Т Паркер - The Room of White Fire

Helplessness is worse than fear. Fight and flight are easier than facing a suffering human being you can do almost nothing to help. Ask any combat medic or corpsman. So I stood there in all my tall heavyweight semper fi adult uselessness, looking down on this child, feeling the tears in my own eyes while Rage, Wrath & Fury writhed and bellowed away inside me.

“I won’t keep you from going up there,” I said.

He looked up at me. I knew I’d offered him a heart-splitting choice. It was too much to lay on a ten-year-old, and his decision would last a lifetime.

“Blood?”

“There’s a lot, Michael.”

“What do I do?”

“Stay here and wait for your mother.”

“I can’t.”

“I understand.”

“I’m afraid.”

“You will never forget what you see.”

“Go with me?”

I offered my hand and he shook his head no, then stood and led the way.

We covered John Vazquez with his favorite Pendleton blanket. I figured the crime scene elves would have to live with it. Mrs. Vazquez — Laura — and Michael brought over dining room chairs and sat with him, sobbing, while I called the sheriffs.

Next I sent a text to Sequoia, having jumped to a conclusion that I dreaded she would confirm:

7:28 PM

Did you see Vazz?

7:29 PM

No. Shots inside! We sped off!

7:29 PM

Where and when?

7:30 PM

Vazquez house. Less than an hour ago.

7:31 PM

Where are you now?

7:32 PM

We are ok.

7:32 PM

Need to see Clay tonight. No excuses, S!!!

7:36 PM

Clay says no. We are in this together now. I love him.

My heart slumped.

While we waited for the sheriffs to arrive, I was able to get Laura Vazquez and Michael to tell me what had happened. They’d come home from running errands in Ukiah and walked in on two men with guns. No car parked outside to warn them. The men wore black balaclavas. One big and in charge. The other short and stocky. John was on the couch, hands bound behind him with plastic ties, afraid and alive. The two men — dressed in casual clothes — took Laura and Michael at gunpoint to the wine cellar and locked them in. The men were calm and courteous.

Half an hour later, both Laura and Michael heard car tires screeching near the house, then shouting from the direction of the kitchen or dining room, and thumping sounds, like a fight. Urgent voices. Tires screeching away. Then silence. When John didn’t come for them, they thought something terrible had happened to him and they were going to be killed. Approximately an hour later they heard my voice — faint but audible — calling out John’s name from above, probably through the front door.

So: two men, armed, equipped, polite. They had seen John Vazquez’s pickup truck parked by the house and figured the rest of the family was gone. They’d parked in the open barn to be out of sight — where I’d seen their leaked coolant — and knocked on Vazquez’s front door. Guns drawn or friendly? Either way, they’d gone inside and bound him. Why? For transport? Interrogation? To scare something out of him? To wait for... what?

All good, until Laura and Michael came home and walked through their front door.

Then a sudden memory from grade school — “The Highwayman,” a poem in which the bound heroine warns her approaching lover of the ambush waiting for him. Warns him with her death.

So who were these men and what did they want that was worth killing for? No obvious signs of drugs or other illegal business going on here. My quick background check of Vazquez — just before leaving for the Fallbrook Airpark — had come up clean. A family man.

From Laura’s description, the two men weren’t local bangers or junkies looking to fund their next fix. They were professionals of some kind — trained, prepared, and purposeful. Whose arrival here, at the same time as Clay Hickman’s arrival, was no coincidence. One link was Briggs Spencer, owner of Arcadia, owner of Vazquez’s home and livelihood, former operator of White Fire, a secret prison in which Clay and Vazquez had worked. The man to whom Clay was going to bring something unbearable. A man connected to some of the more ruthless organizations in the republic.

Which led me to the white Range Rover and the black Charger, whose drivers had tailed me to the Waterfront and, later, to the Fallbrook Airpark. And planted a GPS locator in my car. Specifically, Alec DeMaris and an associate. I also considered Rex Hickman’s private security team. Trying to intercept Clay? Leading to a dispute with Vazquez, who was apparently armed? I circled back to “The Highwayman”: Had Vazquez been shot while trying to warn off Clay Hickman and Sequoia Blain?

Three Mendocino County prowl cars barreled onto the property, funneling in from the entry road, lights flashing but running silent.

I knew I’d be there for a long time.

I quickly texted Sequoia.

7:48 PM

You know they killed Vazz.

7:50 PM

They wanted Clay.

7:50 PM

Why did Clay go there?

7:51 PM

For part 2 he says

7:51 PM

Of WHAT?

7:52 PM

He won’t tell. He trusts me, then doesn’t.

Through a window I watched one of the Mendocino Sheriff cars stop down by the barn, and two deputies jump out. The other two vehicles slowed and crept toward us.

7:52 PM

People are dying! Bring me to Clay. Do the right thing.

7:53 PM

What is the right thing?

7:54 PM

Turn himself over to police or me. He’ll be safe.

7:56 PM

I DON’T WANT SAFETY, MR. FORD. I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

A strong but surreal sensation, to be communicating with Clay Hickman for the first time. Before that moment he had seemed only partial. Now I felt his full perilous presence. I responded quickly:

7:56 PM

Tell me your truth and I can help you tell the world.

7:57 PM

That is a crude trap. Sequoia said you were a good man.

Outside, the two patrol cars stopped on the driveway, well apart from each other, and well short of the Vazquez home. No lights now, no sirens. Four deputies fanned out and came toward us, one of them carrying an assault shotgun. Behind them I could see two deputies trotting from the barn back toward their vehicle.

7:57 PM

Tell me your truth, Clay.

7:58 PM

Don’t you understand? It isn’t my truth to tell. The world must hear it from the God of Terror.

7:59 PM

Bad things happened in Romania. I get that. But you need help.

Through a window I watched the deputies converging on the front porch. Laura and Michael sat in silence, holding hands and watching them, too.

7:59 PM

You have no idea, amigo.

8:00 PM

You are responsible for S.

8:00 PM

I will protect her with my life, as Vazz did for me.

8:01 PM

Meet me tonight.

Silence.

An idea came to mind. A way to get Clay to want to meet me. It wasn’t quite legal and it could backfire spectacularly. But now was not the time. Right now, he’d smell it out. Missing persons are good at smelling things out, no matter how desperate and confused they are. Though I wasn’t sure that Clay was either of those things.

I exchanged a look with Laura Vazquez, then walked toward the sharp rapping on the front door.

Hours later, one of the sheriff’s detectives dropped me off at a motel in Ukiah on his way back to headquarters. His name was Polson. He had conducted my crime scene interview, certain that I was withholding information, which in fact I was, due to my contract with Arcadia and my ethical obligations to Clay Hickman and Sequoia Blain.

None of which meant anything to Polson or the law. I did tell him the basics of what I’d been hired to do. I referred him to Alec DeMaris. I told him I’d call him if I thought of anything else that might help them identify John Vazquez’s killers and I meant it. Polson said he’d charge me with obstruction of justice if I didn’t. He said incompetents didn’t belong in law enforcement and the San Diego Sheriffs deserved better than me.