The Pain Scale (32 page)

“I’m glad to hear that. Do you think he’s ready to try our conversation again?”

“I’ll certainly ask him, Detective.”

“Please do,” I said. “Is he still staying at his parents’ house?”

“He spent a bit of time at his own house, but it was too painful for him. He’ll be staying with his family for the time being.”

“Thanks for your help, Julian.”

I hung up and went inside to put my name in for a table. Enrique’s wife, Michelle, greeted me and said, “You look like you’re in a good mood tonight. Haven’t you been coming in for breakfast lately?”

“Yes, I have. It’s wonderful. Best in Long Beach.”

“I hope you’re telling people that.”

“Every chance I get.”

“Good. It hasn’t quite caught on yet.”

“I’ll keep spreading the word.” Even though I didn’t like the thought of having to wait to be seated every morning, too.

Twenty minutes later, while I was sitting on the carved wooden bench reading the “Ask a Mexican” column in the
OC Weekly
and waiting to be seated, I saw Patrick’s Mini pull into the lot and squeeze into a spot between a Range Rover and a Chevy Silverado.

Just as he was about to sit next to me on the bench, the hostess leaned out the door and called my name.

“Perfect timing,” Patrick said.

They seated us at a booth in the back, and we ordered without looking at the menus.

“Anything to report?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ve got a mountain of data to sort through. Cell phone records, location logs, personnel records from Sternow and Byrne. Even some case files. Their security is nowhere near what it should be. There’s got to be something worthwhile in there.”

“How do we find it?”

“I’ve got some programs running, searching all of it for a few dozen keywords and terms. Names, addresses, numbers, e-mail, stuff like that. That will help with some of it. I’ll do some other data crunching, too. That won’t get everything, though.”

“What will?”

“The only way to catch everything is going through it page by page.”

“How many pages are there?”

“About a hundred thousand so far.”

Before I could respond, the waiter was at our table with the food. “Be careful,” he said. “These plates are very hot.”

A
T HOME THAT
night, after I’d gone over the case files looking for any connections we might have missed, and after I had watched what I think was my favorite video of Bailey—the one where she read
Horton Hears a Who!
to Sara, who was behind the camera saying to her daughter every few pages, “Sound it out”—three more times, I sat in the living room and strummed the strings of the banjo with the back of the nail on the middle finger of my right hand. I practiced hitting each string by itself, then in various combinations. There was really no purpose to it, and I had no idea what I was doing. But as I gradually became more adept at hitting the string I was aiming at, I noticed something that surprised me.

I was beginning to like the sound.

But it didn’t do anything for the pain that was coiling up my arm and into my deltoid and trapezius muscles. I microwaved the hydroculator for four and a half minutes, wrapped it in a hand towel, then went back to the couch and draped it around my neck. It was too hot, but I fought the burn and left it in place because its pain was different, and sometimes a different pain is welcome, if only because the novelty itself is a kind of relief.

As the heat dissipated, it penetrated into my muscles, and the burning sharpness flattened out into a dull and heavy ache.

I turned on Craig Ferguson, drank three glasses of Grey Goose and orange juice, and when I felt the alcohol beginning to take hold, I went to bed.

It was sometime close to three when I went to sleep. I knew because the
BBC World Service
broadcast on KPCC had ended and I had listened to Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne knock off a couple of
Morning Edition
stories each before my awareness began to fade and I finally nodded off.

When I’d been asleep just long enough for the dream of the saw to return—this time with Megan and my father standing in for Bailey and Jacob and imploring me to cut away their pain—my phone rang. In the midst of the hazy half consciousness that resulted from being jarred awake in the middle of a dream, I thought I heard Lieutenant Ruiz telling me that the Long Beach Harbor Patrol had found Anton Tropov’s body. He repeated himself and my attention sharpened and my feet were on the floor and I was fumbling for the light switch.

Less than half an hour later, I was standing on the harbor’s edge not far from Tropov’s warehouse. Ruiz had kept things quiet. There were only eight people at the scene. Jen would be number nine when she arrived.

The body was stretched out on the asphalt. He hadn’t been in the water long. There was no doubt it was Anton. He must have come back to his home turf and found someone waiting.

The officer who had found him had been responding to a report of a gunshot. Judging by the center mass through-and-through wound and the tissue damage caused by the round, it had almost certainly come from a rifle. Was it a sniper?

“Who called in the report?” I asked Ruiz.

“A guy working late up the block.”

“Anybody talk to him yet?”

“No, Stan’s with him. Waiting for one of us.”

“You have Stan’s cell number on your phone?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Get him for me.”

“You don’t want to interview him face to face?”

“No time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have an idea.”

The lieutenant saw something in my face that convinced him not to ask any more questions. Ruiz dialed and handed me his phone.

Stanley Burke is a veteran uniform with more than twenty years on the job. Back in my uniform days, I’d shared a cruiser with him on a few occasions.

“Danny?” he said.

“Yeah. Can I talk to the guy?”

“Sure.” He spoke to the witness before he took the phone away from his ear so I would know the man’s name. “Mr. Santiago, a detective would like to speak to you.”

“Hello? What can I do for you?” Santiago had a firmness and confidence in his voice. And an alertness, too, one I wouldn’t have expected at four in the morning.

I introduced myself and told him I needed his help.

“First, would you just describe what you heard?”

“A rifle shot, coming from the east.”

“A rifle, specifically?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure it was a rifle and not some other kind of gun?”

“I was in the war. I know a rifle shot when I hear one.”

Good
, I thought. If I’d had time, I would have asked what war. I was guessing Vietnam. “And you said it came from the east?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do when you heard the sound?”

“I turned off the light in front and went outside to take a look.”

Santiago was smart enough to make himself less of a target before checking things out. Good. “When you went outside, did you see or hear anything else?”

“No. We’re far enough away from most of the overnight harbor traffic that it’s pretty quiet here.”

“Did you see any headlights or hear any cars close by?”

“No. Nothing.”

“How long did you stay outside?”

“Two or three minutes. I wanted to be sure there was nothing else going on.”

“And there wasn’t?”

“Nope.”

“Do you think you would have heard a car a block away?”

“I think so.”

“How about two?”

“Depends on the car. Maybe.”

“Mr. Santiago, thank you; you’ve been a tremendous help.”

I hung up and gave the lieutenant back his phone.

I took a look around. The edge of the canal was fairly open, at least ten yards from the nearest building. There were structures in every direction. Dozens of ideal places for someone to watch Tropov’s property without being seen.

“What is it, Danny?”

“Nobody rushed to get out of here. Whoever shot Tropov wasn’t in any hurry to flee the scene.”

“Sniper,” he said.

“Yeah. He wasn’t close enough to confirm the kill.”

“So what’s your idea?”

“Call an ambulance. We have a gunshot victim who needs to be rushed to the hospital.”

In addition to the ambulance, he called the deputy chief, who in turn called an administrator at Long Beach Memorial. Anton Tropov would be rushed to the trauma center. The records would indicate he was in critical condition.

“So what’s the point of this, exactly?” Jen asked.

“Well, it gives us the chance to plant information. If they think Anton’s still alive, maybe they’ll try to hit him again.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Whoever hired Anton and his two thugs.”

“You think they’ll try to get to him in the hospital?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s a long shot, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Patrick thinks it might shake some information loose.”

“What kind of information?”

“He’s monitoring Bradley and the congressman and Kroll. Phones and computers. And Sternow and Byrne. Maybe we’ll get something.”

“And the lieutenant went for this?”

I nodded.

“Are we really this desperate?”

A sharp pain stabbed at the base of my neck. Jen saw me tense up and raise my shoulder toward my ear. “Seven,” she said. She saw all the confirmation she needed in my expression. “Did it come out of nowhere,” she asked, “or was it already there and it just got worse?”

“It was there. But I wasn’t as aware of it.”

“Is the pain constant? Is it only your awareness that changes?”

“It’s partly the awareness. But it gets worse when I focus on it.”

“I’m sorry, Danny.”

“I know.”

My BlackBerry rang. I saw Patrick’s name on the screen. “What’s up?”

“Twenty minutes after Ruiz called for the ambulance, Roger Kroll made a phone call and sent a text message.”

“Who’d he call?”

“A number that I don’t have yet.”

“What about the text?”

“He sent it to Margaret Benton.” When I didn’t reply for several seconds, he added, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t expect that. Do you know what it said?”