The Sentry (13 page)

Pike studied Reuben Mendoza’s picture last, then dropped it into the box. A plan to flush Mendoza out of the weeds was forming, and the picture would help.

Pike said, “Hold still.”

Hector’s eyes bulged when Pike drew his knife. Pike clipped the ties, cutting him free.

“Get out.”

“What get out? This is my car.”

“Out.”

“Bro, what, you takin’ my car?”

“I won’t tell you again.”

Hector shoved open the door, and got out in a sullen funk. He slammed the door as Pike slid behind the wheel.

“This ain’t right, stealin’ my car. You takin’ my wallet, too? You takin’ my phone?”

Pike drove back to his Jeep. He left Hector’s wallet in the Monte Carlo, but added his phone to Mendoza’s box. Pike didn’t take time to examine these things because he wanted to keep pressing.

Pike drove directly to Lily Palmer’s house, parked in Wilson’s carport, and rang the bell. She answered the second ring.

“I knew you’d be back. Did you find Wilson and Dru?”

“Not yet. Is Jared here?”

She sighed.

“Jared’s always here.”

She called into the house, and Jared’s flip-flops announced his approach. He was freshly slathered with sunblock and carried a bottle of beer. He frowned when he saw Pike and tugged the iPod buds from his ears.

“Dude, you got it all. I don’t know anything else.”

“The man with the cast—”

Pike showed him the picture of Reuben Mendoza.

“Was this him?”

Jared glanced at the picture, then brightened with a surprised smile that made him look proud of himself.

“Dude! That’s him! The Cast Man!”

“You’re sure?”

“Fuckin’ A.”

Jared beamed, and continued to vomit up memories.

“Dude had khaki baggies and a gray plaid shirt, but it was open. Shirt was huge, dude, like fifty sizes too big, and a white T-shirt underneath. And he was bald.”

Pike had seen witnesses have similar explosions of memories when he was an officer. If a witness was given a visual trigger, a memory that had been vague would often snap into focus. Psychologists called these memory cues, and the resulting cascade of recollections were memory chains.

“You remember anything about the second man?”

Jared thought for a moment, but his lips peeled from his teeth in frustrated effort.

“Not really getting him. He was in front, kinda already through the gate. The Cast Man was behind him. I remember black hair. And shades. He might’ve been wearing shades.”

Jared finally ran out of gas.

“Sorry, bro. That’s all I got.”

Pike could now tie Mendoza to the scene with a picture ID. The second man was almost certainly Gomer, but Mendoza would be enough.

Pike went back to his Jeep to decide on his next play, but knew he would ultimately have to return to Button. Button was the last person to have contact with Smith. Pike wanted to know exactly what Smith said, how he had said it, and when. These things could be crucial, and so could having Button back in the game. The police would increase the pressure on Mendoza, but timing their entry was a trade-off. Once the police reinserted themselves they would block Pike’s moves and kill his momentum. He had to cover the primary plays before they came in, and keep himself ahead of the curve.

Pike fished Hector’s phone from the box, spent a few seconds figuring it out, then scrolled through the directory. He found Mendoza’s number under R MENDOZA, but nothing for GOMER or ALBERTO. No numbers were listed for AZZARA, but he found a number for MIGUEL.

Pike pressed the send button, heard two rings, and Mikie Azzara answered.

“Don’t bother me with crap at that body shop.”

Answering this way because the caller ID told him it was Hector.

Pike said, “I am here.”

Mikie hesitated.

“Who is this?”

“One of your boys wrote it on their wall.”

Azzara hesitated again, but this time he recognized Pike’s voice.

“How’d you get this phone?”

“I want Mendoza and Gomer.”

Azzara lowered his voice, as if he was someplace where he didn’t want to be overheard.

“What are you talking about?”

“Mendoza was at their home this morning. Now they’re missing.”

Azzara cleared his throat. Pike heard something in the background, but couldn’t make out what it was. Then Azzara tried to sound reassuring, which left Pike wondering why Azzara wanted to reassure him.

“Listen, I don’t know anything about this, but I will find out. I promise you—you don’t have to worry. I’m sure these people are fine.”

“You’re a liar, Miguel. You told me you covered Mendoza’s bond. You didn’t. What else are you lying about?”

“Would you listen? I’m in the middle of something now, but I will help you here, homes. Just relax. Kick back, give me a few hours, and—”

“Time’s up.”

Azzara fell silent. It was several seconds before he spoke again. Then his voice was softer, but not reassuring.

“You are making a mistake. You think you’re talking to some pretty-boy Mexican, but you are talking to
La Eme
. We are two hundred thousand strong. You should wait like I say. You don’t want to go to war with us.”

Pike waited him out, letting the pressure of his silence build. When Azzara finally spoke again his voice showed a strain Pike found curious.

“Are we clear on this? Do you get it?”

Pike said nothing.

“Do. You. Get. It?”

“You don’t understand.”

“What? What don’t I understand?”

“War is what I do.”

Pike hung up, then called a friend named Elvis Cole.

E
xperienced investigators referred to the site where an abduction took place as ground zero. It was the intersection where the paths of the victim and perpetrator converged, and merged into one. It was an ambush zone of abrupt furious violence or quiet threat where two paths led in and only one path led out, but these paths weren’t made in a vacuum. The physical world was disturbed—a fish rippled the water; a gliding bird cast a shadow. Pike knew this better than most because he spent most of his life trying to move without being heard or seen, or leaving a trail that others could follow. It was difficult. Jared Palmer had seen Reuben Mendoza. This was the first ripple, but Pike knew there would be others. The problem was time. Pike was building a pressure wave and riding it like a surfer shooting the green tunnel. But returning to Smith’s house to develop the trail could take hours and would diminish the pressure. The wave would collapse. Pike needed help to maintain the pressure, and believed no one was better at finding and recovering missing persons than his partner, Elvis Cole.

Cole was a licensed private investigator Pike met back in the day when Pike still wore the badge. Not the likeliest of pairings, Pike being so quiet and remote, Cole being one of those people who thought he was funny, but they were more alike than most people knew. Cole was an apprentice then, working for an old-school L.A. dick named George Feider to pile up the three thousand hours of experience the state required for a license. When Cole clocked the three-thousandth hour, Feider was ready to retire and Cole wanted to buy his agency. Pike had resigned from LAPD by then, and was making fat cash on military and security contracts. They bought the agency together, though Pike stayed in the background. He preferred it that way. Unheard and unseen.

While Pike waited for Cole to arrive, he phoned Hydeck and Betsy Harmon, hoping he was wrong about their disappearance and that Wilson or Dru had returned their calls or finally showed up at their kitchen. They hadn’t, and Betsy Harmon once more complained that no one had cleaned up the mess.

Twenty-five minutes after Pike called Elvis Cole, Cole slid into Pike’s Jeep outside a bar on Abbot Kinney, a few short blocks from the canals. Cole had made good time. If he was in the middle of something when Pike called, he had not mentioned it.

Cole said, “What’s going on?”

Pike began with Mendoza’s arrest two days earlier, and sketched the sequence of events up to and including his search for Mendoza and his call to Miguel Azzara. When he finished, Cole studied the snapshot of Mendoza before looking up.

“So you don’t believe they went to Oregon.”

“No. If Mendoza hadn’t been seen at the house, then maybe, but Mendoza changes the game.”

“So you think, what, he followed them home to threaten them, but it turned into an abduction? He forced Smith to make the call?”

Pike nodded, but did not voice his darker fear—that the abduction had become a body drop.

“Have you tried calling them again?”

“You call, you get voice mail. They don’t call back.”

Cole nodded, his face vacant as he thought the scene through.

“Which is what would happen if their phones were taken away from them.”

“Yes.”

Cole glanced over.

“Forgetting Mendoza for a minute—maybe they were so freaked out, they figured enough with the bad news and turned off their phones.”

“Wilson, maybe, but not Dru. Dru would call if she could.”

“She would?”

Pike realized Cole was staring.

“I know her.”

“Ah.”

Pike thought he probably should have phrased it another way.

“We had a beer.”

“I see.”

“We made a date. She asked me to call.”

“I understand.”

Cole asked for their numbers, saying he would try to learn about their account activity from the service provider. Pike recited the numbers, then gave him Mendoza’s shoe box and Hector’s phone. Cole fingered through the contents.

“Okay, good—I can work with this. What about the police? Are they treating it as an abduction?”

“They don’t know about Mendoza.”

Cole glanced up from the box.

“Why not?”

“I want you to see the house first. You have fresh eyes, you’re faster, and you’ll see things they miss.”

Cole tried to look modest.

“That goes without saying.”

“But you won’t have much time. We get you set up, I’m going to Button. He’ll move on Smith’s house, so we have to move on it first.”

Cole glanced at Mendoza’s picture again, then handed it back.

“Let’s get busy.”

Pike led the way with Cole following in his own car. Because of the narrow lanes and difficult parking, they left their vehicles on Venice Boulevard and approached Smith’s house on foot. Pike didn’t want another conversation with the Palmers, so he stopped well out of their view to point out Smith’s house. Pike had already warned Cole about Jared.

When Cole saw the house, he glanced at Pike.

“A dude trying to make a go of a sandwich shop owns this place?”

“They’re house-sitting. It’s owned by a retired TV writer.”

“Were you inside?”

“Only to check for bodies. I entered through the side window at the laundry room, but I didn’t disturb the scene.”

Pike described finding no signs of forced entry outside the house, and no blood evidence or signs of struggle in the carport or courtyard inside the front gate. He wanted Cole to concentrate on the interior because their time would be limited once he went to the police.

“When I finish with Button, I’ll call you, then I’ll sit on the girlfriend’s house. I put her and Azzara in play to stress Mendoza. When Button comes in he’ll jack the pressure even more, and Mendoza might break for home.”

Stressing the enemy was a tactic Pike had used in the field. Put enough stress on the target, he would panic and run. They almost always broke for home.

Cole said, “Sounds good. I’ll see what I can find out about Mendoza and Gomer, and relieve you later tonight.”

They were finished, and Pike knew he should roll out, but he stared at the house. He imagined Dru and Wilson inside after they returned from their shop. He saw Mendoza and the second man moving toward the gate, then put what he saw next out of his head.

Pike realized Cole had said something, but hadn’t heard what. Cole was watching him with a curious expression, and when he spoke again, his voice was gentle.

“You okay?”

“I told her I took care of it. That they wouldn’t be bothered again.”

The sudden sympathy in Cole’s eyes left Pike feeling embarrassed. He looked away.

Cole said, “Hey.”

Pike looked back.

“Am I not the World’s Greatest Detective?”

Pike nodded.

“I’m on it, Joseph. We’ll find her.”

Cole walked away before Pike could respond.

Pike watched his friend for a moment, then headed back to his Jeep. Time was passing, and time was the enemy.

Pike drove hard for the Pacific Community Police Station.

T
he PCPS was a low, modern brick building surrounded by a block wall and wispy pine trees on Culver Boulevard less than a mile from Pike’s home. A flagpole bearing the American flag stood proudly out front, across from a billboard advertising a bail bondsman. The middle-class homes across the boulevard were neat and attractive. These neighborhoods—like the police station—made it difficult to believe that wars between rival gangs often filled the streets with blood only a few minutes away.

Pike pulled to the curb by the flagpole at seven minutes after three. The watch would change at four, so any detectives not in court or in the field would be inside finishing up for the day. Pike needed to find out if Button was one of them.

He phoned Information for the PCPS detective desk number, then called.

“Pacific. This is Detective Harrison.”

“This is Dale King at the PAB. Is Button still there?”

The Police Administration Building was the new administrative building that had replaced Parker Center.