The mantra of pain and entreaty paused long enough for the boy to squint up at him. Like most young Americans, this one had never felt real pain for more than a few minutes at a time. He wanted a pill or shot or IV for this pain… and right now.
“You’ll… help me? I didn’t wanna come along, you know. It was all Dean’s idea. I didn’t wanna…”
“Where’s the car?” whispered Nick. “Where are the keys? Medical help’s only a few minutes away by car. I can’t carry you.”
The boy nodded and then belched blood. This terrified him and he started babbling through his groans and weeping.
Dean’s blue Nissan Menlo Park was parked on Landor Lane, just half a block from where they’d shot at Nick. They all lived up in Altadena and were just regular guys, you know, and were coming home from having some night fun down in East L.A.—everybody was doing it this week—when they’d seen the moped and Dean’d said, one more for a nightcap, but…
“Keys?” hissed Nick.
“Dean… Dean’s pocket… Dean… front pocket, I think… help, for the love of Christ, mister, it hurts so much.”
Nick guessed that Dean was the Quarterback and found the keys in the dead man’s front pocket. The key ring was labeled NISSAN. Nick also checked both the dead Linebacker’s pockets and the moaning, writhing boy’s, as well as all three backpacks, but found only some extra ammunition, billfolds, cards, and some cash. He kept the cash and Dean’s NICC.
Nick opened his shirt and checked the Kevlar-3 undershirt on the right side. It had stopped both pistol slugs but there was definitely some damage to his ribs on that side. Trying to take deep, slow breaths, he buttoned his shirt back up. The bullet crease on his left calf had finally stopped bleeding, but not before soaking through the handkerchief and his pant leg. It would be a bitch to pull the solidly caked material free later.
“Please… mister… you promised… you promised… it hurts so much… you promised.”
Nick knelt over the wounded boy and decided that he really didn’t look much like the young Dennis Hopper. He didn’t look anything like Val.
“You promised…”
He could get Dean’s van, drive back here, load the kid in, and try to find some medical help before the boy bled out. Or he could point his would-be killer in the direction of the Huntington Library and tell him to crawl, although odds were low that he’d get there before he bled to death.
Either way, he’d be leaving someone behind who could describe him and the Nissan to the cops—if the cops were still a factor in this L.A. suburb—and raise Nick’s chances of being detained somewhere, thus lowering his chances of finding Val.
You try to kill a stranger for fun, thought Nick, you need to be ready to face the consequences. He wasn’t absolutely sure at that second whether he was thinking of the young man moaning beneath him or of Val’s alleged involvement in the attack on Advisor Omura. The difference was that Val, whether he ran from his father’s last name or not, carried Nick’s own blood and DNA.
Nick used his left hand to shield his face and eyes from backspatter as he set the muzzle of the Glock within three inches of the boy’s pale forehead and white, widening eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The Menlo was parked right where the kid had said it would be. Betty whispered to him that there were less than twelve miles to go even if he avoided the Pasadena Freeway by taking Monterey Road to North Figueroa Street and the Nissan’s own nav system confirmed it. There might be roadblocks ahead, Nick knew, but one way or the other, he’d be at Leonard’s address in half an hour or so.
AS THE PLANE FINALLY banked back toward the east an attractive female flight attendant wearing a kimono entered the cabin from aft and Sato said, “Are you hungry or thirsty, Bottom-san?”
Nick shook his head. The flight attendant took Sato’s order of tako su, pepper tuna, and sunomono—the big man specified that he wanted it sauced with ponzu and wasabi mayonnaise—and barbecued squid in soy ginger sauce. He also ordered a bowl of nabeyaki udon without the poached egg. And sake.
When the flight attendant turned to Nick and bowed, obviously inquiring as to whether he’d changed his mind and would like something after all, Nick said, “Yes, I’d also like some sake.”
When the woman was gone, Sato asked, “Do you need medical attention, Bottom-san? One of the crew has military medical training and the proper equipment and drugs.”
Nick shook his head again. “Just some scratches and dinged-in ribs. I had them taped.”
They flew in silence for a few minutes. The A310/360’s two engines were so quiet that almost no sound from them entered the cabin; Nick knew they were on only because of the faint vibration underfoot and in the arms of his leather chair. He was close to dozing off when Sato spoke.
“You did not find your son, then, Bottom-san?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Nor any clue as to his current whereabouts?”
Nick shrugged. “What are you doing here, Sato? You were supposed to be with Mr. Nakamura in Washington until tomorrow.”
The security chief—or was it assassin?—grunted. “Nakamura-sama is returning to Denver tomorrow, but a company flight to John Wayne Airport opened up today and he suggested I come out to make sure you made this flight.”
“If I hadn’t?” said Nick. He was very aware that no one had frisked him and that he still had the fully loaded Glock 9 on his left hip.
Sato made his clumsy version of a shrug. “I would have contacted authorities to inquire as to your fate, Bottom-san. Beginning with your assistant chief Ambrose, whom you mentioned in Denver. Or is it, as you said on the tarmac, ‘Chief’ Ambrose?”
“Promotion,” said Nick. Even talking sent pain through his tightly taped but still-aching ribs. “The regular CHP chief had a fatal heart attack on the third day of the rioting and fighting in L.A. and Dale received a temporary field promotion.”
“But your friend in the California Highway Patrol was not able to help you find your son?”
Nick shook his head again. The food came in, carried by three beautiful female attendants, and looked delicious. Nick wasn’t sure why he hadn’t ordered something: he hadn’t eaten in more than ten hours and it would be after midnight, Denver time, when they landed at DIA. Even his mall condos’ late-night cafeteria would be shut down by the time he got there.
Nick found himself salivating from just looking at Sato’s dinner laid out on the table, but it was the smell of the nabeyaki udon broth that really made his stomach rumble.
He gulped some sake, rose painfully, and said, “Where’s the lavatory?”
There were two doors on the aft bulkhead. The flight attendants had come in through the one on the right. Sato pointed to the door on the left.
A few minutes later, Nick stood in front of the wide mirror. This aircraft lavatory was three times the size of the bathroom in his cubie and had an actual bath as well as shower. The face and figure staring back at him looked out of place in the lemon-soap luxury of the executive-jet lavatory: Nick’s shirt was torn and bloodied, his tan jacket and chinos filthy—the left pant leg ripped and blood-soaked with white bandages showing through—and Nick had scrapes and new scars on his cheekbone and right temple. He’d received nine stitches along that cheekbone at the CHP barracks and the effect was moderately Frankenstein-like. They’d scrubbed off the worst of the grime there, but Nick still washed his hands and face vigorously in the plane lav, handling the thick hand towel gingerly, as if he didn’t want his dirt and blood to contaminate it.
Nick removed the Glock from the crossdraw holster, made sure the safety was off and that there was a round in the chamber, and set the heavy pistol back in place. If Omura-sama was correct—and Nick had believed him—then Sato was escorting him home to a death sentence. And one that would be carried out soon, probably tomorrow afternoon or evening when Nakamura arrived home to his mountaintop above Denver.
But Nick had his pistol now. An oversight? A test?
Eithe
r way, the 9mm Glock was real and his to use. But use how? Come out shooting, kill Sato first, then move from one hanging oxygen mask to the next until he could get onto the flight deck and demand that the pilot fly him…
Where? There was no nation in this hemisphere now that did not have extradition treaties with the New Nippon.
And what if Val had made it to Denver and was waiting for him?
But all this was academic, since Nick knew the door to access the flight deck could probably take repeated RPG rounds without opening or giving way. And that the crew was almost certainly armed, but wouldn’t even need that. All they’d have to do was keep the plane at altitude—assuming that some of his rounds either made it all the way through Sato or missed and depressurized the aircraft—and shut off the oxygen to his compartment. They could do that, of course, even if a stray round hadn’t depressurized the compartment. Nick shook his head and stared at the much thinner, almost gaunt by his standards of the last five years or so, and visibly beaten-up figure in the mirror. He was too tired. Too many nights with too little sleep. It was hard to think.
When he came out, there was a cluster of little plates and a bowl and a replenished glass of sake on his side of the small table as well.
“This meal was so good that I took the liberty, Bottom-san,” grunted Sato. “I personally do not enjoy the poached egg with the noodles in nabeyaki udon, but most people do. I had them serve it to you on the side. The slices of cooked octopus in the tako su are garnished with sticks of pale green cucumber, bathed in ponzu sauce and topped with sesame seeds, sliced scallion, and a drizzle of wasabi mayonnaise. I believe you will find that the sauce has an engagingly smoky, citrus taste that complements the octopus. Why are you smiling, Bottom-san?”
“No reason,” said Nick, although he’d come close to laughing at Sato’s impersonation of an eager maître d’. “I guess I’m more hungry than I knew, Sato-san. Thank you.”
Sato nodded abruptly. “The pepper tuna and sunomono are similarly sauced with ponzu and wasabi mayonnaise,” he said. “The black pepper–crusted tuna, seared on the outside but still raw, then sliced thin, is a favorite of mine. I hope you enjoy it, Bottom-san.”
“I am certain I will, Sato-san,” said Nick. He was still standing and he realized that he was bowing his thanks, and bowing low.
Sato grunted and Nick settled into his chair, giving out his own involuntary grunt from the pain in his ribs. The smell from the bowl of broth and other food brought tears to his eyes.
GALINA KSCHESSINSKA, AKA GALINA Sue Coyne, was of a kind that Nick had interviewed many times, sometimes as eager witness, although more often as perp or accomplice. In any of the roles, the clinical description of the Galina Kschessinska type remained the same: malignant narcissist.
“I haven’t had anyone come to talk to me for several days,” said the middle-aged woman. Her eyes looked like small, pale oysters that had been swallowed by successive layers of makeup. Nick thought that her plastic surgeon should be arrested and tortured for crimes against humanity. “I was beginning to think,” she continued, inhaling smoke from her No-C stick at the end of a pearl cigarette holder, “that the police had lost interest in the case.”
Why would that be, just because the world is burning down here? thought Nick. He shook his head. Vigorously. “Oh, no, Ms. Kschessinska, the case is still very much open and we’re very interested in finding the culprit or culprits who shot your son… and for his death, let me say again, I’m very, very sorry.”
The woman lowered her eyes and gave herself a half-moment of dramatic silence. “Yesss,” she said finally, sending the pitiful purr-hiss out through projected pain. “Poor William.” Whatever her relationship with her son Billy had been, thought Nick, her mourning period for the kid hadn’t quite lasted the past week. And she’d obviously enjoyed the attention she’d received from the media and cops and wanted more of it. Today she seemed either drugged or drunk or a bit of both. Between her mild accent and the more-than-mild slurring, Nick had to concentrate to understand what she was saying.
Nick had flashed his Rent-a-Detective badge with his name on it, so if she’d known Val’s real last name, Nick’s cover—such as it was—was blown. But Ms. Kschessinska hadn’t paid close attention. Nick had the feeling that she hadn’t paid very close attention to many things—including her recently deceased son—for some years now.
“You mentioned that your son William gave this missing boy, Val Fox—the one we’re looking for—a gun shortly before the… ah… incident at the Disney Center?” said Nick. He had a small notebook out and pen poised, but so far all he’d scribbled in it in his tiny cop script was She smells bad.
“Oh, yes, Detective… uh… Botham, William did tell me that not long ago. Yes.”
And you didn’t call the cops to tell them that your kid was dealing guns? thought Nick. He didn’t correct her on his name and was phrasing his follow-up question carefully when Ms. Kschessinska forged ahead.
“You understand, Detective, my William was always concerned about my safety, about his little friends’ safety, about everyone’s… why, this is a very dangerous city in which to live, Detective! Just look out the windows!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Nick. “Do you remember what kind of gun it was that your son gave to the Fox boy?”
“Oh, the other policemen mentioned it. Just talk to them. It started with a ‘B,’ I seem to remember.”
“Browning?” said Nick. “Bauer, Bren, Beretta…”
“That’s it,” said Ms. Kschessinska, “that last one. Beretta. Pretty name. Would you like a little drinkie, Detective? I always allow myself a little one in the afternoon, especially in these terrible days since William was… was…” She threatened to dissolve into tears.
“No, thank you,” Nick said hurriedly. “But you have one, please. I know this is hard for you.” He didn’t point out that it was not quite ten o’clock in the morning.
She mixed and poured and stirred with a serious drinker’s full attention. “You sure you won’t join me, Detective? There’s plenty to…”
“Did you happen to see the Beretta, Ms. Kschessinska?”
“What? Oh, no! Of course not.” She returned to her favorite chair with a tall glass. “But William told me about it. He used to share everything with me. He told me that this friend of his, Hal…”
“Val,” said Nick.
“Whatever. He told me that this friend of his was part of their little club, their little boys’ club, but that this Hal, Val, whatever it was, wasn’t really a team player.”
“How’s that?” Nick asked quietly.
“Oh, just little things… like the fact that this other boy wouldn’t take part when the boys were doing their little experiments.”
“Experiments?”
“Oh, their little experiments into sex and such. All boys do it, you know.”
“You’re talking about experiments with sex with girls, Ms. Kschessinska?”
“Of course I mean with girls!” shouted the heavy woman with the painted face of melting clay. She was truly angry. “William would never… could never…”
“So you’re saying that this Val Fox boy didn’t take part when the ga… when William’s boys’ club had sex with one or more girls?”
“Yes, exactly,” Ms. Kschessinska said primly, still not mollified.
Nick wrote Gang rape on his notebook page. Even six years ago when he’d still been with the Denver force, male flashgangs almost always began with gang rape. They’d relive the violation of some girl, frequently a minor, over and over under the flash. Then the gangs usually moved up to physical violence: tormenting and brutalizing younger kids or winos or other flashback addicts found helpless under the flash. Then—most frequently—murder. Or murder after a brutal rape. The ultimate event to flash on. Two for the price of one.
“Did this Val boy not participate in their flashback use of these… experiments?” asked Nick.
“That is precisely correct,” sai
d Ms. Kschessinska, taking great care not to slur. “William told me that this person wasn’t enough of a man to join in the experiment and wasn’t enough of a friend to join the others when they relived the event as part of their… rite of passage, as it were.”
“What did William say this boy did when they were experimenting?”
“Oh, various excuses,” she slurred, waving her hands as she tried to light a real cigarette, plucking the No-C stick out and flinging it away angrily. “Standing guard. William said the boy always lost his nerve and stood apart, saying he was going to stand guard for the others. That sort of nonsense. The boy was not a true friend of William’s, no matter everything my dear boy tried to do for him. No matter what wonderful gifts William gave him.”
She looked up and Nick thought of shell-less oysters again as the mottled, mucusy gray eyes within their pools of makeup tried to focus on him. “But if he did indeed murder my son, I guess it ghosts… goes, that is… goes without saying that he was no real friend. This Hal Fox was probably always planning to betray and murder William.” She inhaled deeply, held it, and then exhaled smoke through her nose.
“No idea, then, where this boy might be?” asked Nick.
“Nothing more than what I’ve already told your colleagues, Detective… was it Detective Betham? Nick Betham?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Nick. He’d already checked out the various overpasses and other flashgang hangouts that Ms. Kschessinska had told the LAPD and CHP about. It hadn’t been easy going to those places either, since Leonard’s apartment and the entire neighborhood near Echo Park had been first reduced to rubble and then burned down in the fighting. Aryan B gangs numbering in the hundreds had blown the walls at the Dodger Stadium Homeland Security Detention Center, flooding that entire neighborhood with more terrorists, killers, and self-proclaimed jihadists. The area around Chávez Ravine was not a safe place to spend time this week.
Checking out the storm sewer system, including the area still a crime scene under the Disney Center, had also had its nasty surprises. But none that had given Nick a clue about Val’s current whereabouts.