a lead to Meesh. Pike had been thinking about Meesh because something Larkin described was bothering him. Her accident had occurred downtown in the middle of nowhere, but Meesh had fled on foot. Larkin told him the Kings had driven away, but Meesh fled on foot. This didn't make sense to Pike, but there was still much he didn't know. He wanted to ask Larkin about it.

  Pike unscrewed the interior light so it wouldn't come on, then left the car. It was full-on dark now, and Pike enjoyed the darkness. Darkness, rain, snow, a storm-anything that hid you was good. He circled the house to check the windows, then slipped back onto the porch and let himself in.

  Larkin was no longer in the living room, but her bags were gone and he heard her in the kitchen. He took off the long-sleeved shirt, then sat in one of the wing chairs to wait. He couldn't see her, but he knew she was getting a bottle of water. He heard the rattle of the refrigerator as she wrestled a bottle from its plastic wrapping. He heard the door close with a plastic kiss and a zippery crack as she twisted off the cap. Her shadow played on the bright kitchen wall, so he knew she was moving, and he heard the dry slap of bare feet. She came out of the kitchen and was halfway into the living room before she saw him, and startled so abruptly a geyser of water squirted into the air.

  You scared the shit out of me.

  Sorry.

  She was gasping the way people do, but she made an embarrassed laugh.

  Jesus, say something next time. I didn't hear you come back.

  Maybe you should put on something.

  She had taken off her clothes except for a sheer bra and lime green thong panties. A gold stud glinted in her navel. She straightened to face him full-on, lifting her ribs.

  I got hot. I told you it would be hot without the air. You want a bottle of water?

  Pike said, Don't do this.

  She went to the couch, sat, and put her bare feet up on the coffee table, staring at him between her knees.

  Do what? Are you sure you don't want to go to Paris? It's cooler in Paris.

  She stared into his eyes with the crooked smile slashing her face as if she and only she had discovered that everything in the world was about sex and Pike had never seen anything like her before.

  Pike said, Who's Don Pitman?

  Her crooked smile vanished.

  I don't want to talk about this right now.

  I need to know who these people are. He called me.

  She closed her eyes. Her feet dropped from the table.

  He's one of the people from the government. It was Pitman and another one-Blanchette. Kevin. Kevin is a lawyer from the Attorney General.

  Are they running the show or do they work for someone else?

  Her shut eyes squeezed tighter, like she was in pain but trying to control it.

  Not now. I cannot talk about this anymore.

  I need to ask some things. I'm going to have to talk to these guys, and Bud, and your father.

  No more. Not now.

  She leaned forward to put the bottle on the table, and her breasts showed round and full in her bra in the dim ochre light.

  I have a tattoo on my ass. Did you see it this morning? I wanted you to see it.

  Pike stared at her.

  It's a dolphin. I think dolphins are beautiful. You see them racing through the water. They have that wonderful smile. They look so happy, going fast. I want to be a dolphin. I want to be like that.

  She came around the table and walked over to Pike and stopped in front of him. Pike shook his head.

  Don't.

  She knelt and placed the flat of her hand on his shoulder, covering his tattoo.

  Why did you have arrows? Tell me why. I need to know that about you.

  Pike moved just enough to lift her hand away. He took her arms and gently pushed her back.

  Please don't do this again.

  She stared at some point between them for a time, then returned to the couch. Pike studied her dark outline, half her face in a murky glow from the kitchen, the other half in shadows. Her eyes glistened in the light from the window.

  He said, It's going to be all right. You're safe.

  I don't know you. I don't know these government people or Meesh or the Kings or anything about laundering money from South America. I only wanted to help. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what happened to my life.

  The glisten spread to her cheeks.

  I'm really scared.

  Pike knew it was a mistake even as he went to the couch. He put his arm around her, trying to comfort her the way he had comforted people when he was an officer, comforting a mother whose son had been shot, calming a child who had been shaken in a traffic accident. And when he touched her, she snuggled into him, her hand going to his chest, then lower.

  Pike whispered, No.

  Larkin ran into the front bedroom, bare feet slapping. The door closed.

  Pike sat on the couch in the dark quiet house. He had been awake for thirty-five hours, but he knew if sleep came it would not last more than an hour or two. He took off his sweatshirt, then floated soundlessly through the house, going to each room, listening to the night beyond the windows, then moving on. When he reached Larkin's door, he heard her crying.

  A slash of light from the edge of a shade placed a bar on the floor at his feet.

  Pike touched the door.

  Larkin.

  The crying stopped, so he knew she was listening.

  The arrows. What they mean is, you control who you are by moving forward, never back; you move forward. That's what I do. That's what we're going to do.

  Pike waited, but the girl made no sound. Pike felt embarrassed and wished he hadn't tried to explain.

  You know me better now.

  Pike turned away and shut every light in the house. He returned to the living room. He stood in the dark, listening, then fell forward and silently caught himself in the push-up position.

  He did push-ups. He clicked off one push-up after another, alone with himself, waiting for the night to pass.

  Staying groovy.

  Day Two Light in Water 8

  THE WINDOWS grew light by five-thirty the following morning, filling the Echo Park house with the brown gloom of a freshwater pond. Pike had already washed and dressed by then. He wore jeans, his sleeveless grey sweatshirt, and the running shoes. He was standing in the living room. From his position, he could see the length of the house from the front door through the kitchen to the back door, and the three doorways branching off the tiny hall to both bedrooms and the bath. He had been standing in this spot for almost one hour. Throughout the night, Pike had dozed a few minutes at a time on the couch, but had never been fully asleep. Every hour or so he moved through the house, checked the windows, and listened. Houses were living things, as were cattle and forests and ships. When all was well, the noises they made sounded right. Pike listened for rightness. He had entered the girl's room twice and found her snoring softly both times, once on her belly, once on her side, her covers kicked into a heap. Each time, he stood quietly in the darkness, listening to her breathe, then checked the windows before moving on.

  Now he stood in the living room.

  At five-forty that morning, the girl staggered out of her room and into the bath without seeing him. The bathroom light came on, the door closed, she did her business, the toilet flushed.

  Pike never moved.

  The door opened as she turned off the light. She shuffled out of the bathroom, carrying one shoulder higher than the other, and in that moment she saw him. Her eyes were puffy slits because she was groggy with sleep.

  She said, Why are you weari
ng sunglasses in the dark?

  Pike said nothing.

  What are you doing?

  Standing.

  You're strange.

  She shuffled back to her room. The toilet filled. The water stopped. The house was once again silent.

  Pike did not move.

  At two minutes after six, his new cell phone vibrated. Pike answered when he saw it was Ronnie.

  Yes.

  The alarm at your condo went off twelve minutes ago.

  Whenever an alarm was received, the security company would first phone the subscriber to see if everything was all right. False alarms were common. Pike had arranged for his security company to call Ronnie's number if they received an alarm. He had also told them not to notify the police.

  Pike said, What did you tell them?

  Everything's cool and they should reset the alarm, just like you said. You want me to roll over there?

  No. I'll take care of it.

  Pike thought for a moment.

  Call the security company back. Tell them if they get an alarm at the store, we want a full-on response.

  Got it.

  Pike put away the phone, then checked the time. The alarm had probably been tripped when they breached his front door or a window. They were likely still in his home. They would just as likely be gone by the time he arrived unless their plan was to wait, but Pike was okay with it. He had to stay with the girl.

  Pike thought about them being in his home. He had figured it was only a matter of time, and now it had come, and he was glad for it. They had gotten his name, found his address, and now were trying to find him. This told him much-someone who knew his name had provided it, and the only people who knew his name were the girl's people, Jon Stone, and Bud Flynn. There was no other way, so someone was selling her out. Pike was right to cut them out of the loop.

  Pike hoped they would wait for him at his home, but they would probably move on to his shop, then return to his condo again later. At some point they would learn of his association with Cole, but they would move on his gun shop first. However they handled it would tell him much about the size of their operation and their skills. It was important to know your enemy.

  But, for now, the girl was sleeping. The night had passed. She was still alive. He had done his job, but still had much to do.

  Pike let the girl sleep. He phoned Cole to let him know, then stood in the living room, waiting. His heart rate slowed. His breathing slowed. His body and mind were quiet. He could wait like that for days, and had, to make a perfect shot.

  Elvis Cole ANOTHER in the long line of classic Pike phone conversations. Like this. Cole, out on his deck sweating through some asanas when the phone rings. Six A. M., who else would it be? Gimps inside. Scores the call.

  Hello?

  Pike says, Be advised. They just hit my condo.

  Click.

  No whaddayadoing? No heyhowareya? No whaddayathinkaboutthat?

  Classic.

  Cole finished the asanas, showered, then pulled the old .38 George Feider gave him from his gun safe and made a cup of coffee. He brought the gun, coffee, and materials on George King and Alexander Meesh out to his deck. He had spent much of last night pulling things off the Internet. Cole wasn't worried about being stormed by black-shirted hitters, so he used the gun as a paperweight to keep the papers from flying away.

  It was a lovely morning, hinting at a brutally hot day.

  Cole squinted into the milky haze that filled his canyon, enjoyed the coffee, and noticed a red-tailed hawk circling overhead, searching for field mice and snakes.

  Cole said, What do you think? Is today his day or not?

  A black cat sat nearby on the deck, staring down through the rail into the canyon. The cat didn't answer, which is what you get when you talk to cats.

  Cole said, You're just jealous you can't fly.

  The cat blinked as if it was falling asleep, then abruptly licked its penis. Cats are amazing animals.

  Cole studied the hawk. The day after Cole came home from the hospital, he went out onto his deck at dawn (just as he had every morning since) and struggled through twelve sun salutations from hatha yoga (just as he had every morning since). He had not done them well that first morning, or completely, but he did what he could, then sat on the edge of his deck to watch the hawk. The hawk returned every day, but Cole never saw it catch anything. Yet every morning it appeared again, circling, searching for something it never found. Cole admired its spirit.

  Cole had more of the coffee, then reread the material he'd pulled off the Internet on George King. King was a real estate developer from Orange County who began his career by building a single-family spec house on a shoestring budget using money borrowed from his wife's parents. It was the classic by-his-bootstraps success story: King sold that first house for a profit, then built three more, and the houses led to a couple of tiny strip malls. The strip malls led to twenty-, forty-, then one-hundred-sixty-unit apartment houses. The apartments led to a real estate concern that now developed shopping centers, residential tract housing, and high-rise commercial office space throughout California, Arizona, and Nevada. None of the articles hinted at impropriety, illegal activity, or shady business practices. Based on everything Cole read, George King was a solid citizen.

  Alexander Meesh was not.

  Cole had found nothing about Meesh on the Internet. The last entry in the NCIC report Pike had given him was dated six years ago, and ended with the notice that Meesh had fled the country and was currently believed to be living in Bogot+i, Colombia. Absent for six years, Meesh was old news.

  Reading the NCIC brief was like reading the TV Guide version of a twenty-year criminal career. An expanded version including photographs, fingerprints, and even DNA could be had by special request, but the shorthand version told the tale with a chronological list of crimes, convictions, incarcerations, descriptions, associates, and warrants.

  Meesh was a peach. He had been indicted on two counts of first-degree murder, seven counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and sixteen counts of racketeering, all in Colorado. Meesh, who oversaw several hijacking crews, had murdered a truck driver and his wife in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Meesh believed the driver had double-crossed him by laying off a load of flat-screen TVs to a rival hijacking crew. Attempting to recover the flat-screens, Meesh poured hot cooking grease on the driver's wife. Not just once, but repeatedly during a twenty-four-hour torture session. Then he went to work on the driver. Witnesses to the event claimed Meesh wanted the other crews in the area to understand he owned the roads.

  Cole reread that part, then studied the hawk. Hawks probably didn't pour boiling grease on other hawks. Cole considered his cat. It was staring down through the slats into the canyon. He wondered if the cat and the hawk were searching for the same thing.

  Hey, buddy.

  The cat came over and head-bumped his hand. Petting the cat made it easier to forget about things like deep-fried flesh.

  Cole returned to the file. Nothing explained how a homegrown criminal from Denver had become a financial player for a group of South American drug lords, but Cole didn't care. He wanted to find Meesh, and Meesh wasn't in South America. He was in L. A.

  All criminal histories listed people with whom the subject was known to associate, including friends, family members, and gang affiliates. Cole had hoped to find a known associate in Los Angeles, but the names, like Meesh's arrests, were all based in Denver. It was possible one of Meesh's friends had moved to L. A. during the intervening six years, but Cole wouldn't know until he checked. The odds were slim, but now he set about listing the names from Colorado. Later, he would see if any of those people had connections in Los Angeles, and work backward to find Meesh.

  Cole was making the list when a flick of grey dropped from the sky. Cole glanced up, smiling. He wanted to see what the hawk had caught, but that's when his doorbell rang. His first thought was that Alex Meesh had come to burn him with bacon grease, but Cole was given to wild
imaginings. He limped to the front door with his pistol and peered through the peephole.

  Two men stared back at him, their faces distorted by the fish-eye lens. They didn't look like bacon-grease killers. The man in front had a golfer's tan and short brown hair. He was wearing a brown sport coat that looked out of place in the L. A. summer, especially at seven A. M. The man behind him was taller and black, wearing a blue seersucker coat and sunglasses.

  Cole parked the gun in his waistband behind his back, pulled his T-shirt over it, then opened the door.

  The man in front said, Elvis Cole?

  He moved to Austria. Can I take a message?

  The man in front held up a black leather badge case showing a federal ID.

  Special Agent Donald Pitman. Department of Justice. We'd like a few words.

  They didn't wait for Cole to invite them in.

  OUTSIDE the walls of the Echo Park house, the neighborhood woke with the slowly rising sun. Finches and sparrows chirped. Sprinklers at the house next door came on, ran for twenty minutes, then automatically stopped. Cars started, then backed out of drives or pulled away from the curb. The brittle shades that covered the windows brightened until the house was filled with a dim golden light. On mornings like this with their silence and peace, Pike sometimes thought he felt the earth turn. He wondered if someone remained at his house. The girl was still sleeping.

  Pike poured ground coffee into a small pot, filled the pot with water, then set it on the range. Pike had been making coffee this way for years. He would bring it to a boil, then pour it through a paper towel or maybe he wouldn't bother with the towel. The coffee would be fine either way. Simple was better.

  After a while the coffee boiled. Pike watched it roil for a moment, then turned off the heat and let it settle. He didn't bother with the towel. He poured some into a Styrofoam cup, then brought it out to the table. He had just taken a seat when his cell phone vibrated again.

  Cole said, Can you talk?

  Pike could see the girl's door from the table. It was closed.

  Yes.

  Two agents from the Department of Justice came by this morning, Donald Pitman and Kevin Blanchette. They brought your gun. It was still in an LAPD evidence bag.