Taucher: “You’ve been smart and fair with us. We’re not here to bust anyone. We’re here to scratch people off our list. To establish Ben’s innocence.”
Marah: “Is innocence in your vocabulary, Agent Taucher?”
Taucher, her voice softer: “Marah, you certainly don’t have to share Ben’s communications with me. I understand your feelings, and I apologize.”
The bottom drawer had no folders at all, just two neat stacks of Surfer and Alpinist magazines reaching nearly to the top of the drawer. I slid it shut and looked at Marah just as Taucher spoke.
“Marah? Has Ben been just a little bit not himself lately?”
Marah’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Not at all. He sounds happier than he’s been since Dad. You heard his text. He wants to get married and buy a home. He’s never talked about settling down before.”
“Have you met the prospective bride?”
“No,” Marah said softly. “Not yet.”
“He’s had serial girlfriends, right? So this Kalima may or may not be serious.”
Back to the desk. In the top right drawer I found a plastic bag containing bars of surfboard wax and a surfboard leash, tightly wound and held fast by its own ankle strap. I wondered if Ben had stopped surfing. And if so, why.
The bottom right drawer was empty. I stood.
“We’re almost done here, Marah,” said Taucher. “And I can’t thank you enough for putting up with my obnoxious attitude and occasional bad manners. It’s obvious to me that your brother Ben has nothing to do with our investigation. As I said, half our job is clearing people. The pleasant half, I might add.”
“Okay. I’m sorry to be suspicious of you.”
“If we could just see that letter from Ben,” said Taucher, “we can finalize this deal.”
“Finalize what deal?”
“We have a sample of the assassin’s writing,” said Taucher. “Handwriting is like fingerprints in that everybody has their own unique signature. Mr. Ford is very familiar with handwriting analysis. Right, Roland?”
Marah looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded, disrespecting myself for manipulating a half-willing ally.
Suspicion clouded her face again. But something else overrode it, and I wondered what. “Handwriting. Okay.”
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” said Taucher.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” said Marah.
“We are not scoundrels,” said Joan. “And believe me, the aforementioned vigilance doesn’t pay much. The hours are long and we make mistakes sometimes.”
“I get a decent salary from Los Angeles County.”
“Great,” said Taucher. “So if you could just show us Ben’s letter, we can let you get on with your day. You mentioned that he sent it just a few weeks ago. So his current Santa Ana address is on it, right?”
“You people are relentless,” said Marah. “You’re enough to make good Americans not want to help you. Which is what we are. Al, Ben, and me. Good Americans.”
“Marah?” asked Taucher. “I couldn’t be more satisfied that none of you have anything to do with the man we’re after. Federal policy requires me to get the handwriting sample and address. Do you have anything to add, Roland?”
“Only thank you.”
Once more, those layers of conflict crossing Marah’s lovely face, like clouds at different elevations. “You’re not FBI, right?”
“I’m a private investigator, as Agent Taucher told you and Alan.”
“Why are you here?”
“I love working Saturdays.”
A smile.
But what better answer than the truth? “The killer we’re looking for is brutal and efficient,” I said. “He’s threatened a good friend of mine, a wonderful woman. She has a beautiful son. I don’t want her to be decapitated.”
“She and her crew killed Dad?”
“And nine others, including one Islamic State terrorist.”
“I’m sickened by what your friend did to Dad and the others,” said Marah. Her face had flushed. “And I’m sickened by what could happen to your friend, too.”
She took my card and she offered me her hand. Her shake was warm and firm.
“I’m curious,” I said. “Did you three siblings get twelve thousand five hundred dollars each for the death of your father? Or did you split it?”
“We split it evenly between his nine children,” said Marah. “About fourteen hundred bucks apiece. I donated mine back to Doctors Without Borders.”
Coincidences intrigue me. “Nine dead and nine siblings,” I said.
“I saw that, too,” Marah said. “I used to wonder if the repeating nines were a way to understand Dad’s fate or luck. Fate and luck are opposites, as you know. I went to my Qur’an for help. I used to read it to Ben, but I hadn’t picked it up in years. I remembered one of our favorite surahs, about free will and fate, chapter thirteen, Al Ra’ad. I opened to Al Ra’ad, closed my eyes like we used to—so, like, your blindness is fate and your finger is free will—that’s what Ben and I made up, anyway. And I blindly put my finger on the page. The verse was ‘The Messenger has companies of angels successively ranged before him and behind him. They guard him by the command of Allah. Verily, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they first change their ways and their minds.’”
As my pulse hammered, Caliphornia’s elegant calligraphy to Lindsey came crashing back to me: The thunder will come for you.
As did the name of Caliphornia’s knife: Al Ra’ad—the thunder, as handwritten to Kenny Bryce.
And the name of a horse owned by Rasha Samara and ridden by his son? The Thunder.
I looked to Taucher, her face flushed, her eyes sharp and pitiless as an eagle’s.
“What did that passage say to you, Marah?” I managed.
“That Allah is all-powerful, and people are free to change their ways and their minds. Both are true. It made me want to join Doctors Without Borders and go to Syria and continue Dad’s work.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“I was afraid to die.”
“You made the right decision,” said Taucher. “Now, if you can just let us see that letter, we’ll get out of your hair.”
Marah left the room with a loud sigh. I heard her yellow flowered flip-flops slapping on the hallway floor.
“I can get a phone warrant for Ben’s bill stubs and personal papers in an hour,” said Taucher. “The FISA courts still love us. Unless you think you can sweet-talk them out of her.”
“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome,” I said. “Leave them for another day.”
Flip-flops in the hall on their way back. With an almost palpable reluctance, Marah handed her brother’s letter to me. I set it on the desk. The envelope was a good-quality, cream-colored paper, and Marah’s name was written in a hurried-looking printing in black ink. The return address was legible. I pulled the letter out, set the envelope aside, and held the letter open in the good sunlight coming through the window.
Elegant Arabic-styled calligraphy.
Slanting neither backward nor forward, but upright.
Feet and tails raised like candle flames.
Taucher’s hawk eyes unblinking.
Dear Marah,
I hope this note finds you well. Look at my calligraphy. I’ve been practicing for months. So much has changed since those happy times I spent with you. I’ve found a new passion. Bigger than me. Bigger than Allah. Maybe I will introduce you someday. I am well and strong. I am still in need of money, but I know that you’re not exactly rich working for the county. We are only as strong as the walls we climb.
Love,
Adams
Marah broke the silence. “Ben found something,” she said softly. “He was always searching.”
“Who the hell is Adams?” asked Taucher.
“Ben makes up names for himself,” said Marah. “Sometimes I do it back to him. Since being kids. Adams is one of his favorites. And Anderson, and Abraham. Always with an A.”
I thought: Whoever he’s calling himself, he needs money.
“You would have to know him,” said Marah.
“I think I’m beginning to,” said Taucher. “May I photograph this? Better yet, can I take it?”
I watched another dispute play out on Marah’s face. Family versus duty? Love versus fear?
“Take it,” she said. “Go.”
“And that picture you showed us,” said Taucher. “The one of Ben and his dark-haired lady friend? Will you text it to me?”
“When I get a chance.”
“How about now? I’ve got my phone right here. The woman is Kalima, correct? The one he wants to marry? How is it spelled?”
Marah spelled out the name.
“Last name?” Taucher demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Marah. “We’ve never met. But I do know that I’m sorry to have met you.”
* * *
—
We spent the hour’s drive south to Santa Ana in discussion of the brothers Azmeh. I was very interested in Alan’s aggravated assault three years ago—around the time of his father’s death—and his clear and present anger. Family man or not, his anger was real. Was it real enough to take him on a journey to Bakersfield? Taucher thought Alan was a “pissy hothead” and was more intrigued by baby Ben’s several mysteries. Most of all, his sudden silence after his father’s death, his handwriting, and his need of money.
Then miles of silence as we barreled south into Orange County. For a long while I didn’t read the road signs. Didn’t listen to the news. I was chewing on the big question: Whoever he was, one of the Azmeh brothers or not, how to get Caliphornia to come out into the open?
I worked long and hard on it, like a dog on a chew stick.
Kept chewing. That’s what PIs do.
27
BEN AZMEH’S ADDRESS WAS a Santa Ana apartment not far from the Civic Center. The street curbs were dense with the cars of working people home for the weekend. A lunch truck was doing slow business in the shadow of the jail. Taucher and I ate standing up, burning through the napkins, watching the occasional jail visitor come and go. I think she caught me looking for the fabled hematoma under her makeup.
“Fifty bucks this address is a shell,” said Taucher. “Like World Pizza.”
“I’ll bet it’s a good address.”
“You’re such a Boy Scout.”
“Indian Guides. Comanche.”
“My mother wouldn’t let me join the Girl Scouts because they were too soft.”
“Maybe not a good fit for you, Joan.”
“I wanted soft. I was a girl.”
Del Sol Apartments was two short blocks south. Ben Azmeh’s unit was ground-floor, at the end of a two-story building. Taucher and I stopped well short, standing beneath skinny palms with shaggy heads. Some of the apartments were strung with Christmas lights. I looked along the sunlit stucco wall of the building, at the first-story patios and second-floor decks crowded with barbecues, bikes, toys, potted plants. Poinsettias in gold- and red-foiled pots, strings of lights on the balconies. The grass along the sidewalk was foot-trampled, and I thought of Blevins stepping in Zeno’s business. Felt happy.
“Follow my lead here, Roland,” she said. “If he’s cooperative, it’s just a friendly FBI talk with old Ben. We’re wondering how he’s doing. Wondering if he might have any concerns to share with us. Like, about fellow Muslims. I’ll get him onto Doctors Without Borders, Aleppo 2015. My guess is he’ll blather heatedly about that, if he’s anything like his brother. If we get inside, it’s strictly a plain-sight. Don’t touch, whatever you do. Don’t, don’t, put on any heat. Nothing about Lindsey, Kenny, or Voss. Nothing about knives, calligraphy, ammunition, or Hector Padilla. I lead. Let him answer my questions. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Taucher gave me a brittle grin. “A short leash for you, Roland. Just like they give me. Now, if Ben won’t cooperate, we’ll be back to fight another day. If he resists, threatens, or makes any kind of aggressive move—I’ll accept your physical help. If this is the guy who killed Kenny Bryce, then I’ll need it. We cuff his butt and call the nearest resident agency, which is less than half a mile from here. We can hold him seventy-two hours as a domestic terror suspect, no Miranda needed. You’ve got a gun back in the truck?”
I nodded.
“Get it.”
My leash was long enough to reach the toolbox bolted into the bed of my truck, from which I took my .45 autoloader, snug in its clip holster. Which I slid between waistband and flank, right side, grip resting in the hollow below my rib cage, snug and easily hidden by my coat. I have a two-shot ankle cannon, too—a four-ten shot-shell over a very hot .357 magnum—prodigiously lethal and made for only the most desperate of straits. I decided against it.
Taucher stood under the thin palms in her black suit, her back to me as she watched the apartment. Square of shoulder, platinum of hair. A businessperson, perhaps. A professional. An undertaker. She struck me as alone in her world, a solitary hunter, though she could have a rich family life, close friends, and strong interests that she had never once mentioned. And why should she? I probably had her all wrong.
We were halfway to unit 24-A when I saw the red “For Rent” sign hanging in the front-porch window. We stopped and for a long silent moment let the defeat sink in.
Caliphornia, I thought: dancing away, a step ahead of us.
As in Bakersfield.
As in last night after the Treasures of Araby?
In this moment it felt like Caliphornia could stay ahead of us for quite a while. I chose not to imagine the carnage that he could deliver with six-thousand-plus rounds of ammunition and a few guns to fire it with.
Who are you?
How can we bring you to us?
What will you fall for?
What do you need?
“So is this bad luck or fate?” asked Joan. “Maybe I should consult Al Ra’ad like Marah and Ben. I bought a Qur’an right after Nine-Eleven. Trying to get a feel for what I was up against. Maybe that was politically incorrect, but I reasoned that religious extremists start with religion. There’s a lot of violence in that book. It’s real us-against-them kind of stuff. I read parts of it. Not the whole thing.”
I thought of the good Muslims I’d run across in my life. From Fallujah to San Diego. “Islam is the hostage,” I said, quoting Hadi Yousef.
“Maybe.”
“Blame the terrorist, not the excuse,” I said.
“I’m trying to. Now this son of a bitch moves out of his apartment on me.”
We stood on the porch. Taucher knocked and rang the doorbell anyway, but the silence inside wouldn’t budge. I looked through a crack in the beat-up plastic blind, saw a sparsely furnished room. Beige carpet. A defeated leather sofa. Fast-food litter.
I tried the door but no luck.
“There’s that optimistic Boy Scout again.”
“I told you I was a Comanche.”
“They were sport rapists and torturers,” said Taucher. “They didn’t even need a religion to blame it on.”
“They did it for homeland security,” I said.
“Like me,” said Taucher. “At work they call me Joan Wayne but they think I don’t know.”
When I turned away from the window I saw that Taucher was dialing a number on her phone. “Yes, hello, this is Joan Taucher and I’m here on the front porch of unit twenty-four-A in the Del Sol Apartments. I want to see it right . . . Yes, well, that’s not good enough. I need a place to rent now . . . Thursday is fine for move-in, but I have to make a deposit today. I need to see it right now. I love
the neighborhood, the palm trees, the lunch truck . . . everything.”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “So how long can it possibly take you to get here and show me this place?”
She looked at me again, then at her watch. “You’re kidding . . . Really? Wonderful! I’m here with my business partner right now. We’ll see you in just a moment.”
Joan swiped off with a flourish, dropped her phone back into her bag. “Joan Wayne speaks, people listen.”
* * *
—
The manager was a middle-aged man named Ernest Robles. That his name meant “oaks” I took as a good sign. He was thick-bodied and gray-eyed and his silver-black hair was brushed back from a ruddy, pleasant face. White shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tucked into pressed jeans, square-toed cowboy boots. We introduced ourselves and shook hands. He gave me a long look—stoic and calm—letting me know that he was not afraid of me. Big men get this often from smaller men. It took me some years to realize it’s a warning wrapped in respect.
He let us into a cool room that smelled faintly of tobacco and lamb.
“The tenant left early this morning,” he said.
Taucher gave me an unhappy look, then moved into the middle of the small living room, hands on her hips in a proprietary stance. “What about the smoke smell?”
“I’m painting on Monday,” said Ernest. “The new carpet comes on Tuesday. And full cleaning Wednesday. It won’t smell.”
“What a relief,” said Joan. “The former tenant was a man, I take it. By the bad housekeeping.”
Ernest nodded, looked for my reaction. “Not the cleanest tenant. Not the worst, either. Not by far.”
Taucher turned to him. “What’s rent?”
“Seventeen hundred a month. Thirty-four hundred moves you in.”
“No wonder the poor stay poor,” said Joan. “How long was the smoker here?”
“Six months.”
“Hard on the carpet, too,” she noted, looking down. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know,” said Ernest. “He told me late last night he was moving out. He was paid up until the end of the month.”
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