by Mark Dawson
“Have you heard?” Trip said as soon as he accepted the call.
“Heard what?”
“They’ve found another body––it’s on the news.”
“It isn’t Madison.”
“How do you know that?”
“The police brought me in again.”
“You’re kidding?”
“It’s just routine. It’s nothing.”
“It might not be her now but it’s just a matter of time, isn’t it? You know that––she’ll be next.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Milton thought he could hear traffic on the call. “Where are you?”
“In a taxi. I’m going up there.”
“What for?”
“To see Brady.”
“No, Trip––”
“Yes, Mr. Smith. He did it. It’s fucking obvious. It’s him. We know he’s been lying to us, right from the start. What else has he been lying about? I’m gonna make him admit it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“It’s alright. I’ll take it from here.”
Milton gripped the wheel. “Don’t,” he said. “Turn around and come back. We just need to wait. Getting into an argument up there will make things worse.”
“I’m sick of waiting. Nothing’s happening. They’re not doing shit.”
Milton was about to tell him about Efron and what he had learned but the call went dead.
He redialled but there was no answer.
Dammit.
The boy had sounded terrible: wired, his voice straining with stress, as if at his breaking point. Milton had to stop him before he did something stupid, something that would wreck his life. He put the Explorer into gear, pulled out into the traffic and swung around. He drove as fast as he dared. Trip was already on the way. Where was he? The traffic was mercifully light as he accelerated across the Golden Gate Bridge and it stayed clear all the way to the turning onto Tiburon Boulevard. He swung to the south, still clear, and reached Pine Shore without seeing the boy. He drove inside the gates: there was an outside broadcast truck parked across the sidewalk and a reporter delivering a piece to camera. Great, Milton thought. He was hoping the media would all have moved on by now but the new body had juiced the story again and, with the police still floundering, they were going to focus on the place where the next presumed victim went missing. There was nothing else for them to go on.
An empty San Francisco cab was coming the other way.
Too late?
Milton parked outside Brady’s cottage and hurried up the steps. The door was ajar and he could hear raised voices from inside.
He made out two bellowed words: “Tell me!”
He pushed the door and quickly followed the corridor through into the living room. Brady was on one side of the room, next to the wide window with the view down to the Bay. Trip was opposite him.
“I know she was in here!” Trip said, angrily stabbing a finger at the doctor.
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!”
“Get out of my house!”
“I’m not going anywhere. What did you do to her?”
Milton was behind Trip and it was Brady who noticed him first. “Get this meathead out of here,” he ordered. “You got ten seconds or I’m calling the cops.”
“Go and ahead and call them,” Trip thundered back at him. “Maybe they’ll finally ask you some questions.”
“I’ve told you––I had nothing to do with whatever it was that happened to you girlfriend. You know what? Maybe you want to stop harassing me and start thinking that maybe if you’d done something to stop her from going out hooking then none of this would have happened.”
That really pushed Trip’s buttons: he surged forward, knocking a chair out of the way. Brady’s face registered stark fear as Trip raised his fist and drilled him in the mouth. The doctor stumbled backwards, and, forced to compensate on his prosthetic leg, overbalanced and slammed against the low wooden coffee table, the impact snapping one table leg and tipping a fruit bowl onto the floor.
“Where is she?” Trip yelled.
Brady shuffled away from him on the seat of his pants. “I don’t know,” he stammered, blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth.
“Trip!” Milton said. “Calm down.”
“Fuck that. What’s that got us so far? Nothing. We need to do something.”
“We are doing something.”
“Yeah? What are you doing? I don’t see anything happening. Doing things your way hasn’t got us anywhere, has it? It’s my turn now. I’m telling you, man, this piece of shit is going to tell me what happened to my girl.”
The boy reached down with his right hand and Milton saw, just in time, the glint of silver that emerged from the darkness of his half-open jacket. He thrust his own arm out, his hand fastening around Trip’s wrist. “No,” the boy said, struggling, and he was young and strong, but Milton knew all kind of things that the boy could only dream about and he slid his index and forefinger around to the inside of his arm, down until it was two fingers up from the crease of his wrist, and squeezed. The pressure point was above the median nerve and Milton applied just enough torque to buckle the boy’s knees with the unexpected shock. “Don’t,” Milton said, looking at him with sudden, narrow-eyed aggression.
Trip gritted his teeth through the blare of pain. “He did it.”
Milton kept the pressure on, impelling Trip back towards the hallway. “No he didn’t.”
He looked at Milton in fuming, helpless entreaty. “Then who did?”
“I have a better idea,” he said.
Confusion broke through the pain on the boy’s face. “Who?”
“You’re going to go outside now,” Milton said in a firm voice that did not brook disobedience. “There’s a reporter out there, down the road, so you need to be calm, like nothing’s going on––we don’t want there to be a scene. Understand?”
“Who is it?”
“I’ll tell you on the way back. But you have to tell me you understand. Do you understand?”
Trip’s eyes were red-raw, scoured and agitated. He looked as if he had gone without sleep. “Fine.”
Milton gave him the keys to the car. “I’ll be right after you,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Just go.”
Milton waited until he heard the squeak of the front door as Trip opened it.
He went across the room and offered a hand to Brady. The man took it and Milton helped him back to his feet.
Brady went to the galley kitchen, picked up a tea cloth and mopped the blood from his face. “If you think that’s the end of this you’re out of your mind.”
“It is the end of it,” Milton said.
“You saw––he sucker punched me!”
“I know and he’s sorry he did that. So am I. I know you’ve got nothing to do with what happened to Madison.”
“Damn straight I don’t.”
“But I also know that it’s better for you to forget that just happened and move on.”
“You reckon? I don’t think so.”
“I do. A friend of mine works for St Francis. Legal department. You said you used to work down there so once I found out that you were lying about what happened to your leg I thought maybe it was worth getting her to have a look into your record, see if it stacked up like you said that it did. And it turns out you have a pretty thick personnel file there.”
“How dare you––”
“Here’s what I know: you didn’t choose to leave, you were asked to go. Two sexual harassment cases. The first one was a nurse, right?”
Brady scowled at him, but said nothing.
“And the second one was a technician. She had to be persuaded from going to the police. You had to pay her a lot of money, didn’t you?” Milton was next to the picture of Brady in the desert; he picked it up and made a show of examining it. “It was a
n interesting read, Dr. Brady. You want me to go on?”
“Get out,” Brady said.
TRIP WAS WAITING IN THE CAR. Milton leant across towards him and used his right hand to reach inside his coat. His fingers touched the butt of a small gun. He pulled it out. It was a small .25 calibre semi-auto, a Saturday Night Special. Milton slipped the gun into his own pocket.
“You’re an idiot,” Milton said. “What were you thinking?”
He stared out of the window. “I had to do something,” he said with a surly inflection that made Milton think how young he really was. “Someone had to do something.”
“And so you were going to threaten him with a gun?”
“You got a better plan?”
“You would’ve gone to prison.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. And so do I. And, anyway, it would all have been for nothing: he didn’t do it.”
The boy frowned, confused. “How do you know that?”
“Brady is a talker. He likes to be the centre of attention. He has enemies in the neighbourhood, too, and maybe those enemies like other people to believe that he’s up to no good. Victor Leonard and Brady hate each other. If you ask me, Leonard put us onto Brady because he wants to see him in trouble. But he’s got nothing to do with this. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s being a fantasist and a braggart.”
“I don’t buy that,” he said, although Milton could see that he was getting through to him.
“So are you going to let me drive you back into town?”
“You said you had something”
“I do. I have a very good lead.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think I know what happened to Madison.”
35
ARLEN CRAWFORD drove around the block three times until he was sure that he was not being followed. It was an abundance of caution, perhaps, but Crawford was an operator, experienced enough to know all the tricks. He knew staffers who had been tailed before, heading to meet a friendly journalist to leak something explosive, only to find that their meeting was photographed and reported and, before they knew it, they were the story and not the leak. There was no way that he was going to let that happen to him. He was too good. And the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
Not for this.
The guys operated out of a warehouse in Potrero Hill. It was a low-slung building in the centre of a wide compound surrounded by a perimeter of ten foot high wire. Floodlights stood on pylons and there were security cameras all over. The warehouse was owned by a company that distributed beer and the compound housed three trucks. Empty kegs had been stacked against the wall of the warehouse and, next to that, five big motorcycles had been parked. An old Cadillac Eldorado had been slotted alongside the bikes.
Crawford drew up against the compound gate and sounded his horn. The single black eye of the security camera gleamed down at him, regarding him, and then there was the buzz of a motor and a rusty scrape as the gate slid aside. Crawford put the car into gear and edged inside. He parked next to the Caddy and went into the warehouse. The main room had been fitted with comfortable chairs, a large television and a sound system that was playing stoner rock. The place smelt powerfully of stale beer; it was strong enough that Crawford felt like gagging.
The five men were arranged around the room. Their leader was a tall, skinny man with prison tattoos visible on every inch of exposed skin. There was a swastika etched onto the nape of his neck, just below the line of his scalp. His name was Jack Kerrigan but they all referred to him as Smokey. Crawford had been introduced to him by Scott Klein, their head of security. He had recommended him and his boys as a solution for problems that could only be solved with the radical measures that they could implement. Strongarm jobs, pressure that needed exerting to shut people up or to get them to do things they didn’t naturally want to do. The others were cut from the same cloth as Kerrigan: tattoos; lank hair worn long; a lot of greasy denim.
Kerrigan got up and stretched, leonine, before sauntering across to him.
“Mr. Crawford,” he said, a low Southern drawl.
“Jack.”
The air was heady with dope smoke; Crawford noticed a large glass bong on the table.
“How’s our boy doing?”
“He’s doing good.”
“Good enough to get it done?”
“He’ll win,” Crawford said. “Provided we keep him on the right track.”
“That’s all that matters.”
Crawford nodded at that, then scowled a little; he had forgotten the headache he had developed the last time they had dragged him out here. It was the dope, the droning music, the dull grind of necessity of making sure the dumbfuck rednecks stayed on the right path.
“Wanna beer?”
“No thanks.”
He nodded at the bong. “Smoke?”
“What do you think?”
“Nah, not your scene. All business today, then. I can work with that. What’s up?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
“If you mean the girls––I told you, you need to stop worrying.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“I have a little update on that, something that’ll make you feel better.” He stooped to a fridge and took out a bottle of beer. He offered it to Crawford. “You sure?”
“No,” he said impatiently. “What update?”
Jack popped the top with an opener fixed to his keychain and took a long swig.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Got someone who knows someone in the police. Friend of our persuasion, you know what I mean. Fellow soldier. This guy says that they have no clue. Those girls have been out there a long time––all that salty air, the animals, all that shit––there’s nothing left of them except bones.”
“Clothes?”
“Sure, but there’s nothing that would give them any idea who they were.”
“I wish I shared your confidence, Jack. What about the others?”
“You know, I can’t rightly recall how many there were and I ain’t kidding about that.”
“Four.”
“It’ll be the same. You might not believe it, but we were careful.”
“They’re all in the same place.”
“Give or take.”
“You think that’s careful?”
“The way I see it, the way we left them girls, all in that spot and all done up the same way, police are gonna put two and two together and say that there’s one of them serial killers around and about, doing his business.”
“I heard that on the TV already,” one of the other man, Jesse, chimed in. “They had experts on, pontificating types. They said they was sure. Serial killer. They was saying Zodiac’s come back.”
“Son of Zodiac,” Jack corrected.
Crawford sighed.
“They’re gonna say it’s some john from the city, someone the girls all knew.”
“The Headlands Lookout Killer. That’s what they’re saying.”
“Exactly,” Jack said with evident satisfaction. “And that’s what we want them to think.” He took a cigarette from a pack on the table and lit it. “It’s unfortunate about our boy’s habits, but if there’s one thing we got lucky on, it’s who they all were. What they did. In my experience, most hookers don’t have anyone waiting for them at home to report them missing. They’re in the shadows. Chances are, whoever those girls were, no-one’s even noticed that they’re gone. How are the police going to identify people that they don’t know is missing? They ain’t. No way on earth. And if they can’t identify them, how the hell they gonna tie ‘em all back to our boy?”
“I don’t know,” he said impatiently.
“I do––I do know. They ain’t.” Jack said it with a sly leer. “Make you feel any better?”
“Oh yes,” he said, making no effort to hide his sarcasm. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I would’ve felt even better if you’d done what I asked you t
o and made them all disappear.”
“What happened to them, Mr. Crawford, it’s the same thing. They are disappeared. You’ve got to relax, man. You’re gonna give yourself a coronary you keep worrying about stuff that don’t warrant no worrying about.”
“Someone has to.”
“Fine.” He took another long pull of his beer. “You worry about it as much as you want, but, I’m telling you, there ain’t no need for it.” He finished the beer and tossed it into an open bin. “Now then––you didn’t come here to bitch and moan at us. What can we do for you?”
“There’s another problem.”
“Same kind of problem as before?”
“The exact same kind.”
He shook his head. “Seriously? Number five? You want to get our boy to keep his little man in his trousers.”
“You think I haven’t tried? It’s not as easy as you think.”
“Who is it? Another hooker?”
“No, not this time. Worse. She’s on staff. He’s been schtupping her for a month and now she’s trying to shake us down. We either pay up or she goes public. One or the other. It couldn’t be any more damaging.”
“And paying her wouldn’t work?”
“What do you think?”
His greasy hair flicked as he shook his head. “Nah––that ain’t the best outcome. She might get a taste for it. You want her gone?”
There it was: the power of life and death in the palm of his hand. It still gave him chills. And what choice did he have? Joseph Jack Robinson II, for all his faults, was still the medicine that America needed. He was the best chance of correcting the god almighty mess that had become of the country and if that meant that they had to clean up his own messes to keep him aimed in the right direction, then that was what they would have to do. It was distasteful but it was for the greater good. The needs of the many against the needs of the few.
“Sort it,” he said.
“Same as before. No problem.”
“No, Jack. Not the same as before. Make it so she disappears. Properly disappears. This stuff on the news––”
“I’m telling you, that was just bad luck is what that was.”
“No, Jack, it’s fucking amateur hour, that’s what it was. I never want to hear about her again. Not next week. Not next month. Not when some mutt puts its snout into a bush on the beach next fucking year. You get me? Never.”