Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation (26 page)

    
“The
girl’s alive, then,” said Raszer, scanning the building’s facade up to its
flat, recessed roof.

    
“So
far.”

    
Raszer
squinted, his eyes still on the building. “Where are they?”

    
“On the
roof, we think,” said Borges. “There’s access from the fourth floor, but
there’s also a tunnel canopy extending from the door, and they haven’t come out
from under it yet. Ten minutes ago, he was on four, and told us he had a
hostage and a gun, and that he’d kill her unless we landed a chartered
helicopter on the roof and took him to Death Valley.” Borges grunted. “Strange,
eh, compadre? Most of ’em want to go someplace nice—Cuba or Cancun or the
Bahamas. This one wants to go to hell.”

    
“He
wants to get lost,” said Raszer. “Have you gotten a look at him?”

    
“No.”

    
“How
about the voice? American? Middle Eastern? Any accent?”

    
“American,”
Borges replied. “Young. Scared. Maybe New England.”

    
This was
not what Raszer had expected to hear.
New
England
? Borges placed a hand on Raszer’s shoulder and walked him out of
both hearing and camera range.

    
“Now,
why don’t
you
tell
me
what we’ve got in there?” he
whispered. “You mentioned these folks contacted you for a border hop. Said they
were scared about some kind of cartel coming down on them. Looks like they had
reason to be.”

    
“Yeah,
but there’s more to it, Lieutenant.”

    
“There
always is with you, Raszer.”

    
“It’s
connected somehow to those rave murders up in San Gabriel Canyon last winter.
And the abduction that night of a Jehovah’s Witness girl I’ve been hired to
track.” Raszer inclined his head to the building. “They were there. At the
rave. The dead man was the DJ, and the girl . . . well, she took up with him.
She’s Syrian. She’d promised me a lead on the abductors. Then she wanted to get
as far away as possible.”

    
“And you
promised her and her boyfriend a ride,” said Borges. “
Tsk, tsk
.”

    
“I said
I’d look into it. I liked them. They seemed . . . caught in the middle. Not
clean, but not filthy, either. I think I may have complicated things.”

    
“It
wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

    
“I do my
best, Luis.”

    
“I know
you do, but this is L.A. Your best or my best is always outdone by somebody
else’s worst.”

    
Suddenly,
the phalanx of marksmen above hunkered into position, and the cops on the
street moved out of their huddles. The news crews scrambled, racking their zoom
lenses to telephoto. All attention went to the roof as the killer’s voice was
heard.

    
“Five
minutes!” he shouted. “You’ve got five minutes to bring me my helicopter before
I take her head off!” And then he added tentatively, “And I mean it.”

    
Borges
motioned to the cop on his right for a bullhorn, and spoke into it without
stridency. The sound of the device was harsh enough. “Stay cool. It’s been
dispatched. Don’t hurt the girl. If you hurt the girl, we’ll take you out. Do
you understand?”

    
There
was no response, but the voice rang in Raszer’s ears and sent currents into his
stomach. It was more a boy’s voice than a man’s. And something else. He turned
to Borges. “He doesn’t sound like a pro, does he?”

    
“No,”
said Borges. “He doesn’t. Not what you thought, eh?” He dropped the bullhorn to
his side. “Come with me. Let’s see if we can give him his close-up.”

    
Nearby,
under a makeshift awning, was a police A/V crew with a direct feed from the TV
camera in one of the choppers above. Borges radioed the pilot.

    
“Come
around and bring it down about a hundred feet,” he said. “Easy. Just enough to
make him feel the wind. See if you can get me his face.”

    
The
pilot complied, and Raszer watched with Borges as the small figures on the
rooftop, once again withdrawn beneath the canopy, began to fill more and more
of the monitor screen. The image was overlaid with sighting brackets and
crosshairs, and these would also appear in the video scopes of the marksmen on
the opposing roof. Both Layla and her captor were in shadow, but Layla’s form
and face were unmis-takable. She wore a saffron-colored bathrobe and, as far as
evident from this distance, , nothing else. All that could be said about the
assassin was that he stood behind her, was a few inches shorter, had a gun
under her chin, and appeared to be wearing a billowing white robe with a
bright, blood-red sash. Nothing more was visible until the chopper’s blades
drew near enough to lift the border of the green-striped canopy and, for an
instant, reveal a smooth, unlined face with a distinctive beauty mark just
above the lip.

    
Raszer
froze, his eyes glued to the monitor.

    
“Luis,”
he said to Borges. “I know this boy.”

    
Borges
turned halfway, one eyebrow hiked way up.

    
“Is
there a hostage negotiator on-site?” Raszer asked.

    
“On the
way,” Borges replied, waiting.

    
“Can I
borrow your bullhorn?”

    
“Do you
know what you’re doing?” the lieutenant asked.

    
“I’d
better,” said Raszer.

    
The two
men locked eyes, Raszer nodded, and Borges warily handed him the bullhorn.

    
“Scotty
Darrell!” Raszer called out. Immediately, on the monitor, they both saw the
boy’s head jerk. After a few seconds, the words came, and Raszer knew they
would be transformative and final, one way or the other.

    
“Well
played, Scotty,” he called. “I could use a man like you. A man with a keen mind
and a steady heart.”

    
Borges
looked at him cockeyed, but did not move to take the bullhorn. The other cops
on the ground jerked their heads in the direction of the A/V station, and out
of the corner of his eye, Raszer saw one reflexively put his hand on the grip
of his service revolver. Borges saw it, too, and put his palm up. The chopper
hovered in place, bobbing slightly, and the image on the monitor went briefly
out of focus.

    
“Scotty
Darrell!” Raszer repeated. “Nod your head if you can hear me.”

    
On the
screen, they watched Scotty swivel and poke his head into the light, keeping
the gun lodged beneath Layla’s jaw. He surveyed the roof quizzically, then
raised his eyes toward the hovering helicopter, connecting with the camera.
Layla’s eyes flashed in the brilliant blue reflected from the sky. She had
recognized Raszer’s voice.

    
Raszer
turned to Borges. “Do you have a PA channel to that chopper?”
    
Borges nodded.

    
“Can you
make my voice come from up there, too?”

    
“What do
you have in mind, friend?” he asked guardedly. He trusted Raszer’s instincts,
but only so far. If he let a freelancer take control of an active crime scene
and it backfired, they would have his badge. He knew, however, who and what
Scotty Darrell was, and was a step ahead of Raszer’s reply.

    
“To make
the choice for him,” said Raszer. “To keep him in the game.”

    
Borges
aimed a finger at the audio console and gave its operator a nod.

    
“Open
the mic,” he ordered. “And kick up the volume.” He turned back to Raszer. “Make
it good, my friend, or I’ll be chasing coyotes in Nogales and you’ll be out of
business.”

    
Once
Raszer saw that the audio man had complied and pushed up the volume fader, he
brought the bullhorn back to his lips. He had to lick them. His mouth was bone
dry, and got drier with each beat of his pulse.

    
“Remember,
Scotty,” he said. His voice boomed out over the rooftops of East Sunset. “One
more level to go. Number nine. Are you game? Are you ready to ride the big
snake?”

    
The
chopper camera zoomed in on the boy’s anxious face, now half-lit, and the snout
of Layla’s gun slipped briefly from its pocket of flesh. She flinched. Raszer’s
eyes were on the monitor. He prayed the girl wouldn’t do anything rash, then
decided not to leave it to God.

    
“Stay
put, Layla,” he commanded. “Scotty’s with us. He knows the rules.”

    
From the
left, an unmarked squad arrived, disgorging the hostage negotiator and a team
from downtown. Raszer lowered the bullhorn and pivoted to face Borges nose to
nose. He made his bid, knowing it was the last for both Scotty and himself. He
had disconcerted the boy, made him question his mission, and if he did not
follow through, the sharpshooters would find reason to take him down.

    
“Let me
go up there, Luis,” he said. “Alone.”

    
“No way,
amigo,” said Borges. “I’m already way off the map.”

    
“Look at
me, Luis,” said Raszer. “Look
with
me.
Remember what happened in Barstow. Remember Las Cruces.
Fuck
. . . remember Waco. What happens when the big guns move in?
This is about more than one perp, more than one murder. This kid is the
skeleton key to a hundred doors. If he dies—and he will, by his own hand or
yours—they all stay locked. Let me go up. Give me fifteen minutes to get the
gun.”

    
“And if
I wind up with your blood on my hands, too?” Borges replied. “How will I sleep at
night?”

    
“The
same way I do, Luis,” said Raszer. “By knowing that the Devil will think twice
before playing you for a fool.”

    
Borges
ran his hand through his hair, took one glance at the approaching hostage team
and one look over his right shoulder at the men whose allegiance he would
forfeit if he failed, and then picked up his radio.

    
“All
stations! I’m sending a man up! Cover the roof and the roof egress and take the
suspect out only—I repeat,
only
—if
there is clear intent to harm.” He hesitated, then added, “And I don’t want a
hundred bullet holes. Stick with the firing order. If Chopper One gets it done,
everybody else hold fire.” Then he switched off the radio and muttered, “
Madre de Dios
, Raszer. Go.”

    
When
he’d reached the fourth-floor landing, Raszer paused to catch his breath,
resting the bullhorn on the bannister. Directly ahead of him was a short set of
steps leading to the roof exit. To his left and down the hall, the door of
Layla’s apartment stood menacingly open and unattended. Per Scotty’s demands,
the cops had cleared out of the building. In the corridor’s ceiling, just
outside the flat, a skylight sent a cone of sunlight to the threadbare
carpeting nine feet below. The sunlight animated the dust motes into a dervish
dance, and for an instant less than time, the motes aggregated themselves into
the upright form of Harry Wolfe, arms extended, legs splayed, seven
silver-handled knives sunken into his major arteries: biceps, heart, throat,
solar plexus, two in the groin. Like an image projected by a camera obscura.
Raszer rubbed his eyes, shook it off, and approached the steps.

    
Poor Harry
, he thought.
He’ll never see that cottage
.

    
Before
putting the bullhorn to his lips, he rapped on the door three times and called
out. When there was no answer, he switched on the device.

    
“Maimonides!”
he called, using the name of Scotty’s Internet avatar, the name he had learned
from The Gauntlet’s puppet masters. “I’m here to take you home. I am unarmed. I
am alone. I am coming through the door. Stay beneath the awning.”

    
Raszer
pressed his ear to the door. There was some shuffling against the gravelly
surface of the roof, then: “Wh-who are you? Who sent you?”

    
Raszer
anchored his back against the door, hand on the knob, and rested his head.
Who sent me
? Giving the right answer—if
there was a right answer—would be like choosing which wire to clip on an
improvised explosive device. The Gamesmasters wouldn’t do. Fraters Vanitas and
Ludibrium probably wouldn’t do. He closed his eyes for a count of three breaths,
listening only to the rumble of the old air-conditioning compressor on the
roof. In the lens at the apex of the triangle whose base points were his closed
eyes, he saw the daggers that Layla had said were embedded in Harry’s flesh; he
saw Layla’s eyelashes dip in invitation to dance; he saw the old Syrian coin
sitting on the squatter’s bureau, felt its chain being snapped by clawing
fingers, saw the spray-painted words “Nothing is true. All is permitted.” He
saw Johnny Horn’s trailer and smelled the wintergreen.