by Dave Stanton
Cody rested his hand on the butt of his shotgun. “Not really. But you’re the deep thinker, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
I stuck my hands in my back pockets and stared vacantly out the new sheet of glass in Cody’s front window. It was a still, languid afternoon, silent except for the random chirping of birds from the treetops along the street. There was no hint of the mayhem that occurred the night before. The neighborhood seemed serene and undisturbed, as if the residents had chosen to be oblivious to the fact that something evil had invaded their domain. A car drove by, a white family, the parents in the front seat, two teenagers in the back. They did not gawk as I suspected they might, even though I recognized the car from a few houses away and knew they must have been aware of the shooting.
“You know what?” I said. “You’re right about Lawrence Tucker. He’ll have his hands full with the CIA. Fuck him. I want to find Duante. It’s time to nail his balls to the wall.”
“Oh, really?” Cody said, a sleepy grin beginning on his face.
“What are those pills you’re taking?”
“Oxycodone.”
“Take it easy on that stuff,” I told him. “It’s addicting.”
“Okay, doctor.”
I started to say something else, but my cell rang. It was Candi. I’d not spoken to her since the crash in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the drive-by shooting. In all honesty, I’d been too busy to call her. I also had not invested any thought into how I’d tell her about my involvement in the death of eight men.
“Hi, Candi.”
“Hi, my guy.”
“How’s everything at home?”
“Just fine,” she said. “I did notice something weird, though.”
“Like what?”
“I went out to the supermarket, and when I came back, I passed a car parked on Alma, facing our house. There were two guys sitting in the car, and one had binoculars.”
“Looking at our house?”
“Yes, that’s the way they’re facing.”
“Describe them,” I said.
“I didn’t get a chance to study them, Dan. They’re about a hundred yards away.”
“They’re still there?”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Yeah, I can see the car from the kitchen window.”
“Step back from the window, Candi. Don’t let them see you.”
“Okay. They have dark skin, dark hair.”
“Black guys?”
“No, they’re not black. Maybe from the Mideast somewhere. Iranian, maybe? But they’re clean-shaven.”
I felt my scalp tighten against my skull. “Give me just a sec,” I said. I waved nonchalantly at Cody and walked outside and went to where my truck was parked in front of Cody’s garage.
“Is Tim next door home?” I said.
“I don’t know. He works nights, so probably.”
“I’m gonna call him and check. Make sure the doors are locked and the alarm system is on. I’ll call you right back.”
I hung up and called my neighbor. Tim was a cook at one of the casinos. He’d lived alone in the small cabin next to my house since before I moved in, and I felt I could trust him to perform a relatively simple task. He answered his phone, and I described what I’d pay him a hundred dollars to do. Then I had him repeat it back to me. As soon as we hung up, I redialed Candi’s cell.
“Candi, I need you to listen carefully and follow these instructions. I’m gonna leave in a minute and drive back home, and I’ll call you from the road. But first you need to do what I say.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Pack an overnight bag right now. Then go out the back door and go around to Tim’s back door. He’ll be waiting for you there. Get in his truck and duck down as low as you can, so there’s no way anyone can see you. Tim is going to drive you to Harrah’s. I want you to check into a room.”
“But—” she began.
“Listen, doll, this is for your safety. I can answer questions later, but now we need to get you to a hotel room, Okay?”
“Okay, I got it.”
“Call me as soon as you’re checked in.”
We hung up, and I went back inside. Cody had a can of beer in his hand, and the shotgun rested across his lap.
“I think Tucker’s sent someone to watch my house. I’m gonna drive back to Tahoe and see what I can do about it. You gonna be okay here?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re shot and doped up and drinking, for starters.”
Cody laughed. “I do my best work in this condition.” He pointed the cut-down barrel at the window. “Anyone has an issue with me, they can talk to Señor Remington.”
“You best keep your wits about you,” I said.
“What about putting the cleats to Duante?”
“It’ll have to wait until I get back.”
Cody raised his eyebrows. “We’ll see,” he said.
I collected my clothes and assorted items and stuffed them into my canvas duffel bags. In two minutes I was backing down Cody’s driveway. I waved at his front window, then gunned it down the street and out to the freeway. It was 3:30 and I knew the thick of the rush hour traffic lurked ahead. But as long as Candi was safely out of the house, there was no need to hurry. Still, cruising at an easy seventy-five, I could feel the anger and frustration building in my chest, and the old arguments began to play themselves out in my mind.
This was not the first time Candi’s safety had been put at risk as a result of my career. Each time it happened, I swore I’d not let it happen again. But it was an empty promise. Because if I turned down every case that included the potential for seriously unhappy criminals, I wouldn’t make much of a living. And I was goddamned committed to bringing home a good income so I could provide a comfortable life for Candi…and maybe even for a couple kids one day.
My father had busted his ass all his life, from law school to passing the bar exam, and then in his career as a district attorney and later in a successful private practice that abruptly ended just as he finished a major case. The money from that case had sustained my mother for many years. Of course, it was little consolation for his death, but it sure as hell made things less difficult for her, and for my sister and me too.
I used to wonder, if my father had been less adamant and more relenting on certain issues, might he still be alive? The answer could well be yes, but then he would have been a different man than he was. Particular traits are hardwired, and there’s no changing that. But despite his staunch ethics and appetite for confrontation, I always saw my old man as a lighthearted, happy person.
As for the miscreants I deal with, their ethics defy any definition of human decency. They live in a world where crimes ranging from petty to deplorable are the currency of the day. As individuals they are usually greedy and sadistic, often sexually retarded, and live within bizarre mental frameworks they’ve constructed to justify their antisocial behavior. Some are quite intelligent and resourceful, which makes them even more dangerous than the typical psychopaths that populate our state and federal penitentiaries.
I had no doubt Lawrence Tucker was among the intelligent, resourceful class, and that was probably an understatement. His criminal background was the most impressive I could recall. A product of the Compton ghettos, he’d been steadily promoted in the marines. Somewhere along the line, he learned to speak Arabic and had become familiar with Islamic culture and customs to the extent that he could operate as a heroin broker and terrorist trainer in the Middle East. Hunted by the CIA, he’d survived a drone attack and had managed to change his name and sneak back into the US. Actually, it was beyond impressive—it was amazing.
And now two Mideastern-looking men were casing my house. That led me to three conclusions: One, Lawrence Tucker had sent them; two, they planned to kidnap Candi and use her as leverage to get me to back off; and three, I had not the slightest doubt that, given the chance, they would rape Candi and kill us both.
; And it was those thoughts that kept me occupied through the stretches of commuter gridlock, past Sacramento and up into the rolling Sierra Nevada foothills, until the road narrowed to two lanes and finally led over Echo Summit and dropped through the corkscrew turns above Lake Tahoe, where the sun was just settling behind the granite ridges west of the lake, glowing like a jagged chunk of white-hot steel against the hard blue of the sky.
9
I parked around the corner from my house and walked through the dusk across a vacant lot that provided access to the meadow behind my back fence. The dirt trail that ran along the fence line was hard packed, and the air smelled of deadfall, dry weeds, and the wildflowers that stayed in bloom through the heat of the summer. I followed the trail for a minute until I reached a loose board in the fencing. I pried it free and wedged myself between the boards and into my yard. Then I pulled my duffel bags through, unlocked the backdoor, and went inside.
The lights were off, which meant that if the two men Candi described were still parked down the street, they wouldn’t be able to see much, even with binoculars. I crawled along an area that would be in their line of sight, then went up the stairs to the loft above my living room. From there I could look through the slats of a ventilation screen straight down the street that ran perpendicular to mine.
The area was tight with boxes stacked on old furniture. I moved a box and fit a pocket-sized telescope between the slats. I immediately spotted a green Honda hatchback with two occupants parked at the curb. The license plate frame advertised a rental car company. It was too dark to make out much detail on the pair behind the windshield other than their tenebrous complexions.
It was 8:30 P.M. and would be full dark soon. I took a variety of items from one of my bags, as I had planned during the drive from San Jose. Then I went back downstairs, drew the curtains, and turned on the living room light. After that, it was a matter of waiting.
They disappointed me. I’d hoped they’d come as soon as the last hint of blue faded from the horizon. But they waited until an hour after I turned off the lights at ten o’clock.
From the chair I’d placed behind the kitchen counter, I heard them creep across my lawn, past my deck, and around to the back of the house. When they reached the unlocked back door, I was waiting in the darkness.
The first man came through the door and whispered something in a foreign language. His partner, carrying a black leather bag, came stealthily behind him and eased the door shut. I waited until they took another step into the house before I pounced, my stun baton in my left hand, my Taser in my right. I jabbed the baton into the gut of the first man and simultaneously shot the second with the Taser, almost point blank. They both seized up, their arms splayed at unnatural angles, their facial skin quivering as if caught in hurricane force winds. After a second they collapsed, jerking and shuddering, to the floor.
The younger of the two lay faceup, blinking rapidly while his teeth chattered so hard I wondered if he’d break a molar. He was rail thin, and his face was shaped like a scythe, the nose long, the chin pointed. The second man was shorter and barrel-shaped. He had powerful, rounded shoulders and a neck like a fire hydrant. The stubble on his face was gray, and one of his eyes was twisted shut. The other eye was locked open, the black pupil vacant and still. He would be the leader.
In thirty seconds I had their hands and feet zip-tied and their eyes and mouths wrapped with duct tape. After searching their pockets and finding nothing, I grabbed them by the feet and pulled them through the house and into my garage, their heads clunking off the concrete steps. Two blue plastic tarps lay spread on the floor. I dragged the taller man onto a tarp, rolled the plastic around him, and wrapped him with rope, cinching the knots tight. I did the same to the heavier man, who tried to make it difficult by bucking and rolling. I put a stop to that with a kick to his gut. Then I went outside, jogged down the street, and returned in my truck, backing it up my driveway and into the garage.
They squirmed when I hoisted them into the truck bed, but they were securely mummified. I slammed the tailgate shut and placed their black bag on the passenger seat next to me. Then I wheeled down my driveway and out to Pioneer Trail toward the mountains.
I turned onto Black Diamond Boulevard, then onto a steep street that bordered the ski resort, climbing until the road turned from pavement to dirt. The track was rutted, the switchbacks tight. I drove slowly, my chassis and suspension straining against the uneven terrain. After ten minutes, the road dead-ended in a flat clearing above a deep, forested valley.
I turned off the engine, unzipped their black bag, and went through the contents. Duct tape, handcuffs, a ball of twine, a hypodermic needle in a plastic case, and a fillet knife, the kind hunters used for slicing meat neatly away from the bone. Also, at the bottom of the bag, a black dildo. It was molded in the shape of a human phallus, but the size was exaggerated, like something that might be found on a mule or a bull.
There was another item in the bag that gave me pause. Beneath the dildo was what appeared to be a pornographic magazine. But when I flipped through the pages, the photos all depicted various acts of bondage.
I closed the magazine and got out of my truck. At the side of the clearing, the lip of a granite headwall rose a few feet over the dirt. I knelt and looked over the ledge. A sheer face fell about two hundred feet into a sea of broken boulders. The moon was bright, and I could clearly see the jagged edges of the granite scree below.
The face was known by local rock climbers as Quarter Dome. They called it this in deference to Half Dome, the geologic wonder in Yosemite National Park that had attracted extreme mountaineers since the 1800s. The vertical face of Half Dome is over 1300 feet. Quarter Dome offered only a 200-foot face, but it was no less deadly if one were to fall.
I eased my truck forward until the bumper was within ten feet of the rock. Then I took my climbing rope from behind my seat and pulled a full ski mask over my head, an old-fashioned variety that had holes only for the eyes. I tied the rope around my front bumper and walked to the back of the truck. The men were lying motionless.
I untied the rope binding the younger man and rolled him off the tailgate. He hit the ground with a thud. I ripped the tape from his mouth and then from his eyes. He stared into my hooded face as I looped my climbing rope around his ankles and tied a double knot. “What are you doing?” he said. His accent was thick, his voice high-pitched.
I dragged him to the outcropping and pulled his shoulders over the ledge so he was looking straight down the face.
“Allah akbar!” he exclaimed.
“That means god is great, right?” I said. “Isn’t that what your suicide bombers yell when they go into a crowded market and kill a bunch of women and children?”
“Allah akbar,” he yelled again.
“Keep telling yourself that, pal.” I grabbed his belt and jerked him farther over the edge until he teetered on the brink of falling. I could hear him panting and could smell his fear in the sour stench that rose from his clothes.
“I’m going to ask you some questions, my friend. If your answers are right, you get to live. Lie to me, and you’ll find yourself up close and personal with those rocks down there. They’ll have to scrape up what’s left of you with a putty knife.”
He made a sound like something was tearing loose in his throat. “Something else to keep in mind,” I said. “I’m gonna question your fat friend, too. He better give me the same answers, or you’ll both take the big dive.”
“I—I can’t control what he say,” he rasped.
“You just concentrate on telling the truth. Maybe your god will save you.”
He started replying in a different language. “Hey,” I said. “Speak English. I don’t want to hear any of your foreign gibberish. Who hired you to break into my house?”
“I not knew his t-due name,” he stammered.
“What name do you know?”
He hesitated, and I grabbed his feet and pushed. “No!” he screamed. The wei
ght of his upper body broke free from the rock, and then he was falling. He dropped a few feet down the face before the rope snapped taught.
“Oh god, no,” he moaned.
I leaned my head over the wall. “The name?”
“Black Doog. He go by Black Doog.”
“Think hard now, or I’ll cut the rope. What other name does he have?”
“Fadid, I heard Fadid. I don’t know more zan zat, I swear it.”
“Why did Farid hire you? What’s he up to?”
“He not said anyzing about why. He not tell detail.”
“Do you really believe forty virgins will be waiting for you in the afterlife?”
“What?”
“Because I think you’re about to find out for real.” I held my knife up so he could see it.
“Don’t! He waging jihad in San Jose!”
“He’s planning terrorist acts?”
“Yes, yes!” he cried. “But you must believe me, I don’t know detail.”
“What about heroin? What’s Farid’s plans for heroin?”
“He a smuggler.”
“No shit. Is he bringing a shipment into this country?”
“I don’t know. But smuggling his business.”
I heard my cell ring in the cab of my truck. I ignored it and looked down at the man dangling at the end of the rope. His face was sweaty and shinning in the moonlight. There were black stains on his teeth, and the crotch of his jeans was soaked dark and I could smell the odor of urine.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Me? I’m Basel. Bull me up, blease?”
“What does Basel mean in Arabic?” I asked.
“Brave one.”
“Really. Okay, Basel, what role is Duante Tucker playing?”
“Who?”
“Farid’s nephew.”
“I don’t know nephew.”
“Black man, about your age.”
“I don’t know anyone like zat. I swear it.”
“I’m going to give you one last chance, Basel. I want you to tell me everything you know about Farid Insaf. You’re working for him, so don’t pretend you don’t know exactly what he’s up to. Otherwise you’re gonna learn to fly the hard way. So let’s see how brave you are.”