The Kill Clause

43

Since the Stork’s face had been plastered on every TV and doorstep in the state, his fleeing in the past two days would have been difficult. His distinctive features made a disguise unlikely, and nothing Tim had come across suggested that his technical proficiency extended into facial disguise. Tim figured he was holed up in his safe house, waiting for the media’s ADD to kick in. Then it would be back to reports of shark attacks or terrorist cells, and he’d be able to slip on a plane to somewhere with lots of sand and umbrellaed cocktails.

The house was isolated, as Tim had anticipated, located at the rear of a large lot covered with foliage. Positioned at the end of a three-house cul-de-sac, the Stork’s place was set back in the shadow of a surprisingly steep hill, the unwelcome terrain of which had probably saved it from development. No address numbers nailed near the front door, adhered to the mailbox, or sprayed on the curb. The house to its right was for sale, the picture window looking in on a barren room, and a remodel had ravaged the house to the left, tearing it down to its pressure-treated skeleton.

Crouching beside a construction Dumpster, Tim used a compact pair of binoculars to scan the foliage in the front yard. At least two security lenses peered out from leafy cover, craning on thin metal necks that had been spray-painted camouflage green. He picked apart the yard sector by sector. Another camera resolved from the foliage, and two motion sensors. The windows were barred internally, and the oversize front door looked to be solid oak. A gate blocked the backyard from view; a position up the hill would permit him a clear angle to the rear of the house.

Dusk cast a graininess over the street, lending it the slight unfocus of gritty war footage and washed-out black-and-white photographs. Somewhere, miles away, the rumble of waves rose into audibility.

Tim plotted a path up the hill, around the back of the house. He moved swiftly and evenly, ducking remembered camera lines of sight and IR beams. He had to acrobat his way through crossing motion-sensor fields near the side of the house, then it was free movement up the hill. He’d snugged his gun back into the hip holster so as not to worry about slippage.

He lay on his stomach and studied the backyard in the dying light, disappointed that he’d left his night-vision goggles in the war bag in the Acura’s trunk. The only good thing about the chest-high fence, topped with a Slinky of concertina wire, was that it adhered to residential zoning heights. With matching iron bars, the rear windows appeared to be equally impenetrable as those to the front. A virtual colony of security cams angled toward the back door like attentive prairie dogs. He picked up a motion detector over the back door, an ominously quiet doghouse blanketed in shadow, dog shit on the kidney-shaped lawn.

Keeping a nervous eye out for Fido, he inched down the hill and zoomed in with the binocs on the back door, barely visible through the wide mesh of the security screen. Single pane framed with a thick wooden stile. Though he couldn’t confirm it from this distance, it seemed the edges of the pane bore a dark strip, a Plexi-coating that would indicate bulletproof glass. A latch protector extended past the doorknob and overlapped the frame, guarding the bolt from a credit-card lift; that, and the visible hinges, meant the door was outswinging. The knob itself housed a series of locks with immense key slots, probably custom-made.

He would have expected nothing less from the Stork.

The bulletproof pane looked in on a laundry room and another locked door, this one solid. Two shiny circles on the second door suggested standard locks, probably pick-resistant Medecos. A shimmering of metal near the doorknob indicated a wraparound mag plate to reinforce against jimmying. Tim would’ve put money on both doors’ having reinforced strikes, long screws to beef up the plates against a kick-in.

He certainly had his work cut out for him.

He was just pulling back when a light clicked on deeper within the house, revealing a dining table overburdened with keyboards and computer monitors and surrounded by a copper-mesh cage. The Stork shuffled into sight, wearing a pair of baby blue pajamas, entered the cage, and plopped down in front of the cluster of equipment.

Tim lay in the darkness, his eyes resting on this man who had played a part in his daughter’s dismemberment. He felt his heartbeat in his fingertips, his ears; his entire skin seemed to move to the heightened pulse. He pictured the Stork behind a telescopic lens, calmly focusing as Kindell stumbled out from his shack, Ginny’s blood across his thighs to…what? Bay at the moon? Breath the crisp air? Catch his breath for continued sawing? The Stork wouldn’t have cared; he’d have taken apart his camera lovingly, nestled its parts in foam, collected his paycheck.

The Stork typed for a few moments, then paused to rub out knots in his cramped hands. Through the well-barred window, Tim briefly watched him resume work before withdrawing back up the hill.

It took him nearly ten minutes to extract without tripping any alarms or crossing any lenses. He sat in his car a few blocks away, plotting, regretting he’d given up dipping tobacco again, since he felt like working something over physically to mirror the activity in his head.

Though he was competent with a pick and a torsion wrench, he had none of the Stork’s finesse or training. He didn’t stand a chance against those locks.

Finesse would have to go out the window.

•He paid cash at the Ace Hardware counter, spending most of what Dray had given him. The checkout woman, an old biddy with the rough hands of an inveterate gardener, whistled over a strapping coworker to help Tim get his purchases out to his car. Tim waved him off, loading up the equipment in an enormous black duffel bag he’d pulled from an overstuffed wire bin in Aisle 5.

“Must be a hell of a project.” The woman’s breath smelled of Polident.

Tim hefted the bag up on a shoulder. “Yes, indeed.”

•Moving along the prescribed path through the Stork’s front yard was trickier with the bulky duffel in tow, especially in the full dark of night. There was no way he’d get through the dueling motion sensors at the side of the house, and he didn’t have the patience or tools to size out a mirror to bounce the IR beam back on itself. Instead he pulled a small shaving mirror from the bag, shattered it, and deflected the beam with a shard momentarily so he could smear Vaseline over the housing.

After some tedious creeping and hauling, he reached his post in the hillside. The effort and the heavy vest left him damp with sweat. Down below, the Stork was still working away in his blue pajamas at the computer. He appeared to be talking to himself. After a few minutes Tim heard the shrill ring of a telephone, and the Stork picked up a cell phone from the table but seemed to get no response. He shook his head, realizing he’d grabbed the wrong line, and set the cell phone back down. Rising from his perch behind the monitors, he walked into the adjoining kitchen.

Tim checked the bag to make sure everything was accounted for and well arranged, then began a silent descent to the back fence. He clipped a small canister of mace to his belt, checked his gun, and removed a length of blanket insulation from the bag. The Stork was visible in the kitchen, sitting on a stool, sipping juice through a straw and leaning to talk into the speaker of a wall-mounted phone. He fussed the cap off a bottle and took a few pills, continuing to massage his arthritic hands as he spoke.

Taking took a deep breath, Tim heaved the duffel over the fence. The grass cushioned its landing, but still he heard a startled movement within the doghouse. He unfurled the blanket insulation over the concertina wire and scrambled over the fence as a Doberman streaked toward him, snarling. He hit the ground, reaching for the mace as the dog took flight in a long snarling leap. He got off a blast and ducked the dog as it sailed into the cloud, growl already turning to whimper. The dog rolled on the ground, pawing at its eyes, emitting a drawn-out whine like a horse’s whinny.

Tim shouldered the bag and began a jogging approach to the back door. He crowbar-torqued the security screen, which popped with a satisfying clang and swung out on its hinges. He dropped to a knee, pulling gear from the duffel. As he fitted his electric drill with a wide circular bit, he heard movement within-the Stork’s scrambling approach.

The Stork pushed through the laundry-room door and stood, watching through the back-door window. “Mr. Rackley, I’m glad you found me, since I couldn’t find you. Robert and Mitchell have gone completely out of their heads.”

“Open up and let’s have a talk.”

“Somehow I’ve been implicated, but I-”

“I know you were involved. I know you picked the lock for them at Rhythm’s.”

“I was just going to say, Robert and Mitchell coerced me into helping them. I didn’t want to, but threat of death and whatnot. I did it with a gun to my head. I told them I’d never help them again.”

“I also know you were involved in my daughter’s death.”

The Stork’s entire body sagged, his shoulders rolled forward, his head dipped. “That wasn’t my idea. Or my choice. I tried to warn them off, told them it could only come to-”

“Where are they? Where’d they take Kindell?”

“I haven’t been in touch with them. I swear, Mr. Rackley. I don’t know where they are.” The Stork’s eyes went to the Doberman, still rolling on the lawn far away at the back fence. “W-what did you do to Trigger?” His breathing quickened. “God, my house, how did you…?” He shuddered. “Why should I trust you any more than them?”

“It ends here, Stork. You come clean with me. And the authorities.”

“I won’t let you in. I won’t be turned in.” The Stork’s squeaky voice did little to disguise his panic.

Tim raised the drill. With a grating whine, it eased through the bulletproof glass, leaving a neat hole the size of a coaster next to the handle side of the wood stile. Next he revved up a pistol-grip saber saw.

“You’re making a terrible mistake!” the Stork screamed.

Tim released the trigger, let the noise from the hammering blade fade to silence.

“I have dirt on you, Mr. Rackley, or don’t you care?” Drops of sweat ran down the Stork’s cheeks, having originated somewhere high on his bald head. “You were the actual assassin. I was just the tech guy. If you turn me in, I spill, and your life is over, too.”

Tim started the saw again, and the Stork stepped forward, shrieking, tripping over a neat row of shoes beside the washing machine. His face was approaching tomato red. Tim starting cutting a line up the bulletproof glass, which yielded easily. He hit the wood of the top rail, and the saw’s buzz kicked into high. The blade had started to gum up; chain saws worked better on bulletproof glass, but they were significantly louder.

The Stork had pressed himself to the glass, inches away from Tim, pleading. Tim stopped the saw, changing the blade. “You helped set up my daughter’s death. You sat back and took pictures as she was being cut to pieces. I’m coming in. I’m making you talk. And I’m not going to sleep or eat or pause until the three of you have answered for the role you played.”

“Stop it! Oh, God, stop it!” The Stork pressed his hands and forehead to the bulletproof glass, leaving smudges. He was gasping now, the mist from his breath clouding the pane in splotches. His shoulders were shaking, his curiously flat nose a white stroke on his flushed face. He appeared to be crying. “I just want to be left alone. I can’t go out anyways, not since you released my name to the press. I won’t do anything. I won’t even leave the house. I just want to live here alone.”

Tim started the saw again and leaned forward.

The Stork’s face flicker-changed back to its usual inscrutable blankness-his performance was over. He leaned back, pulled a Luger from the back of his pajama waistband, and fired through the drilled hole of the glass directly into Tim’s upper stomach.

The force of the shot knocked Tim off the concrete step. He fell back another two paces and landed flat on the lawn. Despite the screaming pain, he forced a double roll to the side, putting him out of the limited range the hole permitted the Luger. He tried to cry out but could not, tried to suck air but could not.

His mouth open, he lurched and bobbed, his insides a dense knot of pain that permitted no breath. A guttural creaking emerged from his mouth, foreign to his own ears. He kicked and flopped like a fish on a boat deck. The Stork watched him with curiosity, occasionally knuckling his glasses back up into place.

“I wasn’t about to permit you to go to the authorities once you knew where I lived, Mr. Rackley. Surely you understand.”

Tim tried to fight his jacket off, still straining, still struggling, still locked up from neck to bowels. At once his insides spasmed and eased, and he drew in a hard cool breath and immediately fell to coughing. He pushed himself up on all fours, nearly hyperventilating, coughing and snorting and sucking air. Snot dangled from his nose, saliva from his lower lip. It felt as though someone had swung a wrecking ball into his gut.

Tim stood. The Stork watched with amazement.

Tim pulled off his jacket, grimacing to get each shoulder free, and the Stork saw for the first time the bulletproof vest beneath. His eyes bulged in a nearly comic show of fresh-started panic, and he emitted a weak scream. Turning, he ran back through the laundry-room door and slammed it. Tim heard bolts turning, chairs being slid.

He approached the door again with firm, angry footsteps. His throbbing stomach made itself known each second as he sawed down from the hole, through the bulletproof glass, through the bottom wooden rail. He kicked the door, and it parted, one half flying open, leaving a length of wooden stile, a thin strip of bulletproof glass, and the myriad locks perfectly in place in the doorjamb. He stepped through the gap, dragging his bag.

Three steps in, the solid laundry-room door stopped him. It was steel-reinforced, and both locks were Medecos, as Tim had guessed.

Behind it he heard the Stork’s panicked movements. “I’m sorry. You alarmed me, though, you really alarmed me. I have money here, lots of money. In cash. That’s how I keep it mostly. You can take…can take whatever.”

Tim popped the circular bit off the drill and fitted a carbide tip. The Medecos featured fortified ball bearings and hardened-steel inserts, which would render a normal bit all but useless.

Tim gripped the doorknob, and a jolt of electricity knocked him to the ground. He slid to a stop near the split back door, shaking his head, his tongue and teeth gone numb. He gripped his arm to stop it from shaking.

The clever bastard had wired an electric charge to the doorknob.

Tim stood up, leaning on the dryer until the spell of light-headedness passed. A faint nausea washed through him, then departed, leaving him only with the pain in his abdomen, a pulse that spread down to his bladder and up through his chest each time he inhaled.

The Stork had gone silent on the other side of the door.

Tim dug through the mound of footwear, tossing aside the Stork’s tiny sneakers, a worn pair of loafers. A street-hiking boot at the bottom, layered with rubber and stained with red dust, would do the trick. Tim slid the drill handle into the boot, gripped it as best he could, and used a lace to tie down the trigger.

At the drill’s renewed whine, the Stork’s frantic pleading started again. “Just give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll clear out of town. You’ll never see me again. Please.”

Tim aimed the carbide tip into the cylinder core directly over the keyway. Sparks flew out in a continuous firecracker blaze as the drill progressed, eliminating the lock pins, bringing the tumblers and springs down out of place. When he paused to wipe his heated hands on his jeans, they left red smudges from the dirty rubber boot. Gripping the drill through the boot made for slow going; by the time he’d finished the second lock, the drill chuck was steaming and his forearms were cramped.

He drew his pistol and kicked the door. It banged in, sending a propped chair spinning into the dining room. A severed lamp cord ran from an electrical outlet, its end stripped and duct-taped to the door-knob.

No sign of the Stork.

Tim heard whimpering farther back in the house, so he moved through the dining room toward the rear hall, elbows locked,. 357 extended. The house was cluttered. Three laundry baskets full of padlocks that had been shot and drilled. A row of key-cutting machines sitting side by side, each one a menacing confusion of arms, levers, teeth. Safety goggles hanging from buffing wheels. Soldering irons. Tackle boxes filled with switches and sockets and washers. A multi-antennaed apparatus with an oddly vital appearance.

Tim moved with extreme caution, assessing everything around him, looking for booby traps.

The Stork’s voice echoed down the hall at him. “God, don’t take me in. I couldn’t last in prison, a guy like me. Not for a second.” The words deteriorated back into unintelligibility.

A thin trip wire gleamed about eight inches off the hall floor, just before the turn. Tim took care in stepping over it.

The bathroom on the far side of the elbow was empty, as was the small opposing study. Tim sourced the faint moaning to the hall’s terminus. Another locked door, this one solid-core wood. Tim flattened against the wall to the hinge side of the door. When he ventured a hand and knocked, the moaning flared up into a shriek.

“Please just go. I’m sorry I tried to shoot you, Mr. Rackley. I can’t go with you and be arrested. I can’t.”

“Where did Robert and Mitchell take Kindell?”

“I won’t say anything. I’m not going to go to jail. I won’t go to jail. I swear I just-” His words cut off abruptly. Dead silence.

“Stork? Stork? Stork!”

No answer.

After another minute of silence, Tim shuffled his feet in place to see if he could draw fire. He smacked his heel against the door, but this brought no response either. His stomach ached. He might have broken a lower rib. The skin on the roof of his mouth still tingled from the shock. His shoulder throbbed.

He slid down the wall to a crouch, pistol dangling between his spread legs, and listened.

Complete silence.

He stood again, fighting away the pain, fighting for focus. Pivoting, he kicked the door just to the side of the knob. It did not give. He stumbled back a few steps, gripping his ankle, cursing. His foot hurt like hell.

He crept back down the hall, careful to avoid the trip wire, retrieved a pair of channel locks from his bag, and returned. Trying to keep his body to the side of the door, he gripped the knob in the vise and twisted hard, snapping the pins and raking through the cylinders. Then he flattened himself again against the hinge-side wall, willed away his various aches, and prepared for the pivot.

Take two.

This time the door gave with the force of the kick. He barged in, . 357 sweeping left, then right.

The Stork was backed against the far wall, drawn up in a huddled ball beneath the window, the Luger on the floor before him. His legs were curled under him, an arm gripping a knee, one hand clutching his chest. His face was deep red, awash in drying sweat, his mouth slightly ajar. His glasses had come unhooked from one ear and sat crooked across his face.

Tim kicked the gun away, checked a pulse and got nothing but tranquil, clammy flesh. The Stork’s feeble heart had given out.

Tim stood and regarded the room, a bizarre mishmash of spinster antiques and old-fashioned toys. A quilted comforter draped over a wooden sleigh bed. A Silvertone windup record player sat on a varnished table beside a stack of old LPs, a pile of stray hundred-dollar bills, and a Lone Ranger tin lunch box with the lid open. The lunch box was filled with neatly banded hundreds.

Tim leaned to peer behind the sole print on the wall-capless Lou Gehrig, head bowed, the luckiest man on the face of the earth confronting the packed stands of Yankee Stadium-and caught the gleam of the steel wall safe behind. The view from the other side revealed wiring and plastic explosives. Thinking of his ART teammates, Tim found a Sharpie permanent marker in the nightstand drawer and wrote BOOBY TRAP in block letters on the wall with a big arrow pointing at the frame.

He cautiously slid open the closet door, revealing several hundred old children’s lunch boxes, stacked floor to ceiling. He pulled the top one off-the Green Hornet and Kato-and opened it cautiously. Filled with cash, mostly fives and tens. The money by the record player Tim figured to be the latest payment, perhaps for the Stork’s part in planning Tim’s own assassination. Or for a murder still to come. Kindell.

The bathroom counter was barely visible beneath a blanket of pill bottles. A rubber ducky stared at Tim from the tub’s rim. Strung up on the tile were dozens of photos, most of them surveillance shots of Kindell about his business-emerging from a supermarket, tying his shoes on a sidewalk, brushing out his garage shack like a suburbanite on a Sunday afternoon. Tim wondered which were shot before Ginny’s death. He was overtaken with a fierce, fantastic urge-to travel back in time so he could fill Kindell’s head with bullets before the calendar lurched forward to February 3.

A photo of Tim and Ginny at the monkey bars, her expression one of apprehension, his of affectionate impatience. She’d been gripping his hand tightly, as if in fear that the monkey bars would mount an assault. Next to it hung a shot of Ginny walking home from school, backpack snug on both shoulders, face downturned, lips pursed-she was whistling to herself, as she often did, lost in that reverie children her age seem to fall into when alone.

He stared at the picture, feeling his grief again thaw and resolve, his mind clicking and whirring, trying to contend with the colossal unfairness that Ginny, in her mere seven years, had been targeted and risked and ultimately dismembered because of Tim’s own talent and recruitability. A pilot light of guilt flickered, ready to catch and blaze. How much responsibility did he, his training, his psychological profile, bear? How much of Ginny’s death had to do with the traits and skills embedded in Tim’s own character? Guilt could reach startling depths, he’d learned, even when not attached to fault.

He moved back down the hall, again stepping over the booby-trap wire, and into the dining room.

Gizmos and gadgets of all sorts lay about the floor in various stages of development and disuse. Tim recognized Betty, the conical digital-tone renderer, and Donna, the modified peeper. Betty had been altered, the keypad removed and a single Walkman earpiece inserted. Tim picked it up, inserted the earpiece, and swung the sound-gathering parabola around the dining room. He picked up nothing. He angled it through the open laundry-room and back doors, and the Doberman’s panting, hot and slobbering, burst into his ear. He let out a startled yell and tugged the earpiece free, his heart racing. The Doberman was still lying out near the fence, nearly fifty yards away. Tim was regarding the long-range mike with renewed admiration when he became aware of Robert’s sandpaper chuckle, feet away.

He dropped Betty, his. 357 drawn before she hit the floor.

Robert’s malicious laughter continued. Muscles tensed, weapon readied, Tim followed the sound toward the kitchen. He swung into the room, back pressed to the jamb, but there was nothing there, just an empty kitchen table, the Stork’s cup of juice on the counter, the red light of the telephone.

Tim slowly realized that the laughter was issuing from the still-active speaker on the wall-mounted phone. His assault on the back door had interrupted the Stork’s call.

Robert’s abrasive voice boomed out into the kitchen, over what sounded like low-level radio static issuing from the line. “Something scare you, princess?”

Tim spoke loudly in the direction of the speakerphone. “I’m quaking in my stilettos.” Talking compounded the throbbing in his stomach.

“You put on quite a show. It’s like old-time radio. ‘The Shadow knows.’ I bet the Stork would have appreciated it. Did you kill him?”

“He’s dead.”

“I figured.”

In the background Tim heard a distinctive, familiar chime rise out of the static. “You have Kindell.”

“You’re a quick study.”

“Have you killed him?”

“Not yet.”

The barely audible static from the speakerphone found resonance in the kitchen, the sudden depth of stereo sound. The matching murmur issued from the direction of the kitchen table. As Tim walked over, a radio-frequency scanner came into view on the seat of one of the chairs. The distinctive chime he’d overheard on the line-LAPD’s dispatch prompt. He felt his stomach tighten but pulled his focus back to the conversation. “What are you going to do with him?”

“I’m gonna violate his constitutional guarantees. And hard.”

A digital counter on the phone ticked off the length of the ongoing call: 17:23. The clock on the stove showed 10:44 P.M. Bowrick was safe only for a little more than an hour; then he’d likely be turned out of the clinic and put back on the street.

“You set Kindell up to kidnap my daughter.”

The air left Robert; Tim heard it across the mouthpiece like a burst of static. The rustle of the phone being covered. The murmur of the brothers conversing.

“We didn’t mean for it to go down that way.”

“Yeah? Well, then, why don’t you tell me how you meant for it to go down? Because, hey, maybe once I hear this, I’ll just forgive you and we can all go home.”

“We needed an executioner. We’d been waiting for months, almost a year, while Rayner tinkered with psychological profiles. Ananberg was being an uptight cunt. Dumone was…well, Dumone moves slow. Us and Rayner, we needed to get the plan in motion. The problem was, Rayner said, a guy with your profile wasn’t likely to say yes to something like the Commission. Needed a more personal motivation. So we thought we’d give you a little shove.”

“A shove.”

“It was supposed to go down easy. Kindell picks up Virginia, we bust in, cap his ass before he so much as touches a hair on her head. We save her, deliver her back to you in secret. We tell you the system let a child molester off the hook three times and placed him right there in your sunny little neighborhood. We tell you he had designs on your little girl-designs that would have been fulfilled if things were just left up to the system. We tell you we’re guys with a plan, and since that plan just saved your daughter’s life, why don’t you come to a meeting?”

“I’m overcome with gratitude and, after subsequent bonding, I join the Commission.”

“Something like that.”

“You put my daughter in the hands of a convicted child molester.” The venom in Tim’s voice must have set Robert back on his heels, because he took a few moments to respond.

“Look, I’m sorry it went down that way, but desperate times and all that. Rayner was looking at Kindell closely since he’d gotten off for his priors-the insanity-plea bullshit, a loophole that made him a potential Commission target even before Ginny. Rayner did the profile on him. He wasn’t a killer. None of his priors took that turn. We thought we’d just approach him, say, ‘Hey, here’s a girl you might like. Grab her and keep an eye on her, don’t do nothing till we show.’”

“Didn’t work out that way, did it?”

“No it didn’t. And after, we figured Kindell would wind up in jail. We were gonna try to use Ginny’s death to pull you aboard, but when he got off because of the deafness…well, shit, that made you a sure thing. Hey, man, life gives you lemons…”

“Then you slowly win my trust, Rayner doctors up Kindell’s case binder so I’m convinced Kindell acted alone, and we vote to execute him. I do the job. I clean up your mess, the one remaining witness.”

“Right. Once we off Kindell, there’s nothing linking us to Ginny. Or to anything around the Commission. It’s just your word against ours.”

They had no idea that Rayner had taped their call from Kindell’s. A sound escaped Tim, a creaking, eerie laugh that caught him off guard.

“What’s so fucking funny?”

“You’ve become just like them. This plan of yours, it led you to kill a girl. A seven-year-old girl.”

“Don’t put that shit on our heads.” Robert’s voice rose, to the verge of yelling. “We don’t own what Kindell did. That wasn’t what we wanted.”

From the beginning Tim had tried to understand the Mastersons’ odd mix of resentment toward Tim and horror over Ginny’s death. The resentment was guilt gone bad; the horror was their own revulsion at having her blood on their hands. He recalled Mitchell’s words on the telephone: We were gonna cut you a break, leave you be. Part of us figures we owe you.

“Well, Kindell’s gonna pay now,” Robert said. “We’ll do him for you. It’ll be a statement, even, to this hellhole of a city. A little…”

“-tribute-” Mitchell’s muffled interjection.

“-for all the other pukes out there to see. The first step of the next phase, our phase. It’ll say, ‘We got him. And you’re next, motherfucker.’”

“I can’t let you do that.”

Robert’s voice was shot through with intensity and menace. “Are you really gonna fight to save the life of the man who killed your daughter? This piece of shit deserves to die.”

Kindell’s image came to Tim quickly and vividly, as it always did. The crop of fuzzy hair, so much like animal fur, capping the flat forehead. The wet, insensate eyes, devoid of emotional comprehension. He thought of the relief Kindell’s absence from the world would afford him. At the moment he could imagine nothing more disagreeable than extending himself to save his life. “I happen to agree. But that call isn’t ours to make.”

“Oh? He’s bleeding here in Mitch’s hands. So tell me, whose call is it if it ain’t ours?” He chuckled. “And lemme warn you while we’re at it-we know you’re double-dealing with the marshals. Any sign of any car, we cap Kindell and shoot our way out. And believe us, we’ll know. We got our ears to the ground.”

Tim looked at the radio scanner on the chair.

“You forget, Rackley, we surveilled you for the better part of a year. We know when you were toilet trained. We knew how you’d react when Ginny died, how to fold you right into the Commission. We predicted you and played you like a fucking board game. We go head-to-head, you’re gonna lose. We know you, Rackley.”

“Like you knew Kindell?”

“Better. We operated side by side with you. Next time we see you, we’re gonna break it off in you.”

“Vivid image.”

“Don’t get in the way of what we’re accomplishing here.”

“Your righteousness is a joke,” Tim said. “And if you think I’m gonna leave this city at the mercy of you or your brother, you’re even more deranged than I thought.”

Robert let out a sharp hiss of disgust.

Tim’s rage narrowed to a single point of calm, the eye of the hurricane. “I’m coming for you.” He raised his pistol and shot the telephone. It shifted and crumpled a bit. No sparks, no flying shrapnel-it was far less satisfying than he’d anticipated. He stood a few minutes in the quiet kitchen, waiting for his anger to burn itself out.

Clicking through the radio scanner’s settings confirmed his worst suspicions-the Stork had managed to get ahold not only of LAPD tactical frequencies but also those of the marshal duty-desk radio, which corresponded with all deputies in the field. The radio echo he’d heard over the telephone meant that the Masterson boys-wherever they were-were well apprised of in-progress law-enforcement movement throughout the city. He couldn’t know if Bear’s cell-phone frequency was also being monitored; for the time being he’d have to assume that any communication with the authorities would tip his hand.

Returning to the dining room, he finished glancing through some of the Stork’s oddly animated inventions before turning his focus to the copper cage. No keyboard vibrations going anywhere through that thing.

He leaned over and stared at the bizarre jumble of words on the computer screen.

“What the hell?” he murmured.

Letters scrolled across the screen as if they’d been typed: what the hell

Tim found the outpointed microphone atop the monitor and spoke into it. “You’re a speech-to-typing program.”

The screen responded again: you’re a speech to typing program

He scrolled up the screen. It had picked up the majority of his conversation with Robert in the kitchen, though only his own utterances.

I’m quaking in my still echoes he’s dead you have kindle

The speakerphone must not have been loud enough for the mike to pick up Robert’s responses.

He scanned up farther, taking in the Stork’s frantic remarks to him through the bedroom door, the computer hypothesizing about unclear words: please just go I’m sorry I tried two shoot you missed her rackety I can’t go with you and bereft I can’t

Scrolling all the way to the top, Tim discovered that the Stork had turned on the speech-recognition software to compose a letter.

Joseph Hardy

P.O. Box 4367

El Segundo, CA 90245

Dear Mister McArthur,

I do have an interest in your recent shipment of young adult original classics, particularly Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober, 1962, and Tom Swift and His Aquatomic Tracker, 1964. I am only interested if they are near mint or better. The last book you shipped to me, The Radio Boys’ First Wireless, was badly yellowed hello hello Robert doughnut use this lie I tolled you the new foams are clear your second payment was off buy too hunter I counted it twine I’m out I doughnut car this has gotten crazy since mister rackety leek too the press I wow leaf my house you done need me for survey lands the money mint is clear at night good line of site done the kill on all side I’m not coming especially too night too much heat no surrey and even if Ida considerate it would cost you more than that hang on Jesus hang on mister rackety I’m glad you fund me since I could nut find you

The computer approximation of the Stork’s dialogue to Tim through the back door continued, winding up with stork stork stork what the hell you’re a speech to typing program.

Clearly the software had to be guided with additional audio commands to render sentences meaningfully; the Stork had ceased overseeing it when he’d gone into the kitchen to answer the landline. The farther he’d been from the mike, the less faithfully the program had transcribed his inadvertently recorded dialogue. His speech impediment probably hadn’t helped much either.

Tim picked up from hello hello Robert, trying to figure out the sentence breaks: doughnut use this lie I tolled you the new foams are clear-so far, so good.

The Stork had reached for a cell phone first when the phone had rung in his house. Remembering that he’d set it back down on the table, Tim searched and found it behind a stack of discarded keyboards. He scanned through the programmed names. Only two: “R” and “M.”

Pocketing the phone, Tim turned his attention back to the screen: your second payment was off buy too hunter I counted it twine I’m out I doughnut car this has gotten crazy since mister rackety leek too the press I wow leaf my house you done need me for survey lands

Tim got stuck at the money mint is clear at night

He pulled a pad over and jotted down variations.

Money man. Money print. Munitions.

And the following sentence-good line of site done the kill on all side-was no clearer.

Good line of sight to the kill from all sides?

He dropped the pen and thumped the notepad in frustration, his hand leaving a dirty imprint. He decided to move on.

The next few transcribed sentences were much easier to interpret:

I’m not coming especially too night too much heat no surrey and even if Ida considerate it would cost you more than that

Tim scratched his hairline with the end of the pen. Whatever the specifics, Robert and Mitchell were planning to kill Kindell tonight. Tim reflexively glanced at his watch: 11:13 P.M. The Mastersons had presumably called the Stork because they were ready to enact the next step in their plan; Tim didn’t have much time to intercept them.

The Stork’s reaction to the sound of Tim’s interruption followed next on the screen: hang on Jesus hang on

And then his first words to Tim: mister rackety I’m glad you fund me since I could nut find you

Tim returned to the first problem noun, “the money mint,” no doubt the key.

What would be clear at night? Did the Stork mean “clear” as in “safe,” or “clear” in the visual sense? Probably “safe,” since in the sentence before he was arguing that he wasn’t needed for surveillance. What would be clear at night? A place of business. A public place. An actual mint? A planned robbery didn’t seem to fit. Done the kill. Down the hill? Money man clearance?

Tim studied the reddish mark he’d left on the notepad-the smudge of his palm, four finger streaks barely visible. The stain should have been a brownish mix of dirt and grease from the tools, but the dust that had come off on his hand from the Stork’s boot had colored it almost auburn. money mint

Where had he seen dirt that shade? done the kill the money mint is clear at night

The slap of delayed recognition. The buzz of adrenaline. Tim bolted to his feet, forgetting the aching in his stomach. The chair rolled back lazily across the room and hit the wall.

Robert tilted his face back and shot a stream of cigarette smoke at the moon, two patches of dirt coloring his denim jacket at the elbows. money mint. Monument.

The monument is clear at night. Good line of sight down the hill on all sides.

I’ll tell you what would make a good memorial. One guilty and unconvicted fuck swinging from each branch. That’s what I’d like. That’s the kind of memorial we oughta build for those victims.

At tomorrow’s first light of day, downtown L.A. would have a grim silhouette greeting it over the skyline.

It’ll be a statement, even, to this hellhole of a city. A little tribute for all the other pukes out there to see. The first step of the next phase, our phase.

Working quickly, Tim defused the booby trap in the hall, cutting the trip wire and writing an immense warning on the floor with the Sharpie. He resisted the urge to spend time figuring out how to reach Bear through a secure line. Whatever chance he’d have of bringing this conflict to a nonviolent resolution-admittedly slim-would be lost with flashing lights and a marshals-LAPD barricade. A stealth approach was likely necessary to save Kindell’s life.

On his way out, Tim stopped to retrieve his jacket. The Doberman approached him and nuzzled his hand shyly, its eyes red and submissive.