Robert Crais - The First Rule

“This one your boyfriend?”

“No. He want to be, but, no. I hide with him when I hear Michael wants the baby, but then I get scared and I have much to do, so I give the baby to Ana.”

Yanni stirred. A knee came up, then he rolled onto his side, trying to rise.

Pike said, “Tell him to stay down.”

“In English?”

“In whatever he understands. Tell him if he gets up, I’ll shoot him.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

She spoke the language, and Yanni turned toward Pike. Pike showed him the gun. Yanni sighed, then rested his head on the floor. His face was a mess.

Pike said, “I want to be clear. Your husband, this guy Michael Darko, he went to Frank’s house to steal his kid from your sister?”

“Yes.”

There it was. Michael Darko was the fourth man.

“What happened that night, it had nothing to do with Frank. It was all about taking your kid.”

“Michael is going back to Serbia. He wants to raise his son there. Me, he wants to kill.”

“Why?”

“I am nothing. Do you see? A whore he made pregnant. He does not want his son to be the child of a whore.”

“So he murdered your sister and an entire family?”

“My sister was nothing to him. Your friends, nothing. I am nothing, too. He will kill me if he can. He will kill you, too.”

Pike said, “We’ll see.”

He closed his eyes and saw the bodies: Frank, Cindy, Little Frank, Joe. He saw the oily, irregular pools of blood. The Day-Glo green yarn that traced the bullets’ paths.

Collateral damage.

Bystanders in a domestic dispute.

Pike took a slow breath, and felt as if his world had gently shifted. He ran a hand over his head, the short hair stiff and hard. Everything realigned itself into a more comfortable and familiar arrangement, but Frank and his family were still dead. Someone had violated their home. Someone had hurt them. Someone would pay.

Pike considered the woman on the couch, and realized Frank had not been expecting what happened.

“You didn’t warn them. Frank didn’t know this lunatic was after your kid.”

She glanced away for the first time, not quite so cold or aloof.

“No. We lie to them.”

She said it that simply. No, we lie to them. Then she went on.

“We tell them I have emergency. Is just for a few days, and the lady there, she is nice. I was making arrangements for to get to Seattle. A few days, that’s all, then we will go to Seattle. No one know Ana work for these people. How could he find out?”

Collateral damage.

Frank, Cindy, the boys. At least in the desert, Frank had seen the tanks coming.

“Stay on the couch.”

Pike went into the kitchen. He found ice in the freezer, and plastic trash bags under the sink. He cracked a tray of cubes into a trash bag, then dropped it on Yanni.

“Put this on your face. Tell him to put it on his face.”

Yanni said, “I know what you say.”

Pike stepped around him and returned to the woman. He thought about putting his pistol away, but decided to keep it out.

“Is Darko still in Los Angeles?”

“I think yes. It is hard to know.”

Pike wasn’t thrilled by her uncertainty, but at least she seemed willing to cooperate.

“Let’s say he is. If he’s here, where can I find him?”

“I don’t know. If I knew where he was I would have the boy, yes? I would shoot him, and take back the boy.”

“Where does he live?”

“I don’t know. He move a lot.”

“How can you not know where your husband lives?”

She closed her eyes. Her hard face softened, but the corners of her mouth seemed bitter.

“He has not been my husband for many months.”

Pike thought about it, then waved the gun at her belly.

“He do that?”

She looked down and opened the towel, not giving a thought that she was naked. Or maybe she had. Her pale body looked softer now; her belly creased awkwardly at the scars because she was seated. Her breasts were small, but firm. She was a good-looking woman. A little too hard and cold, but maybe that came from the belly. These weren’t surgical scars. Someone had wanted to hurt her, and had likely been trying to kill her. Pike wondered who, and why, and how long ago it had happened. She had been cut deep, and the cuts had hurt. Pike liked it that she wasn’t self-conscious about the scars.

She considered herself before closing the towel.

“No, not Michael. He make me pregnant after the scars. They turned him on.”

“You have a picture of him?”

“No. He does not have his picture taken. He has no pictures.”

“How about a phone?”

“No.”

Pike frowned. Everything was no.

“What if the kid got sick? What if you needed something?”

“These things are paid for. There are other people I tell.”

She shrugged like Pike was an idiot for not knowing the ways of the world.

Pike thought hard, trying to come at it from a different direction. Either she was lying, or she knew almost nothing about him.

“Where would he take the kid?”

“ Serbia.”

“Not Serbia. Now. Before he goes to Serbia. He has to keep a ten-month-old baby somewhere. ”

“A woman, I think, but there are many such women. Michael is not going to change the diaper. He is not going to wake all night to feed.”

“Another whore?”

Her eyes flashed, and Pike felt bad for saying it so harshly. He asked again.

“Does he have a girlfriend? Is he living with another woman?”

“I don’t know. I am going to find out.”

Pike studied her. She was going to find out. She was going to take back her child. She.

“It was a mistake not to tell the police. You still can. You should.”

Yanni mumbled something in Serbian, but Rina snapped back, cutting him off.

Pike said, “English.”

“What will they do, deport me? I have been arrested many times. I am not here with the papers.”

“They won’t ask if you’re a citizen. And they won’t care about your record. Your child was kidnapped. The kidnappers murdered five people. Michael’s crew has murdered twelve people, altogether. That’s what the police care about.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know the police. I used to be a policeman.”

The remains of her smile grew nasty.

“Well, let me ask you this, Mr. Policeman-used-to-be. When I find this man, you think the police will let me shoot him in the head? That is what I am going to do.”

Pike thought, this woman means it.

Rina seemed to read his thoughts, and the sharp smile grew edges.

“This is how we do it, old-school, where I am from. Do you see?”

“Are all Serbian women like you?”

“Yes.”

Pike glanced at Yanni, still with the bag of ice on his face. Yanni nodded.

Pike looked back at the woman.

“Maybe you should come with me. I can put you someplace safe.”

“I don’t know nothing about you, and I got a lot of work to do. I will stay with my friend.”

Pike holstered the Python. He took her Ruger from his pocket. It wasn’t a fancy gun, but it was serviceable and deadly. He took out the magazine, then worked the slide to unload the chamber just as he had at the hospital. He thumbed the loose cartridge into the magazine, then tossed the gun and magazine onto the couch. They bounced against her thigh.

She said, “You aren’t going to call the police?”

“No. I’m going to help you.”

When he took out his cell phone, Rina jumped up.

“You say no police!”

“I’m not calling the police.”

Pike called Elvis Cole.

Michael Darko. Pike now had a name, but he knew nothing about Michael Darko, and needed to know more. It was important to understand the enemy before you engaged him, and impossible to find him without knowing his patterns and needs.