The Kill Clause

37

HE WAS UP at first light, an old Rangers habit that reemerged in high-stress times. On the KCOM morning news, a less attractive and less ethnic reporter than Yueh carried the story of a double homicide in Hancock Park. William Rayner, of course, was mentioned by name, Ananberg described as a “young female teaching assistant.” Authorities were, predictably, “baffled”-Tanninospeak for get-your-cameras-out-of-my-boys’-faces-and-let-them-do-their-jobs.

After showering, Tim flipped through the phone book and found the sole listing for VanMan Rental Agency. It was over in El Segundo, a few miles from the airport.

He located it in an industrial stretch, held tight in the corner of a moderately busy intersection. The parking lot extended over a half acre, the office itself standing at the front near the sidewalk, small and functional, like a bait shack. Through the high chain-link fence, Tim saw row after row of vans of all types.

Sitting in the car, he lost the hip holster, double-wrapping rubber bands around the grip of his. 357 and slipping it in his waistband. Then he retrieved a jacket from the backseat. He pulled a few flex-cuffs from his war bag and coiled them in his pocket.

When he slid open the glass door and stepped up into the office, he felt the floorboards give slightly under his weight. A portly man in a yellow oxford shirt sat examining his schedule, one chubby finger tracing over the free Bank of America calendar pinned up on the cheap paneling behind the high front counter. He turned at the sound of the sliding door, his cheeks rosy, his bare scalp thinly veiled by a comb-over that had probably lost its conviction about the same time as the Carter administration.

“Stan the Van Man at your service.” He rose and offered Tim a soft and slightly sweaty hand.

“Big shop you have here,” Tim said. “You’ve got, what, fifty vans?”

“Sixty-three up and running, four in the shop.” He beamed with pride.

Probably the owner, probably not the full-time front counterman. Good.

Tim searched the small office interior. A sun-faded Disney tourist poster curling out from its tacks on the wall showed a small girl astride Mickey’s shoulders in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, just as Bear had carried Ginny last July through the very same stretch of park. Several wood-framed photos on the rear desk showed off a cheerful, pudgy family; even the dachshund could have stood to pay Jenny Craig a visit. One shot showed the Van Man family gathered before a decorated Christmas tree wearing green-and-red sweaters. Everyone looked excessively pleasant.

A bribe would probably not go over well.

A messy Rolodex sat at the counter’s edge, the category cards sticking up in white plastic. AIRPORT. BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS.

INDUSTRIAL. TOUR GROUPS. TRAVEL AGENTS.

“I’m a travel agent-Tom Altman,” Tim said. “We’ve spoken a few times…?”

“Oh, you probably spoke to my guy, Angelo. I’m only here Saturdays, holding down the fort.”

“That’s right, Angelo rings a bell. Well, listen, I booked a van for a family to head down to Disneyland-”

“Disneyland. Our most common destination. Nothing like seeing a family get off the plane from North Dakota or Ohio, load up in one of my babies, and head on down to Mousetown.” His grin, genuine and untroubled, made Tim envious.

“Must be gratifying.”

“Mine drag me down there at least twice a year. You have kids yourself?” His smile lost a few watts at Tim’s expression.

Tim’s throat clicked on a dry swallow. “No.” He forced a grin. “The old lady’s been pushing lately, if you know what I mean.”

“Believe me, friend, I know that tune.” He winked and elbow-pointed at the framed pictures behind him. “I know it five times over.”

Tim joined Stan’s hearty laugh as best he could.

“So, Tom Altman, what can I help you with?”

“Well, I was driving by, saw your sign, and remembered I had a client I hooked up with your racket here who never ended up paying me my booking fee. It’s not a huge amount of money, but it’s been happening to me more and more lately. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind telling me the total amount of the rental so I could send him a bill?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Stan slid an immense book that looked like a jail ledger over in front of him. “Name and date?”

Tim couldn’t remember if the Stork had also driven the van to the Commission meeting the night before the Debuffier execution. “Daniel Dunn. February 21.”

“Let’s see…” Stan’s tongue poked out of his mouth slightly as hescanned down the enormous page. “Don’t see it.”

“Try the twenty-second.”

“Here we are. He rented out one of my Econoline E-350s. He had it back before eight. That’s $62.41 for the day.” He smiled, again with pride. “Here at VanMan, we log every cent, every inch.”

“You charge mileage? We take a slightly higher booking fee for charges over a hundred bucks.”

“No mileage charge unless they exceed seventy miles a day. And let’s see. Odometer was at 45,213 when Dunn picked it up…” Histongue emerged again, along with a calculator he pulled from an over-stuffed breast pocket. He poked at the keys with the end of a well-chewed pencil. “Fifty-seven miles. Sorry, friend.”

“I remember he rented another van first, but he brought it back because it gave off a rattle.”

“It sometimes happens,” Stan said, a bit defensively. “Rattles are tough.”

“Well, maybe he put on more mileage with that van, pushed the total over a hundred.”

“I doubt it if he traded it in.”

“Would you mind checking for me?”

Stan’s stare took on a bit of suspicion.

“I’m sorry, things are just kind of tough right now in the travel-agency business, what with the Internet and everything. I can use every cent I can pick up right now.” Tim figured a guy who kept his records in a jail ledger probably hated computers.

Stan gave a little nod. His puffy finger scanned down the page, then back up. “Here it is. Six miles.” He gave an exaggerated frown. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right. You helped me clear up some paperwork anyway.”

They shook hands again. “Thanks for the business,” Stan said.

“Sure thing.”

Tim sat in his car for a moment, figuring. The Stork had arrived with the van at Debuffier’s the morning of the hit. The Stork had probably picked up the van, then returned home to load up his black bag of tech gear. He probably hadn’t taken the bag with him to pick up the van; it was conspicuous as hell, particularly since the Stork could barely lift it himself. He would have parked his own car far away from the rental office so no one could ID it later, and Tim couldn’t imagine him leaving his beloved and priceless trinkets unattended in his trunk in this part of town while filling out bullshit paperwork.

I even took back the first van they rented me because it gave off a distinctive rattle.

An obsessive perfectionist like the Stork would have turned the van around at the first sound. Why had it taken him three miles to hear the rattle?

Because he was going somewhere else, completing a shorter round-trip. Like driving home to pick up his black bag.

Then he’d returned to VanMan and switched rentals before heading to Debuffier’s.

Six miles.

Three miles each way to the Stork’s house.

Three miles from VanMan Rental Agency.

Tim started driving in a widening spiral, looking for everything and nothing, recalling what he knew about the Stork. A pharmacy Rx sign in a strip mall caught his eye, and he pulled into the lot, passing the usual suspects-Blockbuster, Starbucks, Baja Fresh.

He pictured the Stork’s round face, his sunburned scalp and flat nose. Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s called Stickler’s syndrome.

The Stork took plenty of prescription meds, but, in Tim’s experience, patient-confidentiality issues, DEA security, and his own lack of contacts in the field made tracing drug records next to impossible. Plus, the Stork was wise enough to be exceedingly careful about how he acquired his drugs. It was doubtful he’d be so foolish as to use a nearby pharmacy, if he used a pharmacy at all.

Tim closed his eyes.

The Stork’s house was likely within a three-mile radius of where Tim sat.

A connective-tissue disorder that affects the tissue surrounding the bones, heart, eyes, and ears.

Somewhere an optometrist had to have a file containing the Stork’s lens prescription, but again the Stork would know not to leave telling records anywhere near his house. Plus, his glasses looked as if they hadn’t been updated since the sixties.

Tim reversed his thoughts, considering the banal, the seemingly harmless. What are activities people do near their home? Which of these leave records?

Grocery shopping. Post office. Library.

Weak. Difficult. Maybe.

Tim opened his eyes again, gripping the wheel in frustration. Across the lot the yellow-and-blue sign caught his eye. He felt a quick surge as something in his mind crossed over, connected.

Now and then I’ll rent black-and-white movies when I can’t sleep.

He got out, his step quickening as he approached Blockbuster. The stenciling on the door said they were open until midnight, but the classic-movie section was anemic at best. Even Tim, hater of old movies, had seen most of the twenty or so black-and-white videos leaning on the shelves.

The acne-crusted kid at the counter was wearing his visor backward and sucking a Blow Pop.

“What’s the best place to rent old black-and-white movies around here?”

“I don’t know, man. What do you want to watch those for? We just got the new Lord of the Rings.” The Blow Pop had stained the kid’s mouth green.

“Is there a manager here?”

“Yeah, man. I’m it.”

“Would you mind suggesting another video-rental store around here?”

The kid shrugged. A passing customer with an abundance of facial piercings leaned on the counter, chewing her lip. “You an old-movie nut? Go check out Cinsational Videos. With a ‘cin’ like in ‘cinema,’ get it?”

The manager removed his Blow Pop and brayed laughter. “Sounds like a porn shop.”

“It’s the only place around here for that stuff. They don’t got it, you gotta head up to the West Side, like to Cinefile or Vidiots or somewhere.”

Tim thanked her and asked for directions, which she explained with dramatic gestures and clanking jewelry.

Six blocks over, two down, on the left. Tim parked up the street. A quiet area, mostly apartments. The store, a stand-alone square building, was set back from the street behind four slanted parking spaces and a streetlamp. Glass front door, windows cluttered with posters-a lot of Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart. The hanging sign was flipped to OPEN. Someone had Magic Marker-ed in the times; on Mondays through Saturdays, the store didn’t close until 1:00 A.M. The late hours matched the Stork’s inadvertent description and would likely necessitate a security camera inside.

The front door knocked hanging chimes when Tim entered. A kid with movie-star looks sat on a stool, engrossed in a video playing on a nineteen-inch TV on the counter in front of him. No customers.

Tim glanced above the counter and found the security camera-cheap Sony model from the eighties, run on VHS tapes. It hung from a ceiling bracket, angled across the counter at the front door. Glass front door. And visible through it were the two center parking spaces, most likely where someone would park late at night.

“Someone called me earlier in the week, said something about a problem with your security camera. I wanted to take a look.”

“On a Saturday?” The toothpick the kid had been working in his mouth bobbed with his words, his eyes never leaving the screen. Clint Eastwood gritted his teeth, scowled, and shot through Eli Wallach’s noose.

Tim took note of the narrow door behind the stool-probably a small office. Above the knob was what looked to be an autolocking double-cylinder, requiring a key on both sides.

“Yeah, well, my crew’s been slammed lately. I wanted to see what the problem was so they’ll know to bring any necessary parts next week.”

“Necessary parts? Like what? I installed the thing myself. It’s working fine.”

Tim’s rising irritation was directed as much at himself as at the kid. With a younger worker, he should have played the authoritative angle, impersonating a police officer or a deputy marshal. But now that he was committed, he couldn’t exactly back up and start over.

“Well, the owner called me last week and asked me to come by. I might as well make sure everything’s okay.”

The kid shifted on the stool, his eyes leaving the screen for the first time. He looked obstinate and mistrustful. “My dad never told me about anyone coming by. He would’ve.”

Tim raised his hands as if to say What the hell and turned to leave. When he reached the door, he threw the lock and flipped the sign so it read CLOSED.

The kid had gone back to his movie, but he sensed Tim’s presence and looked up. He caught sight of the front-door sign, and his hand darted beneath the counter and came up with a dinky. 22. Tim closed fast, his left hand sweeping out, catching the gun at the barrel and angling it away from both of them. His right hand pinned back his jacket, revealing the. 357 tucked in his waistband.

They were frozen together, motionless, Tim’s gun revealed but not drawn, the other weapon pointed between NEW RELEASES and FRANK CAPRA.

Tim braced for the gunshot, but none came.

The kid was breathing hard, a spill of blond hair down across his right eye.

“Don’t do anything,” Tim said, his voice dead calm. “I’m as nervous as you are.”

After another moment he twisted the. 22, slowly, and the kid released it. Tim slid out the cartridge, cleared the bullet from the chamber, and handed the gun back to him.

“Step back from the counter, please. Thank you.” Tim let his jacket fall back over his gun and walked around to the other side. He patted the kid down gently, using his knuckles. “What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

“All right, Sam. I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to rob you. I just need to get my hands on your security tapes from the past few weeks. Could you please open that office door? Thank you.”

Between a tiny desk and a large, lined wastepaper basket sat a cabinet with a row of security VHS tapes, marked by date. Above the cabinet a Sunset Boulevard one-sheet, probably hiding a safe, fluttered with the breeze from the AC vent.

“Why are there two tapes for each date?”

Sam was trembling a bit. “They only fit eight hours on each, so we split them, day and night. We recycle them every month or so.”

“All right, Sam. I’m going to borrow the night tapes. Is that okay?” He waited for Sam to nod.

“Shit, man, if that’s all you want, you can keep them. Just get out of here.”

“Okay. In a second. Will you help me put them into this bag? This one here? Thank you.”

They silently loaded the tapes into a plastic wastepaper bag, then Tim stepped back, fisting it like a cartoon robber. He pulled the toothpick from the kid’s mouth, turned him around, and cinched a flex-cuff around his wrists.

Pulling out his Nextel, Tim dialed 911. “Yes, hello, I’ve accidentally locked myself in the back room of Cinsational Videos in El Segundo, and I’m trapped. Can you please send help?”

He stepped out into the store proper, shut the door behind him, then jammed the toothpick into the keyhole and snapped it off. He pulled the tape from the security camera overhead. On his way past the counter, he paused, the movie credits catching his eye. He counted out four hundreds and laid them on the floor behind the counter, then unhooked the VCR and tucked it under one arm.

He hurried nonchalantly to his car and drove away, Cinsational’s CLOSED sign peering out after him.

•Back in his apartment, Tim watched tape after tape on fast forward, a process more tedious than time-consuming. The tapes were color and surprisingly good quality, providing a clear angle encompassing the counter and front door.

He lucked out on the fifth tape, February 4 at 12:53 A.M. Nearly forty minutes passed without a single customer, then a car pulled up and took one of the front spaces, its headlights shining into the store interior. When the driver pushed through the front door, Tim recognized his distinctive conformation. The Stork poked around off camera, reappearing when he shambled up to the counter with three videos. He paid cash and left, climbing into his car.

When the car backed up, Tim saw it clearly, bathed in the streetlamp’s glow-a black PT Cruiser. With its forties-style narrow hood, rounded fenders, and sloping liftgate, it seemed a perfect, slightly embarrassing match for the Stork’s aesthetic.

Tim froze the frame, leaning close to the screen. The license plate was lost in one headlight’s reflection off the glass door. Rewinding, he slowed the tape just as the Stork pulled up. Again the plate was illegible, bleached out in the headlights’ gleam. When the Stork turned off the car, the grill fell immediately into shadow, backlit by the streetlamp. Tim let the tape play, watching for the enhanced spill of light from the door when the Stork entered; it illuminated the dark grill for a split second, still not enough for Tim to read the license number. He inched the tape forward and back but couldn’t make the plate resolve.

He reached Dray at the sheriff’s station. “Tim?” He could hear her shifting the phone, and then she spoke in a hushed voice. “Bear’s bringing the heat. There were deputy marshals all through the house last night, searching through our stuff.”

“What’d you tell them?”

“I told them we’re no longer in touch. That I hadn’t seen you since Thursday morning. Mac never saw you when you came back here after Rayner’s.”

Dray upheld fire-forged allegiances above all else, a trait Tim was forced to attribute to her four brothers or at least to her growing up with them. She was your strongest ally, once you had her.

“And Bear believed you?”

“Of course not.”

“Any progress on the safety-deposit key?”

“No. I’ve been flatfooting my ass to different bank branches every spare moment I have, but nothing so far. I’ll match it up, just a matter of when.”

“Listen, Dray, I don’t want to involve you further in this, but-”

“What do you need?” Her voice said, Shut up and tell me.

“Chrysler PT Cruiser, black, registered somewhere in El Segundo. Give me a ten-mile radius around city limits. There can’t be that many of them-I think they just started making it in 2001. Pull up license photos, cross-check them against a picture of Edward Davis, former FBI sound agent, Caucasian, Quantico, New Agent Class Two of ’66. Strange-looking guy-you’ll know him when you see him.” He heard her pen scratching on paper. “Also run the alias Daniel Dunn, see if anything rings the cherries.”

“Check.”

“You have any good intel?”

“Bear’s being pretty tight-lipped around me, but he’s also checking in every few hours, I think just to hear my voice. It must remind him of saner times.”

“Or to press you for info.”

“He did mention Tannino’s leaning toward a press conference this evening, though he wouldn’t say what they’re releasing. My guess is they’ll put out a shout to Bowrick, who they still haven’t located. If he’s not dead already. Oh-and they had to release that retarded guy. The janitor, accused of molesting those kids.”

“What? When?”

“Just a few hours ago. It’s tough to keep protective custody on someone against their will-you know that. He was agitated as hell the whole time. You can probably understand why.”

Tim felt his heartbeat pounding at his temples. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll get on the car for you. I’ll need some time to get it done quietly.”

“Thank you.” He moved to hang up, but then an image caught him-Ananberg back at Rayner’s after the break-in, dead eyes hidden beneath her sleek hair. He brought the telephone back up to his face. “Dray, I really…thank you.”

“I’m a deputy in Moorpark. What the hell else am I gonna do?”

•Something in the Acura’s dash started to rattle at ninety miles per hour. As Tim screeched off the freeway exit, it occurred to him that he might be heading into a cleverly devised setup. Dray would never betray him-that he knew-but if Bear wanted to disseminate misinformation to Tim, she was a plausible route. And Dobbins a plausible lure.

Not Bear’s style, but it was a possibility Tim couldn’t ignore.

When he reached the vicinity of Mick Dobbins’s apartment, he was torn between urgency and caution. He did a quick drive through the surrounding blocks, closing on the building, but in the end his foot approach left him ambush-vulnerable.

No answer when he rang Dobbins’s bell. No one visible through the window.

He turned at a slight movement beside him, expecting to see Bear and a legion of deputy marshals, but instead it was the same old woman from before, wrapped in the same fluoride-blue bathrobe, her hair still contorted in curlers. She drew back in a posture of exaggerated caution, one liver-spotted hand clenching her bathrobe closed at the throat.

“Look who’s poking around here again. Mr. Twenty Questions.”

“Where’s Mickey?” Tim asked.

“There you go again.” Her eyes flashed heavenward, her hands shaking twice, an exasperated plea for divine intervention. “What do you want with him? Everyone pulling and shoving at him-it’s enough already. Leave him in peace.”

“I’m a friend of Mickey’s, remember? I got the police to release him. Did someone else take him?”

“No one else has been nosing around”-she squinted at him-“except you. Mickey probably went down to the park. It’s after-school time. He likes to watch the children play. He misses them, because those schmucks took it away from him, his work at the school, those kids he adored so.”

Tim fought to maintain a facade of patience. “Which way is the park?”

She pointed an unsteady finger. “Just up the street.”

When Tim flashed past her, she let out a little shriek. He hit a dead sprint, sighting the park ahead, a half block rimmed with sycamores. Fluorescent Frisbees drifted over the abbreviated field, mothers chatted beside strollers, infants kicked up sand in a play box. Tim pulled up in the picnic area, trying to condense the whirlwind of motion, scanning the area for Dobbins. A mother sat with a notepad across her knees, her gold pen flashing in the sunlight. Children kicked and screamed from swings. Colorful clothing. The smell of baby powder. Cell phones chirping.

Across the park Dobbins sat on the edge of a wide brick planter, watching a group of kids play tag, his face heavy with sadness.

As Tim started to cut through the crowd, Dobbins rose and began to head in his direction. He walked with a deliberate gait, his beak nose pointed down, watching his shoes.

A movement from his left side, a thick plug of a man parting the crowd, solid and purposeful, seeming to glide through the bustle. Black jacket, low baseball cap, head ducked, hands in pockets. Mitchell.

Tim ran, cried out, his voice lost with the shouts of gleeful children.

Despite all else that had gone down, he was shocked that Mitchell would attempt a shooting in an area crowded with kids. The thought barely had time to register when Mitchell’s hand flashed up from his pocket, gripping a plastic flex-cuff. One tough plastic strip was curved around to make a dinner-plate-size circle, the notched end already snared through the catch. Just waiting to be tightened.

Mitchell swept behind Dobbins, who continued walking toward Tim, studying the ground at his feet, oblivious. Tim yelled, shoving a father out of the way. Dobbins’s head was just rising to check out the commotion ahead when the loop of the flex-cuff dropped over his head like a snare.

Even over the low rumble of the crowd, Tim heard the shrill zippering sound of the plastic pulling through the catch, and then Dobbins sucked in a creaking gasp, hands at his throat, and fell to his knees. A little girl screamed, and there was a flurry within the already-moving crowd, people running away, kids dashing to parents.

Mitchell was several strides from Dobbins now, but he turned as Tim approached, now fifteen yards away. Their eyes locked. Mitchell’s expression of utter tranquillity never gave way, not even as he drew, a quick, reflexive lift of his. 45 that rivaled Tim’s own. Tim’s weapon was clear of his waistband but pointed directly down at the ground; he didn’t dare raise it with children and parents streaming through his line of sight, crying and shouting.

Splitting the distance between them, Dobbins lay on the ground, now flat on his back, expelling great, abbreviated choking sounds. His body was remarkably still, save for one foot that ticked back and forth, pendulum-steady, the untied laces brushing asphalt. Over Mitchell’s shoulder Tim saw a tan Cadillac coast into view on the street behind the park, Robert at the wheel.

Tim stared down the bore of Mitchell’s gun, a hypnotic black dot that sucked in all his thoughts, leaving him with only a nonspecific buzz in his head. Mitchell’s right eye was closed, his left focused on Tim’s face over the lined sights. Children flashed between them.

Mitchell lowered his gun and took two jogging backward steps, then turned and sprinted to the car. Tim raced after him but got only a few steps past Dobbins before his conscience leash-jerked him back.

He slid to Dobbins, the asphalt scraping his knees even through his jeans. Dobbins’s neck sported deep scratch marks above the tight band of the flex-cuff; Tim could see the corresponding flesh stuck beneath the nails of his scrabbling fingers.

A cluster of people had gathered, watching warily from a few feet. Children were crying and being pulled away. The mother Tim had observed earlier looked shell-shocked, her weighty purse slung over one shoulder, her notepad flat against her thigh. Three people were on cell phones, anxiously providing the park’s address and a queasy description of the emergency.

The mother stepped forward, pulling an overburdened key chain from her purse and letting it dangle. “I have a knife.”

Tim grabbed the key chain and snapped off the pocketknife-an elegant sterling-silver trinket from Tiffany. The blade was thin, which would help, but not serrated, so sawing against the thick plastic would be tough going.

Tim moved Dobbins’s hands away, but they shot back to his bloody throat, obscuring Tim’s view. He pinned one of Dobbins’s arms beneath a knee and slapped the other away until a man stepped from the crowd and held it down.

Dobbins’s face was tomato red. A vein bulged on his forehead, and the skin around his neck was sucked in tight, leaving hollows.

Tim slid the blade under the embedded band, cutting through a thin layer of Dobbins’s skin in the process. He tried to turn the knife to get the cutting edge up against the flex-cuff, but there was not enough give; Mitchell had yanked it incredibly tight, smashing down the top half of Dobbins’s Adam’s apple.

Beneath him Dobbins jerked and expelled a ticking gurgle.

Tim turned the knife, fingering through the blood to find Dobbins’s larynx. He walked his fingers down until he felt the soft give of the cricothyroid membrane, then cut a lengthwise slit through Dobbins’s flesh. A burst of air shot out through the hole, accompanied by a spray of blood.

“Your pen. Give me your gold pen.” Tim snapped his fingers, his hand out to the mother. Anticipating him, she unscrewed the pen barrel and shook it so the rollerpoint ink cartridge fell. She handed him the hollow tube of the top half of the pen, and he turned it and inserted the tapered end into the bloody gap. It slid in smoothly.

The sound of sirens, still distant.

Tim sucked once to clear the tube and spit a mouthful of blood on the pavement, fighting off images of hepatitis and HIV, and then Dobbins’s body lurched forward as he drew air through the pen barrel directly into his throat. His sloped eyes gave off no anger, just a panicked disorientation.

“Come here,” Tim said. The woman came forward and crouched. “Hold this. Hold this.” She took the pen barrel from Tim’s blood-moist fingers, tentatively at first. He firmed her hands with his own, then rose.

The crowd parted, leaving him a few feet on either side. A crimson spray decorated the front of his shirt; his hands were stained to the knuckles. He jogged out of the park, back down the sidewalk to his car, spitting a bit of blood every few steps.

Driving away, he passed an ambulance and two cop cars just turning onto the block.