The sentry jp-3

by Robert Crais

  Rainey suddenly kicked open his door, and pushed out of the car.

  "Rose! Ro-"

  Cole heard the first shot.

  Pike stood when he heard them shouting. Below him, Rose Platt ran toward the Prius as Rainey ran toward her, the two of them separated by almost one hundred yards.

  Pike broke hard by a sage, trying to draw Vincent's fire. He cut back through the brush just as a sharp crack broke the twilight silence, rolling across the purple canyons. Pike heard the bullet snap past, then dove into the rocks, rolled, and kept running, breaking left and right down the slope.

  Rose Platt and Rainey stopped at the sound of the shot. Then Elvis Cole came out of the Prius, and Rose turned back toward the van.

  The second shot cracked into the slope at Pike's feet, but Pike saw the flash, and ran harder as he shouted to Cole.

  "Other side. Trees up the slope."

  Pike fired three times, long shots at the flash, hoping to flush him. Cole and Rainey turned to look for Vincent. Pike saw another flash, only this time Vincent wasn't shooting at Pike.

  The bullet cut Rainey's left leg from under him in a spray of pink mist. He spun with his arms and legs out like a puppet and didn't scream until he was down.

  Rose Platt screamed once, then lurched behind the van as another shot slammed into its fender.

  Rainey sat up, shouted something Pike did not understand, then fired his pistol into the trees. Vincent flashed back. The bullet punched through Rainey's shoulder with another red cloud, but Cole had the flash now, and popped off five rounds.

  Pike caught a flicker between the trees, Vincent moving downhill and gone.

  Pike shouted again.

  "Moving. Downhill."

  Cole sprinted across Mulholland and disappeared down the far slope. Pike turned back for Dru, and saw her kneeling behind the van. He was torn in that moment, to go or to stay, but she was safe, so he ran to help Cole. Pike sprinted past Rainey, then up the steep slope on the far side of Mulholland into the trees.

  47

  Daniel .

  Tobey whispered in Daniel's ear, tickling him with furry lips, pleading and urgent.

  "You can do this, boy. You can get'm."

  Cleo scurried in a circle, spinning like a dervish.

  "You can do this, Daniel-aniel. Just like a zombie, ombie!"

  "Open your EYES, EYES, EYES!"

  Cleo spun faster.

  "Kill, kill."

  The rocks and rotten branches cut into Daniel's back. He took a tentative breath, and heard a wet popping in his chest. He coughed, but all that came out was aborted vomit.

  Daniel looked at the blood on his hands.

  "I been shot."

  Tobey said, "Takes more than that to kill a werewolf, my friend, friend, friend."

  Daniel touched his chest again, and looked down at the blood. He didn't feel so bad. He didn't even remember getting hit. He knew they were shooting, and the bullets were rainin' in, but he didn't remember getting hit. Maybe there was somethin' to this werewolf business after all.

  Tobey said, "Find your gun, Daniel. Get the gun."

  "Gun, gun."

  Daniel felt around until he found it. The rifle was gone, but the pistol was still in his pocket. He flipped off the safety.

  "I think I can still get that bastard, boys."

  Tobey said, "Bet your ass you can, can."

  Cleo said, "Bet your ass, ass, ass."

  Daniel was feeling stronger. He took another breath, and felt pretty damned good. Even if he couldn't get the bastard, he was thinking he could get away. Plenty of houses around. Plenty of cars. All he had to do was get across Mulholland and into the canyon.

  Daniel listened. He heard movement on the slope, but it was far away and below. They probably thought he slid farther down than he had.

  Daniel pushed himself to his feet, using the tree to pull himself up as much as he pushed.

  Then Gregg Daniel Vincent saw the arrow dude watching him. Dude didn't say a word, just stood there, no more than three feet away, gun at his side.

  48

  Pike knew Cole was somewhere on the slope below. He could hear Cole pushing through the brush, and the clatter of sliding rocks as he worked sideways across the hill. Pike had seen Vincent moving downhill, so searching downhill was the smart bet, but Pike decided to lag back in case Vincent doubled back.

  Pike let Cole move farther away. The farther Cole moved, the quieter it became, and quiet was good.

  Pike listened for almost a minute before he heard a pebble dance through the trees on the slope somewhere in front of him. A soft cough followed the pebble.

  Pike eased between the trees, and found Vincent in the rocks behind two dying walnut trees less than twenty yards from the road. Pike thought he was dead, but Vincent moved, then slowly struggled to his feet. Vincent was thin, but built strong, with a lean face and pockmarks and circles under his eyes. He didn't look crazy, but what kind of person tortures and kills for lunatic drug traffickers?

  Pike saw that Vincent was holding a gun, but waited to see what he would do. The man had a chest wound, but it was low and to the side. Pike had seen men fight on and win with their bodies turned inside out.

  Then Vincent saw him, and his eyes sharpened like a couple of tacks.

  "Look at this, boys. We got him."

  Pike wondered who he was talking to.

  "You Pike?"

  Pike nodded.

  "Wasn't you shot me. That other guy. You wanna call me an ambulance?"

  "No."

  "No? I'm bleedin' here, man. Get me some help."

  Pike shook his head.

  Vincent stared for a moment. He hadn't wanted the ambulance, and would have left before it arrived. He had hoped to catch Pike reaching for his phone or making the call. He wanted the edge.

  Vincent said, "You never answered my question."

  "What question was that?"

  "Down south. You think we faced off before?"

  "No."

  "How you know that for sure?"

  "You'd be dead."

  "That's funny. The boys told me the same thing about you."

  Pike said, "Who are you talking about?"

  Vincent brought up his gun. Vincent was fast, but didn't quite make it.

  Pike shot him three times in the chest, a tight little group the size of a clover. Pike walked over, picked up his gun, then shouted for Cole.

  "He's down. Higher than you, twenty yards in from the road."

  Pike searched the body before putting away his.357.

  Cole called from below.

  "You good?"

  "Good. I'm going to Dru."

  Dru. Pike said her real name, quietly and to himself.

  "Rose."

  Pike jogged back across Mulholland, and found Rose Platt squatting beside Rainey. He tried to understand what he felt about her, but he mostly felt nothing.

  Rose stood when she saw him, and Pike slowed to a walk. She still had the eyes. Smart, and complicated, and completely alive. Maybe that's what drew him to her. The life in her eyes.

  She said, "He's dead."

  "I'm sorry."

  Rose picked up Rainey's pistol, stepped over his body, and opened the Prius.

  "Rose."

  She smiled, the smart eyes glittering.

  "You're not going to do anything."

  Pike stopped, hoping she wouldn't push it.

  "Put down the gun."

  "I can't give up that kind of money. I lived like a rat for that money. Don't you see? It's mine."

  "Three hundred thousand isn't that much."

  She cocked her head, and something played in her eyes that left them angry.

  "If only you knew."

  She turned back for the car, and Pike started toward her.

  "Rose."

  Her gun came up, and Pike went for his weapon, but two shots snapped past him even before his gun cleared its holster.

  Pike saw the bullets hit her, how her shirt
puckered and rippled. He saw her eyes flutter, and her mouth open as if she didn't know what had happened. She reached up to touch something that wasn't there, then fell.

  Pike did not go to her. He turned and saw Elvis Cole, still holding his gun. Pike saw the tears spill down Cole's face. Pike watched his friend cry, and neither of them moved.

  49

  Daniel Daniel saw dancing lights, and thought they were Cleo, but the lights raced toward him, right up to his face, then tromboned away fast as a gunshot, then snapped into hyper-sharp focus. Daniel saw branches. Branches, pine needles, twisted gnarled deformed warped scrub oak branches like arthritic fingers with leaves.

  Tobey cried, "Daniel?"

  Cleo whimpered, "Daniel?"

  Daniel felt himself shrinking, like the world was growing larger and he was getting smaller, and Tobey and Cleo were farther away.

  Daniel said, "Guys?"

  Tobey said, "We're looking, dude, where are you?"

  Cleo said, "Daniel, aniel?"

  Daniel struggled to get up. He fought like a werewolf with a zombie eating its neck, but the zombie was winning.

  "Tobey? Cleo? Where are you, you, you?"

  Daniel tried to keep his eyes open, but the light grew so bright it turned black.

  Tobey screamed, "Daniel, come back!"

  Cleo shrieked, "Where is he, is he, is he?"

  Daniel tried to answer, but could not, and knew the boys heard only silence.

  Tobey said, "Cleo?"

  Cleo said, "Tobey?"

  "Going?"

  "Gone."

  Daniel no longer felt his body, or the earth beneath him, or the air that kissed his skin. He felt like nothing within nothing, and knew he would miss the guys, Cleo and Tobey, his only true and dear friends.

  50

  Pike sat on the Venice Boulevard bridge, looking down Grand Canal at the house. He sat on the concrete base of a light pole with his legs dangling down, which you weren't supposed to do, but Officer Hydeck was leaning on the rail next to him.

  She said, "You spend a lot of time here."

  Pike nodded.

  "I see you here a lot, man. You doing okay?"

  "I'm good."

  Hydeck adjusted her pistol.

  "What do you think happened to the money?"

  "Rainey said they spent it."

  "Who knows? Remember the North Hollywood bank robbery, those idiots with the machine guns? There's three-quarters of a million dollars those guys stole, nobody knows where it is. It happens. This criminal money? It disappears."

  Pike didn't respond. Hydeck was okay, but he wanted her to leave him alone.

  "Hey, you know what? I don't know if you've heard yet. Those assholes who killed Button and Futardo? You hear about them?"

  Pike knew Futardo had killed one of the men, but the other was missing.

  "What about them?"

  "They used to be DEA agents. The one who called himself Straw, his name was Norm Lister. That other cat was named Carbone. They worked the Rainey case way back in day one. Lister, he was fired, and the other resigned. I guess they decided to go for the gold, huh?"

  Pike recalled the files he had taken from the Malibu. Most of the reports had been written by Lister.

  Pike said, "Too bad about Jerry. Futardo, too."

  "She was a nice gal. Posthumous Medal of Valor."

  Hydeck finally pushed away from the rail. She settled her gun.

  "Okay, bud, I'm history. I'll see you around."

  Pike looked at her.

  "Thanks for helping out like you did."

  "You're not supposed to sit there with your feet hanging over."

  Hydeck smiled, and ambled back to her car.

  Pike went back to staring at the house.

  The federal and state investigators from Louisiana had come and gone. They had interviewed Pike, and shared their information. They denied Rainey's assertion he had stolen only eight-point-two million, and related multiple accounts from arrested participants that Rainey had stolen a minimum of twelve million and as much as eighteen million dollars from the Bolivians. Pike believed them. Rainey's nature was to lie, so Pike had no doubt he continued lying until the end.

  Rose Platt convinced him.

  Pike swung his legs around, pushed off the wall, and walked to the Sidewalk Cafe. He sat in the outdoor area, two tables away from the one he had shared with Rose Platt.

  The young waitress there, the one with the dimples, smiled when she saw him. He was a regular now.

  "Green tea?"

  Pike nodded.

  Pike sipped the tea, and stared through the passing people at the ocean without seeing them or the water or anything else. He thought about nothing except the warmth of the tea and the cool ocean breeze, and how good the sun felt as it melted into the horizon.

  When the sky was dark, Pike paid his tab and returned to the canals. He followed the sidewalk along the canal past the Palmers and checked Jared's window. Jared was up there, wearing headphones and swirling to a rhythmic, unknown beat.

  Pike moved on, stepping onto the tiny dock at the back of Steve Brown's house, where the kayak hung on twin wooden posts.

  Jared told him Steve Brown would return by the end of the week. Jared had also told him other things, like how Rainey would sit on the little dock at night, and how he'd go out in the kayak at night, and how Jared had twice seen Rainey wading in the canal at night.

  Always at night.

  But it was Rose who convinced him, with the things she said at the end, how she couldn't walk away from that kind of money, how she had lived like a rat for that money. The way she had looked at him when she thought she would lose it. If only you knew.

  Pike wondered if she had known where it was, or if Rainey told her in the moments before he died. Either way, she seemed to be talking about much more than three hundred forty-two thousand dollars.

  Pike ran his hands over the kayak's smooth skin, then lifted it from its hooks. Pike knew the money wasn't in the little boat because he had checked it two days ago, but he enjoyed the feel of its weight.

  He set the kayak back on its hooks, then sat on the dock. It was a nice night, cool, and the water would be cold.

  Eighty-five concrete stones lined the bank from one side of the property to the other, arranged in five staggered layers of seventeen blocks each. Pike knew this because he had counted them when the water was down. He had returned at night twice, and waded to the center of the canal, where, at its deepest point when the tide was high, the water reached his neck. He had probed the bottom and the plants that grew there in feathery clouds, then began checking the blocks to see if any were loose or movable.

  Pike searched the blocks beneath and around the dock first. It was the obvious choice, but Pike had found nothing. Each block had been firm and secure in its file.

  There were more blocks to check.

  Pike took off his running shoes and pistol. He pulled off his pants and sweatshirt, wrapped the gun in his pants, then put on his shoes and slipped quietly into the water. His muscles clenched at the first shock of cold, but the shock, like all pain, faded.

  Pike resumed where he had left off, checked eleven more blocks, and was wading beneath the salt plants when his leg struck a hard object. He felt it with his foot, and realized he had bumped against a ten-inch pipe. He had seen pipes like it in the canals when the water was out. They were drains for rain and runoff collected from the alleys and yards.

  The pipes he had seen were capped with a heavy mesh grid to keep out birds and animals when the water was low, but when Pike pushed his foot against this one, he felt the grid move.

  Pike took a breath, pulled himself under, and found four nylon duffel bags stuffed up the pipe, tied together with rope. They did not come easily, but after a while Pike had them free.

  Once he had them out of the water, he put on his shirt and pants, clipped the pistol to his belt, and headed back to his Jeep with the bags. As he climbed the narrow pedestrian bridge, an
older couple stopped on the far side to let him pass.

  Pike said, "Thank you."

  The lady said, "Lovely night."

  Pike's Jeep was on Venice Boulevard not far from the bridge. He dropped the bags in the shadows at the curb, then opened the rear hatch. When he went back for the bags, former DEA agent Norm Lister was waiting. Holding a gun.

  "Good job, Pike. Very good. Excellent."

  Lister looked ragged and dirty, like he'd been living in a car. He made a pushing gesture with the gun, as if he expected Pike to step back. If only you knew.

  "Put the keys there in the bed, and walk away."

  Pike didn't move.

  "Did you know where the money was?"

  "No, man, but I knew Rainey. I'm the guy who flipped him. It had to be close."

  Pike thought back to the video. How they had tailed Rainey and Platt, watching their every move. Maybe hoping Rainey would visit the money.

  Lister made the push again.

  "Go away, Pike. This is your pass."

  Pike looked at Lister's trembling gun, then at the man's nervous eyes. He thought about Jerry Button, and poor little Futardo, and Rainey and Dru Rayne who turned out to be Rose Platt.

  "Lister. If you knew me as well as you knew Rainey, you wouldn't be here."

  Pike shot Norm Lister in the chest, then walked over and shot him in the face exactly as he had shot Jerry Button.

  Pike loaded the money aboard, leaving Norm Lister on the curb.

  51

  Pike brought the bags home, but did not open them for three days. He put them in his bathtub the first night, figuring they would drain. The next day, he moved them to his bedroom at the foot of his bed.

  He brought them downstairs on the third day, and opened them for the first time since they'd been out of the water. He slit the plastic wrappers and stacked the packs of cash on the floor. There were a few packs made up of fifties and twenties, but most of the four-inch-thick packs held only hundreds.

  It took Pike four hours and thirty-five minutes to count the money, keeping track of how much was in each stack on a yellow legal pad. When he finished, Pike leaned against his couch and considered the miniature skyscraper city spread across his living room.