the First Rule (2010) (22 page)

The muscular man reached under his shirt even as he pushed past the tables. Pike did not try to stop the gun; he rolled his hand under the man's wrist, drove the man's arm over and back, and pulled him backward and down. Pike had the gun before the man slammed into the floor, and hit him on the forehead with it two hard times, even as Jon Stone's voice cut through the gloom.

Freeze, motherfuckers!

The three men at the tables, on their feet now, raised their hands.

Jon stood just inside the door with an M4 carbine, painted up nicely in desert camo. Never taking his eyes from the men, Stone closed and locked the door, sealing the building. He grinned at Pike.

Always wanted to say that.

Pike checked the man's pistol, then went through his pockets.

The man with the gold chains said, What is it you want?

Stone stepped forward, the grin suddenly gone, all fierce lines in full-on combat mode.

Shut it, bitch. You will not speak unless spoken to.

Pike found a wallet, keys, and cell phone, then stood away. He waved toward the floor with the pistol.

Knees. Fingers laced behind your head.

Stone kicked the nearest man down, and the others hurried into position.

Pike returned to the man with the enormous belly. His eyes were open, but unfocused, and he made no move to rise. Pike came away with a neat little .40-caliber pistol. He put everything on the bar with the vinyl billfolds, then returned to Stone's prisoners, and searched them as well. None were armed, and none spoke while he went through their pockets, collecting their things.

When Pike finished, he returned to the bar and checked the vinyl billfolds. They were filled with cash. He opened the briefcase. More cash, a metal skimmer used to steal credit card information, and what looked like business papers. He put the two pistols and the other things he had taken from the men into the briefcase, closed it, then carried it back to the men. They watched him the way a cat trapped by a window watches a bird.

Pike said, Darko?

The older man shook his head.

You are making a mistake.

Behind them, Stone's voice was soft.

Maybe these fuckers were there that night. Maybe one of them gunned Frank.

Pike said, Vasa, do you remember my name?

You are Pike.

The older man said, You are dead man.

Stone snapped the M4 into the back of his head. The man fell like a bag of wet towels and did not move. Vasa and the other man stared at his unconscious form for a moment, and now their eyes were frightened.

Pike dangled the briefcase, showing them.

Everything Darko owns is mine. Darko is mine. This bar is mine. If you're here when I come back, I'll kill you.

The other big man, the one still awake, squinted as if Pike was hidden by fog.

You are insane.

Close this place now. Lock it. Tell him I'm coming.

Pike left with the briefcase, and Stone followed him out. They went directly to Pike's Jeep, then drove around the corner to Stone's Rover. When they stopped, Stone opened the briefcase. He pushed the cash packs aside, and frowned.

Hey, what is this shit?

Pike fingered through the pages, clocking the columns of numbers organized by business, and realized what they had.

Our next targets.

He opened his phone to call Cole.

THEY MET BACK AT Cole's house to go through the papers. Rina recog nized them immediately.

They are gas stations.

Stone said, What the fuck?

Cole thought the pages were bookkeeping ledgers, accounting for income from All-American Best Price Gas, Down Home Petroleum, and Super Star Service.

Cole said, Super Star Service is right down the hill in Hollywood. One of those indie places.

Rina nodded.

You see? He make much money there. Very much. Maybe more than anywhere else.

Stone said, Bullshit. How much dough can he make selling gas?

You are an idiot. He not make the money selling gas. He steals the credit card information.

Cole said, It's a skimmer rip-off. He's doing credit card fraud.

Cole explained how it worked. Darko's people connected a skimmer sleeve to the card reader inside each gas pump, along with an altered keypad over the pump's actual keypad. This allowed them to collect credit card and PIN information every time a customer swiped a credit card or used a debit card to pay for gas. Darko's fraud crew then used this information to create new credit and debit cards, with which they could drain the victims' debit accounts or run up huge charges before the victims or credit card companies froze the accounts.

Each of these skimmers is worth anywhere from a hundred thousand to one-fifty a month in goods and cash, times however many skimmers he has in the three stations.

Now Jon Stone made a little whistle, and laughed.

Pretty soon you're talking real money.

Then he frowned.

But waitaminute, if there's no cash, what are we gonna steal?

Pike said, His machines.

Cole nodded.

Bust them right out of the pumps. Pop out the skimmers and keypads, he's bleeding way bigger money than he earns from his prostitutes.

Stone said, Busting shit up. Now you're talking, bro. Let's get it going.

Pike stopped him.

Tomorrow. We want to pace it out, give him time to hear about what happened today, let him get angry about it. Tomorrow, we take him down one by one, pace it out over the day.

And sooner or later the enforcers show up.

That's the idea.

This was called baiting the enemy, Pike would pattern his actions to create an expectation, forcing the enemy to act on that expectation.

Later, Pike drove Rina back to the guesthouse. They rode in silence most of the way, she on her side of the Jeep, he on his. Up on Sunset, the kids were already lined up outside the Roxy, but Rina didn't look. She stared out the window, thoughtful.

Yanni's truck was at the curb when they pulled up.

Pike said, You're not coming tomorrow. No need for it. I'll let you know what happened after.

He thought she would object, but she didn't. She studied him for a moment, and made no move to open the door.

This is very much that you do. For this, I thank you.

Not just for you. For Frank and for myself, too.

Yes, I know.

She wet her lips. She stared down the length of the street into the dark. Two people walked along the broken sidewalk, enjoying an after-dinner stroll.

Pike said, You should go in.

Come in with me. I would like it.

No.

Yanni will leave. I will tell him. He doesn't care.

No.

The hurt came to her eyes.

You don't want to lay with a whore.

Go in, Rina.

She considered him for a moment, then leaned across the console and kissed him on the cheek. It was a quick kiss, and then she was gone.

Pike didn't go home. He cruised the length of the Strip, taking it slow, then turned up Fairfax to Hollywood, then up again into the residential streets at the base of the canyon.

The park was closed at night, but Pike left his Jeep and walked up the quiet streets. The air was rich with winter jasmine, and cold, and grew even colder as Pike squeezed around the gate and entered the park.

The canyon was his. Nothing and no one else moved.

Pike climbed the steep fire road, rising above the city, walking, then walking faster, then jogging. The ravines were pooled with ink shadows, and the shadows enveloped him, but Pike did not slow. The brittle walls above him, the ragged brush and withered trees beside him, and the plunging slope below were sensed more than seen, but the invisible brush teamed with moving life.

Coyotes sang in the ridges, and eyes watched him. Eyes that blinked, and vanished, and reappeared, pacing him in the scrub.

Pike followed the road up, winding along the ravine to the end of the ridge where the lights of the city spread out before him. Pike listened, and enjoyed the crisp air. He smelled the rough earth, and jasmine and sage, but the strong scent of apricot overpowered everything else, and was sweet in the raw night.

He heard a whisper of movement, and metallic red eyes hovered in space, watching. A second pair of eyes joined the first. Pike ignored them.

The canyon was his. He did not reach home until just after sunrise, but even then did not sleep.

ALL-AMERICAN BEST PRICE GAS was a ragged dump in Tarzana. Six pumps, no service bays, little mini-mart with a middle-aged Latina holed up behind a wall of bulletproof glass.

Cole and Stone went in first, Cole scouting the surroundings, Stone pretending to put air in his tires while he checked out the people in and around the station. Pike waited two blocks away until they called. Pike heard them through his Bluetooth earbud, which he would wear while he did what he had to do, Cole and Stone providing security.

Cole told him about the woman.

One female. Strictly counter personnel.

Pike didn't like the idea of terrorizing an innocent woman.

Will we have a problem with her calling the police?

Rina said no. These places get held up like any other gas station, so the employees are schooled to call their manager, not the police. That's the front man who runs it for Darko.

Stone, who was conferenced in, spoke up.

That's all well and good, but what if she's got a shotgun behind the counter?

Rina said no. Listen, they're selling diluted gas and they have skimmers on all the pumps. They don't want the police sniffing around.

Stone said, Maybe Rina should rob the place.

Pike said, I'm rolling.

Pike pulled up to the pumps outside the mini-mart, giving the woman inside a clear view of his Jeep. He wanted her able to describe it accurately.

Pike went inside, and immediately saw a security camera hanging from the ceiling behind the glass. He wondered if it worked, then decided this didn't matter. He gave the woman his name and told her he was there to give Mr. Darko a message.

She looked confused.

Who's Mr. Darko?

Doesn't matter. He'll still get the message.

You don't want gas?

No. I'm going to adjust the pumps.

They didn't tell me about this.

Mr. Darko will explain.

The emergency cutoff switch for the pumps was on the wall outside the door. Pike cut the power, then pry-barred the cover off each pump register. They didn't come easily, leaving the metal bent. The woman behind the glass expressed no surprise when she saw what he was doing. She simply picked up her phone as if something like this happened three or four times each day, and made a calm call.

Six pumps, two sides to each pump, twelve card readers.

The skimmer sleeves were obvious, having been fixed around the white plastic reader track with duct tape. Every time a customer slipped a credit or debit card into the reader, the card also tracked through the skimmer, which read all the same information, storing it in a green circuit board wired to the sleeve. Pike tore off the sleeves and circuit boards, and stowed them in a plastic bag. He left the pump registers broken and open.

A woman driving a silver Lexus SUV pulled up while Pike was working.

He said, The pumps are being serviced.

She drove away.

Eight minutes later, the skimmers were stripped from the pumps and Pike was finished.

They could wait around to see who would show up, but Pike wanted to maintain the pressure. He wanted to flush them into his sights.

They took a long break for breakfast, and hit the next station three hours later. Down Home Petroleum (proudly independent!) was a cheesy little station in North Hollywood that was older and smaller than the All-American Best Price, and so dirty it looked like a smudge.

Cole and Stone rolled in first, just as they had before, and this time it was Stone who spoke in his ear.

Two dudes inside, bro.

Soldiers?

Dunno. Young, white, and skinny, but that doesn't mean they aren't packing.

Cole, listening in on the conference, said, Surrounding streets clear.

I'm in.

Pike rolled, once more pulling up to the pumps.

The Down Home was too low-rent for a glass barrier. A tall Anglo kid sat behind a counter, unshaven, shaggy, and looking as if he'd rather be having surgery. Had a friend keeping him company. A shorter, stockier guy about the same age kicked back in a chair propped against the wall. Pike heard them talking when he entered, and recognized accents similar to Rina's, though not as pronounced. A flicker of recognition flashed in their eyes when he mentioned Darko, and the kid behind the counter raised his hands.