Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 16 - The Murder Book

by The Murder Book(Lit)

  I searched the small kitchen, found a crushed, nearly empty roll of duct tape beneath the sink, unspooled enough to run two tight bands around his body and the chair, at nipple and waist levels. What was left I used to bind his ankles together. He offered no resistance... how old was his kid?

  I said, 'Where's the phone?'

  Bert shuffled over to a corner, bent behind another chair, retrieved an old black dial phone, and handed it to me. He hadn't said a word since the shooting.

  I lifted the receiver. No dial tone. 'Dead.'

  Bert took the phone, jabbed the receiver button, dialed O. Shook his head.

  'Do you generally have phone problems?'

  'No, sir,' said Bill. 'Not that we use it much. Maybe-' He frowned. 'I know that smell.'

  'What smell?' I said.

  The concussion came from behind, from the rear of the house. The impact of something striking wood, followed by a loud sucking swoosh! Then the xylophone glissando of broken glass.

  Bill turned toward the sound. Bert and I stared. Only Aimee seemed unconcerned.

  Suddenly daylight - a false orange daylight - brightened the bedroom, followed by a rush of heat and the cellophane-snap of flames.

  Fire licked the curtains, a zipper of it, running up to the ceiling and down to the floor.

  I ran for the bedroom door, slammed it shut over the spreading inferno. Smoke seeped from under the panel. The odor hit: metallic, acrid, the chemical bitterness of a flash storm ripping open a polluted sky.

  The smoke from beneath the door fattened from wisp to wormy coil to clouds, relentless and oily, white to gray to black. Within seconds, I could barely make out the forms of the other people.

  The room grew furnace-hot.

  The second firebomb hit. Again, from behind. Someone was stationed out back, in the forest, where the phone wires ran.

  I grabbed hold of Bill's chair, waved frantically to Bert and Aimee's smoke-obscured silhouettes.

  'Get out!' Knowing that what I was sending them to was unlikely to be safety. But the alternative was roasting alive.

  No answer, and now I couldn't see them at all. I rolled Bill toward the front door. From behind came roaring protest. The door collapsed and flames shot forward as I shoved the wheelchair. Groping the air for Aimee and Bill. Screaming with clogged lungs: 'Someone's out there! Stay low-'

  My words were choked off by convulsive coughing. I made it to the door, reached for the knob, and the hot metal broiled my hand.

  Handicapped push door, idiot. I shouldered it hard, shoved Bill's chair, lurched outside, eyes burning, retching, coughing.

  Running into the darkness and aiming the chair to the left as a bullet impacted against a front window.

  Smoke billowed out of the house, a smothering curtain of it. Good cover, but poisonous. I ran as far from the gravel drive as possible, into the underbrush that formed at the house's eastern border. Racing with the chair, struggling to manipulate the contraption over rocks and vines, getting caught in the underbrush. Unable to free the chair.

  Jammed. I lifted Bill out of the chair, slung him over my shoulder, and ran, adrenaline-stoked again, but his weight bore down and I could barely breathe and after ten steps I was on the verge of collapse.

  My legs buckled. I visualized them as iron rods, forced them

  straight, lost my breath completely, stopped, shifted the load, panted and coughed. Feeling the dangle of Bill's ruined legs knocking against my thighs, the dry skin of one palm against the back of my neck as he held on tight.

  He said something - I felt it rather than heard it - and I resumed carrying him into the forest. Pulled off ten more steps, counted each one, twenty, thirty, stopped again to force air into my lungs.

  I looked back at the house. None of the Halloween glare of fire, just smoke, funnels of it, so dark it bled easily into the night sky.

  Then the spot where the little green house had stood was suddenly engulfed by a crimson ball haloed in lime green.

  The kerosene stink of a stale campground. Something igniting -the kitchen stove. The explosion threw me to the earth. Bill landed on top of me.

  No sign of Aimee or Bert.

  I stared back at the house, wondering if the fire would spread to the forest. Not good for the forest, but maybe good for us if it attracted attention.

  Nothing but silence. No spread; the firebreak serving its purpose.

  I rolled Bill off me and propped myself up on my elbows. His glasses had come loose. His mouth moved soundlessly.

  I said, 'You okay?'

  'I - yeah. Where's...'

  'Let's keep moving.'

  'Where is she?'

  'She's fine, Bill, come on.'

  'I need to-'

  I got hold of his shoulder.

  'Leave me here,' he said. 'Let me go, I've had enough.'

  I began lifting him.

  'Please,' he said.

  My burned hand began to throb. Everything throbbed.

  A raspy voice behind me said, 'Dead end, Mr Cadillac'

  Vance Coury's silver hair caught moonlight. A black leather headband held it in place. The musk of his aftershave managed to seep through the scorched air.

  He shone the flashlight in my face, shifted the beam to Bill, lowered it and held it at an angle that brightened the forest floor. As the white spots cleared from my eyes, I made out the rectangle in his right hand. Columnar snout. Machine pistol.

  He said, 'Up.' Businesslike. Tying up loose ends.

  He wore light-colored, grease-stained mechanics overalls - outfitted for messy work. Something flashed around his neck - probably the same gold chain I'd seen at the garage.

  I got to my feet. My head still rang from the explosion.

  'Walk.' He motioned to his right, back to the clearing.

  'What about him?' I said.

  'Oh, yeah, him.' He leveled the pistol downward, peppered Bill's frame with a burst that nearly cut the blind man in two.

  The fragments of Bill's corpse bucked and flopped and were still.

  Coury said, 'Any more questions?'

  He marched me out of the forest. A pile of cinders, snarls of electrical conduit, random stacks of bricks, and twisted metal chairs were the remnants of the little green house. That and something contorted and charred, lashed and duct-taped to a chair.

  'Playing with matches,' I said. 'Bet you liked that as a kid.'

  'Walk.'

  I stepped onto the gravel path. Keeping my head straight but moving my eyes back and forth. Nacho Vargas's corpse remained where it had fallen. No sign of Aimee or Bert.

  A cloud of musk hit my nostrils, sickly sweet as a Sacher torte. Coury, walking close behind me.

  'Where we going?' I said.

  'Walk.'

  'Walk where?'

  'Shut up.'

  'Where are we going?'

  Silence.

  Ten steps later, I tried again. 'Where we going?'

  He said, 'You are really stupid.'

  'Think so?' I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the short man's silver gun and wheeling fast.

  Inertia caused him to pitch forward, and we nearly collided. He tried to step back, free the machine pistol, but couldn't get enough room to maneuver. Stumbled.

  He hadn't bothered to pat me down. Overconfident rich kid who'd never grown up. All those years of getting away with bad stuff.

  The little silver gun shot forward, as if of its own accord. Coury's goatee spread as his mouth opened in surprise.

  I focused on his tonsils, shot three times, hit with every bullet.

  I took his machine pistol and pocketed the silver gun, scurried off the gravel, found refuge behind a sycamore. Waited.

  Nothing.

  Stepping on greenery to muffle my footsteps, I inched forward, heading toward the road. Wondering who and what awaited me there.

  I'd been overconfident, too, thinking Vargas and the small man had made up the entire army. Too important a job for a pair of thugs.
/>   Coury had been a precise man who specialized in deconstructing high-priced machines and reconstituting them as works of art.

  A good planner.

  Send in the B team while the A team waits. Sacrifice the B team and attack from the rear.

  Another ambush.

  Coury had come himself to take care of Bill. Bill was a living

  witness, and eliminating him was the primary goal. The same went for Aimee. Had he taken care of her - and Bert - first? I hadn't heard gunfire as I carried Bill away, but the firebombs and the kerosene blast had filled my head with noise.

  I walked five steps, stopped, repeated the pattern. The mouth of the gravel drive came into view.

  Choice point, none of the options good.

  I found nothing.

  Just the Seville, all four tires slashed flat, hood open, distributor cap gone. Tire tracks - two sets, both deep and heavily treaded - said the pickup and another working vehicle had departed.

  The nearest house was a quarter-mile up the road. I could barely make out yellow windows.

  I was bloodstained and bloodied, one side of my face scraped raw, and my burnt hand hurt like hell. One look and the residents would probably bolt their doors and call the police.

  Which was fine with me.

  I almost made it before the rumble sounded.

  Big engine, heading my way from Highway 150. Loud enough -close enough - for visibility, but no headlights.

  I ran into the bushes, crouched behind a flurry of ferns, watched as the black Suburban sped past and slowed fifty feet before the entrance to Bill and Aimee's property.

  It came to a halt. Rolled forward, twenty feet, stopped again.

  A man got out. Big, very big.

  Then another, slightly smaller but not by much. He gave some kind of hand signal, and the two of them pulled out weapons and hurried toward the entrance.

  Anyone at the wheel? The Suburban's tinted windows augmented the night and made it impossible to tell. Now I knew that a run for the neighbors' house would be risky and wrong: Coury's shooting of Bill resonated in my head. Coury had pulled the trigger, but I'd been the angel of death, couldn't justify extending the combat to more innocents.

  I crouched and waited. Tried to read my watch, but the crystal was shattered and the hands had been snapped off.

  I counted off seconds. Had reached three thousand two hundred when the pair of big men returned.

  'Shit,' said the shorter one. 'Goddammit.' I stood, and said, 'Milo, don't shoot me.'

  Aimee and Bert sat in the third row of the Suburban. Aimee clutched Bert's sleeve. Bert's eyes lacked focus.

  I got in next to Milo, in the second row.

  At the wheel was Stevie the Samoan, the bounty hunter Georgie Nemerov called Yokuzuna. Next to him sat Red Yaakov, crew-cut head nearly brushing the roof.

  'How'd you find us?' I said.

  'The Seville car got tagged, and I got hold of the tagger.'

  'Tagged?'

  'Satellite locating device.'

  'One of Coury's car gadgets?'

  His hand on my shoulder was eloquent: We'll talk later.

  Stevie drove to Highway 150 and pulled over just short of the 33 intersection, into a tree-shaded turnaround where three vehicles sat. Toward the rear, half-hidden by the night, was the pickup truck, front end facing the road, still loaded with fertilizer. A few feet away was a dark Lexus sedan. Another black SUV - a Chevy Tahoe -blocked both other vehicles.

  Stevie dimmed his lights, and two men stepped from behind the Tahoe. A muscular, shaved-head Hispanic wearing a black muscle T-shirt, baggy black cargo pants and a big leather chest holster, and Georgie Nemerov in a sport coat, open-necked white shirt, rumpled slacks.

  The muscular man's T-shirt read: BAIL ENFORCEMENT AGENT in big white letters. He and Nemerov approached the Suburban. Milo lowered his window, and Nemerov peered in, saw me, raised an eyebrow.

  'Where's Coury?'

  Milo said, 'With his ancestors.'

  Nemerov tongued the inside of his cheek. 'You couldn't save him for me?'

  'It was over by the time we got there, Georgie.'

  Nemerov's eyebrow arched higher as he turned to me. 'I'm impressed, Doc. Want a job? The hours are long and the pay sucks.'

  'Yeah,' said Yaakov, 'but de people you got to meet are deezgusting.'

  Stevie laughed. Nemerov's smile widened reluctantly. 'I guess results are what counts.'

  'Was there anyone else?' I said. 'Besides Coury?'

  'Sure,' said Nemerov. 'Two other party animals.'

  'Brad Larner,' said Milo. 'That Lexus is his. He and Coury arrived in it, Larner was driving. He was parked near the house, waiting for Coury, when we spotted him behind the truck. Dr Harrison and Caroline were tied up in the truck bed. Another guy was at the wheel.'

  'Who?'

  Nemerov said, 'Paragon of virtue named Emmet Cortez. I wrote a few tickets for him before he went away on manslaughter. Worked in the auto industry.'

  'Painting hot rods,' I said.

  'Chroming wheels.' Nemerov's grin was sudden, mirthless, icy. 'Now he's in that big garage in the sky.'

  'Rendered inorganic,' said Stevie.

  'Steel organic,' said Yaakov. 'Long as deyr someting left, he steel organic, right, Georgie.'

  'You're being technical,' said Stevie.

  'Let's change the subject,' said Nemerov.

  Pancakes,' said Milo.

  It was 10 A.M., the next morning, and we were at a coffee shop on Wilshire near Crescent Heights, a place where old people and gaunt young men pretending to write screenplays congregated. One half-mile west of the Cossack brothers' offices, but that hadn't been what drew us there.

  We'd both been up all night, had returned to L.A. at 6 A.M., stopped at my house to shower and shave.

  'Don't wanna wake Rick,' he'd explained.

  'Isn't Rick up by now?'

  'Why complicate things?'

  He'd emerged from the guest bathroom, toweling his head and squinting. Wearing last night's clothes but looking frighteningly chipper. 'Breakfast,' he proclaimed. 'I know the place, they make these big, monster flappers with crunchy peanut butter and chocolate chips.'

  'That's kid food,' I said.

  'Maturity is highly overrated. I used to go there all the time. Believe me, Alex, this is what you need.'

  'Used to go there?'

  'Back when I wasn't watching my figure. Our endocrine systems are shot so we need sugar - my maternal grandfather ate pancakes every day, washed them down with three cups of coffee sweeter than cola, and he lived till ninety-eight. Woulda gone on a few more years, but he tumbled down a flight of stairs while ogling a woman.' He pushed an errant thatch of black hair out of his face. 'Unlikely to be my fate, but there are always variants.'

  'You're uncommonly optimistic,' I said.

  'Pancakes,' he said. 'C'mon, let's get going.'

  I changed into fresh clothing, thinking about Aimee and Bert, all the unanswered questions.

  Thinking about Robin. She'd called last night, from Denver, left a message at 11 P.M. I phoned back at 6:30, figuring to leave a message at her hotel, but the tour had moved on to Albuquerque.

  Now, here we were, facing two stacks of peanut butter hotcakes the size of frypans. Breakfast that smelled eerily of Thai food. I corroded my gut with coffee, watched him douse his stack with maple syrup and begin sawing into it, then took hold of the syrup pitcher in my unburnt hand. The ER doctor at Oxnard Hospital had pronounced the burn 'first-degree plus. A little deeper and you would've made second.' As if I'd missed a goal. He'd administered salve and a bandage, swabbed my face with Neosporin, wrote me a scrip for antibiotics, and told me to avoid getting myself dirty.

  Everyone at the hospital knew Bert Harrison. He and Aimee were given a private room near the emergency admissions desk, where they stayed for two hours. Milo and I had waited. Finally, Bert came out, and said, 'We're going to be here for a while. Go home.'

  'You're sure?' I said.


  'Very sure.' He pressed my hand between both of his, gave a hard squeeze, returned to the room.

  Georgie Nemerov and his crew drove us to the spot at the entrance to Ojai where Milo had left his rental Dodge, then disappeared.