The Watchman jp-1

by Robert Crais

  “How about you come up from below to watch the front? Bud can coordinate with the police and stay on the drive-stand by-”

  A big man Pike hadn’t seen before came from the front of the house and pulled the girl to her feet. He shoved her toward the back. Pike didn’t like the rough way he treated her, but he also didn’t like it that she was being moved. Pike returned to the phone.

  “They’re moving her. I’m going to see what’s up.”

  Pike closed the phone, then made his way back across the slope to the far side of the yard, then to the walkway behind the house. Pike edged to the window, listened, then took out his gun. Pike didn’t have to jack the slide or check to see if it was loaded like they do on TV. Pike kept one locked in the box and good to go. He knew it was loaded because it was always loaded.

  He raised up enough to peek in the corner of the window. Larkin, the big man, and Vahnich were in an empty bedroom. Larkin was back on the floor with the big man standing nearby. They were watching Vahnich, who had a laptop open. He was getting ready for Pike’s call. He had the girl ready to speak to her father, and his computer to confirm the transfer. After the transfer was confirmed, Vahnich would kill her. Vahnich or one of his men would likely cut her throat or strangle her, then they would drive to LAX and immediately leave the country. Pike wondered if Vahnich would do it himself.

  Pike continued on to the carport. As he got closer, he heard the two men. He looked past the LeBaron. The two men had closed the hood, but were still by the car, talking. These two, Vahnich and the big man with Larkin, left two men who might be anywhere. Pike wondered if Cole could spot them from the other side of the house.

  Pike drifted back a bit, then phoned Cole again, whispering.

  “Where are you?”

  “Front of the house. I’m in some holly, downhill from the drive. How about you?”

  Holly bushes lined the property directly across from Pike.

  Pike said, “You see the two men by the Bel Air?”

  “Twenty feet in front of me.”

  “Look at the LeBaron. Now look past the LeBaron.”

  “Got you.”

  “Vahnich plus one with Larkin, plus these two are four. Can you locate the missing two from your side?”

  “Stand by-”

  The two men by the Bel Air suddenly straightened and looked up the drive. Pike knew something was wrong, but he couldn’t see what they were looking at. He lifted the phone-

  “What’s on?”

  “Dunno. I’ll look.”

  Pike raised up to see for himself just as he heard Cole’s reaction.

  Cole said, “Oh, shit.”

  Conner Barkley stalked down the drive.

  44

  Barkley came down the drive with an expression of blustery outrage, but the men were confused. They probably thought he was a neighbor and would have to shine him on, but Pike knew their confusion wouldn’t last.

  Pike accelerated through the carport. He covered the distance silently and fast, knowing it would go bad. Barkley looked at him, and both men turned to see what Barkley was looking at. Pike hit the nearest man with his gun, but the second man lurched sideways, barking out a shout-

  Something behind Pike exploded and another man shouted as Cole pushed through the hedges. The two missing men were at the front door, one behind the other, the first man firing again-bam, bam-when Cole shot him in the chest; the shooter crumpling even as the man behind him shoved the door closed on his dying friend. Pike knew he would run to the back of the house.

  All of it happened in glimpses: Barkley striding closer on abnormally stiff legs; Bud Flynn appearing at the top of the drive; Cole moving on the second man in a two-hand stance-

  – only now the second man was on his knees with his hands up, staring at Cole.

  Pike started for the house-

  “Larkin-”

  Cole said, “Go-”

  Pike ran back the way he had come. Inside, the front shooter would be screaming about what happened; Vahnich would be confused, then afraid; he would make one or both of his hitters return to see what was happening; and then Vahnich would make a decision-

  Middle of the day, a bright sunny day, and the world was gone to hell. Their only choices were bad-bad for Vahnich, bad for the girl, and bad for Pike. Vahnich could shoot it out in a hostage situation, or run. Vahnich didn’t know how many people were on him, whether he was surrounded, or whether the police were involved, but the hostage card was a loser; if Vahnich stayed he would be trapped. Running was the best of the bad choices, so they would run-out the back and into the neighborhood, run and gun if they had to, invade a home in broad daylight, steal a car, and pray-but it was their last, best, and only chance.

  Pike ran hard for the end of the house, and heard more shots as he ran. One shot would have been an execution, but multiple shots gave him hope. They were shooting at the front door to stall off a breach; this meant they were going to run.

  Pike believed Khali Vahnich would kill Larkin, but he wouldn’t kill her until they were outside the house. Vahnich didn’t know what he would be facing and might need her as a shield. If the way was clear, he might kill her just before he went over the fence, but he wouldn’t kill her before. He would kill her to punish her father, and he would kill her to punish Pike.

  Pike took cover in the orange trees beyond the house just as the window came up. The big man climbed out first, dropped to a knee, then said something into the window. They pushed Larkin through; she fell straight down and landed with a sharp gasp. Vahnich landed on top of her, and then the final man came out, a short muscular guy with a bandana tied around his head, everyone tangled together, and then Vahnich pulled her close.

  Pike steadied his gun against the orange tree.

  When Cole came around the far side of the house, the bandana saw him, popped off one shot, and Cole fired back. The bandana went down with a high keening whine, but pushed to his knee and fired again. Cole dropped for cover as the sliding glass doors flew open, and Bud Flynn came out, gun up and ready. Bud must have forgotten himself.

  He shouted, “Police!”

  The bandana swung toward Bud, and Pike shot him in the head.

  Vahnich and the big man saw Pike, and Vahnich jerked the girl in front of them for a shield as they scuttled backwards toward the slope. The big man fired at Flynn, then Cole, but the shots were wild and pointless.

  Pike said, “You’re done.”

  Bud was behind a heavy clay pot, shouting.

  “Drop your weapons! Drop’m now!”

  Conner Barkley came through the doors. He had no gun and did not look for cover. Maybe he didn’t know that’s what you were supposed to do. He stormed past Bud into the yard and stopped-out in the open, in front of Bud, and alone.

  Spittle flew from his face when he shouted.

  “You let her go! Let my daughter go!”

  The big man shifted out from behind the girl to fire. He only moved an inch or two, but the sight picture was perfect, like a dot on top of an i. Pike shot him before he could fire, and the big man fell like a sack.

  Bud was still screaming, but he had crabbed sideways so he wouldn’t shoot Barkley.

  “Drop your weapon, goddamnit! Put it down! You’re done, you sonofabitch! Down!”

  Barkley was screaming, too; screaming as if he was having a tantrum.

  “You let her go. Let GO!”

  Pike stepped out from behind the orange tree. Vahnich caught the movement and angled to watch him, keeping the girl between them. Vahnich had drawn himself as small as possible behind her, and peeked from behind her head. His gun was pressed hard into her neck, but Pike couldn’t have that. He moved into the open, set himself, and lined up on Vahnich’s eye. He found the rhythm of Vahnich’s fear. The eye moved, the gun moved; the eye and the gun became one.

  Pike said, “Dead man.”

  The first kiss of sirens whiffed up the hill. Bud and Barkley were still screaming. Pike did not see Cole but trusted
he was on target. He did not look at Larkin because she might see his fear. Pike saw only Vahnich’s eye and the eye looking back.

  Vahnich dropped his gun. The gun fell, but nothing else moved. Vahnich had made his decision. He would take his chances with the courts.

  Vahnich called from behind the girl.

  “I dropped it. I’m giving up. I surrender.”

  Bud shouted the instructions Pike had heard a hundred times.

  “Raise your hands above your head. Raise them high! Lace your fingers on your head!”

  Vahnich raised his hands. He laced his fingers on his head. The girl still had not moved, and neither had Pike.

  Pike said, “Larkin. Go to your dad.”

  She started toward Pike.

  “Go to your father.”

  She ran to her father.

  Vahnich said, “I give up!”

  Bud had come out from behind the pot. Cole was covering the men they had shot. Pike crabbed sideways across the yard until he was between Vahnich and the girl, his gun never leaving the eye.

  Behind him, Bud said, “Joe. Son, the police are coming.”

  Pike said, “Larkin, you okay? You good?”

  “He was going to kill me. He was-”

  “I know.”

  Bud said, “Officer Pike-”

  Pike pulled the trigger. The gun made a loud pop that sounded hollow in the open air. The body fell.

  Pike walked over to secure their weapons. He checked the bodies. All three were dead.

  Bud was staring at him with his hands at his sides as if he had been drained of life. Conner Barkley was holding his daughter. Cole tucked his own pistol into his waist as he came over.

  Cole said, “You okay?”

  “Sure. How’s that leg?”

  “Better. At least we didn’t get shot this time.”

  Pike went to the girl. Conner watched him coming, and Pike saw he was crying. Billionaire tears looked like everyone else’s.

  Pike placed his hand on Larkin’s back and whispered.

  “I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  She turned to him then and hugged him. She buried her face against his chest, and Pike rested his chin on her head. Bud was watching him. Bud looked sad and disappointed.

  Pike said, “I still hate bullies. Live with it.”

  Pike was holding the girl when the police arrived.

  45

  Ocean Avenue was lit with smoky gold light that time of morning, there at the edge of the sea. Pike ran along the crown of the street, enjoying the peace and the rhythm of his body. It was three fifty-nine that morning. No cars had disturbed him for more than two miles, and the coyotes did not pace him. He was the only beast in the city, but this was about to change.

  She turned onto Ocean at San Vicente and roared toward him through the darkness. He recognized her new car, so he stayed on the center line and did not break his stride.

  Larkin zoomed past, swung around, and idled up alongside him. She had gotten a pearl white Aston convertible. The top was down. She had kept the short hair, but had gone back to red. She grinned the lip-curling smile. Pike was glad her confidence was back.

  “Only a lunatic runs this early.”

  “Only a lunatic driving this early would find me.”

  “I asked your boy Cole. Since you won’t return my calls anymore.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I think he wants to kiss me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Pike had stopped returning her calls. They had talked often in the weeks following the incident, but he didn’t know what more he could say.

  She said, “Can you talk while you run?”

  “Sure.”

  She took a moment to get it together, then told him what she came to say.

  “I’m not going to bother you anymore. Now, just because I’m not calling you doesn’t mean you can’t call me if you change your mind. You can call whenever you want, but I get it you want me to stop, so I’m going to stop.”

  “Okay.”

  The old flash of anger darkened her eyes.

  “My friend, that was WAY too easy. The least you could do is pretend.”

  “Not with you.”

  The car idled alongside him. Pike caught a glimmer on the bluff, and wondered if it was a coyote.

  After a bit, she said, “Do you believe in angels?”

  “No.”

  “I do. That’s why I go driving like this. I look for angels. They only come out at night.”

  That was something else Pike didn’t know how to answer, so he said nothing.

  She looked up at him.

  “I’m not going to call anymore because that’s what you want; not because I want to stop. You probably think you’re too old for me. You probably think I’m too young. I’ll bet you hate rich people.”

  “Pick one.”

  Larkin smiled again, and Pike was glad to see it. He loved her in-your-face smile. But then her smile faded and her eyes filled, and he didn’t like that so well.

  She said, “You probably think I’ll get over it, but I won’t. I love you. I love you so damn much I would do anything for you.”

  “I know you would.”

  “I’d even stop calling.”

  The Aston Martin roared away, its engine screaming with pain.

  Pike watched her taillights flare. She turned east on San Vicente, and raced toward the city.

  Pike said, “I love you.”

  He ran alone in the darkness, wishing the coyotes would join him.

  The Last Day. Goodbye Kiss

  46

  TURTLE ISLAND

  GULF OF THAILAND

  182 DAYS LATER

  Jon Stone gazed out over the azure gulf and dreamed of ships at sea. Sailing ships of the late 1700s; not these silicon-chip water-rockets any geek could sail, but wooden ships built by hands and sweat, and sailed by men who lived by their belief in monsters. Jon imagined his ship rounding the point, a forty-gun frigate, himself a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, bound to the mast by duty and honor here on the far side of the world. Those were days of beauty, and Jon Stone wished he had been part of it.

  The dude’s house had put him in the mood; top-of-the-line, no-expense-spared new, for sure, but with a wild, primitive freedom that screamed for those earlier times. The walls were these big plantation shutters that could be pushed aside so the inside and the outside were one, opening the house to the sea and the jungle and a warm breeze that smelled of flowers caught in a woman’s hair: a neo-plantation tropical palace overlooking the Gulf of Thailand-the beautiful chaos of the jungle bowling away to a coconut orchard, the orchard giving way to an immaculate white beach and the blue-on-blue sweep of ocean and sky, all of it like a rich boy’s fantasy of Tarzan’s tree house, maybe, or one of those African manors where British admirals retired.

  Jon so totally dug it.

  Jon Stone was thinking about the ships when a single muffled wump from the far side of the house broke the silence, just the one sound, like a baseball bat smacking onto a bed.

  Stone sighed, knowing his time here was short.

  He said, “I dig this house, man. I could live here.”

  Jon spoke clearly but did not expect an answer. It was a big-ass house with no one around to hear.

  Jon walked through the open wall to the edge of a beautiful limestone deck and squinted down at the beach. Another three or four days, the beach would be jammed with bands and insane women.

  “Full moon parties, bro. Cat in Big Buddha, he said they have’m every full moon. Seven, eight thousand people show up, all these bands and shit-food, booze, whatever. It’s these tourist chicks. The chicks go wild, he said; just the one night, these crazy chicks thinking, What, what happens here stays here? Oh, man. We should stay, bro.”

  But no one answered, not way up there in the jungle. It was a long way to town.

  The latex gloves made his hands sweat, so his hands were itching. Jon checked his watch, t
hen started back through the house.

  A staff of four usually worked at the house. A cook, some butler dude, a maid, and a full-time gardener. The gardener had two extra guys come to help with the big stuff every Tuesday. Every Friday a pool guy came to bleach the infinity pool, and an extra housekeeper came to help with the floors. Jon had patterned their movements for three weeks and arranged events so none of them would show up today.

  No visitors, no employees, no witnesses.

  Gordon Kline had been calling himself George Perkins when Jon’s boy caught the scent. Told the locals he retired after selling off thirty-two McDonald’s franchises up in Alberta. Cats down in town were used to stories like that from rich Europeans and Norte Americanos, most of them perverts come down to scarf the little Thai boy toys, and that’s what they figured for the man who was calling himself George Perkins. Only Perkins had been keeping a way more dangerous secret than pedophilia.

  Jon took the long way back to Kline’s office, like walking with the MTV crew who let rap assholes and overpaid jocks brag about their cribs. Sixty-inch plasmas in every room, a beaten copper bar that had to be twenty feet long, a temperature-controlled triple-glazed wine room the size of Jon’s bedroom; this monster saltwater aquarium drifting with neon fish. Jon had always wanted a big-ass aquarium like that. Dude had a black Hummer, a maroon Bentley Continental, and a pale green Maserati Quattroporte right outside the double-wide front doors. Jon grooved on the Maserati. He could see himself tooling down to the beach in that bitch. Tooling back to the house with a couple of crazy-ass Aussie chicks.

  Jon took out his gun, letting it dangle at his side.

  A hundred twenty million could buy damn near anything, but not everything.

  Jon found the office. Dude’s body was facedown on a beautiful leather couch, an arm and a leg dangling over the side. A single round in the side of the neck had almost decapitated the sonofabitch. Blood was still pooling on the floor.

  Jon said, “All set, Mr. Katz?”

  “Almost.”

  Pike was using a passport that identified him as Richard Katz of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Jon’s own passport showed the name Jon Jordan, also of Milwaukee. Business partners on holiday together, let the locals think what they want.