by Nick Keller
Mark moved cautiously, staying next to the buildings, coming this way from across the parking spaces on the prowl, probably to arrest William. He had no idea The Eye was on him. But…
“This one lives,” Sola said. “Now I see the enemy. There is another.”
William winced in thought. Another? Another target? A second target?
Christ almighty! Bernie!
He got up hoping to avoid Mark Neiman’s field of vision from across the parking lot and went to the staircase, hauling ass up to the loft. He went to the upper window and looked out. He could see Sola on the rooftop across from him where he had been earlier, only now he was positioned on the far side of the building with his rifle pointed toward the street, panning it slowly. He was tracking someone. It had to be Bernie.
“Sola, that’s a friendly, too,” William said.
“Someone has to die. Those are the orders.”
Desperation flared up inside him, but he squelched it down. “Belay those orders, soldier. Stand down.”
Now it sounded like Sola was growing weary, ripped into halves. “No! Someone always dies.”
“Why, Anthony?” William knew the answer to that. He closed his eyes, bit his lip, and said, “Is it because you were told to stand down once before?”
There was a pause. He could almost hear Sola thinking, starting to panic. Sola said, “Life doesn’t mean anything without death. Someone loses. Or no one wins. I’ve seen it.” He breathed into the phone, deep bitter breaths. “It doesn’t matter if I want it. We’re nothing here. It’s a desert. We’re all just specks on a speck on a speck.”
The door buzzer downstairs went off. William heard Mark Neiman call out, “William Erter, this is the L.A.P.D. Open the door.”
William looked up, frantic. Sola hadn’t heard. Now he tracked Bernie moving through the valley on the north side of the building. Christ, he had him in his sights.
Talk with him. Placate him. Just keep him from pulling that trigger!
“Does it see you?” William said.
“It sees everyone, eventually.”
“Then let me help you.”
Sola snickered ridiculously. “You’re gonna try to stop it. But you can’t stop it. The happening will come. It’s already too late.”
Downstairs, Mark Neiman called out, “William, come to the doo— What the hell?” He noticed the shattered window. It was easy access inside. Time was getting short. William had seconds to prevent Sola from shooting.
Think, think, think. Entice him. Entice him.
William said through gritted teeth, “Stand down, Sola. You do not have clearance. That’s an order!”
“No. No! Not this time. I see the enemy.”
William’s anger flared up. He snarled into the phone, “Now you listen to me, soldier. Fucking listen up! I am the fucking Eye. You listen to The Eye. You want to kill, you want death? Fine. I’ll give you a target.”
Sola remained cool, calculated. “Yeah?”
“New orders. I save this life. You take another.”
“You… save this life?”
“And you take another.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“It’s… my role,” William said.
“And mine?” Sola asked sounding shaken.
“You will take another. The Eye sees, always. The Eye is right.”
“What’s the enemy’s name?” Sola asked.
William’s eyes danced and he swallowed making his dry throat click and grind. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Who to kill? Who was the enemy—the real enemy?
“Who is the enemy?” Sola said with a threatening sneer.
William closed his eyes, said, “I’ll tell you who, and I’ll tell you where. But you won’t kill. Not here, not today.”
“When?”
“Very soon.”
He looked across the distance at Sola still tracking with his rifle. Bernie was now visible, coming across the parking strip.
“Life for a life,” Sola murmured, and lowered his rifle. “Give me my orders. What’s the enemy’s name?”
William took a huge breath and slid down the wall to his butt. He owed Sola a name, and didn’t have the first clue. But this was a wonderful opportunity. This was God’s role, and it had fallen directly into his lap.
So, who would he condemn to death? His mind raced. He didn’t know of anybody deserving of a bullet from Sola. He needed someone who deserved it, someone with a truly sick mind. He suddenly remembered one. He was among the Echelon. It was perfect. Someone who’d evaded justice once before, maybe many times. A public figure. Someone whose murder would serve as a warning to L.A.
Yes—this one ought to be shot. In fact, this one ought to be skinned alive. And it just so happened William knew when and where he’d be exposed, ripe for the kill. “Okay, soldier,” he said. “I have your target. I know who dies…”
Mark Neiman stepped through the large open window, crunching glass under his feet, gun drawn. He inspected the area, scanning for his prey. Bullet holes were in the brick wall. The couch had white stuffing visible. “What the hell?”
“Mark!” Bernie yelled from behind.
Mark spun around leading with his Smith & Wesson. Bernie stumbled back and started to jerk his own gun but reconsidered and put his palms forward. “Jesus, put that fucking thing away!”
“What the fuck are you doing here, Bernie?” Mark yelled.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Fuck you!” He was still pointing his gun.
“Gentlemen!”
Mark spun and looked upstairs, his eyes as wide as moons. William was at the top of the loft staircase, hands up. Mark took a few defensive steps away from Bernie with his gun now leveled at William. “William Erter, I have a warrant for your arrest.”
Bernie yelled, “Mark, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Bernie, I’ll have you arrested next for interfering with a police investigation if you don’t shut up.”
“You got the wrong guy, Mark!”
“Bernie!” William called coming coolly down the stairs. They both looked up. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” He approached Mark with his wrists together held forward. “Detective Neiman, if you think you got your guy, you should act on that.”
Mark eyeballed Bernie then shoved his gun into its holster. The cuffs were next. He batted them on and spun William toward the window space. “Move,” he said.
Bernie looked on huffing like a bull, helpless to do anything as Mark hustled his prisoner away. William gave Bernie a look over his shoulder grinning. “Don’t worry, Bernie. I’ll be out by Wednesday afternoon.”
Bernie said, “Wednesday?”
“Yep, Wednesday.”
43
Final Justice
Wednesday. 9:05 a.m. Tee-time.
There were a lot of things he had to do today. He had to meet with the board. Placate his investors. Sweet-talk his clients. Nothing out of the ordinary. But those things could all wait. He was a free man. What had once looked like a prison sentence not two weeks ago, was now just a footnote that he and his big wig buddies could laugh about over an early morning Bloody Mary. They called themselves The Boys.
The Boys all understood him, too. At one point or another, they’d all hired high-powered defense attorneys to get them off. Laundering. Racketeering. Insider trading. Child porn. It didn’t matter what it was. Even the court system could be bankrolled from time to time.
The Boys was an incestuous lot, too. They passed attorneys out between them like cigars, the nice Cuban black labels. Then, when the day was done, or perhaps before it got started, it was nine holes at the Palisades.
What they didn’t know was that where their philosophy sometimes included high-powered attorneys, others’ included high-powered rifles. Sometimes, rarely, it was the world’s tradeoff, it seemed. Checks and balances. Maybe not God’s or the law’s, but definitely man’s.
So, when Richard Rothwell s
idled up to the tee-off dancing his feet in the soft grass and grinning from a joke one of The Boys had just told about squeezing a fat whore’s huge tits while crying out of glee and calling it rack-a-teering up, he had no idea he was lining up for a man who needed blood.
Anthony Sola Jr., aka A. Soldier, knew exactly why he was placing his crosshair over Richard Rothwell, at least in his own head. He was The Eye today. Someone had to win, so someone else had to lose. It was the way of things.
Sola had no understanding that the honest reason he was rubbing old Richard Rothwell out was because there was justice to be had. The fat man twittered little boys’ penises, toyed with little girls’ vaginas. He was as sick as they came.
But if someone had asked one Oscar Erter why Richard Rothwell had to die, the answer would have been very simple. It was merely his role.
So, when Richard brought that driver up then slammed it home with seasoned precision, he had no idea where his ball went. In fact, all he understood was that his feet went out from under him, there was a flash of immense pain in his sternum followed by a few seconds of choking to death on his own blood, watching it spray into the air while he kicked his fat little feet, before the lights went out forever at 9:06 a.m. on a Wednesday.
Tee-time, plus one.
Bernie was as far from Investigations as he had ever been. It was by design. Captain Heller and Mark Neiman, and God only knew who else, had neutered his capacity to investigate new files—they’d cut his investigator’s balls right off. He wasn’t wanted anywhere but Cold Case. It was where he belonged, in their eyes. Even still, he’d found all the evidence they needed to put Sola away. But with William waiting for bail, it seemed all the evidence in the world couldn’t put Bernie’s case back together. Well, at least not legally.
That’s why Bernie grinned. He had found another way, a better way, to circumvent their plans for him. The nutjob son of a psycho and a misfit computer nerd had effectively beaten the L.A.P.D.’s ability to ‘catch their man.’ All it took was a pinch of intuition and something called a Spyder Program. So now, all of his inadmissible evidence was about to be in the L.A.P.D.’s hands. If they wanted to do the right thing, they would have to become him. He was about to create a whole Division full of little Bernies running around collecting evidence by any means necessary and flipping the proverbial bird to protocol. Because once the call came in from Jacky, Bernie knew the time to act was now.
“Hey, Mr. Bernie, I just heard—the Parks case just had its first victim. First human victim,” Jacky said.
“Don’t bullshit me, kid.”
“No bullshitting, man. They got seven units dispatched to the location, like right now. They’re on their way!”
Bernie’s grip clenched around the phone and he got to his feet. “What’s the location?”
“Uh—some golf club. Oh, here it is. The Palisades. Looks like he rubbed out some rich guy. The name is…”
Bernie said, “Richard Rothwell?” His eyes suddenly filling with elation.
“That’s right. How’d you know?”
Bernie put his head back and erupted into laughter.
Bernie printed up William’s evidence file from the email attachments he’d sent. Among them was everything William had gathered on Anthony Sola Jr. from prior military service, to Army release papers, information gleamed from his personal journals, Military Special Forces documents, discharge psyche evaluations, everything. William had diligently put together his own schooled profile case on Sola. It was everything the department would need to catch their man.
“His name is Anthony Sola Jr., a member of the Army Fifth Special Forces. A sniper. Veteran of the first Desert Storm. Discharged in ninety-six. Re-enlisted, two-thousand one. September, to be exact. The guy’s a hero.” Bernie tossed the manila folder onto Captain Heller’s desk. “Here’s all his information.”
Captain Heller looked at the file wide-eyed. “Hero, huh? How’d you get this?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Jesus, Bernie, what did you do?”
“Oh, you know me, Cap. I’ve never been one for protocol. But go ahead and search his residence. Something tells me you’ll find what you need.”
Captain Heller got to his feet, fists pressed into his desk. “Goddammit, I can’t use evidence that’s inadmissible!”
Bernie grinned and said, “Apparently, neither can I.”
“Bernie,” he murmured, low, serious. “Do you give a damn at all about what’s going on out there?”
Bernie’s anger flared. “I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do!” he huffed and heaved and said, “I always do, Captain.”
Heller’s lips pulled into the size of a dime withholding his anger, and he sat back down in his chair. He took the file and opened it. He read, “East L.A., Fifty-first and Main. Eckles Villas. Door number two.” It was Sola’s residence.
Bernie cooled off and sat down. “Okay, you want the truth? The Parks case suspect taking out dogs in the park—I knew he was military. I think we all suspected it. I just followed the trail. I obtained all the files I could on what I thought the profile was. It was in the way he signed off on the letter. His calling card.” He leaned forward and punctuated the words, “A. Soldier.” They locked eyes. “Marines don’t call themselves soldiers. Army men do, so I knew he was Army. I checked the suspected age of the shooter, and just matched it up with several criteria. I came across a dozen of the likeliest, then I found this name. Anthony Sola Jr. A. Soldier. Everything matched, and he lived here in town. Call it a cop’s intuition.” Bernie gave him a knowing smile. He had no problem taking credit for William’s findings. After all, it was William’s plan all along. The captain didn’t need to know. Ultimately, the captain didn’t even want to know. So, Bernie just sat across the desk grinning at him.
Heller flipped through the pages of the profile. He wasn’t reading. He was thinking. Bernie could tell. Then he looked up. “How much of that is true, Detective?”
“All of it. Scout’s honor.” Bernie held up the three fingers of the Boy Scout honor salute with a grin.
“Why didn’t you come to me before?”
“Are you really asking me that question?” Bernie shrugged. “It wasn’t my case. It was Mark’s. If I’d come to you before, you’d have thrown it back at me. That was made perfectly clear. But here we are. The information’s yours. Do whatever you want with it.”
“And William Erter?”
“According to Mr. Erter, he was casing me for a class he teaches, some psychology class or something. I was research, that’s all.”
“Did you know his father was Oscar Erter?”
Bernie made a dramatically horrified face and said, “No shit?”
Heller read him with a grimace and shook his head. Referring back to Sola’s file he said, “Well, we have to act on this.”
“I would.”
“I guess—uh—good work, Bernie.”
“Just doing my job, Cap.” Bernie put his hat on and got up to leave, but Heller stopped him.
“One thing, Bernie.”
“Yeah?”
“I find it curious—I’d say miraculous, even—that the one guy that gets blown to hell and gone by our suspect—well, he just so happens to be the same guy that got off just a few weeks ago on your, let’s say, performance in court.”
Bernie shrugged, turned and said over his shoulder, “Like I said, Cap. The guy’s a hero.”
The warrant to search and seize the residence of Anthony Sola Jr. was formally requested by the Investigations Department lead, Captain Heller and the Case Investigator, Mark Neiman, at 9:41. It was processed in record time. The squad arrived at the 700 block of Fifty-First Street by 11:30 in the morning—a dozen screaming squad cars scurrying through the streets of East L.A. and merging upon The Eckles Villas from all angles. The Boys-in-Blue approached on foot in standard apprehend formation with Mark Neiman leading the charge, gun drawn. No one answered when Mark pounded on door two and announced
their arrival, so they battered the door down and rushed in, assault rifles poised.
At first there was no one there, but all the evidence in the world was found once they began ransacking the apartment. Sola’s personal journals would soon reveal a man desperately running from the demons of guilt, whose sanity had been slipping further and further away until he could not tell friend from foe. His only gauge on the world it seemed, was the repeated mentioning of an entity called The Eye, of which was represented in stark and foreboding glory across the central wall of his living room, and which would soon be matched to the newspaper-type postal letter the P.D. received in the mail a few days earlier mentioning The Eye.
They also found a murder weapon, the M24 sniper rifle which had obviously been smuggled into the private sector, complete with eight hundred rounds of 7.62 NATO issued military-grade ammunition and a collection of backup gas suppression devices also known as silencers.
Once the evidence teams cracked Sola’s computer, the case was all but shut. They found photos of the dead dogs taken before their deaths, city blue prints of Heirloom, Athens, and Underson Parks, as well as a dozen others, all marked with a sniper’s pen for direction, possible windage, elevation, etc. They also found a profile on Richard Rothwell that had been printed out that morning, and dozens of pieces of written and photographic evidence that pointed all the guilty fingers at Anthony Sola Jr.
All they needed now was the man himself.
Fortunately, in the process of collecting their evidence, the L.A. swat team knocked over a fifty-gallon jug full of tee shirts, which collapsed onto the floor of the apartment. A false top made out of plywood and a hinge was sprung and out spilled Anthony Sola Jr. amidst a mountain of Goodwill laundry. The overall sensation of shock among the dozen cops and investigators caused blood to spike. Guns trained on him immediately. Voices started yelling orders. But Anthony hardly reacted at all. He merely put his hands up in a show of surrender and lay there until the cuffs were administered. As Mark read him his rights, he made no attempt to speak. Wearing a relieved grin, he closed his eyes and waited.