Т Паркер - Swift Vengeance

And al-Awlaki had been right here in the heart of America’s Finest City, quietly encouraging his foreign brothers to bring this country down in flames. Interestingly, the jihadi firebrand had twice been arrested for soliciting prostitutes, and pled guilty the second time. I remember that he left the United States in 2002, just after I joined the Marines. He went to England, then two years later to Yemen. There, he became the first American citizen to be officially assassinated by the CIA. A drone strike in September of 2011.

I thought of Lindsey and her Headhunters. We flagged some bad guys. Al-Awlaki? A fat chance and a long shot, but those things occasionally help me make a living. I went to the western window again. Lindsey was no longer watching the Ping-Pong battles.

Then footsteps on the stairs and a moment later she was standing in my office doorway, her cell phone in her hand, her face pale. She stepped inside and closed the door.

“Rasha Samara just called,” said Lindsey. “He was polite and didn’t sound like he wanted to cut off my head with a knife. He said he understood why we shouldn’t see each other again. He has complications in his life, and so must I. Then he said complications do not interest him. I interest him. He asked me to meet him in Tucson on Friday for an Arabian horse exhibition. His son is riding. Separate hotel suites for us, of course. Separate hotels , if I would prefer. He would pay for my flights, room, everything. I am free to bring a friend.”

“What did you say?”

She slumped onto a handsome, uncomfortable cowhide sofa. Reminded me of the way she’d landed on that barstool in the Pala Casino those two and a half years ago. I sat back down at the desk.

“I said I’d think about it,” she said.

“Were you afraid?”

“Yes.”

“Did he sense it?”

“I don’t know. I was surprised. Unprepared.”

“How did he get your cell number?”

“I gave it to him before our date in the desert. A just-in-case thing. What’s that on your monitor? A mosque?”

“Al-Rribat Al-Islami. It’s in San Diego.”

She gave me a funny look. “Terror central.”

“Al-Awlaki.”

“Weasely fucker. Whore buyer.”

“Did the Headhunters kill him?”

She smiled, tiredly. Shook her head. “Not us. That was 2011. We didn’t exist until later. What should I tell Rasha about Tucson?”

“Tell him no. But suggest that you’d be open to him calling you again.”

“Keep in touch? Enemies-closer kind of thing? I have to admit it, Roland — more than half of me is on Rasha’s side. I don’t want him to be a guy who wants to kill me. I want Caliphornia to be a bloodthirsty jihadi I can shoot between the eyes with a clear conscience. Someone I can hate.”

“And what if he isn’t?”

She shrugged. “That Taucher lady is one tough nut. I could practically feel the cuffs going on, just by the tone of her voice.”

“She’ll want to see you face-to-face at some point, Lindsey. I bought you a little time today, but I’m not sure how much. But you can trust her. Consider talking to her yourself. You don’t need me.”

“Yeah, I do. You make me feel safe and capable.”

“You’re both of those and more, Lindsey.”

“Exactly what more?” Her black hair was down and it put her face in partial shadow. I could see her eyes twinkling in that half-light, and something of her Indian mother in the bones of her face.

“You have strength,” I said. “Endurance, resolve.”

“A plow horse has all that.”

“A warrior does, too.”

She smiled again, less tiredly, I thought. Seemed to consider something for a second.

Outside, the Ping-Pong ball tick-tocked unevenly, like a wounded clock. “What about you, Roland? How do you feel?”

“Good. Solid.”

“I knew you’d say something like that,” Lindsey said. “You hold it all inside. I vent.”

“Different ways to put one foot in front of the other.”

“How long since Justine now?”

“Three and a half years,” I said. Didn’t have to think about it. Another kind of clock.

“Any prospects, Roland?”

I shrugged. I was coming off an affair that had started with a spark and ended in flames. Ghosts in the closet. Hers, not mine. Wasn’t inclined to get into all that with Lindsey.

“I never liked the shrink,” she said.

“I know you didn’t.” The shrink was Dr. Paige Hulet, another long story, part of the helicopter shootout that Taucher had mentioned. The shrink had taken a bullet for one of her troubled patients. The shrink and I had had a thing, but I’m not sure exactly what it was.

“Have you moved Justine’s things out of the bedroom?”

“Not really. I did the bathroom and dresser.”

“Her closet will be tough,” said Lindsey. “Let me know if I can help. I could go through her stuff, maybe be more practical about it. Less... attached.”

“That’s good of you.”

“Maybe sometimes it’s good not to think about her.”

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s a big old house you’ve got.”

I pulled open a desk drawer and got out a prepaid burner phone, Walmart, $49.99, brand-new and still in its box. “No GPS on this thing, Lindsey. Set it up and give the number to Rasha and anybody else you have to talk to in the next few days. Especially Taucher, or she’ll have both our skins.”

“You really think Caliphornia would ping me and track me down?”

“That’s what bad people do.”

We stood and she took the phone and gave me a look. “I like casita three,” she said. “I like those old Laguna paintings with the droopy eucalyptus trees and the sudsy waves. What’s rent, by the way?”

“Don’t worry about rent now.”

“I prefer worrying about it.”

“A thousand, then, with the running-for-your-life discount.”

“What’s with this Clevenger guy?”

“Old friend of Burt’s,” I said. “New Orleans, originally.”

“What’s he do for work?”

“Documentary nature journalist, he says. TV. Award-winning.”

“All TV people are award-winning.”

“He’s making a show about the coyotes of Fallbrook.”

“Plenty of subject matter around,” said Lindsey.

“He uses drones to shoot video.”

“You don’t do background checks on your renters, do you, Roland?”

“I believe in privacy.”

“That’s crazy, coming from a PI,” Lindsey said.

“Life is contradiction.”

“Hmmm.” Lindsey looked around my office. It’s filled with stuff I like. Books on history. Totems from the Northwest. Pottery from the Southwest. Photographs by Ansel Adams and Beth Moon. Pictures of my parents and siblings. Collars and tags belonging to the dogs I’ve had. A striking portrait of Justine by a well-known photographer, commissioned by her mother and father for her twenty-first birthday. Shots of Justine in Hall Pass . A maple stand for my fishing rods, reels, and related tackle in the drawers below. A model made from a picture of a large trout I caught in the Sierras, the fish jumping through a clear acrylic river, splashing clear acrylic water into the air. A genuine saber-toothed cat skull I accepted in trade for a job. A gun safe.

“Any leads on the cat?” she asked.

Tammy, the cat’s owner, had been given my number by a semiharmless sociopath I once helped out of a jam here in town. He thought I would be kind enough to help her, even though she had little money. Tammy had broken into tears in my living room. Oxley meant the world to her.

Now Tammy reported any and all possible sightings to me, as well as helpful stories and speculations from people she had talked to. Tammy was a talker. She had raised quite a posse through the Fallbrook Friends Facebook page.