by Robert Crais
Pike pulled into a Chevron station and looked up Dersh's address in his Thomas Brothers map. Dersh lived in an older residential area in Los Feliz where the streets twisted and wound with the contours of the low foothills. Seeing the street layout was important because Krantz's people were watching Dersh's place, and Pike wanted to know where they were.
When Pike had the names of the streets bracketing Dersh's home, he used his cell phone to call a realtor he knew, and asked her if any properties were for sale or lease on those streets. The police would establish a surveillance base in a mobile van if they had to, but they preferred to use a house. After a brief search of the multiple listing service, Pike's friend reported that there were three homes for sale in that area, two of which were vacant. She gave Pike the addresses. Comparing the addresses with Dersh's on the map, Pike saw that one of the homes was located on the street immediately north of Dersh's, and kitty-corner across an alley. That's where the police would be.
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Pike worked his way across Hollywood, then wound his way into the quiet of an older neighborhood until he came to Dersh's small, neat home. Pike noted the two-story dwelling just off the alley that would be the police surveillance site. In the flicker of time as he drove past the mouth of the alley, Pike saw the glint of something shiny in the open second-floor window. The officers roosting there would have binoculars, a spotting scope, and probably a videocamera, but if Pike kept Dersh's house between them and himself, they wouldn't see him. In a combat situation, those guys would fast be a memory.
The neighborhood was easy. Small houses set back from the street, lushly planted with trees and shrubs, showing little clear ground between the houses. No one was clipping flowers in their front yards, no housekeepers were peering from their living-room windows, no strollers were passing, no yapping little dogs.
Pike parked at the curb two houses west of Dersh, then disappeared between the shrubs of the nearest house, one moment there, the next gone. In that instant when he allowed himself to be enveloped by leaves and twigs and green, he felt an absolute calm.
He moved along the near house, staying beneath the windows, then crossed between the trees into the prickly shrubs that surrounded Dersh's house. He neither touched nor disturbed the plants, but instead moved around and between them, the way he had done since he was a boy.
Pike eased to the corner of the living-room window, snuck a fast glance into a bright room, caught movement deeper within the house, and heard music. Yves Montand, singing in French.
Pike followed the west wall of the house through a small stand of rubber trees planted with ferns and pickle lilies, passing beneath the high window of a bathroom to the casement windows of Dersh's studio, where he saw two men. Dersh, the shorter of the two, wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. Had to be Dersh, because the other man, younger, was wearing a suit. Dersh moved as if this place were his home; the other moved as a visitor. Pike listened. The two men were
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at a computer, Dersh sitting, the other man pointing over Dersh's shoulder at the screen. Pike could hear Yves Mon-tand, and catch occasional words. They were discussing the layout of a magazine ad.
Pike watched Dersh and tried to get a sense of the man. Dersh did not appear to be capable of the things that the police suspected, but Pike knew you could not tell by appearances. He had known many men who looked and acted strong, but had cores of weakness, and he had known men who seemed timid who had shown themselves capable of great strength and of accomplishing terrible things.
Pike drew even, steady breaths, listening to the birds in the trees, and remembering the Karen Garcia with whom he had spent so much time, and how she had died. Joe considered Dersh, noting his finger strokes on the keyboard, the way he held himself, the way he laughed at something the other man said. He thought that if Dersh had killed Karen Garcia, he might end the man. He would lay open the fabric of justice, and let it be Dersh's shroud. He could do such a thing now, even here in the daylight as the police watched.
But after a time Pike eased away from the window. Eugene Dersh did not seem like a killer, but Pike would wait to see what evidence the police produced. Seeing the evidence, he would then decide.
There was always plenty of time in which to deliver justice.
School
"We did eight hundred push-ups every goddamned day, some days over two hundred chins, and they ran us. Christ, we ran ten miles every morning and another five at night, and sometimes even more than that. We weren 't big guys, like badass football linemen or any of that, you know, Rambo with all those pansy protein-shake muscles bulging. We were skinny kids, mostly, all stripped down and hungry, but, hell, we could carry hundred-pound packs, four hundred rounds, and a poodle-popper uphill at a run all goddamned day. You know what we were? We were wolves. Lean and mean, and
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you definitely did not want us on your ass. We werefuckin' dangerous, man. That's what they wanted. Recon. That's what we wanted, too."
—excerpt from Young Men at War: A Case by Case Study of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder,
by Patricia Barber, Ph.D. M.F.C.C.
Duke University Press, 1986
Gunnery Sergeant Leon Aimes stood on the low ridge overlooking the parched hills at Camp Pendleton Marine Training Depot just south of Oceanside, California, scanning the range with a pair ofZeiss binoculars that had been a gift from his wife. He 'd been pissed as hell when he'd opened the box at his forty-fourth birthday and seen what they were because the Zeiss had set back the family three months 'pay. But they were the best viewing glass in the world, none finer, and he 'd gone to her later feeling like a dog to apologize for carrying on. These Zeiss were the best, all right. He would use them hunting blacktail deer this fall, and, a year from now, after his posting as a Force Recon company instructor, when he returned to Vietnam for his fourth combat tour, he would use them to hunt Charlie.
Aimes sat in a jeep with his best drinking buddy, Gunnery Sergeant Frank Horse, the two of them wearing black tee shirts, field utilities, and Alice harnesses, both of them smoking the shitty cigars they 'd bought down in TJ two months before. Horse was a full-blood Mescalero Apache, and Aimes believed him to be the finest Advanced Infantry Instructor at Camp Pendleton, as well as an outstanding warrior. Aimes, though African-American, had once been told by his grandmother that he had Apache blood (which he believed) and was the descendant of great warriors (which he absolutely knew to be true), so he and Horse often joked about being in the same tribe when they 'd had a little too much tequila.
Horse grinned at him around the cigar. "Can't see 'm, can you?"
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Aimes rolled his own cigar around in his mouth. Three hundred acres of coastal desert rolled out below them, dipping down into a little creek bed before rising again to another finger ridge half a mile away. Somewhere out in those three hundred acres was a young Marine that Horse thought had the warrior spirit. "Not yet, but I'm lookin'."
Horse smiled wider and nodded at nothing in particular. "He's right under your goddamned nose, Leon. Hell."
"Bullshit he is. If he s out there, I'll find him." Leon Aimes scowled harder and imagined a huge checkerboard laid upon the land. He carefully searched each block on the board, noting clumps of manzanita and puppy grass as he ran a mental comparison to see if anything had moved in the minutes since he 'd last scanned the terrain. He could find no trace of movement, yet he knew that somewhere out there a young Marine was slowly creeping toward him.
Horse drew deep on the stogy, making an exaggerated deal out of it, and blew a great plume of smoke into the breeze. "Been here damn near two hours, pard."Really rubbing it in. Really digging at Leon. "You know he's good, elseyouwoulda found him by now. We gonna keep the boy out there all day, or has this turned into something about you instead Ve something about him?"
Finally, Gunnery Sergeant Leon Aimes sighed and
lowered the glasses. His friend Frank Horse was a wise man as well as a warrior. "Okay, goddamnit, where is he? "
Horse's eyes crinkled, like he'd won some kinda goddamned bet with himself, and Aimes could tell from the smile that Horse liked this boy, all right. Horse pointed off to their left and ahead of them with his cigar. "Heading three-four-zero. See that little depression about three hundred meters out?"
Aimes saw it at once without even lifting the glasses. The barest of shadows. "Yeah."
Horse reached behind them for the bullhorn. "He came up through that little cut in the creek bank out there off to the right and has been working his way up."
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Aimes spit a load of brown cigar juice, pissed. "How in hell did you see'm? "
"Didn 't see shit."Horse spit his own load, then looked over at his friend. "That's the way I told him to come."
Their eyes met and Aimes smiled. "Get the boy in here, an' let s talk to him, then."
Horse keyed the horn and called out across the range. "This program is terminated, Private. Come to your feet."
The little depression three hundred meters out on heading three-four-zero did not move. Instead, a loose collection of twigs and burlap and dirt slowly rose from the earth off to their right and less than two hundred meters away. Horse's cigar nearly fell out of his jaw, and Aimes burst out laughing. Aimes clapped his old friend on the back. "Three-four-zero, all right."
"Icoulda sworn. . ."
"Lucky that boy wasn 't gonna shoot our old asses."
Then the two combat veterans were beyond the laughing, and Aimes nodded. Horse keyed the mike again. "Get in here, Private. Triple time."
Running up to them across the broken ground, Aimes thought that the ghillie suit made the private look like some kind of matted Pekinese dog, all its mats bouncing up and down. Aimes said, "He ingood shape? "
"Came here in good shape."
"Farm boy? "
"Lived in the country, but I don't think they farmed!'Aimes liked boys who grew up on the land and knew its ways.
"What kind of name is that, Pike? English? Irish? "
"Dunno. He don't talk about his people. He don't talk much at all"
Aimes nodded. Nothing wrong with that. "Maybe he s got nothing to say."
Now Horse was looking a little nervous, like they had come upon something in the road that didn 't sit well with him and that maybe he was hoping that they wouldn 't come upon. "Yeah, well, just so you know, he don 'tsay much. I don't think he s stupid."
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Aimes glancedsharply at his friend. "You know better than to waste my time with an idiot."He glanced back at the running Marine. "Boy ain 't stupid who scores as high on his tests as this one." This boy had tested higher than most of the college boys who came through, and he stood first in every class he was required to take.
"Well, some of the DIsfind him a little odd, and some of the platoon do, too. Keeps to himself, mostly, and reads. Doesn 't grabass during free time, none of that. Don't think I ever seen the bay smile once since he come to me."
That concerned Aimes. "You can tell a lot by a man s laugh."
"Yeah, well."
They watched him come closer, and finally Aimes sighed. "Got no use for a man ain't a team player."
Horse spit. "We wouldn 't be standing here if he wasn 't. Got a lot of fast twitch in that boy, but out on the course, he 'II throttle back to help his mates. Did it without having to be told, either."
Aimes nodded, liking that one just fine. "Then what's all this business about being odd? You say he's the best young man in your training platoon, you show me a file on this boy saying he stands top of his class, then you bring me out here and we both get snaked by a boy seventeen years old same as he had three years as a Scout/Sniper."
Horse made a little shrug. "Just wanted you to know, is all. He ain 'tyour standard recruit."
"Force Recon isn 't interested in standard recruits, and you and I both know that better 'n anyone. I want moral young men lean turn into professional killers. End of story."
Horse raised his hands. "Just wanted you to know."
"Well, all right."Aimes chomped on the nasty cigar and watched the young Marine. " What is it he reads ? "
"Just reads, is all. Anything he can get his hands on. Novels, history. Caught him with some Nietzsche once. Found some Basho in his locker"
"Do tell"
"Knew you 'd like that, too."
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"Yes, sir. Yes, I do."
Leon Aimes pondered the private with renewed interest, as he believed that all the best warriors were poets. Those old Japanese Samurai proved that, and Aimes had his own theory as to why. Aimes knew that you could fill a young man's head with all the notions of duty, honor, and country you wanted, but when the shit hit the fan and the bullets started flying, even your bravest young man didn 't stand there and die for little Sally back home or even for the Stars and Stripes. If he stood at all, he stood for his buddies beside him. His love for them, and his fear of shame in their eyes, is what kept him fighting even after his sphincter let loose, and even when his world turned to hell. It took a special man to stand there all alone, without the weight of his buddies to anchor him in place, and Aimes was looking for young warriors that he could train to move and fight and win alone. Die alone, too, if that's what it took, and not just any man was up to that. But poets were different. You could take a poet and fill his heart with the notions of duty and honor, and sometimes, if you were very lucky, that was enough. Aimes had learned long ago, perhaps even in an earlier life, that a poet would die for a rose.
Horse gestured with the cigar as the private came pounding up and fell in at attention before them, the monstrous ghillie suit making the boy look like a tall, skinny haystack.
Horse said, "Belay that ghillie suit and stand at ease, Private. This here is Gunnery Sergeant Aimes, who is just about the best Marine in this man's Corps outside of Chesty Puller and myself. You will listen up to him. Is that clear? "
"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant! "the young Marine shouted.
Private Pike peeled out of the ghillie suit, stowed it in the back of the jeep, and returned to his position. Neither Aimes nor Horse spoke while he was doing this, and, after he was done, Aimes let him stand there a minute, thinking about things. Aimes recalled from the file he had read that the young man's name was Pike, Joseph, no middle initial. He was tall, maybe about six one, all lean and corded and burned tan by the Southern California sun. His face and hands were covered in cammie greasepaint, but he had the damnedest blue
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eyesAimes had ever seen, real white-boy ice-people eyes, like maybe his people came from Norway or Sweden or some damn place, which was also okay byAimes. He had enormous respect for Vikings, and considered them almost as fine a group of warriors as his African ancestors. Aimes looked into the blue eyes and thought that they were calm, holding neither guile nor remorse. Aimes said, "How old are you, son?"Aimes, of course, knew how old the private was, but he wanted to question the boy, get a sense of him.
"Seventeen, Gunnery Sergeant!"
Aimes crossed his arms, and the large muscles there pulled the fabric of his black Marine Corps tee shirt tight. "Your mother sign the papers to get you in early, or you fake 'm yourself? "
The boy did not answer. Beads of sweat dripped down from his scalp and etched tracks along his gaunt face. Nothing else about the boy moved.
"Ididn 't hear you, Marine."
The boy floated there with no response, and Horse drifted around behind his back so the boy couldn 't see him smile.
Gunnery Sergeant Leon Aimes stepped very close to the private and whispered into his ear. "Idon't like talking to myself, young man. I suggest you answer me."
The young Marine answered. "Don't know it's any of your business, Gunnery Sergeant."
Horse jumped into the young Marine s face faster than an Ml 6 cham
bering afresh round, screaming so loud that his face turned purple. "Everything in this world is the sergeant's business, Marine! Are you stupid enough to embarrass me in front of a Marine I know to be a hero in two wars, and who is a finer man than you could ever hope to be on your very best day? "
Aimes waited. The boy didn 't look scared, which was good, and he didn't look arrogant, which was also good. He looked thoughtful.
Then the boy said, "My father."
"You in some kinda trouble, that why your old man put you
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in my Corps? You a car thief or a troublemaker or something like that?"
