I set my mind to work on that and picked a small, quiet-looking hotel. It had a green neon sign that lit up the street around it in a weird, alien glow. I parked in the basement lot beneath the building and checked into a room on the second floor. I thought about turning on the television and decided against it. I undressed and hung my suit up in the closet on one of those hotel hangers that has a pin instead of a hook to discourage you from stealing it. I took a shower in the dark, wrapped the towel around my waist, and lay down on the bed. I set my alarm for six a.m., deciding I’d call Allen first thing. There wasn’t much of a view from the window, just the characterless facade of the building across the street. The green glow from the sign filled the room.
Exhausted from a long day, I began to sink into sleep. I fell immediately into dreams of deserted cities and creatures of the night.
1996
He could still hear the murmurs of conversation from outside the house, punctuated by Kimberley’s occasional laughter. He shrugged his backpack off and dropped it to the floorboards, kneeling beside it.
He removed the three bottles of water, tepid by now, and placed them upright on the floor. He removed Kimberley’s Walkman and her tapes: Nirvana and Alice in Chains. And Metallica as well, because she wasn’t a grunge purist. He removed her balled-up sweater and placed it carefully beside the bottles and the Walkman and the tapes. Then he reached back into the bag and his fingers closed around the hilt of the knife he’d placed at the bottom of the pack, with some other things. He withdrew it and slid the blade from its leather sheath. It was a Buck Woodsman hunting knife; the hilt was hardwood, with aluminum on the butt and at the guard. The initials
DC
were engraved in the wood: his father’s initials. He wondered how long it would take the old man to realize the knife was missing. It was his hope that the first he knew of it would be the next time he saw it up close.
Gripping the hilt in his right hand and listening to the voices outside, he realized how long he’d been waiting for this moment. He’d wanted to be careful, because he had no interest in being caught. But now, a perfect opportunity had presented itself. From things both Kimberley and Robbie had said, he knew Robbie had few friends at Blackstones. Nobody would truly miss him if he happened to disappear. He was seventeen, which was a year into transition age in California. That made a new foster family unlikely to the point of impossible. Kids like him ran away all the time and were never heard from again.
He reached into the bag one more time and withdrew the last couple of items he’d brought with him: a length of synthetic clothesline and a roll of duct tape. He’d brought the latter item to use as a gag, but now he didn’t think he would need it after all.
He straightened up and crossed back across the floorboards to the glassless window. The other two were still down there, still sitting on the broken-down fence. He called out to them, telling them to come quick, because he had something to show them.
A minute later, he heard the front door creak open and the sound of Robbie’s labored breathing. “We ought to be heading back soon,” he said as he began to climb the bare wooden stairs ahead of Kimberley. There was an odd tremble in his voice, like he was nervous or apprehensive about venturing into the house.
Had the kid known what was in store for him then? Of course not. Otherwise he’d never have entered the house. Would never have agreed to the hike in the first place. But perhaps, on some animal level, he sensed the trap that was about to spring shut on him. At any rate, by then it was far, far too late.
He watched as Robbie crested the flight of stairs and looked around him, taking in the attic space, confused that there appeared nothing to see.
“Okay, what . . . ?”
Their eyes met, and Robbie tried to make sense of his companion standing before him, stripped to the waist and holding a Buck knife.
“What . . . ?” he repeated, and then panic flooded his eyes at last.
He turned to flee and ran into Kimberley, who was coming up the stairs. She yelped in surprise and started to say something to Robbie, but then she saw the knife. Her brown eyes widened and she spoke quietly.
“What’s going on?”
The phone ringing on the table beside the bed startled me out of a deep sleep.
At first I reached for my cell and for a second couldn’t work out why the display was blank. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t my phone that had woken me. It was the hotel’s. I blinked a couple of times to get my eyes to focus and lifted the receiver off the base.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Romita?”
It sounded like the voice of the clerk at the desk. I took a second to confirm that was the name I’d used on check-in. John Romita took over drawing Spider-Man from Steve Ditko in 1966. I like to use the names of comic book creators—unlike actors or athletes, they’re not household names to most people, but they’re easier to keep track of than a name I’ve invented out of whole cloth.
“That’s right. Is there a problem?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I have a call from your uncle. He says it’s very urgent, I’m afraid.” The clerk’s voice was a mixture of concern and curiosity.
“My uncle?”
“Yes, sir. Uncle Winter.”
I sat up in bed, utterly awake now, as though someone had just tossed a bucket of ice water over me. Quickly, I picked my cell up again, activated the recorder app, and held it to the earpiece. I cleared my throat and tried to sound casual as I told the guy to go ahead and put Uncle Winter through. I must not have done that great of a job, because the clerk paused before transferring the call and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I hope it’s not bad news.”
I didn’t think it would be anything but. I wasn’t disappointed.
There was a long pause. I heard street noise, tinnily reproduced: a cell phone. And then I heard a soft, familiar voice that sounded like a cross between a mortician and an accountant. “Good morning. I have to say, you’re a man of many names.”
I got off the bed and stood up, cradling the base unit in my other hand as I walked across the room as far as the cord would allow. I kept to one side of the window and peered out onto the green-lit street one floor below. There was no one there that I could see. I scanned the darkened windows of the office building across the street, saw no movement.
“I could say the same about you,” I said.
Another pause, and then the cold voice. Slow, deliberate. “I’m pleased you’ve decided not to waste time by feigning ignorance of who I am. I always appreciated that about you, Blake. Your . . . directness. I take it you’d prefer I address you as Blake? That is, rather than—”
“Blake is fine.”
“Blake it is, then. I see you’re keeping busy.” There was a condescending lilt to the voice that made me want to reach through the phone line and grab the speaker around the throat.
“You haven’t been too idle yourself. Where are you now, Crozier? Are you close by? I don’t suppose you’ve held on to the old name, either.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I wasn’t sure which question he was responding to, but then I hadn’t exactly expected him to give me his address.
I backed away from the window and scanned the room for signs of entry. None jumped out at me, and the thin strip of tape was still across the door where I’d left it. That was good.
“So don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the call. Nice to hear from you after all these years. But I have an early start tomorrow, so how about you get to the point?”
“The point? The point was just to confirm it was really you. It seemed somehow . . . unlikely. You working with the police.”
“Believe it.”
“So I was right. You’re not with our mutual friends anymore.”
“Not for a long time.”
“Then why are you doing this, Blake? Why interfere in something that’s not your concern?”
“Interfering in things that are not my concern is sort of my mission statement.”
He paused again, and I thought I could hear the sound of a low-flying aircraft in the background. Takeoff not landing, I thought. When he spoke, he sounded almost confused. “Surely you, more than anyone, should be aware of the dangers of interference? You know what I can do to you.”
“I’ll take my chances. Because you know what I can do, too.”
“Walk away now, Blake. Fair warning.”
“Too late for that.”
“A pity. But suit yourself.”
The call was cut off, and I slammed the handset back down on the base. I ran across to the window and looked out, trying to get a view of the sky. No dice. The tall building across the way left only a small rectangle of predawn sky visible directly above. I moved back across the room, flung the door open, and ran down the corridor to the fire escape door at the far end. I pushed the bar to open it and stepped out on the steel walkway. There was a clear view west from here. The vast sprawl of much lower buildings that reached all the way to the mountains. I saw a passenger jet rise and disappear into the clouds. I scanned the rest of the horizon and saw no other aircraft. Too early for the morning rush.
I ran back into the hotel room and switched on my laptop. I replayed the recording of the Samaritan’s phone call, focusing on the background noise this time, instead of our conversation. The plane I’d seen had taken off from LAX, and I was pretty sure it must be the same one I’d heard in the background. From its position in the sky by the time I made it out onto the fire escape and the volume of its engines on the recording, I knew the call had to have come from somewhere very close to the airport, probably directly under the flight path.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the shifting feeling of unease awoken by the voice on the recording. I heard street noises, the intermittent sound of cars passing by. A yelled greeting from someone to another in the background. Nowhere too remote. I shook my head. If the Samaritan was as smart as the man I’d remembered, he’d have made this call from somewhere far removed from his hideout. But then again, everybody makes mistakes. And it was a place to start.
And then I heard it. Overlapping a fraction with his voice as he said,
Don’t be ridiculous
. A ringing bell. A very specific kind of bell. The kind that sounds outside of a firehouse when the doors are opening, to alert people to get the hell out of the way because the fire truck’s coming.
I got on the Internet and looked for fire stations under the flight path. There was only one.
I don’t ordinarily appreciate being woken by a telephone call from a serial killer at a quarter to six in the morning, but on this occasion it had gifted me an advantage. The LA traffic was manageable at this hour. I used the GPS on my phone for the quickest route and made it to the fire station in Inglewood within twenty minutes.
The street was four lanes wide and unnaturally quiet. I parked directly across from the firehouse. Like most structures in Los Angeles, it was low and wide. Two big shuttered doors closed off the twin bays out front, looking like the garage on a suburban house blown up to double-size. Out front, the Stars and Stripes hung limp in the still air from a pole, beside another pole with a klaxon and lights that were primed to flash to alert traffic when the fire trucks were pulling out. I examined the rig and tried to estimate how far from it my midnight caller might have been standing. Probably not too far, I thought.
Then I became aware of a low rumble building in the west, and it took a moment before I realized what it was. The noise grew closer and louder until I looked up to see another passenger jet pass a couple hundred feet above my head. The morning rush beginning to get underway. It continued climbing, and the noise of the engines faded and the silence flooded back into the void.
I looked around me. There was another anonymous low and wide building across the street behind a six-foot fence. There was an intersection a hundred yards away, and beyond that the street turned residential: bungalows and apartment buildings. I started to walk toward the intersection, looking from side to side. A man approached from the opposite direction, his eyes darting away from me in discomfort as I openly stared at him. He gave me a wide berth as he passed by, probably thinking about how the crazies come out this time of night.
And then something made me turn around. I looked back down the street, the way I’d come, and saw another man standing beneath a streetlight, his face in shadow. A man who wasn’t moving. A man who appeared to be staring straight at me.
I started walking toward him, picking up speed with every step. He straightened and took a step back. I quickened my pace again. He bolted.
I broke into a run, gradually closing the gap. I thought about yelling after him and then asked myself what good it would do. The street was empty and silent, the sounds of our footsteps cracking off the sidewalk the only noise. He ducked to the left, and I saw him disappear into a building. As I got closer, I saw it was a parking structure, like the one I’d met Allen and Mazzucco inside a couple of days before.
I heard footsteps on stairs, climbing not descending. I made the pedestrian entrance to the structure and saw a flight of concrete steps to an upper floor. I took them two at a time and came out on the second level. The ceiling was low, supported by thick concrete pillars. The space was square, a couple of hundred yards on a side, bordered by solid walls on the east and west sides and half-height walls on the north and south that left a large, open gap beneath the ceiling for air to circulate. It was around half full with cars, which meant plenty of places to hide.
The parking spaces were arranged in double rows, with aisles between wide enough to allow vehicles to pass one another. I picked the middle aisle and started walking down it. I kept my eyes open and my ears alert. I moved my head from side to side, checking the spaces between cars, making sure not to spend too long looking in one direction.
I got to the halfway point between the entrance stairwell and the north wall and then stopped and listened. I stood still for a full minute, not moving. I heard nothing, but I knew he was in here with me. There hadn’t been enough footsteps for him to have ascended to the next level. I waited another minute. I could wait all night if that was what it took.
But then the air was filled with noise again. Louder than the jet had been, in the close confines. A car alarm: the horn blaring and echoing and amplifying off the concrete walls and the low ceiling. A black SUV in the last row before the solid east wall was angrily flashing its headlights. It was a demand for attention, a beacon to home in on. Which was exactly why I ignored it.
Instead of running toward the black SUV, I dropped to the floor and looked under the parked cars in the direction of the east wall. He was there, a shadow against the fluorescent-lit concrete, low crawling toward the half wall on the north side of the building. He realized he’d been spotted and rolled to his feet, still with two double rows of cars between him and me.
I edged between two cars in the first row and crossed the aisle as he made for the north wall. In the light, I could see him better, though his back was to me. He wore jeans, a dark coat and a green ball cap. He looked to be the right height and build. I dived through the final two rows of cars and out onto the space along the east wall as he reached the north wall and swung a leg over it. He hauled himself over and dropped off the edge, my hands just missing his as he let go. I looked over the edge and saw him hit the ground and roll fifteen feet below. The parking structure backed onto a narrow maintenance road, about ten feet wide, and then there was a chain-link fence beyond. He kept his head down, and all I could see was the top of the ball cap. He took a run at the fence and caught it halfway up, scrambling up it with agility. The top of the fence stopped a couple of feet below and ten feet across from my position.
I took a step back and judged the gap between the wall of the parking structure and its ceiling, and the distance to the fence. I jogged backward a few steps and took a run at the wall, crouching low to avoid the ceiling and kicking off the top of it, trying to hurl myself horizontally across the gap.
I had judged it just right. I hit him just as he was cresting the fence, and my momentum knocked us both over on the opposite side. The impact knocked out my angle and all of a sudden I realized I was dropping toward hard asphalt facefirst. I got my arms up in front of my head and tried to angle my body, twisting my legs toward the ground and doing just enough to save myself.
I felt a blunt pain as I touched down and immediately started calculating the damage. Broken ankle, or perhaps broken leg. Six weeks in plaster. If there were another six weeks in my future, that was.
My quarry had had better luck than me, managing to grab hold of the fence on the way down and hang on. He dropped off and landed on three points as I tried to roll over and onto my feet. A stabbing pain in my left ankle dropped me back to the ground again.
He circled me cautiously, like someone moving past a wild dog. He was looking right at my face, but the streetlight directly above us cast a long shadow from his ball cap over his face and halfway down his chest. He lingered for a second, as though coming to a decision, or thinking of something to say. And then he took off again across the lot.
I rolled onto my side and started to get up again, putting all my weight on my right foot. The fenced area enclosed a patch of land and a weather-beaten two-story warehouse. There was a battered sign on the front that was obscured by an almost equally battered sign that read FOR RENT, providing a phone number.
As I watched, my target reached a fire door in the side of the building. A couple of seconds later, he had it open and was inside.
Gingerly, I tested my left foot, putting a little weight on it. My ankle hurt like hell, but it wasn’t broken; just a bad sprain. I started to limp toward the warehouse.
The man in the hat had closed the door behind him, and when I tried the handle, it was locked. I wondered about that for a second: had he had time to pick the lock in the moment I’d seen him fumbling with the door? I didn’t think so. That meant somebody had accidentally left the door unlocked—which seemed a little convenient—or somebody had deliberately left the door unlocked. Perhaps even the same somebody I was chasing.