by Alan Russell
“How long did it take him to ask you out?”
“D.C. didn’t exactly sweep me off my feet. We knew each other for almost a year before he finally asked me out. From what he told me, he practiced his speech for weeks. Of course I found that hard to believe because all I remember was his asking me if I was doing anything special for the weekend.”
“As a whole, men aren’t the smooth operators we think we are. Most of us barely bumble and stumble along. Just ask my girlfriend.”
I sipped my coffee. “Do you know the sex of your child?”
“It’s a girl!” Kelley beamed.
“I wonder if she’ll be a jock like her brother.”
“I’m hoping she’ll be a little less frenetic than Matt.”
“Did you and your husband play sports?”
“To a certain extent we did, but I wouldn’t call either of us overly athletic. We each have jock siblings, though. My sister played field hockey and soccer, and my brother-in-law lettered in just about everything. I was told he was all this and all that.”
“I think I saw him in your wedding pictures. He was the one wearing his military dress uniform, right?”
“That’s Caine,” she said.
“As in Abel and Cain?”
“Sort of,” she said, “but it’s spelled with an ‘e,’ and it’s his middle name. I guess Caine is a family surname on the mother’s side. Neither D.C. nor Caine liked their first names, so they both sort of lost them.”
“I couldn’t help but notice Caine’s outfit and beret,” I said. “Only Special Forces get to wear those, right?”
Kelley nodded. “He’s with the Seventy-Fifth Ranger Regiment.”
I whistled. “Those guys are the real deal.”
She looked into her coffee and remembered to nod.
“Is he the older or younger brother?”
“Younger,” said Kelley. “He’s three months older than I am.”
She wasn’t smiling now, but tried to pretend that everything was fine, which only accentuated her melancholy.
“Is he in the thick of it now?”
Kelley thought about that and finally said, “He soon will be.” Then she looked at me and faked a smile.
She put down her coffee cup and reached for the jersey. It was a good way for her to change the subject. “I’m afraid that once Matt puts this on, he’ll probably never want to take it off.”
I finished my cup of coffee. I had come on a fishing expedition but hadn’t really expected to land a fish. At the moment, I was half-wishing it had been the one that got away.
“I do have to run,” I said. “Thanks so much for the coffee. And good luck with your bundle of joy.”
Despite my encouraging her not to get up, Kelley walked me to the door. When I arrived at my car, she was still standing in the doorway and offered me a little wave.
I waved back. She thought I was one of the good guys.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Sirius.
CHAPTER 18:
DRIVERS EDUCATION
When Sirius and I walked into Central Police Station, Sergeant Perez began singing, “My dog has fleas.”
As far as I know, Perez doesn’t play the ukulele or guitar, but I guess he knows someone who does. Guitarists and uke players sing that song to help them tune their instruments. Perez sings it to annoy me.
“My dog has fleas,” he sang again. Being off-key didn’t help his song.
“Your wife has crabs,” I sang, hitting the tune just right. Maybe that’s why Perez flipped me the bird. He was jealous of my singing.
I spent a few minutes sorting through messages and mail. My position in the LAPD is unlike that of any other detective anywhere. The myth of being a detective is that you have autonomy on the job; the truth is you are part of a bureaucracy and have to spend a lot of time dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Most law enforcement bureaucracies breed mushroom management. I didn’t have to do that kind of shoveling and was spared most of the day-to-day headaches that other investigators have. As police work goes, I’ve won the lottery, other than my obligatory PR appearances. As long as Sirius and I are still remembered for bringing in the Santa Ana Strangler, LAPD will use us to curry favor. With Ellis Haines now in town, the media was all atwitter. Media Relations had fielded several requests for me to be interviewed and was trying to pin me down for a date and time. I had reluctantly agreed to sit down with the media on the day Haines was scheduled to testify in court.
From across the room Perez was exaggeratedly sniffing. Even more exaggerated was the disgusted expression on his face. He smelled the smoke and knew it came from me. Instead of explaining what had happened, I turned my back to Perez and pulled a business card from my wallet. Captain Redding had told me he’d be working the scene with arson investigators. I dialed his mobile number.
“Redding,” said a raspy voice.
“Misery loves company,” I said. “This is Gideon. You sound as tired as I am.”
“Arsonists don’t keep banker’s hours. I wish they did.”
“Are you at my house?”
“I am. It’s nice to see a front lawn with more weeds than mine.”
“ ‘A weed is just a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.’ ”
“As I live and breathe,” he said, “who would ever have thunk it—a cop philosopher.”
I didn’t bother telling him that it was a favorite quotation of Seth’s, who attributed it to Thoreau, or Emerson, or some transcendental witch doctor.
“It’s a line that gives me a handy excuse to avoid weeding.”
“Yeah, I’ll try it on my wife and see how it works on her.”
“So what’s the light of day tell you other than that my lawn has weeds?”
“It’s looking more and more like naphtha.”
“Which is what exactly?”
“It’s a distillation of petroleum. You might have heard it called white gas. You get naphtha from a particular mixture of hydrocarbon molecules.”
“And how does one acquire white gas?”
“You go to a sporting goods store and buy that flammable stuff used in camping stoves and lanterns.”
“And how did it end up on my roof?”
“Evidence suggests a balloon.”
“You mean someone tossed a water balloon on my roof?”
“That’s possible. But based on the extent of the spray, it’s more likely that someone used a balloon launcher.”
“Are you talking about a catapult?”
“That would work, but so would a wrist launcher. If you know how to use one of those, they’re quite accurate. A balloon filled with accelerant could have been delivered from across the street or even farther away.”
“Low tech,” I said.
“You sound surprised.”
I guess I was. I had assumed my hellfire had been delivered courtesy of a drone.
“I guess I’m more pissed than anything,” I said.
“I hear weeding is supposed to be therapeutic and a stress reliever.”
“Is that what your wife tells you?”
“How’d you guess?”
I texted Elle’s private number with the message: We need to meet ASAP. When I didn’t get a response, I couldn’t be sure if Elle was ducking me or busy on the set. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and spent a few minutes learning what I could about Neal Bass. In my hunting and gathering of data, one thing jumped out: Bass was lucky to still have a driver’s license. A few months back he’d had to go to court to get a reckless driving charge reduced from a misdemeanor to a traffic violation. Over the past four years he’d been cited multiple times for speeding, tailgating, a rolling stop, careless driving, and unsafe lane changes. During that time he’d attended traffic school twice and wasn’t eligible to attend for another six mon
ths. Another ticket might result in the revocation of his license.
Bass’s cherry-red Porsche Boxster wasn’t exactly an inconspicuous car. It was a vehicle designed to get noticed. To traffic cops and the CHP, it might as well have come with a sign that read, “Ticket me.”
I leaned back in my chair and considered my next gambit. Corde had targeted my Achilles heel; I gave some consideration to his.
Elle still hadn’t responded to my text, so I sent her another: When and where are we meeting? While waiting for her to respond, I researched Caine Pullman. It took a little digging to get his real first name, which was Todd. If I’d been named Todd, I probably would have gone with my middle name as well.
Caine’s regiment was based in Fort Benning, Georgia, but home seemed to be the hot spot du jour. He had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through social media I saw that yesterday Caine had posted from “the happiest place on earth.” He had visited Disneyland.
Donald Calvin Pullman was my next search engine target. D.C. was the director of information systems of a local wireless company. My search for background information on him was made easier because Pullman wasn’t an overly common name.
I called D.C.’s workplace, and after getting his voicemail, hung up. When I called back, I was able to get a human being who identified herself as D.C.’s administrative assistant. According to her, D.C. was in a meeting and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon. I asked if she could do me a favor, and she did.
The bright red Porsche was in a reserved parking spot in front of the building. There was a prominent sign warning scofflaws that unauthorized vehicles would be towed at the owner’s expense.
I was sitting in a parking lot down the street, where the rest of the hoi polloi parked their cars. It was 12:30 p.m., and over the last half hour I’d seen a slow but steady lunch exodus take place from the building I was watching. There were several delis in the industrial park, and some of the workers were combining a walk with lunch. I was hoping Bass hadn’t brown-bagged it, or wasn’t one of those who believed in walking to lunch.
I used my stakeout time to text and make calls. Still waiting was my message to Elle.
With our mobile population, and cell phones on the constant move, you never know where you’re calling. The area code I punched in was 706, a Georgia designation. D.C. Pullman’s administrative assistant had supplied me with Caine Pullman’s cell phone number. Kelley had said that Caine would soon be back in the thick of it. His trip the day before to Disneyland gave me hope he was still in California.
My call immediately went to voice mail. A deep voice said, “Leave a message. If I know you, I might call back.”
At the beep I said, “You don’t know me, but you do need to call me back. This is Detective Michael Gideon of the Los Angeles Police Department. I’ll be expecting your call.”
I left the number of my cell and repeated the number a second time before hanging up.
At a little before one, Neal Bass left the building and approached his Porsche. As he pulled out, I fell in behind him. All the tickets hadn’t improved his driving. It only took him five seconds to be going fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit. As he approached a stop sign, Bass paid little heed to the octagonal reproach. He applied his brakes for maybe a nanosecond and then swept by. That’s when I put on the light show, swinging the dual-deck light bar atop the hood and unleashing a flashing red beacon.
Bass’s body jerked at the sight of the lights, and then he pulled over to the side of the road. I parked behind him but kept the lights rotating. Bass was none too gently hitting his forehead on the steering wheel as I approached.
“License and registration, please,” I said.
At the sound of my voice, Bass’s head pivoted my way. “You,” he said.
“Me,” I agreed.
“You set me up.”
“I made you drive through the stop sign?”
“What do you want?”
“Like I told you, I want your driver’s license and registration.”
“We don’t have to go there, do we? I thought you wanted to talk.”
“That was yesterday.”
“Why do you want to mess with my life? You already got Rip all over my ass.”
Drew Corde liked others to call him “Rip.” It was a good reason not to call him that.
“And how did I do that?”
“You tell me.”
I had assumed Bass had contacted Corde about my visit, and that had resulted in my roof fire, but if I was to believe what he was saying, that wasn’t the case.
“All right, let’s talk. Follow me.”
We drove forward a short distance and then turned right on a street that dead-ended at a storage facility. Most of the parking spaces in the lot were unoccupied, and I signaled for Bass to pull up next to me in a quiet spot under an overhang of eucalyptus trees. We lowered our windows and carried on a conversation from inside our cars.
“What’s this about Corde chewing you out?”
That got an aggrieved nod. “He called me maybe an hour after we talked. Rip really laid into me. I’m taking a chance even talking to you now. You’re not going to give me a ticket, right?”
“You’re saying Corde knew I came to see you?”
Bass nodded. “He told me if you ever called or came around again, I should refer you to our company lawyers.”
“How did he know I came to your office?”
“You’re not the one I should be thanking for that?”
I shook my head and Bass shrugged. “Maybe Cheryl dropped a dime on me. She’s a real bitch. Or maybe one of us is being monitored. I don’t even want to guess. I’m already paranoid enough as it is.”
“Is there a reason for your paranoia?”
Bass didn’t respond.
“Three nights ago you were at Corde’s house. Is that right?”
“That depends. You’re not giving me a ticket, are you?”
“Not if you answer my questions.”
“Yeah, I was there.”
“Who else was there?”
“It was just Austin Delaney, me, and Rip.”
“Who is Delaney?”
“He’s an OZ old-timer who goes back to when we were making video games.”
“Does he still work for OZ?”
Bass nodded.
“Wasn’t Novak there as well?”
“He arrived later, when the gaming was all but done.”
“It’s my understanding that there are four or five Attack Pack regulars.”
“Armand Goldberg’s wife is expecting—Armand’s another OZ gamer from way back—so he couldn’t make it.”
“What time did Novak show up?”
“It was after midnight.”
“Do you always game that late?”
He nodded.
“Tell me about Novak.”
“He’s the security director of OZ, but more than that he’s Rip’s right-hand man. Usually you don’t have to look any farther than Rip’s shadow to find him.”
“What’s his first name?”
“I think it’s Rick, or Eric, but no one calls him that. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t have a first name, or need one.”
“How so?”
“It’s like those Men in Black movies. The agents don’t have names. They’re letters, like ‘A’ or ‘K.’ Novak should be ‘N.’ ”
“Is Novak a former spook?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“What’s a former spy doing playing video games with your group?”
“The rest of us play. When Novak gets his hands on a joy stick, he becomes a killing machine.”
“Does the Attack Pack only play with video games?”
Bass’s confused look made me clarify: “Has your group operated drones fro
m inside the Bunker?”
“I’m not going to answer that question.”
“You just did.”
“Can I go?”
“Soon,” I said. “Three nights ago were you and the Attack Pack playing with drones?”
He shook his head.
“That’s odd,” I said. “You still haven’t explained how it is that I heard your laughter in the background when someone called me and played back a recording of what should have been private time between my girlfriend and me.”
“If I answer, can it be off the record? I’m talking no attribution to me now or down the road. And what I say stays between us. I don’t want it repeated or put in a report. I’m afraid of it coming back to me, and when I say ‘afraid,’ that’s what I mean.”
“I’m okay with off the record.”
“Hypothetically, let’s say a certain someone played a recording of two people screwing. There was no explanation, just the sounds of a couple going at it. That’s all I know about that subject.”
I thought about the phone call to my cell and the recording that I’d heard, and wondered how the recording had been made.
“I got to get moving,” said Bass. “If we linger here, it will catch the attention of some eye in the sky.”
“What can you tell me about the angel?” I asked.
His puzzlement couldn’t be faked. He wrinkled his brow and shook his head. “When you asked me about angels the last time, I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about, and I still don’t.”
“Did Corde ever talk about angels?”
“Never.”
“Did you ever participate in a UAV hunt that targeted an angel simulation?”
“Like I already told you, I’m not going to admit to being part of any UAV hunt.”
“Let’s make it a hypothetical situation. Have you ever heard of an angel simulation being used as part of a drone targeting game?”
“No, I have not.”
“And you never heard the name Wrong Pauley, and know nothing about his death?”
“The only time I heard his name was when you brought it up.”
“Did you ever go hunting with Corde?”
“Not really,” he said.