Swift Vengeance

42

JUST AFTER ONE in the morning I went to the barn and attacked the heavy bag with an anger I hadn’t felt in years. Not since the day that Justine went down into the ocean in her pretty pink airplane. I was too tired to be sharp. Wondered what it would be like to step into the ring at thirty-nine. Foreman a champ at forty-five. When I couldn’t throw any more good punches I jumped some rope and raised my heavy arms again to the speed bag.

Then shaved and showered and grabbed a handful of Oxley flyers.

I drove the dark curving streets of greater Fallbrook, stopping here and there to post a new one or replace a rain-faded original. It felt right to be doing something helpful. Something optimistic. Something. When I had covered miles and miles — trees and power poles and fences and the walls of buildings downtown — I drove to Los Jilgueros Nature Preserve, where Lindsey had twice met her son.

The preserve’s gate was closed and locked, so I parked my truck out of the way and jumped it. The moon was up and the sky was clear and I walked the dirt trails under the sycamores and the young oaks, past the spindly flowerless stands of matilija poppies and the dying-back sage and the wild buckwheat gone brown and brittle with fall. I stopped and listened and looked. Tammy Bellamy had been quiet these last few days, and I sensed surrender. How good was my chance of finding Oxley here? About as good as luring Caliphornia into the open again, I thought.

Since when was hope foolish? Even just the hope of finding a cat?

It angered me that hope was foolish.

I wanted to knock out Caliphornia with an uppercut. Feel his jaw cave in and see his lights go out. Hate on an empty stomach. I wouldn’t finish him off, though. I’d call Taucher. Or maybe just 911. Nation of laws. Roland Ford: model citizen.

I continued down the wide dirt road to the first pond, black and twinkling under the moon. Stopped and listened to a great horned owl hooting from the woods. Then heard the mate answer back — notes on the hunt, spoken in their own language. Something splashed near the close shore. Too cold for the frogs and birds. I wondered.

Sat on a bench donated in memory of a Fallbrook boy who’d died young. I knew nothing about him. I sat with my back to the water so I could oversee the central meadow.

What was this, looking for a lost cat while a terrorist stalks your city? The end of hope?

Then, the beginning of an idea.

Maybe just the idea of an idea.

You will know me again before forty-eight hours have passed...

Lindsey, and all the unclean infidels you mate with...

Lindsey. Forty-eight. My shy idea approached, brushed against me, then vanished.

What I really wanted to do was get Hall Pass 2 into the sky at first light and fly her up to Mammoth, go fishing for a few days. Nothing like a rainbow trout dripping silver water in the sun of a Sierra day.

Maybe ski, too. On the slopes I’m graceless but fast. Size is your friend going downhill if velocity is what you’re after. After that, dinner and wine in a good restaurant. Maybe get a farm-raised version of the trout I let go. Talk to a pretty waitress.

Or I could just go dancing in San Diego, right here close to home. I know the dance clubs and I have a calendar of the amateur ballroom competitions. I’ve done fairly well in some of them. Always content on a dance floor, so nice to be moved by music and to move with someone.

But instead, I sat on a boy’s memorial bench and looked out at the pale meadow. Let my eyes relax and tried to dismiss the brutality of the day, to let something like light come to my mind, something good or promising or optimistic, something like Oxley luxuriating in the moonlight, studying me with his hypnotic green eyes. Anything. Anything but what I’d seen.

I thought of you, too, as you know I often do. I always start at the beginning. It’s like getting to meet you all over again. The way you smiled at me when we met, at that awkward holiday party at the Grand Hyatt downtown. The big storm coming and you there with a friend and I alone. Of course, I liked the way you looked in the red party dress and your sleek red hair and your green eyes and the smile that gave up little and withheld much. And I said something male and witless, which you pointed out but seemed to forgive. Justine Timmerman. I landed in the public defender’s office about the time you ditched the sheriff’s... Right then, from the very beginning, we were Timmerman brains and Ford brawn and we were happy with that arrangement, weren’t we?

And, as you know, after that first night together, life changed. Went in a fifth direction. How can something so surprising be so right? Love just mowed down the opposition, trampled everything in its way, left me panting but eager to keep up. Those two years we had — from the time we first laid eyes on each other until God and Hall Pass took you down, Justine — those were us. Young and passionate and fearless. Our own soap. Not everyone gets that.

I clearly remember what you said to me about death once: that you weren’t afraid of dying, only of being forgotten. Rest assured — smart, funny, courageous, skeptical, sweet, lovely woman — you are not forgotten. I’ll carry you as long as I live.

Want out? Sure you do. Here you come. There you are. I’ve missed you.

Later that morning, as I looked out my window to the first chill light of five o’clock, it came to me. Knocked right on my front door and introduced itself.

A way to Caliphornia. Not through Raqqa 9. Not through the Warrior of Allah. Rather, through someone who had recently done some work for Caliphornia. A licensed professional. A man who once told me he wanted to wake up and feel blameless for a day.

I found the contact and dialed.

“Ford,” said Bayless. “Can you believe that shit?”

“This is important, Jason,” I said. “I want you to Telegram Hector Padilla.”

He chuckled sleepily. “I doubt he’ll answer.”

“I’m hoping his boss will,” I said.

“Explain.”

“Were your Telegrams with Hector group-messaged?”

Bayless was quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah. Someone calling himself Andrews was in the chain but he never participated. Why?”

“Hector wanted very specific information about Lindsey for his boss, right? Not just her address, but the layout of my place, which rooms were hers. Who the other tenants were. When she might come and go. Hector said she might not need a place to live for very much longer.”

“That’s when I pulled the plug,” said Bayless.

“Plug back in,” I said. “Because you have that information now. It took you some time and it will be expensive, but you’ve got it and it’s for sale.”

“To his boss. Andrews.”

“Andrews wants it for something evil that we can prevent,” I said. “Interested?”

“Is he part of the attack last night?” he asked.

My turn for a moment of consideration. Sometimes the most persuasive thing you can offer is trust. “You bet he is.”

“Then I’m more than interested.”

“Can you be in my Main Street office in two hours?”

Next I called the number that Frank Salvano, special director of the Western Region JTTF, had given out. Got put on hold for half an hour. Told Agent Camille Rodriguez that I had specific information about the San Diego terrorist Caliphornia that I would give only to Frank Salvano.

Salvano was on the line within half a minute.

Three hours later, Taucher, Salvano, Jason, and I were anxiously loitering in my Main Street office, each of us lost to the private thoughts and uneasy tedium that cops and PIs come to know so well.

It had taken us only minutes to compose and send Jason’s Telegram solicitation to the deceased Hector Padilla. The Telegram had been received. Now we could do nothing but hope that Caliphornia, emboldened by a night of bloodshed and terror, would answer Bayless soon.

Another hour crept by. The manager of the Dublin Pub sent us up some breakfast, two plastic bags’ worth, coffee and flatware, too. I always pay cash and tip heavily.

I was halfway through the egg-and-corned-beef scramble when Jason dropped his fork to his plate, stood up, phone in hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Telegram from Andrews.”

Taucher pumped a fist.

Salvano raised an eyebrow.

I felt a wave of relief wash over me, followed by a wave of dread.

“‘I am Hector’s employer,’” said Jason, reading off of the screen. “‘Need photos of property and house where Lindsey is staying. Not macro Google Earth but detailed close-up photos, TWO OF WHICH must contain Lindsey. Need view from road, entrance, gate, fences. Need gate code. How many residents/tenants? Landlord is still PI Roland Ford? Does he live there? What security company? Alarms? Neighbors near? Dogs? How much money for this? Need all by five thirty p.m. today or no deal.’”

Jason lowered the phone. “Son of a bitch,” he said, as if baffled. “It worked. And he’s in a hurry.”

All eyes on me. Salvano and Taucher already on their phones.

“Tell him no problem,” I said. “And charge him a lot.”

Over the next hour we helped Jason photograph Rancho de los Robles on his phone. I kept the Irregulars out of the shots, causing them concern and curiosity. Told them I’d explain all of this later. Jason photographed Lindsey coming out of her casita and playing Ping-Pong against an unpictured opponent. She seemed anxious and uncertain. We left Zeno out of the frame. Jason shot the road and the gate and the keypad. I helped him write up a brief paragraph about the tenants and landlord, keeping us as vague and inconsequential as possible. No, landlord Roland Ford no longer lives on the property. No, the other four tenants have no firm schedules and are often gone. None are apparently employed. Lindsey Rakes almost never leaves the compound. No alarm system, no dog, neighbors not a factor. Charge: fifteen hundred dollars. Photos and gate code to come, will accept cash, credit card, or PayPal. Andrews said he would have cash delivered after receiving the images. Bayless accepted, based on Hector’s record of prompt payments in the past.

Such a strange thing to be luring terror into your home, as if it was something you couldn’t say no to.

It was just after three o’clock when Jason hit send.