The Forgotten Man Page 8

  A gentle onshore breeze carried the smell and the taste from the sea, six blocks away. A thin maritime fog swirled overhead, bright with reflected light. The fog dampened neighborhood sounds, and left the world feeling empty. Pike watched me approach. When I reached him, we were in the street, two guys just waiting. We had no reason to wait, but something felt unfinished. I stared at Golden's house, wondering if I had forgotten an obvious question or an even more obvious conclusion. When I looked at Pike again, he was still watching me.

  "I saw how you looked at him. A couple of times in there when he said things."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Are you all right with this?"

  I glanced back at the house, but its face hadn't changed. It was a house. I didn't know if I was all right or not. I tried to explain.

  "I work a case for other people. It's always about someone else. This time, too; Faustina is a stranger—but it ended up feeling like I was here about me. I wasn't sure what to ask. None of it seemed as clear."

  I thought about it.

  "I guess."

  We stood in the street. Out on Main, a horn blew. A dog barked as if fighting for its life, and then the barking abruptly stopped. I smelled garlic.

  After a while, Pike said, "You did fine."

  We walked back up the street to his Jeep, then made the long drive back to my house, bumping along in traffic like a million other Angelenos, but the sense that my night's work was unfinished remained. We left the 405 at Mulholland and drove east along the spine of the mountains, neither of us speaking. The fields of light on either side of us that marked the city and the valley did not glitter that night. They were hidden behind lowering clouds. The stalled spring rain had thinned throughout the day, but now was returning.

  When we reached my house, Pike let me out at the mouth of my carport. He spoke for the first time since we had left Venice.

  He said, "It was the word, sad. Sad has an ugly weight."

  I knew right away what he was saying, and knew he was right.

  "Yes. It was when Golden said Faustina seemed sad. He wasn't just a stiff on a slab anymore. He was real, and what he felt was real. You're right about that word."

  "You want to go grab a beer or something?"

  "No, I'm good," I said.

  "We could go back to Golden's. Put two in his head for using that word."

  "Let's quit while we're ahead."

  I got out, closed his door, but didn't watch Pike drive away.

  My house was quiet, and empty. For the first time that day, I thought about Lucy. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to say something funny, and be rewarded with her laugh. I wanted to tell her about Herbert Faustina, and let her help me carry the weight of that word—sad. I wanted everything to be as it had been between us because if only I had her then maybe this business about Faustina wouldn't feel so important.

  But Lucy and Ben weren't inside and they weren't down the hill in their apartment. They were two thousand miles away, building a new life.

  I checked the phone, but no one had left a message. I washed my hands, took a Falstaff from the fridge, then put out fresh food for the cat. I called him.

  "Hey, buddy. You here?"

  I opened the French doors to the deck and called him again, but he did not appear.

  I leaned against the kitchen counter. The phone was three feet away. I went into the living room and turned on the tube. Maybe the Red Light Assassin had racked up another score. I went back to the phone, dialed most of Lucy's number, then stopped, not because I was scared but because I didn't want her to hurt and that was the way she wanted it. It should have been easy; just stop pretending that she wanted to hear my voice as much as I wanted to hear hers.

  After a while, I opened another Falstaff, then decided to take care of the unfinished business.

  Carol Starkey

  It was almost ten that night when Starkey idled past Elvis Cole's house, trying to work up the nerve to stop. His car was in its usual place, his house was lit, and her palms were as damp as the first time she faced down a bomb when she was a rookie tech with LAPD's Bomb Squad.

  Starkey, pissed at herself, said, "Jesus Christ, moron, just stop for Christ's sake. He's home. You drove all the way up here."

  The entire drive up from Mar Vista, Starkey had badgered herself as to what she would do and how she would do it: She would knock on his door, bring him over to the couch, and sit his ass down. She was gonna say, Hey, listen to me, I'm being serious—I like you and I think you think I'm cool, too, so let's stop pretending we're only friends and act like adults, okay?—and then she would kiss him and hope to hell he didn't toss her out on her ass.

  Starkey said, "All you gotta do is stop, go to the door, and do if."

  Starkey didn't stop. She crept past his house on the crappy little road, turned around in a gravel drive, then eased back with her lights off like some kind of lunatic stalker pervert, talking to herself the entire time because—her shrink said—hearing another human voice was better than hearing no voice at all, even if it was your own.

  Touchy-feely bullshit.

  Starkey parked up the street from Cole's house so she could keep an eye on things while she got herself together. If he came out he probably wouldn't recognize her car. Jesus, if Cole caught her sitting out here she would drive right off the cliff, no shit, just flat out punch the gas and pull a hard left straight down to the center of the earth and never come back.

  "Cole," she said. "You must be the densest man in Los Angeles and I am certainly the most pathetic female, so why can't we just get on with this?"

  Starkey felt around for her cigarettes and was disgusted to find she had only eight or nine left. They wouldn't last long. She lit one, sucked down half with one ferociously hot pull, then exhaled through her nose, feeling grumpy and frustrated. Here she was, a tough-ass bomb cop who had de-armed, defused, and defeated more than enough bombs to blow Cole's house right off the mountain, who had, herself, been blown apart in a goddamned trailer park, come back to tell about it, then gone on to beat and bury the most notorious serial bomber in U.S. history (that asshole, Mr. Red, who had blown up her house in the process, that prick!), and she couldn't work up the nut to bang on Cole's door. And then bang him.

  It wasn't for lack of trying. Starkey had asked Cole out, flirted with him shamelessly, and pretty much done everything short of putting a gun to his head. But Cole, that idiot, had it bad for his lawyer, the Southern Belle.

  Starkey scowled as if she had bitten a turd.

  "Looo-ceee."

  Every time she thought about Lucy Chenier, she pictured Lucille Ball, all that wild red hair, bulging eyes, and loony bullshit with Ethel Mertz. She could hear Ricky's voice.

  "Looo-ceee, I hooaaannn!"

  How could Cole say her name without laughing?

  Starkey finished the cigarette, tossed it, then lit another. Starkey wasn't short on nerve, but her stupid shrink had suggested she wasn't so much afraid of Cole's rejection as she was of eventually losing him. Starkey hadn't had the best of luck when it came to men. Not so many years ago she was head over heels in solid with her sergeant-supervisor on the Bomb Squad, Sugar Boudreaux, who still left her shaking when she thought about him, but Sugar had been killed with her in the trailer park. Then there was Jack Pell, the ATF agent she met on the hunt for Mr. Red. Starkey had been hitting the booze pretty good back then, and she was coming off Sugar and the effed-up ripped-apart surgical nightmare that was her patched-together body. One third of her right breast—missing in action; one fourth of her stomach—gone; three feet of intestine—adios; her spleen—what spleen?; and the Big Casino—her uterus ... and everything that went with it. Pell had been tender, and his passionate mercies had gone a long way toward helping her kick the booze, but after a while they both realized it wasn't The Love, Pell with his own uncertainties and Starkey with hers, both of them with so far yet to go.

  "Love'm and lose'm."

  And maybe that was her fear�
��if she had Cole then she would lose him, just as she lost Sugar and Pell—so it was safer to simply want him.

  Psychobabble bullshit.

  Starkey lit another cigarette, then slouched down in the seat, watching his house. She had liked Elvis Cole since they met on the night the little boy went missing. She liked his dopey sense of humor and the fierce way he tried to be normal even though he wasn't; she liked how he had given every part of himself to find that boy, and the loyalty she saw in his friends—

  Starkey grinned.

  —and it didn't hurt he had a hot ass, either.

  Starkey's laughter faded, and the hole it left filled with sadness. Truth be told, she had a crush on him, she was fascinated by him, she dwelled on him, and she wanted him to want her as much as she wanted him.

  Maybe he didn't like her.

  Maybe she wasn't his type.

  He was still in love with Lucy Chenier.

  Starkey let smoke drift from her mouth, up and over her face like a cloud, hiding her. She hadn't taken a drink in ten months. She wouldn't start now.

  All she had to do was go to his door and knock.

  "Do it!"

  Starkey pushed herself upright, flicked the cigarette away, then started her car as—

  Thirty yards away in his carport, brake lights came on and the grungy yellow Corvette backed out.

  Starkey said, "Shit!"

  She ducked, praying to Christ he didn't see her as the Corvette's tail swung around. She wedged herself all the way down on the seat, damn near under the wheel, and when she finally looked up he was gone.

  15

  The Missing

  "Father? Father, are you here?"

  "I'm coming, dear."

  Father Clarence Wills—called Father Willie by the patrons of Our Lady of Righteous Forgiveness Church—hoisted his creaky bones up from the floor of his closet and stepped into his office. Mrs. Hansen, who assisted him in his clerical duties, was waiting in the door with her purse and jacket.

  He said, "I was just trying to get those papers away. Why is it all the empty file space is at the bottom of these old cabinets?"

  "You're limping."

  "I'm always limping. It comes with age and too much port wine."

  Father Willie loved telling her things like that. Every time, she would cluck at him just as she did now, and, every time, he would smile, letting her know it was all just a naughty tease. Mrs. Hansen was short, overweight, and probably the only person in town shorter, fatter, and older than Father Willie.

  "It's dark out, Father. I'd like to be getting home."

  "That's fine, dear. We're finished for the day."

  "I don't like leaving after dark. It's not safe out in the night."

  "You could have gone two hours ago."

  "You were still working."

  "And I'll work after you leave. Just a few more things. Here, I'll see you out to your car."

  She clucked again as he pulled on his jacket. The thin air was growing nippy.

  "You big men think I'm silly, but something happened to all those people and it always happened at night. Javier is the same way, making fun of me like it's all in my head."

  Javier Hansen was her husband. Between them, Mr. and Mrs. Hansen had five children, sixteen grandchildren, and two greatgrandchildren, every one of them "corn-fed and farm-raised" as her husband liked to say, and all of them currently living somewhere else.

  "I'm not making fun, dear, but that was years ago and there was never any fact to go with the rumors. People get carried away with these things, and then start believing in werewolves."

  "Six people don't just up and vanish."

  "Six people spread over twenty years. Wives leave their husbands, husbands leave wives, children run away, people move on."

  "People say something when they move, good-bye or good riddance. They pay their bills and close their accounts—they don't just disappear like they were snatched off the face of the earth. Those children didn't just leave."

  Mrs. Hansen had worked herself up into a snit, though Father Willie had to agree about the children. Three of the six missing were minor children, the two little Ames girls and that Brentworth boy, gone missing in the span of eight months almost ten years ago. They hadn't just moved on like the adults might have, not those little girls and the boy. That was a clear-cut crime, no doubt about it, though the police had never been able to prove it or even name a suspect.

  Father Willie felt glum at the memory, and suddenly got it in his head to tease Mrs. Hansen out of her snit.

  "Well, I'm not going to let anything happen to you, dear, you can be sure of that!"

  He pulled out a shiny black Kimber .45-caliber semiautomatic, and waved it overhead.

  "Silver bullets! In case it's a werewolf!"

  Mrs. Hansen, who well knew about the Father's gun, rolled her eyes and turned away, smiling in spite of herself.

  "You put that thing away before you hurt yourself!"

  "The Lord will keep me safe; it's the werewolves who better watch out."

  Father Willie was no stranger to firearms, as Mrs. Hansen and everyone else who worked at the church knew. Father Willie was an avid sports marksman, and the gun had been a Christmas gift from his youngest brother. Having gotten Mrs. Hansen to smile, Father Willie slipped the pistol into his jacket, caught up to her in the hall, and saw her out to her car.

  Set back from the main road and surrounded by pines, the small parking lot seemed deserted with only two cars remaining, one being his Le Baron, the other her four-wheel-drive Subaru. Father Willie had always thought the middle darkness of early spring lent his church a cloak of isolation, though now the parking lot seemed unusually dark.

  She said, "Don't you work too late. You're not a young man. And don't get into that port wine until you're home. I don't want the police finding you on the side of the road."

  "Drive safely, Mrs. H. I'll see you tomorrow."

  Father Willie held the door for her, then watched her drive up the narrow road into blackness. He snuggled his hands into his pockets, his right hand just naturally finding the pistol's grip. As Mrs. Hansen's headlights disappeared, he saw his breath in the moonlight and suddenly realized why it was so dark—the two enormous security lamps that automatically came on when it got dark, hadn't. The lamps were perched on their poles like two dead owls.

  Father Willie made a mental note to tell the custodian in the morning, then started back to his office.

  "Father?"

  The voice startled him, but then Father Willie saw the man's embarrassed smile. The smile put him at ease.

  "Gosh, Father, I didn't mean to scare you. I thought you saw me."

  The man was large and fleshy, with a receding hairline and soulful eyes. His hooded sweatshirt made him appear even larger, standing in the shadows like he was, with his smile floating in darkness. Father Willie smiled awkwardly, too, because he was so startled that he was sure he squirted a whiz. Age brought a weak bladder.

  "I know we've met, but I don't recall your name. Sorry."

  "Frederick—Frederick Conrad, not Freddie or Fred—I work for Payne Keller, myself and Elroy Lewis."

  "That's right. Payne."

  Father Willie remembered. Frederick had once come to Mass with Payne, and when they were introduced, Frederick had pointed out that his name was not Freddie or Fred, but Frederick. Now Frederick shuffled closer, and Father Willie thought his eyes seemed lonely and cold.

  "I know Payne's been seeing you, Father, and I'm hoping you know what's going on."

  "What do you mean, son?"

  "Payne's missing. He hasn't been home and he didn't tell me or Elroy he was going, and we're left with his station to run. Tell you the truth, I'm worried. It's not like Payne to just up and go like this. I'm scared."

  Father Willie stood thinking. He had no wish nor right to share the matters of counsel with a parishioner, but Payne had spoken often of Frederick Conrad, and Father Willie himself had grown concerned about Pay
ne's absence. Payne was a troubled man, so deeply troubled that Father Willie often probed him for the possibility of suicide.

  Father Willie saw the concern on Frederick's face, and weighed what he could offer.

  "Payne didn't tell you he was going away?"

  "No, sir, and I'm getting scared. I'm thinking I should call the police."

  Father Willie thought calling the police might not be such a bad idea. His conversation with Mrs. Hansen about folks gone missing had put the spook into him, though he also knew that Payne had made plans.

  "Frederick, I don't think you need to call the police just yet. If you're truly worried, you should follow your heart, but Payne was planning a trip to Los Angeles. That much I can say. I didn't know he would go so soon or be gone so long, but he did tell me he was going."

  Something like a ripple worked across Frederick's face, and his eyes grew smaller.

  "Why Los Angeles?"

  "I can't really get into it, Frederick. Suffice it to say that Payne felt the need to make peace with himself. You ask him when he gets back."

  Frederick wet his lips.

  "Can you tell me how to reach him?"

  "I'm sorry."

  "Well, he just left us, Father. We have this station to run."

  Father Willie wanted to go home, but Frederick didn't move. The priest already regretted the conversation, reminding himself this was why you could never tell people anything—they always wanted to know more, and seemed to feel it was their right.

  "I really don't know what else to tell you. Maybe tomorrow you should call the police like you said."

  Father Willie tried to turn, but Frederick caught his arm, and the force of it almost pulled Father Willie off his feet.

  "He was planning this trip? It was Los Angeles, you said?"

  "I think you'd better calm down."

  "Why was he going to Los Angeles?"

  Father Willie stared into Frederick's eyes, and felt a fear he had not known since his days volunteering on death row at the penitentiary. He found the pistol in his pocket, and gripped it, then came to his senses. He let go of the gun. He drew his hand from his pocket and patted Frederick's hand, the same hand that held tight to his arm.