The sentry jp-3 Page 3

  He sat in the Jeep for a while, then got out and walked the length of the block, first in the alley, then on the sidewalk. He took in the people on the sidewalks and in the stores, and the rooflines of the surrounding buildings. He studied the people behind the wheels of the passing cars, thinking about what she had said: They always come back.

  Pike was across from the gas station when a maroon Monte Carlo slow-rolled past with the windows down. Two young men were in front, with a third in back, all three showing gang ink and jailhouse faces. They stared at Pike as they passed, so Pike stared back.

  The man in the back seat made a gun of his hand, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

  Pike watched them go, thinking how Dru Rayne had run for cover.

  They always come back.

  No, Pike thought. Not if they fear you.

  3

  Way it worked for anyone else, Officer Hydeck would inform her watch commander that the victim and suspect were en route to the hospital. Her watch commander would relay this information to the Detective Bureau duty officer, who would dispatch detectives to the hospital, where they would speak with Smith and Mendoza, and likely the paramedics. If Mendoza ID'd his accomplice, their case would be made. If Mendoza refused to cooperate, the detectives would call Pike to arrange an interview. They would ask to drop by his home or place of employment, or arrange to meet at a mutually agreeable location, everything low-key and friendly. This was the way it would work if Pike were anyone else, but Pike knew it would work differently for him. Someone would recognize his name, and what the investigators did and how they approached the case would be different.

  Pike was correct.

  Eight hours, twenty-seven minutes after Pike eyeballed the maroon Monte Carlo, he returned home to find two detectives in his parking lot. Pike lived in a gated condominium complex in Culver City, not far from the scene of the assault. The condos were bunched in four-unit quads, and laid out so two or three quads shared their own parking lot. Entry to the complex required a magnetic key card to open the drive-through gate, but here they were, a male and a female detective waiting in a predictable tan Crown Victoria.

  They climbed out of their car as Pike pulled in, and were waiting with their badges when he stepped from the Jeep. The man was in his fifties, with a fleshy face, thinning red hair, and a blue summer-weight sport coat. The woman was fifteen years younger, with raven hair, black eyes, and a navy pants suit that hung as if she had recently lost weight. Her gun dimpled the coat at her waist, and she stood with her hand floating close as if she might have to draw. Nervous. Pike wondered what she had heard about him that left her so afraid.

  The older detective nudged the woman, showing her an exhibit at the zoo.

  "Joe Pike."

  Then, louder, to Pike, as if Pike was an animal who had been oblivious to the nudge.

  "When they said it was you, I thought, well now, if he doesn't shoot me, this one will make my day."

  The way he said it made Pike look closer. He now seemed familiar, but Pike did not recognize him.

  The man held his badge higher, making sure Pike saw.

  "What, Pike, you don't remember me? Jerry Button, from Rampart. Out of Pacific Station now. This is Detective Futardo. We're here on the Smith assault, so no shooting, okay? Don't shoot us."

  Rampart brought back the name, but this Jerry Button looked almost nothing like the sharp young officer Pike remembered. This Button was thirty pounds heavier, with blotchy skin and puffy eyes. That Jerry Button had gone through the Academy a couple of years ahead of Pike, and was a fast-track patrol officer in Rampart Division when Pike was a boot. They had been friendly, but not friends. Button had shunned him when Pike resigned, but most of his fellow officers had. Pike couldn't blame them.

  Pike read their ID cards, more than a car-length away. Futardo was a D-1, which told Pike she was new to the Detective Bureau and fresh out of a car. Button was now a Detective-3, which was a senior grade usually held by supervisors. A D-3 was too much horsepower for a simple assault.

  Pike said, "How's Mr. Smith?"

  Button ignored him as he put away his badge.

  "You carrying a weapon?"

  "Two. And the permits."

  Button nudged Futardo again.

  "Told you. He's always gunned up."

  Futardo's face was a dark little bunker.

  "Should we check the permits?"

  "Nah. You can't get away with dropping as many bodies as this guy without having your paperwork in order. Your paperwork's in order, isn't it, Pike? You good on the paper?"

  Pike stared at Button until Button finally laughed, and held up his hands.

  "Just kidding. Let's go inside, talk about what happened."

  "Out here is good."

  "C'mon, let's go inside. Inside is better."

  "The courtesy of a call gets you inside. No call, out here. The rudeness, out here is fine."

  Button darkened.

  "Are you going to cooperate or not?"

  "Ask your questions."

  "Here in the parking lot?"

  "Here."

  Button cued Futardo to take out a pad.

  "All right then, here. You know what we need. Tell us what happened."

  Pike related the sequence of events just as he had described them to Hydeck, including a description of the second assailant and the arrival and actions of the paramedics and police. Futardo scribbled fast to keep up, but Button looked bored, as if he had heard it all before and didn't much care one way or another.

  "According to Officer Hydeck, you produced a nine-millimeter pistol and told her you took it from Mendoza. Is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Mendoza claims you planted it on him."

  "What does Mr. Smith say?"

  "Says he never saw the gun. Is he lying?"

  Pike thought back over searching Mendoza.

  "No. He was facedown when I took the gun. If he didn't see the gun before I arrived, he wouldn't have seen it after. The gun was in Mendoza's pocket."

  Button glanced over at Futardo.

  "Okay, let's see the pictures."

  Futardo slipped a manila envelope from her jacket, and shook out several sheets.

  "We'd like you to look at some booking photos. Each sheet-"

  Button interrupted her.

  "He knows what they are. He used to be one of us. Don't forget that."

  Each sheet contained six color booking photos of adult males in their twenties and thirties, all of approximately the same size and weight. Because each sheet held six pictures, the sheets were called six-packs. Pike could tell by the tattoos that most were or had been members of Mendoza's gang.

  Pike identified Mendoza's partner on the second sheet, middle of the bottom row.

  "This one."

  Futardo cocked her head to see.

  "Figures. Alberto Gomer."

  Button spiked her with a nasty glance that made her pale. She had made a rookie mistake by identifying a suspect by name to a witness, and Button would chew her out for it later. She wet her lips nervously before continuing.

  "Will you sign a sworn affidavit so stating, and testify to that effect under oath in open court?"

  "Yes."

  Futardo took a pen from her jacket, and held out the sheet and the pen. Her fingers shook.

  "Circle the image you are now identifying as the man you saw assault Mr. Wilson Smith on this date and sign it."

  Pike circled and signed. Button hadn't been a bad guy when Pike knew him, but now he came across as angry and mean. Pike thought he was probably an asshole to work with.

  "Did Mr. Smith recognize him?"

  Button snorted.

  "None of these people looked familiar to Mr. Smith. Isn't it funny how that works? Mr. Smith was not what we call a helpful witness."

  Futardo softened for the first time as she took back the pictures.

  "He's afraid."

  Button snorted again, and cued Futardo.

  "Anyt
hing you want to ask, Detective?"

  Futardo finished whatever she was writing, and looked back at Pike.

  "Let's back up to when you first saw Mendoza and his friend. What were you doing when you saw them?"

  "Buying gas."

  "Uh-huh. And what were you doing in Venice?"

  "Buying gas."

  "So you just happened to be there?"

  "Where should I be?"

  "Had you met Mr. Mendoza before this morning?"

  Futardo was watching him closely, and Pike realized Button was watching him, too. As if they had been trying to get here from the beginning, and were intent on reading his reaction. They should have been asking about Wilson Smith and Reuben Mendoza, but they were asking Pike about Pike.

  "Where are you going with this?"

  "Wherever. Of all the people in L.A., it's you over there kicking the shit out of this turd."

  "Ask Mr. Smith."

  "I'm asking you. You're what makes this interesting."

  "This isn't about me."

  "It's about whatever I say."

  Pike nodded, and now he understood why a D-3 was running a simple assault investigation. Pike's voice was quiet as a leaf floating on a pond.

  "We're finished."

  "We're finished when I say we're finished."

  Futardo looked scared, and suddenly interrupted to defuse the situation.

  "What happens next is we'll type up your statement and call about getting together so you can sign it. You'll have to sign it."

  Button snapped at her.

  "He knows that. Saddle up. I'll be along in a minute."

  Futardo took her pad and the pictures and looked relieved to be going.

  Pike kept his voice soft.

  "What did you tell her about me, make her so scared?"

  "The truth."

  "You didn't come here to make a case against Mendoza."

  "We see a hundred assaults a day. A chickenshit assault case is nothing."

  "What happened to you? You used to be better than this."

  Button watched Futardo get into their car, then studied Pike for a moment as he worked out an answer.

  "I am a police officer. I believe in the law, and I have devoted my life to upholding it, but you, Pike, the law is nothing to you. These young cops, they talk about you like you're some kind of gunfighting legend, but I know you're shit. I don't like what happened when you were an officer, or how you've gotten away with putting so many people in the dirt since we ran you off the department. You're dangerous, Pike. There's something wrong with you, and sooner or later we'll put you away."

  Button went to his car, calling over his shoulder.

  "Thank you for your cooperation. We'll be in touch."

  Way it worked for anyone else, Button and Futardo would be trying to find out what really happened in Wilson Smith's shop, and making sure Mendoza and his accomplice couldn't hurt Wilson and Dru again. This was the way it would work if Pike were anyone else, but Pike knew it worked differently for him. Button didn't care about the assault or whether Wilson Smith would be assaulted or robbed again. Button was in it to grind Pike, which meant Wilson and his niece were alone.

  Pike was glad he had given his number to Dru Rayne.

  4

  He hadn't expected her to call so soon.

  Twenty-two minutes after eight the next morning, Pike was driving to his gun shop when his cell phone rang. He did not recognize the incoming number, but answered anyway.

  "Pike."

  "They came back. You said to call, and, well, I didn't know if I should-"

  Dru Rayne.

  Pike glanced at his watch to note the time, then turned toward the sandwich shop, thinking he could make it to her in less than six minutes.

  "Are they at your shop now?"

  He heard voices behind her and pressed the accelerator harder.

  "Ms. Rayne? Are you safe?"

  "They broke the window, and-Yes, I'm all right. I guess it happened last night. Oh, man, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. Wilson is-I'm sorry, I have to go."

  Pike eased off the accelerator, but continued to their shop, and once more pulled into the gas station across the street. He left his Jeep, and went to the curb for a better view. The front window was mostly missing, and the front door was now propped open with a black garbage can. A young man with a two-by-four was calmly breaking what was left of the glass from the frame. A woman wearing a bright aqua dress stood nearby, pointing out the remaining glass teeth as if directing him which to knock out next. Shadows moved inside, but Pike couldn't tell whether Dru Rayne was one of them.

  Pike studied the surrounding area, but saw no one who looked suspicious. Mendoza would still be in jail awaiting arraignment, so Gomer or Mendoza's banger friends had probably been behind it. Offering up a little payback for his arrest.

  Pike walked along the sidewalk for a better view of the surrounding buildings. No one drew his attention, but an inner radar slowly pinged with the weight of watching eyes. The young troops Pike knew, fresh back from the desert, called it spider-sense, taking the term from the Spider-Man movies. They told him if you humped the desert long enough you developed a sixth sense that tingled like angry ants when the crosshairs found your skin. Pike had humped jungles, deserts, and pretty much everywhere a man could hump for most of his life, and now he felt the tingle. He turned in a slow three-sixty to clock the storefronts and rooflines and passing cars, but saw nothing. Then the feeling ebbed like a receding tide until it was gone.

  The station manager came out of his office when Pike returned to his Jeep. He looked worried.

  "You aren't going to leave it here again, are you? You tied up my pump for more than an hour yesterday."

  "Not today."

  The manager looked relieved.

  Pike drove along the alley behind Wilson's shop, parked beside the Tercel, and let himself in.

  Wilson and Dru were in the front room, along with a second young man and the woman in aqua. The tables normally by the window were pushed to the side. Dru stood near them, speaking into her phone as Wilson swept glass onto a piece of cardboard the second kid was using as a dustpan. Wilson had been good at his word when he told the paramedics he wasn't going to stay at the hospital. A square yellow bandage now covered half of his forehead.

  The aqua woman was pleading with Wilson.

  "Would you please listen to Dru? You shouldn't be doing this. Your brain will fall out."

  "Let it. I'll be out of my misery."

  Pike saw the vandals had done more than shatter the window. A large splash of green paint cut across the floor, and another green smear made a freak rainbow on the wall behind the counter.

  Dru saw Pike first. The smile flickered in her eyes, then she held up a finger, telling him she had to finish the call.

  Wilson saw him next, and pushed angrily to force the glass onto the cardboard.

  "Look at this mess. You see this? I told you, just throw the bastard out, but no-now I've got these asshats on a vendetta."

  The aqua woman fluttered at the boy holding the cardboard.

  "Ethan, be careful of that glass. Watch you don't get cut."

  Dru quickly finished the call and came over, gesturing with the phone.

  "The glass people. They'll be here as soon as they can."

  Wilson swept even harder.

  "They coming for free?"

  Pike was focused on Dru. She had thrown on shorts and a faded T-shirt in her rush to the shop, and now her hair was mussed and her feet were smudged with green. Pike thought the smart eyes seemed worried this morning, but he couldn't stop looking at her-as if she were a book he wanted to read.

  "You okay?"

  The smile again, quick and calming, and she moved a step closer.

  "I'm fine. Thank you so much for coming. I didn't mean to waste your time."

  "You should call the police."

  Dru glanced at the aqua woman.

  "They've already been here. Betsy saw
the glass when she got in this morning. She called the police even before she called us."

  The aqua woman introduced herself.

  "Betsy Harmon. I have the shop next door. That was quite something, the way you saved Wilson."

  Wilson said, "Nobody saved me. I had it under control."

  Betsy rolled her eyes.

  "Just be glad he saved your scrawny butt and you should thank me for calling the police this morning. You'll need their report for your insurance."

  Wilson made a disgusted snort as he helped Ethan carry the pile of shattered glass on the cardboard to the garbage can.

  "There's no insurance here, lady. We pay as we go, one oyster at a time. I'm not made of money."

  He cocked an eye at Pike.

  "You know what that emergency room is gonna cost?"

  Wilson appeared to be breathing hard. Pike thought he had probably left the hospital against the doctor's advice, but here he was, making his place right. Pike liked him for that, and knew he would play it the same way. He turned back to Dru.

  "Anything missing?"

  "No, the police had us look. They just broke the window and threw in the paint. I don't think they came inside."

  Wilson said, "It was the same two cops as yesterday, the Mexican gal, what's her name?"

  Dru frowned.

  "Officer Hydeck probably wouldn't appreciate being called a Mexican. Or a gal."

  "She's supposed to tell the detectives, for all the good that's gonna do. I said, you know what, do me a favor, don't. You shoulda seen those idiots who came to the hospital."

  Wilson stopped sweeping to squint at Pike.

  "What's with all the questions about you? They were more interested in you than me. They're not gonna find the asshat who did this."

  Dru glanced up at Pike.

  "It has to be the man they arrested, doesn't it? Him and his friend?"

  Pike explained about Mendoza being still in custody, which left Wilson thoroughly disgusted.

  "Doesn't matter if it was him or his friends or his goddamned relatives. You watch. When he gets out, he's gonna come back and break it himself."