The sentry jp-3

by Robert Crais

  A few minutes later, Pike called Dru again, then the number Betsy Harmon gave him for Wilson. Both calls went immediately to voice mail as they had every time before, which implied their phones were turned off or being used. Pike didn't like it. The odds both of them were talking on their phones at the same time were slim, and no one turned off their phones when they were getting ready for a trip.

  Pike climbed out of the Jeep and returned to the gate. He checked to make sure Lily's son wasn't watching, then hoisted himself over the gate into a tiny courtyard. The front door was locked, and showed no sign of forced entry.

  Pike moved along the side of the house, looking into each window he passed, and checking for signs of tampering. The first room appeared to be a guest bedroom, and the next was the kitchen. The bedroom appeared undisturbed, but Pike's view was limited. He saw dirty dishes, three empty beer bottles, and a cutting board on the kitchen counter. Pike told himself the dishes indicated Wilson and Dru planned to return home, but the goat heads and flies hung over him like battlefield smoke.

  After checking the last window on the far side of the house, he returned to the backyard. It was small, with a low wood fence bordering the sidewalk that ran along the canal. A latched gate opened to the sidewalk, and a blue fiberglass kayak hung on a small wooden dock across from the gate. Pike studied the houses lining the bank. Even with all the walls and gates, entering the properties would be easy from the water.

  Pike checked his watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since he decided to wait, but now the passing time didn't feel like waiting. It felt more like he was allowing something precious to slip away.

  Pike was deciding what to do next when he saw Lily Palmer's son. The kid had returned to his second-floor window, which gave him a view into Wilson's backyard. This time the kid didn't duck. He made a smirking grin before turning away, and Pike wondered how much time he spent in the window.

  Pike made his way back along the side of the house, let himself out, and knocked on Lily's door. Her eyes brightened when she saw him, and she gave him a pleasant smile.

  "Oh. Hi. I thought you left."

  "No. I've been looking around next door. I didn't tell you the whole truth. Wilson has been having trouble with some bad people. I'm concerned those people might have followed them home. Have you seen or heard anything suspicious?"

  Her pleasant smile turned into a concerned frown.

  "No, I don't think so. Like what?"

  "Loud voices. Cars that didn't fit."

  She frowned even harder, then shouted into the house.

  "Jared! Jared, come here!"

  Jared appeared a few seconds later, shirtless and glistening with sunscreen. His thin chest looked like a birdcage.

  "I was just going out."

  "The gentleman wants to know if you saw or heard anything suspicious over there."

  "Next door?"

  "Yes, next door. Jesus, what's wrong with you?"

  Jared rubbed his birdcage ribs and nodded toward Pike.

  "He was in their backyard just now. That's pretty suspicious."

  "I know he was in their yard. He told me. Would you please answer the man?"

  Jared raked the hair from his face, and made the same sneer he'd made in the window.

  "He was peeping in their windows. Probably trying to see Dru's tits."

  Pike took a step closer, and Jared quickly crossed his arms.

  "Dude. It was a joke."

  His mother said, "Would you please act like a man? Wilson and Dru are having some kind of trouble. Try to help."

  "I didn't see anything suspicious or otherwise. I'm sorry. There's nothing to see."

  Pike glanced toward Jared's window.

  "Good view from your window. You looking at nothing?"

  Jared flushed.

  "What should I do, stare at the walls? Bro, it's another day on the Venice Canals-sunshine and water."

  "When was the last time you saw them?"

  "Wilson or Dru?"

  "Either."

  "Last night, I guess. That would be Dru. She pulled in when I was coming back from my walk. Gave her a wave. You know. Said whassup. She said whassup back."

  Pike edged closer, and Jared held himself tighter.

  "What time?"

  "Around six, I guess. Something like that."

  Pike decided this fit. She drove directly home after leaving him at the takeout shop.

  "What about this morning?"

  "Didn't see'm this morning, either one."

  Jared waved toward the carport.

  "Saw the car, though. Went out to score some brown moo, saw the car."

  "When?"

  "Oh, dude, early."

  His mother helped with the answer.

  "The Today show was beginning its second hour when he left, so that was just after eight. He got back during the second half-hour, so that was about eight forty-five."

  Pike tried to fine-tune the window.

  "Was the car there when you got back?"

  "Yep. For sure."

  "See it leave?"

  "Nope. Saw it when I got back with the moo, but I couldn't say when it left."

  "How many cars do they have?"

  "Just the one."

  Lily nodded.

  "They have one car."

  "The silver Tercel."

  "Yeah."

  The silver Tercel was something Jared saw every day. Something a person sees every day becomes invisible, but something out of the ordinary stands out. He had asked these same questions or questions like them a thousand times when he was a cop.

  "Forget the Tercel. When you were coming back with the moo, did you see anyone you didn't recognize? Maybe a car that wasn't familiar?"

  Jared shook his head.

  "Nobody like you mean. A couple of ladies with dogs walked by. Some gardeners were working next door."

  Pike hesitated.

  "At Wilson's?"

  "Yeah. A couple of Latin dudes."

  Almost every house along the canals would employ professional gardeners, and most would be Latin.

  "You know they were gardeners because you've seen them before, or do you assume they were gardeners because they were Latin?"

  Jared turned dark red, as if he had been accused of racial profiling.

  "Dude! Hey, here are these dudes, they have the work clothes, not exactly dressed for success, I see'm going in through the gate, who else would they be?"

  Lily Palmer said, "Did they have blowers, honey? A mower?"

  "It's not like I studied them. I wasn't paying attention."

  Pike touched the side of his neck.

  "Ink?"

  Jared pressed his lips together as he tracked through his memory, then he suddenly brightened.

  "Yeah, I think, but the one dude, I remember this, he had a cast on his arm."

  Pike felt very still, and heard only the soft whisper of his breath and the heavy, slow-motion thump of his heart.

  "Which arm?"

  Jared touched his right forearm.

  "This one. He had one of those wrist casts, goes from the thumb up to about right here."

  Mendoza was wearing exactly that cast when he was released from the Airport Courthouse.

  "And the car was still there when you saw them?"

  "Yeah. It was there."

  "And later it was gone."

  "Yeah. Gone."

  Pike turned toward Smith's house. His slow-beating heart grew louder until each beat boomed like thunder on the horizon. He had seen the outside of the house, but very little of the inside. A nightmare worse than goat heads could be waiting inside.

  Lily Palmer touched his arm.

  "Are they the people you were talking about?"

  Pike nodded, still staring at the house.

  "Should we call the police?"

  Pike shook his head.

  "I'll take care of it."

  Then he gave Lily something to help ease her concerns.

  "When you see Wilson
or Dru, ask them to call me. They have the number."

  "Of course. As soon as I see them."

  Pike returned to his Jeep and backed out the narrow street. He turned the corner, then immediately pulled over and parked.

  He trotted back fast, checked again to see if anyone was looking, then hoisted himself over a fence on the side of Wilson's house away from the Palmers. Having seen the property once, he knew where he wanted to go and carried the things he needed to enter.

  On this side of the house, Pike had found a window used for ventilation for a laundry room. He pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves, then set to work. It had not been tampered with before, but now he levered it open with a small pry bar and shimmied through the opening.

  Once inside, Pike pulled a pair of paper booties over his running shoes, then quickly moved through the house. His sole mission was to search for bodies. He would take the time for nothing else because nothing else was as important.

  Pike slipped through the laundry room into a hall, then swept through the kitchen, a large family room, a small bedroom with an adjoining bath. He did not touch or examine anything, though he quickly scanned each floor for blood. He found no obvious drops or splatters, no signs of a violent struggle, and no bodies.

  He took the stairs three at a time to the second floor, flowing through a large office, an enormous master bedroom, and the master bath as smoothly as if he were liquid.

  He went through the entire house in less than sixty seconds, and never once stopped moving until he knew there were no bodies. Wilson and Dru had not been murdered here. Their dead bodies were not waiting here.

  Pike came out of the master bedroom and paused for the first time on the second-floor landing. Only now, for the first time, the outside world slowly found its way in. Pike felt himself sway, just a little, as if from a tiny temblor. A helicopter passed nearby. He caught the scent of lilacs, and knew the scent was Dru's.

  Pike left the house as he entered, and moved quickly back to his Jeep. He saw Reuben Mendoza, and the heads in Wilson Smith's shop. He saw two men opening Wilson's gate, one with a cast on his arm. He saw Miguel Azzara with his brilliant male-model smile, saying it would never happen again.

  Hello, Reuben.

  Hello, Miguel.

  I am here.

  12

  Pike cruised past the Our Way Body Mods shop, turned at the next block, then circled the block and pulled into a loading zone on the opposite side of the street. Their corner location on the busy street made reconnoitering easy.

  Pike wanted Gomer or Mendoza, but they were not around. Neither was Michael Azzara or his shiny new Prius, but the maroon Monte Carlo was parked at the curb outside the fence.

  Pike studied the number and locations of the people, the position of the vehicles in the parking lot, and everything surrounding the building. Something about the body shop bothered him.

  Pike counted one man in the service bays and two in the parking lot by a 1969 candy-gold SS396. The man in the service bay was fitting a fender onto a car, but having a difficult time. None of them were familiar, but the men by the 396 drew Pike's attention. One was a younger man in grease-stained work clothes who was showing the other man something under the hood. The other man was duded up in lizard-skin cowboy boots, an immaculate white Stetson, and a pink-and-white cowboy shirt under a suede sport coat. A Western belt with an enormous brass buckle held up jeans sporting a razor crease. A few minutes later, the cowboy had seen enough. He walked over to the service bays, said something to the man with the fender, and that's when a man Pike recognized from the Monte Carlo appeared. He was the man who had pointed his gun hand at Pike; the man who lifted Mendoza off his feet to welcome him home. The two men shook hands, then the cowboy walked through the main gate to an anonymous Buick and drove away.

  Watching the cowboy leave, Pike understood what had been troubling him. Yesterday, a dozen men were present and the yard was busy. Today, only three men remained, leaving the body shop deserted. Pike found this curious, but it would also make his job easier.

  Pike circled the block again, but this time he parked on a residential street behind the body shop. He stripped off his sweatshirt, then strapped into a lightweight ballistic vest. He cinched the Velcro tight, pulled the sweatshirt back on, and reset his holster. When he was good to go, he let himself out of the Jeep and approached the body shop from the rear.

  The man from the Monte Carlo had disappeared, but Pike saw the yard man helping his co-worker with the fender in the far bay. Pike did not care about them. He wanted Mendoza's friend.

  Pike stepped into the first bay and spotted the man from the Monte Carlo in an office at the rear of the building. He was in front of a television with his back to the door. The Dodgers were playing a day game. Pike checked to see that the other two men were still struggling with the fender, then slipped toward the office as silently as a fish gliding through water.

  On TV, Vin Scully called the play as the Dodgers took a 2-0 lead in the first off a two-run homer by David Snell. The man watching pumped his fist and shouted to himself.

  "Thass what I'm talking about! Show them bitches how we do it out here!"

  Pike hooked an arm around the man's neck, lifted his feet from the floor, and closed his carotid artery. This shut off the blood to his brain. The man struggled hard for the first few seconds, but sagged as he lost consciousness. Pike held him until the man went limp, then lowered him and tied his wrists behind his back with a plasticuff. Pike had made dozens of high-speed entries in different parts of the world, usually into tear-gassed rooms where armed hostiles hid behind hostages, desperate to kill him. His moves now were practiced and efficient.

  Out in the far service bay, the two men were still busy with the fender when Pike left the office. They were fitting the driver's side front fender in place, one man bolting the front, the other the back. Pike angled to their midpoint blind spot, and drew his.357 as he closed. Behind him, Vin Scully filled the silence, saying what a fine acquisition Snell had been from the Kansas City Royals.

  Pike hit the first man with the pistol above the right ear, then pivoted to meet the second man, thumbing the hammer to let the man hear the pistol cock.

  The man stared, mouth open but soundless.

  Pike tipped the muzzle toward the floor.

  "Down. Hands behind your head."

  The man did it immediately.

  Pike tied off both men at their ankles and wrists, then whispered to the man who was still awake.

  "Man in the office. What's his name?"

  "Hector Perra."

  "Close your eyes. Make a sound, I'll kill you."

  He closed his eyes.

  Hector was on his feet when Pike returned to the office. He was spinning in a circle like a dog chasing its tail, trying to see his wrists. Then he saw Pike, lowered his head, and charged.

  Pike guided him headfirst into the door frame, jerked him upright, then snapped a backfist onto the bridge of his nose. Hector's eyes fogged, but Pike held him up.

  "Look at me. Focus."

  Hector's eyes cleared.

  Pike made his hand like a gun with his thumb up and index finger out, and pointed at Hector.

  "Remember?"

  Pike hit him again, moving so fast Hector did not see it coming. His head snapped back, but Pike had not hit him hard. Pike wanted him awake.

  "Where are they?"

  "Whachu talking about?"

  "The people who own the sandwich shop."

  "I don't know, bro. Whachu talking about?"

  Pike studied the dark eyes. They were angry and fearful, but also confused. Father Art told him the Malevos had over sixty known members spread throughout Venice. Not all of them would be part of every crime committed, nor even know what the other members were doing. Pike decided Hector was telling the truth.

  "Where's Mendoza?"

  "How the fuck I'm supposed to know? Off doing his thing."

  "You see him this morning?"

  "Man,
we ain't married. I got my own life."

  Pike hit him again, harder than before, then shook him to help clear his head.

  "When's the last time you saw him?"

  "Yesterday. After his release."

  "Where?"

  Pike wanted to see if Hector was playing it straight.

  "Here, bro. Homes made bail, he hung out for a while, then split. You know how it is."

  "Where'd he go when he left here?"

  "Home to his old lady, I guess. I dunno. We was gonna get together, but I never heard back."

  "Was Gomer with him?"

  "I dunno."

  Pike searched Hector for weapons, but found only keys, a cell phone, and a wallet. He held up the keys.

  "The Monte Carlo?"

  Hector nodded, and Pike jerked him to the door.

  "Let's go. Outside."

  "You takin' my car?"

  "I'm taking you."

  13

  Pike shoved Hector into the passenger seat, then slid in behind the wheel and powered away. Hector shriveled from Pike like a deflating balloon, his eyes snapping like shutters.

  "Where you takin' me? Where we goin', homes?"

  Pike didn't answer. He drove five blocks into the residential neighborhood to put distance between himself and the body shop before he pulled to the curb. Hector shrank even farther away, inching up the door.

  Pike went through Hector's wallet. He found thirty-two dollars, pictures of people who were probably Hector's family, some discount coupons, and two California driver's licenses. Both showed Hector's picture, but with different names, addresses, and DOBs. One identified Hector as Hector Francis Perra with a Ghost Town address, the other as Juan Rico with a Van Nuys address. Pike returned everything to the wallet, then looked at Hector.

  "Mendoza."

  "I don't know where he is. I tol' you. How the fuck I'm supposed to know?"

  Pike drew the Python and pressed it into Hector's thigh.

  "Show me where he lives."

  Hector directed him to a small flat-roofed bungalow at the edge of Ghost Town near Inglewood. The stucco siding flowered with water damage, but the yard was surprisingly neat. Two stringy palms cast Marks-A-Lot shadows across a Honda Maxima in the drive. Pike cruised past, then parked on the next block with an eyes-forward view of the house.