San Francisco Night

by Stephen Leather

  “There’s a guy I know who can get the tracking equipment for me,” he said.

  “At four o’clock in the morning?”

  “I don’t think he sleeps much.”

  “The sort of people you know, I don’t think I’d want them having my number.”

  “I’ll withhold it,” he said. “And really, I’d trust this guy with my life.” He smiled thinly. “Actually, I already have done.”

  Chen stared at him for several seconds, and then nodded. “Okay, but I want to hear every word you say.”

  “Deal.”

  Chen went back into her bedroom and reappeared a few seconds later with her cellphone. She set up the withhold number function before giving it to him. Nightingale tapped out the number from memory and put the phone to his ear. Wainwright answered almost immediately and he sounded wide awake. “Joshua, it’s Jack. I need help.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I need a couple of vehicle tracking things.”

  “LoJacks we call them,” said Wainwright.

  “Yeah, well I need to be able to keep an eye on a couple of people.”

  “Speckman and Carr?”

  “Got it in one,” said Nightingale.

  “I’ll get something to you later today,” said Wainwright. “I use a guy called Dragan. He’s from Serbia but he’s lived in Los Angeles for a while. You can trust him, but he’s not familiar with the Left Path so no talking about what you’re up to there, okay?”

  “Understood.”

  “How are things?”

  “I’m making progress.”

  “What’s wrong, Jack? You wouldn’t be calling me at this time of the morning if some particularly nasty shit hadn’t hit the fan.”

  “I’m using a friend’s phone, I’ll get a new Sim card tomorrow.”

  “You’re okay?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “But your friend is standing next to you?”

  “That’s right?”

  “Call me when you can.”

  The line went dead and Nightingale handed the phone back to Chen. “Who was that?”

  “A guy I work for.”

  “I meant his name.”

  “He prefers to keep a low profile.”

  “I could just call him and ask him.”

  “You could. But I wouldn’t.” He smiled. “Thanks for this, seriously.”

  “For what?”

  “For taking me in. For helping me. For not just turning me over to the cops.”

  “The way I look at it, if I tell anyone what we’ve been through over the last few hours, they’ll take away my badge.” She shrugged. “You’ve still got some explaining to do, and that’s going to work better face to face.” She gestured at the sofa. “Now get some sleep, you look like shit.” She closed the door in his face.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said to the door.

  CHAPTER 43

  Nightingale awoke to the smell of frying bacon. He’d fallen asleep on the sofa in his shirt and jeans. She grinned at him as he padded over to the kitchen area. She was still wearing her oversized t-shirt and running shorts. She’d tied back her long black hair with a pink scrunchie and looked terrific for someone who had had less than four hours sleep.

  “Easy over okay?” she said, nodding at the eggs frying in a pan.

  “Brilliant,” said Nightingale.

  “Can you make the coffee? You pop a capsule in that machine there and press the button. If you want a cappuccino or a latte you use a milk capsule first.”

  The coffee maker looked like a fax machine but after staring at it for a while Nightingale grasped the concept and within a couple of minutes had made two black coffees. Chen put eggs and bacon on plates. “No toast,” he said, “I’m cutting back on carbs.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” They sat down at a counter and ate. “Last night, you were serious about Kent Speckman and Lucille Carr being part of this group? The Apostles?”

  “Dead serious,” said Nightingale.

  “I’m going to need convincing,” she said.

  “When you get back from the hotel, I’ll show you some videos of Speckman. You’ve got a computer?”

  “Of course, or I can access the internet through the TV,” said Chen. She laughed at the look of surprise that flashed across Nightingale’s face. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Jack. About the hotel. I’m guessing it’s best I go alone, right?”

  Nightingale nodded and passed her his room keycard. “Room 624.”

  “And you’re sure they’ll be watching?”

  “Ninety-nine per cent sure. They’ve already broken into my car. There was nothing personal in the car so that’s not an issue.” He sipped his coffee. “The thing is, the watchers could be anyone, literally anyone. It’s not like they’re FBI and all you have to do is to look for a couple of earnest men in dark suits. It could be a teenager, it could be a mother, a postman, a cop, a student.”

  “I get it, Jack.”

  “Just be careful. Get in, get my stuff, and get out. When you leave, walk for a while to check that you’re not being followed. You’ll have your gun, right?”

  She smiled sarcastically. “I never leave home without it.”

  “You need to bring everything from the room,” he said. “Even a toothbrush would leave me vulnerable.”

  “I get it,” she said. She finished off her eggs and bacon, drank the last of her coffee and stood up. “I’m not thrilled about you staying here on your own but I don’t see I have much choice,” she said.

  “I promise not to snoop through your drawers,” he said.

  “See now, until you said that the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” said Chen. “Maybe I should make you wait outside in the hallway.”

  “I’ll be good, Amy. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Chen used an Uber taxi to take her to the hotel, but had it drop her several blocks away. She was carrying a large shoulder bag and was wearing a bulky jacket over her sweatshirt and jeans, the better to hide her Glock in its underarm holster. Chen generally favored wearing her weapon on her hip but she was off-duty and the gun was better hidden. She walked slowly down the sidewalk, pretending to talk into her cellphone. She paused a short distance from the hotel entrance, waved her arm animatedly and did a complete three-sixty as if she was in the throes of an argument. There was a guy in blue overalls sitting in a cable van, and a couple of hooded teenagers standing at the entrance to an alley, smoking and bobbing their heads in time to music only they could hear. There was a coffee shop on the other side of the road and half a dozen customers were sitting on stools facing her. She couldn’t risk looking at them closely so she started walking again.

  She strode through the lobby and straight to the elevator, holding her phone to her ear and conducting an imaginary conversation with herself. There was an elderly man behind the reception desk and two people sitting in the lobby, a man in a wheelchair reading a newspaper and a middle-aged woman fussing over a Chihuahua that had been forced to wear a tartan coat.

  She got into the elevator and pressed the button for the eighth floor, and for the top floor. The elevator went up and she got out on eighth, walked down a corridor to the emergency stairs and walked down two flights to the sixth. She stood for a while at the fire door leading to the corridor, looking through a small window until she was satisfied that the corridor was empty. She pushed the door open and listened carefully. The corridor didn’t contain 624. It led to the lobby and she checked the lights above the elevator doors. The one she had used had gone up to the top floor and had stayed there. One of the other elevators was on the ground floor, and the third was on the second floor.

  She stopped and listened again. There was a sign opposite the elevator doors that indicated that room 624 was to her left. She had the keycard in her hand as she walked towards the door. When she was six feet away she had a quick look around to reassure herself that she was alone in the corridor, quickly opened the door and slipp
ed inside.

  She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her heart racing. She steadied her breathing and then went through to the bathroom. His toothbrush and toothpaste were in a tumbler and she put them and his comb into his washbag. What few clothes he had went into a carrier bag she had brought with her. There were three leather-bound books on the bedside table and she put them into the bag with the clothes. On the dressing table was a carrier bag from a shop called Pagan World containing a crystal ball and what looked like dried herbs and twigs.

  She saw the camera bag by the side of the bed and she picked it up. She unzipped it and her eyes widened as she looked inside. She reached inside and pulled out the pink hairbrush. “You bastard,” she muttered under her breath.

  CHAPTER 45

  Nightingale could see from the look on Chen’s face as she let herself into the apartment that she wasn’t happy. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She dropped the camera bag and pulled out the baseball cap and threw it at him. As he was staring at it, she pulled out the pink hairbrush and waved it at him. “What are these?”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

  “That’s not an answer and you know it,” she said. She threw the hairbrush at him and it hit him in the chest. He bent down and picked it up.

  “I can explain,” he said.

  She took off her coat and he stared at the holstered Glock. She pointed her finger at him, as if reading his mind. “Just stay where you are,” she said. “You know what a trophy is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Because these look like trophies. The sort of things a serial killer would take to remind himself of what he’d done.”

  “I’m not a serial killer, Amy.”

  “So explain what you’re doing with a child’s baseball cap and a pink hairbrush?”

  Nightingale grimaced. “I needed them to help look for the kids.”

  “Brett and Sharonda?”

  Nightingale nodded.

  “So how did you get them?”

  “I went to their homes. I spoke to their mothers.” He sighed. “And I stole them.”

  She stared at him in horror, lost for words.

  “For the best of reasons, Amy. And stole is the wrong word. I’ll give them back.”

  “I should never have let you stay here,” she said. “When the cops hauled us in I should have just told them the truth and let them hang you out to dry.”

  “Will you let me explain?” asked Nightingale.

  “Try,” said Chen. “Give it your best shot and then get the hell out of my apartment.”

  Nightingale held out his hand for the bag and she gave it to him. He unzipped one of the side pockets and took out the pouch containing the crystal. She frowned as he undid the pouch and slid the crystal onto the palm of his hand. She reached for it but he shook his head. “No, you mustn’t touch it. You’ll sully it.”

  “Sully it?”

  “It has to stay pure. If it gets sullied it has to be smudged and that takes time.”

  “You’re talking in riddles,” she said.

  “It’s complicated,” said Nightingale.

  “If you say that one more time…” she said, exasperated.

  “I can use the crystal to check if they are alive or not, but to do that I need something personal. I borrowed those items so that I could use the crystal on them.”

  “And?”

  “And both the kids are alive.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Show me,” she said.

  “It takes time. And I have to shower.”

  “Yeah, well you could do with one,” said Chen. She pointed at the bathroom door. “Get to it.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Chen stared at the crystal as it slowly turned anti-clockwise over the hairbrush. “You’re twisting it,” she said.

  Nightingale was kneeling on the floor, wearing his bathrobe and nothing else. His hair was still damp from the shower. “I’m not,” he said.

  “Let me try.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t. The crystal has to be in sync with you. This is my crystal, it’ll only work for me. And like I said, if you touch it…”

  “I know. It’ll be sullied.” She sat back on her heels. And watched as Nightingale held the crystal over the baseball cap For almost a minute it hung motionless and then it began to swing slowly until it was circling the cap.

  “This crystal, can you use it to find out where the children are?”

  “In theory, yes. But it’s much more..” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “Complicated?”

  He shrugged. “I need to use the crystal ball, and the other stuff you brought with you.”

  “And that will tell you where the kids are?”

  “Maybe. It’s not an exact science.”

  CHAPTER 47

  Abaddon and Judas met on a bench at Fisherman’s Wharf. Judas had brought a bag of cherries, and they shared them as they spoke, carefully putting the stones back in the bag. They spoke quietly, their conversation inaudible to passers-by, drowned by the honking of the Sea-Lions on Pier 39.

  “The Elemental failed,” said Judas.

  “Yes,” replied Abaddon. “This man is something special. We must not underestimate him again.”

  “Twice now that he’s escaped with his life.”

  “Yes, there’s no need to remind me.”

  “Third time lucky,” said Judas.

  “It’s not about luck,” said Abaddon. “We need to get ahead of the game. He can’t possibly know what he’s dealing with yet, so we must also ensure he can’t be given too much information. We need to think carefully about who might help him, and see that they don’t. More work for your scissors, perhaps?”

  Judas gave a shiver of excitement.

  “Oh, I do hope so. I really would have liked more time with the last one, but he wasn’t as strong as I’d expected.”

  “He has not returned to the hotel?”

  Judas shook her head. “He will know we are searching for him.”

  “You must find him, Judas. You must find him and kill him. But before you kill him, you need to find out everything he knows.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  Abaddon got up from the bench and walked away. Judas popped the last cherry into her mouth, got up, dropped the bag of stones into the nearest litter-bin and walked off in the opposite direction.

  CHAPTER 48

  “I have to be honest, that robe really doesn’t suit you,” said Chen, as Nightingale lit the two small blue candles which stood on either side of the solid crystal ball in the middle of the coffee table.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Nightingale. “There wasn’t much on offer in the shop.”

  “But why a bathrobe at all?”

  “The real adepts do it naked,” he said. “So count your blessings. And while it’s okay for you to watch, don’t interrupt. Concentration’s very important.”

  Chen raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Nightingale sprinkled herbs from a brass bowl into each flame, then made a small pile of lemon twigs in the bowl. He put Sharonda Parker’s hairbrush and Brett Mitchell’s cap on top of the pile and said a sentence in a strange language.

  “Is that Latin?” said Chen.

  Nightingale gave her an admonishing look and held a finger to his lips.

  “I was just asking,” she said.

  “No, it’s not Latin. It’s a language that pre-dates Latin. Now don’t talk.” Nightingale lit the lemon twigs with his lighter, picked up his pink crystal and held it by the chain six inches above the flames.

  “Asmla oscsub ascihc odsidrept Sharonda Parker. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Brett Mitchell.”

  The crystal started to swing round slowly, then moved backwards and forwards regularly, from the north-east to the south-west.

  “Asmla oscsub ascihc adidrept Sharonda
Parker. Asmla oscsub ascihc adidrept Brett Mitchell.”

  This time the crystal ball on the table clouded over and Nightingale repeated the incantation for the final time.

  “Asmla oscsub ascihc adidrept Sharonda Parker. Asmla oscsub ascihc adidrept Brett Mitchell.”

  The cloudiness cleared, and inside the crystal ball appeared the image of a huge mansion, seen from above, perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. There was an extensive lawn in front of it with a fountain playing in the center, and several garages or stables off toward the right. The main building was white, with black beams to give a Tudor look, though there was no chance of a genuine Tudor mansion in California. At each side of the vast edifice, a somewhat confused architect had added a square castellated tower. There were a few outbuildings dotted around but no sign of people, and no indication of where it might be.

  “What the hell is happening?” whispered Chen.

  “It’s called a Spell Of Propinquity. It can show where a missing soul is to be found.”

  “So the ball is a projector?” she asked.

  “No, it’s a focus for the energy of the crystal.”

  “Bullshit. It’s some kind of projector. Where is that place?”

  “No idea,” said Nightingale. “I was hoping for some local knowledge here. Take a good look now, it’s fading.”

  The burning herbs in the brass bowl flickered and went out, and the image disappeared. Nightingale sighed. “That’s where they are, but we’re no further forward if we don’t know where it is.” He stretched. “You’ve never seen a mansion like that?”

  Chen shook her head. “There are a lot of rich people in San Francisco. The Bay area has more Fortune 500 headquarters than anywhere else outside New York. We’ve got YouTube, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, WalMart, Gap, more multimillionaires than you can shake a stick at.” She frowned. “Google,” she said.

  “Yeah, you said that.”

  She shook her head. “No, Google. The search engine.” She went over to a desk on which stood a high-end Apple laptop. Nightingale went to stand behind her. “Jack, put some clothes on, will you? That robe leaves nothing to the imagination, seriously.”