Void Moon

29

"SUMMER Wind" was the song. It always got to Karch. Every time it came up on the Sinatra's Greatest Hits CD he had to hit replay and hear it again. They were all good but none could touch "Summer Wind." It was the class of the class. Just like Sinatra.

Karch was on the fourth run-through of the CD, watching the front of Warner Post amp; Pack It from the crowded parking lot of a bar called Presnick's a half block away. It was exactly eleven o'clock when he noticed the brake lights flare on a car going by the shop. It was a black Jeep Cherokee about five years old. It was the second time it had gone slowly by the store. Karch turned the CD down and got ready. He was already wearing his black jumpsuit, though for a different reason this time. The sleeves were decorated with varying lengths of heavy-duty duct tape that he had cut in preparation. He reached into his open briefcase and removed the remote global positioning system receiver along with the cellular link box and antenna as well as the GPS antenna from the foam cushioning. He got the tools he would need ready and got out of the Lincoln after popping the trunk. From the trunk he took the Rollerboy Mechanics Helper – a cushioned creeper board on one-inch wheels – then locked the car and walked quickly across Warner Boulevard.

Warner Post amp; Pack It was a one-story stand-alone building in a long line of stand-alone buildings, all of which were built to the property line, leaving anywhere from one to three feet of space between buildings. Karch slipped into the opening one storefront down from the mailbox business. It was about twenty inches wide and had primarily been used over time as a trash disposal point by pedestrians. Karch found himself almost knee high in debris – mostly bottles and crumpled bags of fast food. There was also the overpowering smell of urine in the cramped space. His entry into this dark crevice caused some unseen creature to loudly scramble through the debris and go back farther into the darkness.

Karch hung back about three feet from the opening, out of the direct light from the street, and waited. He was sure the Cherokee would come back and that it would be Leo Renfro driving. What Karch had to do next he had done many times before on other cases. But never as fast as he would have to do it this time. He figured he would have less than a minute to complete the installation. There could be no delays or mistakes.

The sound of an approaching car filtered into the hideaway. Karch crouched down and held the Rollerboy up as a shield. Even if Renfro was looking between the buildings, it was unlikely that he would notice Karch unless he completely stopped and shined a light into the darkness.

The car went by slowly and then Karch heard it stop in front of the mail drop business. He slowly moved toward the edge of the building he was leaning against. He glanced around the corner and saw it was indeed the Cherokee, sitting at the curb, still running and with its lights on. Karch pulled himself back into the crevice and waited. He knew he could step out and take Renfro right at that moment. But it was too risky to undertake out in the open and, more important, Renfro wasn't the goal. The money was the priority. To achieve that he needed to follow Renfro to his home, to the place he felt safest. It was there that Karch knew he would find either the money or a line to Cassidy Black.

The Cherokee's engine cut off. Karch braced himself against the wall, ready to move. He felt the hard points of the stucco digging into his back. He bent forward to listen and heard the car's door open and then close. He heard steps moving quickly on the asphalt. He moved forward and looked once more around the corner. He saw a man in his mid-forties and of trim build working a key into the front door of Warner Post amp; Pack It.

Once he had the door open the man looked up the street to the left and then back to the right. Karch ducked behind the corner. When he heard the door close he stepped out and crossed the sidewalk to the Cherokee. Crouching behind the car, he watched through the front window of the business as the man approached the wall of postal boxes. When he bent down in the area where box 520 was located, Karch knew he had his man. It was Leo Renfro.

Karch turned his penlight on and put it in his mouth. He then put the Rollerboy down and lay down on it face up. He grabbed the underside of the bumper and pulled himself completely under the car. He had done an installation on a Cherokee once before and was not anticipating a problem. It was tight quarters and hot; his chest rubbed the greasy undercarriage at several points and he had to keep his face turned to the side to avoid scraping it or even getting it burned on the hot pipes of the exhaust system.

He reached to his legs and removed the satellite receiver and CelluLink transmitter from the right cargo pocket of his jumpsuit. Both were small, square devices that had been lashed together with tape. A small stub antenna for the cellular connection was part of the bundle. The base of the receiver was a heavy-duty magnet. He reached up and attached the devices to the car's undercarriage frame directly below the driver's seat. Though the magnet appeared to hold firm, it was always Karch's practice to supplement to be sure. From his right arm he unwrapped two long pieces of duct tape and used them to lash the devices to the framework, further securing them to the underside of the car.

Using Cassie Black's silent drill he quickly attached the ground wire to the car's carriage pan, using a self-tapping screw. He then rolled to the curb and tried to look up and through the front window of the mail box business. But the angle was bad and he could not see Renfro or gauge how much more time he had.

He quickly pushed back to the middle and pulled down the electrical conduit that ran down the center of the carriage pan. Using an X-acto knife he slit open the plastic casing and quickly pulled out a bundle of wires. He combed through them until he found a red wire, the color indicating it was a full-time carrier of current from the battery to the rear of the car – most likely to a trunk light. The end of the power wire from the GPS receiver had a cut-in connector that he clipped to the red wire and then squeezed down on until he felt it cut through the rubber coating and into the live wire. He looked over at the receiver and saw the faint glow of the red power light beneath the duct tape.

He didn't have time to push the wires back into place. Instead he moved immediately to the last piece of the installation, the GPS antenna. He removed the small disk from his left cargo pocket and started unspooling the wire it was wrapped in. Just as he connected the wire to the receiver he heard the door to the shop open. He quickly turned the penlight around so that the lighted end was inside his mouth. He waited.

The door closed and Karch watched as Renfro's feet started moving around the car to the driver's door. Karch wanted to curse but knew he had to be silent. He continued unspooling the line from the antenna.

As Renfro opened the car door Karch used the sound as cover as he pushed himself down the length of the Cherokee. He was now directly below the rear bumper, the lower half of his body protruding from beneath the car. He reached the antenna up and wrapped the wire around the exhaust pipe just as the car started and he was hit with a blast of hot exhaust.

Karch stifled a cough and quickly brought the disk up and placed it on top of the bumper, where it would be in a direct line with the satellites above. He used the last piece of tape from his sleeve to tape the wire down and hold the antenna to the bumper.

It wasn't a finesse job but it would have to do, given the circumstances of the installation. He knew the GPS antenna would be spotted the first time Renfro looked at the back end of his car. But Karch was gambling that that wouldn't happen this night. What mattered was the next hour, maybe even less.

The Cherokee shuddered as it was put into drive. It started to move away from the curb. Karch let the bumper pass over his face and then quickly rolled off the Rollerboy and pressed himself to the curb. He kept his head down and listened for any hesitation in the Cherokee's engine. There was none. Renfro kept his foot on the gas and drove off. He never looked back. Or if he did, he was checking the road behind him, not the curb.

Karch finally looked up as the Cherokee receded from view. He smiled and got up.

As soon as Karch got to the Lincoln he took the laptop computer out of the briefcase, raised the antenna and booted up the QuikTrak software. With the receiver and the equipment he had just installed on Renfro's car, Karch would be able to track the Cherokee's movements with a global positioning system that took a signal transmitted from the car to a constellation of three satellites miles overhead and then back down. The satellites triangulated the precise location of the car and sent the data by cellular link to the cellular modem in Karch's computer. The QuikTrak software allowed him to follow the car's movements with real-time data displayed on street-level maps on the computer screen, or he could download historical data from the satellite that would show the car's entire movement over a selected time period.

Karch was first interested in making sure the installation had no flaws and he would be able to track the Cherokee by satellite. As a fallback he had committed the car's license plate number to memory and would be able to locate the car through the archaic means of a DMV trace in the morning, a move he hoped to avoid because it would leave an official trail of his activities.

He typed in the receiver code and frequency and waited. After what seemed like an interminable wait during which he could feel beads of sweat pop from his scalp, the lines of a map began to appear on the screen. After the street lines came the words Los Angeles Region Map. Then a pulsing red star appeared and began trailing a line. It was the Cherokee. The legend at the bottom of the screen gave the location.

RIVERSIDE DRIVE – WESTBOUND – 23:14:06

Karch smiled. He had him. The installation was successful. He would be able to follow a map right to the treasure. He hoped.

"Fucking A," he said out loud.

He decided not to follow the Cherokee's real-time movements in his own car at the moment. He figured that it was likely that Leo Renfro had opened the padded envelope in the mail shop or in the car. Either way, the playing card he found inside would be both confusing and threatening. It was Karch's guess – based on Leo Renfro's two drive-bys before finally stopping at Warner Post amp; Pack It – that his target would take a circuitous route to his next destination in an effort to carefully identify and then lose any surveillance. He typed in a command creating a file for historical data collection beginning immediately. He then closed down the program and put the laptop back into the briefcase.

Just after pulling down the zipper on his jumpsuit and opening the window to get some air, Karch heard a woman's sharp scream from the other side of the parking lot. He turned toward the sound but didn't see anything. He opened the door and got out and looked around. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He was about to get back into the Lincoln when he heard another shout and saw movement on the other side of a BMW parked about ten slots away.

Karch wasn't wearing his holster with the Sig Sauer. He had taken it off and left it under the front seat before putting on the jumpsuit. Rather than get the weapon now, he peeled off the top half of the jumpsuit and reached behind his back to remove the little. 25 from the magician's pocket in his pants. He then tied the arms of the jumpsuit around his waist and went to investigate the screams.

Palming the small black pistol as he casually walked down the row of cars, he got to the BMW and heard the sounds of crying. He saw a couple standing at the front of the car. A young man and woman. The man had the woman bent backward over the front hood. He was leaning on her and kissing her neck while her head constantly rolled back and forth as if trying to get away from the rest of her body.

"Everything all right there?" Karch called.

The man looked over at him.

"We're fine. Why don't you just piss off?"

Karch started moving down the side of the car. The man suddenly stepped away from the woman and turned to Karch. He stood arms and feet wide apart and waiting.

"Why don't you leave her alone?" Karch said. "It doesn't sound like she – "

"Why don't you fuck yourself? She's fine. She just likes to yell, okay?"

"No, not okay. Maybe you just like to make her yell. Makes you feel like you're in control of things."

The guy suddenly leapt forward in a charge that Karch was expecting. Like an experienced bullfighter he quickly sidestepped the charging beast and used his hands to redirect his opponent's momentum into the side of a minivan. The man hit the side door of the van headfirst, causing a dent in the door panel. As he was straightening up and turning around, Karch moved in. He dropped the. 25 into place in his hand and brought it up under his opponent's chin, driving the muzzle deep into the soft underside of the jaw.

"You feel that? Feels small, right? It's a twenty-five, just a pop gun really. Very unreliable unless you get in close like this. I cap one off like this, the slug will go right up into your brain and it won't be strong enough to get out. It'll bounce around inside there a few times and cut everything up in there to mush. Probably won't kill you but you'll be wearing a slobber guard and riding a wheelchair the rest of your – "

"Hey, leave him alone," the girl said from behind him. "He didn't do anything."

Karch made the mistake of not watching her.

"Shut up and back away. This guy – "

She grabbed Karch from behind then and he used his left arm to roughly shove her backward while keeping the gun pressed against the man's neck. He heard her hit the BMW hard and then fall to the pavement.

"Johnny!" she cried out.

"See what you did?" Johnny cried out. "Big man. Look what you did to her. A knight in shining bullshit."

Karch pulled back from him and stepped backward until he could keep his eyes on Johnny and see the girl as well. She was sitting on the pavement, her legs spread and looking a little dazed. Johnny ran to her and she grabbed him around the neck. She started crying again.

Karch turned and started walking quickly to his car. He was thinking Why the fuck did I do that? I'm here for one reason only.

He got into the Lincoln, backed out and drove away. He saw Johnny standing in the lot behind him, watching him go.

Karch pulled to a curb on Magnolia Boulevard, put on the dome light and got the National Law Enforcement Association frequency book out of the glove compartment. He had bought the book from Iverson for $ 500. It listed every federal, state and local law enforcement agency and the radio transmission frequencies assigned to them. Printed in large letters across the top of every page was "Law Enforcement Use Only." Karch had laughed the first time he saw that.

He found the listing for the Burbank Police Department and punched in the three patrol frequencies assigned to the department on the scanner mounted below the dashboard. He then locked in a repeating scan on the three frequencies and waited and listened. If the couple he had just tangled with called in a report, he needed to know about it.

Things seemed quiet in Burbank for a Thursday night. A couple of domestic disputes went out to patrol units and then came a call to the parking lot at Presnick's bar. It had been reported as an assault and threat with a firearm.

"Shit!" Karch yelled loudly.

He banged his fist on the steering wheel. He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. He knew he wasn't too far from Burbank Airport. He could go there and try to find another set of plates. But it was getting late and he knew he needed to get out of Burbank. He put the car in gear and drove until he reached a residential street. He turned onto the street and drove a block down before stopping. He killed the lights, reached under the seat for the car's proper license plates and got out with the drill. A minute later he got back in with the stolen plates in hand. He shoved them under the seat and put the car in gear. He drove a full block before putting the lights back on.

He drove west and didn't stop again until he was clear of Burbank and well into North Hollywood. He listened to a description of himself being broadcast on the Burbank frequencies and had to smile. The description that went out was fifty pounds too heavy and ten years too old. The rest was so generic it didn't matter. The tag number that went out accurately matched the plates now under his seat but the make of the car was off. It was described as a black Ford LTD. Karch lit a cigarette and tried to relax. Burbank was not going to be a problem.

It was now midnight and Karch thought that enough time had gone by for Leo Renfro to have gotten to wherever he was going. He pulled into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour supermarket called Ralph's and stopped the car. He had just opened the QuikTrak receiver when his pager went off. He checked the number and saw the page was from Grimaldi. He decided not to call back and even turned the pager off. He didn't want it sounding again at an inopportune time.

The QuikTrak software booted up and Karch typed in a command asking for the historical data file on the movements of the transmitter beneath Leo Renfro's car. A map of northern Los Angeles appeared on the screen with a red line delineating the car's movements. Karch had been right. Renfro had gone on a long and convoluted drive around the Valley, driving in circles and making several U -turns. The computer showed the transmitter to be static for the last twelve minutes. Renfro had stopped. The computer placed the car on Citron Street in Tarzana.

"Here I come, Leo," Karch said out loud.

He put the Lincoln in drive and nosed it out of the parking lot on his way to Tarzana.