by Andrew Mayne
He scans them with his flashlight. “Nothing,” he says to the other man.
The light goes back in my eyes. “You a fed?”
“Would that be good news or bad news for you?”
“Did he have a PI license?” asks the other man.
“Nope.”
“Then I say we work his ass over.”
“Stop!” William shouts from the other side of the street. “Let him go!”
“You know this mouthy asshole?” asks the guard.
“Yeah. He’s with me.”
“Does Mathis know?”
William comes running over to me. “Yes. Yes. He wants to talk to him. Theo, I’m sorry. I didn’t uh . . . remember that I told you to meet me here.”
He knows I followed him, but he doesn’t want them knowing that. I don’t know if that’s for his benefit or mine.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go inside so you can meet Justice Mathis.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PUBLIC ENEMY
Detective Corman’s public enemy number one is drinking a Smartwater on the other side of a coffee table with a James Turrell art exhibition book resting on it as his teenage daughter sits in the kitchen with her grandmother working on her AP European History homework.
Athletic, dressed in a formfitting black sweater, he could be a wealthy attorney or an on-the-rise politician. It’s hard to reconcile a man whose enunciations are more pronounced than my overly educated ones with a South Central gangbanger who ruthlessly killed his way to the top.
But I don’t doubt it for a millisecond. Mathis is intelligent, watchful, and one of the most charismatic people I’ve ever met. You hear how some people swooned when Bill Clinton entered a room or Brad Pitt flashes a smile; Mathis has that kind of charm. So did Ted Bundy.
So did Joe Vik, from what people described. Although my altercation with him was less than charming.
That’s not to say that I think Mathis had anything to do with Chris’s disappearance. But I think it explains his ascendancy to power and why a guy like Detective Corman is infuriated that this man is sitting here in a multimillion-dollar home prepping his daughter for the Ivy League.
“First off, Professor Cray, please don’t pay the fellas outside any mind. I still have some enemies from my rowdier days.”
Rowdier days. That’s how he spins it? “I hope they don’t look like me.”
“You might be surprised. Some boys watch a little too much Sons of Anarchy and get some idea in their head.”
I vaguely remember that being a television show about a gang of white bikers. Could that really be what his welcoming committee thought I was? If so, then it doesn’t exactly make it look like Mathis’s rowdy days are all that far behind him.
“Second,” says Mathis, “I want to thank you for helping William out. He’s like a brother to me, and the loss of Christopher . . . well, it was like losing one of my own.”
Was it? How much effort did Mathis put into finding him? Or did he do anything at all?
“I’m not sure how much help I can be. But William’s . . . or rather Christopher’s, situation seems rather frustrating.”
“Yes.” He nods sympathetically. “William says you were at the LAPD going through records about Chris’s disappearance. Did you find out anything?”
Loads. But maybe I don’t need to share everything. “Yeah. It looks like it was a half-assed investigation.” I turn to William. “I even spoke to the investigating detective.”
“Corman?”
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
“He stopped taking my calls years ago.”
“I think he gave up . . .” Suddenly, I’m not sure what else I should say.
“Did he blame me?” asks Mathis. “Did he say this happened to Chris because his daddy was in with a gangster?”
Well, that was on the nose. “In a roundabout way.”
“Did he lay out a file and tell you I was the Al Capone of Compton?”
“I got more of a Pablo Escobar impression.”
Mathis nods, then turns to William. “How many times have we been audited?”
“Nine times,” he replies. “None ever successfully prosecuted.”
“And how many times have we been raided?”
“Five times.”
“And did they ever make a case?”
“Yes. Once.”
Mathis’s face changes. “What?”
“Health violation. Your cousin Stacey was putting raw meat on the prep counter. They shut us down.”
Mathis raises his hands in mock protest. “Well, then I guess I’m guilty of hiring my idiot cousin to run a burger joint she wasn’t qualified to operate.”
I smile. It’s a great show. I bet he’s done it for politicians, celebrity friends, and his rich friends at Soho House when the subject comes up.
I buy the innocence bit even less because he’s let me know how smart he is. Of course cops used to busting dumb asses who never graduated high school aren’t going to have an easy time getting a guy like Mathis.
Maybe he’s done, maybe he’s not, but I’m pretty sure he’s pretty far removed from all that right now and never touches something outside his lawyer’s office.
I learned everything I needed to know when the thug outside took my photo and told the guard I wasn’t a cop. Anyone clever enough to have a database of police officer head shots is already too many steps ahead.
None of that matters to me. What I need to know is if he was involved in Chris’s abduction. Corman and the LAPD can worry about everything else.
“I was doing some research,” I tell Mathis, “and I came across a statistic that said most kidnappings go unreported because they’re drug related. Corman suggested that maybe one of your rivals took Christopher. Maybe to get to William. Maybe to rattle you.”
Mathis’s voice lowers. “Do I look like I rattle? Let me ask you a question: Why are you here?” He raises a large hand before I can respond. “I don’t mean helping William. I mean why are you talking to me instead of dead back somewhere in Montana?”
He’s clearly been talking to William. “The real reason? Because that asshole took someone I cared about.”
“Some seven-foot hillbilly giant who killed seven cops was about to hurt someone you loved. So you ended him. What do you think a so-called gangster like me would do if somebody tried to rattle me or go after someone close to me? You think that wouldn’t be in the papers the next day?”
“I see your point. Unless you did it.”
“Me?” He stares at William incredulously. “Why me?”
“Why isn’t Chris’s mom here?”
I can see Mathis’s neck muscles tighten and hear the sound of William inhaling.
Mathis locks eyes with me but doesn’t say a thing.
“That had nothing to do with Mathis,” pleads William. “Nothing. Why would you bring that up? You can’t say stuff like that.”
“That’s low, man. Real low,” Mathis finally replies.
I may be on a one-way trip to one of his chop-shop incinerators, but I need one more reaction to confirm my theory. “What did the papers say the day after she and the other two people got killed? Which of your enemies did you smite?”
There’s a long, uncomfortable pause. Finally he replies, “Retributions were made.”
Fuck. He killed her, and William knows this. I catch the pained look on Bostrom’s face out of the corner of my eye.
I take a deep breath. “Let me be clear. I’m not a cop. I’m a scientist. I find patterns. William showed up on my doorstep because he wanted me to find out what happened to his son. That’s all I care about. I want to know who took the kid. I want to know if the man who did it is still out there.”
Mathis’s gaze intensifies as he reads my face. He nods, then holds out his hand for me to shake. “And I want you to find him.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FATHER FIGURE
William is sitting across from me in a booth at a bar
where I’m pretty sure I’m the only white face, but nobody could give a damn.
“Brenda and I were pretty messed up back then. I was using. She was using. It’s a miracle Chris was such a good kid. That boy raised himself. And then—”
I raise a hand. “No offense, but I don’t need or care to know what happened to your wife if it doesn’t relate to Chris’s disappearance.”
William has a hurt look on his face. He wants to confess something to me. He wants me to try to understand. There’s only one problem: I’m pretty sure there’s no version of the story I would believe in which he didn’t look bad.
“I just wanted to say that Mathis—”
I cut him off. “Mathis is a special kind of sociopath.”
“You don’t know him. He’s a great guy. He’s funded community centers. He’d give you the shirt off his back . . .”
“Unless you took it from him. Look, you can convince yourself all you want, but you know what he is. One minute he’s father of the year, the next he’s making someone an orphan.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to grow up out here.”
“I don’t. But neither does he. Mathis came from money. He came here because he knew he could get away with the evil things he wanted to do a little more openly.”
William shakes his head. “You judgmental—”
“I haven’t judged anyone. Have I said something that isn’t true? Mathis isn’t like you or me. He’s a particular kind of sociopath. The kind that makes a great politician. He makes you think he loves you until you stand in his way. And then when he does something to fuck you over, he makes you think it’s your fault.”
“And you know this from experience?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time this last year trying to understand those kind of minds. There are even genes that correlate with charisma. Some of them overcompensate for a lack of internal empathy. They make you feel like they care more than anyone else while you’re nothing to them.”
“So it’s all just genes to you?”
“No. Not always. I think you can teach yourself that, too.” Like you can convince yourself it’s okay to continue working for your wife’s murderer.
William nods slightly. “But you don’t think he had anything to do with Chris?”
“I don’t think so. Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“With Joe Vik, there was a pattern to his victims. Many of them were girls on their own with drug problems.”
“Like Lonnie Franklin? The Grim Sleeper?”
“Yeah. Easy prey.”
William crosses his arms defensively. “And my son was easy prey?”
I don’t know any other way to put it. “Christopher’s father worked for a reputed drug kingpin who was rumored to have murdered his mother for revenge. In the cops’ eyes, you guys were tainted. They did the bare minimum to find out what happened to Chris because they were pretty sure he was already ashes in one of Mathis’s furnaces. They knew they’d never be able to prove it, so they didn’t bother looking.”
“You’re one cold motherfucker. At least Mathis doesn’t make you feel like shit.”
“That’s so you don’t see the knife coming. I’m honest. I never met your kid, but everything you told me about him makes me like him. I lost someone who was closer to me than I realized. I didn’t go after Vik because he threatened someone I loved. I went after him because he took someone from me I never even got to know. I understand guilt. I know pain. The only antidote I have is brutal honesty.”
William starts to speak, but I raise a hand to stop him.
“I can lie to you and pretend that your past doesn’t matter. But it does. You and I both know that you and your wife were playing with fire. I have zero judgment on what happened. It’s not my place to forgive you or make you feel guilty. The only monster I’m concerned about is the one that took Christopher. Not just because of what he did, but because of what he might be doing.”
“You think he’s still out there.”
I nod. “Why would he stop? He figured out how to get the cops to not care. That’s where I look next. For some reason Corman gave me a stack of missing-kid folders. I suspect he knows there’s something out there. I also suspect he thinks he’s still out there because he discovered Corman and the other cops’ blind spot.”
“Families like ours.”
“Yep. Invisibles.”
William takes a long sip of beer and watches me. “You’re still judging me.”
“I’m going to help you find out what happened to your boy. Does it matter what I think?”
William shakes his head. “What I’m saying is, Mathis is smart. Real smart. He could help us. All we have to do is ask.”
“Personally speaking, I plan on staying as far away from him as possible.”
“So you think you see through all that charm?”
“No. I don’t. That’s the problem. My gut says to like him. The rational part of my brain tells me to pay attention to the obvious. Your boss is a crook and—”
“I’m a crook,” he puts in.
“But not a child killer.” I tip my bottle toward his. “Let’s finish up and go find one.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
OUTREACH
Corman’s files aren’t just a random collection of missing-children reports. They’re the hard cases, the ones where it was difficult to gather any evidence because the kids came from broken homes. In some cases, when the police went back to get more information, the families had left in a hurry.
At least half of the files were from households that appeared to be filled with illegal aliens. I get a chill thinking about how many cases of abducted children go unreported because the families are too afraid to talk to the authorities. I can’t even fathom what kind of nightmare it is to be too afraid to go to the police in a situation like that.
When I put the data into Predox, I get a purple band stretching across a map of the city, indicating areas where a predator might be at work. I could have gotten the same map if I pulled up the records for where people buy prepaid phones and long-distance calling cards to Mexico, Central America, and South America.
I decide to start with the point closest to where Christopher went missing and work my way outward.
A year ago, the grandmother of Ryan Perkins reported him missing to the police. He left an after-school care program and never made it home.
The police report mentioned that his father was at large and there had been custody issues. A follow-up report from Corman pointed out that the father was in county jail in Henderson, Nevada, at the time of abduction, suggesting that it might not have been so simple.
A pleasant older black woman greets me when I step inside the community center. She’s laying coloring books out on tables for when the kids arrive.
“Hello, young man. May I help you?”
“Hi. I’m Theo Cray. I’m doing some background work on some missing-children cases.”
Her face turns sad. “Oh, dear. Is this about Latroy?”
“Latroy?” I check the name on my note. “Who’s Latroy?”
“He went missing three weeks ago. I called his house and nobody answered. When I spoke to the police, they said his mother had been arrested. But his grandmother had no idea where Latroy was. She thought maybe child services got him.”
Jesus Christ. What a mess. “Actually, I’m here about Ryan Perkins.”
“Ryan Perkins?”
I show her the photo of the boy. It was taken from a distance, so his eyes are red and his features hard to make out.
“Oh, yes, him. Didn’t he go off with his father?”
“It would appear not.”
“My . . .” She puts a hand to her heart. “We get so many in and out of here. It’s hard to keep track.”
No kidding. Two missing kids in one after-care program for disadvantaged kids? I think I’d rather send mine out on the street.
Easy there, Theo. The whole reason this place ex
ists is because of the broken homes these kids fall in and out of. This lady is doing her best to give them a stable environment.
“Can you tell me anything about either of the boys? Did they know each other?”
“Oh, no. Latroy Edmunds had only been here a week or so. Talented boy, though. Wonderful artist. Very pleasant.” She walks over to cabinet and unlocks it. “He left this behind. Which struck me as odd. It was his favorite thing. He wanted me to hold on to it for safekeeping. It seems his mother had a habit of selling his things.”
She hands me an Iron Man action figure. It’s well used. I take a couple of photos, then hand it back to her.
“Was there anything else you remember about Latroy? Did anyone ever pick him up besides his mother or grandmother?”
“No. This is a walk-in program, so we don’t have the same kind of control over the children as a school does.”
“What about Ryan Perkins?”
“I don’t think so, either. I try my best to keep track of them.”
“I’m sure you do. Kids are lucky to have someone like you looking after them.”
I look around the colorful room, and my eyes fall upon the back wall filled with children’s drawings. I walk over to have a closer look.
There’s the typical illustrations of crudely drawn superheroes. Lots of green for the Hulk. Giant robots and loving renditions of dogs and cats. A number of them show idealized versions of family life with everyone holding hands.
One drawing stands out among all the rest. It’s an all-black figure with a bag of toys. It reminds me of a bizarro Santa Claus. I lean in for a closer look.
“Oh, you know Latroy’s work,” says the woman.
“Pardon me?”
“Latroy drew that. It’s a little urban legend; I guess you’d call it that.”
“What urban legend is that?”
“The Toy Man. He’s supposed to drive a big Cadillac around and give toys to the good boys and girls.”
“That sounds pleasant enough.”
“Yes. It does. I wouldn’t let Latroy put the other drawing up.”
“Why is that?”
“It was . . . disturbing. It shows what the Toy Man does to the bad boys and girls.”