by Robert Crais
I opened the door, but it wasn’t the pizza. Reed Jasper came in, and Dobcek and Markov pushed in behind him. Dobcek pointed his gun at me, then backhanded me with it two hard times, knocking me into the wall. Clark said, “Ohmigod,” and then Dobcek pointed the gun at him and touched his lips, going, “Sh,” as he pushed us back into the living room.
Markov came in behind him. Markov was pale and shaky and standing hunched to the side with a windbreaker draped over his shoulders to hide the blood. He looked at me with the kind of look that said he wanted to eat me while I was still alive, while the blood still pumped and he could feel it warm and hot in his mouth. I looked from the hungry eyes to Jasper, and I said, “You sonofabitch.”
Jasper shrugged. He was holding his service gun loose along his leg. “Hey, it’s a living.”
Markov smiled when he saw Clark. His tongue raked dry lips. I guess you dry out when you’re bleeding to death. “I’m going to do you myself, you termite.”
Clark turned white and trembled. “Please don’t hurt my children.”
I said, “Pike’s upstairs. He’s got a machine gun.”
Jasper pointed with his gun. “Shut up and sit down.”
Markov slumped heavily on the couch, and Dobcek moved to the stairs.
I stared at Jasper. “How’d you get them out of the park?”
Jasper looked in the salad bowl, nibbled at a piece of cucumber. “It was touch-and-go there for a bit, but I managed. Dressed ’em up in a couple of maintenance uniforms.”
Markov shifted on the couch; you could tell he was hurting. “Don’t say a goddamned word.”
Jasper shrugged. “What’s it matter? He ain’t going anywhere.”
“How long has Markov owned you, Jasper?”
Jasper ate more cucumber.
“That’s why your buddy was killed the night Clark went under. You sold out three years ago, and it got a marshal killed.”
Jasper made a big-deal shrug. “If he hadn’t tried to play hero it wouldn’t’ve been a problem.”
I stared at him, and then I looked at Markov. I was thinking that Pike and Winona should have been back. It was only two blocks to the market, and two blocks back. I was trying to remember if Pike still had his gun. I had left mine in my trunk. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Markov. You might not make it.”
“I’ll make it. I’m gonna kill this bastard first, and then I’ll get fixed up just fine.”
I looked at Markov, and then Jasper. “You going to let him kill these children, too?”
Jasper nodded. “Sure. Why not?” Like it was nothing.
Something thumped upstairs, and Charles said, “Quit shovin’, ya frig!” Charles and Teri came down the stairs with Dobcek behind them. Dobcek was holding Charles by the back of the neck, and Teri looked angry.
Dobcek said, “Where’s the other one?” I didn’t know if he meant Pike or Winona.
Jasper looked irritated. “Who gives a shit? Let’s just do it and get out of here.”
Markov said, “Da.”
When he said it, someone knocked on the door and Dobcek clamped a hand over Charles’s mouth and aimed his gun at Clark. “Sh.”
Jasper went to the door, raising his gun, and Markov pushed to his feet, holding his own gun loosely at his side. Pike and Winona had a key, but maybe Pike had seen Markov and Dobcek coming in. Maybe he’d seen Markov’s blood trail leading to the door. Or maybe it was just the pizza man.
Jasper peered through the peephole, then frowned and stepped away from the door. “I can’t see shit.”
If it was Pike, he would make a move.
If it was Pike, the knocking would have been to focus our attention there while he came in from another place.
I looked at Teri and Charles and Dobcek. Dobcek was breathing hard and staring at the door with the kids in front of him and the muzzle of his gun maybe three centimeters from Charles’s head. I stood. “I’d give up, if I were you. It’s the cops.” I said it in a normal speaking voice.
Dobcek pointed his gun at me. “Shut up.”
Markov waved his gun at Dobcek and hissed, “Make him shut up.”
Something creaked above us, and Dobcek glanced up the stairs, like maybe he’d heard it but wasn’t sure. A drop of sweat worked down from his hairline and along his temple.
I spoke even louder. “What’s that smell, Dobcek? You so scared you messed your pants?”
Dobcek took a single step toward me, but he was still between the kids. I wanted him away from them, and thought maybe I could bait him to me. Of course, he might decide to shoot me instead.
I spoke louder still. “Why don’t you chickenshits just open the door and see who it is?” I took a step toward Markov. “Christ, you want me to do it?”
Markov hissed angrily at Dobcek, “Make him be silent, goddamn you.”
Dobcek surged past Charles and Teri, and put his gun to my head. He clamped his hand over my mouth and kept the gun there and smiled horribly. His face was red, and his snow-blond buzz cut stood sharp and spikelike up from his head. “When this is done I will kill you slow.”
I caught Teri’s eye and snapped a glance at the floor. She grabbed Charles and pushed him down.
Everything in the room was focused on the door when Markov wet his lips and told Jasper, “Open it.”
Jasper threw open the door, but no one was there except Winona’s little troll, hanging over the peephole. It looked angry.
Jasper blinked. “What the hell?”
A shadow flicked at the top of the stairs and Alexei Dobcek must’ve caught the move because I felt him tense a tenth of a second before Joe Pike shot him once through the temple and Dobcek collapsed away from me as the pressure wave and burnt powder residue blew past me like a hot rain.
Jasper jerked at the blast, but I was already moving. I put my shoulder into Markov, twisted the gun out of his hand, then shot Jasper three times, knocking him through the open door and out into the breezeway, shooting until he was over and out and gone.
When I turned back to Markov, Joe Pike was on him. Markov was still on the floor, confused and blinking up at us, profoundly surprised at how fast his life had taken a downward turn. I said, “Close.”
Pike shrugged with an absolute lack of expression. “Not even.”
That Pike is something.
The Hewitts were fine. I said, “Clark, why don’t you make a citizen’s arrest, and we’ll call the police.”
Pike said, “Already called them. They’re on the way.”
Charles ran over to Markov and kicked him. “A-hole!” Pike had to lift Charles away to get him to stop.
The police didn’t get there in time.
Little by little the angry wolf hunger drained from Andrei Markov’s eyes and he was gone. Bled to death before the police arrived.
Pike went out and brought in Winona. He’d put her in his Jeep after he called the cops.
I put my arms around the Hewitt family, and I told them that it was over, and this time it was.
37
The courtyard and the sidewalk by the street filled with police and gawkers, and pretty soon a news crew from the local ABC affiliate showed up.
The cops on the scene got pretty tense about finding three bodies, especially when one of the bodies was identified as a U.S. Marshal. I called Marsha Fields, but she was still in Long Beach. I finally reached Emily Thornton, and after she spoke to the lead cop, he was only too happy to accept my version of events. It pays to have friends in high places. When the pizza arrived, Charles ate some and the cops ate the rest. No one else wanted it.
When the lead detective told Clark that he could go, Clark came over and asked if he could speak with me. He looked embarrassed.
I took him aside, and he said, “What about Dak?”
“Call him tonight and set it up for tomorrow. He’ll probably send a limo, he wants the dong so badly.”
He looked at his children. The three of them were standing in a little group under a pine tree
by the street. He said, “Well, I might be down there a couple of days. I don’t want to just leave them alone.”
I had to smile when he said it. “Call me, Clark. They can stay with me.”
Clark looked uncertain, and then he went back to his family and the four of them walked away. Joe drove them home.
I left not long after, stopping at Gelson’s for a nice salmon steak and a couple of fresh baking potatoes and a six-pack of Budweiser. I would’ve preferred Falstaff, but they didn’t have it. As in all things, you do what you can.
When I got home I set the coals in my Weber, popped the potatoes in the oven, then took a shower while they cooked. After the shower I called Lucy. It was after eight in Baton Rouge by the time I called, and she answered on the second ring. I said, “It’s done.”
She asked me about it, of course, and I told her, speaking for most of a half hour as I watched the coals redden, their heat visibly rising in the cooling evening air. Stuart Greenberg had been good at his word, and now, one day after her meeting with him, he had finalized her deal with David Shapiro, the deal that would bring her to Los Angeles and, I hoped, make her a part of my daily life.
When the coals were ripe for the salmon, I told her so, and promised to send her Sunday’s real estate section. She said, “I love you, Elvis.”
“I love you, too, Lucy.”
Just talking to her made me smile.
I doused the salmon with soy sauce, placed it on the grill, and then the phone rang. I thought it might be Lucy calling back, or Joe, or Clark to tell me when he needed me for the kids, but it wasn’t. A man’s voice said, “You didn’t win anything.”
It was Richard Chenier.
He said, “You think it’s over, but it’s not.”
Then he hung up.
I took a deep breath, then went back to the grill and turned the salmon. It dries quickly if you don’t watch out.
I could have called Lucy, I suppose, but, as before, I did not. Before, it would have felt like tattling; now, to call her would have given him more weight in our lives than either of us wanted him to have.
I drank the Budweiser and ate the salmon, sitting on my deck in the liquid night, listening to the coyotes singing against the stars and the black cutout shapes of the mountain. Late that night I fell asleep there, thinking how very lucky I was that she loved me and no one else.
As Pike said, we could always kill him later.
38
That same night, Clark Hewitt told his children of his cancer, and of his limited time on this earth. He later told me that Teri and Charles had taken it the hardest, but that Winona had borne up the best. I hurt for Teri, but I was glad to hear that she had not denied her pain. I thought of it as progress.
By Tuesday of the following week, Clark had printed one hundred million dong for Nguyen Dak and his fellow revolutionaries. His fee was $250,000 in U.S. currency. He was paid with hundred-dollar bills, none of which were counterfeit. Clark checked each bill to make sure. I guess he’s sensitive to such things.
The federal government requires you to pay taxes on all income, even income derived from illegal activities like counterfeiting, but Clark had no intention of splitting his money with the feds. His children needed it more than the national debt, the welfare state, or the military-industrial complex. I agreed. I called a friend of mine who is a bank manager, and asked for her assistance. Normally, banks are required to report any cash transaction greater than ten thousand dollars, but I had once helped my friend’s husband out of a very bad jam, and now my friend was only too happy to return the favor. She set up a trust account for Clark’s children with me as executor, and together we distributed the money in a variety of conservative equity and bond fund vehicles. No report to the government was filed.
Clark offered to pay me, but I refused.
Clark had less than four months to live, and, after carefully weighing the few options available, decided that his children should attend a resident boarding school. Clark asked if I knew about such places, and I said, “Why don’t you have Teri look into it?”
He did, and, after some initial reluctance, Teri researched boarding schools with the same zeal with which she had researched private investigators. She already had her GED, but there’s more to learn in school than books.
The following Sunday the five of us drove to a place called the Rutgers Boarding Academy in Ojai, California, an hour and a half northwest of Los Angeles. We took their Saturn. Clark sat in the front with me, and Teri, Charles, and Winona sat in the back. Charles said, “Can I drive on the way back?”
Teri said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Teri appeared somber on the way out.
It was a beautiful, clear day, and the ranches and farms we passed were green from the spring rains. The Rutgers Academy was in the foothills, and as we turned through the gate and made the long drive toward a cluster of modern buildings, Clark said, “This is very pretty.”
Winona said, “Yeah.”
Charles said, “Do we get to shoot guns?”
Teri leaned forward between the front seats and stared at the approaching buildings. Maybe she knew more deeply than the others that, if they agreed, this would be her home for the next few years. I said, “Well?”
“They have stables and horses.”
“Uh-huh.” Three girls about Teri’s age were walking roan horses along a bridle path.
“There’s supposed to be tennis courts and a pool.”
“I’m sure they’ll show us.”
The headmaster was a soft-spoken man in his fifties named Adamson. I had phoned ahead, and he was waiting to show us around. He wasn’t waiting alone. An attractive plump woman he introduced as Mrs. Kennedy was with him, along with a couple of sixteen-year-old students, Todd and Kimberly.
We introduced ourselves, and Mrs. Kennedy said, “Why don’t I show Winona the horses? Would you like that, Winona?”
“Yes!”
Kimberly was there to show Charles around, and Todd was there for Teri. Todd said, “I can tell you anything you want to know about this place. I’ve been here since I was ten.” Todd looked like Robert Redford, young.
All three Hewitt children went in different directions, and Mr. Adamson said, “We have a strong peer support program here. They’re in good hands.”
Clark said, “I have a lot of questions.”
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Hewitt. Why don’t you and I go inside and discuss your situation.”
Clark went inside with Adamson, and I did, too, but I didn’t stay long. I had already discussed Clark’s situation with Adamson, as I had discussed fees and contracts. When Teri had first suggested the place I checked it out thoroughly both through the state and on my own. I am not the World’s Greatest Detective for nothing.
The Rutgers Boarding Academy had a fine academic reputation, and was known as a safe and nurturing environment. Adamson had a doctorate in education, was married with three children, and had been elected Colorado Teacher of the Year twice before assuming headmaster duties at Rutgers. His record was impeccable. There had never been a charge of any adverse nature filed against the school, or against any of its teachers or employees.
I left Clark to ask his questions and went out into the courtyard and breathed the clean mountain air. A group of kids were sitting in a circle beneath an oak tree that looked five hundred years old, talking and laughing. Parents walked with other kids around the grounds, going to or coming from cars. They probably thought I was a parent, too. I liked this place, but what I liked didn’t matter a lot. What mattered was whether or not it was right for Teri and Charles and Winona.
I couldn’t see Winona or Charles, but I saw Teri. She and Todd walked out of the stables toward the three girls with the horses. Todd introduced them. The three girls smiled at Teri, and Teri smiled back. They talked for a few minutes, and then the three girls continued on, and Todd and Teri turned toward a group of buildings I figured were classrooms. Todd said something, and Teri la
ughed. Todd laughed, too, and Teri pushed him. Then they both laughed.
They disappeared into the buildings. A little while later they reappeared and joined me at the car. Todd said, “Anything else you want to know?”
Teri told him that she didn’t think so, and thanked him for showing her around.
“Anytime.” When Todd grinned, he flashed deep dimples.
Teri and I stood together by the car, waiting for the others. I said, “How do you like it?”
She chewed at her lip. “It’s okay.”
“That guy’s kinda cute, huh?”
She turned red and adjusted her glasses.
“Will you come visit us?” She was scared. If I was her, I would probably be scared, too.
“You bet I will. As often as you want.”
She chewed the lip some more, and then she slipped her hand into mine. I gave it a squeeze. “You’re going to be okay, Teri. You’re going to be just fine.”
“I know.”
Acknowledgments
The author appreciates the invaluable help of several people: Howard A. Daniel III of the Southeast Asian Treasury regarding foreign currencies and printing techniques; Kregg P.J. Jorgenson for his insights into Seattle, the U.S. Customs Service, and crime in the Pacific Northwest; and Gerald Petievich for opening many doors at the United States Secret Service, and to the agents there who, requesting anonymity, shared their technology and expertise. Any errors contained herein are the author’s sole responsibility.
A novel is a world built by many hands. Thanks to Patricia Crais, Lauren Crais, William Gleason and Andrea Malcolm, Jeffrey Liam Gleason, Carol and Wayne Topping, Aaron Priest, Norman Kurland, Robert Miller, Brian DeFiore, Lisa Kitei, Marcy Goot, Chris Murphy, Kim Dower, Samantha Miller, Jennifer Lang, and, especially, Leslie Wells.
About the Author
Jonathan Exley
Robert Crais is the author of many novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Last Detective, Hostage, and L.A. Requiem.