Nowhere Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation (27 page)

    
“I’m
your next guide, Maimonides,” he said. “I was sent by Hazid.”

    
Raszer
turned the knob and pushed gently. He couldn’t allow Scotty time to reflect.
The knob rotated, but the door was jammed or blocked. In that moment’s
reprieve, he realized that although he and Scotty had never met face to face
and Scotty probably didn’t read the newspapers, he couldnot gamble that the boy
hadn’t seen his picture on the Internet. Further, L.A.’s ubiquitous news
choppers would soon start buzzing the roof and broadcast his face. He tore off
his linen shirt and wrapped it
 
around
his head, leaving only a pale blue tank top on his torso. He reached into his
pocket and found his sapphire-lensed sunglasses. An instant later, he heard
something heavy being dragged, and the door was freed.

    
Scotty
backed Layla to the far end of the arched canopy. He looked more fright-ened
than the girl. The boy gave Raszer’s dress and fair features a once-over,
probably thinking that his Imam ought to come garbed in something a bit less
makeshift.

    
“Hello,
Scotty,” said Raszer, holding his palms up. “I’ve wanted to meet you. For a few
minutes, gametime is suspended. The clock has been stopped, and you’re getting
a chance to opt out. After those minutes are up, play will resume, and those
men on the roof and”—he indicated the hovering chopper—“up there will kill you.
I can bring you out safely and be your guide through the next level, but first
we have to send a signal. We need to step into the light, and you need to let
the girl come to me. Then you’ll drop the gun and kick it over to me. Do you
understand?”

    
The boy
blew a long strand of sand-colored hair away from his mouth, exposing the
beauty mark once again. Raszer recalled that Scotty’s mother, the former ballet
dancer, had an identical mark.

    
“This
isn’t part of the plan,” the boy said. “I should wait for the helicopter. I
should complete my mission.”

    
“That
was your
last
move, Maimonides. This
is a new one. Did you forget how to riff?”

    
Raszer
knew that every second was putting Borges farther out on the limb. Neither did
Layla Faj-Ta’wil look like she had a great reservoir of patience.

    
“I’m
going to step out first,” said Raszer. “I’m going to put my hands at my sides
so they can see I’m not afraid. I’ll circle back over to the center of the
roof, just beyond that skylight. You stay under the canopy, release the girl,
and then kick me the gun.”

    
Raszer
did not wait for assent, but backed out into the hard blue light, lifting the
bullhorn once more to his mouth. “We’re okay here, Lieutenant,” he said, and
his voice echoed down from the chopper above, causing a shriek of feedback.
“Turn off the top speaker,” he called. “He’s giving me the girl.”

    
But
Scotty did not give Raszer the girl. Instead, once Raszer had reached the far
side of the skylight, Scotty nudged her out from under the awning, still
holding her neck in a vice grip and keeping the gun under her chin.

    
Shit
, Raszer thought.
What is this
?

    
“I
want diplomatic immunity,” said Scotty, walking Layla forward. “I want the--the
Syrian ambassador. I want
you
—”
Thoughtlessly, like the gamer he still was, Scotty punctuated the word
you
by taking the gun from beneath
Layla’s jaw and pointing it at Raszer. At the same time, the chopper dipped and
another blast of feedback screamed from its speaker. Scotty flinched, and Layla
needed only that lapse to snap the gun from his hand, step back into his center
of gravity and, with just one hand on his forearm, execute a flip that sent him
flying three feet into the air.

    
It
happened faster than the response time of an LAPD sharpshooter, but that wasn’t
the oddest thing. Just before Scotty crashed through the skylight, he spread
his arms, opening the folds of his nylon caftan to catch the updraft, and
appeared to hover in midair for a second or two. Then it was all shattering
glass and brutal impact, and Scotty was down.

    
Three
bullets zinged across the rooftop. Raszer leapt across the shattered skylight
and took Layla down.
Idiots
, he
thought. He heard the lieutenant’s voice from below: “Hold your fire,
goddamnit! Raszer? Are you all right up there?”

    
Raszer
depressed the bullhorn’s talk button. “We’re good. Nobody shot . . . yet. I’ve
got the girl. Suspect went through the skylight. He’s in the building.
Unarmed
.”

    
When the
message had been delivered and the air was still, Raszer looked at Layla, who
lay beneath him, smoldering on the tar and gravel roof, the saffron robe hiked
up around her naked hips. “Why did you do that?” he asked her.

    
“Do
what?” she said.

    
“Flip
him,” Raszer replied. “Why’d you flip him?”

    
“He was
getting nervous,” she answered tartly. “Nervous men with guns annoy me.” Her
belly rose and fell with her breath like a bird’s, and as she exhaled, he
became aware again of the wintergreen scent that he’d caught a trace of the night
before.

    
“I’ll
try to remember that,” he said, and smoothed the robe down to cover her
midsection. He sat back and held his hand out. “May I have the gun, please?”

    
She
scooted herself a few inches away. “It’s my gun,” she protested.

    
Her
finger was on the trigger. A shadow of consternation passed over her face. For
a moment, Raszer was not sure she wasn’t going to shoot him. Then he realized
that her eyes were on a spot three feet to his right. Henry’s black rock had
been dislodged from his pocket in the melee and lay on the roof, its dimple
reflecting the L.A. sky.

    
“Where
did you get that?” she asked.

    
“It’s on
loan from a friend,” he answered. He rose to his knees and peered into the
jagged hole left in the skylight, down through the column of sunlight and
whirling dust. There were shards of glass on the carpet, but no Scotty. He
turned back to Layla.

    
“I think
I’d better—” His cell phone bleeped and he fished it out of his pocket.

    
“We’ve
got him,” said Borges. “He tried to fly out the second-floor window.”

    
“He
tried to what?” Raszer called back. “Is he hurt?” He quickly retrieved the rock
and dropped it back in his pocket.

    
“No,
amazingly. My men are talking him downtown. I think you’d better—”

    
“Can you
meet me in room 411?” said Raszer. “I need for you and me to see the victim
before anything changes. I’m bringing the girl down.” He hesitated. “Borges?”

    
“Yeah?”

    
“Sorry
to put you on the spot.”

    
“All’s
well that ends well,” said Borges. “I’ll see you in 411.”

Harry Wolfe’s eyes were open. Strangely enough,
his mouth was closed and his features were not contorted, almost as if the
killer had taken the time to compose his victim’s flesh in death. The bedspread
was saturated with blood, staining its mustard-hued cotton a muddy brown. Light
from the hall glinted off the silver-handled daggers like the flames of
sacramental tapers. A police photographer took a round of digital pictures
before Borges motioned him off to the side. In an alcove, a pair from the CSI
unit pulled on plastic gloves and awaited Borges’s clearance, while behind him,
the aging Asian medical examiner slipped in almost unnoticed. Borges wrapped
his fingers around the bedstead, sniffed the air, and turned to Raszer.

    
“What do
you smell in here?” he asked.

    
“Blood,
urine, and incense,” Raszer replied.

    
“Nothing
else?”

    
Raszer
cocked his head. “I smell a death and a woman, but we knew that.”

    
“I smell
sex,” said Borges. “Recent sex. C’mon, amigo, you’ve got a nose for it.” He
inhaled deeply, his wide nostrils flaring. “It’s all over everything. Do you
suppose they were screwing before she went in to take her shower?”

    
“It
didn’t occur to me to ask,” said Raszer.

    
He was
glad Layla wasn’t present to hear him finesse the matter of their congress. She
was down on the street, being examined by the paramedics and attended to by two
female officers, who’d brought her something to wear from her closet. At
Layla’s bidding, it was a yellow dress with matching shoes and scarf.
Evidently, she wanted to look good for her trip downtown.

    
“Frankly,
Raszer, the girl doesn’t seem all that broken up,” said Borges, his eyes on
Harry’s corpse.

    
“She’s
hard to read,” said Raszer. “But I know what you mean.”

    
“How
long were you here last night?”

    
“Long
enough to get their story,” Raszer replied.

    
“And that
they were scared of these . . . ‘operatives.’ These men she’d been running with
who are tied up in your murder-kidnapping.” Borges grunted and lowered his
head. “So, let me get this: She’s living here unmolested for a year, you pay
her a visit, and the next day, her boyfriend’s dead and she’s a hostage.”

    
“I can’t
deny the chain of causation,” Raszer said. “I violated their sanctuary, opened
the wound. I just can’t figure how—”

    
“How the
bad guys got wise so fast?”

    
“Right.”

    
“A dozen
ways. Maybe they had the room bugged. Maybe the girl is dirty. If what you say
is true, I can see why they might want to get their merchandise back. But why
him?” Borges nodded toward Harry. “Why kill the DJ?”

    
“I don’t
know. It fits a certain kind of ancient gangster MO. A pure terror killing. A
warning for all concerned to keep their heads down.”

    
“You
think maybe he was playing both sides?”

    
“Not at
the moment, I don’t,” said Raszer. “He seemed square to me. But like you said,
I’d only just met them. Maybe they were both working an angle.”

    
“We’re
going to have to grill her.”

    
“Right.”

    
Borges
extended his arm and traced the cruciform pattern constellated by the knives.
“You know fanatics, Raszer. Give me your take. Hired killers don’t usually
leave their weapons behind . . . especially not that kind of cutlery. Those
look like they belong in a museum. Who still kills this way, outside of
Palermo?”

    
“Only
devotees of the art. Based on a little knowledge and a lot of conjecture, I’ll
say the hardware is Syrian. My knife instructor used to drill me on this stuff.
These are reproductions of a tenthor eleventh-century design, but good ones.
They’d have left them only if they were scared off—unlikely—or if leaving them
has a ritual purpose.”

    
“You say
they
,” Borges observed. “You don’t
think your boy was up to the task?”

    
“I can’t
see it. Can’t put it together. Not by himself. For one thing, the physical
strength needed to drive steel through muscle and into the mattress. For
another—”

    
“No
struggle,” said Borges. “The bed isn’t even rumpled.”

    
“Right.
It’s almost as if one chloroformed him while a couple others did the wet work.
The boy’s duty may have been standing guard. He may be a patsy. He’s obviously
had his head scrambled, but this kind of work takes a special breed of apostle.”

    
“Not
being sentimental about your little lost sheep, are you?”

    
“Always
a possibility.”

    
“So, who
dresses in white caftans with red sashes? Some new Islamist group?”

    
“Nothing
new about it. Have you ever heard of the cult of the Assassins?”

    
“I might
have,” said Borges. “Refresh my memory.”

    
“A
radical Shiite sect—the Ismailis—spawned a splinter group called the Nizaris,
formed in the eleventh century by a talented upstart named Hassan-i-Sabbah, who
preached a kind of mystical terrorism and held a mountaintop fort in Persia.
His group became known as the Hashshashin.
They also had a Syrian branch, with a headman known as the Old Man of the
Mountain. This was all during the
last
crusade the West made against Islam. Now we’re over there—
”