Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

All of which meant that Rasha Samara and Roland Ford had some things in common.

Born in California, schooled in California.

Close in age — Rasha forty and I’m thirty-nine now.

Both widowed in our thirties.

Self-employed.

Tight-lipped, prickly, and private.

We were both prosperous, too, what with Rasha Samara’s twenty-five-million-dollar TerraNova bringing golf to the planet, and my private investigations — half of which involved a missing twenty-two-pound cat named Oxley.

The Arabian Horse Association newsletter from October 2016 had by far the longest quotes from Rasha Samara:

Arabian Horse Association: What is it that draws you to the Arabian horse?

Rasha Samara: Stamina and spirit and loyalty.

AHA: Loyalty?

RS: When Muhammad finished one of his journeys through the desert, he set his horses free so they could race to the oasis for water. The animals were crazed with thirst. As a test, he called them back. Only five horses turned and came. Mares. These loyal mares became known as Al Khamsa, which means “the Five.” Legend has it that they became the founders of the five strains of Arabian, but you know how unreliable legends can be. The horse is the thing. The horse is always the thing.

AHA: How many Arabians do you own?

RS: That’s private information.

AHA: What can the AHA do to increase the popularity of the breed and develop new interest in it?

RS: Well, stage competitions and contests and give big prizes, I guess. I don’t think a breed has to be popular. It has to speak to you, personally. Arabians are proud and intelligent and don’t put up with bad trainers or riders. They’re not for everyone.

Like most PIs, I subscribe to some large-caliber information-peddling services. They’re all online now. My choices are www.tlo.com, www.tracersinfo.com, and www.IvarDuggans.com, though I use others, too. These services are expensive and good at what they do. Their best clients are banks, collection agencies, insurance companies, and law enforcement, so my sole-proprietorship is very small potatoes to them. But as a licensed PI I get good access so long as I pay good money. And they are fast.

Basically, they work the same way. If you’re a small business like me, you pay per transaction. You log on with your username and password, which gives you access to their databases. You input your subject name — even a partial name, or a phonetically approximated one, will often work just fine. Proprietary algorithms kick in as you stare out the window at a red-shouldered hawk circling in blue sky on a cool December afternoon. As you look at the cattails along one side of a pond and wonder where the blackbirds went. As you wonder what an algorithm actually is. As you think about people you have loved and some of them lost. As you wonder what a single thirty-nine-year-old male with a degree in history and an honorable discharge from the U.S. Marines and a one-fight pro boxing career and a license to conduct investigations in the state of California might be better doing with his life.

IvarDuggans.com took thirty minutes to kick back most of the basics — full name, DOB, history of home and business addresses, phone, fax and email, Social Security number, current vehicle registrations, websites, neighbors, roommates, relatives (many), known associates (many), professional licenses, fictitious business names, tax liens, registered watercraft and aircraft (none current), and corporate records for TerraNova since its inception.

Plus, this bonus highlight for Roland Ford, PI:

CRIMINAL RECORDS: Subject arrested for brandishing a weapon (curve-bladed janbiya knife) at UC Irvine Pi Phi women’s fraternity party, October 1998. Partygoers later blamed misunderstanding between intoxicated fraternity members and subject. No charges filed.

That sent a cool tingle to the scar above my left eye. The scar is Y-shaped and it came from a big right in my first and last pro fight. Saw it coming but didn’t have the legs left to escape. I was outclassed and knew it.

I launched myself back on the task chair, timing my rotation to put me facing the western window again. Looking down, I saw the palapa and the pond. On the patio, two of the Irregulars were engaged in table tennis. Burt Short versus the newly arrived Dale Clevenger. Lindsey watching as she leaned against one of the palapa poles, the poster of green-eyed Oxley tacked to the pole just above her shoulder. Grandfather Dick and Grandmother Liz reclining on patio chaise longues, their backs to the competition, apparently arguing. I wasn’t in the mood to watch Ping-Pong.

I pedaled back to the desk and read the CRIMINAL RECORDS entry again. What possible good could come from taking a large knife to a frat party?

IvarDuggans also included three pictures of Rasha — one at his high school commencement in 1995, another riding in an AHA endurance competition in 2002 when he was twenty-four years old, and a casual newspaper portrait taken with newly engaged bride-to-be Sally Meadows. Even as a graduating high-schooler, Rasha Samara looked calm, serious, and focused. Slender and handsome. In his newspaper engagement photo he wore a mustache and Vandyke, neatly trimmed, and his black wavy hair long.

I could hear the Ping-Pong ball faintly clicking back and forth outside. Followed by Burt Short’s cackle, then Clevenger’s homey drawl.

I thought of one Hector O. Padilla and the Masjid Al-Rribat Al-Islami on Saranac Street, San Diego, where Padilla had apparently been active lately. I’d been to this mosque several times as part of my rounds as a JTTF foot soldier back in 2010 and 2011, doing my best to ingratiate myself to people who were suspicious and afraid of me.

IvarDuggans.com gave me a brief profile on Hector O. Padilla, age twenty-eight, of El Cajon, which bordered the city of San Diego not far from Masjid Al-Rribat. Five feet six inches tall, one hundred seventy pounds, single. Padilla was born in the border city of San Ysidro. High school graduate, some community college courses, no degree. Failed physical requirements for U.S. Marines and Army, subsequently employed as a dishwasher, landscape maintenance worker, janitor, door-to-door cutlery salesman, and veterinary hospital night-shift worker, with workers’ comp and state disability checks helping in between. Bad back. Currently employed as custodian at First Samaritan Hospital in San Diego. Included was a picture slightly better than the one Taucher had thrown her dart at. Padilla looked unremarkable. I wondered what had led him to Al-Rribat in recent days. Nothing came to mind, except for the idea that Hector O. Padilla had apparently spent much of his life more or less adrift.

The Al-Rribat Al-Islami Web page contained basic information:

TODAY’S CALENDAR

EVENING PRAYERS — MAGHRIB — AT 5:08 P.M.

FELLOWSHIP DINING 6 P.M. TO 7 P.M.

QUR’AN STUDY 7 P.M. TO 8 P.M.

VISITATION INFORMATION

VISITORS, PLEASE REMOVE YOUR SHOES WHEN ENTERING THE PRAYER HALL. SHOES CAN BE WORN IN OFFICES, THE LIBRARY, OR THE MULTIPURPOSE ROOM.

VISITORS, PLEASE KNOW THAT IN THE ISLAMIC TRADITION, MEN AND WOMEN DO NOT SHAKE HANDS WHEN INTRODUCED TO EACH OTHER.

THERE IS A SEPARATE PRAYER HALL FOR WOMEN, UPSTAIRS. THE PRAYER HALL FOR MEN IS LOCATED DOWNSTAIRS.

VISITORS, PLEASE DRESS MODESTLY AND KNOW THAT IT IS RESPECTFUL FOR A WOMAN TO WEAR A HEAD SCARF, ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT REQUIRED.

PLEASE KEEP VOICES RESPECTFUL.

VISITORS, PLEASE CHECK IN WITH FRONT OFFICE BEFORE ENTERING THE CENTER.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO HOSTING YOU AND OTHERS IN A SPIRIT OF BROTHERHOOD, PEACE, AND UNITY.

I knew, as did most of San Diego, that Al-Rribat Al-Islami was a Sunni mosque, notorious as a place of worship for two of the 9/11 hijackers, and for its charming and outspoken one-time imam, American-born Anwar al-Awlaki. According to Taucher’s FBI, al-Awlaki had covertly encouraged jihad in the months leading up to the 9/11 attacks, and had closed-door meetings with the two San Diego hijackers. Sitting in my office here and now — seventeen years after the attacks — I could surmise that al-Awlaki was at the top of Joan’s regret list, right behind the two hijackers themselves, who were actually living with one of her FBI informants. Although these two soon-to-be hijackers were not on the radar of Taucher and her FBI confederates, the CIA had been watching them closely for months, as they conspired with other suspected al-Qaeda terrorists and received combat training in Yemen. Of course, the CIA had failed to share this minor intel with the FBI, and a few weeks later America woke up to what started as a pleasant September morning.