Nicholas Marten 01 - The Exile

by Folsom, Allan

  Halliday leaned forward in the passenger seat watching the cab tracking a quarter mile ahead of them, the morning sun glinting off the windows. The tinted rear windows made it especially hard to see inside, let alone determine if Raymond still had the gun at the girl’s head.

  “Who the hell is this Raymond anyway?” he said. “NYPD has nothing on him. Neither does Chicago unless something comes up with the ballistics test. It’s going to take a little time for the Feds to get the readout on his passport, so who knows what we’ll find there, if anything. If we hadn’t found the gun in his bag and he’d given us a straight address, there’s every chance he would’ve walked.”

  “But we found the gun and he didn’t give us a straight address.”

  “Is that enough to make him start killing people?”

  “He came here from Chicago with a gun in his bag. He had a plane ticket to London.” Barron glanced at Halliday, then looked back to the cab. “Why did he come here first? Maybe to get laid, maybe to kill somebody, maybe to get a suntan, who knows? But whatever he’s doing now, he’s got to have a helluva reason.”

  “Like what?”

  Barron shook his head. “He’s been trained someplace, military maybe. The way he did the deputies in the elevator. The way he shoots—you saw him take down the policewoman. You don’t pick that up in the street. Or that kind of balls, either.”

  “So what’s he gonna do with the hostage?”

  “He did all this trying to get away. We put him in a corner, he’ll kill her just like the others.”

  Ahead, the taxi took a slow right turn onto Vernon Avenue. Barron followed; so did the parade of other chase vehicles. Air 14, the helicopter unit, crossed in front of them. Their radio crackled and they heard Red’s voice.

  “Central. This is McClatchy. Any ID on the girl hostage?”

  “Affirmative, Commander, just came in,” a female dispatcher’s voice came back. “African-American. Darlwin Washburn. Age fifteen. Lives in Glendale.”

  “Anybody alert her parents?”

  “Attempts have had no response.”

  “What is the status of the wounded policewoman?”

  “She, ah … is, ah … deceased, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “The wounded deputies and court officer?”

  “The, ah … same, sir …”

  There was a long pause and then Red’s voice came again, quieter this time. “Thank you.”

  Barron had to hold back from jumping on the accelerator. He wanted to race forward, box Raymond in between police cars, then force him off the road and take care of him. But he couldn’t and he knew it. They all knew it, Raymond most of all. Whatever his plan was, he still had the girl, and there was nothing any of them could do about it except what they already were doing—follow and wait.

  “There he goes!” Halliday shouted. Ahead of them the 7711 cab had sped up and was racing off. Barron jammed the accelerator down. The black-and-white shuddered, then leapt forward.

  Halliday had the radio up and was speaking into it. “Three-Adam-Thirty-Four! He’s taking off! Air Fourteen, what’ve you got for cross traffic ahead?”

  In seconds Barron had cut the distance to the cab in half. Suddenly the taxi swung left, then cut back right directly in front of them and accelerated down a side street lined with apartment houses.

  “Hang on!” Barron yelled. Halliday’s hand went to the grip-rail above the passenger’s window, and Barron cut the wheel hard. Tires screaming, the black-and-white slid through the turn. Barron spun the wheel back the other way, his foot hit the accelerator, and the car rocketed forward. An instant later he slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to an abrupt stop.

  A half block away the taxi was stopped dead in the street.

  28

  Barron picked up his radio. “Red, this is Barron. The cab—”

  “I see it.”

  Red’s car suddenly pulled up beside Barron and Halliday. In the next instant black-and-white units cordoned off the far end of the street in front of them.

  Barron glanced in the mirror and saw the two sharpshooter pursuit units pull in behind them. Their doors opened and four men in flak jackets got out carrying rifles. At the same moment, Red and Polchak stepped from Red’s car, their handguns drawn, their eyes locked on the taxi. A loud click-clack followed as Valparaiso climbed from the back door racking a 12-gauge shotgun.

  Barron and Halliday got out, Berettas in hand. Behind them more black-and-whites pulled in. Overhead was the heavy thud-thud of the helicopter.

  “Air Fourteen, what do you see?” Red spoke into his radio.

  “A stopped seven-seven-one-one. Same as you.”

  Red moved back to his car, then reached in and lifted the radio microphone.

  “Raymond!” His voice boomed from the car’s loudspeaker. “Open the door and put your weapons on the pavement.”

  Barron and Halliday inched forward, guns up, ready to fire. Behind and to the side, the sharpshooters fanned out to take up clear-shot positions.

  Polchak knelt beside the front bumper of Red’s car, sighting his automatic with two hands. “Straight to hell, cocksucker,” he breathed.

  Nothing happened. The taxi remained as it was. Doors closed, windows up, the glare from the sun as harsh as ever, making it impossible to see inside.

  “Raymond, open the door and put your weapons on the pavement.”

  Still nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the driver’s window rolled partway down and the face of the young hostage, Darlwin, appeared.

  “Momma! Momma! Momma!” She screamed with everything she had. Then her face disappeared and the window rolled back up.

  “What the fuck’s goin’ on?” Valparaiso moved in behind Red. The sharpshooters inched up, ready to fire.

  Suddenly the front door to the apartment directly across from the taxi flew open and Momma, a large African-American woman in jeans and tank top, was running from it straight toward the cab.

  “My baby! My baby!” Momma was yelling, screaming, as she ran.

  “Holy shit!” Barron yelled and took off at the dead run.

  “Jesus Christ!” Red lunged forward.

  Then they were all running. Momma. Barron, Red, Polchak, Valparaiso, Halliday, running with their weapons out.

  Now the driver’s door to the taxi was opening. Immediately Barron was on Momma, hitting her with a flying tackle, sending them both sprawling across the grass at the sidewalk.

  Red took the cab door, jerking it open, his Smith & Wesson ready to fire.

  “Freeze! Right there!”

  Darlwin shrieked out loud, scrambling away from Red’s gun in terror. Behind her the passenger’s door was ripped open and Valparaiso jammed the shotgun forward, ready to blow Raymond to kingdom come! But all he did was send Darlwin screaming back across the front seat toward Red. Then Polchak wrenched open one rear door and Halliday yanked open the other.

  There was no Raymond. Only a screaming, crying, very scared Darlwin.

  Quickly Red motioned for the mother. “Momma,” he said. “Momma.”

  Suddenly Momma was pushing away from Barron and running to the cab. And then she and her daughter were in each other’s arms, holding each other, crying.

  “Get ’em outta here!” Red yelled at Barron.

  Barron moved in quickly, herding the women away from the cab. At the same time, Polchak and Valparaiso moved to the rear of the cab. Valparaiso leveled the shotgun and Polchak popped the trunk’s lock. The lid flew up to reveal the car’s spare tire and a few tools.

  “April fucking fool.” Polchak turned away, disgusted.

  “It’s March,” Halliday said quietly.

  Valparaiso tucked the shotgun under his arm. “When the hell did he get out? Where the hell did he get out?”

  Down the block the sharpshooters lowered their rifles and moved back. Slowly heads began to appear in windows, doors started to open. People walked out onto the small lawns in front of the apartment buildings, gesturing toward the police,
talking among themselves.

  Red glanced up at the still-hovering Air 14 and ran a hand through his hair, then walked to where Barron was trying to comfort Darlwin and her mother. “Tell us what happened,” he said gently.

  “Tell him, baby,” Momma said, holding Darlwin’s hand tightly, using her free hand to wipe away her daughter’s tears and her own.

  “We … just … barely left,” Darlwin managed between sobs, “then the … Jack looks at me and … wants to know if … I knows how … to drive … I tell him sure I do. He says, ‘Then get behind the wheel and drive yourself home. Don’t stop for nobody and don’t open the door till you gets there.’ Then he got out … I sure wasn’t gonna fool with no crazy Jack like that. So … I did what he said.”

  “Where did he get out, do you remember?” Red McClatchy’s manner was easy and calming, as if he were talking to his own daughter.

  “Where did he get out, baby?” Mama urged. “Tell the man where.”

  Darlwin looked up, trying to hold back tears that wouldn’t be held back. “Like I said … we just barely got started … down the block and around the corner … from the courthouse … Don’t know which street it was exactly.” She shook her head. “He just stopped and got out.”

  “Thank you, Darlwin,” Red said. He glanced at Barron, then turned and saw his other detectives grouped together, waiting expectantly, as if he were about to tell them where Raymond was and thereby remove the huge cloud of embarrassment that hung over them all. What they got instead was his own not inconsiderable frustration as he came toward them.

  “Down the block and around the corner from the courthouse, gentlemen. The few seconds he was out of sight, he used. He stopped the cab and got out. Told the young lady to drive herself home.”

  Red glanced at his watch, then looked abruptly to Polchak.

  “He’s got more than an hour on us, and we’ve got to make it up. Put a ‘citywide most-wanted and extremely dangerous’ out for him. I want every available detective and black-and-white combing the area between Criminal Courts and the Santa Monica Freeway, Alvarado Street to the Santa Ana Freeway. Get his picture to the newspapers and TV and have it faxed to every air, bus, and train terminal, taxi company, and car rental agency in the city with a request to notify us immediately if he shows up. Or if he already has shown up. And just in case he slips us entirely, get his picture and description to the London police so they can keep a lookout for him getting off any incoming flights.”

  Red glanced up at the still-hovering helicopter, put his hands over his ears, and turned to Valparaiso. “I’m going deaf with that clatter up there. Send Air Fourteen home, but tell him to hang fire just in case. And put a priority on finding out who the hell this Raymond is! Find out where the hell he was in Chicago and why! Christ!”

  He aimed the next request at Halliday. “Get Darlwin’s story, and be gentle; she’s had a rough day already.” Then Red was turning and looking at Barron.

  “Let’s you and me go for a ride.”

  9:19 A.M.

  29

  “Talk to me.” Red threw the unmarked Ford into reverse, swinging around a parked black-and-white, then accelerating off, heading back toward the central city.

  “About what? Raymond? I don’t know any more about him than—”

  “About Donlan.” Red looked at Barron carefully, his anger and frustration of seconds earlier suddenly quieted.

  “What about him?”

  In front of them an intersection light changed from yellow to red. McClatchy touched the siren, punched the accelerator, and went through it anyway.

  “We picked us a fine young detective in John Barron. One who brought down a killer nobody else in the whole damn department could get a handle on.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  McClatchy’s eyes swung to Barron.

  “Yes, you do, John. You’re troubled by what happened with Donlan. I saw it yesterday. I still see it today. He was already in custody, so you say why, what was the point of it? Why did you do it?”

  Barron didn’t reply, and McClatchy looked back to the road.

  “I say okay, let’s find out.”

  30

  THE WESTIN BONAVENTURE HOTEL, DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES. 9:44 A.M.

  Raymond had a luxurious two-room suite complete with TV, writing desk, wet bar, microwave, refrigerator, and coffeemaker. He also had new clothes and a new identity, and would have until someone realized the New Jersey automotive design consultant Charlie Bailey was missing from wherever he was supposed to be and the police started to look for him.

  Happening on Charlie Bailey had been luck created by circumstance and sheer need. Escaping the police at the Criminal Courts Building, Raymond drove the stolen taxi at top speed, knowing he had no more than ten to fifteen seconds before the police were on top of him. Immediately he’d asked his kidnap victim if she knew how to drive, and when she’d said yes, he’d simply pulled to the curb and stepped out, telling her to drive home, and staying there just long enough to see her put the car in gear and speed off. Then he’d walked away, praying he’d frightened her enough to do as he said and not stop for anyone, especially the police.

  Wearing the black jacket he’d taken from the man in the stairwell at the Criminal Courts Building and slipped over the murdered deputy’s uniform, he’d kept walking, trying to keep his composure and find a way to get off the street. Another half block and he’d seen the man who turned out to be Charlie Bailey, about Raymond’s height and weight and dressed in a business suit. He was alone, unlocking a car in a quiet parking lot and starting to get in. Suddenly the black jacket was stuffed into a trash container and Raymond took on the persona of the uniform he wore, that of an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy.

  Using the same American accent he’d used all along, he’d approached the man with authority, explaining there had been a raft of car thefts in the area and asking to see his driver’s license and proof of car ownership. The man had shown him a New Jersey driver’s license, identifying him as Charles Bailey, and told him the car was rented. When Raymond asked to see the rental papers and Bailey opened the trunk to take out his briefcase, Raymond shot him in the back of the head, stuffed the body in the trunk, and closed it. Then, taking Bailey’s briefcase and car keys, he locked the car and walked off, stopping only to retrieve the black jacket from the trash container and pull it back on, masking the uniform once more.

  The briefcase had been a treasure. Inside was Charles Bailey’s identity: cash, credit cards, cell phone, and the card key to suite number 1195 at the Westin Bonaventure, the large glass-towered hotel just up the street. Why Bailey had left his car in the parking lot rather than park it at the hotel there was no way to know, but it was an act that had cost the design consultant his life.

  Twenty minutes later, Raymond was in the dead man’s suite, had showered, treated the bullet burn on his neck with antiseptic cream he’d found among a bathroom arrangement of soaps and lotions, and put on a reasonably well fitting gray suit and blue dress shirt, loosely knotting a red-striped tie to hide the wound. It was then that he used Bailey’s cell phone, dialing a number in Toronto that forwarded to a number in Brussels and then to a number in Zurich where a voice-mail recording advised him his party was not available but that he could leave a message and the call would be returned shortly. Speaking in French, Raymond said his name was Charles Bailey, asked for Jacques Bertrand, and gave Bailey’s cell phone number. Then he hung up and waited.

  Now, nearly an hour later, he still waited, pacing the floor and wondering why Bertrand hadn’t called back and if he should have said who he was directly instead of using the Bailey name and number.

  Bertrand and the Baroness had his cell phone number, and if he’d been able to use that number his call would have been returned immediately. But that phone had been demolished when he’d purposely thrown it out of the stolen car Donlan had been driving to make certain the police didn’t get it and use it to trace calls to eit
her Bertrand or the Baroness. A telephone call placed to Bertrand by a Charles Bailey could be written off as simply a wrong number if it were ever traced, but leaving his name with that number risked linking Bertrand with himself and a man who, sooner or later, would be found dead, and that was something he didn’t dare do. Especially now, when the police would have discovered the charade with his hostage and the girl would have told them where he got out of the taxi. Very shortly they would secure the entire area and be going door to door looking for him. It made protecting who he was and what he was about more important than ever.

  31

  PARKER CENTER. 9:48 A.M.

  “1915, Huey Lloyd. 1923, Jack ‘the Finger’ Hammel. 1928, James Henry Green.”

  John Barron was hunched over a table in Red’s office as, one by one, McClatchy set a number of eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs in front of him. The photographs were official LAPD documentations. Cold, formal pictures of deceased felons, toe-tagged and laid out on morgue tables. Naked dead men with mortician’s wax filling in the bullet holes where they had been shot.

  “1933, Clyde Till, 1937, Harry Shoemaker. 1948, ’57, ’64, ’72.” Red read off the years as he turned over more of the grim photos. “1985, 1994, 2000, most recent—” Without comment McClatchy turned over the last, the morgue photo of Frank “Whitey” Donlan.

  “All multiple killers who somehow or another the courts kept putting back on the street.” Red gathered the photos and slid them back into the large brown accordion file he had taken them from. “You use the word ‘murder’ to describe what happened to any of these men and you’re talking about taking a human life. The trouble is none of them were human. They were monsters the system kept letting go free. Creatures who had killed before and were going to kill again and again.” Red crossed the room and dropped the file on his desk. “So there is the ‘why,’ John Barron. He wasn’t going to get another chance to kill someone else.”