Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

One of Darrel’s Explorers came to the cubicle with two cups of coffee, set them on his desk, told Darrel that one of the lieutenants needed him when he was finished. Darrel thanked him for the coffee and said he was almost done.

I still hadn’t gotten an answer to my biggest question, but before I could ask it again, Darrel surprised me.

“SNR Security is a secretive bunch,” he said. “Privately owned. Won’t talk to the press, as you’ve probably discovered. Won’t talk to law enforcement without a warrant or a subpoena. But here’s the kicker — they don’t like black people or Muslims very much. I’m a Black Law Enforcement Union member, right? So-Cal chapter. Have been for years. We have a good relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Long story short: There’s a list of complaints against SNR longer than any other private security company in the whole damned country. Everything from verbal abuse to physical assault. SNR won’t hire blacks or Muslims, and they won’t work for black- or Muslim-owned companies. This, according to complaints filed with us and the SPLC. SPLC has yet to take legal action. They have to choose their battles. That’s why the private databases have nothing on SNR.”

I tried to make sense of discriminating against Muslims and people of color often enough to raise complaints. Maybe legal action. Bad publicity for a company trying to guard its privacy. No upside at all that I could see.

“So,” Darrel said. “Let me know when you’ve got SNR all figured out. Right now, I have to run.”

“Has anyone seen Daley since the 7-Eleven?” I asked again. “I figure you’ve been in touch with your counterparts in San Clemente.”

Darrel weighing me, sharp eyes in a heavy face. A distant tug of brotherhood between us, but maybe not enough to count for much.

“A girl who looked like Daley Rideout was seen at the Blue Marlin in La Jolla, two nights ago. So says the manager. Daley was with three men and a woman. All older, relationships unknown. They ate dinner in one of those upstairs cabanas that have the privacy curtains you can pull.”

“To hide the missing child you’re socializing with,” I said.

“The general manager is Yvette Gibson. Tell her Darrel says hello.”

“I owe you, Darrel.”

“Yeah, you do.” He drummed his big fingers on the table. “Roland? I don’t want to believe Penelope Rideout. It would confirm my worst opinions about the human race. But I do believe her. So this favor is just Darrel Walker betting his conscience. Keep me in the loop.”

Yvette Gibson met me in the lounge of the not-yet-open Blue Marlin, a prosperous restaurant in a jewel-like town. She was one of the most striking women I’d seen, tall, elegant, and ebony-skinned. Hair up, a sleeveless silver dress, and sharp short boots. No smile. I told her hello from Darrel and still got no smile.

She walked me through the stainless-steel stools and bistro tables, past the huge aquarium that divided the dining room. Hundreds of fish, big and little, locked in that hypnotic round-and-round thing they do.

We climbed the stairs. Through the smoked-glass walls I saw the Pacific surging against the rocks below and sailboats clipping atop the spangled sea. One of my favorite writers is buried down there.

Upstairs, the restaurant offices and an outdoor patio with heaters, a long grill, a bar, and several cabanas. We stood amid the cabanas, white-and-green-striped, with heavy canvas draperies you could close for privacy.

“Mr. Ford, I am not in the habit of discussing my guests with investigators of any kind. All I can tell you is what I told Darrel. A girl had dinner here on the patio two nights ago. A party of five. She looked like a picture Darrel’s deputy showed me on his phone. I’d never seen her before, here or anywhere else. They had dinner between seven and nine.”

“What name was the reservation under?”

A heavy stare. Assessing the damage to my face. “Darrel said the girl is in trouble,” said Yvette Gibson. “On the missing kids websites.”

I nodded. “She’s fourteen and bright. Challenging the status quo at home and school.”

“This girl didn’t look like an eighth grader,” said Yvette. “Expensive clothes. Makeup and lipstick, but not heavy. Carried herself well and seemed comfortable with her people. But she was by far the youngest one of the group.”

“Did you talk to any of them?”

“I did not.”

“Did you overhear any conversation?”

“They drew the privacy curtain after cocktails were served.”

“Did the girl drink?”

“A virgin Moscow Mule. I won’t tolerate underage service here. I looked at the check after Darrel’s man left.”

“May I see it?”

“No. I can’t do that kind of thing.”

I nodded. “They picked her up at a friend’s condo after lunch, Tuesday of last week. She hasn’t been home since. ‘They’ being two young men of questionable moral character. Dangerous men.”

The heavy stare again. “You’re not playing very fair, Mr. Ford. But maybe that’s your nature.”

“She’s up against something, and time is short.”

She sighed, shaded her eyes from the midday sun. “They used a corporate credit card. Signed by the man who made the reservation. Adam Revell.”

“He’s one of the girl’s acquaintances.”

“Might he have been the gentleman who did that to your face?”

“Which cabana?”

I followed her over. It was one of eight, its privacy curtains tied back and the tables and chairs neat and clean for the day’s first seating. We stood under the canopy and I pictured Daley and her SNR escorts.

“Middle chair, facing west,” said Yvette. “The woman beside her, three men across.”

In the shade of the canopy I called up the photo gallery on my phone, found the downloaded IvarDuggans pictures of Connor Donald, Eric Glassen, and Adam Revell. She identified Connor Donald and Revell as two of the three men in Daley’s party.

I found the Four Wheels for Jesus Ministry website photo of Pastor Reggie Atlas. “I know he wasn’t there that night, but...”

She took a long look, shaking her head. “He looks familiar, but I see hundreds of faces a week.”

I explained Atlas, his Cathedral by the Sea in Encinitas, his popular streaming sermons, his thousands of online followers.

“I go to Jah Love in El Cajon,” she said. “We’re lucky to get fifty people on any Sunday.”

On a long shot I found my downloads of the oddly old-fashioned family taking down the flag at Paradise Date Farm that evening.

Yvette Gibson swiped the screen with a slender finger, studied the image. Scrolled forward. Scrolled back.

“Yes. The couple,” she said. “They were dressed much nicer, and not wearing guns. Visibly, at least. Who are these people?”

I explained SNR the best I could: a private security company with accounts all over the country and ties to the Paradise Date Farm in the Imperial Valley, and the Cathedral by the Sea. Where, I pointed out, Daley Rideout had apparently attended at least once. Yvette handed my phone back.

“Mr. Ford? I have a thirteen-year-old girl. She’s looking for some kind of grown-up trouble, just like I was at her age. So much of it out there. This girl Daley. Maybe she’s looking for that kind of trouble. I’ll call you and Darrel if I see her again.”

I followed her downstairs and into the lobby. A frogman was in the aquarium, changing out a filter. Some of the fish fled in schools, others nosed closer to him with what looked like simple curiosity.

“I want you to tell me how this turns out,” said Yvette. “No matter how it breaks. You do that, Mr. Ford, I’ll buy us a drink and get us a quiet place to talk.”