Troubleshooter

Chapter 34

The Impala's steering wheel looked tiny in Bear's grip. The marshal had been beating the drum on agency image, and after the FBI's maneuver this morning, Bear wasn't about to inherit his excess wrath for taking his beat-to-hell Dodge Ram to question a bereaved family. He and Tim had their windows down, letting the cool air clear their thoughts.

Tim watched Guerrera's St. Michael medallion sway from the rearview. "They'd just accepted it was a freak accident. Then we come in…"

"There's no connection." Bear forged ahead. "None." For a reason Tim had yet to grasp, Bear liked to get angry when he thought through a case. "We have a broke girl from Chatsworth and a first lieutenant from Sylmar. One was murdered in Simi, one was an accidental death in Mexico."

"So how do you explain them sharing trace evidence on the embalming table?"

"Could be anything. I know you have an undying respect for the men and women who wear our proud uniform, but who knows what the girl did when she was home on leave? Maybe she doesn't live up to her dad's image. The Sinners run those clubhouses as fuckshacks. Maybe she takes a walk on the wild side, leaves a stray hair in Goat's underwear that hitchhikes around town, winds up in the wrong place."

"Because Sinners love Mexican girls."

"Right, right, stupid theory." Bear chewed his lip. "Plus, the girl looked like she caught every tour of the Indigo Girls, you catch my drift. Too bad the 'friend' is in Iraq-not that she saw shit, judging from her statement." He adjusted the seat for the fifteenth time-still no space-enlarging technology. "It is just a hair. I mean, it's not like they found her blood. A hair you can get anywhere. Maybe it got tracked in on someone's shoe."

"Big coincidence. The hair of another dead Mexican girl?"

"Okay," Bear said. "Maybe the embalming table was taken from the funeral home that processed Villarosa's body. Let's have Thomas look into it." He hit speed dial, but his elbow knocked the passenger chair and he dropped the phone.

Tim scooped it up as Bear swerved and cursed. On the phone, Thomas was hurried. "Yeah, okay. I'll try to source the embalming table. Might open up some angles."

Tim asked, "Where are we with the credit card?"

"We got the subpoenas over to Visa. Chief's statements should arrive in our fax momentarily."

"Okay. I also want you to check out other Mexican and Mexican-American females in and from L.A. County and Ventura County who've died in the past couple months."

"Died or been killed?"

"Pull murders and deaths under questionable circumstances. Villarosa was a supposed accident. There's something going on, we're not sure what."

"You want me to check all dead Mexicans?"

"Let's say fifteen to thirty years old. And overweight."

"Overweight? Fatter's harder. To kidnap, control, and dispose. Are they killing to type? If there's some serial-killer bullshit going on, we'd better get ready to mend fences with our buddies at the Fucking Bunch of Idiots."

"Mr. Hoover's organization hasn't risen in popularity since we left?"

"Tannino pulled his Pacino routine on Malane for a good half hour, booted him off the task force."

"Any chance he coughed up where he stowed Goat before he left?"

"Nope. And I never got the Uncle Pete files from him. The Feebs definitely haven't shared their toys on this one." Someone shouted something in the background, and Thomas said, "Oh, yeah, we got your film back from the lab. The prints from the Dumpster? They're all black. Surprise, surprise. But the good news is, we might have gotten a line on Danny the Wand. A business used to sublease some shop space over in Glendale, went by Danny's Bike 'n' Boat Designs. Closed up in May '03. Records are a mess, but we found a year-old forward-mail request to an address in North Hollywood. Danny Pater."

"That's over our way. Give us the address. We'll check it out on the way back."

Tim punched the address into the navigation system and waited a moment until the woman's frosty automated voice set them on course.

He called Aaronson, who'd promised to follow up with the Cabo San Lucas morgue and peruse the coroner's report.

"Standard diving death, far as I can tell," the criminalist said. "Drownings are tough to unwind, but I didn't see any red flags. I think we chalk this one up to fate's sense of humor."

Tim thanked him and hung up. When traffic inevitably thickened at the 118 exchange, Bear set the magnetic light on the roof, letting the siren burp a few times as they navigated the lanes. They exited, passing through a residential area. A few of the houses had clothes displayed on lawns and across bushes, leftovers from holiday mercado-style yard sales.

A local shock jock, in a fit of decency, had taken up Dray's cause, fielding phone calls from sympathetic listeners. The tearful words of support from strangers made Tim at first uncomfortable, then emotional, so he changed the station. A midstream commercial promising listeners they could say good-bye to unwanted hair…forever…made the whole episode seem mildly ridiculous. Bear thankfully withheld comment.

They found the address, a strip-mall installment nestled between a pager-and-cell-phone shop and a check-cashing operation. Bear eased past the entrance-DTW PAINT DESIGNS vividly airbrushed on the blacked-out windows-parked at a bent parking meter, and shoved the keys in his pocket. The navigation system feigned immense pleasure: You have arrived!

Bear regarded the field file in his lap. "So we're thinking this guy might-"

The Impala's back window shattered. The headrests blocked most of the flying glass, but jagged bits tore at Tim's neck and ear. He and Bear tried to duck into the footwells as more bullets hollowed out the dash.

The car's interior was turning to shrapnel all around them as the chuffing of unseen weapons continued-the unremitting percussion of the full-auto, the sporadic pop of a handgun. Bear was hunched forward, steering wheel jammed into his cheek; they were completely pinned down. Tim saw a flash of inspiration touch Bear's face, and then Bear reached over and tugged the trunk release. The metal lid flew up, shielding them from the onslaught and giving them momentary cover to bail out of the car.

Bear threw his weight against his door. The Kojak light, still magnetized to the roof, whipped around the top frame, clocking Bear in the forehead and knocking him across Tim's just-vacated seat. Set in a high-kneel shooting position on the sidewalk, Tim returned fire at the star-burst holes in the blacked-out windows. Only in the following silence could he hear how loudly his ears were ringing.

Casting a glance at Bear's dazed body sprawled across the front seats, Tim rose and sprinted to a position of cover beside the front door. He inched the door open with the barrel of his. 357. A gunman lay between the tall counter and throw of chairs that constituted the reception area. His biker-long hair had fallen like a sheet over his face, his gasps making it pulse over his mouth. Blood from a chest wound continued to spread through an airbrushed jungle-design T-shirt, the widening splotch devouring pythons and panthers. Tim couldn't recognize the downed man from his build and bearing. Still, the biker clutched a handgun-a little. 32 Centennial from the looks of it. Clearly he'd been backed by meaner firepower.

A wall behind the counter segregated the workshop proper-though, judging by the eye-watering intensity of the paint fumes, not well. Tim ran in a ducked position, kicking away the handgun and squatting over the biker as he secured his wrists with cuffs. Tim kept his eyes on the beaded curtain behind the counter. "Danny Pater?"

The biker's head jerked, clearing the hair to reveal eye shadow and a delicate nose. Blood colored the lips, flecked the chin. The woman on Richie Rich's arm at the funeral.

Tim's eyes pulled to the framed business license on the wall: Danielle Pater.

She coughed, her shirt fluttering above the chest wound, and died with her mouth open against the worn carpet.

A scurry of footsteps in the back. Something toppled and made a clamor on the floor. Smith amp; Wesson straight-armed in front of him, Tim headed behind the counter. He paused to the side of the curtain, pulse quickening at the prospect of being in the same building as Den Laurey. The gaps between the still-rippling beads showed darkness. He reached through, groping for a light switch but having no luck.

He gathered his courage and sprang through, landing flat-bellied against the inside wall to control the silhouette threat. He blinked hard to stimulate his night vision. Proning out made him vulnerable to ricochets, but he didn't want to get on his feet until he had his bearings.

A wall of paint cans protected him. A few had been knocked over, Lion's Tongue Red puddling across the slick concrete.

He found his feet and shouldered against a ceiling-high metal rack that held elaborately painted gas tanks. Natural light leaked around a closed door in the rear, maybe a bathroom with a window. Tim caught a giggle, and then a wide form topped with a familiar mop of hair flashed across the faint glow-Tom-Tom having fun. Tim's aim was an instant late. He didn't fire, not wanting to broadcast position, but his barrel must have given up a glint, because a spray of yellow erupted from the far corner, and the tanks behind him jumped and spun. He rolled maybe ten feet, winding up with a back wet with paint and his face pressed to the wheel of a Harley. The barrage of gunfire quieted, and then Tom-Tom made kissing noises at the darkness, as if calling a cat.

Something metal clattered across the concrete, and an explosion blew the rack off its moorings. Empty tanks rained down, making an impressive racket. The brief blaze wisped off in blue curls, picking up extra mileage from the paint fumes.

Tim watched the darkness through the spokes of the wheel. His soldier's ear told him that two men were circling the space separately.

A sliver of red footprint stood out between a couple of half-sprayed Harleys. Moving silently, Tim followed the trail, weaving through bikes, the drip of grease into oil pans penetrating the silence with maddening regularity. The tread impressions grew fainter. Tim reached the north wall, easing around a workman's bench.

A form up ahead, a pair of hands holding a Glock upright next to a cheek.

The head turned, the faint light giving Tim an eclipse profile of the right side-choppy hair, eye patch, armband. Then Tim made out the upside-down FBI patch stitched to the jacket, a trophy for burying two bullets in Raymond Smiles's chest as the agent had eaten dinner. Tim took aim at the block of critical mass. He pictured his target reclined on his bike, sneering at Dray, You'd better back off, bitch.

Dray's voice cut through Tim's rage: He's no good to us dead.

Richie Rich's pinkie ring blinked a star of light, removing all doubt, and Tim stepped forward and swung the butt of his gun into his temple. Rich grunted and collapsed, and Tim darted for cover before Tom-Tom could track his movement by Rich's thud to the concrete. Too late he heard the pipe bomb scuttling across the floor after him like an angry rodent. He opened his mouth, exhaling hard so his lungs wouldn't rupture with the overpressure, an instinct pounded into him in Ranger training.

The blast slammed him against the far wall. A bank of blacked-out windows blew, permitting a sudden insurge of light, and Tim came to in a heap against the Sheetrock, covered with a film of dust.

Breath jerking, ribs aching, torso slick with red paint or blood or both, he heard a shuffling and looked up. Still half blinded from the explosion and the sudden sun, he barely discerned the movement before him, but the tip of the auto pressing against his throat was all too clear.

Tom-Tom dimly resolved into view, a pale, stocky outline against Tim's still-bleached field of vision. Platinum curls, a boulder of a head set directly on broad shoulders, the amused, irrepressible grin of a misbehaving child. Stubble dusted his cheeks like white sand. Another pipe bomb protruded from his pocket like a rolled-up comic book. He looked down at Tim over the sights, one-arming the AR-15 so the stock rested against his meaty biceps.

"Couldn'ta been worth it," he said.

Tim felt no fear, just the slow-motion grimness of reality setting in, and he thought, So this is where it ends.

The sharp report of a bullet. Tom-Tom fell stiffly, as one rigid piece, revealing not Bear but Rich Mandrell. The right side of the biker's face was swollen so badly from Tim's blow it looked as though the skin might split.

Rich said, "Goddamnit," as if he'd dinged his Porsche with a shopping cart. He thrust the barrel of his Glock into Tim's hands and said, "Cuff me. Get them on now. Handle me rough and get me the fuck outta here."