by Robert Crais
Then Hydeck and McIntosh turned, and her eyes left him for them.
Hydeck said, “May I help you?”
“What happened? Wilson, are you all right? Wilson’s my uncle.”
Smith shifted to see past the paramedics.
“That’s Dru. She’s my niece.”
Her name was Dru Rayne, and she moved between Smith and the police as they told her what happened.
“You were assaulted right here? Right here in the shop? They attacked you?”
“I was doing okay, then this guy here stopped it.”
Dru Rayne studied Pike again, and this time she mouthed two words, as if the officers and paramedics and her uncle could not see or were not there, creating a moment between the two of them that included no one else.
“Thank you.”
Pike nodded once.
Then she turned to the paramedics.
“Is he going to be all right?”
“They’ll keep him for observation. With head injuries like this, they like to keep them overnight.”
“I’m not staying. They stitch me up, I’m outta there.”
Dru Rayne moved to the gurney and looked down at him.
“Wilson. Please don’t be like that.”
Hydeck gave her card to Ms. Rayne and informed her that detectives would likely interview her uncle at the hospital. The paramedics finished strapping Smith to the cart, and Pike watched his niece follow them out. She did not look back at Pike as she left.
Hydeck waited until they were gone, then turned back to Pike. She still held his driver’s license.
“You think what happened here was a dispute over a sandwich?”
Pike shook his head, and Hydeck glanced at his license again.
“You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“No.”
“Those tattoos ring a bell.”
A bright red arrow was inked onto the outside of each of Pike’s deltoids. She could see them because Pike wore a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. Government-issue sunglasses shiny and black as a beetle’s shell hid his eyes, but the arrows hung on his arms like neon signs. They pointed forward. Pike was six feet one, weighed just over two hundred pounds, and his arms were ropy with muscle. His hair was a quarter-inch short, his skin was cooked dark, and his knuckles were scarred and coarse.
Hydeck thumbed the edge of his license.
“Most people walk into a beat-down like this, they run. But looking at you, I guess you can handle yourself. What do you do, Mr. Pike?”
“Businessman.”
“Of course.”
Pike expected her to ask what kind of business, but she returned his license. If she noticed a bulge where one of the two pistols he carried was hidden, she ignored it.
“Guess Mr. Smith is lucky it was you who happened by.”
She gave him a business card.
“The detectives will probably call you, but this is my card. You think of anything in the meantime, call.”
Pike took the card, and Hydeck left to join McIntosh at their radio car. Dru Rayne was with her uncle as the paramedics opened their vehicle. She clutched his hand as she spoke to him, and seemed very intent. Then she stepped away and the paramedics slid the gurney into their truck. Hydeck and McIntosh climbed into the radio car, flipped on their lights, and stopped traffic to let the ambulance leave. The paramedics headed toward the hospital. Hydeck and McIntosh turned in the opposite direction, already rolling to another call.
Dru Rayne watched the ambulance. She stared after it until the ambulance was gone, then hurried back to the shop. Pike didn’t like the way she hurried. It looked like she was running for cover.
Pike said, “Why is he lying?”
She startled, making a little jump.
“You scared me.”
Pike nodded, then thought he should probably apologize.
“Sorry.”
She gave him another grateful smile, then went behind the counter.
“It’s me. I’m jumpy, I guess. I have to go to the hospital.”
“Why is he lying?”
“Why do you think? He’s scared they’ll come back.”
“They’ve been here before?”
She turned off the deep fryers and put lids on metal condiment containers, speaking as she worked. Wilson sounded like a New Yorker, but her accent was softer, maybe because she was a woman.
“They live here, we live here, so we have to think about these things. People like that, they always come back.”
“If you think they’ll come back, you should tell the police. Hydeck knows what she’s doing.”
She cocked her head.
“I thought you were the police.”
“No.”
“You look like a policeman. Kinda.”
“Just passing by.”
She smiled again, then offered her hand across the counter.
“Dru Rayne. You can call me Dru.”
“Joe Pike.”
“Then that was extra nice, what you did, helping like that, Mr. Pike. Thank you.”
They shook, then Dru Rayne turned back to her work, speaking over her shoulder.
“Now, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I have to get this place locked up so I can get to the hospital.”
Pike nodded, thinking there was no reason he shouldn’t leave, but he didn’t. He clocked her hand. No wedding ring.
“Would you like me to take you?”
“That’s all right, no. But thank you for offering.”
Pike tried to think of something else to say.
“Talk to the police.”
“We’ll be fine. You don’t know my uncle. He probably called them names.”
She flashed a warm smile, but Pike knew she wasn’t going to tell the police any more than her uncle.
She stacked the metal containers, then carried the stack into the back room. When she disappeared, Pike wrote his name and cell number on an order pad he found by the cash register. He wrote his personal cell number, not the business number he gave the police.
“I’m leaving my number. You need me, call.”
She was still in the back.
“Okay. Thanks again.”
Pike returned to his Jeep, but did not leave the scene. He found the service alley that ran behind Wilson’s sandwich shop, and waited at the far end. A few minutes later, Dru Rayne came out, locked the door, and hurried to a silver Tercel. It was an older model with paint scraped from the rear bumper, and it needed a wash. Pike thought she looked worried.
He sat in the Jeep for a while, then got out and walked the length of the block, first in the alley, then on the sidewalk. He took in the people on the sidewalks and in the stores, and the rooflines of the surrounding buildings. He studied the people behind the wheels of the passing cars, thinking about what she had said: They always come back.
Pike was across from the gas station when a maroon Monte Carlo slow-rolled past with the windows down. Two young men were in front, with a third in back, all three showing gang ink and jailhouse faces. They stared at Pike as they passed, so Pike stared back.
The man in the back seat made a gun of his hand, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
Pike watched them go, thinking how Dru Rayne had run for cover.
They always come back.
No, Pike thought. Not if they fear you.
3
Way it worked for anyone else, Officer Hydeck would inform her watch commander that the victim and suspect were en route to the hospital. Her watch commander would relay this information to the Detective Bureau duty officer, who would dispatch detectives to the hospital, where they would speak with Smith and Mendoza, and likely the paramedics. If Mendoza ID’d his accomplice, their case would be made. If Mendoza refused to cooperate, the detectives would call Pike to arrange an interview. They would ask to drop by his home or place of employment, or arrange to meet at a mutually agreeable location, everything low-key and friendly. This was the way it would work if
Pike were anyone else, but Pike knew it would work differently for him. Someone would recognize his name, and what the investigators did and how they approached the case would be different.
Pike was correct.
Eight hours, twenty-seven minutes after Pike eyeballed the maroon Monte Carlo, he returned home to find two detectives in his parking lot. Pike lived in a gated condominium complex in Culver City, not far from the scene of the assault. The condos were bunched in four-unit quads, and laid out so two or three quads shared their own parking lot. Entry to the complex required a magnetic key card to open the drive-through gate, but here they were, a male and a female detective waiting in a predictable tan Crown Victoria.
They climbed out of their car as Pike pulled in, and were waiting with their badges when he stepped from the Jeep. The man was in his fifties, with a fleshy face, thinning red hair, and a blue summer-weight sport coat. The woman was fifteen years younger, with raven hair, black eyes, and a navy pants suit that hung as if she had recently lost weight. Her gun dimpled the coat at her waist, and she stood with her hand floating close as if she might have to draw. Nervous. Pike wondered what she had heard about him that left her so afraid.
The older detective nudged the woman, showing her an exhibit at the zoo.
“Joe Pike.”
Then, louder, to Pike, as if Pike was an animal who had been oblivious to the nudge.
“When they said it was you, I thought, well now, if he doesn’t shoot me, this one will make my day.”
The way he said it made Pike look closer. He now seemed familiar, but Pike did not recognize him.
The man held his badge higher, making sure Pike saw.
“What, Pike, you don’t remember me? Jerry Button, from Rampart. Out of Pacific Station now. This is Detective Futardo. We’re here on the Smith assault, so no shooting, okay? Don’t shoot us.”
Rampart brought back the name, but this Jerry Button looked almost nothing like the sharp young officer Pike remembered. This Button was thirty pounds heavier, with blotchy skin and puffy eyes. That Jerry Button had gone through the Academy a couple of years ahead of Pike, and was a fast-track patrol officer in Rampart Division when Pike was a boot. They had been friendly, but not friends. Button had shunned him when Pike resigned, but most of his fellow officers had. Pike couldn’t blame them.
Pike read their ID cards, more than a car-length away. Futardo was a D-1, which told Pike she was new to the Detective Bureau and fresh out of a car. Button was now a Detective-3, which was a senior grade usually held by supervisors. A D-3 was too much horsepower for a simple assault.
Pike said, “How’s Mr. Smith?”
Button ignored him as he put away his badge.
“You carrying a weapon?”
“Two. And the permits.”
Button nudged Futardo again.
“Told you. He’s always gunned up.”
Futardo’s face was a dark little bunker.
“Should we check the permits?”
“Nah. You can’t get away with dropping as many bodies as this guy without having your paperwork in order. Your paperwork’s in order, isn’t it, Pike? You good on the paper?”
Pike stared at Button until Button finally laughed, and held up his hands.
“Just kidding. Let’s go inside, talk about what happened.”
“Out here is good.”
“C’mon, let’s go inside. Inside is better.”
“The courtesy of a call gets you inside. No call, out here. The rudeness, out here is fine.”
Button darkened.
“Are you going to cooperate or not?”
“Ask your questions.”
“Here in the parking lot?”
“Here.”
Button cued Futardo to take out a pad.
“All right then, here. You know what we need. Tell us what happened.”
Pike related the sequence of events just as he had described them to Hydeck, including a description of the second assailant and the arrival and actions of the paramedics and police. Futardo scribbled fast to keep up, but Button looked bored, as if he had heard it all before and didn’t much care one way or another.
“According to Officer Hydeck, you produced a nine-millimeter pistol and told her you took it from Mendoza. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Mendoza claims you planted it on him.”
“What does Mr. Smith say?”
“Says he never saw the gun. Is he lying?”
Pike thought back over searching Mendoza.
“No. He was facedown when I took the gun. If he didn’t see the gun before I arrived, he wouldn’t have seen it after. The gun was in Mendoza’s pocket.”
Button glanced over at Futardo.
“Okay, let’s see the pictures.”
Futardo slipped a manila envelope from her jacket, and shook out several sheets.
“We’d like you to look at some booking photos. Each sheet—”
Button interrupted her.
“He knows what they are. He used to be one of us. Don’t forget that.”
Each sheet contained six color booking photos of adult males in their twenties and thirties, all of approximately the same size and weight. Because each sheet held six pictures, the sheets were called six-packs. Pike could tell by the tattoos that most were or had been members of Mendoza’s gang.
Pike identified Mendoza’s partner on the second sheet, middle of the bottom row.
“This one.”
Futardo cocked her head to see.
“Figures. Alberto Gomer.”
Button spiked her with a nasty glance that made her pale. She had made a rookie mistake by identifying a suspect by name to a witness, and Button would chew her out for it later. She wet her lips nervously before continuing.
“Will you sign a sworn affidavit so stating, and testify to that effect under oath in open court?”
“Yes.”
Futardo took a pen from her jacket, and held out the sheet and the pen. Her fingers shook.
“Circle the image you are now identifying as the man you saw assault Mr. Wilson Smith on this date and sign it.”
Pike circled and signed. Button hadn’t been a bad guy when Pike knew him, but now he came across as angry and mean. Pike thought he was probably an asshole to work with.
“Did Mr. Smith recognize him?”
Button snorted.
“None of these people looked familiar to Mr. Smith. Isn’t it funny how that works? Mr. Smith was not what we call a helpful witness.”
Futardo softened for the first time as she took back the pictures.
“He’s afraid.”
Button snorted again, and cued Futardo.
“Anything you want to ask, Detective?”
Futardo finished whatever she was writing, and looked back at Pike.
“Let’s back up to when you first saw Mendoza and his friend. What were you doing when you saw them?”
“Buying gas.”
“Uh-huh. And what were you doing in Venice?”
“Buying gas.”
“So you just happened to be there?”
“Where should I be?”
“Had you met Mr. Mendoza before this morning?”
Futardo was watching him closely, and Pike realized Button was watching him, too. As if they had been trying to get here from the beginning, and were intent on reading his reaction. They should have been asking about Wilson Smith and Reuben Mendoza, but they were asking Pike about Pike.
“Where are you going with this?”
“Wherever. Of all the people in L.A., it’s you over there kicking the shit out of this turd.”
“Ask Mr. Smith.”
“I’m asking you. You’re what makes this interesting.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It’s about whatever I say.”
Pike nodded, and now he understood why a D-3 was running a simple assault investigation. Pike’s voice was quiet as a leaf floating on a pond.
“We’re finished.”
“We’re finished when I say we’re finished.”
Futardo looked scared, and suddenly interrupted to defuse the situation.
“What happens next is we’ll type up your statement and call about getting together so you can sign it. You’ll have to sign it.”
Button snapped at her.
“He knows that. Saddle up. I’ll be along in a minute.”
Futardo took her pad and the pictures and looked relieved to be going.
Pike kept his voice soft.
“What did you tell her about me, make her so scared?”
“The truth.”
“You didn’t come here to make a case against Mendoza.”
“We see a hundred assaults a day. A chickenshit assault case is nothing.”
“What happened to you? You used to be better than this.”
Button watched Futardo get into their car, then studied Pike for a moment as he worked out an answer.
“I am a police officer. I believe in the law, and I have devoted my life to upholding it, but you, Pike, the law is nothing to you. These young cops, they talk about you like you’re some kind of gunfighting legend, but I know you’re shit. I don’t like what happened when you were an officer, or how you’ve gotten away with putting so many people in the dirt since we ran you off the department. You’re dangerous, Pike. There’s something wrong with you, and sooner or later we’ll put you away.”
Button went to his car, calling over his shoulder.
“Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch.”
Way it worked for anyone else, Button and Futardo would be trying to find out what really happened in Wilson Smith’s shop, and making sure Mendoza and his accomplice couldn’t hurt Wilson and Dru again. This was the way it would work if Pike were anyone else, but Pike knew it worked differently for him. Button didn’t care about the assault or whether Wilson Smith would be assaulted or robbed again. Button was in it to grind Pike, which meant Wilson and his niece were alone.