The Last Detective

CHAPTER 11

time missing: 28 hours, 02 minutes

Joe Pike

Pike sat unmoving within the stiff branches and leathery leaves of a rubber tree across from Lucy Chenier's apartment. Small gaps between the leaves afforded him a clean view of the stairs leading up to her apartment, and a lesser view of the street and sidewalk. Pike carried a Colt Python. 357 Magnum in a clip holster on his right hip, a six-inch SOG fighting knife, a.25caliber Beretta palm gun strapped to his right ankle, and a leather sap. He rarely needed them. Lucy was safe.

When Cole dropped Pike off earlier that evening, Pike had approached Lucy's apartment on foot from three blocks away. The man who took Ben could have been watching Lucy's apartment, so Pike checked the nearby buildings, roofs, and cars. When he was satisfied that no one was watching, Pike circled the block to come up behind the bungalows across the street. He slipped into the dense trees and shrubs surrounding them, and became a shadow within other shadows. He wondered what was happening at Hollywood Station, but his job was to wait and watch, so that's what he did.

Lucy's white Lexus appeared an hour or so later. She parked at the curb, then hurried upstairs. Pike had not seen her since he left the hospital some months ago; she was smaller than he remembered, and now carried herself with a stiffness that indicated she was upset.

Richard's black limo rolled up ten minutes after Lucy got home and double-parked alongside her Lexus. Richard got out by himself and climbed the stairs. When Lucy opened the door she was framed by gold light. The two of them spoke for a moment, then Richard went in. The door closed.

The Marquis arrived from the opposite direction, Fontenot driving with DeNice along for the ride. They stopped in the street with their engine idling. Myers jumped out of the limo to speak with them. Pike tried to listen, but their voices were low. Myers was angry and slapped the top of the Marquis. " – this is bullshit! Get your shit together and find that kid!" Then he trotted for the stairs. DeNice got out of the Marquis and into the limo. Fontenot accelerated away, but swung into a driveway one block up, turned around, and parked in the dark between two trees. Even as Fontenot parked, Richard and Myers hurried down, got into the limo, and sped away. Pike waited for Fontenot to follow them, but Fontenot settled behind the wheel. Now two of them watched Lucy. Well, one and a half.

Pike was good at waiting, which was why he excelled in the Marines and other things. He could wait for days without moving and without being bored because he did not believe in time. Time was what filled your moments, so if your moments were empty, time had no meaning. Emptiness did not flow or pass; it simply was. Letting himself be empty was like putting himself in neutral: Pike was.

Cole's yellow Corvette pulled to the curb. Like always, it needed a wash. Pike kept his own red Jeep Cherokee spotless, as well as his condo, his weapons, his clothes, and his person. Pike found peace in order, and did not understand how Cole could drive a dirty car. Cleanliness was order, and order was control. Pike had spent most of his life trying to maintain control.

Elvis Cole

The jacaranda trees that lined Lucy's street were lit by lamps that were old and yellow with age. The air was colder than in Hollywood, and rich with the scent of jasmine. Pike was watching, but I could not see him and did not try. Fontenot was easy to make, hunched in a car up the block like Boris Badenov pretending to be Sam Spade. I guess Richard wanted someone watching out for Lucy, too.

I climbed the stairs and knocked twice at her door, soft. I could have used my key, but that seemed more confident than I felt.

"It's me."

The deadbolt turned with a quiet slap.

Lucy answered in a white terry robe. Her hair was damp and combed back. She always looked good that way, even with her face dosed and unsmiling.

She said, "They kept you a long time."

"We had a lot to talk about."

She stepped back to let me in, then closed and locked the door. She was holding her cordless phone. The television was running something about vegetarians with brittle bones. She turned it off, then went to the dining room table, all without looking at me, just as she hadn't looked at me when she left Gittamon's office.

I said, "I want to talk to you about this."

"I know. Would you like some coffee? It's not fresh, but I have hot water and Taster's Choice."

"No, I'm okay."

She put the phone on the table, but kept her hand on it. She looked at the phone.

"I've been sitting here with this phone. Ever since I got home I've been scared to put it down. They set up one of those trap things on my phone in case he calls again, but I don't know. They said I could make calls like normal, and not to worry about it. Ha. Like normal."

I guess staring at the phone was easier than looking at me. I covered her hand with mine.

"Luce, what he said, those things aren't true. Nothing like that happened, none of it."

"The man on the tape or Richard? You don't have to say this. I know you couldn't do anything like that."

"We didn't murder people. We weren't criminals."

"I know. I know that."

"What Richard said -"

"Shh."

Her eyes flashed hard, and the shh was a command.

"I don't want you to explain. I've never asked before, and you've never told me, so don't tell me now."

"Lucy -"

"Don't. I don't care."

"Luce -"

"I've heard you and Joe talk. I've seen what you keep in that cigar box. Those are your things to know, not mine, I understand that, like old lovers and the stupid things we do when we're kids -"

"I wasn't hiding anything."

"- I thought, he'll tell me if he needs to, but now it all seems so much more important than that -"

"I wasn't keeping secrets. Some things are better left behind, that's all, you move past and go on. That's what I've tried to do, and not just about the war."

She slipped her hand from under mine, and sat back.

"What Richard did tonight, that was unforgivable, having you investigated. I apologize. The way he dropped that folder on the table -"

"I got into some trouble when I was a kid. It wasn't horrendous. I wasn't hiding it from you."

She shook her head to quiet me and lifted the phone in both hands as if it was an object of study.

"I've been holding onto this goddamned phone so tight that I can't feel my hand, wondering whether I'll ever see my baby again, and I thought if only I could force myself into the mouthpiece through these little holes and come out on the other end of the line -"

She stiffened with a tension that made her seem brittle. I leaned toward her, wanting to touch her, but she drew back.

"- to get my baby; I saw myself doing it the way you see yourself in a dream, and when I squeezed out of the phone at the other end, Ben was in a nice warm bed, safe and sleeping, this beautiful peaceful ten-year-old face, so peaceful that I didn't want to wake him. I watched his beautiful face and tried to imagine what you looked like when you were his age -"

She looked up with a sadness that seemed painful.

"- but I couldn't. I've never seen a childhood picture of you. You never mention your family, or where you're from, or any of that except for the jokes you'll make. You know, I tease you about Joe, how he never talks, Mr. Stone face, but you don't say any more than him, not about the things that matter, and I find that so strange. I guess you moved on."

"My family wasn't exactly normal, Luce -"

"I don't want you to tell me."

"- my grandpa raised me, mostly, my grandfather and my aunt, and sometimes I didn't have anyone -"

"Your secrets are your own."

"They're not secrets. When I was with my mother, we moved a lot. I needed rules, and there weren't any rules. I wanted friends, but I didn't have any because of the goofy way we lived, so I made some bad choices and got in with bad kids -"

"Shh. Shh."

"I needed someone to be there, and they were what I had. They came around with a stolen car, and I went along for a ride. How dumb is that?"

She touched my lips.

"I mean it. You keep your life inside like little secret creatures. All of us do, I guess, but it's different now, we're different, what it means to me is different."

She touched my chest over my heart.

"How many secret creatures do you keep?"

"I'll find Ben, Luce. I swear to God I'll find him and bring him home."

She shook her head so gently that I almost did not see.

"No."

"Yes, I will. I'll find him. I'm going to bring him home."

Her sadness grew to an ache so clear that it broke my heart.

"I don't blame you for this happening, but that doesn't matter. All that matters is that Ben is gone, and I should have known it would happen."

"What are you talking about? How could you know?"

"Richard is right, Elvis. I shouldn't be with you. I shouldn't have let my child stay with you."

My belly cramped with a sour heat. I wanted her to stop.

"Luce -"

"I really and truly don't blame you, but things like this – like what happened in Louisiana and last year with Laurence Sobek – I can't have those things in my life."

"Lucy. Please."

"My son had a normal childhood before I knew you. I had a normal life. I let my love for you blind me, and now my son is gone."

Tears gathered on her lashes, then fell along her cheeks. She didn't blame me she blamed herself.

"Luce, don't talk like that."

"I don't care what that man said on the tape, but I could hear his hatred for you. He hates you, and he has my son. He hates you so much that you can only make it worse. Leave it to the police."

"I can't walk away I have to find him."

She gripped my arm and her nails cut into my skin.

"You're not the only person who can find him. It doesn't have to be you."

"I can't leave him. Don't you see?"

"You'll get him killed! You're not the only one who can do this, Elvis; you're not the last detective in Los Angeles. Let the others find him. Promise me."

I wanted to help her stop hurting. I wanted to pull her close and hold her and feel her hold me, but my own eyes filled and I shook my head.

"I'm going to bring him home, Luce. I can't do anything else."

She let go of my arms, then wiped her eyes. Her face was as dark and hard as a death mask.

"Get out."

"You and Ben are my family."

"No. We're not your family."

I felt impossibly heavy, like I was made of lead and stone.

"You're my family."

"GET OUT!"

"I'll find him."

"YOU'LL GET HIM KILLED!"

I left her like that and went down to my car. I couldn't feel the chill anymore. The sweet scent of the jasmine was gone.

Joe Pike

Elvis got into his car, but sat without moving. Pike touched a leaf out of the way, better to see. When Cole's cheek caught the light, he saw that Cole was crying. Pike took a deep breath. He worked hard to keep his moments empty, but that wasn't always easy.

After Cole drove away, Pike left the rubber tree and slipped through the shadows alongside the bungalow and into the adjoining yard. He worked his way up an alley until he was a block behind Fontenot, then crossed to Lucy's side of the street. He moved in the shadows and passed within fifteen feet of Fontenot's car, but Fontenot did not see him. Pike slipped behind the birds- of- paradise, then up to Lucy's door. Fontenot was out of the picture. The building blocked his view.

Pike stood well back from the peephole. Lucy had been uneasy with him since the Sobek business, so he wanted her to see him before she opened the door. He knocked. Soft.

The door opened.

Pike said, "I'm sorry about Ben."

She was a strong, good-looking woman, even wrung out the way she was. Before Lucy and Ben moved from Louisiana and before the Sobek thing, Pike had joined her and Elvis at a tennis court. Neither Pike nor Elvis knew much about tennis, but they played her just to see, the two of them on one side against Lucy on the other. She was quick and skillful; her balls snapped low across the net just out of reach. She laughed easily and with confidence as she cut them to pieces. Now, she looked uncertain.

"Where's Elvis?"

"Gone."

Lucy glanced past him at the street.

She said, "When did you get back from Alaska?"

"A few weeks ago. May I come in?"

She let him enter. After she closed the door, she waited with her hand on the knob. Pike saw that she was uncomfortable. He wouldn't be staying.

"I'm across the street. I thought you should know that."

"Richard has someone outside."

"I know about him. He doesn't, about me."

She closed her eyes and leaned against the door as if she wanted to sleep until this was over. Pike thought he understood. It must be terrible for her with Ben missing. His own mother took the punches meant for him. Every night.

Pike wasn't clear why he had come or what he wanted to say. It was good to be clear. He was unclear about too many things these days.

Pike said, "I saw Elvis leave."

She shook her head, still with her eyes closed, still leaning into the door.

"I don't want either of you involved. You'll only make things worse for Ben."

"He hurts."

"Jesus, I hurt, too, and it's not your business. I know he's hurt. I know that. I'm sorry."

Pike tried to find the words.

"I want to tell you something."

The weight of his silence made her open her eyes.

"What?"

He didn't know how to say it.

"I want to tell you."

She grew irritated and stood away from the door.

"Jesus, Joe, you never say anything but here you are. If you want to say something, say it."

"He loves you."

"Oh, that's too perfect. God knows what's happening to Ben, but it's all about him to you."

Pike considered her.

"You don't like me."

"I don't like the way violence follows you; you and him. I've known police officers all my life, and none of them live like this. I know federal and state prosecutors who've spent years building cases against murderers and mob bosses, and none of them have their children stolen – in New Orleans, for God's sake, and none of them draw violence like you! I was out of my mind to get involved in this."

Pike considered her, then shrugged.

"I haven't heard the tape. All I know is what Starkey told us. Do you believe it?"

"No. Of course not. I told him so. Jesus, do I have to have that conversation again?"

She blinked, then crossed her arms, holding tight.

"Goddamnit, I hate to cry."

Pike said, "Me, too."

She rubbed hard at her face.

"I can't tell if that's a joke. I never can tell if you're joking."

"If you don't believe those things, then trust him."

She shouted now.

"It's about Ben. It's not about me or him or you. I have to protect myself and my son. I cannot have this insanity in my life. I am normal! I want to be normal! Are you so perverted that you think this is normal? It isn't! It is insane!"

She raised her fists as if she wanted to pound his chest. He would have let her, but she only stood with her hands in the air, crying.

Pike didn't know what else to say. He watched her for a time, then turned off the lights.

"Turn them on after I'm gone."

He let himself out. He slipped down the stairs and through the shrubs, thinking about what she had said until he was alongside the Marquis. The windows were down. Fontenot was hunched low behind the wheel like a ferret peering over a log. Here was Pike, ten feet away, and Fontenot didn't know. Pike hated him for it. Fontenot had seen Elvis come out of Lucy's apartment, and Pike hated him for having seen his friend in such pain. The empty moments that swirled around Pike filled with rage. Their growing weight became a tide. Pike could have killed Fontenot ten minutes ago, and thought about killing him now.

Pike moved closer to the Marquis. He touched the rear door. Fontenot didn't know. Pike slapped the roof, the sound as loud as a gunshot. Fontenot made a startled grunt as he jumped, and scrambled under his jacket for his gun.

Pike aimed at Fontenot's head. Fontenot went completely still when he saw Pike's gun. He relaxed a bit when he recognized Pike, but he was too scared to move.

"Jesus Christ, what are you doing?"

"Watching you."

Fontenot's face floated at the end of Pike's gun like a target balloon. Pike tried to speak, but the wave of heavy moments drowned his voice into a whisper and threatened to carry him away.

"I want to tell you something."

Fontenot glanced up and down the sidewalk like he expected to see someone else.

"You scared the shit out of me, you motherfucker. Where'd you come from? What in hell are you doin'?"

Pike emptied the moments as they washed over him. He fought the wave back.

"I want to tell you."

"What?"

The moments emptied. Pike had control. He lowered the gun.

Fontenot said, "What is it you wanna say, goddamnit?"

Pike didn't answer.

He melted into the darkness. A few minutes later he was once more in the rubber tree, and Fontenot still didn't know.

Pike thought about Lucy and Elvis. Cole had never told him very much, either, but you didn't need to ask if you looked closely. The worlds that people build for themselves are an open book to their lives – people build what they never had, but always wanted. Everyone was the same that way.

Pike waited. Pike watched. Pike was.

The empty moments rolled past.

CHAPTER 12

Family Man

His name was Philip James Cole until he was six years old. Then his mother announced, smiling at him as if she were giving him the most wonderful gift in the world, "I'm going to change your name to Elvis. That's a much more special name than Philip and James, don't you think? From now on, you're Elvis."

Jimmie Cole, six years old, didn't know if his mother was playing a game. Maybe it was the uncertainty that made him so scared.

"I'm Jimmie."

"No, now you're Elvis. Elvis is just the finest name, don't you think, just the finest name in the world? I would've named you Elvis when you were born but I hadn't heard of it yet. Go ahead and say it. Elvis. Elvis."

His mother smiled expectantly. Jimmie shook his head.

"I don't like this game."

"Say it, Elvis. That's your new name. Isn't it exciting? We'll tell everyone tomorrow."

Jimmie started crying.

"I'm Jimmie."

She smiled at him with all the love in the world, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed his forehead with warm, sweet lips.

"No, you're Elvis. I'm going to call you Elvis from now on and so is everyone else."

She had been gone for twelve days. She did that sometimes, just up and left without saying a word because that was the way she was, a free spirit she called it, a crazy head case he had heard his grandfather say. She would vanish and her son would wake to find their apartment or trailer or wherever they were living that month empty. The boy would find his way to a neighbor where someone would call his grandfather or his mother's older sister and one of them would take him in until she returned. Every time she left he was angry with himself for having driven her away. Every day while she was gone he promised God he would be a better boy if only she'd come back.

"You'll be happy being an Elvis, Elvis, just wait and see."

That night, his grandfather, an older man with pallid skin who smelled like mothballs, waved his newspaper in frustration.

"You can't change the boy's name. He's six years old, for Christ's sake. He has a name."

"Of course I can change his name," his mother said brightly. "I'm his mother."

His grandfather stood, then sat again in a wide tattered chair. His grandfather was always angry and impatient.

"That's crazy, girl. What's wrong with you?"

His mother pulled and twisted her fingers.

"There is NOTHING wrong with me! Don't say that!"

His grandfather's hand flapped.

"What kind of mother runs off like you, gone for days without a word? Where do you come up with this crazy stuff like with this name? The boy has a name! You should get a job, for Christ's sake, I'm tired of paying your bills. You should go back to school."

His mother twisted her fingers so desperately that Jimmie thought she would pull them off.

"There is NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING wrong with me! Something's wrong with YOU!"

She ran out of the tiny house and Jimmie ran after her, terrified that he would never see her again. Later, at their apartment, she spent the evening working with a small oil paint kit she had bought at the TG &Y, painting a picture of a red bird.

Jimmie wanted her to be happy, so he said, "That's pretty, Mama."

"The colors aren't right. I can never make the colors right. Isn't that sad?"

Jimmie didn't sleep that night, fearful that she would leave.

The next day she acted as if nothing had happened. She brought Jimmie to school, marched him to the head of his first-grade class, and made the announcement.

"We want everyone to know that Jimmie has a new name. I want all of you to call him Elvis. Isn't that a really special name? Everyone, I want you to meet Elvis Cole."

Mrs. Pine, a kindly woman who was Jimmie's teacher, stared at Jimmie's mother with a strange expression. Some of the kids laughed. Carla Weedle, who was stupid, did exactly what she was told. "Hello, Elvis." All of the kids laughed. Jimmie bit his tongue so he would not cry.

His teacher said, "Mrs. Cole, may I speak with you, please?"

During lunch that day, a second-grader named Mark Toomis, who had a head shaped like a potato and four older brothers, made fun of him.

"What do you think you are, a rock and roll greaser? I think you're queer."

Mark Toomis pushed him down and everyone laughed.

Three months earlier, his mother disappeared in the middle of summer. Like every other time she went away, Jimmie woke to find her gone. Like all the other times, she did not leave a note or tell him that she was going; she just went. They were living in a converted garage apartment behind a big house then, but Jimmie was scared to ask the old people who lived in the house if they knew where his mother was; he had heard them yelling at her about the rent. Jimmie waited all day, hoping that his mom hadn't really left, but by dark he ran crying to the house.

That night, his Aunt Lynn, who spent a lot of time on the phone whispering to his grandfather, fed him peach pie, let him watch television, and snuggled him on the couch. She worked at a department store downtown and dated a man named Charles.

His Aunt Lynn said, "She loves you, Jimmie. She just has her problems."

"'I try to be good."

"You are a good boy, Jimmie! This isn't about you."

"Then why does she leave?"

His Aunt Lynn hugged him. Her breasts made him feel safe.

"I don't know. She just does. You know what I think?"

"Uh-uh."

"I think she's trying to find your father. Wouldn't that be great, if she found your daddy?"

Jimmie felt better after that, and even kind of excited. Jimmie had never met his father or even seen a picture of him. No one talked about him, not even his mom, and no one knew his name. Jimmie once asked if his grandfather knew his dad, but the old man had only stared at him.

"Your stupid mother probably doesn't even know."

Jimmie's mom stayed gone five days that time, then, like always, returned without explanation.

Now, all these months later, that evening after her twelve-day absence and the announcement of Jimmie's new name, Jimmie and his mom were eating hamburgers at the tiny table in their kitchen.

He said, "Mommy?"

"What is it, Elvis?"

"Why did you change my name?"

"I gave you a special name because you're such a special little boy. I like that name so much I might change my own name, too. Then we would both be Elvis."

Jimmie had spent most of the past twelve days thinking about what his Aunt Lynn told him that summer – that his mom was searching for his daddy when she went away. He wanted it to be true. He wanted her to find him and make him come home so that they could be a family like everyone else. Then she wouldn't go away anymore. He worked up his courage to ask.

"Were you trying to find my daddy? Is that where you went?"

His mother stopped with the hamburger halfway to her mouth. She stared at him for the longest time with a harsh cast to her eye, then put down her hamburger.

"Of course not, Elvis. Why ever would I do something like that?"

"Who's my daddy?"

She leaned back, her face playful.

"You know I can't tell you that. Your daddy's name is a secret. I can't ever tell anyone your daddy's name and I won't."

"Was his name Elvis?"

His mother laughed again.

"No, you silly."

"Was it Jimmie?"

"No, and it wasn't Philip, either, and if you ask me every other name that ever was I'll tell you no, no, no. But I will tell you one special thing."

Jimmie grew scared. She had never told him anything about his father, and he suddenly wasn't sure he wanted to know. But she was smiling. Kinda.

"What?"

She slapped the table with both hands, her face as bright as an electric bulb. She leaned close, her face playful and gleaming.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes!"

His mother seemed alive with an energy that she could not contain. Her hands kneaded the edge of the table.

"This is my gift to you. My one special gift, a gift that no one else can give to you, only me."

"Please tell me, Mama. Please."

"I'm the only one who knows. I'm the only one who can give you this special thing, do you understand?"

"I understand!"

"Will you be good if I tell you? Will you be extra-special good, and keep it a secret just between us."

I'll be good!"

His mother sighed deeply, then touched his face with a love so gentle he would remember it for years.

"All right, then, I'll tell you, an extra-special secret for an extra-special boy, just between us, forever and always."

"Between us. Tell me, Mama, please!"

"Your father is a human cannonball."

Jimmie stared at her.

"What's a human cannonball?"

"A man so brave that he fires himself from a cannon just so he can fly through the air. Think about that, Elvis – flying through the air, all by himself up above everyone else, all those people wishing they could be up there with him, so brave and so free. That's your father, Elvis, and he loves us both very much."

Jimmie didn't know what to say. His mother's eyes danced with light as if she had waited her entire life to tell him.

"Why does he have to be a secret? Why can't we tell everyone about him?"

Her eyes grew sad, and she touched his face again in the soft and gentle way.

"He's our secret because he's so special, Elvis, which is both a blessing and a curse. People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't, Elvis, so we'll keep him as our little secret to save ourselves that heartache. You just remember that he loves you and that I love you, too. You remember that always, no matter where I go or how long I'm away or how bad times get. Will you remember that?"

"Yes, Mama."

"All right, then. Now let's go to bed."

Her crying woke him later that night. He crept to her door where he watched his mother thrash beneath her sheets, speaking in voices he did not understand.

Elvis Cole said, "I love you, too, Mama."

Four days later she vanished again.

His Aunt Lynn brought Elvis to his grandfather, who took the newspaper outside so that he could read in peace. That night, the old man made them potted meat sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise and sweet pickles, and served them on paper towels. The old man had been distant all afternoon, so Elvis was scared to say anything, but he wanted to tell someone about his father so badly that he thought he would choke.

Elvis said, "I asked her about my daddy."

The old man chewed his sandwich. A dab of white mayonnaise was glopped on his chin.

"He's a human cannonball."

"Is that what she told you?"

"He gets shot out of a gun so that he can fly through the air. He loves me very much. He loves Mommy, too. He loves us both."

The old man stared at Elvis as he finished eating his sandwich. Elvis thought he looked sad. When the sandwich was gone, the old man balled his paper towel and threw it away.

"She made that up. She's out of her fucking mind."

The next day, his grandfather called the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Social Services. They came for Elvis that afternoon.

CHAPTER 13

time missing: 31 hours, 22 minutes

I brought the tape home, and played it without stopping to think or feel. The SID would digitize the tape, then push it through a computer in an attempt to determine the caller's location by identifying background sounds. They would map the caller's vocal characteristics for comparison with suspects at a later time. I already knew that I didn't and wouldn't recognize the voice, so I listened to get a sense of the man.

"They slaughtered twenty-six people, fuckin' innocent people! I'm not sure how it got started -!"

He had no accent, which meant he probably wasn't from the South or New England. Rodriguez had been from Brownsville, Texas, and Crom Johnson from Alabama; they both had thick accents, so their childhood friends and families probably had accents, too. Roy Abbott had been from upstate New York and Teddy Fields from Michigan. Neither had accents that I could remember, though Abbott spoke with the careful pronunciation of a Yankee farmer and used expressions like "golly."

"They were in the bush, off on their own -"

The man on the tape sounded younger than me; not a kid, but too young to have been in Vietnam. Crom Johnson and Luis Rodriguez both had younger brothers, but I had spoken with them when I got back to the world. I didn't believe that they would be involved. Abbott had sisters, and Fields was an only.

"- they swore each other to secrecy, but Cole didn't trust them -"

His language was arch and melodramatic, as if he had chosen his words to amp the drama in minimal time.

"- Abbott, Rodriguez, the others – he murdered them to get rid of the witnesses! He fired up his own friends!"

The events he described had the feel of a straight- to- video movie. Forced.

"- I was there, lady, I know!"

But he wasn't. Only five of us were in the jungle that day, and the other four died. Crom Johnson's body was never recovered, but his head had come apart in my hands.

I played it again.

"I know what happened and you don't, so LISTEN!"

He sounded angry, but the anger rode the top of his voice. His words should have hummed with rage the way a power line sings from the energy burning through it, but he seemed to be saying the words without truly feeling them.

I made a fresh cup of coffee, then listened to the tape again. The false quality in his tone convinced me that he did not know me or the others – he was faking. I had spent all evening unsuccessfully trying to figure out who he was, but maybe the answer was to figure out how he knew what he knew. If he hadn't served with me, then how did he know about Rodriguez and Abbott? How did he know our team number, and that I was the only one who survived?

The house creaked like a beast shifting in its sleep. The stairs to my loft grew threatening; the hall to Ben's room ended in darkness. The man on the tape had watched me and my house, so he had known when we were home and when we weren't. I went upstairs for the cigar box, and sat with it on the floor.

When a soldier mustered out of the Army, he or she was given what was known as a Form 214. The 214 showed the soldier's dates of service, the units in which he served, his training, and a list of any citations he received; kind of a one-line version of his career. Details were few. But whenever a soldier was awarded a medal or commendation, he or she was also given a copy of orders accompanying the medal, and those orders described why the Army saw fit to make its presentation. Rod, Teddy, and the others had died, and I had been given a five-pointed star with a red, white, and blue ribbon. I had never worn it, but I kept the orders. I reread them. The description of the events that day were slight, and included the name of only one other man involved, Roy Abbott. None of the others were mentioned. The man who took Ben could have gotten some of his information from my house, but not all of it.

It was ten minutes after five when I folded the papers and put them aside. Ben had been missing for over thirty six hours. I hadn't slept in almost fifty. I brushed my teeth, took a shower, then put on fresh clothes. At exactly six A.M., I called the Army's Department of Personnel in St. Louis. It was eight A.M. in St. Louis; the Army was open for business.

I asked to speak with someone in the records department. An older man picked up the call.

"Records. This is Stivic."

I identified myself as a veteran, then gave him my date of separation and social security number.

I said, "I want to find out if anyone has requested my 201 file. Would you guys have a record of that?"

Where the 214 was the skeleton of a military record, a soldier's 201 file contained the detailed history of his career. Maybe my 201 showed the other names. Maybe the man on the tape had been able to get a copy, and that's how he knew about Rodriguez and Johnson.

"We'd have a record if it was sent."

"How can I find out?"

"You'd know. Anyone can get your 214, but your 201 is private. We don't give out the 201 without written permission unless it's by court order."

I said, "What if someone pretended to be me?"

"You mean, like you could be someone else pretending to be you right now?"

"Yeah. Like that."

Now Stivic sounded pissed off.

"What kind of bullshit is this, a joke?"

"My house was robbed. Someone stole my 214, and I think he might've gotten my 201 for nefarious purposes."

I probably shouldn't have used "nefarious"; it sounded like bad television.

Stivic said, "Okay, look: The 201 doesn't work that way. If you wanted a copy of your 201, you'd have to file the request in writing, along with your thumb print. If someone else wanted your 201, say, for a job application or something like that, you'd still have to give your permission. Like I already told you, the only way someone gets that 201 without you knowing about it is by court order. So unless this guy stole your thumb, you don't have to sweat it."

"I still want to know if someone requested it, and I don't have eight weeks to wait for the answer."

"We have thirty-two people in our department. We ship two thousand pieces of mail every day. You want me to holler if anyone remembers your name?"

I said, "Were you a Marine?"

"Master Sergeant, retired. If you want to know who requested what, gimme your fax number and I'll see what I can do. If not, it's been nice talkin' to ya."

I gave him my fax number just to keep him going.

"I have one more question, Master Sergeant."

"Shoot."

"My 201, can you pull it up there on your computer?"

"Forget it. I'm not telling you anything that's on anyone's 201."

"I just want to know if it contains an account of a certain action. I don't want you to give me the information, just whether or not the account contains two names. If it does, I'll request the file, and you can have all the thumb prints you want. If not, then I'm wasting both our time."

He hesitated.

"Is this a combat action?"

"Yes, sir."

He hesitated again, thinking about it.

"What's that name?"

I heard him punching keys as I told him, then the soft whistle of his breath.

"Are the names Cromwell Johnson and Luis Rodriguez in the report?"

His voice came back hoarse.

"Yes, they are. Ah, you still want to know if anyone requested this file?"

"I do, Master Sergeant."

"Gimme your phone number and I'll walk it through myself. It might take a few days, but I'll do that much for you."

"Thanks, Master Sergeant. I really appreciate this."

I gave him my phone number, then started to hang up. He stopped me.

"Mr. Cole, ah, listen…, you would've made a good Marine. I woulda been proud to serve with ya."

"They made it sound better than it was."

His voice grew soft.

"No. No, they don't do that. I spent thirty-two years in the Marine Corps, and now I'm on this phone 'cause I lost my foot in the Gulf. I know how they make it sound. I know what's what. So I'll walk this through for you, Mr. Cole, that's the goddamned least I can do."

He hung up before I could thank him again. These old Marines are amazing.

It was not quite six-thirty, which made it almost nine-thirty in Middletown, New York. If the man on the tape didn't or couldn't scam a copy of my 201, then the only other name he had to work with was Roy Abbott. The day would be half over for a family of dairy farmers. I had written to the Abbotts about Roy 's death, and spoken with them once. I didn't remember Mr. Abbott's first name, but the New York Information operator showed only seven Abbotts in Middletown, and she was happy to run through the list. I remembered his name when I heard it. She read off the number, then I hung up. I thought about what I would say and how I would say it. Hi, this is Elvis Cole, does anyone in your family want to kill me? Nothing seemed right and everything seemed awkward. Remember the day Roy came home in a box? I made another cup of coffee, then forced myself back to the phone. I called.

An older woman answered.

"Mrs. Abbott?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"My name is Elvis Cole. I served with Roy. I spoke with you a long time ago. Do you remember?"

My hands shook. Probably from the coffee.

She spoke to someone in the background, and Mr. Abbott came on the line.

"This is Dale Abbott. Who is this, please?"

He sounded the way Roy described him plain-spoken and honest, with the nasal twang of an upstate farmer.

"Elvis Cole. I was with Roy in Vietnam. I wrote to you about what happened a long time ago, and then we spoke."

"Oh, sure, I remember. Mama, this is that Ranger, the one who knew Roy. Yes, how are you, son? We still have that letter of yours. That meant a lot to us."

I said, "Mr. Abbott, has anyone called recently, asking about Roy and what happened?"

"No. No, let me ask Mama. Has anyone called about Roy?"

He didn't cover the phone. He spoke to her as clearly as to me, as if the two conversations were one. Her voice was muffled in the background.

He said, "No, she says no, no one called. Should they have?"

When I dialed their number I didn't know what I would say. I hadn't wanted to tell them why I was calling or about Ben, but I found myself telling him all of it. Maybe it was my history with Roy, maybe the honest clarity in Dale Abbott's voice, but the words poured out of me as if I were giving confession, that I had lost a child named Ben Chenier to a man on the phone, that I was scared I would not be able to find Ben, or save him.

Dale Abbott was quiet and encouraging. We spoke for the better part of an hour about Ben and Roy and many things: Roy 's four younger sisters were married with families, three to farmers and one to a man who sold John Deere tractors. Three of the four had sons named after Roy, and one a son named after me. I had never known that. I had no idea.

At one point, Mr. Abbott put on Roy 's mom, and, while she spoke with me, he found the letter that I had written and came back on the line.

He said, "I've got your letter right here, that one you wrote. We made copies for all the girls, you know. They wanted copies."

"No, sir. I didn't know that."

"I want to read something you wrote. I don't know if you'll remember, but this meant a lot to me. This is you, now; this is you, writing: 'I don't have a family, so I liked hearing about Roy 's. I told him that he was lucky to come from people like you and he agreed. I want you to know that he fought to the end. He was a Ranger all the way, and he did not quit. I am so sorry that I could not bring him home to you. I am so sorry I failed.' "

Mr. Abbott's voice grew thick and he stopped reading.

"You didn't fail, son. You brought Roy home. You brought our boy home."

My eyes burned.

"I tried, Mr. Abbott. I tried so hard."

"You did! You brought my boy back to us, and you did not fail. Now you go find this other little boy, and you bring him home, too. No one here blames you, son. Do you understand that? No one here blames you, and never did."

I tried to say something, but couldn't.

Mr. Abbott cleared his throat, and then his voice was strong.

"I only have one more thing to say. What you wrote in your letter, that part about you not having a family, that's the only part wasn't true. You've been part of our family since the day Mama opened the mail. We don't blame you. Son, we love you. That's what a family does, doesn't it, love you no matter what? Up there in Heaven, Roy loves you, too."

I told Mr. Abbott that I had to go. I put down the phone, then brought the coffee out onto my deck. The lights in the canyon faded as the eastern sky grew bright.

The cat crouched at the edge of my deck, his legs tucked tight underneath as he stared at something in the murky light below. I sat by him with my own legs dangling off the deck. I touched his back.

"What do you see, buddy?"

His great black eyes were intent. His fur was cool in the early-morning chill, but his heart beat strong in the warmth beneath.

I bought this house not so many years after I came back from the war. That first week after escrow closed, I stripped the floors, spackled the walls, and began the process of making someone else's home into mine. I decided to rebuild the rail around the deck so I could sit with my feet dangling in space, so I was outside one day, working away, when the cat hopped onto the corner of my deck. He didn't look happy to see me. Here was this cat with his ears down and his head cocked, staring at me like I was yesterday's bad surprise. The side of his face was swollen with a dripping red wound. I remember saying, "Hey, buddy, what happened to you?" He growled and his hair stood, but he didn't seem scared; he was cranky because he didn't like finding a stranger in his house. I brought out a cup of water, then went back to work. He ignored the cup at first, but after a while he drank. Drinking looked hard for him, so eating was probably worse. He was skanky and thin, and probably hadn't eaten in days. I took apart the tuna sandwich I was saving for lunch, and made a paste with the tuna and mayonnaise and a little water. He arched his back when I put the tuna paste near the cup. I sat against the house. The two of us watched each other for almost an hour. After a while, he edged toward the fish, then lapped at it without taking his eyes from me. The hole in the side of his head was yellow with infection, and appeared to be a bullet wound. I held out my hand. He growled. I did not move. The muscles in my shoulder and arm burned, but I knew that if I drew back we would lose the bond we were building. He sniffed, then crept closer. My scent had been mixed with the tuna, and the tuna was still on my fingers. He growled softly. I did not move. The choice was his. He tasted my finger with a tiny cat kiss, then turned to show me his side. That's a big step for cats. I touched the soft fur. He allowed it. We have been friends ever since, and he has been the most constant living creature in my life since that day on the deck. Even now, he still was; this cat and Joe Pike.

I stroked his back.

"I am so sorry I lost him. I won't lose him again."

The cat head-bumped my arm, then peered at me with his black mirror eyes. Seeing me, he purred.

Forgiveness is everything.

A Bad Day at the Office

The five members of team 5-2 sat on the steel floor in the bay of the helicopter, the wind ripping up clouds of red dust. Cole grinned at the cherry, Abbott, a short, sturdy kid from Middletown, New York, waiting for Abbott's lurp hat to fly off.

Cole nudged Abbott's leg.

"Your hat."

"What?"

They leaned close to each other and shouted over the roar of the turbine engine. They were still on the lift pad at Fire Base Ranger, the big rotor overhead spooling up as the pilots readied to launch.

Cole touched his own faded, floppy lurp hat currently shoved under the right cheek of his ass.

"Your hat's going to blow off."

Abbott saw that none of the Rangers except him were wearing their hats so he snatched his off. Their sergeant, a twenty- year- old from Brownsville, Texas, named Luis Rodriguez, winked at Cole. Rodriguez was one week into his second tour.

"You think he's nervous?"

Abbott's face tightened.

"I'm not nervous."

Cole thought that Abbott looked like he was about to puke. Abbott was new meat. He had been in the bush on three training missions, but those were close to the Fire Base and held little chance of contact with the enemy. This was Abbott's first true Long Range Patrol mission.

Cole patted Abbott's leg and grinned at Rodriquez.

"No way, Sergeant. This is Clark Kent with a Ranger scroll. He drinks danger for breakfast and wants more for lunch; he catches bullets in his teeth and juggles hand grenades for fun; he doesn't need this helicopter to fly to the fight, he just likes our company -"

Ted Fields, also eighteen and from East Lansing, Michigan, encouraged Cole's rap.

"Hoo!"

Rodriguez and Cromwell Johnson, the radio operator, the nineteen-year-old son of a sharecropper from Mobile, Alabama, automatically echoed the grunt.

"Hoo!"

It was a Ranger thing. Hoo-Ah. Hoo for short.

They were all grinning at Abbott now, the whites of their eyes brilliant against the mottled paint that covered their faces. Here they were, the five of them – four with serious bush time plus the cherry – five young men wearing camouflage fatigues, their arms and hands and faces painted to match the jungle, packing M16s, as much ammo, hand grenades, and claymore mines as they could carry, and the bare minimum of gear necessary to survive a one-week reconnaissance patrol in the heart of Indian Country.

Cole and the others were trying to take the edge off the new guy's fear.

The Huey's crew chief tapped Rodriguez on the head, gave him a thumbs-up, and then the helicopter tilted forward and they were off.

Cole leaned close to Abbott's ear, and cupped his mouth so that his voice wouldn't blow away.

"You're going to be fine. Stay calm and stay silent."

Abbott nodded, serious.

Cole said, "Hoo."

"Hoo."

Roy Abbott had come into the Ranger company three weeks earlier and had been assigned a bunk in Cole's hootch. Cole liked Abbott as soon as he saw the pictures. Abbott didn't talk out his ass the way some new guys did, he paid attention to what the older guys told him, and he kept his shit Ranger-ready, but it was the pictures that did it. First thing the new guy did was pin up pictures; not fast cars or Playmates, but pictures of his mom and dad and four younger sisters: The old man ruddy-faced in a lime-green leisure suit; Abbott's mother heavy and plain; and the four little girls, each one a sandy-haired clone of their mother, all neat and normal with tucked skirts and pimples.

Cole, stretched out on his bunk with his hands behind his head, looked on in fascination. He watched the pictures go up and asked about them.

Abbott eyed Cole suspiciously, as if one sharpy too many had made fun of him. Cole would have bet ten dollars that Abbott said Grace before meals.

"You really wanna know?"

"Yeah, else I wouldn't've asked."

Abbott described how everyone worked the farm and lived in the same little community where their aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents had lived for almost two hundred years, working that same land, attending those same schools, worshipping the same God, and pulling for the Buffalo Bills football team. Abbott's father, a deacon in their church, had served in Europe during World War II. Now Abbott was following in his footsteps.

When Abbott was done with his own history, he asked Cole, "How about your family?"

"It's not the same thing."

"What do you mean?"

"My mother's crazy."

Abbott finally asked another question because he didn't know what else to say.

"Was your dad in the Army, too?"

"Never met him. I don't know who he is."

"Oh."

Abbott grew quiet after that. He finished putting away his gear, then went off to find the latrine.

Cole swung out of his bunk to look more closely at the pictures. Mrs. Abbott probably baked biscuits. Mr. Abbott probably took his son deer hunting on opening day. Their family probably ate dinner together at a great long table. That's the way it was in real families. That's the way Cole had always imagined it.

Cole spent the rest of the afternoon sharpening his Randall knife and wishing that Roy Abbott's family was his.

The helicopter banked hard over a ridge, dove for a shabby overgrown clearing, flared as if it was landing, then bounced into the sky.

Abbott clutched his M6, eyes wide in surprise as the slick climbed above the ridgeline.

"Why didn't we land? Was it gooks?"

"'We'll make two or three false inserts before we unass.

That way Charlie doesn't know where we get off."

Abbott craned forward to see out of the banking slick.

Rodriguez, who was the Team Leader, shouted at Cole.

"'Don't let this asshole fall out."

Cole grabbed Abbott's rucksack and held on. Since the day with the pictures, Cole had taken Abbott under his wing. Cole taught him what to strip from his field kit to lighten his load, how to tape down his gear so nothing rattled, and had gone out on two of Abbott's training missions to make sure he got his shit together. Cole liked to hear about Abbott's family. Johnson and Rodriguez came from big families, too, but Rod's father was a drunkard who beat his kids.

The weather briefing that morning told them to expect showers and limited visibility, but Cole didn't like the heavy clouds stacked over the mountains. Bad weather could be a lurp' s best friend, but really bad weather could kill you; when lurps got into deep shit they radioed for gun ships, medevacs, and extraction, but the birds couldn't fly if they couldn't see. It was a long way to walk home when you were outnumbered two hundred to one.

The slick made two more false insertions. The next insert would be for real.

"Lock and load."

All five Rangers charged their rifles and set the safeties.

Cole figured that Abbott would be scared, so he leaned close again.

"Keep your eye on Rodriguez. He's gonna run for the tree line as soon as we un-ass. You watch the trees, but don't shoot unless one of us shoots first. You got that?"

"Yeah."

"Rangers lead the way."

"Hoo."

The helicopter pulled a tight bank into the wind, nosed over, then cut power and flared two feet off a dry creek in the bottom of a ravine. Cole pulled Abbott's arm to make sure he jumped, and the five of them thudded into the grass. The slick pulled pitch and powered away even as they hit the ground, leaving them behind. They ran for the trees, Rodriguez first, Cole at the rear. As soon as the jungle swallowed them, team 5-2 flopped to the ground in a five-pointed star, their feet at its center, the Rangers facing out. This way they could see and fight in a 360degree perimeter. No one spoke. They waited, watching for movement.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

The jungle came to life. Birds chittered. Monkeys barked. Rain tapped at the ground around them, dripping inexorably through the triple canopy overhead to soak their uniforms.

Cole heard the low rumble of an air strike far to the west, then realized it was thunder. A storm was coming.

Rodriguez took a knee, then eased to his feet. Cole tapped Abbott's leg. Time to get up. They stood. No one spoke. Noise discipline was everything.

They set off up the hill. Cole knew the mission profile inside and out: They would crest the ridge to their north, then follow a well-worn NVA trail, looking for a bunker complex where Army spooks believed a battalion of North Vietnamese Army regulars was massing. A battalion was one thousand people. The five members of team 5-2 were sneaking into an area where the odds would be two hundred to one.

Rodriguez walked point. Ted Fields walked slack behind him, meaning that as Rod looked down to pick a quiet path, Fields would pick up his slack by watching the jungle ahead for Charlie. Johnson carried the radio. Abbott followed Johnson, and Cole followed Abbott, covering their rear. Cole walked point on some missions, with Rod walking slack and Fields walking cover, but Rod wanted Cole on the cherry.

They stretched into a thin line, three or four meters apart, and moved quietly uphill. Cole watched Abbott, cringing every time the new guy caught a vine on his gear, but overall he thought the kid was a pretty good woodsman.

Thunder rolled over the ridge, and the air grew misty. They climbed into a cloud.

It took thirty minutes of hard work to crest the hill, then Rodriguez gave them a rest. Darkness had fallen with the weather, cloaking them in twilight. Rod made eye contact with each man in turn, glancing at the sky, his expression saying that the crappy weather was screwing them. If they needed air cover, they wouldn't get it.

They slipped a few meters down the opposite side of the ridge, then Rod suddenly raised a closed fist. All five of them automatically dropped to a knee, rifles out, leftside / rightside to cover both flanks. Rod signaled Cole, the last man. He made a V sign, like a peace sign, then cupped his fingers into a C. He pointed at the ground, then opened and closed his fist three times – five, ten, fifteen. Rod was estimating fifteen Vietcong soldiers.

Rod moved out, and, one by one, the rest of them followed. Cole saw a narrow trail pocked with overlapping footprints. The prints were made by sandals cut from old tires and were still crisp, telling Cole that they had been made only ten or fifteen minutes ago. The VC were near.

Abbott glanced back at Cole. His face was streaked with rain, and his eyes were wide. Cole was scared, too, but he forced a smile. Mr. Confidence. Keep it tight, troop; you can do this.

Team 5-2 had been in the jungle for fifty-six minutes. They had less than twelve minutes left to live.

They continued along the ridge for less than a hundred meters when they found the main trail. It was laced by VC and NVA prints, and a lot of the traffic was fresh. Rod made a circle with his upraised hand, telling the others that the enemy was all around them. Cole's mouth was dry even with the rain.

Exactly three seconds later, all hell would break loose.

Rod stepped alongside a tall banyan tree just as a gnarled finger of lightning arced down the tree, jumped to Rod's ruck, and detonated the claymore mine strapped to the top of his pack. The top half of Ted Fields vaporized in a red mist. Meat and blood blew back over Johnson, Abbott, and Cole as the backblast from the mine kicked Rodriguez into the tree. The concussion hit Cole like a hypersonic tidal wave and knocked him down. Cole's ears rang and a great writhing snake of light twisted wherever he looked. The lightning's flash had blinded him.

Johnson screamed into his radio.

"Contact! We have contact!"

Cole scrambled forward. He climbed over Abbott and covered Johnson's mouth.

"Be quiet! Chuck's all around us, Johnson, stop shouting! That was lightning."

"Fuck lightning, that was mortars! I didn't come ten thousand miles to get hit by lightning!"

"It was lightning! It set off Rod's claymore."

What could be the odds? A million to one? Ten billion to one? Here they were on the side of a mountain surrounded by Chuck and a lightning bolt fired them up.

Johnson said, "I can't see. I'm fuckin' blind."

"You hit?"

"I can't see. All I see is squiggly shit."

"That's the afterburn, man, like a flashbulb. I got that, too. Just take it easy. Fields and Rod are down."

Cole's vision slowly cleared, and he saw that Johnson's head was bleeding. He twisted around to see Abbott.

"Abbott?"

"I'm good."

Cole pushed the radio phone into Johnson's hands again.

"Get the base. Tell'm to get us the hell out of here.

"I got it."

Cole crawled past Johnson to check Fields. Fields was a red lace of blood and shredded cloth. Rodriguez was alive, but one side of his head was gone, exposing his brain.

"Sergeant? Rod?"

Rodriguez did not respond.

Cole knew that Charlie would arrive soon to investigate the explosion. They had to leave immediately if they wanted to survive. Cole went back to Johnson.

"Tell'm we have one KIA and one head wound. We're going to have to drag back over the ridge to where we came in."

Johnson repeated Cole's report in a low murmur, then pulled out a plastic-covered map to read off their coordinates. Cole motioned Abbott forward.

"Watch the trail."

Abbott didn't move. He stared at what was left of Ted Fields, opening and closing his mouth like a fish trying to breathe. Cole grabbed Abbott's harness and jerked him.

"Goddamnit, Abbott, watch for Chuck! We don't have time for this."

Abbott finally lifted his rifle.

Cole wrapped a pressure bandage around Rodriguez's head, working as fast as he could. Rod thrashed and tried to push him away. Cole lay on him to pin him down, then wrapped his head with a second bandage. The rain pounded down, washing away the blood. Thunder made the forest shudder.

Johnson crawled up beside him.

"Fuckin' thunderstorm has'm grounded, man. I knew that shit would happen. Fuckin' weather assholes, sendin' us out in this shit. Ain't even seen Charlie, and we're fucked by a buncha goddamned lightnin'. Fucked, an' the slicks can't get in. We're on our own out here."

Cole finished tying off Rodriguez, then pulled out two Syrettes of morphine. Morphine could kill someone with a head wound, but they had to carry Rod and they had to move fast; if Charlie caught them, then everyone would die. Cole popped both Syrettes into Rodriguez's thigh.

"You think the three of us can carry Rod and Fields?"

"'Fuck, no, are you crazy? Fields ain't nothing but hamburger."

"Rangers don't leave Rangers behind."

"Didn't you hear what I just tol' you? They can't get the slick in here. The thunderhead's gotta move out before anybody's goin' anywhere."

Ted Fields's leg was still twitching, but Cole willed himself not to look at it. Maybe Johnson was right about Fields; they could come back for him later, but right now they had to evacuate the area before Charlie found them, and it would take two of them to carry Rodriguez.

"Okay, we'll leave Teddy here. Abbott, you're gonna help me carry Rodriguez. Crom, get the rear and tell'm what we're doing."

"I'm on it."

Johnson transmitted their intentions as Cole and Abbott lifted Rodriguez between them. That's when a bright red geyser erupted from Abbott, followed by the chunking snap of an AK-47.

Johnson screamed, "Gooks!" and sprayed the jungle with bullets.

Abbott dropped Rodriguez and fell.

The jungle erupted in noise and flashes of light.

Cole fired past Johnson even though he couldn't see the enemy. He swung his M16 in a tight arc, emptying his magazine in two short bursts.

"Where are they?!"

"I got Charlie! I got you, you motherfuckers!!"

Johnson jammed in a fresh magazine and rattled off shorter bursts, four- and five-shot groups. Cole reloaded and fired indiscriminately. He still didn't see the enemy, but bullets snapped past him and kicked up leaves and dirt all around him. The noise was deafening, but Cole barely heard it. It was that way in every firefight; the adrenaline rush amped out sounds and numbed you.

He emptied a second magazine, ejected it, then rammed home a third. He fired into the trees, then crawled over Rodriguez to check Abbott. Abbott was pressing on his stomach to cover his wound.

"I've been shot. I think I was shot!"

Cole pulled Abbott's hand away to check the wound, and saw a gray coil of intestine. He pushed Abbott's hand back on the wound.

"Press on it! Press hard!"

Cole fired at shadows, and shouted at Johnson.

"Where are they?! I don't see them!"

Johnson didn't answer. He reloaded and fired with mechanical determination – brrp, brrp, brrp!

Cole watched Johnson's bullets chew up a heavy thatch of jungle, then saw muzzle flashes to the right. Cole drained his magazine into the flashes, reloaded, then tore a hand grenade from his harness. He shouted to warn Johnson, then threw the grenade. It went off with a loud CRACK that rippled through the trees. Cole threw a second grenade. CRACK! Johnson lobbed a grenade of his own – CRACK!

"Fall back! Johnson, let's go!"

Johnson scuttled backward, firing as he withdrew. Cole shook Abbott.

"Can you get to your feet? We gotta get out of here, Ranger! Can you stand?"

Abbott rolled over and pushed to his knees. He kept his left hand pressed hard to his stomach, and moaned with the effort.

Cole fired into the trees, then threw another grenade. Johnson didn't need to be told what to do; he knew. Fields might be dead, but Rodriguez was alive. They would carry him out.

Johnson and Cole fired short bursts behind them, then got on either side of Rodriguez and lifted him by his harness.

Cole shouted, "Go, Abbott. Go! Uphill the way we came."

Abbott stumbled away.

Cole and Johnson dragged Rodriguez away, firing awkwardly with their free hands. The shooting died down when they threw the grenades, but now it built steadily again; Charlie shouted to each other through the green.

"Minh dang duoi bao nhieu dua?"

"Chung dang chay we phia bo song!"

Cole felt bullets snap past. Johnson grunted and stumbled, then caught himself.

"I'm okay."

Johnson had been hit in the calf.

Then Cole felt two hard thuds shudder through Rodriguez and knew that their team leader had been hit again.

Johnson said, "Motherfuckers!"

"Keep running!"

Rodriguez belched a huge gout of blood and his body convulsed.

"Jesus Christ!"

"Fucker's dead! Motherfucker's dead!"

They put Rodriguez down behind a tree. Johnson fired down the hill, chewing up two magazines as Cole checked Rodriguez for a pulse. There was none.

Cole's eyes burned hot and angry; first Fields, now Rodriguez. Cole emptied his magazine, then pulled the grenades from Rod's harness. He threw one, then another – CRACK! CRACK! Johnson stripped Rod's ammo, and they fell back, Cole firing as Johnson ran, then Johnson firing to cover Cole. Cole had still not seen a single enemy soldier.

They caught up with Abbott at the top of the hill and took cover behind a fallen tree. The rain fell even harder now, draping them in a gray caul.

"Johnson, get on the radio. Tell'm we've got to get out of here."

Cole stripped off Abbott's gear, then pulled open his shirt.

"Don't look, cherry! Keep your eyes on the trees. You watch for Charlie, okay? Watch for Charlie."

Abbott was crying.

"It burns! It hurts like the dickens. It really hurts!"

Cole loved Roy Abbott in that moment, loved him and hated him both, loved him for his innocence and fear; and hated him for taking a round that now slowed them down and might get them killed.

Johnson held Abbott's hand.

"You're not gonna die, goddamnit. We don't let cherries die on their first mission. You gotta earn your death out here."

Cole said, "Rangers lead the way. Say it, Roy. Rangers lead the way."

Abbott struggled to echo, fighting back tears.

"Rangers lead the way."

Abbott's intestines had burst through his abdominal wall like a mass of snakes. Cole pushed them back into his body, then wrapped Abbott with pressure bandages.

The bandages soaked through with red even before Cole finished wrapping him, a sure sign of arterial bleeding. Cole wanted to run away, leaving Abbott and the blood and Charlie behind, but he fumbled a morphine Syrette out of his med kit and pushed it into Abbott's thigh.

"Wrap him again, Johnson. Pull it tight, then hook him up."

Rangers saw such heavy combat that each man carried cans of serum albumin blood expander strapped to their web gear. Cole threw the empty Syrette aside and snatched up the radio as Johnson hooked up Abbott's serum can.

"Five-two, five-two, five-two. We have heavy contact. We have two KIA and one critical wounded, over."

The tinny voice of their company commander, Captain William "'Zeke" Zekowski, came back scratchy in his ear. The thunderstorm was ruining their communication.

"Say again, five-two."

Cole wanted to smash the phone, but instead he carefully repeated himself. Panic kills. Keep it tight. Rangers lead.

"Understand, five-two. We've got a slick and two gunships in orbit three miles out, but they can't get in with that weather, son. It's blowing through fast, so you hang on."

"We are pulling back. Do you copy?"

The crackle of static was his only answer. The rain beat at them so hard that it was like standing in a shower.

"Does anyone hear me?"

Static.

"Sonofabitch!"

No radio. No extraction. Nothing. They were on their own.

When Johnson finished taping the serum IV to Abbott's forearm, they helped him to his feet. Now the rain was their friend; the heavy curtain of water would hide them and wash away their signs and make it hard for Charlie to follow. They would be safe until the others came to save them.

Johnson stepped out front to take the point when a shot cracked dully under the rain and his head blew apart. Johnson collapsed at their feet.

Abbott screamed.

Cole spun around and fired blindly. He dumped his magazine, then picked up Johnson's rifle and emptied that magazine, too.

"Shoot, Abbott! Fire your weapon!"

Abbott fired blindly, too.

Cole shot at everything. He fired because something was trying to kill him and he had to kill it first. He threw his last hand grenade, CRACK!, then stripped a grenade from Johnson's harness. CRACK! He stripped off Johnson's ammo packs, then stripped off the radio. Johnson's head came apart like a rotten melon.

"Run, goddamnit! RUN!"

He pushed Abbott down the hill, then fired another magazine into the rain. He reloaded, fired, then hoisted the radio. Bullets slammed into the deadfall in front of him, sending up a spray of splinters and wood chips.

Cole ran. He caught up to Abbott, hooked an arm under his shoulders, and pulled him forward.

" RUN! "

They tumbled down the side of the mountain, stumbling through glistening green leaves as thick as leather. Vines ripped at their legs and clawed at their rifles. The pop of gunfire stayed close at their heels.

Cole led them down a steep incline into a drainage overflowing with a torrent of rain. He stayed in the water so that they wouldn't leave tracks, pulling Abbott along the rushing stream and out into the wider ravine. Charlie shouted behind them.

"Rang chan phia duoi chung!"

"Toi nghe thay chung no o phia duoi!"

Somewhere to their left, an AK ripped on full automatic.

Abbott plowed headlong into a tree and crashed into the weeds, tearing the IV needle from his arm. Cole pulled Abbott to his knees, hissing for him to get to his feet.

Abbott's face was white where the greasepaint had washed away.

"I'm gonna vomit."

"Get up, Ranger. Keep going."

"'My stomach hurts."

The entire front of his uniform and the thighs of his pants were saturated with blood.

"Get up."

Cole pulled Abbott onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry. He staggered under the weight; between Abbott and his gear, he carried almost three hundred pounds. The jungle thinned. They were getting close to the clearing where the slick had dropped them.

Cole wrestled free the radio as he stumbled along the creek.

"Five-two, five-two, five-two, over."

The captain's broken voice came back.

"'Copy, five-two."

"'Johnson's dead. They're all dead."

"Settle down, son."

"Three KIA, one wounded critical. Charlie's on our ass. You hear me? Charlie's right behind us."

"Stand by."

"Don't tell me to stand by! We're dying out here."

Cole was crying. He sucked breath like a steam engine, and he was so scared that his heart seemed in flames.

The captain's voice came back.

"Cole, is that you?"

"Everyone is gone. Abbott's bleeding to death."

"A First Cav slick thinks he can get to you from the south. He's low on fuel, but he wants to try.'

More shouts came from behind Cole, and then an AK opened up. Cole didn't know if the VC saw him or not, but he didn't have the strength to look around. He staggered on. Abbott began screaming.

"I'm almost at the clearing."

"He's flying up the ravine under the clouds. You have to pop a smoke for him, son. We cannot vector to your position, over."

"Roger smoke."

"This goddamned storm is rolling right at our gun ships. They cannot reach you for support."

"I understand."

"You're on your own."

Cole broke out of the jungle into the clearing. The dry creek was now filled with rushing water. Cole sloshed in up to his waist and waded across, fighting the current. His arms and legs felt dead, but then he was out of the water and on the other side. He rolled Abbott onto the high grass and looked for the helicopter. He thought he saw it, a black speck blurred by the rain. Cole pulled a smoke marker. Bright purple smoke swirled behind him.

The black speck tilted on its side and grew.

Cole sobbed.

They were coming to save him.

He dropped to his knees beside Abbott.

"Hang on, Roy; they're coming."

Abbott opened his mouth and spit up blood.

Something flashed past Cole with a sharp whip-crack as the rattling hammer of an AK sounded in the tree line. Cole fell to his belly. Muzzle flashes danced in the green wall like fireflies. Mud splashed into his face.

Cole emptied his magazine at the flashes, jammed in another, and fired some more.

"Abbott!"

Abbott slowly rolled onto his belly. He dragged his weapon into the firing position and fired a single round.

The jungle sparkled. More and more flashes joined the first until the jungle was lit by twinkling lights. Mud hopped and jumped, and the tall stringy grass fell around Cole as if it were being mowed by invisible blades. He burned through his magazine in a single burst, packed in another, and burned through that one. His rifle's barrel was hot enough to sear flesh.

"Fire your weapon, Abbott! FIRE!"

Abbott fired once more.

Cole heard the blurring thump of the helicopter now.

He reloaded and fired. He was down to his last four pack of magazines, but the trees were alive with enemy soldiers.

"Shoot, damnit!"

Abbott rolled onto his side. His voice was soft.

"I didn't think it would be like this."

The helicopter was suddenly loud and the grass around them swirled. Cole shot at the flashes. Overhead, the 6ogunner opened up. His big.30-caliber weapon chewed at the jungle.

Cole rolled over as the heavy slick wobbled to the earth. It was pocked with bullet holes and trailing smoke. First Cavalry troops jammed the cargo bay like refugees. They added their fire to the 6o-gun. The slick had been shot to hell, but still the pilot was bringing his ship through a thunderstorm and into a wall of gunfire. Slick pilots had steel balls.

"C'mon, Roy, let's go."

Abbott did not move.

"Let's go!"

Cole slung his rifle, lifted Abbott, and lurched to his feet. Something hot ripped through his pants and then he felt a loud spang! A bullet shattered the radio. Cole stumbled to the helicopter and heaved Abbott into the bay. Cav troopers piled atop each other to make room.

Cole clambered aboard.

AK fire popped and pinged into the bulkhead.

The crew chief screamed at him.

"They told us it was only one guy!"

Cole's ears rang so loudly that he could not hear.

"What?"

"They told us there was just one man. We're too heavy. We can't take off!"

The turbine howled as the pilot tried to climb. The helicopter wallowed like a whale.

The crew chief grabbed Abbott's harness.

"Push him off! We can't fly!"

Cole leveled his MI6 at the center of the crew chief's chest. The crew chief let go.

"He's dead, Ranger, push him off! You're going to get us killed!"

"He's coming with me."

"We're too heavy! We can't fly!"

The turbine spooled louder. Oily smoke swirled through the door.

"Push him out!"

Cole wrapped his finger over the trigger. Rod and Fields and Johnson were gone, but Abbott was going home. Families take care of their own.

"He's coming with me."

The Cav troops knew that Cole would pull the trigger. Rage and fear burned off the young Ranger like steam. He would do anything and kill anyone to complete his mission. The Cav troops understood. They pushed off ammo cans and rucksacks, anything they could shed to lighten the load.

The turbine shrieked. The rotor found hold in the thick humid air, and the helicopter lumbered into the sky. Cole lowered his weapon across Abbott's chest and protected

his brother until they were home.

The thunderhead passed from the mountains four hours later. A reaction force comprised of Rangers from Cole company assaulted the area to reclaim the bodies of their comrades. Specialist Fourth Class Elvis Cole was among them.

The bodies of Sgt. Luis Rodriguez and Sp4c Ted Fields were recovered. The body of Sp4c Cromwell Johnson was missing and presumed carried away by the enemy.

For his actions that day, Sp4c Elvis Cole was awarded the nation's third-highest decoration for bravery and valor, the Silver Star.

It was Cole's first decoration.

He would earn more.

Rangers don't leave Rangers behind.

CHAPTER 14

time missing: 41 hours, 00 minutes

After I spoke with the Abbotts, I phoned the other families to let them know that the police would be calling, and why. Between Master Sergeant Stivic and the families, I was on the phone for almost three hours.

Starkey rang my bell at eight forty-five. When I opened the door, John Chen was waiting behind her in his van.

I said, "I spoke with the families this morning. None of them had anything to do with this or know anyone who would. You get any hits on the other names I gave you?"

Starkey squinted at me. Her eyes were puffy, and her morning voice was thick with smoke.

She said, "Are you drunk?"

"I've been up all night. I spoke with the families. I listened to that damned tape a dozen times. Did you get any hits or not?"

"I told you last night, Cole. We ran the names and got nothing. You don't remember I said that?"

I felt irritated with myself for forgetting. She had told me when I was with them at the Hollywood station. I grabbed my keys and stepped outside past her.

"C'mon. I'll show you what we found. Maybe John can match the prints."

"Lay off the coffee. You look like a meth freak about to implode."

"You're no beauty yourself."

"Fuck yourself, Cole. That might be because Gittamon and I got our asses reamed at six this morning by the Bureau commander, wanting to know why we're letting you fuck up our evidence."

"Did Richard complain?"

"Rich assholes always complain. Here's the order of the day: You're gonna take us over to whatever this is you've found, then you're gonna stay out of our business. Never mind that you seem to be the only guy around here besides me who knows how to detect. You're out."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you just paid me a compliment."

"Don't let it go to your head. It turns out Richard was right, you being a material witness. It just feels like kicking a guy when he's down, is all, shutting you out like this, and I don't like it."

I felt bad for snapping at her.

She said, "I guess you didn't suddenly recognize the voice on the tape or remember something that would help?"

I wanted to tell her my take on what the caller had said, but I figured that it would sound self-justifying.

"No. I've never heard his voice in my life. I played it over the phone to the families, and they didn't recognize it, either."

Starkey cocked her head as if she were surprised.

"That was a good idea, Cole, playing the tape for them like that. I hope none of them lied to you."

"Why'd you have Hurwitz bring me the tape last night instead of doing it yourself?"

Starkey went to her car without answering.

"Drive yourself. You'll need to get back on your own."

I locked the house, then led them across the canyon to the shoulder where Pike and I had parked the day before. It took about twelve minutes. Starkey changed into her running shoes while Chen unloaded his evidence kit. The shoulder had been empty yesterday, but now a line of small trucks and cars spilled around the curve from the nearby construction site. Starkey and Chen followed me across the hump and down through the brush. We passed the twin pines, then followed the erosion cut toward the lone scrub oak. As we got closer to the prints, I felt both anxious and afraid. Being here was like being closer to Ben, but not if the shoe prints didn't match. If they didn't match, we had nothing.

We reached the first print, a clean clear sole pressed into the dust between shale plates.

"This one's pretty clear. We'll see more below."

Chen got down on his hands and knees for a closer look. I stood so close that I was almost on top of him.

Starkey said, "Stop crowding him, Cole. Get back."

Chen glanced up and grinned.

"It's the same shoe, Starkey. I can see it even without the cast. Size eleven Rockports showing the same pebbled sole and traction lines."

My heart thudded hard in my chest, and the dark ghost moved past me again. Starkey punched my arm.

"You fuck."

Starkey could sweet-talk with the best of them.

Chen flagged eight more prints, and then we reached the tree. The heartier weeds had sprung up with the morning dew, but the depression behind the tree was still clear.

"That's it, just this side of the oak at its base. See where the grass is crushed?"

Starkey touched my arm.

"You wait here."

Starkey moved closer. She stooped to look at my house from under the oak's limbs, then considered the surrounding hillside.

"All right, Cole. You made a good call. I don't know how you found this place, but this is okay. You figured this bastard good. John, I want a full area map."

"I'll need help. We've got a lot more physicals than yesterday."

Starkey squatted at the edge of the crushed grass, then bent to look close at something in the dirt.

She said, "John, gimme the tweezers."

Chen handed her a Ziploc bag and tweezers from his evidence kit. Starkey picked up a small brown ball with the tweezers, eyeballed it, then put it into the bag. She looked up into the tree, then at the ground again.

I said, "What is it?"

"They look like mouse turds, but they're not. They're all over the place."

Starkey picked one from a broad leaf of grass and put it onto her palm. Chen looked horrified.

"Don't touch it with your bare skin!"

I moved closer to see, and this time she didn't tell me to step back. A dozen dark brown wads the size of a BB stood out clearly on the hardpack. More brown flecks clung to the grass. I knew what they were as soon as I saw them because I had seen things like this when I was in the Army.

"It's tobacco."

Chen said, "How do you know?"

"A smoker on patrol chews tobacco to get his fix. You chew, there's no smoke to give you away. That's what this guy did. He chewed, then spit out the bits of the tobacco when they were used up."

Starkey glanced at me, and I knew what she was thinking. Another connection to Vietnam. She handed the bag to Chen. She dry-swallowed another white pill, then studied me for a moment with a deep vertical line between her eyebrows.

"I want to try out something on you."

"What?"

"Over by your house, this guy doesn't leave anything, one measly little partial that we could barely see. Here, he leaves crap all over the place."

"He felt safe here."

"Yeah. He had a good spot down here where no one could see him, so he didn't give a shit. I'm thinking that if he got careless down here, maybe he got careless up at the street, too. There aren't many houses on this stretch, and we got that construction site right here around the curve. I've gotta call Gittamon and have patrol pull the door-to-door to this side of the canyon, but there aren't that many people to talk to. By the time Gittamon and the uniforms get out here, you and I could have it done."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to be involved."

"I didn't ask for a lot of conversation. You want to do it or you want to waste time?"

"Of course I want to do it."

Starkey glanced at Chen.

"You tell anyone, I'll kick your ass."

We left Chen calling SID for another criminalist, and walked back along the curve to the construction site. A single-story contemporary had been ripped apart to expand the ground floor and add a second story. A long blue Dumpster sat in the street in front of the house, already half-filled with trimmed lumber and other debris. A framing crew was roughing in the second floor while electricians pulled wire through the first-floor conduit. Here it was late fall, but the workmen were shirtless and in shorts.

An older man with baggy pants was bent over a set of plans in the garage, explaining something to a sleepy young guy wearing electrician's tools. The drywall inside the garage and the house had been pulled down, leaving the studs exposed like human ribs.

Starkey didn't wait for them to notice us or excuse the interruption. She badged the older guy.

"LAPD. I'm Starkey, he's Cole. Are you the boss here?"

The older man identified himself as Darryl Cauley, the general contractor. His face closed with suspicion.

"Is this an INS thing? If someone's sneaking under the wire, I got a signed bond from every sub saying these people are legal."

The younger guy started away, but Starkey stopped him.

"Yo, stay put. We want to talk to everyone."

Cauley darkened even more.

"What is this?"

Talking to people wasn't one of Starkey's strengths, so I answered before he decided to call his attorney.

"We believe that a kidnapper was in the area, Mr. Cauley. He parked or drove on this street every day for the past week or so. We want to know if you noticed any vehicles or people who seemed out of place."

The electrician hooked his thumbs on his tools and perked up.

"No shit? Was someone kidnapped?"

Starkey said, "A ten-year-old boy. It happened the day before yesterday."

"Wow."

Mr. Cauley tried to be helpful, but explained that he divided his time between three different job sites; he rarely stayed at this house more than a couple of hours each day.

"I don't know what to tell you. I got subs coming and going, I got the different crews. Do you have a picture, what do they call it, a mug shot?"

"No, sir. We don't know who he is or what he looks like. We don't know what he was driving, either, but we believe he spent a lot of time around the curve where your crew is parked."

The electrician glanced toward the curve.

"Oh, man, that is so creepy."

Cauley said, "I'd like to help, but I don't know. These guys here, their friends drop by, their girlfriends. I got another site over in Beachwood, last month a limo pulls up with all these suits from Capitol Records. They signed one of the carpenters to a record deal for three million dollars. You never know, is what I'm saying."

Starkey said, "Can we talk to your crew?"

"Yeah, sure. James, you wanna call your guys? Tell Frederico and the framers to come down."

Between the framers and the electricians, Cauley had nine men working that day. Two of the framers had trouble with English, but Cauley helped with the Spanish. Everyone cooperated when they heard that a child was missing, but no one remembered anyone out of the ordinary. The day felt half over by the time we finished even though it was not yet noon.

Starkey fired up a cigarette when we reached the Dumpster.

"Okay. Let's do the houses."

"He wouldn't have parked more than five or six houses on either side of the curve. The farther he had to walk, the bigger the risk that someone would see him."

"Okay. And?"

"Let's split up. I'll take the houses on the far side and you take the houses on this side. It'll be faster."

Starkey agreed. I left her with the cigarette and trotted back past our cars to the houses on the far side of the curve. An Ecuadorian housekeeper answered at the first house, but she hadn't seen anyone or anything, and wasn't able to help. No one answered at the next house, but an elderly man wearing a thin robe and slippers answered at the third. He was so frail with osteoporosis that he drooped like a dying flower. I explained about the man on the slope and asked if he had seen anyone. The old man's toothless mouth hung open. I told him that a boy was missing. He didn't answer. I slipped my card into his pocket, told him to call if he remembered something, then pulled the door closed. I spoke with another housekeeper, a young woman with three small children, then reached another house where no one was home. It was a weekday and people were working.

I thought about trying the houses farther up the street but Starkey was leaning against her Crown Vic when I got back to our cars.

I said, "You get anything?"

"C'mon, Cole, do I look like it? I've talked to so many people who haven't seen anything that I asked one broad if she ever went outside."

"People skills aren't your strong point, are they?"

"Look, I've gotta call Gittamon to get some help out here. I want to run down the garbage men, the mailman, the private security cars that work this street, and anyone else who might've seen something, but you and I have taken it as far as we can. You gotta split."

"C'mon, Starkey, there's plenty to do and I can help do it. I can't walk away now."

She spoke carefully, with a soft voice.

"It's scut work, Cole. You need to get some rest. I'll call you if we get something."

"I can call the security companies from my house."

My voice sounded desperate even to me. She shook her head.

"You know that movie they make you watch before the plane takes off, when they're telling you what to do in an emergency?"

My head was filled with a faraway buzz as if I were drunk and hungry at the same time.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"They tell you that if the plane loses pressure, you're supposed to put on your own oxygen mask before you put on your kid's. The first time I saw that I thought, bullshit, if I had a kid I'd sure as shit put on her mask first. It's natural, you know? You want to save your child. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. You have to save yourself first because if you're not alive, you sure as hell can't help your child. That's you, Cole. You have to put on your mask if you want to help Ben. Go home. I'll call you if something pops."

She walked away from me then and joined Chen at his van.

I climbed into my car. I didn't know if I would go home, or not. I didn't know if I would sleep, or could. I left. I drove around the curve and saw a pale yellow catering van parked by the Dumpster because that's the way it works. You lay the bricks until you get a break.

The van had just arrived.

Maybe if I hadn't been so tired I would have thought of it sooner: Construction crews have to eat, and catering vans feed them, twice a day every day, breakfast and lunch. It was eleven-fifty. Ben had been missing for almost forty-four hours.

I left my car in the street and ran to a narrow door at the back of the van that had been propped open for the heat. Inside, two young men in white T-shirts were bent over a grill. A short round woman barked orders at them in a mix of Spanish and English as they dished up grilled chicken sandwiches and paper plates spilling over with tacos and salsa verde to the line at the window. The woman glanced over and nodded toward the open wall of the van.

"You got to stand in line over here."

"A little boy has been kidnapped. We think the man who took him spent a lot of time on this street. You might have seen his car."

She came to the door, wiping her hands on a pink terry towel.

"Wha' you mean, a little boy? You the police?"

The electrician from earlier was in line at the window.

He said, "Yeah, he's with the cops. Some guy stole a kid, can ya believe that, right around here? They're trying to find him."

The woman stepped out of the van to join me in the street. Her name was Marisol Luna, and she owned the catering business. I described the scene on the other side of the curve, and asked if she had noticed any vehicles parked in that area during the past two weeks or anyone who didn't seem to fit.

"I don' think so."

"What about when no one else was parked there? One vehicle by itself."

She rubbed her hands through the towel as if it helped worry up her memories.

"I see the plumber. We finish the breakfast here and we goin' that way -"

She pointed toward the curve, and the buzzing in my head grew worse.

"- an' I see the plumber go down the hill."

I glanced toward the work crew, searching for Cauley.

Marisol Luna was the first person I found who had seen anything.

"How do you know he was the plumber? Was he working here at this house?"

"It say on the truck. Emilio's Plumbing. I remember 'cause my husband, his name is Emilio. That's why I remember the truck. I smile when I see the name, an' I tell my husband that night, but he no look like' my Emilio. He black. He have things on his face like bumps."

I called out to the construction workers.

"Where's Cauley? Can someone get Cauley?"

Then I turned back to Mrs. Luna.

"The man who went down the hill was black?"

"No. The man in the truck, he black. The man on the hill, he Anglo."

"Two men?"

The buzzing in my head grew more frantic, like riding a caffeine rush. The electrician came around the end of the truck with Mr. Cauley.

He said, "You guys have any luck?"

"Have you had a plumber or plumbing contractor working here named Emilio or Emilio's Plumbing, anything like that?"

Cauley shook his head.

"Nope, never. I use the same sub over and over, all my jobs, a man named Donnelly."

Mrs. Luna said, "The truck, it say Emilio's Plumbing."

The electrician said, "Hey, I've seen that truck."

The buzz in my head suddenly vanished and my body stopped aching. Blood tingled under my skin. I felt light and alive with a clarity that was perfect. It was the same feeling I had when we were hidden along a VC trail and I heard the VC approaching and waited for Rod to fire and knew either I would have them or they would have me, but either way the whole bloody thing was about to go down.

I said, "I need you to come with me, Mrs. Luna. I need you to talk to the police right now. They're just around the curve."

Marisol Luna got into my car without complaint or objection. I didn't take the time to turn around. We drove to Starkey in reverse.

time missing: 43 hours, 50 minutes

The sun glared angrily from low in the southern sky, heating the great bowl of air in the canyon until it came to a boil. Rising air pulled a soft breeze up from the city that smelled of sulfur. Starkey held her hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

"Okay, Mrs. Luna, tell me what you saw."

Marisol Luna, Starkey, and I stood in the street at the top of the curve. Mrs. Luna pointed back toward the construction site, telling us how she remembered it.

"We come aroun' the curve there, and the plumber truck is right here."

She indicated that the plumber's van had been pretty much where we were standing, not on the shoulder but in the street. It could not have been seen from the construction site or the surrounding houses.

"My truck is big, you know? Very wide. I say to Ramón, look at this, this guy is taking up all of the street."

I said, "Ramón is one of the guys who works for her."

"Let her tell it, Cole."

Mrs. Luna continued.

"I have to stop because I cannot get around the van unless he move. Then I see the name, and it make me smile like I tell Mr. Cole. I tell my husband that night, I say, hey, I saw you today."

Starkey said, "When did this happen?"

"That would be three days. I see it three days ago."

The day before Ben was stolen. Starkey took out her notebook.

Mrs. Luna described the van as white and dirty, but she couldn't recall anything else except that the name on its side was Emilio's Plumbing. As Starkey continued questioning her, I called Information on my cell phone and asked if they had a listing for Emilio's Plumbing. No such listing existed either in Los Angeles or in the Valley. I had them check the Santa Monica and Beverly Hills listings as well, under plumbing, plumbers, plumbing supplies, and plumbing contractors, but by then I didn't expect anything-these guys could have stolen the van in Arizona or painted the name themselves.

Mrs. Luna said, "It say Emilio's. I am sure."

Starkey said, "So tell me about the two men. You came around the curve here and their van was blocking the road. Which way was it facing?"

"This way, facing me. I see in the windshield, you know? The black man was driving. The Anglo man was on the other side, standing there. They were talking through the window."

Mrs. Luna stepped onto the shoulder and turned, showing us their positions.

"They look when they see us, you know? The black man, he have these things on his face. I think he sick. They look like sores."

She touched her cheeks, and wrinkled her nose.

"He big, too. He a really big man."

Starkey said, "Did he get out of the van?"

"No, he inside driving."

"Then how do you know he was big?"

Mrs. Luna raised her arms high and wide over her head.

"He fill the windshield like thees. He jus' big."

Starkey was frowning, but I got the picture and wanted to move on.

"What about the white guy? Anything you remember about him? Tattoos? Glasses?"

"I didn't look at him."

"Was his hair long or short? You remember what color?"

"I sorry, no. I lookin' at the black man and the truck. We tryin' to get by, you see? I off the road tryin' to get aroun' him, an' I get over too much. I had to back up. The other man, he step back 'cause his frien' have to make room for us, it so narrow here. I watchin' the truck go away 'cause I tellin' Ramón, you see that stuff on his face? Ramón lookin', too. He say they warts."

Starkey said, "What's Ramón's last name?"

"Sanchez."

"Is he back at your truck now?"

"Yes, Mrs."

Starkey made note of that.

"Okay, we'll want to talk to him, too."

I put us back on track.

"So the black man drove away and the other guy went down the hill, or the black guy waited for the other guy to come back?"

"No, no, he go. The other one make that sign when he go. You know, that nasty one."

Mrs. Luna looked embarrassed.

Starkey showed her middle finger.

"The white guy flipped him off? Like this?"

"Yeah. Ramón, he laugh. I backin' up my truck 'cause I too close to the rocks so I got to watch out for that, but I see him make the sign an' go down the hill. I think he should go back to the house, but he go down the hill instead, an' I say, that funny, why he goin' down the hill? Then I think he must wanna go to the bathroom."

"Did you see where he went down there or see him come back?"

"No. We left. We had another breakfast to serve before we get ready for lunch."

Starkey took down Mrs. Luna's name, address, and phone number, then gave her a card. Starkey's pager went off again, but she ignored it.

She said, "This has been a big help, Mrs. Luna. I'll probably want to talk to you some more this evening or tomorrow. Would that be okay?"

"I happy to help."

"If you remember anything else, don't wait to hear from me. Talking the way we have might bring up a memory. You might remember something about the truck or the men that could help us. It might seem small, but I'll tell you something – nothing's too small. Whatever you remember could help us."

Starkey took out her phone and went to the edge of the shoulder, calling her office to start a wants- and- warrants search and BOLO on the van. The uniformed commander at Hollywood station would relay the information along to Central Dispatch at Parker Center, advising every Adam car in the city to be on the lookout for a van with Emilio's Plumbing written on its side.

I told Mrs. Luna that I would drive her back, but she didn't respond. She watched Starkey with her brow furrowed, as if she were seeing more than Starkey at the edge of the slope.

"She right about the memory. I remembering now. He have a cigar. He was standing like that – like the lady – and he take out a cigar."

The tobacco.

"That's right. He have a cigar. He didn't smoke it, but he chewed it. He bite off little pieces, then spit them out."

I tried to encourage her. I wanted the memories to come and the picture to build. We walked out to join Starkey at the edge. I touched Starkey's arm, the touch saying listen.

Mrs. Luna stared Out at the canyon, then turned back toward the street as if she could see her catering truck pinched against the hill and the plumber's van driving away.

"I got the truck away from the rocks an' I put it in gear. I look back at him, you know? He was looking down. He was doing something with his hands, and make me think, what? I wanted to get going 'cause we late, but I watch him to see. He unwrap the cigar and put it in his mouth and then he went down there."

She pointed downhill.

"That's when I think he must be going to the bathroom. He have dark hair. It was short. He wear a green T-shirt. I remember that now. It dark green and look dirty."

Starkey glanced at me.

"He unwrapped the cigar?"

Mrs. Luna put her fingers together below her belly.

"He do something with it, something down here, then he put it in his mouth. I don't know what he was doing, but what else?"

I realized what Starkey was asking.

I said, "The wrapper. If he tossed the wrapper, we might get a print."

I started searching the edge of the shoulder, but Starkey shouted at me.

"Stop it, Cole! Get back! Do not disturb this scene!"

"We might be able to find it."

"You're gonna step on it or kick dirt over it or push it under a leaf, so get the hell back! I know what I'm doing! Stand in the street."

Starkey took Mrs. Luna's arm. She was so focused now that I might not have been with them.

"Don't think too hard, Mrs. Luna. Just let it come. Show me where he was when he did that. Where was he standing?"

Mrs. Luna crossed the street to where her truck had been, then looked back at us. She moved one way and then the other, trying hard to remember. She pointed.

"Go right a little bit. A little more. He was there."

Starkey looked down at the surrounding ground, then squatted to look more closely.

Mrs. Luna said, "I sure he right there."

Starkey touched the ground for balance, and eyeballed a widening area.

I spoke quietly to Mrs. Luna.

"What time were you here, eight, nine?"

"After nine. I think nine-thirty, maybe. We got to get the truck ready for lunch."

By nine-thirty the heat would have been climbing, and, with it, the air. A breeze would have been coming up the canyon just as it was now.

"Starkey, look to your left. The breeze would have been blowing uphill to your left."

Starkey looked to her left. She crept forward a step, and then to her left. She touched aside rosemary sprigs and weeds, and then she crept again. Her movements were so slow that she might have been wading through honey. She dribbled a handful of dirt through her fingers and watched the dust float on the breeze. She followed its trail, more to the left and farther out on the shoulder, and then she slowly stood.

I said, "What?"

Mrs. Luna and I both hurried over. A clear plastic cigar wrapper was hooked in dead weeds. It was dusty and yellow with a red and gold band inside. It could have blown here from anywhere. It might have been here before him or come after, but maybe he left it behind.

We didn't touch it or even go close. We stood over the wrapper as if even the weight of light might make it vanish, and then we shouted for John Chen.

time missing: 43 hours, 56 minutes

John Chen's Advice to the Lovelorn

First thing Chen did was flag the shoe prints, the crushed bed of grass behind the oak tree, and the heavier concentrations of spitwad tobacco balls. Chen didn't think twice about some guy working up tobacco balls; two years before, Chen worked a series of burglaries by a jewel thief dubbed the Fred Astaire Burglar: Fred hot-prowled mansions in Hancock Park while wearing a top hat, spats, and tails. Hidden surveillance cameras in two of the houses showed Fred literally cutting the rug with the ol' soft shoe as he flitted from room to room. Fred was so colorful that the Times made him out to be a dashing cat burglar in the Cary Grant/It Takes a Thief tradition, but, in truth, Fred left calling cards that the Times neglected to report: In every house, Fred dropped trou and crapped on the floor. Hardly dashing. Hardly debonair. Chen had dutifully bagged, tagged, graphed, and analyzed Fred's fecal material at fourteen different crime scenes, so what were a few spitballs compared with cat-burglar shit?

When the flags were set, Chen measured and graphed the scene. Each piece of evidence was assigned its own evidence number, then each number was located on the graph so that Chen, the police, and the prosecutors would have an accurate record of where each item was found. Everything had to be measured and the measurements recorded. It was tedious work, and Chen resented having to do it by himself. SID was sending out another criminalist – that skanky bitch Lorna Bronstein who thought she was better than everyone else but it might be hours before she arrived.

Starkey had been helping until Cole dragged her back up the hill. Starkey was okay. Chen had known her since her days on the Bomb Squad, and kinda liked her even though she was skinny and had a face like a horse.

Chen was thinking about asking her out.

John Chen thought about sex a lot, and not just with Starkey. In fact, he thought about it at home, at the labs, and while driving; he rated every woman he saw as to sexual desirability, immediately dismissing any who fell below his admittedly diminishing standards (beggars can't be choosers) as "hogs." Didn't matter where he was, either: He thought about sex at homicides, suicides, shootings, stabbings, assaults, vehicular manslaughter investigations, and in the morgue; he woke every morning obsessing about sex, then added his log to the fire (so to speak) by watching that hot little number Katie Couric flashing her business on the Today show. Then he'd head off to work where armies of man-killer love muffins fanned the flames. The city was filled with them: Hardbodied housewives and nymphomaniac actresses cruised the freeways in a never-ending search for man meat, and John Chen was the ONE guy in L.A. who missed out! Sure, his silver Boxster drew looks (he had bought it for just that reason and dubbed it his 'tangmobile), but every time some hottie looked past the sleek German lines of his Black Forest Love Rocket and saw his six foot three, hundred-thirty pound, four-eyed geeky ass, she quickly looked away. It was enough to give a guy issues.

John spent so much time fantasizing about sex that he sometimes thought that he should see a shrink, but, you know, it was better than thinking about death.

Starkey wasn't exactly in his top ten "Must Do" list, but she wasn't a hog. He once asked if she wanted to go for a ride in his Porsche, but Starkey said only if she could drive. Like that would ever happen.

John was having second thoughts. Maybe letting her drive wouldn't be so bad.

Chen was giving it serious consideration when Starkey shouted for him to haul his ass up right away.

"Hurry," she shouted. "C'mon, John, get up here!"

Bitch. Always in the driver's seat.

When Chen reached them, he found Starkey and Cole hovering over a clump of weeds like a couple of kids over buried treasure. A short squat Latina who had to be pushing retirement was with them. Chen immediately dismissed her. Hog.

"What are you screaming about? I got a lot to do."

Starkey said, "Stop with the tone and look at this."

Cole squatted to show him something in the weeds.

"Starkey found a cigar wrapper. We think it's his."

Chen took off his glasses for a closer inspection. Humiliating, but necessary: Chen looked like a world class geek with his nose only inches from the ground, but he wanted to see the wrapper clearly. It appeared to have been folded twice, and still contained a red and gold cigar band. The plastic evidenced slight weathering, but the band had not yet lost its brilliance, indicating that it had been here no more than a few days; red dyes faded fast. The plastic appeared to be smudged under a light layer of dust.

As Chen considered the smudges, Starkey related that Mrs. Luna had seen the suspect manipulate a cigar, though she had not seen him remove the wrapper or toss it away.

Chen pretended to listen, but mostly he fumed at how Starkey kept smiling at Cole and punching him on the shoulder.

Chen grumbled in his best sullen voice.

"Okay, I'll log it. Lemme get the kit."

"Log it, yeah, but we're bringing this straight to Glendale. I want you to check it for prints."

Chen wondered if she was drinking again.

"Now?"

"Yeah, right now."

"Bronstein's on her way."

"I don't want to wait for fuckin' Bronstein. We've got something here, John. Let's run it to Glendale and fish for a hit!"

Chen glanced at Cole for help, but Cole had the frayed eyes of a psychokiller. Maybe both of them were drunk.

"You know we can't leave the scene. C'mon, Starkey – if we leave, we break the chain of custody with all the evidence down below. It won't be good in court."

"I'll take that chance."

"It's not worth taking. I mean, if she saw the guy drop a wrapper that might be one thing, but we don't even know this is his. It could belong to anyone."

Starkey pulled Chen aside so that Mrs. Luna couldn't hear. Cole tagged along like Starkey's lapdog. They were probably already doing each other.

Starkey lowered her voice.

"We won't know that until we run the prints."

"We might not find prints. All I see are smudges. Smudges aren't the same as prints."

Chen hated that he sounded so whiny, but she wouldn't let it go. Leaving the scene unattended was a direct violation of SID and LAPD policy.

She said, "Nothing down that hill even comes close to this. It might not be his, John; maybe it isn't. But even if all you find is a few prints, we might be able to name him, and that puts us closer to finding the boy."

"It puts me closer to getting fired, is what it does."

Chen was worried. Starkey had done her damnedest to destroy herself and her career after she was blown up in the trailer park; she had been dumped by the Bomb Squad and then by CCS, so now she was stuck in a dead-end Juvenile desk. Maybe she was trying to kill herself again. Maybe she wanted to be fired. Chen edged closer to sniff her breath. Starkey pushed him back.

"Goddamnit, I'm not drinking."

Cole said, "John."

Chen scowled – here it came: Cole would probably threaten to kick his ass, him and his partner, Pike. Chen was certain that Cole was fucking her. Pike was probably fucking her, too.

Chen said, "I'm not doing it."

Cole said, "If the wrapper helps us, we'll tell them that you found it."

Starkey glanced at Cole, then nodded.

"Sure, if John wants the credit, it's his. This could be the breakthrough moment, man; guaranteed face-time on the evening news."

Chen thought about it. He had done pretty well with tips from Pike and Cole in the past. He had gotten a promotion and the 'tangmobile out of it, and had almost gotten laid. Almost. Chen glanced at Mrs. Luna to see if she could hear any of this, but she was safely away.

He said, "You cool with losing the evidence down below?"

Starkey's pager buzzed, but she ignored it.

"All I care about is finding this boy. Nothing down there matters if it helps us too late."

Cole stared at her for the longest time, then turned back to Chen.

He said, "Help us, John."

Chen thought it through: Yeah, it was a long shot, but nothing under the oak tree would or could give them an immediate ID on the perp, and this might. The odds weren't likely, but hope lived in possibilities. John, for instance, hoped to make the evening news. Helping to find the kid wouldn't be so bad, either.

Starkey's pager buzzed again. She turned it off.

Chen made up his mind.

"I'll get my stuff."

Starkey smiled wider than Chen had ever seen, then put her hand on Cole's shoulder. She left it. Chen hurried down the hill for his evidence kit, thinking that if Starkey drooled on Cole any more, she'd drown him with spit.

CHAPTER 15

Witness to an Incident

When they brought Ben inside after they caught him on the side of the house the night before, Mike took a cell phone from a green duffel bag, then went into another part of the house. Eric and Mazi made Ben sit on the floor in the living room. When Mike came back, he held the phone a few inches from Ben's mouth. Ben sensed that someone was probably on the other end of the line, listening.

Mike said, "Say your name and address."

Ben shouted as loud as he could.

"HELP! HELP ME -!"

Eric clamped a hand over his mouth. Ben was terrified that they would hurt him because he had called for help, but Mike only turned off the phone and laughed.

"Man, that was perfect."

Eric squeezed Ben's face hard. Eric was still pissed off because Ben got him in trouble by almost getting away, so his face was flushed as red as his hair.

"Stop shouting or I'll cut off your fucking head."

Mike said, "You with the heads. He did great, yelling for help like that. Stop squeezing his face."

"You want the fuckin' neighbors to hear?"

Mike tucked the phone back into the duffel, then took out a cigar. He peeled off the wrapper as he considered Ben.

"He won't yell anymore, will you, Ben?"

Ben stopped squirming. He was scared, but he shook his head, no. Eric let go.

Ben said, "Who was that on the phone?"

Mike glanced at Eric, ignoring him.

"Put him in the room. If he starts screaming, put him back in the box."

Ben said, "I won't scream. Who was that? Was that my mama?"

Mike didn't tell him or answer any of his other questions. Eric locked him in an empty bedroom with giant sheets of plywood nailed over the windows, and told him to get some sleep, but Ben couldn't. He tried to pull the plywood off the windows, but it was nailed too tight. He spent the rest of the night huddled at the door, trying to hear them through the crack. Sometime during the middle of the night he heard Eric and Mazi laughing. He listened harder, hoping to find out what they were going to do with him, but they never once mentioned him. They talked about Africa and Afghanistan, and how they had chopped off some guy's legs. Ben stopped listening and hid in the closet the rest of the night.

Late the next morning, Eric opened the door.

"Let's go. We're bringing you home."

Just like that, they were letting him go. Ben didn't trust that Eric was telling the truth, but he wanted to go home so badly that he pretended it was real. Eric made him go to the bathroom, then marched him through the house to the garage. Eric was wearing a baggy plaid shirt with its tail hanging out. When he reached to open the door to the garage, his shirt pulled tight and Ben saw a pistol outlined at the small of his back. Eric hadn't been wearing the gun yesterday.

The garage was heavy with the smell of paint. They had painted the van brown and covered the writing on its sides. Mazi was waiting behind the wheel. Mike was already gone. Eric led Ben to the rear of the van.

Eric said, "Me and you are gonna ride in back. Here's the deal on that: I won't tie you up if you sit still and keep your mouth shut. If we stop at a red light or somethin' and you start screaming, I'll shut you up good, then it's the bag. We clear on that?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm not fuckin' with you. Somethin' happens like we get pulled over by the cops, you smile and pretend like you're having a great time. You come through on that, we'll bring you home. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

Ben would have said anything; he just wanted to go home.

Eric lifted him into the back of the van, then pulled the door. The garage door clambered open as Mazi started the engine. Eric spoke into a cell phone.

"We're go."

They backed out into the street, then drove down the hill. The van was a big windowless cavern with two seats up front and nothing in back except a spare tire, a roll of duct tape, and some rags. Eric sat on the tire with the phone in his lap, and made Ben sit next to him. Ben could see the street past Mazi and Eric, but not much else. Ben wondered if what they had said last night was true, about cutting off legs.

"Where are we going?"

"We're taking you home. We gotta see a man, first, but then you'll go home."

Ben sensed that Eric was telling him that he was going home so that he would behave. Ben glanced at the van's doors, deciding that he would run if he got the chance. When he turned forward again, Mazi was watching him through the mirror. Mazi's eyes went to Eric.

"He go-eeng to run."

"Fuckit. He's cool."

"Ewe fuhk up ah-gain, Mike weel keel ewe."

"These D-boys take everything too serious. Everything's a fuckin' opera. The kid's cool. Kid, you cool?"

Ben wondered what a D-boy was and if Eric was talking about Mike.

"Uh-huh."

Mazi's eyes lingered on Ben a moment longer, then returned to the road.

They wound their way out of the hills along a residential street that Ben didn't recognize, then climbed onto the freeway. It was a bright clear day and the traffic moved well. Ben saw the Capitol Records Building and then the Hollywood Sign.

"This isn't the way to my house."

"Told you. We gotta see someone first."

Ben snuck another glance at the doors. Handles were set into each door, but Ben didn't see anything that looked like a lock. Ben checked to see if Mazi was watching him, but now Mazi was watching the road.

The downtown skyscrapers grew in the windshield like giraffes huddled together on an African plain. Mazi lifted his hand with the fingers spread wide. Eric picked up the phone.

"Five out."

They left the freeway, slowing as they curved down the ramp. Ben looked at the doors again. They would probably stop at a traffic light or stop sign at the bottom of the ramp. If Ben made it out of the van, the people in the other cars would see him. He didn't think that Eric would shoot him. Eric would chase him, but even if Eric caught him, the other people would call the police. Ben was scared, but he told himself to do it. All he had to do was pull the handle and shove open the door.

The van slowed as it reached the bottom of the ramp.

Ben edged toward the door.

Eric said, "Easy."

Eric and Mazi were watching him. Eric took Ben's arm.

"We're not stupid, kid. That African up there, he can read your mind."

Mazi looked back at the road.

They turned between a row of faded warehouses, then over a little bridge along more buildings with lots of spray-paint art and chain-link fences. Ben couldn't see much past Mazi, but the buildings looked abandoned and empty. The van stopped.

Eric spoke into the phone.

"The Eagle has landed."

Eric listened for a moment, then put away the phone. He pulled Ben toward the doors.

"I'm gonna open the doors, but we're not getting out, so don't go nuts."

"You said I was going home."

Eric's grip tightened.

"You are, but first we're gonna do this. When I open the doors, you're gonna see a couple of cars. Mike's here with another guy. Don't start screaming or trying to get out, 'cause I'll fuckin' knock you out. The other guy just wants to see you're okay. If you're cool, we'll give you to him and he'll take you home. You good with that?"

"Yes! I wanna go home!"

"Okay, here we go."

Eric pushed open the door.

Ben squinted at the suddenly bright light, but he stayed quiet and didn't move. Mike was with a large thick man that Ben didn't know in front of two parked cars less than ten feet away. The man looked into Ben's eyes, and nodded, the nod saying, you're going to be okay. Mike was talking to someone else on his phone.

Mike said, "Okay, here he is."

Mike held the phone to the other man's ear so that the other man could talk while Mike still held the phone.

The other man said, "I see him. He's upright and alert. He looks okay."

Mike took back the phone.

"You heard that?"

Mike listened, then spoke into the phone again.

"Now I want you to hear something else."

Mike moved so quickly that Ben didn't understand what was happening even as Mike put a gun to the big man's head and fired one time. Ben jumped at the unexpected explosion. The big man crumpled sideways onto the car, then tumbled off. Mike held the phone near the gun and shot him a second time. Ben moaned from a terrible pressure in his chest, and Eric held him close.

Mike spoke into the phone again.

"You hear that, too? That was me killing the asshole you sent. No negotiations, no second chances – the clock is running."

Mike turned off his phone and slipped it into his pocket. He came to the van. Ben tried to twist away, but Eric held tight.

"He cool?"

"He's cool. Fuck, dude, that was harsh. You mean business."

"They understand that now."

Mike stroked Ben's head with an unexpected kindness. Ben stared at the body as it sank in a growing red pool.

Mike said, "You're okay, son."

Mike pulled off Ben's left shoe. Eric carried Ben out of the van past the body and put him into Mike's backseat. Eric got in with him. Mazi was already behind the wheel. They drove away, leaving Mike with the body.