Robert Crais - The Last Detective

Pike lowered his phone and shook his head. Schilling wasn't listed.

"Okay, here's the other name. I don't know whether he's involved, but he might be in contact."

I gave her Schilling's name and told her how he was connected to Ibo and Fallon.

She said, "Hang on. I gotta get to my radio. I want to put this stuff out on the BOLO."

"He keeps a mail drop in San Gabriel. We just checked with Information, but they don't show a listing. Can you get it?"

"Yeah. Stand by."

Pike watched me as I waited, then shook his head again.

"He won't be listed under any name we know."

"We don't know that. We might get lucky."

Pike studied the mail drop address, then flicked it with his finger, thinking. He looked up as Starkey came back on the line.

She said, "They got squat for Eric Schilling. What's that address?"

I gestured for the address, but Pike slipped it into his pocket. He took my phone and turned it off.

I said, "What are you doing?"

"They'll have a rental agreement, but she'll have to get a warrant. This place, it'll be closed by the time everyone gets there. They'll have to find the owner, wait for him to come down, it'll take forever. We can get it faster."

I understood what Pike meant and agreed to it without hesitation, as if the rightness of it was obvious and beyond debate. I was beyond hesitation or even consideration. I had become forward movement. I had become finding Ben.

Pike went to his Jeep and I went to my car, my head filled with the atrocities that Resnick had described. I still heard the flies buzzing inside the van and felt them bumping my face as they swirled up from the blood. I realized that I didn't have my gun. It was locked in my gun safe because Ben had been staying with me, and was still there. I suddenly wanted a weapon badly.

I said, "Joe. My gun's at the house."

Pike opened his passenger door and reached under the dash. He found a black shape and walked over with the shape palmed flat against his thigh so that bystanders wouldn't see. He passed it to me, then went back to his Jeep. It was a Sig Sauer 9mm in a black clip holster. I clipped it onto my right hip under my shirt. I thought it would make me feel safer, but it didn't.

The I-10 freeway stretched across the width of Los Angeles like a rubber band pulled to its breaking point, running from the sea to the desert, then beyond. Traffic was building and heavy, but we drove hard on our horns, as much on the shoulder as not.

Eric Schilling's mail drop was a private postal service called Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes in a strip mall in a part of San Gabriel where most of the people were of Chinese descent. The mall held three Chinese restaurants, a pharmacy, a pet store, and the postal business. The parking lot was crowded with families on their way to dinner at the restaurants, or lingering outside the pet store. Pike and I parked on the side street, then walked back to the mail drop. It was closed.

Stars & Stripes was a storefront business in full view of the mall, with the pet store on one side and the pharmacy on the other. An alarm strip ran along its glass front and door. Inside, mailboxes were set into the walls in the front part of the store, divided from the back office by a sales counter. The owner had pulled a heavy steel fence across the counter to divide the store into a front and back. Customers could let themselves into the front after hours to get their mail, but not steal the stamps and packages that were kept in the office. The curtain looked strong enough to cage a rhino.

Schilling's box number was or had been 205. We wouldn't know if the box still belonged to Schilling until we were inside. I could see box 205, but I couldn't tell whether it held any mail. For all I knew, Fallon had sent him a treasure map leading to Ben Chenier.

Pike said, "The rental agreements will be in the office. It might be easier to get in through the back."

We walked around the side of the mall to the alley that ran behind it. More cars lined the alley, along with Dumpsters and service doors for the shops. Two men in white aprons sat on crates in the open door of one of the restaurants. They peeled potatoes and carrots into a large metal bowl.

The name of each business was painted on its service door, along with NO ENTRANCE and PARKING FOR DELIVERY ONLY. We found the door for Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. It was faced with steel and set with two industrial-strength deadbolt locks. The hinges were heavy-grade, too. You would need a truck and chains to pull them out of the wall.

Pike said, "Can you pick the locks?"

"Yeah, but not fast. These locks are made to resist picks, and we have these guys over here."

Pike and I looked at the men, who were doing their best to ignore us. It would be faster to go through the front.

We walked back to the parking lot. A Chinese family with three little boys was standing outside the pet store, watching the puppies and kittens inside. The father held his smallest son in his arms, pointing at one of the puppies.

He said, "How about that one? You see how he plays? The one with the spot on his nose."

Their mother smiled at me as we passed and I smiled back, everything so civil and peaceful, everything so fine.

Pike and I went to the glass door. We could wait for someone to come for their mail and walk in with them, but hanging around for a couple of hours was not an option. Starkey could have arranged a warrant and roused the owner to open the place if we wanted to wait until midnight.

I said, "When we break the door, the alarm is going to ring here in the store. It might also ring at a security station, and they'll call the police. We have to pop the face off his mailbox, get past the curtain, then go through the office. All these people here in the parking lot will see us, and someone will call the police. We won't have much time. Then we have to get out of here. They'll probably get our license numbers."

"Are you trying to talk me out of this?"

The evening sky had darkened to a rich blue and was growing darker, but the street lights had not yet flicked on. Families walked along the narrow walk, coming out of the restaurants or waiting for their names to be called. An old man hobbled out of the pharmacy. Cars crept through the little parking lot, hoping for a space. Here we were, about to break into some honest citizen's place of business. We would destroy property, and that property would have to be paid for. We would violate their rights, and that was something you couldn't pay for, and we would scare the hell out of all these people who would end up witnesses against us if and when we were brought to trial.

"Yes, I guess I am. Let me do this part by myself. Why don't you wait in your car?"

Pike said, "Anyone can wait in the car. That isn't me."

"No, I guess not. Let's put our cars in the alley. We'll go in the front here, but leave through the back."

We put our cars outside the service door, then walked back around to the front again. Pike brought a crowbar. I brought a flathead screwdriver and my jack handle.

The family from the pet store was standing directly in front of Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. The man and the woman were trying to decide which restaurant would seat them faster with the kids.

I said, "You're too close to the door. Please step aside."

The woman said, "I'm sorry. What?"

I pointed at the door with my jack handle.

"There's going to be glass. You need to move."

Pike stepped close to her husband like a towering shadow.

" Go. "

They suddenly understood what was going to happen and pulled their children away, speaking fast in Chinese.

I hit the door with my jack handle and shattered the glass. The alarm went off with a loud steady buzz that echoed through the parking lot and across the intersection like an air-raid siren. The people in the parking lot and on the sidewalks looked toward the sound. I knocked the remaining glass out of the door frame, and then I went in. Something sharp raked my back. More glass fell, and Pike came in after me.