Diabolical

by Hank Schwaeble

  Hatcher said nothing. The brochure wasn’t a coincidence, that much he knew. Someone was trying to tell him something. Images of Vivian’s remains slammed into his thoughts, darkening them.

  The woman glanced down at her watch. “I hope you found this helpful. If you don’t have any more questions, I—”

  “Just one.”

  The woman looked on as Hatcher moved closer to the picture. The eyes of the Baphomet peered down at him. He gritted his teeth.

  “Would this thing live in a cave?”

  DURING THE DRIVE BACK TO L.A., HATCHER TRIED TO SIFT through what he knew. It didn’t take long, because he didn’t know much.

  Bartlett had used him to find the boy. The man could deny it all he wanted, but Hatcher was sure of it. Almost sure.

  But why? What was the boy to him? How much of that story he’d told when they’d met was real? And what was Vivian’s involvement? Since they already had the boy, why kill her? Were they using her body to create some sick Franken-statue? Why her? And what did Bartlett mean when he intimated there were things she wasn’t telling him?

  He thought about his meeting with Soliya. How did she know so much about what was going on? How did the Carnates know where and when to fly a banner?

  Figuring out what he wanted to know was easy. Finding answers was proving decidedly more difficult. So was determining where to go next. He tried dialing the number from the ad the Carnates had placed. No answer. Not even a voice mail. HUMINT required sources, and he had none. He was going to have to find someone in the know and extract whatever information they had.

  That meant starting somewhere. He could think of only one place.

  It was early afternoon when he arrived in South Central. He parked in front of the house, walked straight to the front door. He didn’t see any advantage in not being direct.

  He knocked and waited. Nothing. He knocked again.

  “Ain’t no one home.”

  Hatcher glanced in the direction of the voice. It was an older black man, with powdery white hair. He recognized the man as the neighbor who’d been watering his lawn the last time he’d been there. He was standing at the edge of his lawn one property over, wearing a wifebeater tank top and blue pants.

  “Any idea when they’ll be back.”

  “If you’s looking for who I think you is, no time soon.”

  Hatcher said nothing.

  “Woman name of Georgia owns that house. She works all day, takes an extra shift early evening. She ain’t the one you want.”

  Hatcher stepped off the porch. “Who is the one I want?”

  “Her kid brother. Name’s Floyd. Goes by T-Bone.”

  “He live here?”

  “No. She kicked him out long time back. Doesn’t stop him from using the place when she’s not around, though. That boy some bad news.”

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  The man scratched his head, then ran a long middle finger down the side of his nose, thinking. “You know, I called the police”—he said the word with the accent on the po—“the other day. Told them I saw a white man being assaulted.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t need to be thanking. I’m just telling you. No one showed. Didn’t send no car, didn’t send nothing. Then a couple days later, badge comes by and wants to know what I saw. One cop, by himself. White as you. Asking me what I saw. I told him I didn’t see nothing, just heard a commotion.”

  “I won’t let him know you told me anything, if that’s what you’re saying.”

  The old man shook his head and looked at the ground, a rueful smile creasing his cheeks. “That ain’t what I’m sayin’. But you’s white, so you don’t get it.”

  “You know where I can find Floyd?”

  “Try Chesterfield Square Park. Boys call ’mselves the Chesterfield CPs.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Man’s gotta be crazy, going down there. Certain kinda crazy.”

  “I’ll watch my step.”

  “No, you won’t. I can see it on you. Coming here, walking up to the door like that. Revenge crazy, that’s what you are. Them’s the craziest.”

  Hatcher said nothing.

  “Just remember what I said. Po-lice didn’t show. Think about it.”

  “Yeah, well, I was thinking I’d just as soon leave them out of it, anyway,” Hatcher said.

  The man walked back toward the front of his house. He picked up a hose with a spray nozzle, bent over to turn on the spigot, shaking his head.

  Hatcher was rounding the car when he thought he heard the man say to himself, “Crazy people don’t ever listen.”

  HATCHER SAT IN THE PARK FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR, WATCHING from the car, before he spotted the one the neighbor said called himself T-Bone. Recognized him by his do-rag. That, and the fact he was a good six inches shorter than everyone else. He was rolling through with a crew, sauntering down the sidewalk, strutting and laughing. Four of them, plus him. Yellow Lakers jersey with the number 8, baggy jeans that sagged way below a pair of purple boxers.

  They headed into the park, draped themselves over a pair of benches.

  They were probably armed, so Hatcher waited. His opening came about fifteen minutes later. A car pulled up along the curb and stopped. One of the crew flipped open a phone, started talking. T-Bone started walking toward the car just as a little kid about seven years old got out from the rear passenger side. He passed T-Bone without looking at him and headed toward the bench. The rest of T-Bone’s crew moved away in a gaggle, making a show of joking around. The kid bent down next to the bench and retrieved a lunch pail from beneath it.

  The car pulled away just as T-Bone drew close. T-Bone knelt down and tied his shoe at the curb, then casually reached over and picked up an envelope as he stood. He crossed the street and kept walking.

  He glanced in the envelope as he walked, then scratched the back of his head with a pronounced motion. The rest of the crew moved off the path and the little kid resumed walking. The car pulled up to the curb on the opposite side of the park just a few seconds before the kid got there. The boy hopped inside and the car sped off.

  This was as good a time as any. Hatcher started the car and headed to where T-Bone had crossed, turned down the street. The area was the product of unplanned growth probably half a century ago, maybe more. It was mostly residential, small weather-worn cottages with graying paint and sagging wood. A small apartment building mixed in on one side along with a pair of plain commercial structures so fortified it was hard to tell what they were used for. A few people were sitting on porches in front of a few houses, a handful more were in a gaggle near the next corner. Hatcher spotted T-Bone immediately. He was the only one who looked like he had somewhere to go.

  There were two options. He could pull past, turn at the next street. He guessed T-Bone was making a circuit, heading back to the park, or near it, to hook up with his crew again. But pulling past him risked being noticed, since T-Bone already knew the car.

  So that left the other option. Hatcher parked along the side of the road next to a no-parking sign. T-Bone was about thirty yards ahead, talking on a cell. Hatcher got out and popped the hatch. He lifted the floorboard and pulled out the tire iron. Then he headed up the street behind T-Bone at twice the kid’s pace.

  When he got within a few feet, he lowered his shoulder and closed the gap in a sprint, slamming into the boy. T-Bone’s phone rattled and cracked against the sidewalk and he went stumbling forward. Hatcher took a fistful of jersey and jerked him onto his toes before shoving him into an alley drive behind the apartment building, getting him off the main road. Away from porch-bound spectators and passing cars.

  T-Bone regained his balance and tried to yank himself away, stretching his shirt. He clenched his fists and batted at Hatcher’s arm, bouncing on the balls of his feet like an amateur pug.

  “What the fuck?”

  Hatcher let go of the jersey and with a tight, quick swing smashed the curved end of the tire iron i
nto T-Bone’s cheekbone. The boy dropped to the ground on his side, holding his face. He let out a loud, angry-sounding groan.

  Another groan, and he tipped farther over. Then he spun back, yanking a pistol from the sags of his jeans. Hatcher was ready for it. He brought the tire iron down hard on the back of the kid’s wrist, latched his other hand onto the barrel of the pistol. One firm twist, and it tore loose.

  A Glock 17. While T-Bone babied his wrist, howling, Hatcher tucked the tire iron under his arm, dropped the magazine from the gun and ejected the chamber round. The cartridge plinked off the asphalt and rolled in a semicircle until it bumped against the kid’s foot. Grabbing the pistol from the back, Hatcher gave it a tight squeeze and pressed the take-down lever above the trigger. He pulled off the slide and tossed it onto the roof of the apartment building. He dropped the remaining half of the pistol onto T-Bone’s lap.

  “I need to find the women who hired you,” Hatcher said.

  No response, barely a sneer. Hatcher rapped him on the cheek with the back of his knuckles, same spot the first blow from the tire iron had caught.

  T-Bone barked, dropped even lower to the ground. He rocked, trembling in pain, his hand covering up everything just below his eye. “Crakka, you fucking crazy! Ain’t no damn women hired me. Goddamn! Fuck you do to my face, mother-fucker?”

  “Tell me where to find them.”

  “You hard a’ hearing, Jack? I said I don’t know.”

  A kick to the ribs, once, twice, then Hatcher snagged the boy’s wrist. The tender one. The kid winced and tried to jerk away. Hatcher lowered himself to one knee and leaned his weight into it, stretching the arm out against the ground, until the hand was extended. Then he hammered it twice with the tire iron. Bones shattered each time with the crack of a subdued gunshot.

  The sound T-Bone let out was halfway between a scream and a snarl. “Shit, nigga! What the fuck! You broke my fuckin’ hand!”

  “You could say I’m not in the mood for bullshit. Next wrong answer, I break your other one and you can jack off against plaster for the next couple of months. If you still haven’t sung me the right tune, I start using the sharp end of this to remove your eyes. Leave me pissed off at that point, I’ll finish by making you useless to a woman. Which, now that I think about it, wouldn’t be much of a change.”

  “I told you! Ain’t no bitches hired me!”

  “Then who told you to grab me and take me to that cave?”

  A long pause, panting. “Fernandez.”

  “Who the hell is Fernandez?”

  “A fucking cop, that’s who.”

  “A cop hired you? Why?”

  He rolled his eyes up at Hatcher, sneering. “Fuck should I know?”

  “You better start telling me what you do know. This is heavy, and I’m feeling the urge to swing it again.”

  “’Dez just said he had a job for us. Wanted us to be at my sister’s place, jack up some dude be coming there. Said take him to Bronson Caves, drop his car there. That’s all the shit I know.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “No.”

  Hatcher slid the tire iron higher in his hand, cocked it back.

  “Whoa, damn! Hold it! He said there’d be a woman there, to leave her alone. Said if we even looked at her, he’d dump us in La Brea.”

  “Why you? You owe him?”

  “We do shit for him. Run shit.”

  “Run shit? Like drugs?”

  “No, Gomer. Like Amway. Course like drugs. He gets two bits off the top.”

  “Two bits?”

  “What are you, ignorant? A quarter.” T-Bone cupped his jaw, worked it side to side. “Shit, man, it hurts to even move my mouth. I think you broke my fucking cheek, too.”

  “This guy Fernandez, what does he look like?”

  “Fuckin gray boy, man. ’Bout as Mexican as Ward Cleaver. Shit, you all look alike to me.”

  Hatcher held out the tire iron for T-Bone to see, rotated it as if there were writing on it he wanted him to read, then cracked it off his forehead with a flick of his wrist.

  “Goddamn, man! Knock that shit off!”

  “I’m not in the mood for banter. What does he look like?”

  “Short hair, like a marine or somethin.’ Big ol’ arms and chest. He looks like a big dick, which he is.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  Grimacing, T-Bone pushed himself into a sitting position. He touched the side of his face gingerly. “It’s Thursday. Tuesday’n’ Thursday afternoons he teaches some karate bullshit or something. Told us not to bother him when he’s there. Or else.”

  “Where.”

  “Shit if I know. Go hassle some slant ’n’ ax them.”

  Hatcher grabbed him by the head, pointed the wedge end of the tire iron toward his eye.

  “Fuck, man! Some joint over on Santa Monica Boulevard! Aint got no fuckin’ address! Never even seen the shit!”

  Hatcher stood. “If you’re lying, I won’t leave you breathing next time.”

  “I ain’t lying.” The kid touched his face again and winced. “Go, see for y’self, sadistic motherfucker. You two deserve each other.”

  Hatcher turned to leave, took several steps, then walked back as if remembering something. He kicked T-Bone hard across the face, knocking him off his ass onto his back, causing his skull to bounce off the concrete.

  “That’s for using the N-word, you little shit.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THERE WERE AT LEAST SIX MARTIAL ARTS SCHOOLS ON SANTA Monica. Two were Brazilian jiujitsu, one was Kempo, one was kung fu, and two had generic signs that said KARATE.

  But only one had a patrol car in front of it. Three patrol cars, in fact.

  The place with the cruisers out front was a low-slung stand-alone with a single row of parking The front was mostly window, broad sections of it painted over with the yin-yang symbol and the Korean flag. But there was enough clear glass to see inside from certain angles, and from what Hatcher could tell, there were three guys in there. Three guys, three squad cars. That meant three cops.

  Hatcher checked the time on his cell phone. Just after four. Three cop cars, no one else. Odds were Fernandez either ran the place or taught classes. Probably showed up for a workout with some buddies before the first evening session. That would start at five or five thirty, at the earliest. Just enough time.

  Traffic was a bit heavy, but it only took him five minutes to double back to an electronics store he had passed. Ten minutes to buy a mini-DV camera. He found one on sale for a little over sixty bucks. Pink, on closeout, about the size of an iPod. Half the time was spent making sure it had the features he needed, the other half hoping he had enough money in his account for his debit card not to get rejected, since he’d been using it lately without keeping track. He took another five minutes to stop at a convenience store on the way back and pick up a large pack of Big League Chew, scooping a bunch into his mouth that made his cheek bulge.

  Then he parked on the far end of the parking lot away from the cruisers and out of easy sight, powered up the camera and checked the battery, and walked into the dojo.

  The three guys were to the left, in a large workout space, separated from the no-frills reception area by a low wooden divider. Looked like two of them were doing some light sparring, practicing kicks and blocks. The other one was doing forms a safe distance away, kicking and punching in a prearranged series of moves. Each was wearing a white gi held closed by a black belt. Fernandez’s gi top was so wide open he was practically bare-chested, something Hatcher didn’t think was by accident since his pecs were shaved smoother than a lingerie model’s ass. The other two were a bit taller than Fernandez, but neither looked nearly as built. The one sparring with him was lean and angular. The one doing kata was thick and a bit puffy, carrying a gut that looked like he’d swallowed a medicine ball.

  Hatcher blew a bubble, let it pop loudly.

  Fernandez looked over. He gave him the just-a-minute gesture with his index finger as
if Hatcher were a prospective student, not recognizing him. It wasn’t mutual. Hatcher had already expected as much based on T-Bone’s description, and now he had confirmation. This was the same cop from the other day, the one who had knocked him around for no apparent reason.

  But now it was obvious there had been a reason.

  Fernandez said something to his sparring partner, a bit of instruction, pointing to his leg and pantomiming a block, then gave the man a pat on his shoulder and headed Hatcher’s way. He slowed down after a few steps, finally realizing who it was.

  “You,” he said.

  “Me,” Hatcher said. He spit the wad of gum into his hand and smacked it down on the wooden railing. Then he took out the mini-camcorder, started it recording, and wedged it standing up into the sticky mound.

  Hatcher made eye contact with Fernandez, then let his gaze drift around the practice area. Two duffel bags were stashed against the wall on the far side, near the corner. As far from the entrance as possible, but not out of sight. He programmed the location into his mental hard drive. His first rule of engagement: keep the party from drifting in that direction.

  There were plenty of reasons he was reluctant to confront Fernandez at a martial arts studio. He knew there would likely be other people around, people probably inclined to fight, people like cops, and even if there were no cops or anyone else anxious to get involved, witnesses wouldn’t make the going any easier. The larger the number of people, the harder it was to control the situation.

  But on the drive over, he warmed up to the idea. There were some definite advantages. The most significant one being, this would be one of the few places a cop wouldn’t be armed.

  The guns, however, wouldn’t be kept far away, or out of sight. Hence the duffels.

  There were other cops, as it turned out, but three unarmed cops instead of one armed one was a trade he was happy to make.