Robert Crais - The sentry

"You know what? It's over, all right? It's done with, and we don't know who did it, so let's not make it worse."

He waved toward Betsy.

"Between you and this one, I'm gonna wake up murdered."

Betsy said, "Don't be a jackass."

Dru stared at Wilson with worried eyes, then turned away and went into the storage room. Pike followed her, and found her crying. She closed her eyes hard, then opened them, but the wet didn't go away.

"He's impossible. It's been so hard, trying to make a go of this place, and now we have these people on top of everything else."

She closed her eyes again, and raised a hand, stopping herself.

"I'm sorry."

Pike touched her arm. One touch, then he lowered his hand.

"It will be fine."

"I've been telling myself that for years."

"This time is different."

Pike went back to his Jeep and once more checked the time. Gomer was in the wind, but Pike knew where to find Mendoza. He would have been transported to the Pacific Community Police Station to await his arraignment after he was released from the hospital. The District Attorney's Office had forty-eight hours to arraign him from the time of his arrest, but Pike knew they would likely bump him to the head of the line because of his injury. This meant he would probably be arraigned sometime today. If he made bail or posted bond, he would be released.

Pike phoned his gun shop. He had five employees, two who were full-time and three who were former police officers. A man named Ronnie ran the shop, and had been with Pike a long time.

Pike said, "You okay without me this morning?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Something came up. I'm going to be busy for a while."

"Take your time. Do it right."

"Can Liz find out something for me?"

"If she can. Whatcha need?"

Ronnie's youngest daughter was a Hardcore Gang prosecutor for the D.A.'s Office in Compton. Pike explained about Reuben Mendoza waiting at Pacific Station for his court appearance.

"They'll probably arraign him today, but they might hold him until tomorrow. Can she find out?"

"Where are you?"

"Cell."

"Call you right back."

Ronnie got back to him eight minutes later.

"It's today. They took him over this morning. That's gonna be the Airport Courthouse down in Hawthorne. You need some help with this?"

"I'm good."

Pike closed his phone and went hunting for Reuben Mendoza.

The Airport Courthouse was one of forty-eight superior courts spread among the four thousand square miles of Los Angeles County. It sat in the southwest corner of the Century Freeway/San Diego Freeway interchange, less than a pistol shot from LAX, and looked like a giant green moth with glass wings, struggling to get into the air.

Pike left the 405, dropped down La Cienega to the courthouse, and found a place to park with an easy, eyes-forward view of the back entrance. The public could enter the building through either a front or a back entrance, but Pike knew from experience that defendants who made bail were released through the back. Pike also knew the arraignment court had no hard-and-fast calendar for seeing defendants. Right now, Mendoza would be in a holding cell with a number of other defendants. Their order of appearance before the judge would change with the changing schedules of public and private defense attorneys, attorney-client meetings, motions, and arguments. Pike was okay with waiting and would wait all day if necessary, but he suspected the court staff would take pity on Mendoza's broken arm.

Pike made himself comfortable. He took a deep breath, exhaled from the bottom of his lungs, then did it again. He felt his body relax and his heart rate slow. He watched the door, and breathed, and thought about nothing. Pike could sit like this for days, and had, in places far less comfortable than a dry, clean vehicle in the shade of a giant moth. He found much peace in waiting, and the waiting was made easier by thinking of nothing.

At seven minutes after eleven that morning, the maroon Monte Carlo drifted into the parking lot. The corner of Pike's mouth twitched. The Monte Carlo suggested Mendoza had made bail, called his friends for a ride, and was now being processed out.

Pike studied the lone occupant. Pike had been hoping for Gomer, but this wasn't Gomer. The driver was a young, thin Latin dude with a bandanna around his head and a pencil mustache. He didn't park in a designated parking place, but eased to the curb near the door. Another good sign.

Ninety seconds later, Reuben Mendoza emerged from the moth with a smile on his face and a cast that extended up his forearm from his right hand to just below his elbow. He wasn't using a sling. Mendoza pointed at his friend with both hands, broke into an exaggerated, shoulder-rolling shuffle to show off his cast, then flipped off the court with both hands and climbed into the car.

Pike followed them back onto the 405, letting the Monte Carlo float five or six cars ahead in the light, late-morning traffic. They didn't seem to be in a hurry, so neither was Pike. The Monte Carlo slipped onto the Marina Freeway, then cruised up Lincoln Boulevard into a low-end commercial area off Venice Boulevard. Several blocks later, they pulled into a place called Our Way Body Mods. A six-foot wrought-iron fence guarded the lot, with double-wide gates on the main and side street entrances. The gates were open. A service building with two open bays sat behind a small parking lot where damaged vehicles waited for work, and freshly repaired or customized cars waited to be picked up. Most of the vehicles were hobby cars-Japanese imports sporting elaborate spoilers and nitrous-blown engines, or American classics like Bel Airs and Impalas that had been chopped to ride low and painted as bright as M amp;M's.

When the Monte Carlo pulled in, several men emerged from the bays to greet Mendoza. Pike counted nine heads, excluding Mendoza and his driver. Businesses like Our Way Body Mods were often owned by multigenerational gang families. They were run as legitimate or semi-legitimate businesses, but their primary purpose was so gang members could claim they were employed when making their appeals to judges and parole officers. Such businesses also served as clubhouses, drop points, and tax dodges to launder illegal gang income.

As the men crowded around Mendoza, Pike studied their faces. Most sported elaborate gang tats and shaved heads, which had replaced slicked-back hair as the homeboy style of choice. Pike knew that not all of these men would be in the gang. Most were, but a couple would likely be wannabes, and a couple more were probably just friends. Three of the men showed the grease and soil of work, but most of them had just been hanging around. Pike saw the man who had aimed his gun hand from the Monte Carlo's back seat, but Gomer wasn't among them. The man hugged Mendoza and lifted him from the ground. When other men made a joke of grabbing Mendoza's cast, the back-seat man playfully pushed them away. Protecting his friend. Any of these people could have vandalized Wilson's takeout shop, but Pike had no way to know, though he thought he knew someone who could help deal with the problem.

Pike scrolled the directory in his cell phone until he found the number, then dialed. A cheery young woman answered.

"Angel Eyes. May I help you?"

"Artie there?"

"Yes, he is. May I ask who's calling?"

"Tell him Joe Pike is coming by."

Pike drove to a small stucco house in a residential neighborhood east of Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Known by the people who lived there as Ghost Town, the streets were lined by modest homes originally built for African-American laborers during the thirties. Ghost Town had seen a slow gentrification in some of its neighborhoods, but not all, leaving a sad reminder of days gone past and dreams unrealized. But men like Father Arturo Alvarez were trying to change that.