She had, and I remembered it clearly. But I had mistaken the seeds of vengeance for a son’s grief for his father. As had Marah—at first.
I told her I’d gone to Ben’s apartment on Saturday afternoon, right after talking to her and Alan. Told her that Ben had moved out just hours earlier. “When you gave me that address, did you know he wouldn’t be there?”
“No.”
“Where would he go, Marah?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t answered.”
In silence, I let the seconds drag past. Conscience teasers. Memory prods.
“Help me help Ben, Marah,” I said. “Give me something. Something unusual. Unexpected. A pattern, or something out of pattern. Something he did that surprised you or made you see him differently. Or worried you. Or just made you mad at him.”
She pressed the wet wad of tissue against each eye. Looked out toward the street, shaking her head. “Mad at him? The maddest he ever made me was over, like, sixty-eight dollars. So, I wasn’t that mad, really.”
People remember little things for a reason. “Go on, though.”
“Months after he moved out of my house, I was still getting his mail. The junk mail I threw away and the rest I put in a box for him. One envelope was an overdue bill. It said ‘Urgent’ in red letters. I set it aside and tried to get in touch with him. He didn’t answer my calls, or texts or emails. Whatever. That was Ben. He was only nineteen. I forgot about the bill, found it days later under a stack of my own bills and opened it. Apparently, he’d used his old address—my address—to rent a storage unit. A storage unit for what, I wondered. When he lived with me, he barely had enough possessions to fill his truck. He was always proud that he needed so few material things. Which didn’t prevent his storage rent from getting overdue. Again, I tried to get in touch with him to see what he wanted me to do. No answer. So I got angry. Ben was always nickel-and-diming me and Alan. Letting us cover for his carelessness and immaturity. I called the number and they said the late payment was due the next day before five o’clock, without penalties, and could only be made with cash or check. The woman was rude.”
“But you went.”
“Alan and I went,” said Marah. “I paid what was overdue, and two months in advance, to help Ben. The office was a hot, stinky, run-down trailer with two cat-litter boxes that needed to be emptied. The wall calendar advertised beer and showed a woman wearing almost nothing. I remember standing at the counter and writing the checks and being very angry at Ben for making me do that. Alan was disgusted by everything he saw, and angry at Ben, too.”
I could tell from Marah’s face how ashamed she was for getting angry at her little brother. I remembered how she had first described him: He’s the baby. He’s golden Ben and he’s never hurt a living thing in his life.
Some of the early lunch folks had begun trailing into the patio with their trays and bags. The finch landed back on the table, gave us each in turn his keen attention. Hopped left and hopped right.
“Where was the storage facility?”
“Some confusing part of San Diego. Near the border.”
“What was it called?”
She eyed me skeptically, searching my face for a clue to my pointed interest. Not being a suspicious woman, Marah saw nothing unusual in storing things. Not having seen Hector O. Padilla loading thousands of rounds of ammunition into the back of golden Ben’s truck, Marah couldn’t share my passion for Ben’s storage unit.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.”
“What name did he use to rent it?”
“Ben Adams.”
A foursome took the table nearest ours. One of the men smiled at Marah and she put on a brave face, smiling faintly back.
Then the smile faded and her dark eyes searched my face, as if looking for shelter. “I wish you could have known Ben before Dad died. He was innocent and curious and happy. If what you say about him is true, then he’s gone. That Ben is gone. I should go, too.”
“You’ve done the right thing by helping me,” I said.
“Right for whom?”
“The mother I told you about, for one.”
“The woman who helped kill my father.”
“You may be helping others, too,” I said. “People neither of us know.”
Marah shook her head. Disbelief? Disgust?
“Will you call Alan and explain the situation and let me talk to him?” I asked.
“When?”
“Right now, Marah. We’re running out of time.”
Another searching look. She found her phone and dialed. Speaking softly and urgently, Marah explained what I had told her and what I needed. She asked him to help me, and to help Ben, and any others who might be in danger. She hunched her shoulders and her red-black hair fell forward to hide her face. She went silent for a long while and all I heard was Alan’s faint furious voice and the sharp intakes of Marah’s breath.
She handed me the phone.
“You Got It Storage,” he said. “San Ysidro.”
I thanked him and hung up.
“Let me walk you back,” I said to Marah.
“I would appreciate that.”
We stood and the finch hunkered down on the white plastic tabletop so we wouldn’t notice him. Red-breasted and dark-eyed and feet like pencil marks.
In the lobby I watched Marah disappear around a corner. I returned my guest badge to the guard and trotted across the parking lot for my truck.
37
THE YOU GOT IT office trailer was just how Marah had described it, stinky and run-down. The manager could have been the same rude woman she remembered. The litter boxes still needed cleaning and the beer calendar was now a tequila calendar.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
“Shall I tell the truth or make something up?”
“Make up something fun. The hours drag in here.”
I introduced myself truthfully, holding open my sport coat so she could see private investigator’s license clipped to an inside pocket and the gun attached to my side. She squinted at me. Early sixties and holding fast to her looks—lipstick and makeup, big red hair, a low-cut tank, tight jeans. Said her name was Laney Walska. I’m a sucker for a redhead.
“That license might be made up, but the gun isn’t,” she said. “And I can have the cops here in under three minutes. Last time, it was under two.”
“No need, Laney. The license and the gun are both true. So is what I’m about to say, so please listen carefully.”
I broke it off for her as fast and neat as I could: two beheaded American airmen, another under a death threat, a cache of ammunition, and a Syrian American suspect who was renting one of her units.
“A Middle Eastern terrorist,” she said.
I told her he was American born, a citizen—Benyamin Azmeh—but he rented by the name of Ben Adams. Told her I wanted to see his unit, maybe take some pictures. Then I’d go away and she’d never have to see me again.
“It’s against the contract for me to let you do that,” she said.
“It’s against the law for me to even ask.”
“Are you serious about all this, honey?”
“Every word I said is true.”
She gave me a look that said she’d seen some things. The phone on the counter rang and she ignored it. She blinked twice, quickly. Twisted a strand of her super-sized hair through some fingers.
“You can’t talk that lock off,” she said.
“I’ll find a way.”
“He’ll know.”
“Yes, he will.”
She raised her eyebrows and turned to the steel desk behind her. Sat down in front of a dirty white monitor, one of those bulbous things you can’t even buy anymore. The incoming phone call went to message and one Laney told the caller she was out of the office, please leave a message, whil
e the other Laney began tapping on a smudged white keyboard.
“The bad guys all lie,” she said. “But I can print you a copy of his application if you want.”
“I want.”
* * *
—
Ben Adams’s unit was D-32, an “extra-value” unit. Laney led the way in a golf cart, red hair lofting, and stopped in front of the corrugated steel door. I parked behind her, shut off my engine, and stepped out.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said. “I’ve got what I need to get in.”
“If you’re going in, I’m going in,” she said, climbing from the cart. “Don’t make me change my mind. I want to see what this son of a bitch is hiding, same as you do.”
She opened a large black toolbox on the rear platform of the cart, pulled on a pair of leather gloves. Then hefted out an enormous power cable cutter. A bulky, futuristic white-and-red polymer body, wide black jaws. It looked like something from a Star Wars movie.
“The Milwaukee Force Logic Cable Cutter with ACSR jaws,” she said. It was heavy enough that she needed both hands to carry it to the door. “Seventeen hundred bucks online from ToolBarn. Delivered. I keep it charged. Stand back, please.”
It was a good keyed padlock, available at most hardware and home-improvement stores. I’d seen it advertised as lock-cutter-proof. Laney cut through the shackle with a loud ringing snap, set down the cutter, and twisted off the lock in one gloved hand.
“That’s satisfying,” she said.
While she put her things back into the toolbox, I squatted and lifted the rolling door. Felt the shudder and clank of the jointed panels, the rasp of steel wheels in steel runners. A white curtain lilted out and brushed my face. Made my heart jump. It was too heavy to see through, split down the middle.
I considered, parted it, and stepped inside.
Laney gasped.
It all came at me in a rush, the gun racks bristling with carbines and assault rifles; the handguns dangling on pegs; Hector’s janbiyas from the Treasures of Araby displayed like museum pieces; ammunition canisters stacked in one corner; produce crates overflowing with extra magazines, straps, and holsters; a weirdly humanoid coatrack hung with black sweaters and camouflage shirts and pants, watch caps, and balaclavas.
A large poster of the California state flag hung on one wall, the state misspelled “Caliphornia” and the iconic grizzly bear padding headlessly through his own blood.
Two card tables stood edge-to-edge in the middle of the room, littered with what looked like notebooks and loose sheets of printer paper. Fast-food bags in a trash can. Three folding chairs.
I read the careful handwriting on the cover of one notebook. “SDSU Student Union.”
The penmanship wasn’t Caliphornia’s elegant English/Arabic calligraphy but a beginner’s clumsy approximation of it—Hector, I thought—imitating his friend and mentor.
Laney had hardly moved. She stared at the flag with a sickened expression. I moved past her, turned on the lights, and pulled down the metal door, leaving it up a couple of feet for fresh air. The fluorescent tubes flickered and the curtain settled.
“I signed him up,” she said. “Nice-looking young man, early twenties. A surf-dude type. Never saw him after that. I only work weekdays. I can’t believe this stuff is his.”
“Is his rent check always on time?”
“Late once years ago, but after that never a problem. I’ve had guys try to cook meth in my units. Gassed themselves pretty good. Had two young people breeding pythons. Some others shooting porn. I’ve had more stolen property in and out of here than I even know. But never anything this . . . scary. Can I do anything to help you?”
“Go back to the office if you need to.”
“I’m sticking with the good guy and his gun right now.”
“Don’t touch things,” I said.
“I know the drill.”
* * *
—
I climbed into the back of my truck and opened the steel storage container bolted to the bed, behind the cab. Pulled out the blanket, then moved the CD box and the air compressor and the gallon of water and the long-handled lock cutter that seemed sticklike and primitive compared to Laney’s futuristic contraption. Also moved the pistol box and the shotgun case and the road flares to get to one of my work cameras in its sturdy canvas pack. Slung it over my shoulder, locked the storage box, and hopped down.
Back inside, I put in fresh batteries, stills and video, macro to micro, and plenty of it. The guns were mostly inexpensive AR and M16 knockoffs. Plastic stocks, open sights, and high-capacity magazines. I opened one to see if it had been modified to fire on full automatic. It had. The ammo boxes were either full or nearly full of factory-new rounds. Shot pictures of the California state flag poster, and the coatrack heavy with commando gear, and the tables with the notebooks and papers strewn about.
Letting the camera hang around my neck, I picked up the “SDSU Student Union” notebook.
Page one was a sketched floor plan of the SDSU Student Union, entrances and exits noted, along with the closest parking.
Page two was an action plan, written out in what looked like a fourth-grader’s simple, clear block letters. H was to enter the San Diego State University Student Union, “casually work his way to its center,” and start shooting the students. When the panicking students ran out, C—“dressed in custodial clothing supplyed by H”—would be ready outside the main entrance/exit and cut them down with automatic weapons fire. When they were finished, K would be waiting in the “escape vehicle” in the parking lot nearest the Student Union entrance.
The “peek killing hours” for students in the Student Union were from eleven a.m. to two p.m., Monday through Thursday, as noted in the page margin.
The most effective weapons for H would be handguns, easily concealed in a backpack, and janbiyas for “close killing.” For C, one fully automatic rifle hidden inside a wheeled trash can that “will fit in the car and look natural with C’s custodial uniform purchased at thrift store” would be best. The trash can would, of course, be left behind in the chaos.
Inshallah, written at the bottom.
If God allows.
I set the notebook down with the others. Felt the strangest of brews running through me: adrenaline, rage, revulsion.
Laney joined me at the table. “What’s all this? Looks like homework.”
“Yeah, homework.” I handed her the SDSU Student Union notebook.
Then browsed some of the other material on the tables. Our students of slaughter were also planning a “Clairemont-Mesa Traffic Signal” attack, where they would go car to car at rush hour on the Clairemont-Mesa on-ramp, shooting the motorists trapped in their cars. Three other on-ramps “would work, but offer less casualtys.” All had “functional getaways.” Someone had calculated “kill-to-survival rankings” for each potential target—no suicide missions for these holy warriors. Also a sketch of the Clairemont-Mesa on-ramp to the 163 Freeway, notes on “best traffic hours” written off to one side.
Inshallah again.
Other notebooks with other plans. I scanned through them, reading quickly:
“Oceanside Walmart.”
“Kensington Preschool.”
“Bowling Alley, Escondido.”
All of them, Inshallah.
Some were detailed, others were little more than the name.
Then, what I expected but didn’t want to find: a simple but clear sketch of what looked like a long, rectangular-shaped dining room. Doors and windows, round tables of clumsily drawn diners.
The next page made my pulse pound even harder:
“First Samaritan New Year Harbor Cruise.”
I read quickly. The party on Glorietta always started at six and the ship would leave the dock at seven. The dining boat was slow and would “take a while to get into the deep w
ater.” Earlier that afternoon, Hector would be there with the other volunteers, prepping the food and decorating. He’d stash the gift-wrapped guns and extra magazines in the ship’s hold. “The boat is old and slow and takes until eight o’clock to get into the deeper water of the harbor,” he had written.
The plan was to “be patient” and let Glorietta get far out into the harbor. Caliphornia and Hector would kill the captain and crew first. Then shoot as many innocent people as they could. The people who jumped “will be easy targets in the water.” Some would drown. Kalima would pick up her men in a rented skiff and whisk them back to shore and away.
I folded the pages lengthwise and put them in an inside pocket of my jacket. Then took a handful of the notebooks and threw them across the room. Flipped over both card tables, scattering the deadly plans across the concrete floor. Toppled one of the gun racks and let the rifles clatter down. Swept some of the handguns off their pegs, and the janbiyas, then heaved the produce boxes across the room.
I turned to see Laney push the coatrack over. “Thieves cut in,” she said.
“Trashed the place and took a few guns,” I said, slipping a .40-caliber autoloader into one of my coat pockets, and a nine-millimeter into another.
I locked my loot in the steel container in my truck. Then pulled down the rolling door of the storage unit and watched as Laney worked the lock back on and arranged the neatly severed shackle to appear normal. At a glance, you couldn’t see the cut. All it had to do was fool casual thieves, and to make Caliphornia believe he’d been broken into when the cutter-proof lock came off in his hand.
I called Taucher to order a JTTF stakeout.
* * *
—
Liam Flaherty and I stood in the spacious dining room of Glorietta, where some two hundred and fifty holiday harbor cruisers would begin boarding at six o’clock on New Year’s Eve. For a moment I pictured them, some of San Diego’s finest, dressed in their best, ready to ring in a new year, overbid on auction treasures for a good cause, prepared to eat and drink and be merry.
Swift Vengeance Page 24