Michael Connelly - Void Moon

After five minutes of waiting Karch saw Jersey Paltz enter the mirror's field of view and start heading toward the Lincoln. He was smoking a fresh cigarette and walked with a deliberate, if not angry, stride. Karch smiled. He was going to have fun with this.

Paltz got into the front passenger seat all blustery and with onion bagel breath.

"This better be good, goddammit. I'm on the fucking clock."

Karch looked over at him and waited for eye contact before responding.

"I hope so."

That was all he said. Paltz waited a few moments and then erupted.

"Well, what the fuck do you want?"

"I don't know. What do you want? You called me."

"What are you talking about. You just called me and – "

Karch burst out laughing, which shut Paltz up with confusion. He turned the key and started the car. He quickly dropped it into drive and looked over his left shoulder in preparation for pulling out onto the road. He heard the door locks automatically engage upon the transmission being moved into drive.

"Hey, wait a fucking second here," Paltz protested. "I'm on the clock, man. We're not going any – "

He tried to open his door but the auto-lock prevented it. While he started looking around for a button that would disengage it, Karch gunned the engine and pulled out onto the roadway.

"Relax, you can't unlock it while the car's in drive. It's a safety feature. I was thinking, Ted Bundy should've driven a Lincoln."

"Goddammit," Paltz said, throwing his hands up in disgust. "Where are we going?"

"We've got a problem, Jerome," Karch said calmly.

He turned west on Tropicana. He could see the crests of the mountains rising above the build-up line.

"What are you talking about? We don't have a problem. I haven't talked to you in a year and don't fucking call me that."

"Jerome Zander Paltz… Jerry Z… JerZEE. What name do you want on the stone?"

"What stone? Would you just – "

"The stone they put on your fucking grave."

Paltz was finally silenced. Karch looked over at him and nodded.

"It's that serious, fuckball. They saw your van. Last night. Got it on tape."

Paltz started shaking his head as if he were trying to shake himself awake from a nightmare.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Where are we going?"

"Some place private. Where we can talk."

"We're not talking, man. You're talking and I don't know anything about what you're saying."

"Okay, then, we'll talk when we get there."

Ten minutes later they were past the industrial warrens and the city sprawl was thinning out as they approached open desert. Karch glanced over at Paltz and saw the man was beginning to get the proper feel for his predicament. They usually did as the desert started closing in. He reached down for the Sig and brought it up and onto his lap, the muzzle pointing at Paltz's torso.

"Ah, shit," Paltz said when he saw the gun and fully understood his situation. "That fucking bitch."

Karch smiled broadly.

"Who is she?"

"Name's Cassie Black," Paltz said without delay. "Fuck her, man. I ain't protecting her."

Karch squinted his eyes as he tried to think. Cassie Black. The name was vaguely familiar but he couldn't place it at the moment.

"She was the one with Max Freeling six years ago."

Karch looked sharply at Paltz.

"No lie, man. Don't you remember?"

Karch shook his head. It didn't make sense.

"She was a spotter, a lookout, not the one who went inside."

"Well, I guess Max must've taught her a thing or two."

"But they nailed her. She went to High D. For killing him."

"Manslaughter, Karch. She's out now. She said she's been living in California. In L.A."

Karch thought about this. He checked his watch. It was three hours since he had met Grimaldi in 2014 and he already had a name and a history. He rolled his shoulders, savoring the excitement building in his chest. He then returned his thoughts to the person and problem at hand.

"You know, Jerome, I thought we had a deal. I thought that anytime something came your way that had anything to do with the Cleo, you were going to give me the heads up. And you know I check my messages two, three times a day if I'm not in my office. And it's funny, 'cause I didn't get a call from you this week or last week or anytime that I can remember."

"Look, man, I didn't know it was going to be the Cleo and I couldn't have called anyway. I was fucking detained, man."

"Detained? In what way were you detained?"

"Tied up in the back of the van."

Paltz spent the next ten minutes anxiously telling Karch his version of the night before. Karch listened silently and kept a mental list of all the incongruities and conflicts in the story.

"I couldn't have called you," Paltz said in summation. "I would have and I was planning on it but she had me in the back of the van all night. Look at this, man."

He turned and leaned across the seat. Karch raised the gun and Paltz held his hands up, palms out. He then pointed to the corners of his mouth, where there were matching cuts that looked fresh and painful.

"That's from the fucking snap cuff she used to gag me. I'm telling you the truth, man."

"Sit back."

Paltz moved back to his side. They drove in silence for a minute while Karch thought about Paltz's story.

"You're not telling me everything. Did she know you snitched them off to me last time?"

"Nope. Nobody knew that except you."

Karch nodded. There had never been any trial so he had never had to tell his story in public. Only to the cops – and one of the leads was Iverson.

"Who was she working with this time?"

"She was by herself. She just showed up at the counter yesterday and it went from there. I never saw anybody else."

Still, Paltz's story didn't make complete sense.

"You're not telling me everything. You did something to her. You try to rip her off?"

Paltz didn't say anything and Karch took that as confirmation.

"You did. You saw she was alone and you tried to hijack her. Only she was ready for it and got the drop on you. And that's why she couldn't cut you loose until she finished the job."

"All right, so I did. So fucking what?"

Karch didn't answer. They were well out from the city now. Karch liked it out here, especially in the spring before it got too hot.

"What was she doing in L.A.?" he asked.

"Didn't say and I didn't ask. Look, where are we going? I told you everything I know."

Karch didn't answer.

"Look, Karch, I know what you're doing. You think I walked out of there without telling anybody exactly who I was going to see out in the lot?"

Karch glanced over at him, a bemused look on his face.

"Yeah, Jersey, that's exactly what I think you did."

It was hardly a bluff worth calling. Karch knew that the relationship he and Paltz had shared over time dictated that Paltz would tell his fellow countermen that he was stepping out for a smoke, nothing more.

He turned the big Lincoln left on an unmarked road he knew was called Saddle Ranch Road on the county plat books. It was part of a subdivision that had been platted and surveyed three decades before. A few roads had been put in but the plan went bust and no houses were ever built. The city, spreading as quickly as it was, was still a decade or so away from catching up. Then the houses would come. Karch hoped he wouldn't be around for that.

He stopped the car in front of an old and abandoned sales office. The windows and door were long since gone. Bullet holes and graffiti marked every wall inside and out and the floor inside was covered with broken glass and beer cans. The morning sun caught on a silvery spider web that hung in the open doorway. Karch looked past the structure to the Joshua tree growing about ten yards behind it. He had planted it many years before to simply mark a spot. He was always surprised to see how full it had grown in such a desolate place.