Robert Crais - The Watchman

Pike caught the girl watching him. The morning show hosts were talking about a paternity suit filed against a movie star, but she hadn’t been paying attention.

Pike said, “How’re you doing?”

“I’m real good.”

She turned back to the television.

Cole had returned to the airline tickets and was making notes of his own. Neither the maps, nor the tickets, nor the little scraps of paper contained a breakthrough clue, something like a hotel receipt signed by Alexander Meesh, but Pike had not expected anything so direct. Cole would have to run the numbers just like Chen was running the guns. Sooner or later something would pay off and Pike would be closer to Meesh. Pike was patient with the process. The chase was about gaining a single step. Then you gained another. Pretty soon you had the guy in your crosshairs. It was all about gaining the one single step.

Pike left Cole to check the front windows. The cousins’ Beemer remained in its spot, and the street and the houses were normal. No new cars had appeared, and no strangers lurked in the bushes. Nothing seemed out of place.

Even though it was still early, Pike felt the day warming and saw what the heat would bring. A light haze hung in a fading sky. By noon, the air would be rich with hydrocarbons and ozone, and would eat at their skin like invisible bugs.

He turned from the window. The girl was staring at the television, but had been watching him again. He caught the motion as her eyes went back to the screen.

He said, “We’ll turn on the AC today.”

“That’s great. Thanks.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

Pike wondered why she still wasn’t looking at him. It wasn’t like her. She didn’t seem angry and wasn’t giving him attitude. She just wouldn’t look at him when he was looking at her. Pike checked to see Cole was still working, then went to the girl. He stood so close she had no choice but look up at him.

She said, “What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“What?”

“Last night. Forget it. We’re okay, you and me.”

“I know.”

She seemed even more uncomfortable, but made a smile as Cole called from the table.

“I found something.”

Cole was tipped back in the chair, holding up the spiral notebook page.

Pike said, “You can make out what he wrote?”

“Not the words, but I got most of the numbers. Look-”

Pike went over, and this time the girl came with him. Cole smoothed the page on the table, and pointed out one of the numbers. 18185.

Pike said, “Like he started to write a phone number, but stopped.”

818 was the area code for the San Fernando Valley.

Cole said, “This isn’t a phone number. It looks like he started to write a phone number, but it’s an address-”

Cole put one of his handmade maps over the spiral page, then looked at Larkin.

“This is your street. The number jumped out because I’ve been making my notes by address.”

Larkin said, “I’m at 17922.”

“You’re three blocks north in the 17900 block. The numbers get larger as you go south. This is where you had the accident-”

Cole touched a place on the street where he had made a small X to mark the accident, then tapped the building next to it.

“-and this is 18185, right on the alley they were backing out of when you nailed them.”

Cole had written each building’s address in small block numbers. 18185 was the abandoned warehouse at the mouth of the alley.

Pike said, “When did Luis arrive in-country?”

Cole checked the dates on the airline ticket.

“Not until four days after the accident. The feds had already been all over the area. Larkin was back with her father in Beverly Hills, and the wreck was old news. If they were lining up on Larkin, they would want her loft and her home in Beverly Hills, but why would they care where the wreck happened?”

Pike knew Cole was right. Luis and his hitters would have had no reason to check out the accident site.

“So maybe he wasn’t sent to the wreck. Maybe he went to the building.”

“We should take another look.”

Pike went for a long-sleeved shirt as Cole gathered up his work. When Pike was buttoning the shirt, he caught the girl watching him again. He had been thinking about what to do when he left her once more, but now he decided.

“You can stay here if you want. You don’t have to come sit in the car.”

The girl looked surprised, then glanced away again as if the weight of his eyes was painful. The Larkin he had seen dancing on the bar hadn’t been awkward or uncomfortable, and neither had the Larkin in the desert, but this was a different Larkin. Pike sensed she wanted to say something, but hadn’t made peace with what.

She said, “I’d like to come. If that’s okay.”

Not telling or demanding. Asking.

Pike said, “Whatever you want.”

Five minutes later they went to the cars.

PIKE and Larkin followed Cole down from the hills, cruising silently along streets that were unnaturally clear. The girl wasn’t sitting with her legs twisted beneath her and her shoes on the seat the way she had yesterday. She faced forward with her feet on the floor. Pike made no comment. If she wanted to speak, she would speak. Or not.

He watched her from the corner of his eye, and twice she seemed about to speak, but both times she turned away. They were crossing Sunset Boulevard when John Chen called.

“I couldn’t call before now.”

Chen was whispering so softly Pike had trouble hearing him. Other people were probably around.

“Can you call from a better location?”

“I’m at a homicide in Monterey Park. Some douche bag poured Drano down his mother’s throat. Pinned her until she stopped kicking, then turned himself in. I been out here since six fuckin’ o’clock, man. I’m in the bathroom.”

“What do you have?”

“You were spot-on about those prints.”

“Get an ID?”

“Two out of two through the South American database at Interpol. Shit, hang on-”

Chen’s voice grew muffled, then louder, Chen saying, “I can’t help how long-it was bad carnitas -”

Chen whispered, “Pricks.”

“Tell me what you found.”

“Jorge Manuel Petrada and Luis Alva Mendoza, Petrada having been born in Colombia and showing arrests all over Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. Mendoza was born in Ecuador, but he managed to spread around his career, too. Both subjects have pulled prison time and are currently wanted on multiple counts of murder, with Mendoza showing wants on three counts of rape. Where’d you get those glasses, man?”

Pike ignored him.

“Who do they work for?”

“Says they’re known associates of someone named Esteban Barone, part of the Quito Cartel out of Ecuador, ID’d by DEA as one of the groups who took up the slack after the Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia were broken.”

“Do they have associates or family here in L.A.?”

“Not listed here.”

“Anywhere in the U.S.?”

“Nothing.”

“What about gang affiliations?”

Latin gangs from L.A. like Mara 18 and MS-13 had spread to Central and South America.

“No, man. They were soldiers for this guy, Barone. Nothing suggests they’ve been here before.”

Chen had confirmed what Pike learned from Jorge, but Pike wasn’t hearing anything that would bring him closer to Meesh.

“Did you run the guns?”

“Can’t until I get outta here, but listen-the feds confiscated the Malibu guns, too. Rolled into the Sheriff’s lab like they did with us and cleaned them out-the guns, the casings, everything.”

“Pitman?”

“The same kind of deal-no questions asked. Those stiffs from Malibu and Eagle Rock, are they part of this Quito group, too?”