Robert Crais - The Watchman

Three hours later, they were released to leave. A shooting team had come out, along with the evening shift commander, two Rampart captains, and two use-of-force detectives from Parker Center. Pike and Flynn had been separated for questioning, but now they were back in their car. Flynn was behind the wheel. He had started the engine, but hadn’t taken it out of park. Pike knew Flynn was shaken, but he figured it was up to Flynn whether or not he wanted to talk about it. After all, Pike was only a boot. Flynn finally looked over, moving his head as if it weighed a thousand pounds. “You okay?” “Yes, sir.” Flynn fell silent again, but now he seemed to be considering Pike in a way that left Pike feeling uncomfortable. “Listen, I want to go over what happened in there-you saved me. Thank you for that.” “You don’t have to thank me.” “I know, but there it is. I want you to know I appreciate what you did. You saw those two guys on me, you saw the knife, you made a fast call. I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I just want you to think about what you did. Sometimes we have to kill people, but our job out here isn’t to kill people.” “Yes, sir. I know that.” “What happened in there was my fault, not clearing that closet. I saw that damned door.” “We were clearing the apartment when it happened. No one’s fault.” “You’re a boot. Your first day on the job, and you sure as hell saved my butt.” Flynn was still watching him, but his eyes had narrowed as if he was trying to make out something vague and far away, and Pike wondered what. Flynn suddenly reached out and covered Pike’s hand. “You’re calm as a stone. Me, I’m shaking like a leaf-” Pike felt it in Bud Flynn’s hand-a faint humming like bees trying to escape a hive. Bud suddenly pulled back his hand as if he had read Pike’s thoughts and was embarrassed. Officer-involved shootings were rare, but gunfights had been part of Pike’s life since he left home, and home, in those rare moments when he thought about it, had been worse-his father’s rage; fists and belts and steel-toed work boots falling like rain in a strangely painless way; his mother, screaming; Pike, screaming. Combat was nothing. Pike remembered a kind of intellectual acceptance that he had to kill other men so they couldn’t kill him. Like when he finally grew big enough to choke out his father. Once his father feared him, his father stopped beating him and his mother. Simple. Pike’s only concerns now were in following the rules of the Los Angeles Police Department. He had. He had made a clean shoot. Bud was alive. Pike was alive. Simple. Pike touched Bud’s hand. He wanted to help. Pike said, “We’re okay.” Bud wiped at his face, but his eyes still fluttered, and returned to Pike again and again. “I’m looking at you, and it’s like nothing happened. You just killed a man, and there’s nothing in your eyes.” Pike felt embarrassed and drew back. Flynn suddenly seemed embarrassed, too, and ashamed of himself, as if he realized he was talking nonsense. He forced out a laugh. “You ready to go? We got a hellacious amount of paperwork. That’s the worst part about shooting someone, you have all these damned forms.” Pike took out his sunglasses and put them on, covering his eyes. Flynn laughed again, louder, showing even more strain. “It’s pitch-black. You going to wear those things at night?” “Yes.” “Well, whatever. That business with you calling me Officer Flynn and me calling you Officer Pike? We’re past that. My name is Bud.” Pike nodded, but Bud was still trembling and the phony smile made him look pained. Pike wished none of it had happened. He wished they had not taken the call, and their day hadn’t ended this way. He felt sick, thinking he had disappointed his training officer. He vowed to try harder. He wanted to be a good and right man, and he wanted to serve and protect .

Pike was driving hard toward Glendale and the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division when his cell phone buzzed. He glanced at the number and saw it was Ronnie.

“Go.”

“They hit your store fourteen minutes ago. Those boys are willing to work in broad daylight. They want you, m’man.”

Larkin, beside him, said, “Who is it?”

Pike held up his finger, telling her to wait.

“Did the security guys roll?”

“Code three, lights and sirens, and they called in LAPD. Denny and I are rolling over right now. You wanted a full-on response, you got a full-on response.”

“File a report with the police. If we have any physical damage, have an insurance adjuster come out. If anything needs to be repaired, call out the repairmen today.”

“I get it. You want noise.”

“Loud.”

Pike put down the phone, and Larkin punched him in the arm.

“I hate how you just ignore me. I asked you a question, you just show me your finger.”

She showed Pike a finger, but it wasn’t her index finger.

Pike said, “We’re going to see someone in Glendale, then we’re going to meet Elvis where you had your accident-”

“Why can’t we just go back to the house?”

“Someone is trying to kill you.”

“Why can’t we just hide?”

“Someone might find you.”

“You have an answer for everything.”

“Yes.”

She punched him in the arm again, but this time Pike ignored her. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she slumped back in the seat, sullen.

Pike was glad for the silence. They climbed up through the Sepulveda Pass, then down into the San Fernando Valley. The valley was always much hotter, and Pike could feel the increasing heat even with the air-conditioning. He watched the outside air temperature rise on the dashboard thermometer. From Cheviot Hills to Van Nuys, they gained fifteen degrees.

Larkin was quiet for exactly nine minutes.

Then she said, “Would you like to watch me masturbate?”

Pike didn’t look at her or respond, though he wondered why she would ask such a thing. She had probably wanted to shock him. Shocking statements probably worked with some people, but Pike wasn’t one of them. Shock was relative.

“I could do it right here in the car. While you’re driving. Would you like that?”

She slid her hands down over her belly to where her legs met. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper.

“I’ll ask your friend. I bet he’d like to watch.”

Pike glanced at her, then continued driving.

“Day I got to Central Africa, I watched a woman. Her family had been murdered that morning, just two hours before we rolled in. She cut the fingers off her left hand, one by one, one each for her husband and her four children. She started with the thumb.”

Pike glanced over again.

“That was how she mourned.”

Larkin folded her hands in her lap. She stared at him, then turned to the window. The silence was good.

They drove through the valley heat.

John Chen’s Secret Mission

Desperation bred innovation, and John Chen was a desperate man. That same desperation also bred lies, deception, and masterful acting, all of which John had employed with convincing brilliance because-well, face it-he was the smartest senior criminalist employed by LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division. In the past few years, John had broken more cases (necessary for career advancement [read that: money]), amassed more face time on the local news (mandatory for hitting on chicks [read that: At six-two, one twenty-seven, and with an Adam’s apple the size of a goiter, he needed all the help he could get]), and garnered more merit pay raises (essential for leasing a Porsche [read that: This isn’t a gearshift, baby, I’m just happy to see you]) than any other rat in the lab. And how had he been rewarded for putting SID on the map and ascending to criminalist stardom?