“How old was he?” Joan asked.
“Young. Early twenties.”
Taucher held her phone up for Ernest to see. “This him?”
Ernest looked hard at the screen, at me, then Joan. “If you’re cops, just say so.”
“Yes or no?” she pressed.
“I want no trouble.”
“You’ll get trouble if you don’t answer me,” said Taucher. She held the phone closer to him.
I wondered how Joan had gotten so good at handling people so badly. Part of Fed 101? She would happily make sows’ ears out of silk purses all day long, and nobody could stop her. She had what Grandpa Dick called “countercharm.” I wondered, not for the first time, if she even knew it.
“Yes,” said Ernest, cool and offended. “That’s him. But that’s all I can say.”
“It certainly isn’t,” Joan said.
“Are you serious about renting this unit?” he asked. “I have an obligation later today.”
“Business partner,” said Taucher, turning to me. “Maybe you can explain this best.”
I nodded. “Mr. Robles, can I have a word outside with you?”
That look again, telling me he wasn’t afraid. “I don’t want trouble.”
Outside in the cool afternoon sun I told Mr. Robles who we were. And that we were looking for a very dangerous man who may or may not be his former tenant. That got his attention and his interest. He wanted to know if this dangerous man might come back here. “If we could have a look around, and ask you a few questions, it would be a big help. I don’t have to tell you this, but you should know that a woman’s life is at stake.”
He scanned my face with his gray eyes, then looked past me, back into the unit. “I thought you were a couple at first.”
“No,” I said.
“You must be very relieved,” said Robles, with a small smile. “The tenant, his name was Ben Anderson.”
Because he always made up last names, I thought. Always started with A.
“May we look through your apartment?” I asked. “Maybe photograph a few things?”
“Yes. He was an interesting young man. I’ll tell you what I know.”
28
BACK INSIDE, Taucher and I went through the kitchen as Ernest Robles did as promised.
“He was pleasant but said little about himself. He had a soft personality, like a priest. He never smiled. His clothes were always the same—sweat shorts or sweat pants and athletic shoes. Flannel shirt, plaid. Sweatshirts with hoods. A wool cap if it was cold. His hair was long and black but bleached by the sun. Like a surfer, but I never saw a surfboard. He worked during the day, but I don’t know where.”
“What did he drive?” I asked.
“A gray SUV. Toyota or maybe Nissan.”
Taucher shot me another glance. Then looked at Ernest. “Which?”
“Hard to tell apart. But that’s good evidence? The old gray SUV?”
“Yes, good,” I said. “Did Ben have friends or visitors?”
“A woman. Never smiling.”
Joan held out her phone again, close up to Ernest’s face, as if he were visually impaired.
“Yes,” he said.
“Name?”
“I never met her,” said Ernest. “She would come over when he got home from work. And on the weekend. Sometimes I would hear music inside. Mostly it was quiet. When it was warm out and the windows were open I could smell cooking. Lamb. Vegetables being fried. Affectionate voices.”
“What kind of music?” I asked.
Ernest pursed his lips and frowned. “At first, American rock music. But lately, different. Egyptian? Persian? Strings, but not like a guitar. Not American or Mexican.”
“What about men friends?” I asked.
Taucher was snapping pictures with her phone again.
“Sometimes another man,” said Robles. “They seemed like friends or maybe brothers. He was shorter than Ben, who is tall. I don’t remember what he looked like, except his hair was dark.”
My first thought was brother Alan. “Age?”
“Sorry,” said Ernest. “I only saw him coming and going. Maybe twice or three times.”
“Did you see his car?” I asked.
“No. Parking is behind.”
Taucher and I opened the kitchen drawers, the refrigerator and dishwasher, the cupboards, the tall, narrow broom closet. All empty except for a bottle of sparkling water, a half-carton containing two eggs and four shells, and a crisper full of vegetables no longer crisp.
“So,” I said, “no garages with the units?”
“Only a carport. Assigned spaces.”
“Did you ever see Ben bringing cases in or out? Heavy cases?”
“Like beer or wine?”
“Like beer or wine.”
Ernest pursed his lips again and shook his head. “No. Once he brought longer boxes from his SUV into the apartment. Maybe . . . three or four feet long. The next day he drove away with the same boxes. He said they were new blinds for the bathroom and bedroom. But he returned them because he didn’t like them.”
“How many long boxes?” I asked.
“Maybe four.”
Taucher turned from the broom closet. “He’s probably got a storage unit somewhere,” she said.
“I don’t know about any storage unit,” said Ernest.
Taucher gave me a cold glance, then walked past us into the living room. Where we moved the beaten couch away from the wall, pulled the pads off, pushed and pulled them for contraband. Down in the main couch crack we scored a quarter and a penny and a few loose peanuts. We sprung the sleeper, lifted the thin mattress, put it back, and folded the couch shut.
“He danced at night alone,” said Ernest. Waited for our attention, which he got. “I did not spy. I believe in privacy for my tenants. But sometimes when I was walking around in my complex I would see him through the blinds. Just the shape of his body. He appeared to be dancing or writhing. He had rhythm and a sense of purpose, but no pattern that I could see. His arms would be out and he would leap up and squat down. He had his hands raised, with his fingers up and together, like for chopping. Like blades. He was graceful and slow and flexible. He would bend backward as if trying to touch the floor. Then straighten and jump up and land lightly. Legs out, then together, like a ballet dancer. Not a sound from where I stood. I saw him do this several times. It was hard not to watch. It was hypnotic.”
Taucher looked pleasantly stunned.
“Several times,” she said quietly. “Like he was practicing for something?”
“Practice, I don’t know,” said Ernest. “It looked like exercise. Or meditation. Maybe yoga.”
The bedroom was small and square, with only one window. There was a row of colored pushpins along the top, which had apparently held up a cover or curtain of some kind. I could see fabric dangling from one of them, likely from someone ripping it off. Joan produced a pair of surgical gloves from her purse, worked them on, and carefully removed three of the pins. Placed them in a small plastic bag, locked it.
There was a twin mattress and box springs along one wall, no sheets, covers, or pillows. Empty closet, and a flimsy plastic shelving unit inside it, empty, too.
“Didn’t leave much,” said Taucher.
The bathroom was small and messy, white counter smeared with toothpaste, sink half coated with dried soap, whiskers, and shaving cream.
“DNA central,” said Joan. She produced a larger plastic bag from her apparently bottomless purse. Used cotton squares to swab the sink and the tub drain. Pulled a wad of dark hair from the drain screen and wiggled it into a third plastic bag. “To be cool is to be equipped,” she said.
Ernest issued a puzzled smile.
Taucher shot phone pictures of the bath, while I went back to the kitchen and went through the mail o
n the counter. Buried down in the junk mail was a flyer from Free World Hapkido here in Santa Ana, addressed to Ben Anderson. Set it aside. On the bottom of the pile was something I’d seen before and that Taucher had apparently missed—the glossy invitation to the opening of “The Treasures of Araby” in Solana Beach. No postage, no addressee. Hand-delivered by Hector Padilla? Or had Ben Azmeh picked it up himself?
Joan, suddenly beside me. “A shadow-dancing beheader who calls himself Caliphornia, uses a knife, and has six thousand rounds of ammo stashed somewhere? I can’t wait to punch this guy’s ticket. Look what I found.”
She dangled a clear plastic evidence bag before me. I followed the left-and-right pendulum of a toothpaste-sized cylinder with the letters DMSO on it.
“Horse liniment for his Hapkido aches and pains,” said Taucher. “Easily transferred to paper he was writing on.”
As the circumstantial evidence against Ben Azmeh continued to mount, I looked out the dirty kitchen window, past the shaggy-topped palms, still working on my favorite chew stick. We needed a way to get Caliphornia into the open. If Ben was our man, what about his plea for a money-lender in his letter to Marah? Money. Something he needed.
Beyond Joan’s shoulder Ernest’s pleasant face rose like a moon. “I take my wife to Mass on Saturdays,” he said. “It’s time for me to go get ready.”
“Mass? Say a prayer for us,” said Taucher.
“You think Ben Anderson is this dangerous man?”
The silence of confession.
“Then I will pray for you,” he said.
* * *
—
Master Don Kim was a fifth-degree black belt who ran the Free World Hapkido dojo in Santa Ana. He had a warm smile and cool eyes and was about to start his Saturday adult class when Taucher and I walked in. The grown-ups warmed up, gis snapping. Kim was short, burly, and neatly groomed. About my age. He kept his smile and nodded when I asked if he knew Ben Anderson.
“Yes, he’s a very good student. Why?”
Taucher badged him. “Five minutes in back?” she asked.
Smile gone, Kim gave orders to his ranking student, a lean, bearded, middle-aged man with a black belt that had one gold bar on it. Then led us past his students, through a split white curtain with a red-and-blue Hapkido emblem on either wing of it, and to the men’s locker room.
Two rows of lockers and benches, three shower stalls, one wall draped with training gear hung from pegs: padded gloves and vests, fighting sticks and swords, extra helmets, dummy handguns, nunchuks, bats and clubs, throwing stars, throwing knives.
“Tell us about Ben Anderson,” said Taucher.
Master Kim was soft-spoken and chose his words carefully. He smiled often, but his eyes were humorless. He said Ben was an excellent student, a second-degree black belt. Ben had trained at other studios over several years, said Kim. He had been coming to Free World Hapkido for only approximately one year. Ben was good with the younger students. He occasionally taught them, working off his own costs. Ben did not engage socially with his peers at the dojo. Very polite. Master Kim said that Ben talked sometimes about surfing and rock climbing and photography and art. Kim didn’t know what Ben did for work, but twice Ben had asked if he could be late with his monthly payment but still attend. Kim had agreed both times because Ben was dependable. Ben did very well in competitions. He was tall and strong, which made him powerful yet vulnerable. He generally attended the weekday five o’clock open sessions for red belts and up.
“He was not here this last week,” said Kim.
“Is it unusual for him to miss?” asked Taucher.
“Very unusual. He almost always tell me when he would miss. But not this week.”
“Did he talk much about religion, politics, world events?” asked Joan.
Kim shook his head thoughtfully. “No. He like sports. Boxing and baseball and tennis.”
I nodded toward the equipment wall. “Is Ben proficient against weapons?” I asked.
“More than proficient,” said Master Kim. “He is excellent with the knife. Defending against the knife is what I mean.”
“Do you teach knife combat?” I asked.
Kim held me with his steady gaze. “Only for students who request it.”
“Has Ben requested it?” asked Taucher.
“Ben teaches it,” said Kim. “He is better than me. I do not like knives.”
Taucher gave me a quick look that Kim did not miss.
“I have students to teach,” he said. “What has Ben done?”
“This is just a routine background check,” said Taucher. “He’s applied for a federal job. Don’t say anything to him—we don’t want him to get his hopes up.”
“You should hire him,” said Master Kim. “He is a good student and a strong young man, and he will be able to pay me on time.”
Master Kim smiled. We thanked him and he held open the curtain, then walked us to the dojo door.
29
THE TRAFFIC WAS HEAVY back to San Diego. Holiday shoppers and travelers, a pileup in Tustin. Interstate 5 took us down through Camp Pendleton, my days as a Marine tackling me with their usual blunt force. Out the window I saw the “Afghan village” set up on the bluff overlooking the Pacific, tan “mud” huts with my young combat-clad brothers going door-to-door. Helicopters hovering. A simulated fight for life. I knew that every man and woman out there was eager for the real thing. Their chance to fight. I’d been. Couldn’t wait to get out there and do what I’d been taught. Lots of training. Weeks and months. Still wasn’t expecting that clenched gut or those cold rattling knees that carried me into my first action.
When I came back from Fallujah in 2004 I knew that someday soon Saddam Hussein would hang, and the new Iraq would flourish, and the Middle East would retreat from war. I knew that no more of my friends would die or be mutilated in that blistering desert. Then the ancient hatreds took over. The sudden chaos. And from its flames rose men far more primitive, resourceful, and bloodthirsty than any I’d dreamed of in nightmares. To found their state. State of fear. State of terror. State of death.
“Do you remember every minute of it, Roland? Fallujah?”
“I used to. I let it go.”
“But look at all those young Americans who can’t,” she said, looking at the magnificent new Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Hospital, towering mirror-bright in the east. “Look at that, Roland. What we bring them home to. Our children. I wouldn’t trade one American finger for the whole country of Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or any other place.”
“I didn’t know you were a peacenik, Joan.”
“I’d nuke ’em before I sent one more American over there. I really would. You probably don’t have the stomach for that, do you, Roland?”
“Not at the moment.”
Just the hum of the air conditioner as we passed the hospital and the traffic broke up and we headed south for the city.
“I respect that,” she said. “Your non-bloodiness. You seem to have a good heart.”
From the periphery I saw her look my way, dark aviator lenses on a white face.
“Although,” she said. “There is the psychologist you blew out of the sky last year, who burned like a match in your front yard. And it’s safe to say you spilled blood in Fallujah.”
“Guilty twice, Your Honor.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Only you can judge yourself. None of Joan Wayne’s goddamned business, that’s for sure.”
The sun got lower and the shadows longer. We sped past North County streets with pretty names: Vista Way, Las Flores, Tamarack, Poinsettia. Taucher’s silence was like Justine’s used to be—hyperactive and eager to break itself.
“I think Ben Azmeh is Caliphornia,” she said. “Beyond the circumstantial evidence, he feels right and he’s acting right. Conflicted upbringing—born Arab in America. Bright kid, but always reminded he’
s different. Chip on shoulder gets heavier and heavier. Worships father, father the strong, father the good. Father slaughtered by infidels. Loner on a faith quest. He’s physical enough to do what Caliphornia has done, too. Strong and balanced and fast. He likes the risky stuff—rock climbing and martial arts. Likes knives, for the holy sake of Christ. He’s got motive, means, and opportunity. But . . .”
She checked her phone, dropped it back into her jacket pocket and looked out the passenger window. “But I still do not have proof. If I take this hunch to my superiors, what will happen, Roland, is this. First, we apply to FISA for a warrant to track Ben Azmeh’s cell phone. Probably granted, possibly not. But if Ben resorts to burners, we won’t get far with a phone tap. Whatever FISA decides, we’ll have a long, drawn-out huddle about how we proceed. Lots to consider. Many moving parts. For instance, what the lab comes up with on all that evidence from the apartment. Take him down or watch him? A week of twenty-four/seven surveillance takes twelve agents and thousands of dollars, and if you think we’re not on a budget, you’re wrong.
“I love football. It broke my heart when the Chargers jilted me and the rest of my city. So let me put this in football terms. Once San Diego FBI has finally agreed on an action, we run the ball off tackle, up to Los Angeles Division for approval. More layers. There’s not only the special agent in charge but an assistant director in charge. Possible fumbles everywhere you look. But say we’re lucky. They like the plan. That means we throw a long bomb all the way to Washington. Where the ball bounces fingertip to fingertip and ends up in the hands of our beloved director, who must eventually lateral to the DOJ so the whole fed bureaucracy can legally CYA before flipping the ball to the White House. Hoping somebody’s home. In the end? Everyone is professional, meticulous, thorough, and slow as a tortoise tied to a tree. So the clock will run out on us. Caliphornia will kill Lindsey and Voss and use his guns and ammo on innocent people. I feel it. I know it. Son of a goddamned bitch, I know it, Roland.”
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