Gregg Hurwitz - Troubleshooter

"Just yet," Tim said.

He hung up and watched the ascending helicopter ruffle the picture-perfect lawn in liquid patterns. Dana Lake made her cuffed exit in time to have her sleek hairdo blown lopsided before she was helped into a black van. The copter banked and faded. The van cruised past the partition and disappeared.

After maybe fifteen minutes, Malane came outside and stood over Tim, thumbing his belt loop, hip cocked. His eyes, set deep in their sockets, sloped down at the outer edges. He looked hound-dog thoughtful. For the first time, Tim noticed the gold band on his left hand, dulled from years of wear.

"No Den Laurey," Malane said.

"No Den Laurey."

"How long you been married?"

"Ten years last month."

"Five myself. January. Second time through." Malane looked up the street where the media vans were gathering at the blockade. They seemed to transform, unfolding into studio-lit dioramas. Well-groomed women gabbed against the backdrop, camera lenses pointed at them like interested faces. Malane seemed to want to say something but couldn't land on the words. Finally he looked down at Tim, his eyes sad, or maybe it was just the shape of them. "I'll help you find him any way I can."

Some of the agents on the front lawn circled up, voices high, reliving the capture. "…when he was going for the closet, you put him down."

A passing agent paused on the porch to thump Malane's back. "Congrats, Jeff."

"Thanks." Malane's tone didn't match the triumphant mood of the others. He scratched his cheek, calm and detached as always, getting back to outstanding business. "Rich told you about the cell-phone transmissions we picked up on Uncle Pete?"

"He did."

"We have the evidence in hand now. That's enough to firm the case against him. You want to tell Bear and Guerrera to meet us there when we roll him up?"

Before Tim could answer, Malane's cell phone trilled.

He snapped it open. "Malane." He listened a moment, and then his face changed. "Ah, shit," he said softly.

He hung up and stood, running the tip of his shoe over a patch of splinters on the porch. His eyes were moist. A few of the agents on the lawn answered their phones and glanced at their pagers, celebratory smiles dissipating instantly.

When Malane glanced up at Tim, his face was taut, the skin blotched red on his pale throat. "I'm gonna need you."

El Matador isn't accessible by car or bike. The desolate beach is reachable only by a treacherous hike down a steep hill. Rock formations close in the beach, and a few large boulders thrust up from the surf, fighting the waves and sending sheets of mist across the thin strip of Malibu sand.

The oil drum lay half buried at the high-tide mark, draped in piss-yellow seaweed. Sandpipers hopped around on stick-skinny legs. An agent shooed a coat of seagulls off the drum, the FBI lettering glittering in the moisture on the back of his windbreaker. Another avian wave washed in almost instantly, hungry heads bobbing and picking at the metal.

One side of the drum seemed to pulse with life; it wasn't until Tim and Malane neared that Tim realized it was crawling with crabs. A few surfers bobbed offshore beyond the break, mellow rubberneckers.

Tim and Malane reached the cluster of agents around the drum. Some algae had collected on it, but the metal had mostly remained shiny. A blowtorch swung at the side of one of the agents. The drum's lid, now propped back in place to keep out the critters, had previously been welded on. An Evidence Response Team agent, nineteenth-hole casual in his Royal Robbins cargo khakis and an ERT polo, held the lid shut so the struggling crabs couldn't shove their way inside. When Malane stepped close, he let it fall.

Malane leaned over, hands on his knees, and looked inside. He let out a deep breath, then turned to the fresh ocean breeze.

Tim moved forward and crouched. Despite some bloating and the work the little fish had done around the mouth and eyes, Rich Mandrell's face was still recognizable. His eye patch's band had slid down around his neck, and his pinkie ring was dulled from the seawater immersion. A few pencils of light poked through the metal where holes had been drilled; the oil drum had probably floated for a while before sinking, prolonging his terror. One of the crabs had gotten a claw stuck through a hole; it bobbed obscenely, inches from Rich's sea-slick hair.

Safety-pinned to his jeans at the back of his thigh, beyond the reach of his trapped arms, was a Polaroid, faded from the salt water. But not too faded for Tim to make out the image-Raymond Smiles at the wheel of his sedan on the freeway, his face barely visible behind the tinted window and a pair of dark glasses.

Tim found his throat gummy, so he cleared it. "Time of death?"

The ERT agent said, "Twelve to fifteen hours ago. I'll know more once we get the body processed. Takes some time getting equipment down here."

"Morning high tide brought it up?"

He nodded, then pointed up the coast. "A bluff about a quarter mile north overlooks the water. I'm thinking that's where the dump was made last night."

"Any incisions made? Maybe with a hunting knife?"

The ERT agent paused, surprised. "Yeah, looks to be some of that on the popliteal spaces behind the knees. Someone knew their basic anatomy, severed the tendons so the victim couldn't kick against the lid going down."

The breeze whipped flecks of water at Tim's face. Salt stung the back of his throat.

"So he was still conscious," Malane said. "When he was welded in."

"Yeah, most of his fingernails are broken off." The ERT agent studied Malane. "He a friend?"

Malane stood watching the brilliant sun send gold divots off the water. The surfers bobbed on their boards as the ocean breathed. He nodded, not trusting his voice, then turned and started the walk back to his car.

Malane was silent on the way to Uncle Pete's, and he didn't speed. He drove slowly and deliberately, hands at ten and two, staring ahead with a blank expression that on anyone else might have looked cadaverous. Behind them, a scattering of agents in duty cars followed, as well as several extended-cab Suburbans stuffed with SWAT members.

They reached the clubhouse, and Malane hit the brakes, idling on the dirty street, taking in the chain-link, the row of bikes at the curb, Uncle Pete's Lexus glittering in the driveway. The Dodge Ram was parked up the street, Bear and Guerrera leaning against it, arms crossed, awaiting the caravan's arrival.

The other vehicles remained frozen behind Malane's Crown Vic. Tim waited for Malane to pull over and park, but he kept his hands on the wheel, head forward. He revved the engine a few times and then peeled out. The car bore down on the row of motorcycles at the curb. Tim barely had time to brace against the dash before they smashed into them. The bikes went down like proverbial dominoes. The Crown Vic wound up tilted atop a stack of crushed metal. Tim rubbed the seat-belt burn at his shoulder, grateful that the G-ride, like most, had its airbags removed, saving him a nylon nose punch.

"Whoops," Malane said flatly. "Looks like she got away from me." He shoved open his door and navigated down the mound of bike parts.

Sinners and slags gathered behind the chain-link, cursing and shouting. The SWAT team filed into the front yard, subduing them. One of the clubhouse dogs got a face-blast of Mace, after which she and the other succumbed to the come-along leash.

Malane placed his hands on his hips, regarding the heap of broken motorcycles. "You know, I'll probably end up paying for that," he said, his voice barely audible over the background shouting. "But it'll be worth it."

Bear said, "We'll all chip in."