by Robert Crais
Pike’s cell phone buzzed. It buzzed so loudly that Terrio stepped away from the Jeep.
“Why don’t you get it, Pike? Might be important.”
Pike didn’t move. The buzzing stopped when the call went to voice mail.
Terrio said, “Get out of here.”
Pike watched him head toward the house. Pike knew Terrio would glance back when he reached Frank’s door, so he got into his Jeep and pulled away. He drove far enough so he couldn’t be seen from Frank’s house, then jogged back through the neighbor’s yard to the calla lily bed, recovered his guns and the things he had taken, and walked away.
14
PIKE DROVE TO THE far side of the park before he pulled over to check his phone. Cole had left a message, asking him to call.
When Cole answered, Pike said, “Me.”
“You wanted to know how a gangster could be connected to the nanny?”
Cole was being dramatic, and continued without waiting for an answer.
“Here’s a hint. Your girl Rina works for the Serbian mob.”
“Ana’s sister.”
“That’s right. Her sister is the connection.”
Pike watched the children in the park. He watched the toddlers run with short, awkward steps, and little ones try to stack blocks, and fail, because their tiny hands were too small to hold the blocks well.
“You’ve been on this less than two hours.”
“Am I not the World’s Greatest Detective?”
Pike glanced at his watch.
“Ninety-two minutes.”
“Karina Markovic, also known as Karen Mark, age twenty-six, arrested twice for prostitution, once for assault, and once for robbery—a john claimed she stole his wallet. Total jail time served is nine days. She was busted in a Serbian sex crib up in the Valley. She’s been in this country for at least eight years, and she’s probably here illegally.”
The San Fernando Valley was the porn capital of the world, and the Russian gangs discovered it as soon as they arrived. The sex trade was an easy moneymaker, but American women were difficult to control, so the Russians brought Russian girls over, and each new wave of East European gang sets followed the pattern—from the Ukrainians to the Armenians to the Serbs.
Pike said, “Does she have warrants?”
“None at this time, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be. Her license plate came back as inactive, which means the plate is not in active registration through the DMV.”
“Her car is stolen.”
“Stolen, or built from stripped parts. The Eastern Bloc gangs are into that—they build them from stolen parts, and ship them home. She might not know it was stolen. She might not even know the plate is no good. But the apartment address you gave me? Definitely not hers. The registered tenant is one Janic-with-a-J Pevich.”
Cole pronounced Janic with a y. Yanni.
“He have a record?”
“Nothing that I found, but the day is young.”
Pike lowered the phone, but did not move. He watched the children playing, and thought that now he understood why Rina Markovic was armed and afraid. The Serbian mob owned her, and someone in the Serbian mob had killed her sister. Pike wondered if this was the fourth man.
Either way, Rina knew who pulled the trigger.
Pike made his way toward Yanni’s apartment, wondering if Rina was there or if she had already moved on. Pike wasn’t worried about it. Even if she had gone, he could make Yanni tell him where to find her.
Pike cruised through the small visitors’ parking lot where Yanni’s truck had been parked before, but now it was gone. He took a space at the end of the lot, and tucked the Python under his belt. He didn’t bother to hide the pry bar.
Pike waited until two joggers passed, then hopped the gate into the residents’ parking lot. Rina Markovic’s car was still in the parking spot for apartment 2205.
Pike left the parking garage like any other resident and made his way along a sidewalk between the buildings. The grounds were large, with eight separate three-story buildings laid out like four “equals” signs end to end in a line. The buildings followed a curve of land between the river channel and a residential street, and were pleasantly shaded with tall gray eucalyptus trees and thick oleanders. Pike searched almost ten minutes before he realized the apartment number wasn’t 2205, but was apartment 205 in building number 2. He found the apartment in the second-to-last building.
It was quiet at the rear buildings, with all the daytime activity around the pool and up front by the mailboxes and parking garages.
Pike climbed a flight of stairs, found 205, and listened at the door. The apartment was silent, so he covered the peephole and knocked. When no one answered, he knocked again, harder, but still heard nothing.
Pike checked the area to make sure no one was watching, then wedged the end of the pry bar into the jamb where the dead bolt was seated. The door had more play than he expected, so Pike pressed harder, and realized the dead bolt wasn’t locked. He gave the pry bar a hard shove, and the jamb gave at the knob lock. Pike stepped inside, then closed the door, having to force it past the splintered jamb.
Pike found himself in a small, simply furnished apartment that was dim because of the pulled curtains. He was in the living room, facing an open kitchen to his right and a bedroom to his left. The kitchen and bedroom were separated by a door that was probably a bathroom. The bedroom door was open, but the bathroom door was closed. The shower was running.
Pike drew the Python as he crossed to the bedroom. He made sure the bedroom was empty, then moved to the kitchen as the shower stopped. Quick glance into the kitchen, then he turned toward the bathroom, waiting, the gun hanging along his leg.
The door opened an inch, then suddenly opened wider with a billow of steamy air. Rina came out with her eyes down, vigorously toweling her hair. She was naked, with very white skin and a fleshy body. In the instant before she realized she was not alone, Pike studied her, seeing that corded pink scars crisscrossed her belly as if she had been clawed. The scars were so deep they puckered, and Pike knew by their faded color they were old.
Then she saw him. She shrieked and lurched sideways, bunching the towel to cover herself.
Pike raised the gun enough to make sure she saw it, but did not point it at her.
“Who killed them?”
She was as still as an ice sculpture. Her white face paled to translucence, her gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes highlighted by points of blue. She stood with the towel, water leaking across her shoulders and down her legs.
Pike said, “Who?”
“Get out of here. I will call the police.”
“Who?”
“You are insane. I will scream.”
She glanced at the door just as Pike heard the knob, and Yanni stepped through carrying what looked like a large gym bag. He was so big he filled the door, and had to tip sideways to enter.
A scowl flickered on the big man’s face even as he dropped the bag and charged. Rina shouted something in the other language, but Pike simply waited as he watched Yanni come.
Yanni came hard and large the way big men do, trusting his size to do everything for him, so Pike knew Yanni had never been properly trained. He came in with his arms up and out, planning to drive Pike into the wall. Pike was so far ahead of the play he saw the steps of what was about to happen as if they were preordained.
He let Yanni reach him, then pushed Yanni’s hand down to hook his arm. Pike dropped under and brought the arm with him, rolling the big man over his hip, and put Yanni flat on his back. Pike hit him on the forehead with the Python. Pike hit him again, harder, and this time the skin split deep and Yanni’s eyes turned glassy.
It took less than two seconds, but when Pike glanced up Rina was already in the bedroom.
He reached her as she turned from the bed with the pistol, caught it, and twisted it away. She didn’t quit easily. She punched at him and tried to claw his eyes as Pike dragged her backward to the living room s
o she could see Yanni. Her elbows cut into him, and she stomped at his feet and made grunting noises while trying to rake his eyes.
Pike said, “Stop.”
Yanni was still down, blinking in confusion at the blood filling his eyes.
“I know you know. The mob owns you. You know who did this.”
She fought even harder, whipping her head from side to side. She was strong. Muscles like rope under the pale skin.
Pike squeezed so tight that something in her cracked. He hammered back the Python.
“I won’t ask you again.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I know. I know who killed them. I know who did this.”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
Pike held her trapped in his arm, the water from her hair soaking into his skin, her chest heaving.
15
PIKE TOLD HER TO wrap herself in the towel, then put her on the couch. She glanced at Yanni, still flat on his back.
“What about him?”
“He’s bleeding.”
“We should do something.”
“After you tell me.”
She didn’t like that, and said something to Yanni in Serbian.
Pike said, “English.”
Yanni rubbed stupidly at his face, smearing the blood on his arm. Pike slipped her pistol into his pocket, then positioned himself so he could see both of them at the same time. If Yanni tried to get up, Pike wanted to know.
Pike said, “Who’s your husband?”
“Michael Darko. You know this name?”
“No. He’s a thief?”
She smirked, as if Pike was an idiot. She was cool and aloof, even naked on the couch with Yanni bleeding on the floor.
“Please. He is a boss of thieves.”
“Okay, the boss. Was he your boss when you were arrested for prostitution?”
A tint of pink colored her cheeks.
“Yes. He bring me here to America. I work for him then.”
“Okay, the boss of thieves is a pimp. This boss sent a crew to Frank’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Did he go with them?”
“Maybe he go, maybe not. I was not there.”
“What did he go there to steal?”
“My baby.”
Her answer hung in the air like a frozen moment, as surprising as if they had gone to steal a nuclear bomb. Pike stared at her, thinking about what she had said, her gaunt face as smooth as porcelain, her eyes as hard as marble.
“Frank and Cindy had your baby?”
“My sister. I give him to my sister when I find out Michael is going to take him. I hide him with her until we can leave.”
Pike tried to get his head around it. Then he remembered seeing the box of Pampers in Ana’s room. He had seen it, but thought nothing of it because it was just another box. There had been no crib, or bassinet, or baby food—just the one box of Pampers.
“A baby.”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Ten months.”
She sat up straighter, pulling her shoulders back and chest out.
“I look good, yes? I do much hard work.”
“Michael and his crew, they’ve invaded six other homes. They’ve killed other people. He have kids in those places, too?”
Her eyes flashed, angry.
“I don’t know nothing about other things. All I know is this. Michael want his child. He take him back to Serbia.”
Terrio hadn’t mentioned a kidnapping. Neither had Chen or anyone else, and then Pike realized why.
“You didn’t tell the police, did you?”
“Of course not. They cannot help me.”
Of course not.
Yanni was waking up. He touched his face, then looked at the blood on his palm as if he wasn’t quite sure what it was. Pike moved the gun toward him.
“This one your boyfriend?”
“No. He want to be, but, no. I hide with him when I hear Michael wants the baby, but then I get scared and I have much to do, so I give the baby to Ana.”
Yanni stirred. A knee came up, then he rolled onto his side, trying to rise.
Pike said, “Tell him to stay down.”
“In English?”
“In whatever he understands. Tell him if he gets up, I’ll shoot him.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
She spoke the language, and Yanni turned toward Pike. Pike showed him the gun. Yanni sighed, then rested his head on the floor. His face was a mess.
Pike said, “I want to be clear. Your husband, this guy Michael Darko, he went to Frank’s house to steal his kid from your sister?”
“Yes.”
There it was. Michael Darko was the fourth man.
“What happened that night, it had nothing to do with Frank. It was all about taking your kid.”
“Michael is going back to Serbia. He wants to raise his son there. Me, he wants to kill.”
“Why?”
“I am nothing. Do you see? A whore he made pregnant. He does not want his son to be the child of a whore.”
“So he murdered your sister and an entire family?”
“My sister was nothing to him. Your friends, nothing. I am nothing, too. He will kill me if he can. He will kill you, too.”
Pike said, “We’ll see.”
He closed his eyes and saw the bodies: Frank, Cindy, Little Frank, Joe. He saw the oily, irregular pools of blood. The Day-Glo green yarn that traced the bullets’ paths.
Collateral damage.
Bystanders in a domestic dispute.
Pike took a slow breath, and felt as if his world had gently shifted. He ran a hand over his head, the short hair stiff and hard. Everything realigned itself into a more comfortable and familiar arrangement, but Frank and his family were still dead. Someone had violated their home. Someone had hurt them. Someone would pay.
Pike considered the woman on the couch, and realized Frank had not been expecting what happened.
“You didn’t warn them. Frank didn’t know this lunatic was after your kid.”
She glanced away for the first time, not quite so cold or aloof.
“No. We lie to them.”
She said it that simply. No, we lie to them. Then she went on.
“We tell them I have emergency. Is just for a few days, and the lady there, she is nice. I was making arrangements for to get to Seattle. A few days, that’s all, then we will go to Seattle. No one know Ana work for these people. How could he find out?”
Collateral damage.
Frank, Cindy, the boys. At least in the desert, Frank had seen the tanks coming.
“Stay on the couch.”
Pike went into the kitchen. He found ice in the freezer, and plastic trash bags under the sink. He cracked a tray of cubes into a trash bag, then dropped it on Yanni.
“Put this on your face. Tell him to put it on his face.”
Yanni said, “I know what you say.”
Pike stepped around him and returned to the woman. He thought about putting his pistol away, but decided to keep it out.
“Is Darko still in Los Angeles?”
“I think yes. It is hard to know.”
Pike wasn’t thrilled by her uncertainty, but at least she seemed willing to cooperate.
“Let’s say he is. If he’s here, where can I find him?”
“I don’t know. If I knew where he was I would have the boy, yes? I would shoot him, and take back the boy.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. He move a lot.”
“How can you not know where your husband lives?”
She closed her eyes. Her hard face softened, but the corners of her mouth seemed bitter.
“He has not been my husband for many months.”
Pike thought about it, then waved the gun at her belly.
“He do that?”
She looked down and opened the towel, not giving a
thought that she was naked. Or maybe she had. Her pale body looked softer now; her belly creased awkwardly at the scars because she was seated. Her breasts were small, but firm. She was a good-looking woman. A little too hard and cold, but maybe that came from the belly. These weren’t surgical scars. Someone had wanted to hurt her, and had likely been trying to kill her. Pike wondered who, and why, and how long ago it had happened. She had been cut deep, and the cuts had hurt. Pike liked it that she wasn’t self-conscious about the scars.
She considered herself before closing the towel.
“No, not Michael. He make me pregnant after the scars. They turned him on.”
“You have a picture of him?”
“No. He does not have his picture taken. He has no pictures.”
“How about a phone?”
“No.”
Pike frowned. Everything was no.
“What if the kid got sick? What if you needed something?”
“These things are paid for. There are other people I tell.”
She shrugged like Pike was an idiot for not knowing the ways of the world.
Pike thought hard, trying to come at it from a different direction. Either she was lying, or she knew almost nothing about him.
“Where would he take the kid?”
“Serbia.”
“Not Serbia. Now. Before he goes to Serbia. He has to keep a ten-month-old baby somewhere. ”
“A woman, I think, but there are many such women. Michael is not going to change the diaper. He is not going to wake all night to feed.”
“Another whore?”
Her eyes flashed, and Pike felt bad for saying it so harshly. He asked again.
“Does he have a girlfriend? Is he living with another woman?”
“I don’t know. I am going to find out.”
Pike studied her. She was going to find out. She was going to take back her child. She.
“It was a mistake not to tell the police. You still can. You should.”
Yanni mumbled something in Serbian, but Rina snapped back, cutting him off.
Pike said, “English.”
“What will they do, deport me? I have been arrested many times. I am not here with the papers.”
“They won’t ask if you’re a citizen. And they won’t care about your record. Your child was kidnapped. The kidnappers murdered five people. Michael’s crew has murdered twelve people, altogether. That’s what the police care about.”