The Forgotten Man

by Robert Crais

  If Cole had come alone, Frederick would have thrown open the door and cut loose with the shotgun. At this range, it would have been easy. But now Frederick hesitated. Taking two of them would be more difficult. He could get one for sure, but two...

  As much as Frederick wanted to kill Cole, he hoped they would get into their cars and leave. If they left, he might still get away in Juanita's old Dodge, just get in that baby and ease down the hill, and head up to Bakersfield. Live to fight another day. Live to hunt down Cole on a better day.

  Frederick heard Payne said, "That's my boy."

  Payne had been a good father.

  Cole and the woman turned away from Frederick's mobile home, and Frederick thought he was home free, but then they started toward Juanita's. Frederick held the shotgun so tightly that his forearms cramped.

  Cole stepped around Juanita's Dodge and came toward the broken door.

  Cole

  The Dodge sedan was silted with a thin layer of undisturbed dust. It probably hadn't been driven in at least a week, but for all I knew it hadn't been driven in years. If Conrad's neighbors used a second vehicle, they probably weren't even home.

  I went up to the door and knocked.

  "Hello?"

  Diaz stood well to the side.

  I knocked again, then turned to see if anyone had come out of the other trailers. I turned back to the door, and knocked again.

  Diaz said, "I'll check the next trailer."

  She moved away, and I knocked again at the door.

  "I'm giving away money."

  Humor.

  Diaz said, "Hey, Cole."

  I glanced over. She pursed her lips, then wet them, and I thought she was sad.

  "I'm sorry."

  I nodded.

  The door's handle was bent and wilted. The entire mobile home looked wilted.

  "Last chance."

  I knocked for the last time.

  Frederick

  A thin edge of light lay across Frederick's face like a scar as he held his breath. He stood to the side of the door, watching Cole and the woman through a break in the drapes. He heard Cole say her name. Diaz?

  Her name rang a bell, but Frederick didn't have time to think about it; she told Cole she was going to check the next trailer, and then she turned away. They were separating, and now he could kill Cole!

  Frederick flicked off the shotgun's safety, then eased forward, reaching for the handle.

  She was walking away as Cole hammered at the door.

  Thank you, Juanita.

  Frederick touched the bent and broken handle with his fingertips, then heard the approaching sirens—

  Cole

  Diaz and I heard the sirens at the same time. I turned away from the mobile home and took eight steps toward my car so that I could better see the street. Exactly eight; then I stopped.

  Diaz said, "Goddamnit—that must be Pardy."

  "I told you he was taking it to O'Loughlin."

  Her face was creased with disgust when she turned back toward me, and I saw the moment when her eyes focused on something behind and beyond me.

  I wish I could have been everything the articles made me out to be, and leaped into action to save us, but true crime and true cops are never that good. I didn't hear anything. I didn't see it coming. The blast kicked me down as if I had been broadsided by a car. I went down, and looked up, and saw Diaz with a perfect clarity as if my eyesight had grown inhumanly sharp. Her hand was under her jacket, reaching for her gun when she suddenly snapped backward against the old Dodge. A cluster of black grapes appeared below her breasts. Diaz staggered, but the vest had saved her and the Dodge held her up. She was still on her feet.

  A man I did not know ran forward from the open door of the trailer. He was heavily built, but he moved quickly. He ran past me with a short black shotgun to his shoulder. Diaz brought up her gun, but the shotgun went off as she fired, and Diaz was knocked away.

  The heavy man staggered sideways, looked down at himself, then looked at me. A red heart grew on his chest. He lifted the shotgun again, but now he wasn't moving so fast.

  He screamed, "You killer!"

  I was flat on my back, but I had my gun by then. I squeezed the trigger, and kept squeezing, pointing the gun up at him. He staggered in a circle as I shot him. I shot him until he fell, and kept shooting into the air up where he had been because I was too scared to do anything else, and never gave a thought where the bullets would hit or whom they might hurt. I kept shooting even after he fell.

  "Diaz?"

  I could see her feet, but she didn't answer me. She had fallen behind the Dodge.

  "Diaz, answer me."

  I tried to get up, but couldn't. I tried to roll over, but my body flared with an outrageous heat that made me scream. I touched myself, and my hand came away gloved in bright red.

  I heard a little girl screaming, and thought it must be Kelly Diaz.

  I said, "It's okay. I'm not your daddy."

  Blood pulsed out over my fingers, and the trailer park dimmed. The last thing I saw was David Reinnike climb to his feet. He raised up from the dead, climbed to his feet, and picked up the shotgun. I tried to raise my gun again, but it was too heavy. I pulled the trigger anyway, but it only made clicking sounds. David Reinnike stood over me, weaving unsteadily from side to side. His red shirt glistened brightly in the pure California sun. He lifted the shotgun, and pointed it at my head. He was crying.

  He said, "You took my father."

  All the world fell, and then I was gone.

  59

  Starkey

  Starkey knew her nightmare was real when she got Biggins on the patch, midway between Van Nuys and Newhall. Biggins had checked out a tag number registered to one Frederick Conrad, a former employee of Payne Keller's, after the substation sheriff reported the vehicle at Keller's home. When the sheriff did not respond to Biggins's return call, Biggins had gone to Keller's home and discovered the body.

  Starkey got directions to Conrad's mobile-home park on the fly, and called in the State Sheriffs herself. She didn't trust Biggins to do it. He seemed too upset.

  Pike said, "Faster."

  "Shut up."

  "Push."

  They came around the curve and screamed into the turnoff, and reached the trailer park first through clouds of dust and spraying gravel that rimed her soul with ice. Starkey had died in a trailer park. She had lost Sugar Boudreaux in a place exactly like this, and the echoes from that explosion now rippled through her, and she thought, Oh God, not again.

  When she saw Cole, she knew he was dead. Dead people have that look. She didn't know what Pike saw. She wasn't thinking about Pike.

  Diaz was down near the front end of an old car. Cole was down, too, halfway between the car and a trailer. A thick squat man was standing over Cole with a shotgun, and looked up at her as if he was peering through the wall of an aquarium. All of them were red. All of them glistened in the brilliant hot sun, and Starkey knew Cole was dead.

  Pike made a sound, a kind of sharp grunt, and after that Starkey wasn't sure what happened. The steering wheel snapped out of her hands; Pike's foot crushed hers into the accelerator; the car surged forward, crushing over low shrubs and rocks and a wrought-iron bench. The squat man raised the shotgun. The windshield burst into lace, and then Pike stomped the brake pedal as he yanked the hand brake, and they were sideways. Pike was out of the car before they stopped sliding, and she heard the booms, two fast booms so close she thought they were one—BOOMBOOM—and the shotgun went up, twirling into the sky as David Reinnike windmilled backwards and fell.

  Pike reached Cole as Starkey fell out of her car.

  "Nine-one-one. Clear the perp and check Diaz."

  Pike never even gave the others a thought, but that seemed right to Starkey, so very very right. Her eyes filled and snot blew from her nose as she radioed emergency services. She stumbled forward to Cole and threw up as Pike worked. The side of Cole's chest was red pulp. It bubbled as Pike pus
hed on his chest.

  "You gotta plug him. We gotta—"

  Starkey, crying and shaking, pulled off her shirt and bundled it and pressed it into Cole's wound. She pressed and held hard.

  Pike was shaking. She would never mention it to him, but she felt him shaking. Pike tipped back Cole's head, then blew hard and deep into Cole's mouth, once, twice, again.

  Starkey said, "Hang on. Hang on."

  She pressed harder on his wound, trying to hold the blood inside.

  "Don't you die."

  Pike blew. He blew deep and hard into Cole's mouth, and kept blowing, and did not look up even as the sirens arrived.

  60

  Elvis Cole's Dream

  Death brought me home. Cool air came through the windows, carrying faraway calliope music and the scent of grilled hot dogs. The hour could not have been more pleasant in that perfect little house.

  My mother called from downstairs.

  "Wake up, you! Don't stay up there all day!"

  My father's mellow voice followed.

  "C'mon, son. We're waiting."

  Our house was small and white, with a tiny front porch and velvety lawns. Lavender hedges snuggled beneath our windows, and a wall of towering cypress, each identical in height and width, trimmed the drive. The cypress stood like immaculate soldiers; protecting us from a light that was bright, but never harsh.

  I rolled out of bed and pulled on some clothes. My room was upstairs, with windows looking out to the street. It was a terrific room, really just the best, but it was a mess—Spider-Man comics, toys, and clothes were scattered all over the floor, my shoulder holster hung from the bedpost, and my pistol was on the dresser. The bullets had fallen out, but I didn't take time to find them. I wouldn't need the gun for breakfast.

  The shirt I wore yesterday was patchy with blood. I didn't want my mother to find it, so I balled it up, shoved it under the bed, and hit the stairs at a sprint. Man, I don't know how my folks stood it; I sounded like a herd of stampeding buffalo—BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! They were saints, those two; really just the best.

  "Elvis!"

  "COMING!"

  We had this family tradition. Every Saturday, my Mom, my Dad, and I had a late breakfast together before starting our day. It was the best. We would share the good things that happened the past week and pick a movie we could see together on Sunday. After that, we would sit around, just being a family and enjoying each other.

  Now, you have to understand, we had never done this before, but that day was the day. Before I died, my room was in a cheap apartment or a mobile home or at my grandpa's, conversations with my mother were always disturbing, and I had never met my father.

  But that day was the day. I was finally going to meet the man, my mother would come to her senses, and we were going to be a real live All-American nuclear family, normal in every way. So, me, all anxious as hell, Mr. Anticipation, I crashed down the stairs, through the house, and skidded into the kitchen.

  Mom was at the sink and Dad had his head in the refrigerator.

  Dad, not looking up, said, "Milk or Schlitz, partner?"

  "Milk."

  "Good choice."

  Mom, her back to me, said, "Did you wash off the blood?"

  "Clean as a whistle."

  "It looks so bad at the table."

  "I know."

  Me, rolling my eyes because that's what normal mid-American kids in normal mid-American towns always do; television said so, and television doesn't lie.

  Neither of them turned.

  My mother stayed at the sink, and my father stayed in the fridge. The kitchen drapes swayed, but their slight movement made the house feel still.

  "Hey, I'm hungry. I thought we were going to eat."

  Water burbled in the sink. Eggs fried in bacon grease on the stove. Outside, boys and girls chased the ice-cream man, and fathers and mothers laughed. Outside, the day was so beautiful you could hear sunlight and taste its joy.

  My perfect house felt hollow.

  "Dad? Daddy, look at me. You have to look at me. I'm supposed to know you! Hey, that's why we're here. That's why I made this place. I took it in the chest to know you1."

  The man in the fridge grew milky and pale, and faded as he stood.

  "Daddy!"

  He stood, but it was too late. I told myself he tried. I told myself he wanted to know me, and would have if he could.

  "Mama, don't let him go!"

  He thinned until he vanished, and then she faded, too. The refrigerator swung open. The door bounced once, and was still. Cool air came through the windows, carrying faraway voices. The hour could not have been more pleasant in that perfect little house.

  It isn't so bad, not knowing who you are. You get to make up whatever you want.

  I walked back through the house. The hall was long. My footsteps echoed. The living room was smaller than you might think, but comfortable with Early American furniture, framed pictures on the mantel, and a grandfather clock. It ticked like a dying heart.

  The voices I heard earlier grew louder, riding in on the breeze. They sounded familiar. I ran back to the kitchen.

  "Mom?"

  The voices came even louder, a man and a woman, all jumbled and mixed, and I got the crazy notion she was bringing him back. I didn't see anyone out the kitchen window, so I ran back to the living room.

  "Is that you? Where are you?"

  Footsteps came from the ceiling; someone was moving. I ran to the stairs, and took the steps three at a time. We could still do it. I could still find them.

  "Where are you?"

  I ran upstairs, following the voices.

  61

  The Intensive Care people weren't big on chairs, though they said visitors were good so long as they didn't stay too long. Because lengthy visits were discouraged, they provided only the one chair. Pike had been at Cole's side since the beginning, and had not left the hospital. He slept in the chair when the others had gone, or stood in the room or the hall. He washed in the lavatory, and Starkey or the guys from his gun shop brought fresh clothes and food. Pike was particular about what he ate. He was a vegetarian.

  Visitors came and went throughout the days and evenings, and Pike felt them move around him with barely a word or nod exchanged. Lou Poitras and his family came by almost every evening. Starkey visited twice a day, usually once for a few minutes during the day shift, then again in the evening. The first time, she stood quietly in the corner, arms tightly crossed, bunched together, eyes red, mumbling, I knew this was going to happen, goddamnit, I knew it. The second time, she came in blowing gin, and sat in the chair with her face in her hands.

  Pike gently pulled her to her feet. He removed his dark glasses, then held her. He smoothed her hair, and made his voice soft.

  "Don't do this. Be stronger than this."

  Starkey told him to fuck himself, but the next time she came she didn't smell of gin. She left every five minutes to cheat a cigarette in the bathroom, and often smelled of Binaca.

  Detective Jeff Pardy showed up on the third night. He eyed Pike like he was embarrassed by the scene he had made in Cole's home, and then he apologized. Pike respected him for the apology, and told him so.

  Pardy said, "Well, listen, I'm going to go. We're having a service for Diaz."

  Pike nodded.

  "If Cole wakes up, tell him we found Reinnike's Accord in a long-term parking lot at LAX. We found Diaz's prints on the seat. It looks like she put it there, but we can't be sure."

  "I'll tell him."

  "We wouldn't have found it if you guys hadn't gotten the tag. That was good work."

  "I'll let him know."

  One of their former clients, a film director named Peter Alan Nelsen, came by late one evening. He came alone, wearing a fishing cap and a high-collared shirt, hoping he wouldn't be recognized. Pike and Nelsen stood in the hall outside Cole's ICU bed for a long time, talking about what happened. Nelsen sat by Cole's side for a while, praying, and didn't leave until much later. The n
ext day, one thousand roses were delivered, so many roses that the floor staff put roses in every room on the floor, and spread them throughout the hospital.

  The following day, another former client arrived, but he did not come alone. Frank Garcia had once been a White Fence gang-banger, but he built a billion-dollar food empire that included salsas, chips, Mexican food products, and his legendary Monsterito tortillas. When Frank's daughter was murdered, Pike and Cole found the killer. Now, Frank arrived with his attorney, Abbot Montoya, a city councilman named Henry Maldenado, and an army of hospital directors in tow. Frank Garcia had built the hospital's children's wing.

  Frank wasn't as strong as he used to be, and latched on to Joe's arm for support.

  "How is he?"

  Pike glanced at the bed.

  Frank made the sign of the cross, then waved angrily toward Montoya.

  "The best. Put him in the same room they put the fucking president. Is this the best these bastards can do? This man avenged Karen. He carries my heart!"

  Pike said, "Frank."

  "The best doctors, the best nurses—take care of it, Abbot. Para siempre."

  Frank stood clutching Pike's arm, weeping like a child as he stared at the bed.

  On the fifth day, Pike was standing beside Cole's bed at one-sixteen that afternoon. Starkey had just left. Earlier, Ellen Lang and Jodi Taylor had dropped by, but at one-sixteen, Pike was the only one.

  Cole appeared to be dreaming. His eyes, though closed, fluttered in REM sleep.

  Pike took his hand.

  Cole's eyes opened, just little slits, squinting at the light.

  Pike said, "Welcome home."

  Cole wet his lips and tried to speak.

  Pike said, "Don't talk."

  Cole went back to sleep. Pike held his friend's hand, and never once moved as he held on, and held, waiting.