by Robert Crais
Frank opened his mouth, but only a hiss escaped. Cindy and Joey screamed, and Frank fought to rise with the fierce will of the warrior he had been, but will was not enough.
The man with the accent said, “I hear someone. In the back.”
A shadow moved past, but Frank couldn’t see.
The leader appeared overhead, cradling his broken arm. Huge shimmering tears dripped from his eyes and fell in slow motion like rain from his braids.
He said, “I’m gonna get me that money.”
He turned away toward Cindy.
Frank’s world grew dark, and all he had left were feelings of failure and shame. He knew he was dying, exactly the way he had always thought he would die, only not here, and not now. All of that should have been behind him.
He tried to reach for his wife, but could not.
He wanted to touch her, but could not.
He wanted to protect her, but had not.
His index finger was the only part of him that moved.
Twitching as if with a life of its own.
His trigger finger.
Pulling at empty air.
OUTSIDE, with its shades drawn, the Meyer house appeared peaceful. Heavy walls muffled most of the sounds within, and traffic noise from nearby Wilshire Boulevard was loud enough to mask the rest. Those screams which could be heard might have been from a home theater, a nice Surround Sound system.
Cars passed, some leaving home to go out for the evening, others returning home after a long day at the office.
The dull thump of a gunshot within the house was muted and unnatural. A Lexus sedan passed, but with its windows up and an iPod playlist rocking the exquisitely engineered vehicle, the driver heard nothing. She did not slow.
Another thump pounded within the house a few moments later, accompanied by a flash like distant lightning behind the shades.
More flashes followed.
Then more.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
—ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY, 1900-1944, Free French warrior and aviator who also typed
Part One
Professionals
1
AT TEN FOURTEEN THE following MORNING, approximately fifteen hours after the murders, helicopters were dark stars over the Meyer house when LAPD Detective-Sergeant Jack Terrio threaded his way through the tangle of marked and unmarked police vehicles, SID wagons, and vans from the Medical Examiner’s office. He phoned his task force partner, Louis Deets, as he approached the house. Deets had been at the scene for an hour.
“I’m here.”
“Meet you at the front door. You gotta see this.”
“Hang on—any word on the wit?”
A slim possibility existed for a witness—an Anglo female had been found alive by the first responders and identified as the Meyers’ nanny.
Deets said, “Not so hot. They brought her over to the Medical Center, but she’s circling the drain. In the face, Jackie. One in the face, one in the chest.”
“Hold a good thought. We need a break.”
“Maybe we got one. You gotta see.”
Terrio snapped his phone closed, annoyed with Deets and with the dead-end case. A home invasion crew had been hitting upscale homes in West L.A. and the Encino hills for the past three months, and this was likely their seventh score. All of the robberies had taken place between the dinner hour and eleven P.M. Two of the homes had been unoccupied at the time of entry, but, as with the Meyer home, the other four homes had been occupied. A litter of nine-millimeter cartridge casings and bodies had been left behind, but nothing else—no prints, DNA, video, or witnesses. Until now, and she was going to die.
When Terrio reached the plastic screen that had been erected to block the front door from prying cameras, he waited for Deets. Across the street, he recognized two squats from the Chief’s office, huddled up with a woman who looked like a Fed. The squats saw him looking, and turned away.
Terrio thought, “Crap. Now what?”
She was maybe five six, and sturdy with that gymed-out carriage Feds have when they’re trying to move up the food chain to Washington. Navy blazer over outlet-store jeans. Wraparound shades. A little slit mouth that probably hadn’t smiled in a month.
Deets came up behind him.
“You gotta see this.”
Terrio nodded toward the woman.
“Who’s that with the squats?”
Deets squinted at the woman, then shook his head.
“I’ve been inside. It’s a mess in there, man, but you gotta see. C’mon, put on your booties—”
They were required to wear paper booties at the scene so as not to contaminate the evidence.
Deets ducked behind the screen without waiting, so Terrio hurried to catch up, steeling himself for what he was about to see. Even after eighteen years on the job and hundreds of murder cases, the sight of blood and rent human flesh left him queasy. Embarrassed by what he considered a lack of professionalism, Terrio stared at Deets’s back as he followed him past the criminalists and West L.A. Homicide detectives who currently filled the house, not wanting to see the blood or the gore until absolutely necessary.
They reached a large, open dining area where a coroner investigator was photographing the crumpled form of an adult white male.
Deets said, “Okay we touch the body?”
“Sure. I’m good.”
“Can I have one of those wet-wipes?”
The CI gave Deets a wet-wipe, then stepped to the side, giving them room.
The male victim’s shirt had been cut away so the CI could work on the body. Deets pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then glanced at Terrio. The body was lying in an irregular pool of blood almost six feet across.
“Be careful of the blood.”
“I can see fine from here. I’m not stepping in that mess.”
Deets lifted the man’s arm, cleaned a smear of blood off the shoulder with the wet-wipe, then held the arm for Terrio to see.
“What do you think? Look familiar?”
Lividity had mottled the skin with purple and black bruising, but Terrio could still make out the tattoo. He felt a low dread of recognition.
“I’ve seen this before.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
“Does he have one on the other arm, too?”
“One on each side. Matching.”
Deets lowered the arm, then stepped away from the body. He peeled off the latex gloves.
“Only one guy I know of has tats like this. He used to be a cop here. LAPD.”
A blocky, bright red arrow had been inked onto the outside of Frank Meyer’s shoulder. It pointed forward.
Terrio’s head was racing.
“This is good, Lou. This gives us a direction. We just gotta figure out what to do about him.”
The woman’s voice cut through behind them.
“About who?”
Terrio turned, and there she was, the woman and the two squats. Wraparounds hiding her eyes. Mouth so tight she looked like she had steel teeth.
The woman stepped forward, and didn’t seem to care if she stepped in the blood or not.
“I asked a question, Sergeant. Do about who?”
Terrio glanced at the arrow again, then gave her the answer.
“Joe Pike.”
2
FIRST TIME JOE PIKE saw the tattooed woman, she was struggling up the eastern ridge of Runyon Canyon, Pike running down, both of them blowing steam in the chill before dawn. The eastern trail was steep; a series of slopes and terraces that stepped from the apartment-lined neighborhoods at the base of the canyon to Mulholland Drive at the top of the Hollywood Hills. Seeing her in the murky light that first morning, the young woman appeared to be wearing tights, but as she drew closer, Pike realized her legs were sleeved with elaborate tattoos. More ink decorated her arms, and metal studs lined her ears, nose, and lips. Pike had only two tattoos. A red arrow on the outside of each deltoid, both pointing forwa
rd.
Pike saw her two or three times each week after that, sometimes in the early-morning dark, other times later, when the sun was bright and the park was crowded. They had never exchanged more than a word or two.
The day Pike learned about Frank and Cindy Meyer, he and the tattooed woman left the park together, jogging easily past the small homes north of Hollywood Boulevard with their whispers of faded dreams. They had not run together, but she had been at the bottom when he finished, and fell in beside him. Pike wondered if she had planned it that way, and was thinking about it when he saw the first man.
The first man waited beneath a jacaranda tree on the opposite side of the street, jeans, sunglasses, knit shirt tight at the shoulders. He openly stared as Pike passed, then fell in behind at a casual jog, three or four car lengths back.
The second man was leaning against a car with his arms crossed. He watched Pike and the woman pass, then he, too, fell in behind. Pike knew they were plainclothes police officers, so he decided to give himself room. He grunted a good-bye, and picked up his pace.
The woman said, “See you next time.”
As Pike drifted to the center of the street, a blue sedan pulled out from a cross street two blocks behind. One block ahead, a tan sedan pulled from the curb, boxing him in. Two men were in the front seat of the tan car, with a woman in back on the passenger side. Pike saw her turn to see him. Short brown hair. Wraparound sunglasses. Frown. The man in the passenger seat dangled a badge out the open window, letting Pike see.
Pike eased to a stop. The sedans and trailing officers stopped when Pike stopped, everyone keeping their distance.
The tattooed woman realized something was happening, and nervously danced on her toes.
“Dude, what is this?”
“Keep going.”
She didn’t keep going. She edged toward the nearest house, clearly frightened as she glanced from car to car.
“I don’t like this. You want me to get help?”
“They’re police. They just want to talk to me.”
If they wanted to arrest him, they wouldn’t have approached in the middle of a residential street. If they wanted to kill him, they would have already tried.
The man with the badge got out of the lead car. He was balding, with a thin mustache that was too dark for the rest of his hair. His driver got out, too, a younger man with bright eyes. The woman remained in the car, twisted around to watch. She was on her cell phone. Pike wondered what she was saying.
The man with the badge said, “Jack Terrio, LAPD. This is Lou Deets. Okay if we come over there?”
They knew who he was, and so did the officers who had established a perimeter behind the two sedans. They had blocked the street and were rerouting traffic onto the cross streets.
“Sure.”
Pike unshouldered his rucksack. He ran with a weighted ruck, and also wore a fanny pack, a sleeveless gray sweatshirt, New Balance running shoes, blue shorts, and government-issue sunglasses. The sweatshirt was dark with sweat.
When Terrio and Deets reached him, Deets stood to the side.
“That’s some nice ink you have there, Pike, the red arrows. Don’t see many like that, do we, boss?”
Terrio ignored him.
“You armed?”
“Gun’s in the fanny pack. With the license.”
Deets toed the ruck.
“What’s in there, a rocket launcher?”
“Flour.”
“No shit. You gonna bake me a cake?”
Deets fingered open the ruck, then frowned.
“He’s got four ten-pound bags of flour in here.”
“That’s what he told you, didn’t he? C’mon, let’s stay on topic.”
Terrio put away his badge.
“Don’t touch the fanny pack, okay?”
Pike nodded.
“You know a man name of Frank Meyer?”
A chill spread through Pike’s belly. He had not seen Frank Meyer in years, though he frequently thought about him, and now his name hung in the mid-morning air like a frosty ghost. Pike glanced at their car. The woman was still watching, and still on the phone, as if she were reporting his reaction.
“What happened?”
Deets said, “Have you seen him in the past week or so?”
“Not in a long time. Ten years, maybe.”
“What if I told you I have a witness who claims you were with Meyer recently?”
Pike studied Deets for a moment, and read he was lying. Pike turned back to Terrio.
“You want to play games, I’ll keep running.”
“No games. Meyer and his family were murdered in their home two nights ago. The boys and the wife were executed. A woman we’ve identified as their nanny survived, but she’s in a coma.”
No part of Joe Pike moved except for the rise and fall of his chest until he glanced at the tattooed woman. An older woman in a dingy robe had come out of her house, and the two of them were watching from the door.
Deets said, “That your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know who she is.”
Pike faced Terrio again.
“I didn’t kill them.”
“Don’t think you did. We believe a professional home invasion crew killed them. We believe that same crew has hit six other homes in the past three months, murdering a total of eleven people.”
Pike knew where they were going.
“You don’t have any suspects.”
“Nothing. No prints, pix, or witnesses. We don’t have any idea who’s doing this, so we started looking at the victims.”
Deets said, “And guess what, Pike? Turns out we found something the first six have in common. Three were drug traffickers, one was a pornogra pher who laundered money for the Israeli mob, and two were jewelry merchants who fenced stolen goods. The first six were as dirty as yesterday’s socks, so now we’re seeing what’s up with Meyer.”
“Frank wasn’t a criminal.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Frank had an import business. He sold clothes.”
Terrio fingered a photograph from his jacket. The picture showed Frank, Pike, and a chemical-company executive named Delroy Spence in the El Salvadoran jungle. The air had smelled of rotten fish and burning oil when the picture was taken. The temperature had been one hundred twelve degrees. Spence was dirty, lice-ridden, and wearing the remains of a tattered blue business suit. Meyer and Pike were wearing T-shirts, faded utility pants, and M4 rifles slung on their arms. Meyer and Spence were both smiling, though they were smiling for different reasons. Spence was smiling because Pike, Meyer, and a man named Lonny Tang had just rescued him after two months of captivity at the hands of a band of narco terrorists. Meyer was smiling because he had just cracked a joke about retiring to get married. Meyer looked like he was fourteen years old.
“What does this have to do with now?”
“You and Meyer were mercenaries.”
“So?”
Terrio studied the picture. He flexed it back and forth.
“He’s all over the world in shitholes like this, hanging out with the wrong kind of people. Maybe he started importing more than clothes.”
“Not Frank.”
“No? None of his friends or neighbors knew what he used to do. Not one of the people we interviewed. This little picture is the only thing from those days we found in his house. Why do you think that is?”
“Cindy didn’t approve.”
“Whether she approved or not, the man kept secrets. Maybe he wasn’t the man you thought.”
“I can’t help you.”
Terrio slipped the picture into his pocket.
“This home invasion crew doesn’t pick homes at random. They don’t drive around, and say, hey, that one looks good. Sooner or later, we’re going to learn Meyer had something they wanted—dope, cash, maybe the ayatol lah’s secret jewels.”
“Frank sold clothes.”
Terrio glanced at Deets, then returned to the tan sedan withou
t another word. Deets didn’t follow.
Deets said, “So you haven’t seen this guy in ten years?”
“No.”
“Why is that? You have a falling-out?”
Pike thought how best to answer, but most of it wasn’t their business.
“Like I said, his wife.”
“But it was your picture he kept. And your tattoos. What’s up with that, Pike? Some kind of unit thing?”
Pike didn’t understand.
“The arrows?”
“Yeah, here and here, like you.”
On the day Frank’s contract expired and he left the contract service for good, Frank Meyer had no tattoos.
Pike said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Deets made a stiff smile, then lowered his voice.
“I never met someone who’s killed as many people as you, still walking free.”
Pike watched Deets walk away. Terrio was already in the car. Deets walked around to the far side, and got in behind the wheel. The woman in the backseat was talking to Terrio. They drove away. The plainclothes officers followed. The neighborhood returned to normal.
Everything was normal except Frank Meyer was dead.
The tattooed woman trotted up, excited and anxious.
“Dude, that was crazy. What did they want?”
“A friend of mine was murdered.”
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. That’s awful. They think you did it?”
“Nothing like that.”
She made a ragged laugh, nervous at the edges.
“Dude, listen, they do. I’m tellin’ you, man, those cats were scared of you.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m not.”
The tattooed woman punched him in the arm. It was the first time she had touched him. Pike studied her for a moment, then shouldered his ruck.