Close Your Eyes

by Iris Johansen

  Carner, a stocky man with frizzy gray hair, cursed. “Come on, I’m on a hot streak. Can’t this wait?”

  Lynch shoved him ahead of him to the door. “Talk to me, and your karma is only going to improve.”

  Lynch and Kendra walked Carner through the club, where the dancers had already resumed plying their trade for the dozen or so customers. As they stepped out into the parking lot, the bouncer gave them a wide berth and pretended they weren’t there.

  Lynch pushed Carner against his beat-up Ford Ranger pickup truck. “I need some information.”

  “Ask all you want, but I ain’t talking, Lynch. Confidentiality is part of my service.”

  “I’m not interested in your scumbag employers. I want to talk about your competition.” Lynch pulled the color printout from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it in front of Carner’s face. “He’s another cleaner. Do you know him?”

  Carner chuckled. “Where, from the union meetings?”

  “I made the exact same joke. Now I feel totally unoriginal,” Kendra said. She motioned toward Lynch’s intense expression. “And believe me, it didn’t go over any better then. He’s not amused.”

  “You do know this guy in the picture,” Lynch said. “You have a terrible poker face.”

  Carner’s expression had told Kendra that, too, and she was impressed that Lynch had also picked up on the flash of recognition.

  Carner shook his head. “I don’t know who in the hell that is. First of all, it’s not the clearest photo, and—”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “Give me a break, will ya? I can’t be talking to you about this stuff.”

  “You can, and you will.”

  Carner moistened his lips. “Okay, just saying I did know this guy. And I gave you some information that helped you track him down. What if he was working for one of the same people who I also do some work for? What do you think my life would be worth then?”

  “You’re forgetting about me.”

  “You? Are you gonna sweat me out under the hot lights? Beat it out of me? It’s not even a contest. Take your best shot.”

  Lynch lowered his voice. “Think about it, Carner. Why would I walk in there and drag you out where everybody could see?”

  “Stupidity?”

  “Later this afternoon, I’m going to pay a visit to Robert Chilton and ask him some pointed questions about a man who was murdered in a game arcade in Encinitas last year. You remember that, don’t you? The one that no one ever found out about. Blood and brain matter all over, but you had it all ready for the kids and their game tokens by early the next morning.”

  Panic gripped Carner’s face. “Where did you hear this?”

  “From you, of course. Just now, after I dragged you out of that poker game. Unless I’m mistaken, at least two of the men at that table are on very good terms with Chilton. Think maybe they’ll tell him that you and I had a chat today?”

  Carner looked ill. “No one knows about that job.”

  “Exactly. How will Chilton think I know about it?”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  Lynch held up the printout again. “Who is this man, who does he work for, and where can I find him?”

  Carner cleared his throat as if trying to get rid of a sour taste in his mouth. “That’s all? I guess you want me to give you a lift to his house, too.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  Carner stared at the printout. “Shit. What do I care about him? That’s John Bergen. He used to do some work for the Vietnamese syndicates. I didn’t think he was actually in the business anymore. These days, I think he mostly just buys and renovates old houses and apartment buildings.”

  “He’s gone legit?” Kendra asked.

  “There’s legit, then there’s legit. Who doesn’t like a bagful of cash money dropped into your lap once in a while, huh?”

  Lynch folded up the printout. “Where do I find him?”

  “How should I know? The phone book, Google, take your pick.”

  “Okay, Carner.” He leaned forward, and his voice was low and fierce. “If you’ve been feeding me a line of bull, I’m not coming after you. I’m going to pay that visit to Chilton, and he’ll come after you. Someone will be mopping up your blood someplace. Understand?”

  “Yeah, you’ve made yourself very clear.”

  “Good.”

  “Can I get back to my game now?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Kendra smiled as she watched Carner stumble back toward the door. “We saved you money, Carner. The man closest to the door was holding a straight flush. He would have clobbered your pair of nines.”

  * * *

  IT TOOK LYNCH ALL OF THREE minutes to track down John Bergen’s property-management business, and only another two minutes of telephone time for him to extract Bergen’s current whereabouts from the company receptionist. Lynch turned the wheel and headed for Chula Vista, where Bergen was reportedly renovating his latest acquisition.

  “So how did you know about the arcade cleanup?” Kendra asked. “That completely freaked Carner out.”

  “We had an agent working undercover in Chilton’s organization. He tipped us off at the time, but we were trying to pull together a bigger case and just tabled it for a while.”

  “A bigger case than murder?”

  “Bigger than that scumbag’s murder. Sometimes you just have to look at the bigger picture. They might have nailed Robert Chilton for that one hit, but it would have blown the cover of an agent who had been working years to build a case against dozens of people.”

  After a few minutes, they parked in front of an older Spanish-style house with a large Dumpster in the driveway. Construction debris overflowed the Dumpster, with several lengths of molding sticking out in every direction.

  They got out of the car, and Lynch walked around, opened the trunk, and flipped two switches on a black, shoebox-sized electronic device.

  “What’s that?” Kendra asked.

  “Something that may or may not be of use to us.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  Lynch slammed the trunk and turned toward a black pickup truck parked in front of the house. He walked toward it, and without breaking stride, reached under the left-rear wheel well for a brief moment. He cleared it just as a thin gray-haired man stepped from the house with his arms full of drywall scraps.

  “That’s him,” Kendra whispered. “The man from the security video.”

  The man dumped the scraps into the Dumpster. He turned toward Lynch and Kendra as they walked up the driveway to meet him.

  Lynch took off his sunglasses. “Mr. Bergen, how are you today?”

  Bergen regarded them warily. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Speak up. Who are you?” Bergen wiped chalky drywall dust from his hands onto his jeans. “I’m really busy here, so I’d appreciate it if you would just get to the point.”

  “We know about your cleanup job in that College Grove condo last week. Is that to the point enough for you?”

  Bergen stared at him blankly. “College Grove? I don’t have a place over there.”

  “Cut the crap. I’m talking about the cleanup job you were hired for.”

  Still no expression, save for one of total puzzlement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not a janitor. I own the houses I work on.”

  The guy is a damned good liar, Kendra thought. No nervous twitches, no shiftiness of the eyes, no difference in his vocal quality. He would make a perfect used-car salesman.

  Lynch flashed his badge. “You’re looking at felony murder, accessory after the fact. I can charge you with that right now and make it stick.”

  “If that’s the case, why aren’t I in cuffs in the back of a police car?”

  “We don’t give a damn about you. We need to know who you were working for. I’m guessing it wasn’t one of your regular employers.”

  “Sorry, buddy
. I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We both know you do, and you’re starting to piss me off. We’re closing in on the guy who gave you the job, Bergen. If you don’t give him up to me, I’m going to start dropping hints to his people that you’re the one who pointed me in his direction.”

  Bergen smiled. “Even if I didn’t.”

  “Especially if you didn’t.”

  “Well, I guess that’s what you’re going to have to do. Because I didn’t do whatever you think I did.”

  Lynch shrugged. “Okay. Fair warning.” He nodded to Kendra, and they walked back down the driveway. Neither of them spoke until after they had climbed into his car and closed their doors.

  “Your routine didn’t work quite as well with him, did it?” Kendra said.

  Lynch watched Bergen walk back into the house. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You’re chalking that up as a success?”

  “The jury is still out.” Lynch reached under his seat and pulled out a cable and a small remote control. He plugged the cable into his car stereo’s auxiliary jack, then turned up the volume knob.

  Kendra watched him punch a few buttons on the remote. “Let me guess. The Best of Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Volume 2.”

  He cast a sideways glance at her. “No, but I’ll remember to download that for next time. This is connected to that box in the trunk.”

  “Yes, I remember. The one you were so forthcoming about.”

  He pushed another button on the remote, and static spiked from the car stereo speakers, followed by a woman’s voice, then a child’s. Lynch used the remote to change the signal. “I didn’t expect him to give up his employer so easily. All I did was light a fire under him. He’s going to want to get in front of this.”

  Kendra considered this. “By contacting him.”

  “I would. Sooner than later. And he’s not likely to use a landline. He’ll probably use a—

  The sound of a telephone ringtone blared over the speakers, as if someone had just made a call and was waiting for an answer.

  “This could be him,” Lynch said.

  A man answered. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Bergen.”

  Lynch and Kendra exchanged a quick glance. Bergen no longer sounded so smooth; he now had a clipped, nervous tone in his voice.

  “Why in the hell are you calling me?”

  “This is an emergency. You really need to know what—”

  The man cut in. “What phone are you using?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s a throwaway. This is the first time I’ve used it. Listen, just a heads-up. The feds know about the job I did for you.”

  “What happened?”

  “They just showed up at my doorstep. There must be a leak on your end, because I haven’t told anybody.”

  “There’s no leak.”

  “There has to be. I’m telling you—”

  “You fucked up. You did shoddy work, that’s what happened.”

  “No way. You saw that floor. It’s a masterpiece. There’s no way anyone could tell.”

  “Someone could and did tell. She smelled it, you idiot.”

  Bergen paused for a long moment. “That’s impossible.”

  “Impossible for you, maybe. It took her all of fifteen seconds. Who exactly spoke to you?”

  “A guy named Adam Lynch. He was with a woman, but I didn’t get her name.”

  “I know who it was. She’s the one who sniffed out your hack cleanup job.”

  “Never in all my years of doing this has anyone ever—”

  The man was muttering a string of curses. “We paid a hell of a lot for your expertise. You told me you were the best.”

  “I am. And even if what you’re saying is true, how could they have known it was me?”

  “I imagine it’s because you were sloppy. You were so sure no one would detect your handiwork that you didn’t take appropriate measures to cover your tracks. Am I right?”

  “No. You’re not right. I didn’t make any mistakes.”

  “Bullshit.” The man sighed. “I need to think about this. Don’t talk to anyone, do you understand me?”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to do absolutely nothing. Your only job now is to keep your damned mouth shut. Can you handle that?”

  “What if they come back?”

  “Say nothing. I’ll get in touch with you in the next couple hours. Sit tight.”

  The call ended.

  “You were right,” Kendra said. “What’s next? Are we going back to confront him?”

  Lynch started the car. “No. We don’t want to tip off whoever he was talking to.”

  “I thought you’d want to go all caveman on him to find out who he was working for. You do that role quite well.”

  “I’m flattered by your approval. I’ll reserve the right to employ the caveman, but I want to try something else first.” Lynch drove away from the house, raised his phone, and punched a number. Almost immediately, he started talking. “This is Lynch. I just recorded a call that I’ve sent your way. I need a trace. Name and location, as soon as you can get it to me. Good, I’ll be waiting.” He cut the connection.

  “Just like that.” Kendra smiled. “Cool little toy you have back there.”

  “Yes, I’m quite fond of it. It scans the immediate area, records mobile phone calls and carrier data. It can’t trace the call, but it forwards the data to a call center that can.”

  “What call center?”

  “One that you’re better off not knowing about.”

  “Wonderful. It’s probably in Calcutta. And does that gadget also obtain the necessary warrants to make this legal?”

  He didn’t answer directly. “Do you want to find Jeff Stedler or not?”

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

  “Take it however you want. Just remember that you were the one who wanted me to beat the information out of him.”

  She frowned. “I never actually said that.”

  “But you obviously had less of a problem with that than you did with—”

  “With violating the Constitution?”

  “Technically speaking, I think both approaches violate the Constitution.”

  “You have a point there.” Kendra looked at Lynch as he sped toward the freeway. He had been admirably willing to let her take the lead when circumstances warranted it, but he was clearly more comfortable in the driver’s seat, both figuratively and literally. He seemed to come truly alive when stepping into a leadership role. It was obviously where he was meant to be. His mind was sharp, his responses right on the money, and his lethal quotient was off the charts. She had never seen anyone as impressive and high-impact as Lynch when he threw off that quiet, lazy façade and went into overdrive. She could see how he had become a legend in the Bureau. She could also see how that recklessness could make him be regarded as too volatile and hot to handle.

  He glanced at her. “Something wrong?”

  “No.” Except that she had suddenly realized that she was responding to both that force and recklessness in a way that was purely sensual. Back off. “What about the gadget you stuck in his wheel well?”

  “Standard FBI issue, not unlike the USB drive that Griffin tried to give you. It will ping his location to us. I’ll talk to Griffin about putting a tail on him, but in the meantime we’ll have a pretty good idea where he goes.”

  “You’ve got all the bases covered.”

  “You never know.” He checked his watch. “The call center should have some information later tonight, so we can pick up on this tomorrow. I’ll take you home.”

  She checked her watch. She still had a little time before she had to be home to meet Olivia. “Pretty soon. Actually, there’s somewhere else I’d like to go first.”

  CHAPTER

  11

  Scripps Mercy Hospital

  San Diego

  KENDRA AND LYNCH STOOD in the Intensive Care Unit room staring down
at Lesley Dunn. The room was dim, but it obviously would not have mattered to the unconscious woman even if the overhead fluorescents had been on at full strength. Kendra was surprised at how good the woman looked. Her delicate features caught the light in a way that a movie starlet might envy, and her serene expression suggested she was merely enjoying a peaceful slumber.

  A uniformed police officer stood in the doorway, standing guard over the woman’s room. The cop was a young red-haired man who, to Kendra’s relief, had spent five minutes checking their IDs and calling to confirm their identities before letting them enter.

  “They keep saying she’s worse off than she looks,” the officer said. “She may not make it.”

  Kendra stepped to the side of Lesley’s bed and looked at the monitors. “They also say that people in comas can sometimes hear what the people around them are saying. Please remember that, Officer.”

  The cop shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean—Uh, sorry.”

  “We’ll let you know if we need anything else,” Lynch said, dismissingly.

  The officer nodded and went out into the hall.

  Kendra looked at the woman’s face, searching for any sign of life, for any indication that Lesley Dunn was still in there, clawing to get out.

  There was none. Just shallow breathing and terrifying stillness.

  “She’s been scrubbed clean, and her clothes were probably scissored off in the emergency room,” Lynch said. “I don’t know what you can tell by looking at her.”

  “That’s not what this is about.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  Kendra looked at Lesley for a moment longer. Did her eye just twitch? No, just wishful thinking. Kendra turned back toward Lynch. “It’s about actually seeing her and remembering why we’re doing this.”

  “I thought you were doing it all for Stedler.”

  “Maybe at first. But now … I’m not naïve enough to think that Jeff’s likely to be alive. It’s been days now, I get that. But if he’s been killed, I know it’s because he believed in what he was doing so much that he was willing to put his life on the line.” Her voiced hardened. “And he did it because there is someone out there who will just keep killing if he isn’t stopped. If that’s not enough of a reason for me to keep pushing, then I don’t know what is.”