41.
Joe Pike
Desert Gold Realty was a narrow storefront closer to Cathedral City than Palm Desert, wedged between a gift shop and a women’s clothing store. The shops and offices were closed, which suited Pike because the surrounding streets were deserted.
The realty office had a glass front with color flyers of available properties taped to the glass. The flyers suggested Megan Orlato’s primary business was vacation rentals for weekenders and snowbirds. The interior was dark. The only light came from a computer on a desk at the rear. A small round table with chairs for customers was up front, but there was only the one desk in back with posters above it, and a low filing cabinet behind it. Pike looked for the telltale red light from an alarm touch pad by the back door, but saw nothing.
Pike drove around to the parking area behind the office. The back door was the typical fireproof commercial door found everywhere, with a single commercial-grade deadbolt. He studied the lock, then drove to a Chevron station three blocks away to look through Stone’s gear. He found an electric pick gun and tension wrenches. State-of-the-art lock-picking equipment.
When the Rover was gassed, Pike drove back to the office, cracked the lock, and opened the door. He expected an alarm, but when nothing happened he assumed the alarm was silent.
Pike had at least four minutes inside if the breach registered at a top private security firm. The duty monitor would run a system diagnostic to make sure the alarm hadn’t been triggered by a malfunction, then phone the subscriber. If the subscriber could not be reached, the monitor would alert a mobile unit or the police, who would respond only after finishing their current call. Four minutes was the best-case response time, but Pike knew the real-world response times were much longer.
Pike turned on the lights. The posters he saw from the street were promotions for Desert Gold Realty.
Serving the Desert Communities for 13 GOLDen Years!
Pike went directly to the file cabinets, and ignored the computer. Searching unfamiliar computer files could take forever, but the file cabinet contained only three drawers. The first drawer contained files with labels like
Visa, Amex, License & Fees, Utilities, Autos,
and
Medical.
Pike decided these were personal files, so he moved to the next drawer. The second drawer contained files alphabetized by street names and addresses. Pike quickly checked for the three addresses the Syrian used, but they were not among the files. He pulled two random folders to check the contents, and discovered signed leases. The files in the second drawer were of properties currently being rented.
The third drawer held a yellow box file labeled
Available Properties.
The three addresses the Syrian used were here. Each of the three folders contained a listing agreement between the property owners and Desert Gold Realty. Pike checked to see if the properties were owned by the same person, but saw the owners were different. All three also lived out of state, which meant they probably had no idea how their property was being used. Since the owners lived out of state, Desert Gold Realty was specified as the property manager. This meant Desert Gold oversaw maintenance, gardening, and repair for the absentee owners. This allowed the Orlatos to keep unwanted visitors away for the two or three weeks a property was used by the Syrian.
There were thirty or forty folders in the yellow file, including the three. This meant Cole was almost certainly in one of the remaining locations, and it would be a location with an absentee owner. Pike took the files, closed the drawer, and was turning to leave when he saw the picture.
A framed photograph stood on the desk showing a woman with Dennis Orlato. He wore a blue suit and she wore a tight, flowery dress. They were smiling, and posed with an array of white roses beneath a neon sign saying WEDDED BLISS CHAPEL LAS VEGAS. Megan Orlato wasn’t his sister or mother. She was his wife.
Pike checked the time. He had been in the office four minutes and twenty seconds.
He looked at the picture. They weren’t kids. Megan Orlato was younger than Dennis, but he appeared only a few years younger than he had when Pike shot him. The picture was taken no more than six or eight years ago, which meant the marriage was recent.
Megan Orlato was an attractive woman. She was taller than her husband, and slim, with high cheekbones, a long nose, and almond-shaped eyes. Looking at her now, Pike remembered something Orlato said before he died.
The Syrian will trade for me. I’m married to his sister.
Pike checked his watch again. Four minutes fifty seconds.
Pike hadn’t believed it at the time, but now he wondered if it was true.
He glanced at the posters. Desert Gold Realty. Serving the Desert Communities for 13 GOLDen Years!
Longer than her marriage to Dennis Orlato.
Pike turned to the first drawer, and took out the file labeled License & Fees. Copies of her real estate license and business license were the first two items in the file. The licenses dated from long before Dennis Orlato, and so did her name. Both had been issued to Maysan al-Diri.
Pike took out the files labeled Autos and Medical
.
The auto
file contained receipts for repairs, two of which had been mailed to Megan Orlato at 2717 Croydon Avenue in Indio. The medical file contained insurance forms mailed to Megan Orlato at the same address. Megan Orlato’s home.
The corner of Pike’s mouth twitched for the second time that day. He had something better than a list of locations.
He had Ghazi al-Diri’s sister.
the date farm
42.
Elvis Cole
Two men carried a body wrapped in thick plastic and duct tape to the garage. I watched from the floor with my wrists plasticuffed behind my back.
When they passed with the second body, I pushed to my feet and charged with my head down like a bull. Their faces were bright with surprise when they dropped the body. I hit the first man with a front kick to the center of his chest, then spun low into the second man with a come-around roundhouse sweep that cut off his legs, but by then the dude with the bad cleft lip shoulder-cocked me from behind.
I woke up back in my spot by the lamp, dreaming that Krista Morales was watching me through a peephole and laughing it up with the Syrian because I was such a lousy detective. I had found her for all of five minutes, and lost her in record time. Now I didn’t know where she was or I was, or even if she was still alive. I tried to get up, but someone had cuffed my ankles.
The third body went out. The third body was small. The woman with the
bindi
. I tried to remember if I thanked her for the water. I couldn’t remember. Had I thanked her? Was her last memory of me one of rudeness?
Tears dripped off my nose. I looked down, and the tears were blood. I worked the Jiminy Nita Morales gave me out of my pocket, and wedged it under the lamp.
I said, “Bread crumbs.”
Somewhere between Burger King and now, the Syrian’s sleight-of-hand security system worked. Pike wasn’t here. I never doubted, not once, he would find me. My task was to stay alive until it happened or I could escape on my own. The United States Army sent me to something called Ranger School. The Ranger motto was
sua sponte
. It meant
you’re on your own, asshole
.
Okay.
Bring it.
We do not quit.
Four hours later, Washington and Pinetta clipped the ankle strap, bagged my head, and took me for another ride. Pavement changed to gravel, we slowed, entered another garage, and stopped. Only this time when Washington pulled off the hood, we were in a large, dirty room the size of six garages. A sliding door half the width of the wall had been pushed open so we could drive inside. Three SUVs and five off-road pickups with knobby tires were parked around us. Trucks like these had left skid marks and tracks at the crash site where they hunted down Sanchez.
I said, “What is this place?”
“Old date farm. This building here is where they used to box up the shit and load it onto trucks.”
Rows of long-dead date palms were visible through the big door. The trunks were thick and tall, and plated with diamond-shaped scales. The sun was setting, and cast the trunks with coppery light. They would have been beautiful when they were topped with green fronds, but now the dead, topless trunks looked like forlorn totem poles. I wondered if Krista and Jack Berman were here, or if they had been taken somewhere else.
“Are these the new digs?”
“For you.”
We passed from the packing shed into a building split between offices and a small commissary. Three guards were hooking up a gas range while two more rigged a power cable, and four others carried sheets of thick plywood. There were more guards here than in the earlier two houses, and none I recognized.
Washington and Pinetta guided me to a small office with a reinforced door. A bottle of water and yellow bucket were on the concrete floor, but nothing else.
Washington said, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the snakebugs bite.”
Pinetta laughed, and I turned to show my wrists.
“You want to cut these off so I can pee?”
“No.”
They left and locked the door. I heard screw guns, saws, and hammers throughout the night, and sat on the dirty concrete but did not sleep. I managed to rub my pants down so I could pee, then rub them up again.
Late the next day, a hunched Latin guard with a big Adam’s apple and an overweight Anglo skinhead with a Texas drawl opened the door.
I said, “Where’s Washington and Pinetta? They were bringing Starbucks.”
The skinhead said, “On your feet, dickhead.”
Glib.
Ghazi al-Diri was waiting when they pulled me from the room, and didn’t look happy.
I said, “How long does it take to check me out? This is getting ridiculous.”
“The girl tells me this boy is worse. You have medical training?”
Everything shifted with his question. Ten seconds earlier, I had not known if I would see Krista Morales and Jack Berman again. Now they were here.
“I’ve handled injuries and health problems with my crews. You want me to look at the kid, I’ll look at him. I can probably help.”
They led me across the commissary and along a short hall into the next building. The skinhead was named Royce, and Royce liked to bitch. He and most of the other guards had arrived yesterday, and didn’t like busting their asses all night to put up the plywood. He went on about it until the Syrian told him to shut up. Then he shut, and we passed more guards. Most carried shock prods and clubs, but some had short black shotguns and one had a Chinese Kalashnikov. They looked tense and anxious, and their silence and weapons made me wonder what the Syrian was expecting.
The next building was split down the center by a single long hall running the length of the building. Two doors were on each side of the hall with another door at the end, but the door at the end and the two far doors were now blocked with plywood. More guards lingered in the hall.
The gawky guard unlocked the door to our left, and let us into a long room that ran the length of the building. It had probably been used as a storage room or lunch room, but was now stripped to bare concrete, and its windows were covered with plywood. Men and women were seated along the walls and huddled in small groups across the floor. There were more prisoners now than at the earlier house. More Latins. More black people and Anglos. A handful who could have been Middle Eastern. Berman was lying against the wall, with Krista and a muscular young Asian man at either end of him. Krista stood when she saw us.
Al-Diri said, “Here. See what you believe. Is he close to death?”
I shrugged my shoulders to point out my wrists.
“The cuffs. I need my hands.”
The Syrian motioned to Royce, who clipped off the plastic.
I went over, smiled at Krista, and knelt by Berman’s head. Krista stared at me as if she was trying to figure me out.
I smiled like the friendly family doctor because al-Diri and his men were watching, and spoke loud enough for them to hear.
“How’s he doing?”
This time when she spoke she remembered her accent.
“Not too well, I think, but maybe the same? His eyes, they move but do not see. He says the crazy things.”
Berman looked better. He was less pale, and his skin wasn’t clammy. When I touched his head, he looked at me. His eyes seemed vacant, but more or less focused, and the pupils matched in size. I’d seen baseball players, army buddies, and guys at the gym look worse. I had looked worse myself more than once. I held Krista’s eye for a moment.
“Yeah. I see what you mean.”
I checked for a fever, peeled up his eyelids, and felt his head for injuries. He had three large contusions behind his right ear, and winced when I touched them.
I got up, and went to al-Diri as if I didn’t want to speak in front of the girl.
“He has a bad concussion for sure, but I’ve seen worse. I didn’t find a break, but the one thing I can’t tell is whether he’s bleeding. If the pressure is building on his brain, he’s screwed. If not, he should be okay in a few days if you keep him iced.”
The frown line notched his forehead.
“Iced?”
“Yeah. Ice his head. Reduces the swelling, and might even stop the bleeding. You have ice here?”
“Yes. We have power.”
I’d seen his men working on the commissary power when they’d brought me here.
“Get some towels and ice, and I’ll show you. We also have to get some water in him. You let him dehydrate, he’s gone. He’ll be fine if you make him drink.”
Al-Diri told the gawky guard with the Adam’s apple to get what I asked for, and the guard hurried away.
Something buzzed, and al-Diri pulled a phone from his pocket and moved away. He cupped the phone, and gestured to Royce.
“Find Medina.”
When Royce left, I squatted by Berman and whispered to Krista.
“Don’t react to anything I say. My name is Elvis Cole. I’m working for your mother. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She showed no reaction except to wet her lips. She glanced past me to check the guards before she spoke.
“Now?”
“Soon. Someone on the outside is coming to help, but we’ll go whenever we get a chance.”
I looked at the Asian kid.
“Kwan Min Park. Your grandfather and cousin are helping me.”
A tiny smile cracked his features. Kwan Min Park was being smuggled into the United States because he was wanted for seven murders in South Korea.
“We leave. Soon.”
I glanced back at Krista, then Jack.
“He’s hurt, but he’s coming around. What happened?”
Kwan said, “Teeth.”
He bared his teeth in a horrible grimace.
Krista said, “Medina. The guard with broken teeth. He was hurting me.”
She stopped, and stared at me as if that was all she wanted to say.
“I understand. Are you okay?”
“So far. He keeps looking at me.”
I glanced across the crowded room. Medina wasn’t with us, but the large room was thick with nervous prisoners and roving guards. A group of Koreans huddled in a far corner, but no more than a dozen. I looked at Kwan.
“Where’s the rest of your group?”
“Some here, some other room. Like before.”
Krista said, “There’s another room like this across the hall. They split us, half on this side, half on the other.”
“There must be a hundred people in here. That’s two hundred people.”
“They brought us last night, our group and two others. I overheard this guard, he said one of the groups is from Russia. They have almost thirty Russian people across the hall.”
It was insane. Two hundred people of little or no means who had been kidnapped, imprisoned, and were now being ransomed to their equally poor families and miserly employers for as little as a few hundred dollars each to maybe a few thousand. Locano was right. The Syrian’s ugly business was based on quantity. If he collected one to two thousand each for two hundred
pollos
, he would see two hundred to four hundred thousand dollars for the people around me. If he stole two hundred people ten times a year, he saw two million to four million dollars.
I wondered why al-Diri brought the three groups to a single location, and why all three at once.
“Did the guard say why they brought you here?”
“Some guards disappeared. They just vanished or something, and now everyone thinks they were arrested. I guess they’re worried their friends will tell the police where we were, so they moved us.”
“A crew of guards? Like the men guarding you?”
“Yeah. Gone.”
Pike. Something or someone was putting pressure on the Syrian, and I knew that someone was Pike.
I checked the Syrian again. He was still on the phone, but now Medina and Royce were with him, and the Syrian looked angry.
Kwan said, “You have gun?”
I tapped my head.
“My mind is my weapon, Jedi.”
Kwan studied me for a moment, then turned away.
Krista leaned close to whisper.
“I have a knife. Jack found it at the other house.”
She reached toward her waist as if to show me, but I stopped her.
“Keep it. If you need it, use it. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“What if your friend can’t find us?”
“He will. There are people who won’t let you down.”
The gawky guard with the Adam’s apple returned with a pot of ice and a threadbare towel. Krista warned me he was coming, and told me he looked like a praying mantis. The name made me smile.
When he gave me the ice, the sharp-cornered outline of a pistol bulged in his right front pocket. This made me smile even more.
I wrapped ice in the towel and wedged it against Berman’s head. The Syrian shouted at someone in the hall. I liked it that he was angry. I thought about Pike again, and knew he was hunting.
Royce and the Praying Mantis came back a few minutes later, cuffed my wrists, and took me back to my room. I bumped Royce several times to check his pockets, and decided he carried no gun. I didn’t mind. The Mantis’s gun was with us, and would be easy to take.
They did not let me leave my room again until my third day at the date farm. I did not see Ghazi al-Diri again until that third day. I did not see Royce and the Praying Mantis again until the third day, which was the day I took the Mantis’s gun and killed them.
Joe Pike was hunting.