The Forgotten Man

by Robert Crais

  21

  Nightmare

  Frederick fought down the shiver of rage that crept up on him. Payne betrayed us, and now he will have to deal with me. He picked up the pay phone outside a 24/7 minimart across the street from the Home Away Suites. A man answered with an irritated voice as if he resented answering the phone.

  "Home Away, Toluca Lake."

  It was difficult to hear with the passing traffic.

  "Uh, I'd like to speak with, uh, a Mr. Payne Keller, please. He's staying with you, uh, but I don't know the room number."

  "I'll see."

  "I don't know which room—"

  "We have no guest by that name."

  "Uh, well—"

  "Can I help with something else?"

  Frederick read the man's impatience, but didn't know what to say.

  "Uh, Payne—"

  "Sorry, we have no guest by that name."

  Frederick put down the phone, then bought a supersize Diet Rite and returned to his truck. Earlier, he had cruised the Home Away parking lot, but had not seen Payne's car. Frederick guessed that Payne had registered under another name, but he didn't know whom to ask for.

  The Home Away Suites sat across from a Mobil station. Frederick pulled up to the pumps. He went into the service bay, and considered the service technician who was changing the oil filter on a Sentra.

  "Hey, you got an old box? I need a little cardboard box about this big."

  Frederick held his hands eight or ten inches apart.

  The technician gave Frederick a discarded air-filter box, and didn't even charge him. Frederick dug around under his seat, fishing out a broken water pump and a work shirt he used to wear before he tore the pocket. The shirt didn't say Mobil or Payne's Car Care, but it was dark blue, grease-stained, and had a nice professional pinstripe. His name was stitched on the right breast: Frederick.

  Frederick put the water pump in the box, changed shirts, then drove back to the motel. He carried the box into the lobby, and smiled at the desk clerk, a young guy with an inflamed rash of pimples on his chin. His name tag read James Kramer.

  Frederick set the box onto the counter with a clump.

  "I'm Frederick from over at the Mobil. I got a rebuilt pump here for the guy with the crosses, I don't remember his name. He said I should let him know."

  Frederick made his eyes vague as he waited to find out whether or not Kramer would recognize the man with the crosses.

  Kramer said, "Did he pay you?"

  "Uh-uh. Not yet."

  "You're screwed. That guy was killed. The cops been all over us."

  Frederick stood motionless, smiling, giving the good ol' Frederick face with the simple, open eyes.

  "What did you say?"

  Kramer made his hand into a gun and clicked his thumb.

  "That was Faustina with the crosses, but that wasn't his real name. He got dropped. It's a big deal, man; we've had cops, CSI, even private detectives."

  A rush of overlapping voices filled Frederick's head. They sounded like the sea at night. Kramer was saying something, but Frederick didn't hear. He didn't know how long Kramer had been talking before he focused again.

  "—here all day yesterday and said they'd be back, but it didn't look anything like that TV show, CSI."

  Frederick said, "Payne is dead?"

  "Who's Payne?"

  "What was the name you called him?"

  "Herbert Faustina, with the crosses. Someone murdered him. The cops asked us to put together a list of everyone who spoke with Faustina or came to see him, so you should talk to them."

  Frederick had trouble controlling his thoughts. He saw himself walking through the lobby with his shotgun. He pictured himself shooting Kramer in the head, then pointing the muzzle up under his chin and blowing his own face off; all of it seen from outside himself, watching it happen until something Kramer was saying brought him back.

  "—the one guy, he was pretending to be a cop, but I recognized him right away. Remember that mercenary thing last fall with all the shootings in Santa Monica? It was him. He comes in here pretending to be a cop like no one would know."

  "He was looking for Payne?"

  "Faustina. He got here even before the cops, and they didn't like it. The one cop, I could tell he was pissed off. He asked as many questions about Cole as he asked about Faustina."

  "What was his name?"

  "Pardy, something like that."

  "Not the policeman—the one he was asking about."

  "That was Cole, as in Elvis. I bet he changed his name from something else. Remember the shootings? He hammered some guys before Halloween last year. Remember?"

  Frederick left the box, and went out to his truck. A low sigh hissed between his teeth. It started deep inside him and made a noise like a soft whistle, but the pressure that drove it didn't lessen. It seemed to build—like he had swallowed the air hose at the station, the one he used to put air in tires, and he was being filled with cold gas. His eyes filled and his chin quivered, and he bawled, sobbing until he hiccuped. He felt alone and frightened, and he wanted Payne here RIGHT NOW so badly his stomach clenched like a fist. He slapped at the steering wheel and the seats, and blubbered and spit, blowing snot and tears; he kicked at the floorboards, and swung hard at the dash, and wrapped his arms over his head, and wailed. After a while, he felt better. He looked down at himself. His shirt was in shreds, and his chest and belly were bleeding. He realized he had torn at himself, but had no memory of it.

  Frederick was scared, but he was angry at the same time. He wondered if the private detective had killed Payne. Private detectives didn't work for free; they were bought and paid to do someone's dirty work. Somehow Cole had identified Payne (probably through that rotten priest) and baited him into Los Angeles.

  Frederick suddenly burned with a panic that Payne had talked before Cole killed him, maybe spouting prayers to Jesus as he begged Cole for mercy, Frederick seeing it as vividly in his head as if it were happening in front of him, Payne finally after all these years popping under their secret weight like a blood orange crushed under a boot—spurt!—squirting seeds and pulp as—

  Frederick's head filled with the strange buzz that left his brain tight and cloudy, like he had swallowed the air hose again. He pressed his fingertips into his eyes as hard as he could. He rolled his knuckles across his temples, then grabbed his ears. He pulled his ears so hard that the pain was blinding, then released; pulled, then released.

  The buzzing faded.

  Cole had obviously been hunting them for years. Somehow he had identified Payne, and made contact, but Payne probably hadn't ratted him out, else Cole would have gone straight to Canyon Camino instead of dicking around here at Payne's motel. Cole had been hired to find them and kill them, and he had killed Payne. Now he was trying to kill Frederick.

  Frederick Conrad couldn't imagine it any other way: They were being executed. They were paying the price Payne always said they would pay. He felt the sudden sharp panic of wanting to blast south out of town, burning rubber off all four tires all the way into Mexico, but—

  Elvis Cole had killed Payne.

  Frederick wondered if Cole had mutilated Payne's body. He imagined Payne screaming in pain as he prayed for forgiveness. Cole probably got paid extra for this kind of stuff. Frederick started crying, and he suddenly saw it happening right there in the truck through the blurry prisms of his tears—Payne was sprawled naked across the seat, his loose, old man's flesh ugly and bleeding as a towering gray shadow ripped away long strips of skin with a pair of pliers. Payne screamed horribly as Cole tore his skin.

  Frederick covered his ears.

  "Stop it. Stop screaming like that."

  Payne and Cole went away, but it took a while for Frederick to calm. He was scared and sickened by what Cole had done to Payne. Frederick wanted to run, but he couldn't leave with an assassin like Cole on his trail. Cole wouldn't stop unless you stopped him. Frederick had to stop Cole right now, and he had to make him PAY F
OR PAYNE.

  Frederick didn't give it another thought. He considered going back into the Home Away Suites to punish that smart-mouth kid, but instead he changed shirts again, then drove back across the street to the 24/7. He used their pay phone to call information.

  "What city?"

  "Los Angeles."

  "Listing?"

  "Elvis Cole."

  "I don't show an individual by that name, but we have the Elvis Cole Detective Agency."

  "That will do."

  Frederick's heart calmed as he copied the information. Having a clear purpose made him happy. So did the thought of avenging Payne's murder.

  22

  The late-afternoon traffic inched out of downtown L.A. Poorly marked one-way streets fed—with all the organization of a nest of snakes—into infrequent (and poorly marked) on-ramps. The feeder streets were stop-motion parking lots, advancing one frame at a time. Pedestrians moved faster; cyclists blew by at warp speed. So much for life in the fast lane.

  I felt an edgy, just-on-the-other-side-of-the-door hope in knowing Faustina's true name, and in having an original address. I was anxious to follow up, even though I knew the odds were slight that they would lead anywhere. But still I thought about it, and maybe that's why I did not see the man approaching. "Dude, hey, what's going on?"

  He was buffed out with muscles, a shaved head, and hot-chrome wraparound sunglasses. He had approached from the rear on my blind side while I simmered in the motionless traffic, just another pedestrian going with the flow before he stepped off the curb. He was smiling, so the people in the surrounding cars would think we were friends. First glance, he appeared to be carrying a paper bag. Then I realized his hand was inside the bag.

  He made sure I clocked the bag, then opened the door with his free hand, and slipped in beside me. The bag pointed at me, down low in his lap so the surrounding motorists couldn't see. He was still smiling.

  "Keep both hands on the wheel, motherfucker."

  They say "motherfucker" when they're tough.

  "It's a four-speed. I gotta shift."

  He glanced at my shifter. His smile wavered, like his whole line about me keeping my hands on the wheel was ruined.

  "So one hand on the shifter, one on the wheel, smart man. You know what's in this motherfucking bag?"

  "Your hand?"

  "A fuckin' atom bomb. You do anything but what I say, it'll pop in your guts."

  "One on the wheel, one on the shifter. I hear you."

  "Look in your mirror. See the white Toyo two back?"

  A young woman in a green Lexus was directly behind us, but I could make out a white Toyota behind her. Two men were in the Toyo.

  "Are they with us?"

  "Brother, they are so with us they got beachfront up your ass. If you even think about fucking with me, they will cook off their caps. You understand the word?"

  I glanced over at him, and wasn't impressed. He acted tough with his shaved head and gym-rat muscles, and maybe he was, but he came across like an actor who won fights without sweating because he lived in a make-believe world where every woman was last year's Miss June.

  I said, "How could I not understand, them having beachfront up my ass? Now that I'm scared, who are you and what do you want?"

  "Golden's computer."

  I glanced in the mirror again. Neither of the men in the Toyo appeared to be Golden, but I couldn't be sure.

  "Do you think I have it with me here in the car? I don't have it."

  "Where is it?"

  "With a friend in Culver City. I gave it to him for safekeeping."

  "Fine. We'll pick it up from your friend."

  "Did Golden send you?"

  "Don't worry about it."

  "Is he in the Toyota?"

  "Let's go see your friend."

  He flicked the atom bomb to remind me it might go off, so I shrugged.

  "Okay. If that's what you want."

  We didn't bother with the freeway; we dropped south out of downtown, and used the surface streets. It was a lot faster. Only an hour and twenty minutes.

  When we reached Culver City, I approached the back of the shop through a residential area and an alley with our escorts close behind. I didn't want them to see where we were going until it was too late.

  "Where are we going?"

  "He has a little business nearby. They're closed now, but he'll still be there with the computer."

  "What's this asshole's name?"

  "Joe."

  "If he makes any trouble, we'll cook his ass."

  "I understand. Hey, you're the man with the gun."

  "Remember it."

  I turned down the alley behind the row of stores where Joe Pike has his business and pulled into the delivery spot directly outside the back door. Joe's gleaming red Jeep was to my left and a highly polished Chevy truck was to the right. The white Toyota pulled up behind us, blocking me in. A small gray peephole stared out at us from the door.

  "Okay," I said. "This is it."

  He glanced at the door. A sign hung above it saying:

  FIREARMS

  ARMED RESPONSE UNNECESSARY

  "What the fuck, a gun store?"

  "Yeah, this is his. He has several businesses."

  I tapped the horn twice, and the man with the bag lurched, jerking the bag up toward me.

  "Fuckin' asshole! What the fuck?"

  "Take it easy. He won't answer the door after business hours. I have to let him know to come to the back. C'mon, you want to get the computer or not?"

  I waited with my hands in place until he waved with the bag for me to get out. I got out my side as he got out his, and then we went to the door. I stood at the door, but he stood to the side so if anyone looked out the peephole they couldn't see him. Pike had made the same positioning move when we went to see Golden.

  I said, "Okay to knock?"

  "Hurry up, fuckin' knock."

  "You've done things like this before?"

  "Knock, asshole."

  He knocked for me. He pounded hard on the door three times with his free hand—BOOMBOOMBOOM—while he kept the bag trained on me with the other. On the third boom, Joe Pike raised up behind him as if he were rising from the earth. Pike pushed the bag straight up in the air while twisting the bag hand to the outside farther than it was ever meant to twist. Then Pike pushed him over and down face-first into the Chevy truck's fender. It sounded like a cantaloupe dropped from the roof. The two men who work at Pike's shop had the clowns from the Toyota proned out on the ground. Both men had black Sig .45s, and both men could clear the LAPD Combat Shooting Range in competition-level times. Both men had.

  I picked up the bag, and showed Pike what I found. A nifty little .38 snub-nose.

  I said, "Golden."

  Pike said, "Uhn."

  Pike peeled his boy off the truck, then turned him toward me. His face was a mess. He was trying to cradle his broken arm, but Pike still had it. I squatted so we could see eye to eye, and now his tough eyes looked scared.

  "What's your name?"

  "Rick."

  "Okay, Rick. These men are professionals. You're just some asshole. You understand the word?"

  He nodded. I think he was trying not to cry.

  "What was supposed to happen after you had the computer? You supposed to call, just bring it over, what?"

  "Call."

  "He's waiting to hear from you?"

  "Yeah."

  "Let him call, Joe."

  We found a silver Samsung in Rick's pocket and let him speed-dial Golden. He got a signal and a ring right away. Everyone gets a signal but me.

  When Golden answered, I took the phone.

  "You cover these guys' health insurance?"

  "Who is this?"

  "Two of these idiots are tied up on the ground, and Rick has a broken arm. I think his nose is broken, too. Do I need to come see you about this?"

  He understood who I was. Silence filled the phone as he thought it through.

 
"You said you'd give back my computer."

  "After the girls cooperate with the police and their stories check out. When I'm satisfied that everyone has been straight, you'll get it back."

  "I'm out of business without the computer."

  "Live with it. Stephen, you could be punished for this. Do you understand that?"

  "I understand."

  "What would Detective Pardy do if he knew you sent these turds to assault me?"

  "They weren't supposed to assault you. They were supposed to get the computer."

  "They didn't get it."

  "I'm losing money without that computer. Look, you want a few bucks? I'll buy it back from you. How much you want?"

  I shut the phone, and shook my head. Amazing.

  Pike said, "What do you want to do?"

  We took their guns, their photographs, and their driver's licenses, and then we let them go. When they were gone, Pike stood with me by my car. The sky was deepening, and I was anxious to go home.

  Pike said, "Let me ask you something."

  I waited.

  "How'd a lightweight like Rick bring it this far?"

  I filled him in on my meeting with Pardy and Diaz, and what I had learned about George Reinnike. Rick had brought it as far as he had because I hadn't been paying attention; I had been thinking about Reinnike.

  Pike didn't say anything. He studied me, and some small part of me was left feeling ashamed.

  23

  Predator

  The information operator gave Frederick the address and phone for the Elvis Cole Detective Agency on Santa Monica Boulevard. Frederick didn't call; he was worried that calling might somehow tip off Cole, so he just drove over. He found a spot on a side street two blocks away, then walked back with his shotgun. He carried the shotgun in its case, walking along with it tucked under his arm like a stubby package. No one seemed to notice. Frederick enjoyed believing that the people who noticed the case dismissed it as a musical instrument, a pool cue, or a fishing rod. People were so predictably stupid.

  Cole's office was located in an older five-story building with Spanish styling. A narrow lobby opened off the street, having stairs and a rickety elevator as access to the upper floors. A directory hung across from the elevator. Cole's office was on the fourth floor. Frederick got into the elevator. When the door closed, he unzipped the end of his gun case. The door opened on the fourth floor. Frederick stepped off, then hesitated. His heart pounded, and his neck prickled. He took a fast step back onto the elevator, but held the door. He wondered whether or not Cole would recognize him. If Cole saw him first, Cole might be able to get the drop on him. Frederick thought it through; he would have to move fast and kill Cole before Cole realized what was happening, but there was a problem—