Lethal Measures

by Leonard Goldberg

  “So?”

  “It’s loaded with C-four. That hand was blown off by a plastic

  explosive.” 11

  Wednesday, March 24, 12:15 p.m.

  Budy Payte splashed water on his face and removed the remaining shaving cream, then studied himself in the bathroom mirror. Without the goatee his entire facial contour changed, just as Eva said it would. His jutting jaw seemed far more prominent, his lips closed and serious. The overall effect was older, much older. Rudy smiled at himself, pleased with his new image. Carefully he dried the water from the top of his head and put on the wig, with its brown hair swept back and covering the tips of his ears. He studied himself in the mirror once more. Now he thought he looked handsome.

  Rudy wrapped a towel around his waist and walked into the motel room, still dripping water from his shower.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Eva looked up from the Gideon Bible she was reading.

  “Your wig is on crooked.”

  “I’ll fix it later,” Rudy said and reached for a cigarette.

  “Do it now,” Eva said curtly.

  “And get used to doing it. A crooked wig is a sure sign you’re wearing one.”

  Rudy went back into the bathroom and returned a moment later.

  “How is it now?”

  Eva glanced up briefly and nodded.

  “Good.”

  “You want to tell me about the trip I’m going on?”

  “In a minute. Let me just finish this passage.” Eva was mulling over the story of David and Bathsheba. Both were adulterers, she thought, yet neither had been punished by God. As far as she could see he had actually blessed them. After all, their son, Solomon, became the wisest and best of all the kings of Israel. He should have punished them, Eva told herself.

  Particularly David, who had sent Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, into

  battle to die so he could marry her. But then again, God hadn’t punished the federal agents who had killed her brother Samuel. The government devils came to her family’s compound in the wilderness and demanded taxes and public access on the roads that went through their property. When the family refused, the agents opened fire and killed innocent men and women who were only fighting to protect their land and rights.

  Then a blaze started and children died too, like in Waco. And the agents kept on firing and firing. She could still see Samuel’s body, riddled with bullets, his face almost unrecognizable.

  Eva’s jaw tightened. She would avenge her brother’s death and the deaths of all the others. She would make the federal devils pay in a way they never thought possible. Oh, how they would pay!

  She brought her attention back to the Bible and again read the passage about David sending Uriah into battle to die.

  Rudy sat on the edge of the bed next to Eva and studied her out of the corner of his eye. She was really pretty, with a nice body and long, graceful legs. His gaze went to her thighs. She was wearing pink panties and a football jersey that barely covered the panties’ lace. Rudy leaned forward to steal a better look between her legs. He saw her silk-covered pubic mound and felt himself stir.

  Eva closed the Bible with a loud thud.

  “I just don’t understand it.”

  “Understand what?” Rudy asked, quickly hiding the bulge in his towel with his hands.

  “How God let David get away with it.”

  “Get away with what?”

  “I’ll explain it to you later.”

  Eva left the bed and went over to the window of the motel room. She cracked the drapes and peeked out at the noisy traffic on Sunset Boulevard. In the distance she could see the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles shrouded in smog. The patio outside the room was deserted except for a cleaning man near the pool. She checked the patio once more, then closed the drapes and turned on the television set loudly just in case the sound of their voices carried through the flimsy walls to the adjoining rooms.

  Eva came back to the bed and sat next to Rudy, her lips close to his ear.

  “Listen carefully,” she said in a low voice, “and do exactly as you’re told. You leave here in thirty minutes and drive to Las Vegas. Don’t speed. Keep it at an even sixty-five miles per hour. At six o’clock sharp you go to the front entrance of the Golden Nugget and wait. A

  man in a cowboy hat smoking a cigar will come over and ask if you’re one of the Righteous. Your response will be, “There’s only a few of us.” You follow him and make the exchange.” She reached under the pillow and took out a thick manila envelope.

  “You give him this, and he will give you the C-four.”

  “How much C-four?” Rudy asked.

  “Four bricks.”

  “Is that enough for what we have to do?”

  “More than enough,” Eva assured him.

  “Remember, we’re talking about detonation at close quarters now.”

  Rudy thought for a moment, dreading the five-hour drive to Las Vegas. And five hours back.

  “Why don’t I just take a plane?”

  “Too risky,” Eva said, her voice even lower.

  “You’ll be carrying it by hand, and they’ll check it when you go through the metal detector.”

  “But C-four is not metal,” Rudy argued.

  “The alarm won’t go off, so they won’t open the container.”

  “Suppose the alarm goes off for some reason?” Eva snapped.

  “Or suppose they’ve got police dogs sniffing around the airport? What then?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Rudy conceded.

  Not very smart, Eva was thinking, but he had other talents that were useful.

  “Just follow the instructions and things will work out fine.”

  “Where should I put the C-four?”

  “Under the backseat.”

  Rudy rubbed at his chin where the goatee used to be.

  “What if a cop stops me?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Maybe he’s some asshole looking to write another ticket,” Rudy said.

  “Or maybe one of my taillights goes out.”

  “Then let him write the ticket.”

  “What if he wants to search the car?”

  “Then kill him.”

  Eva lay back in bed and reached for the Bible. Her legs were bent at the knees, the football jersey now up to her navel. Rudy stared at her smooth thighs and flat stomach and at the space in between. He felt himself stirring again.

  “What?” Eva asked, peering over the top of the Bible on her chest.

  “Nothing,” Rudy said and hurried into the bathroom. Friday, March 26, 1=10 p.m.

  Here’s the original specimen.” Lori McKay inserted the slide into the projector, and the image of a dismembered upper arm appeared on the screen. Its tattoo was partially obscured by dirt and grime.

  “And here’s the tattoo after it’s been cleaned up.”

  Jake leaned forward to get a better look. The skin was wrinkled and torn and in some places missing altogether. The tattoo seemed to consist of flower petals.

  Beneath it were indistinct letters, an M and an 0 and maybe a T. “Next we dissected off the skin and flattened it out on an adhesive surface,” Lori said and went to the next slide.

  “Our photography department touched it up to restore some of its original color.”

  Jake turned his eyes away quickly.

  “You got an untouched photo of the cleaned-up tattoo?”

  “Of course,” Lori said indignantly, as if only a fool wouldn’t.

  “But this one really shows the details.”

  “Just put the damn untouched one up,” Jake said sharply, still averting his gaze from the image on the screen.

  “Why don’t you take a look before you—?”

  “For Chrissakes!” Jake growled.

  “I don’t want the Walt Disney version. I want to see the tattoo the way everybody else saw it.”

  Lori glared at the detective, hating his rudeness and bossiness an
d wishing he’d stay the hell out of the forensics laboratory.

  Joanna tilted back in her chair next to Jake, wondering why he and Lori were always at each other’s throats. It was probably an age or generational thing, or maybe Lori’s need to rebel against authority. Whatever it was, they just didn’t get along.

  “Lori, indulge the lieutenant and put up the untouched photo please,”

  she said. Lori removed the slide from the projector, and the screen went blank. She cursed under her breath while she searched for the slide of the untouched photograph.

  Joanna leaned over and whispered to Jake.

  “Being nice works better with Lori.”

  “Right,” he said, still trying to erase the image of the bright red flower petals from his mind. It was so stupid to let photographers touch up the picture of the tattoo. They added a little here and took away a little there and before long they ended up with a tattoo that even the guy who had it wouldn’t recognize.

  The next slide came onto the screen. Jake studied it carefully. It showed a tattoo with pink petals on one flower and parts of petals on two others. The details were fair, the coloring mediocre. It was an inexpensive tattoo.

  “It looks like a rose,” Farelli said.

  “Yeah,” Jake agreed.

  “You can see the petals within the petals arranged in circles.”

  “A lot of blossoming flowers can give that appearance,” Lori argued.

  “You can’t be sure it’s a rose.”

  Jake ignored her comment.

  “Can you focus it a little more? I’m interested in what looks like a stem at the bottom of the flower.”

  Lori slowly adjusted the lens, sharpening the stem’s image. Then she saw what Jake was after. The stem had thorns on it.

  “It’s a rose,” she conceded.

  Jake’s attention was now on the letters beneath the petals. There was a distinct M and 0, then a space, then a blurred T, then parts of letters that were indecipherable because of ground-in dirt. In some places the skin was abraded down to the dermis.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Let’s move on to the touched-up photograph.”

  Lori pressed a button on the projector, and an image of the touched-up tattoo appeared on the screen. The petals were now distinct and bright red. The letters beneath the flower spelled out MONTANA.

  “How did they figure out it was “Montana’?” Jake asked.

  “They did some photographic tricks and were able to decipher “Mont,”

  ” Lori explained.

  “They guessed it was “Montana.”

  ” Jake counted the letters in the tattoo, including the parts of letters he couldn’t make out.

  “It looks as if it has more than seven letters to me.”

  Lori shrugged.

  “Like I just said, it’s a guess.”

  Jake pondered, knowing the word wasn’t Montana. And finding out what

  word was written was every bit as important as identiidentifying the floral part of the tattoo. The word was almost always somebody or something the person loved dearly. Mother. The name of a girlfriend. Some organization or unit the person belonged to, like the Marines.

  “Tell me about the adhesive surface you stuck the tattoo onto. Is it transparent?”

  “It has the consistency of white putty,” Lori told him.

  “You can’t see through it.”

  “Can we stick the tattoo onto a transparent surface?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lori answered.

  “I’ll check it out with our senior technician later.”

  Jake got to his feet.

  “Let’s do it now.”

  Lori took a deep breath, wondering if Jake Sinclair ever used the word please.

  “She might be tied up.”

  “Then get her untied,” Jake said.

  “I’m not going to take any orders from you,” Lori snapped.

  “Not now and not in the future. If you want something, make a request and I’ll consider it.”

  “Well, consider this,” Jake said, his eyes boring into hers.

  “We’ve got a bunch of goddamn terrorists out there, and they’ve already set off one bomb that’s killed twenty-two people. And unless we find out who, what and why real quick, they’re going to set off another bomb and kill maybe even more. Now I don’t have time for the usual niceties or for much of anything else except tracking down the terrorists. So let’s you and I cut out the bullshit and do our jobs. That being understood, where’s your senior technician?”

  Lori stared back at Jake, but only for a moment. His eyes were so piercing and cold they frightened her.

  “Don’t worry about me doing my job. I’ll hold up my end and then some. But I’d appreciate a little civility while I’m doing it.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Jake asked stonily.

  “You keep wasting time while the terrorists are busy setting up their next bomb. And all because you think your feelings have been hurt.”

  “You don’t seem to see—” Jake held up his hand, palm out.

  “Oh, I see just fine. And my eyesight was really good at the blast site the morning after the bomb went off. I watched a fireman climb out of that rubble carrying a little child. I thought it was a doll at first—the way its tiny arms were dangling. I swear to God I thought it was a doll. But then I saw its eyes and I knew it was a dead little

  baby. So, young lady, I can tell you I see really well. Sometimes too well. Now let’s go find your head technician.”

  Lori swallowed, caught off guard by the emotion in the lieutenant’s voice. Like half the world, she had seen pictures of the fireman carrying the dead toddler.

  “The technician is in the front lab.”

  Farelli watched the two leave the laboratory, then turned to Joanna. He slowly stretched out his leg, its quadriceps still sore from the gunshot wound.

  “Your Dr. McKay has got some growing up to do.”

  “I know,” Joanna said.

  “But she’s bright and eager, and someday she’ll be a very fine forensic pathologist.”

  “Maybe she’s just supersensitive because she looks so young,” Farelli said thoughtfully.

  “Maybe she feels like we’re coming down on her and not taking her seriously, if you know what I mean.”

  “Could be,” Joanna said, nodding.

  “But Jake can be a little rough on people.

  He’s not exactly Mr. Tactful, you know.”

  Farelli rubbed at his beard, heavy and dark though he had shaved only four hours ago.

  “I think he’s kind of mellowed since the shooting.”

  Joanna looked at him oddly.

  “You’re the one who got shot, not him.”

  “We both got shot,” Farelli said evenly.

  “What!”

  “He didn’t tell you, huh?”

  “No,” Joanna said quietly.

  “He probably didn’t want to worry you. You know how Jake is.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Farelli stood and walked around in a circle, trying to get the circulation going in his leg. He rubbed at his thigh and wondered why the pain was lasting so long.

  “Is your leg still bothering you?”

  “It’s getting better,” Farelli lied.

  “Tell me about the shooting.”

  Farelli shrugged, not really wanting to talk about it. He could still see his blood streaming onto the sidewalk.

  “We were on a stakeout when a pickup truck pulled up in front of us in a no parking zone. Some girl was driving. I got out to tell her to move it. Suddenly a guy stood up in the truck bed with an AK-47.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Joanna shivered. The AK-47 could fire a hundred rounds in seconds and at close range cut a man in half.

  “I went down, and Jake came out firing,” Farelli continued.

  “Before Jake got hit he fired off a couple of rounds. He caught the guy just above the eye and blew his goddamn head off.”

>   “Good,” Joanna said and meant it.

  “Where did Jake get hit?”

  “Shoulder,” Farelli said.

  “Six inches lower and he would have been dead. Anyhow, the guy with no head falls off the truck, and his girlfriend speeds away. We’re still looking for her.”

  Joanna shuddered.

  “You two were very fortunate.”

  “You’ll never know how lucky we were,” Farelli said somberly.

  “There were thirty bullet holes in our car and double that number of shell casings on the ground.

  How all those slugs missed us I’ll never know. We should have been dead ten times over.”

  “Did you require surgery?”

  “We both did,” Farelli told her.

  “I was in the hospital for over a week, Jake a few days less. His slug didn’t hit a big artery, like mine did.”

  “Were you at Memorial?”

  Farelli shook his head.

  “Over at Mercy.”

  Joanna sighed deeply.

  “Jake should still have called me,” she said, more to herself than to Farelli.

  “I think he tried, but you were away up in San Francisco.”

  Joanna thought back to the Friday before Valentine’s Day. On the spur of the moment she and Paul had decided to spend a long weekend in San Francisco. She glanced over at Farelli and studied his grave expression.

  “You really thought you were dying, huh?”

  “Both of us did,” Farelli said.

  “We were laying in the ambulance covered with blood and had those damn IV’s running in our arms. I really believed it was checkout time. I even told Jake what to tell my Angela if I didn’t make it. And he told me what to tell you.”

  “What did he say?”

  Farelli hesitated.

  “You’ll have to ask him.”

  The door opened without a knock. Jake and Lori came back into the laboratory, still arguing loudly.

  “You’re impossible,” Lori was saying, her voice high-pitched.

  “Absolutely impossible.”

  “You talk too much and listen too little,” Jake said.

  Lori stopped and stared at him, her face turning beet red.

  “Jesus,” she hissed.

  “You just don’t stop, do you?” Joanna asked, “What’s the problem?”

  “Now Lieutenant Sinclair is telling me how to mount our tattoo,” Lori called over.