by Robert Crais
Starkey held up her badge before she got out.
“Hey, guys, everything okay?”
They were a male/female team, the male officer a skinny guy behind the wheel, the female short and chunky with mannish blonde hair. They were sipping minimart coffee that probably hadn’t been hot for hours.
The female officer nodded.
“Yeah. We’re good, Detective. You need something?”
“I’ve got the case. I’m gonna be walking around.”
The female officer raised her eyebrows.
“We heard a bomb guy got creamed. That so?”
“Yeah.”
“Bummer.”
The male officer leaned past his partner.
“If you’re gonna be here a few, you mind if we Code Seven? There’s an In-’n-Out Burger a couple blocks over. We could bring you something.”
His partner winked at Starkey.
“Weak bladder.”
Starkey shrugged, secretly pleased to be rid of them.
“Take twenty, but you don’t have to bring me anything. I won’t be out of here before then.”
As the radio car pulled away, Starkey clipped her pistol to her right hip, then crossed Sunset to look for the address that the Emergency Services manager had provided. She brought her Maglite, but didn’t turn it on. The area was bright from surrounding security lights.
A pay phone was hanging on the side of a Guatemalan market directly across from the mall, but when Starkey compared it to the address, they didn’t match. From the Guatemalan market, she could look back across Sunset at the Dumpster. She figured out which way the numbers ran and followed them to find the pay phone. It was housed in one of the old glass booths that Pac Bell was discontinuing, one block east on the side of a laundry, across the street from a flower shop.
Starkey copied the name of the laundry and flower shop into her notebook, then walked back to the first phone and checked to see if it worked. It did. She wondered why the person who called 911 hadn’t done so from here. The Dumpster was in clear view, but wasn’t from the other phone. Starkey thought that the caller might’ve been worried that whoever set the bomb could see them, but she decided not to worry about it until she heard the tape.
Starkey was walking back across Sunset when she saw a piece of bent metal in the street. It was about an inch long and twisted like a piece of bow tie pasta, one side rimed with gray residue. She had picked up nine similar pieces of metal the night before.
She brought it to her car, bagged it in one of the spare evidence bags she kept in the trunk, then walked around the side of the building to the Dumpster. Starkey guessed that the bomb hadn’t been placed to damage the building, but wondered why it had been set beside the Dumpster. She knew that satisfying reasons for questions like this often couldn’t be found. Twice during her time with the Bomb Squad, she had rolled out on devices left on the side of the freeway, far away from overpasses or exits or anything else they might harm. It was as if the assholes who built these things didn’t know what else to do with them, so they just dropped them off on the side of the road.
Starkey walked the scene for another ten minutes and found one more small bit of metal. She was bagging it when the radio car returned to the lot, and the female officer got out with two cups.
“I know you said you didn’t want anything, but we brought a coffee in case you changed your mind.”
“That was nice. Thanks.”
The female officer wanted to chat, but Starkey closed the trunk and told her she needed to get into the office. When the officer went back to her unit, Starkey walked around the far side of her own car and poured out the coffee. She was heading back to the driver’s side when she decided to look over the civilian cars again.
Two of the cars had been pinged by bomb frag, the nearest of which had lost its rear window and suffered substantial damage. Parked closest to the blast, it belonged to the man who owned the bookshop. When the police let him back into the area, he had stared at his car, then kicked it and walked away without another word.
The third car, the one farthest away, was a ’68 Impala with bad paint and peeling vinyl top. The side windows were down and the rear window had been replaced by cloudy plastic that was brittle with sun damage. She looked beneath it first, found nothing, and was walking around the front of the car when she saw a starburst crack on the windshield. She flashed the Maglite inside and saw a round piece of metal on the dash. It looked like a disk with a single fine wire protruding. Starkey glanced toward the Dumpster and saw it was possible that a piece of frag had come through the open windows to crack the windshield. She fished it out, examined it more closely with no idea what it might be, then dropped it into her pocket.
Starkey climbed back into her car without looking at the uniformed officers, then headed downtown to pick up the audiotape before reporting to her office. The sun was rising in the east, filling the sky with a great red fireball.
Mr. Red
John Michael Fowles leaned back on the bench across from the school, enjoying the sun and wondering if he had made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Not an easy thing to do when they didn’t know who you were, but he’d been leaving clues. He thought he might stop in a Kinko’s later, or maybe the library, and use one of their computers to check the FBI’s web page for the standings.
The sun made him smile. He raised his face to it, letting the warmth soak into him, letting its radiation brown his skin, marveling at the enormity of its exploding gases. That’s the way he liked to think of it: one great monstrous explosion so large and bright that it could be seen from ninety-three million miles away, fueled so infinitely that it would take billions of years to consume itself, so fucking cool that the very fact of it spawned life here on this planet and would eventually consume that life when it gave a last flickering gasp and blew itself out billions of years from now.
John thought it would be seriously cool to build a bomb that big and set the sucker off. How cool it would be to see those first few nanoseconds of its birth. Way cool.
Thinking about it, John felt a hardening in his groin of a kind that had never been inspired by any living thing.
The voice said, “Are you Mr. Red?”
John opened his eyes. Even with his sunglasses, he had to shield his eyes. John flashed the big white teeth.
“I be him. Are you Mr. Karpov?”
Making like a Florida cracker talking street, even though John was neither from Florida, nor a cracker, nor the street. He enjoyed the misdirection.
“Yes.”
Karpov was an overweight man in his fifties, with a heavily lined face and graying widow’s peak. A Russian emigrant of dubious legality with several businesses in the area. He was clearly nervous, which John expected and enjoyed. Victor Karpov was a criminal.
John scooted to the side and patted the bench.
“Here. Sit. We’ll talk.”
Karpov dropped like a stone onto the bench. He clutched a nylon bag with both hands the way an older woman would hold a purse. In front, for protection.
Karpov said, “Thank you for doing this, sir. I have these awful problems that must be dealt with. These terrible enemies.”
John put his hand on the bag, gently trying to pry it away.
“I know all about your problems, Mr. Karpov. We don’t need to say another word about’m.”
“Yes. Yes, well, thank you for agreeing to do this. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Mr. Karpov, you surely don’t.”
John would have never even spoken to the man, let alone agreed to do what he was about to do and meet Karpov like this, if he had not thoroughly researched Victor Karpov. John’s business was by referral only, and John had spoken with those who had referred him. Those men had in fact asked John’s permission to suggest his name to Karpov, and were in a position to assure Karpov’s character. John was big on character. He was big on secrecy, and covering one’s ass. Which is why these people did not know him by his r
eal name or know anything about him at all except for his trade. Through them, John knew the complete details of Karpov’s problem, what would be required, and had already decided that he would take the job before their first contact.
That was how you stayed on the Most Wanted List, and out of prison.
“Leave go of the bag, Mr. Karpov.”
Karpov let go of the bag as if it were stinging him.
John laughed, taking the bag into his own lap.
“You don’t have to be nervous, Mr. Karpov. You’re among friends here, believe you me. It don’t get no friendlier than what I’m feeling for you right now. You know how friendly it gets?”
Karpov stared at him without comprehension.
“I think we’re such good friends, me and you, that I’m not even gonna look in this bag until later. That’s how such good friends we are. We’re so fuckin’ tight, you and me, that I know there is EXACTLY the right amount of cash in here, and I’m willing to bet your life on it. How’s that for friendly?”
Karpov’s eyes bulged large, and he swallowed.
“It is all there. It is exactly what you said, in fifties and twenties. Please count it now. Please count it so that you are satisfied.”
John shook his head and dropped the sack onto the bench opposite Karpov.
“Nope. We’ll just let this little scenario play out the way it will and hope you didn’t count wrong.”
Karpov reached across him for the sack.
“Please.”
John laughed and pushed Karpov back.
“Don’t you worry about it, Mr. Karpov. I’m just funnin’ with you.”
Funnin’. Like he was an idiot as well as a cracker.
“Here. I want to show you something.”
He took a small tube from his pocket and held it out. It used to be a dime-store flashlight, the kind with a push-button switch in the end opposite the bulb. It wasn’t a flashlight anymore.
“Go ahead and take it. The damned thing won’t bite.”
Karpov took it.
“What is this?”
John tipped his head toward the schoolyard across the street. It was lunchtime. The kids were running around, playing in the few minutes before they would have to troop back into class.
“Lookit those kids over there. I been watchin’m. Pretty little girls and boys. Man, look at how they’re just running around, got all the energy in the world, all that free spirit and potential. You’re that age, I guess everything’s still possible, ain’t it? Lookit that little boy in the blue shirt. Over there to the right, Karpov, Jesus, right there. Good-lookin’ little fella, blond, freckles. Christ, bet the little sonofabitch could grow up fuckin’ all the cheerleaders he wants, then be the goddamned President to boot. Shit like that can’t happen over there where you’re from, can it? But here, man, this is the fuckin’ U.S. of A., and you can do any goddamned thing you want until they start tellin’ you that you can’t.”
Karpov was staring at him, the tube in his hand forgotten.
“Right now, anything in that child’s head is possible, and it’ll stay possible till that fuckin’ cheerleader calls him a pizza-face and her retarded fullback boyfriend beats the shit out of him for talking to his girl. Right now, that boy is happy, Mr. Karpov, just look at how happy, but all that is gonna end just as soon as he realizes all those hopes and dreams he has ain’t never gonna work.”
John slowly let his eyes drift to the tube.
“You could save that poor child all that grief, Mr. Karpov. Somewhere very close to us there is a device. I have built that device, and placed it carefully, and you now control it.”
Karpov looked at the tube. His expression was as milky as if he were holding a rattlesnake.
“If you press that little silver button, maybe you can save that child the pain he’s gonna face. I’m not sayin’ the device is over there in that school, but I’m sayin’ maybe. Maybe that whole fuckin’ playground would erupt in a beautiful red firestorm. Maybe those babies would be hit so hard by the pressure wave that all their shoes would just be left scattered on the ground, and the clothes and skin would scorch right off their bones. I ain’t sayin’ that, but there it is right there in that silver button. You can end that boy’s pain. You have the power. You can turn the world to hell, you want, because you have the power right there in that little silver button. I have created it, and now I’ve given it to you. You. Right there in your hand.”
Karpov stood and thrust the tube at John.
“I want no part of this. Take it. Take it.”
John slowly took the tube. He fingered the silver button.
“When I do what you want me to do, Mr. Karpov, people are gonna die. What’s the fuckin’ difference?”
“The money is all there. Every dollar. All of it.”
Karpov walked away without another word. He crossed the street, walking so fast that his strides became a kind of hop, as if he expected the world around him to turn to flame.
John dropped the tube into the nylon bag with the money.
They never seemed to appreciate the gift he offered.
John settled back again, stretched his arms along the backrest to enjoy the sun and the sounds of the children playing. It was a beautiful day, and would grow even more beautiful when a second sun had risen.
After a while he got up and walked away to check the Most Wanted List. Last week he wasn’t on it.
This week he hoped to be.
2
• • •
The Criminal Conspiracy Section where Starkey worked is housed on the fifth floor of an eight-story office building on Spring Street, just a few blocks from the LAPD’s seat of power, Parker Center. LAPD’s Fugitive Section and Internal Affairs Group are also housed there, on the fourth and sixth floors. The building is known to have the most congested parking of any building in city government, with the detectives on each floor having to wedge their cars together with barely enough room to open their doors. The officers who work there nicknamed the building “Code Three” because, if they had to respond to an actual emergency, they would make better time running out of the building on foot to grab a cab.
Starkey parked on the third floor after ten minutes of maneuvering, then climbed the steps to the fifth floor. She noticed Marzik watching her as soon as she walked in, and decided to see if Marzik wanted to make something of the Binaca. Starkey went over, stopping in Marzik’s face.
“What?”
Marzik met her gaze without looking away.
“I got those rental apps, like you wanted. I figure most of those people will go home today, and we can talk to them first. If anyone doesn’t show, we can use the apps to find them.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Like whatever you need to say?”
“I’m fine.”
Starkey let it go. If Marzik confronted her about the drinking, she didn’t know what she could do except lie.
“Okay. I’ve got the 911 call. Is Hooker in?”
“Yeah. I saw him.”
“Let’s listen to the tape, then I want to get over to Glendale. Chen’s gonna have the chrom, and I want to see how they’re coming with the reconstruction.”
“They just started. How far could they be?”
“Far enough to know some of the components, Beth. We get some manufacturers, we get the chrom, we can get going here.”
“We got all these interviews to do.”
Marzik made her tired. It was a shitty way to start the day.
“You guys can start in with the interviews while I’m over there. Round up Jorge and come to the desk.”
“I think he’s in the crapper.”
“Knock on the door, Beth. Jesus Christ.”
Starkey borrowed a cassette player from the section sergeant, Leon Tooley, and brought it to her desk. Each CCS detective had a desk in a partitioned cubicle in the larger main room. There was the illusion of privacy, but the partitions were just low d
ividers, meaning that there was no real privacy. Everyone spoke in whispers unless they were showing off for Kelso, who spent most of his time hidden behind his office door. Rumor had it that he spent his day on the Internet, trading his stock portfolio.
Marzik and Santos showed up a few minutes later with coffee, Santos saying, “Did you see Kelso?”
“No. Should I?”
“He asked to see you this morning.”
Starkey glanced at Marzik, but Marzik’s face was unreadable.
“Well, Jesus, Jorge, nice of someone to tell me. Look, let’s listen to this before I see him.”
Santos and Marzik pulled up chairs as Starkey turned on the tape. The sound started with the Emergency Services operator, a black female, and was followed by a male voice with a heavy Spanish accent.
EMS: 911. May I help you?
CALLER: ’aullu?
EMS: 911. May I help you, sir?
CALLER: Eh … se habla español?
EMS: I can transfer you to a Spanish speaker.
CALLER: Eh … no, is okay. Lissen, you better sen’a man to look here.
Santos leaned forward and stopped the tape.
“What’s that behind him?”
Starkey said, “It sounds like a truck or a bus. He’s calling from a pay phone just off Sunset, a block east of the mall.”
Marzik crossed her arms.
“Isn’t there a pay phone right there outside that Cuban restaurant?”
“Yeah, and there’s another across the street at that little food store, the Guatemalan place. But he walked down a block.”
Santos looked at her.
“How do you know that?”
“EMS called back with the address. I walked the scene again this morning.”
Marzik made a grunt, staring at the floor. Like only a loser without a life would do something like that.
Starkey started the tape again.
EMS: Look at what, sir?
CALLER: Eh… I look in dis box, and I tink dere’s a bomb in dere.
EMS: A bomb?