The sentry

50

Pike sat on the Venice Boulevard bridge, looking down Grand Canal at the house. He sat on the concrete base of a light pole with his legs dangling down, which you weren't supposed to do, but Officer Hydeck was leaning on the rail next to him.

She said, "You spend a lot of time here."

Pike nodded.

"I see you here a lot, man. You doing okay?"

"I'm good."

Hydeck adjusted her pistol.

"What do you think happened to the money?"

"Rainey said they spent it."

"Who knows? Remember the North Hollywood bank robbery, those idiots with the machine guns? There's three-quarters of a million dollars those guys stole, nobody knows where it is. It happens. This criminal money? It disappears."

Pike didn't respond. Hydeck was okay, but he wanted her to leave him alone.

"Hey, you know what? I don't know if you've heard yet. Those assholes who killed Button and Futardo? You hear about them?"

Pike knew Futardo had killed one of the men, but the other was missing.

"What about them?"

"They used to be DEA agents. The one who called himself Straw, his name was Norm Lister. That other cat was named Carbone. They worked the Rainey case way back in day one. Lister, he was fired, and the other resigned. I guess they decided to go for the gold, huh?"

Pike recalled the files he had taken from the Malibu. Most of the reports had been written by Lister.

Pike said, "Too bad about Jerry. Futardo, too."

"She was a nice gal. Posthumous Medal of Valor."

Hydeck finally pushed away from the rail. She settled her gun.

"Okay, bud, I'm history. I'll see you around."

Pike looked at her.

"Thanks for helping out like you did."

"You're not supposed to sit there with your feet hanging over."

Hydeck smiled, and ambled back to her car.

Pike went back to staring at the house.

The federal and state investigators from Louisiana had come and gone. They had interviewed Pike, and shared their information. They denied Rainey's assertion he had stolen only eight-point-two million, and related multiple accounts from arrested participants that Rainey had stolen a minimum of twelve million and as much as eighteen million dollars from the Bolivians. Pike believed them. Rainey's nature was to lie, so Pike had no doubt he continued lying until the end.

Rose Platt convinced him.

Pike swung his legs around, pushed off the wall, and walked to the Sidewalk Cafe. He sat in the outdoor area, two tables away from the one he had shared with Rose Platt.

The young waitress there, the one with the dimples, smiled when she saw him. He was a regular now.

"Green tea?"

Pike nodded.

Pike sipped the tea, and stared through the passing people at the ocean without seeing them or the water or anything else. He thought about nothing except the warmth of the tea and the cool ocean breeze, and how good the sun felt as it melted into the horizon.

When the sky was dark, Pike paid his tab and returned to the canals. He followed the sidewalk along the canal past the Palmers and checked Jared's window. Jared was up there, wearing headphones and swirling to a rhythmic, unknown beat.

Pike moved on, stepping onto the tiny dock at the back of Steve Brown's house, where the kayak hung on twin wooden posts.

Jared told him Steve Brown would return by the end of the week. Jared had also told him other things, like how Rainey would sit on the little dock at night, and how he'd go out in the kayak at night, and how Jared had twice seen Rainey wading in the canal at night.

Always at night.

But it was Rose who convinced him, with the things she said at the end, how she couldn't walk away from that kind of money, how she had lived like a rat for that money. The way she had looked at him when she thought she would lose it. If only you knew.

Pike wondered if she had known where it was, or if Rainey told her in the moments before he died. Either way, she seemed to be talking about much more than three hundred forty-two thousand dollars.

Pike ran his hands over the kayak's smooth skin, then lifted it from its hooks. Pike knew the money wasn't in the little boat because he had checked it two days ago, but he enjoyed the feel of its weight.

He set the kayak back on its hooks, then sat on the dock. It was a nice night, cool, and the water would be cold.

Eighty-five concrete stones lined the bank from one side of the property to the other, arranged in five staggered layers of seventeen blocks each. Pike knew this because he had counted them when the water was down. He had returned at night twice, and waded to the center of the canal, where, at its deepest point when the tide was high, the water reached his neck. He had probed the bottom and the plants that grew there in feathery clouds, then began checking the blocks to see if any were loose or movable.

Pike searched the blocks beneath and around the dock first. It was the obvious choice, but Pike had found nothing. Each block had been firm and secure in its file.

There were more blocks to check.

Pike took off his running shoes and pistol. He pulled off his pants and sweatshirt, wrapped the gun in his pants, then put on his shoes and slipped quietly into the water. His muscles clenched at the first shock of cold, but the shock, like all pain, faded.

Pike resumed where he had left off, checked eleven more blocks, and was wading beneath the salt plants when his leg struck a hard object. He felt it with his foot, and realized he had bumped against a ten-inch pipe. He had seen pipes like it in the canals when the water was out. They were drains for rain and runoff collected from the alleys and yards.

The pipes he had seen were capped with a heavy mesh grid to keep out birds and animals when the water was low, but when Pike pushed his foot against this one, he felt the grid move.

Pike took a breath, pulled himself under, and found four nylon duffel bags stuffed up the pipe, tied together with rope. They did not come easily, but after a while Pike had them free.

Once he had them out of the water, he put on his shirt and pants, clipped the pistol to his belt, and headed back to his Jeep with the bags. As he climbed the narrow pedestrian bridge, an older couple stopped on the far side to let him pass.

Pike said, "Thank you."

The lady said, "Lovely night."

Pike's Jeep was on Venice Boulevard not far from the bridge. He dropped the bags in the shadows at the curb, then opened the rear hatch. When he went back for the bags, former DEA agent Norm Lister was waiting. Holding a gun.

"Good job, Pike. Very good. Excellent."

Lister looked ragged and dirty, like he'd been living in a car. He made a pushing gesture with the gun, as if he expected Pike to step back. If only you knew.

"Put the keys there in the bed, and walk away."

Pike didn't move.

"Did you know where the money was?"

"No, man, but I knew Rainey. I'm the guy who flipped him. It had to be close."

Pike thought back to the video. How they had tailed Rainey and Platt, watching their every move. Maybe hoping Rainey would visit the money.

Lister made the push again.

"Go away, Pike. This is your pass."

Pike looked at Lister's trembling gun, then at the man's nervous eyes. He thought about Jerry Button, and poor little Futardo, and Rainey and Dru Rayne who turned out to be Rose Platt.

"Lister. If you knew me as well as you knew Rainey, you wouldn't be here."

Pike shot Norm Lister in the chest, then walked over and shot him in the face exactly as he had shot Jerry Button.

Pike loaded the money aboard, leaving Norm Lister on the curb.