by Dave Stanton
“Then I’ll have to climb back up.”
Cody shook his head. “I realize you think you’re a badass mountain man, but it’s fourteen stories you’d have to climb.”
I tied a double figure-eight knot and clipped a carabiner through the loop. “I know what I’m doing. How about grabbing me a few bugs and a transmitter?”
While Cody retrieved his bag from the cab, I put a small flashlight, a roll of duct tape, and my cell phone into a waist pack. Then I pulled a black beanie low over my ears and began attaching a phony goatee to my chin.
“Look up,” Cody said. “You’re making a mess of it.” He put his big fingers on my face and pressed the fake whiskers into place.
“I’ve only got three bugs left,” he said. He dropped them into my pack along with the tennis ball-sized transmitter.
“When we approach the elevator, we’ll come in from the left,” I said. “There’s a camera aimed at the keypad. If we stay left of it, we should be out of range. Let’s go.”
We walked across the street to the kiosk in front of the garage. I punched in the code I’d seen Shanice Tucker use to enter the premises. The garage door slid back smoothly, and we went in. The lighting was dim, and our sneakers squeaked against the polished concrete as we made our way to the elevator. I approached the elevator door from the left and reached out and tapped in Shanice’s code. The door pinged and opened right away. We got in, and I pushed the button for the top floor, but I was fairly certain the elavator would allow us access only to the sixteenth. We began moving upward.
“What are you going to do if someone’s home?” Cody said. “Shoot them?”
“I’ve got my stun gun in my pack. I’ll use it if I have to.”
“I’ve seen guys take a jolt and keep on coming.”
“Not this stun gun. Not when it’s turned on high.”
We rode in silence until the elevator came to a stop.
“They got a security guard making the rounds?” Cody asked.
“Let’s hope not.”
Like I suspected, the door opened at the sixteenth floor, and we had to take the stairs the rest of the way. We silently climbed fourteen floors to a door that opened to the roof of the building. The only illumination came from a pulsing red light affixed to a thirty-foot pole on the far side of the building. When the light blinked, I could see the exercise machines facing out from the windows of the fitness center. There was a soft wind blowing, and the water in the swimming pool glittered with silver reflection.
“This way,” I said. We walked along the edge of the pool, past the lounge chairs and tables and folded umbrellas to the two fences at the roofline. I stepped over the waist-high bar of the first fence and rested my hand on the cold steel of the outer fence. It was made of three large horizontal tubes, each about twelve inches in diameter. The posts were the same size and shape. I rapped on a tube with my knuckles. A hollow ring sounded.
With my arm hooked around a post, I leaned out and looked over the edge and saw I was about twenty feet left of the flat concrete portion beside the column of balconies. The surrounding rooftops below were dark. The street, three hundred feet beneath me, looked tiny. I walked ten paces left and looked again.
“Right here.” I lifted the coil of rope off my shoulder.
“You sure about this, Dirt?”
I looped the end of the rope around the welded crease where the tubes intersected. The metal had a glossy finish. I looked up at Cody. His shaggy hair looked garish in the flashing light.
“Piece of cake, man. I’ll flash you when I get to the balcony. Two flashes means pull the rope up and boogie.”
Cody stared at me, his eyes like green marbles. “All right,” he said.
I finished double-knotting the rope around the tubes and clipped my carabiners and rappelling device in place. Then I ducked between the tubes, pulled the rope taught, and began lowering myself over the side.
Once my feet were firmly planted on the wall, I checked the angle of the rope and saw that it might come in contact with the concrete edging of the roofline as I lowered myself. Too much of that could cause the rope to snap. If I had to climb up, I might be up shit creek.
I took a couple steps downward, then eased off my hold, lowered myself a foot or two, and jumped out and descended past the first balcony. I paused for a moment when I came back in contact with the wall and looked up. The sky was black except for a pulsing red glimmer off a low strip of clouds. I flexed my ankles, jumped again, and dropped another twelve feet past the second balcony. Pleased and a bit exhilarated, I pushed off harder and swooped past two more. The rope above quivered with tension.
I continued in this fashion, rappelling in twenty-five-foot increments. None of the balconies were lit, and the only sound was the whir of rope through the steel mechanism I held in my palm. It took perhaps a minute to count off the balconies to my destination.
When I reached 1602, I had to grip the wall and push myself a couple feet horizontally before I could grasp the balcony railing. Then I pulled myself close and put my foot on the concrete floor and stepped over, smooth and easy. I crouched low and stared through the dark glass doors. No light, no movement.
I eased opened my carabiner and let the rope fall free. My eyes straining, I peered at the door again. The door lever was stainless steel, and there was no keyhole. I touched the butt of my pistol where it rested on my chest and took my flashlight from my waist pack. My hand reached for the lever and slowly turned it. I pulled, and the door came open with barely a sound.
I removed a glove and used it to prop the door open, then reached over the balcony railing and blipped my flashlight twice. A moment later the rope began moving back up the side of the building.
I turned back to the door, eased it open, and stepped into the house. The interior was pitch-black. I stood still for thirty seconds, listening and waiting to see if my eyes would adjust. Aside from a faint hum from the ducts, it was dead silent. The only light source was natural illumination coming through the balcony doors and the windows. The moon was a sliver, and the light was next to nothing. I turned on my flashlight and pointed the thin beam of light to my left.
An old tube television sat on a pair of plastic milk crates. Across from it, a black coffee table and a couch and two folding chairs. The floor was concrete, same as the balcony. I crept across the room to the dinette. On the table, a dirty plate and a soda can. I peered down a hallway where the doors were closed, then moved into the kitchen.
The floor in the kitchen was also unfinished concrete. The counters were black granite, or perhaps a composite surface, and were covered with miscellaneous items. An empty microwave dinner box, a screwdriver, a blender, a fifth of vodka, a stack of napkins. In the corner, three postmarked envelopes. An electric bill, a water bill, and a solicitation from an interior design company. All addressed to Farid Insaf. The envelope for the electric bill had been opened. I removed the statement and photographed it.
The kitchen cabinets were occupied by a sparse collection of plastic plates and drinking glasses. Two of the cabinets were bare. I stuck a bug under the wood molding of one of them.
The cabinets beneath the counter were also randomly populated. A couple pots and pans and a stack of paper plates. I opened a third door. On the shelf was a semiautomatic pistol, an inexpensive, off-brand .32. Next to it sat a cardboard box that had once contained a DVD player. I pulled the box out. It was light. I held the flashlight in my teeth and opened the flaps. Resting on a bed of white Styrofoam were two rectangular bricks, each about three inches by a foot. They were coated in black plastic. Yellow block lettering was etched across each brick: Charge Demolition 112 with Taggant (1–1/4 lbs Comp C–4). More lettering followed—a coded or serial designation of some kind.
I took pictures with my cell, then slid the box back into the cabinet. Then I went to the couch and stuck a bug on the underlying wood frame. I peered around the room, looking for a suitable place to hide the transmitter. Between the living r
oom and the kitchen, there weren’t many options. No potted plants, no clutter of furniture or shelves. No closets, either. Finally I lay on my side, lifted the rear of the couch, and tried to wedge the transmitter into the frame. It didn’t fit well, and when I lowered the couch, the transmitter was partially resting on the floor. But it wouldn’t be detected unless someone moved the couch.
I walked to the hallway, where there were three doors. The one at the end was not fully closed. I assumed it was a bathroom. The other two would be bedrooms. Maybe a file cabinet was in one. Or a person. My hand moved to unzip my waist pack, where I could feel the weight of my stun gun.
I froze when I heard a faint squeak, then a rustle. I moved back, and just as I crouched behind the end of the kitchen peninsula, a bedroom door opened. A dark figure walked away from me toward the bathroom. He pushed the door open, hit the light switch, and began urinating loudly. Duante Tucker stood with his hands on his hips. He was naked, and the light fell over his shiny black skin. The cords in his neck were taut, and his back was tattooed. His ridged triceps muscles reminded me of a serrated blade.
He finished with a sigh, shook his phallus, and switched off the light. I gripped my stun gun and ducked deeper into the kitchen. Tucker’s feet made no thump on the concrete floor. I waited for the sound of his bedroom door closing. A second went by. I looked up from my crouch, over the counter. And then the kitchen light came on.
Poised in a wrestler’s stance, it should have been easy. I had the element of surprise on my side, and my stun gun was at the ready. I should have been able to zap Tucker into quick submission, hogtie and gag him, and search the rest of the house. As long as no one else was home.
But when Tucker came around the corner, he was quick, unbelievably quick. When I lunged at him, his bare foot shot out and kicked the stun gun from my hand. It went clattering behind me, and our eyes made the briefest of contact. The skin on his forehead was cranked tight on the bone, his nostrils flared, his eyelids pulled back as if in a windstorm. He raised his upper lip in a snarl, and I tried for my Beretta, but he swung down with a left, forcing me to raise my right arm to block. The blow glanced off the top of my head, and I swept my foot at his ankle, trying to trip him. He deftly hopped over my foot and kicked at my face. I dodged his foot but lost my balance and went to a knee. He came at me hard in a flurry of punches, his fists a blur. I dropped to my butt and aimed a kick at his crotch, and I hit him right above his large, hanging member, but it was not a disabling shot.
I was on my back now, and Tucker leapt on top of me, one hand going for my throat, the other punching at my face. I blocked a punch and got my right arm around his neck. I clenched him close, using all my strength. I felt his bare chest digging into where my pistol rested in my shoulder holster. He wedged his right hand toward the holster, but I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and wrapped my legs around his waist and pinned his body tightly against mine. He squirmed and flailed, and he was very strong, but he could not break my grip on his wrist. The most he could do was throw left-handed blows at my head and ribs. The punches were rapid, and his knuckles would leave bruises, but from his position he could not strike hard enough to force me to let go of his neck.
Sweat was beading on my forehead, and I could smell Tucker’s deodorant. His close-shaved head was rough against my face. “You’re gonna die, motherfucker,” he hissed in my ear. I tried unsuccesfully to curl my wrist around his throat and and reach his thorax. He jerked his head, and from the corner of my eye I saw a kitchen towel hanging from the handle on the oven door. I released his wrist and snatched the towel, taking a quick punch to the head. I fed the towel to my right hand, then looped it around the back of his neck. He bucked and clawed at my holster, but before Tucker could figure out my intention, I brought my left hand around and cinched the towel around his throat. Then I pulled with both hands as hard as I could, my arms pounding with blood, my mind focused on a single thought: pull harder.
Twenty seconds of intense exertion, and his body went limp. Gasping for air, I pushed him off me and onto his back. His eyes had rolled back in his head. I yanked my automatic from its holster, stepped around his body, and pointed the barrel down the hallway. The second bedroom door remained closed. Tucker and I had made a considerable racket, banging and kicking against the kitchen cabinets. If someone was in the second bedroom, he would have heard us, unless he were one hell of a deep sleeper.
I turned Tucker onto his front and bound his wrists behind him with a plastic tie. My phony facial hair had come off and was plastered like a smashed insect against his shoulder. I peeled it free and stuffed it in my pocket, then checked for his pulse and found it. He’d regain consciousness in a minute, maybe less. I retrieved my stun gun, tied his ankles, and used a third tie to loop them to his wrists. Then I duct-taped his mouth and eyes and went down the hall to the unopened bedroom door. I was still breathing hard, and adrenalin pounded in my ears. I took a slow breath and turned the knob, but the door was locked.
I wiped at a thin trickle of blood on my cheek, then raised my leg and slammed the sole of my shoe into the door. The jamb splintered, and the door flew open with a loud crack. I found the light switch with a single swipe of my hand. A cot-sized bed in one corner, a small desk opposite. No one was in the room.
I started in the closet. Shirts and trousers neatly hung, the floor lined with a straight row of shoes. On the shelf above was a single wicker box. It contained a silver chain necklace, a couple men’s rings, a rolled belt, and a pair of sunglasses. I returned the box to its place and went to the desk.
There was no computer or file cabinet, and there weren’t any papers about. A letter opener, a stapler, a tape dispenser, and two pens were arranged on one side. A paper shredder to the right, perpendicular to the wall. I leaned forward and looked behind the paper shredder. In that space sat a metal box about the size of two shoe boxes attached side by side. A welded latch and hinges, and a combination lock. I lifted the box and pulled on the lock. Even if I had a screwdriver handy, it wouldn’t be enough to break it.
I stuck Cody’s final bug under the desk and glanced at the bed. The blanket was tucked under at the corners and folded in a sharp line at the pillow. A comforter folded in a perfect square lay at the foot of the mattress.
The remainder of the room was bare, save for a dresser with separate drawers for underwear, paired socks, and pressed T-shirts. Carrying the metal box by the lock, I went to the hall and back to the kitchen. Duante Tucker lay writhing on the floor. One elbow was bleeding, his buttocks were clenched, and the striated muscles in his shoulders were flexed and quivering against the constraints. When he heard me, he tried to yell, but the duct tape limited it to a muted garble. I turned the light off, unlocked the two bolts on the front door, and in two steps I was in the stairwell. I descended the sixteen floors rapidly and entered the dark garage. I saw no one, and thirty seconds later I climbed into my truck, where Cody eyed me expectantly.
8
“Trouble, Spiderman?” Cody asked, starting the motor.
“Drive,” I said. I flipped down the visor and checked my face in the mirror. My eye was beginning to swell, and there was a series of bloody scrapes on my cheek where Tucker had punched and clawed before I choked him unconscious.
We turned a corner and drove toward the ramp to the parkway. “Duante Tucker was there,” I said.
Cody kept his eyes on the road. “What happened?”
“He was asleep, but got up to take a leak, then came into the kitchen. I meant to jolt him, but he kicked the stun gun out of my hand.”
“Really?”
“Bastard is fast, I’ll give him that.”
“Then what?”
“We wrestled and I choked him out with a kitchen towel. Left him hogtied while I searched the place.”
“Alive, I take it?” Cody asked.
“Yeah, alive. What, you think I would kill him?”
“If you had to. Would have been mighty convenient.”
&n
bsp; I looked over, but Cody’s face was shadowed. Then we passed under a streetlight, and sharp angles of light cut across his profile. His eyes were still, his skin pale as a mannequin’s.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said.
“I’m not disappointed,” he replied. “Would he have killed you if he had the chance?”
“Probably. But I was an armed intruder in his home. He would have been legally justified.”
“In the old West, he would have already been lynched.”
“Sounds like you were born a century too late.”
“Maybe so, Dirt.” We took the exit for Cody’s home and turned onto his street. “Did you plant the bugs?” he asked.
“Yeah. And I got this.” I lifted the metal box at my feet.
“Any idea what’s in it?”
“Some decent intel, I hope.”
• • •
I woke in Cody’s guest room after three hours of sleep. Once I had a pot of coffee brewing, I went out to the detached garage and found a pair of bolt cutters hanging on the wall. I brought them inside, snipped the lock on the metal box, and sat on the couch with the box in my lap. Rappelling from the roof of the Skyscape and entering Farid Insaf’s residence had been a risky gambit. The altercation with Duante Tucker raised the stakes. I was hoping the contents of the box would be a suitable payoff.
I pulled open the cover and saw an uneven stack of papers. The top sheet was a signed six-month lease for unit 1602 at the Skyscape. Farid Insaf’s signature was scrawled at the bottom. I read over the details and found that he had paid up front for the six months. The due date for the next payment was forty-five days from now.
Beneath the lease were several receipts. Clothing, car repair, restaurants, stereo equipment. Nothing interesting except the fact that all were cash payments. No credit cards or checks.
A leather-bound album was underneath the receipts. It was half an inch thick and made a crackling sound when I opened it. It was a photo album; the pages were plastic sleeves. In the first sleeve was a team photograph of the 1977 National League Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The pages that followed contained what looked to be a complete set of Dodgers baseball cards from that year. I recognized a few of the players—Dusty Baker, Steve Garvey, Reggie Smith, and the manager, Tommy Lasorda.