Kill the Messenger

by Tami Hoag

  “You can’t come back if you’re dead,” Tyler whispered.

  Jace pulled the boy close and held him tight, his own tears burning his eyes. “I love you, little guy. I’ll come back. Just for you.”

  “You promise?” Tyler asked, his voice muffled against Jace’s shoulder.

  “I promise,” Jace whispered, his throat aching, the promise he didn’t know if he could keep like a jagged rock he couldn’t swallow and wouldn’t let go of.

  They both cried for a while, then they sat there for a while longer, time stretching, meaningless, into the dark night. Then Jace sighed and stood his brother back from him.

  “I have to go, pal.”

  “Wait,” Tyler said. He turned and ran into his room before Jace could say anything, and came back seconds later with the pair of small two-way radios Jace had given him for Christmas.

  “Take one,” he said. “The batteries are new. Then you can call me and I can call you.”

  Jace took the radio. “I might be out of range. But I’ll call you when I can.”

  He put his army fatigue jacket on and slipped the radio into a pocket. Tyler walked with him to the door.

  “Don’t get into any trouble,” Jace said. “And mind Madame Chen. You got that?”

  Tyler nodded.

  Jace expected Tyler to tell him to be careful, but he didn’t. He didn’t say good-bye. He didn’t say anything.

  Jace touched his brother’s hair one last time, turned, and went down the stairs.

  Chinatown was silent now, the streets glistening like black ice under the streetlights. Jace climbed on The Beast and started slowly down the alley. One foot pressing down, and then the other, in a weary climb to nowhere. The Beast rocked from side to side with each step, until momentum became forward energy. He took a right at the end of the alley and headed toward downtown, where lights in the windows of tall buildings glowed like columns of stars.

  And as Jace turned one corner, a five-year-old Chrysler Sebring turned another just a few blocks away. A big iron gate slid back on electronic command and the car slipped into its parking slot beside a former textile warehouse building that had been brought back from the edge of condemnation and converted into trendy lofts.

  And on another block, a low-slung black sedan with a brand-new windshield turned a corner and prowled down a wet street, past a laundry and a greengrocer’s and Chen’s Fish Market.

  Parker let himself into his loft, dropped his keys on the narrow black-walnut Chinese altar table that served as a console in the slate-floored entry hall. He didn’t glance in the mirror above it. He didn’t need to look to know that the day hung on him like a lead cloak. There was no energy left in him to feel anger or sadness or anything but numb.

  The soft glow of the small halogen lights spotlighting the art on his walls led him down the hall to his dressing room and into the master bath. He turned on the steam shower, stripped out of his suit, and laid it across a chair.

  He would send it to the cleaners tomorrow. The idea of wearing it again after having stood in that alley looking at Eta Fitzgerald’s body wasn’t acceptable to him. Even though the scene hadn’t been something truly grotesque, like finding a dead body that had been left for days in a hot room, the scent of death was on it, the idea of Eta’s death was on it.

  The steam and pounding hot water melted some of it away—the smell of it, the weight of it—and soothed his muscles, warming away the chill both from without and from within.

  The bedside lamps were turned on low—part of the elaborate electronic system a buddy had talked him into. Lights, music, room temperature—all were tied into a timed computer system so that he never came home to a cold, dark place.

  The woman asleep in his bed was another matter. She had come of her own free will, let herself in, and made herself at home.

  Parker sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her, a little pleased, a little surprised, a little puzzled.

  Diane blinked her eyes open and looked up at him.

  “Surprise,” she said softly.

  “I am surprised,” Parker said, touching her hair. “And to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She rubbed her hands over her face and scooted up against the pillows. “I needed to cleanse my palate of socialites. Decided I would find myself a hot metrosexual guy to hang out with.”

  Parker smiled. “Well, baby, I am the prince of metrosexual chic. I have a closet full of Armani, a medicine cabinet full of skin-care products. I can whip up a dinner for four with no frozen ingredients, I can pick a good wine, and I’m not gay—not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “I knew I’d come to the right place.”

  She sat up and stretched, not in the least self-conscious about or self-promoting of her naked state. That was part of Diane’s appeal, there was no coy bullshit. She was a strong, attractive woman, comfortable in her own body.

  “Did you get called to something?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Ruiz’s first homicide as lead.”

  “God help you,” she said. “I don’t like her.”

  “Nobody likes her.”

  “She’s not a woman’s woman.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Diane rolled her eyes. “Men. You never get this. It means don’t turn your back on her. Don’t trust her, don’t rely on her. It means she’ll be your best friend if she thinks she can get something out of you, but if she can’t, she’ll turn on you like a snake.”

  “I think we’ve already come to that point,” Parker said.

  “Good. Then you won’t be surprised,” she said. “Did she get an easy one?”

  Parker shook his head. “Not really. It might be tied to the Lowell homicide last night.”

  “Really?” She frowned a little. “How so?”

  “The vic is the dispatcher from the messenger service Lowell called at the end of the day. Somebody seems to be after something and is pretty damn pissed off not to be finding it.”

  “Did RHD show up again?”

  “No. Too busy off hobnobbing on your side of town, I guess,” Parker said. “How long did they stay at the party?”

  “Just what I told you. They exchanged a few words with Giradello and left. What did that name mean to you?”

  “Damon is the name of the bike messenger sent to Lowell’s office last night.”

  “I thought Lowell was a robbery.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Parker said. “Maybe the perp stole the money out of Lowell’s safe, but that wasn’t what he went there for. Apparently he thinks the bike messenger has whatever that is.”

  “You don’t think the bike messenger did it?”

  “No. That doesn’t track for me. I think the bike messenger is just the rabbit. I want the dog that’s chasing him.” His mood darkened again as he thought of Eta lying in that alley. “I really want him.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, as their respective wheels turned.

  “Lowell called a messenger to pick something up,” Diane murmured. “The messenger left with the package—”

  “We assume.”

  “Someone killed Lowell, and now has killed someone connected to the bike messenger. The bike messenger still has the package. The killer is after the package.”

  “Smells like blackmail,” Parker said.

  “Hmmm” was all Diane said, lost in thoughts of her own.

  Parker had always believed she would have made a hell of a detective. She was wasted poking at dead bodies for the coroner every day. But she liked the forensic side. She had been a criminalist with the Scientific Investigation Division for a long time before going to the coroner’s office. She talked about going back to school to get a degree in medical pathology.

  She sighed then and reached out and settled her hand on the curve between his neck and shoulder.

  “Come to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s late. You can be the world’s greatest detective again in the morning.”

  He nodded. “
I’m not going to be good for anything,” he said as he slipped beneath the covers.

  “I’ll settle for having you close,” she said. “That’s all I’m up for myself.”

  “I can manage that,” Parker said, already falling asleep as he spooned her and kissed her hair.

  28

  Morning was a soft, sweet dream on the horizon to the east of Los Angeles. Narrow stripes of indigo, tangerine, and rose waiting to come into bloom. The offshore weather system that had brought the rain had cleared out, leaving the air washed fresh and the promise of Technicolor blue skies.

  On the rooftop of the converted warehouse, a man moved slowly through the elegant, focused steps of tai chi. White Crane Spreads Its Wings, Snake Creeps Down, Needle at Sea Bottom. His concentration was on breathing, moving, inner stillness. His breath escaped as delicate clouds that dissipated into the atmosphere.

  On another rooftop to the west, an old man and a child moved in unison, side by side, their individual energies touching, their minds completely separate. Meditation in motion. Slowly reach, slowly step, shift weight back. Zuo xashi duli, shuangfeng guaner, duojuan gong. One posture leading to another, to another. A slow-motion dance.

  Under a freeway overpass at Fourth and Flower in downtown LA, Jace huddled inside a survival blanket, his army surplus coat arranged over the blanket to hide the silver stuff it was made of. The blanket looked like a big sheet of aluminum foil, but it held his body heat, and it folded down to the size of a sandwich.

  He had dozed off and on for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t say he’d slept. Crouched into a ball to stay warm and to draw as little attention to himself as possible, he felt as if his body had frozen into that position. Slowly he started to rise. His joints felt as if they were being wrenched apart.

  A block down, at Fifth and Flower, messengers would be showing up for coffee and fuel at Carl’s Jr. He would have sold his soul for a hot cup of coffee. The Midnight Mission at Fourth and Los Angeles served a full breakfast to anyone who wanted it.

  Maybe he would go there later. He wanted to talk to Mojo, get the lowdown on what people were saying, what was going on at Speed, what Eta might have told the cops. Later the space under the bridge would fill with messengers hanging out, waiting for calls. They would park their motley assortment of bikes and perch themselves on the guardrail like a bunch of crows, and talk about everything from vegan diets to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  Of all the messengers, Mojo was the one Jace most respected and came closest to trusting. He came off like a crazy Rasta man with his voodoo and superstitions, but Jace knew him to be more crazy like a fox than crazy like Preacher John. Mojo had survived as a messenger for a lot of years. No one managed that by dumb luck. And every once in a while he would pull the mask back and give a glimpse of who he was behind it—an intelligent man with an enviable sense of calm at his core.

  Mojo would give him the lowdown. If he could catch Mojo alone.

  Jace folded his survival blanket and put it in his backpack. He went behind a concrete piling and took a whiz, then strapped on his pack, climbed on The Beast, and started down the street toward Carl’s Jr. There was no traffic. The city was just waking up, stretching and yawning.

  This was Jace’s favorite time of day, now, when he could take a deep breath of clean air, when his head was still clear of noise and exhaust and the thousands of instant questions and answers that flash through the mind of a messenger as he dodged traffic, dodged pedestrians, made split-second decisions as to the shortest, fastest route to his delivery. At this early hour, the day still had a shot at being good. Usually.

  He parked The Beast at the side of the restaurant, and ran the risk of leaving it unlocked, in favor of a quick getaway if he needed it. He couldn’t go inside. Instead, he crossed Fifth and stood there on the corner with his collar up high around his face, his shoulders hunched, hands in pockets, stocking cap pulled down to his eyebrows, looking like a lot of guys on these downtown streets. No one would give him a thought at all, much less a second thought.

  The first couple of messengers who showed rode for another agency—one that put its messengers in logo jerseys and windbreakers. Jace knew guys who had turned down the better pay simply because they didn’t want to concede their individuality by dressing like drones. Jace would have worn a monkey suit for better pay, but agencies with uniforms didn’t pay riders off the books.

  He’d been standing maybe ten minutes when he saw Mojo coming down Fifth. Even though the sun wasn’t really up yet, he wore his trademark Ray Charles shades. His ankles and shins were taped with bright green stretch tape over purple bike pants, and he wore several layers of ragged T-shirts and sweatshirts. He looked like a dancer who had hit hard times.

  Jace started across the street as Mojo glided up onto the sidewalk at the alley entrance.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Can you give me—”

  “I got nothing for you, mon,” Mojo said, braking. He swung his right leg over the back of the still-moving bike and dismounted gracefully. “I got nothing for you but good wishes.”

  Jace poked his head up out of his coat as he approached, hoping Mojo would recognize him. He glanced around to make sure there was no one else on the street. “Mojo, it’s me. Jace.”

  Mojo stopped dead and stared at him. He pushed his shades up into his dreads and looked some more. He didn’t smile.

  “Lone Ranger,” he said at last. “You look like the Devil been chasing your tail, and he caught you.”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “Policemen came looking for you yesterday. Two different sets of them. First one asked me did I know you. I told him no one knows the Lone Ranger.”

  “What did Eta tell him?”

  “She didn’t know you neither,” he said, his face gaunt and sad like the old paintings of Christ on the cross—if Christ had had a headful of dreadlocks. “For someone nobody knows, you are a very popular man, J.C.”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “No, I don’t think so. You killed a man or you didn’t.”

  Jace looked him straight-on. “I didn’t. Why would I do that?”

  Mojo didn’t blink. “Money is generally the great motivator.”

  “If I had money, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be on a plane to South America.”

  He glanced nervously down the street, waiting for someone to come out of the restaurant and see him. “I need to talk to Eta, but I can’t go back to Speed and I don’t have her cell phone number.”

  “They got no telephones where Eta is, mon,” Mojo said.

  A strange tension crawled down Jace’s back as he stared at Mojo’s Jesus face. His eyes were puffy and rimmed in red, as if he had been crying. “What do you mean?”

  “I came past Base on my way here. The alley is nothing but lines of yellow tape like a giant cat’s cradle. A policeman was walking inside the lines.”

  Jace felt the kind of cold that had nothing to do with the weather. It was the kind of cold that came from deep within.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”

  “I said to him, ‘I work here, mon.’ He said to me, ‘Not today you don’t, Rasta man.’” His eyes went glassy with tears. His voice thickened. “‘A lady had her throat cut here last night.’”

  Jace backed away a step, turned one way and then the other, looking for escape from this moment, escape from the horrible images spreading in his brain like bloodstains on cloth. “It wasn’t her.”

  “Her van was sitting there. She didn’t go home without it.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t start. Maybe she called a cab.”

  Mojo just watched him. Jace turned around in a circle. In his mind he was shouting for help, but like in a dream, no one could hear him. There was a huge pressure expanding inside his head, pressing against his eardrums, pressing against the backs of his eyes. He clamped his hands around his skull, as if to keep it from bursting open, to keep the images, the thoughts, from spilling out.
He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

  Eta. She couldn’t be dead. There was too much of her. Too much opinion, too much bluster, too much mouth, too much. Guilt rolled over him for thinking she might have betrayed him to the police. Jesus God, she was dead. Her throat had been cut.

  He could see the black sedan sliding down the alley that morning. He could see Predator behind the wheel. The square head, the beady eyes, the mole on the back of his neck. He could feel the raw terror of being recognized. But the car had glided past him like the shadow of death; Predator hadn’t spared him a glance.

  “Bad neighborhood,” Mojo said. “Bad things happen. Or maybe you know something we don’t.”

  Jace barely heard him. Eta wasn’t dead because they worked in a bad neighborhood. Eta was dead because of him. He didn’t know why the weight of that didn’t crush him where he stood.

  He’d spent most of his life keeping people at a distance to protect himself, but those same people were now in danger—or dead—because of him. The irony tasted like bile in his mouth.

  “Do you know something the rest of us don’t, Lone Ranger?”

  Jace shook his head. “No. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

  “Then how come you running? You didn’t kill a man. You didn’t kill Eta—”

  “Jesus Christ, no!”

  “Then what are you running from?”

  “Look, Mojo, I’m stuck in the middle of something I don’t understand. The cops would be happy to throw my ass in jail and call it a day, but I’m not going there. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “But you’re looking for help?” Mojo raised his brows. “Is that why you’re here talking to me? You wanted help from Eta, and now she’s dead. That don’t seem like a good deal.”

  “You don’t know she’s dead because of me,” Jace said. I know it, but you don’t. “She could have been mugged for her purse by some dopehead.”

  “Is that what you believe, J.C.?”

  No, it wasn’t. But he didn’t say it. There was no point in saying it. Mojo had made up his mind already. Funny how he could still feel disappointed when he knew better than to expect anything from anybody.