Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

I sincerely thank the following men for their help in researching this book: Sgt. Toby Tyler of the San Bernardino Sheriff Department; Rex Tomb, Neal Schiff and Douglas Goodin of the FBI in Washington, D.C.; Deputy Gary Bale of the Orange County Sheriff Department; Larry Ragle, retired director of the Orange County Crime Laboratory; Dr. Gregory Robinson of the Social Science Research Center of California State University Fullerton; and not least, Laguna Beach artist Mark Chamberlain. The facts are theirs; the mendacities are mine and mine alone.

I am the champion of the little people.

Their shield.

Their sword.

I live in the world of men and women, because I have to. But my eyes see what the little people see; I hear what they hear. They are my constituents, all the children who are ignored or abandoned, damaged, hurt, exploited, hated, used. They are a secret society and I am their ambassador to the world. Their friends are my friends and their enemies are my enemies. Their dreams are mine, too. We are one.

Crimes Against Youth. CAY for short. It is my unit, within the Orange County Sheriff Department, and I am credited with starting it. There were just three of us, in the beginning. Then four, due to some of the things I accomplished. Now there are only three again, due to one thing at which I failed.

My name is Terry Naughton. I am forty years old, divorced and childless. Once, I had a son. And it was he, Matthew, who first invited me into the world of the small ones. He was five when he left here, and I was very close to him when he went away. That was two years ago. He is the not-so-secret reason for everything that I have done since that day. He is closer to me now than he ever was when he was here. Then, Matthew was living in a body of his own — a perfect, brown, strong little body that delighted me more than anything on earth. Now, he has only mine to live through, because I am the jealous protector of his soul. My old man’s body is afar cry from his beautiful new one, I know. But heaven won’t dare try to claim him until I have met The Horridus. I need Matthew inside me for that. I need his strength, his innocence, his laughter, his love.

“She’ll like you.”

Fathers, always proud of their girls.

Chet Alton was proud, with good reason. I’d seen Lauren’s picture — a skinny ten-year-old with innocent eyes and a smile that looked just a little reluctant. Fair student. Well behaved. Quiet, observant, gentle.

“Makes up her own mind,” Chet was saying, “on who she likes and who she doesn’t. And she makes it up fast. But sometimes I have a talk with her, you know, because friends are friends.”

Chet turned onto Tustin Avenue. I saw the white sedan in a parking lot, Johnny Escobedo and Frances White watching us go by before falling in. It was a clear, breezy April day, and inland Orange County passed across the windshield of Chet Alton’s car with a hard specificity: blue sky, black asphalt, a white Transit Authority bus with an orange band around it, a row of tan palms with their heads bent.

Not far from here is where The Horridus abducted his first victim. She was found later out in a wilderness park — wearing a black velvet hood without eyeholes; a tunic of gauzy white netting that suggested the angelic; hands taped behind her back; wearing clothes not her own; bruised and dazed — but alive. She was five. I can’t get within a few miles of a place where The Horridus has taken a girl without feeling the hairs on my neck bristle and a cool tightening of my scalp. He had taken his second by the time I was sitting in Chet Alton’s car, and we didn’t have a suspect. Few leads. Little evidence. And no suspect. Yet. Agent Mike Strickley at the FBI was due in with a profile for me the next day. And here I was, riding around with a small-time shitwrap like Chet, doing what I could to get him off the street. It’s hard to keep from getting furious.

“You okay, Art?” he asked me. “Seem kind of quiet.”

“Thinking.”

“Second thoughts kind of stuff?”

“Not that.”

“May as well get the money part over with, then.”

I was hoping to do this at the house. But I took the envelope out of my sport coat and set it on the gray plastic console between us. He let it sit there a minute, then picked it up and gave it a confirming squeeze.

“No reason to count it,” he said. “This is about money, sure, because money makes things happen, but it’s more about friends. Friends are all that matter. People like us.”

Chet looked at me and gave me his fungoid grin, the Chet-likes-Chet grin he uses when pleased by himself. He’s dark haired, pale and soft, has those fingernails that are manicured into hard little flips at the ends. A very clean man, physically. Well groomed. Suits, white shirts, bright ties. Dimples, and a smile that’s morally bankrupt. He sells phone systems to businesses and made a little over sixty-five grand at it last year. Thirty-six, married twelve years, father of one. His real name is Alton Allen Sharpe. Priors for exposing a minor to harmful matter — his own obscene phone calls — pandering and lewd conduct, but nothing in his jacket for the last ten years. That was about to change.

“I’m glad we met, Chet.”

The meet was accomplished months ago through “Danny,” one of Chet’s old friends, who ratted out Chet and his daughter in exchange for the DA’s leniency in charging him. We got to Danny through an eavesdropping bartender, some long surveillance and a hard-earned phone tap. I’ll lobby hard to have Danny’s leniency deal revoked, once I’ve stripped him of every useful thing I can strip him of. I intensely dislike these people. And that’s nothing, compared to what we’ll throw at Chet. My mouth was dry and I had to keep from looking for Johnny and Frances in the side view.

“Me too, Art,” he said.

For right now I am Art Means, an unemployed trust-funder with appetites not sanctioned by society, a man more curious than evil. It was a good cover, one I’d used before. I have the CDL, the credit cards, the initials engraved on an old pen I carry for Chet. He has not connected Art Means with Terry Naughton, and there’s little way he could. He doesn’t trust me, as a matter of course. There is, in fact, hardly a shred of honor among thieves.

Chet made a left on Collins. We were headed for a rented house with a pool that he and his wife, Caryn, maintain for people like me — the friends of Chet. Caryn furnished it. She will be there, with Lauren, when we arrive. So will Danny and one other man. Chet’s program is, Caryn will barbecue and Lauren will maybe help a little, but mostly stay in her room. That’s how she likes it. The men will eat, drink themselves ready and talk. After that, Caryn and Lauren will take over. Chet says we’ll end it by ten, because Lauren’s got school in the morning. He told me it was $1,500 for my first time, a “taster.” After that, $2,000.

My program was different. We had the whole house wired for sound. The backyard patio and garage, too. The outside team had earphones and radios. Johnny, Frances and Louis would make their move as late as they could — we wanted Chet and Caryn and their friends as deeply committed as we could get them. We’d have four uniforms out front for backup, two more on the street behind the house. The helicopter patrols were on orders to stay out of the sky around us unless we called them in, but if we did, they’d streak down like hawks. I also had my contact at County News Bureau — CNB — on standby, because I like to get my unit all the credit it deserves. The CNB cameras have been kind to us so far. There were also two state Youth Services officers, females, to take custody of Lauren. Lauren’s real name is Linda Elizabeth, by the way. I was somewhat concerned about Chet’s other friend — Marlon — who Chet says has a gun and an attitude. Usually, these child rapers aren’t the type to carry. Usually, they’re a friend of the family. Usually, they are precisely the kind of giggling pukes you would expect to find involved in something like this. Guys like Chet.