Robert Crais - The Last Detective

"Five thousand."

It was an outrageous amount, but Pike already knew that the man wanted more than money. Pike hoped that the figure would be persuasive.

"Pike, I wouldn't be Fallon on a bet, you and your face-to-face. I don't care if he's Delta or not. But you have to see it from my side – if something happens to this guy, your Fed buddies will use this little transaction between us to hammer me as an accessory before the fact or maybe even a co-conspirator. I got no friends over there."

"No one is listening."

"Yeah, right."

Pike didn't respond. Pike had learned that if he didn't say anything, people often told themselves what they wanted to hear.

"Tell you what, I'll ask around, but you gotta let me book a job for you. I don't know what or when, but one day I'll call. That's it. That's my price. If I find someone who can help you with the face-to-face, you gotta go. Yes, no, I don't give a shit. That's what it costs."

Pike regretted calling this number. He wished that it had been disconnected like the others. He considered trying to find someone else, but the first seven numbers had given him nothing. Ben was waiting. Elvis was waiting. The weight of their need kept him on the phone.

"C'mon, Pike, it isn't just the calls. I haven't heard from you in ten years. If I find somebody who's dealt with him, I'll have to vouch for you."

A Zen fountain sat on a polished black table in the corner of Pike's living room. It was a small bowl filled with water and stones. The water burbled between the stones with the gentle sounds of a forest stream. Pike listened to the burble. It sounded like peace.

"You knew it was coming, Pike. That's why you called. I'm jamming you up with this, but that's what you wanted. You're looking for something, and it isn't just Fallon. We both know what you want."

Pike watched the water move in the little fountain. He wondered if the man was right.

"All right."

"Give me your number. I'll call back when I have something."

Pike gave the man his cell phone number, then stripped off his clothes. He brought the phone into his bathroom so he could hear it from the shower. He let hot water beat into his back and shoulder, and tried his best to think about nothing.

Forty-six minutes later, the phone rang. The man gave him a name and an address, and told him that it had been arranged.

time missing: 48 hours, 09 minutes

Two messages were waiting on my answering machine when I got home. I hoped that Joe or Starkey or maybe even Ben had called, but one was Grace Gonzalez from next door, asking if she could do anything to help, and the other was Crom Johnson's mother, returning my call. I didn't feel strong enough to talk to either.

From my deck I could see that Chen's van was back on the ridge across from my house, along with a second SID van and a Hollywood Division radio car. Several of the construction workers stood by the vans, watching downhill as Chen and the others worked.

Normal people bring in their mail after they get home from work, so that's what I did. Normal people have a glass of milk, take a shower, then change into fresh clothes. I did that, too. It felt like pretending.

I was eating a turkey sandwich in front of the television when my phone rang. I grabbed it, thinking that it was Joe, but it wasn't.

"This is Bill Stivic from the Army's Department of Personnel in St. Louis. I'm calling for Elvis Cole, please."

Master Sergeant Bill Stivic, USMC, retired. It felt like weeks since I had spoken with him. It had only been that morning.

I glanced at the time. It was past business hours for a government office in St. Louis. He was calling on his own dime.

"Hi, Master Sergeant. Thanks for getting back to me."

"No problem. It seemed pretty important to you."

"It is."

"Okay, well, here's what we have – first, like I told you this morning, anyone can have the 214, but we never send the 201 to anyone except you unless it's by court order or we get a request from a law enforcement agency, you remember?"

"I remember."

"The records here show that we telefaxed your file to a police detective named Carol Starkey out where you live in Los Angeles. That was yesterday."

"That's right. I spoke with Starkey today."

"Okay, the only other request we've had for your files was eleven weeks ago. We were served with a State court order by a judge named Rulon Lester in New Orleans."

"A judge in New Orleans."

"That would be it. Both your 201 and 214 were sent to his office at the State Superior Court Building in New Orleans."

Another dead end. I thought of Richard waving the manila folder. The bastard had gone all out to check up on me.

"Those are the only two times my files have been sent? You're sure they couldn't have been sent to anyone else?"

"That's it, just the two. The records section keeps track for eight years."

"You have a phone number for the judge, Master Sergeant?"

"They don't keep a copy of the order, just that your files were sent and why, along with the court's filing number. You want that?"

"Yes, sir. Let me get a pen."

He read it off along with the date of the order and the date that my file had been sent. I thanked him for the help, then put down the phone. New Orleans was in the central time zone like St. Louis, so the courts would be closed, but their offices might still be open. I called the Information operator in New Orleans and got numbers for the State Superior Court and Judge Lester's office. The coincidence between Richard living in New Orleans and a judge there ordering my files was obvious, but I wanted to be sure.

A woman with a clipped Southern accent answered on the first ring.

"Judge Lester's office."

I hung up. Lester would have had no legitimate reason for writing a court order to force the Army to release my files. He would have done so only as a favor to Richard or because Richard had paid him, either of which was an abuse of his office. He almost certainly wouldn't talk to me about it.

I thought it through, then dialed the number again.

"Judge Lester's office."

I tried to sound older and Southern.

"This is Bill Stivic with the Army's Department of Personnel in St. Louis. I'm trying to track down a file we sent to the judge in response to an order he issued."

"The judge has left for the day."

"Then I'm in a world of hurt, sugar. I pulled a whammy of a mistake when I sent the file down to y'all. I sent the original, and that was our only copy."

Sounding desperate was easy.

"I'm not sure I can help you, Mr. Stivic. If the file is admitted evidence or case documentation, it can't be returned."

"I don't want it returned. I should've made a copy before I sent it, I know, but, well, I don't know what I was thinking. So if you could find it, maybe I could get you to overnight a copy to me up here. I'd pay for it out of my own pocket."

Sounding pathetic was easy, too.

She said, "Well, let me take a look."

"You're a lifesaver, you truly are."

I gave her the date and the file number from Lester's court order, then held on while she went to look. She came back on the line a few minutes later.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stivic, but we don't have those records any longer. The judge sent them on to a Mr. Leland Myers as part of the requested action. Perhaps you could get a copy from his office?"

I let her give me Myers's number, and then I hung up. I thought about the folder that Richard slapped on the table when we were listening to the tape. Myers had probably handled the investigation. It felt like a dead end, and left me deflated. Fallon could have gotten most of what he knew by breaking into my house, and could have learned the rest a thousand other ways. All I had learned from Stivic was what I already knew – Richard hated my guts.