The Watchman (15 page)

He was finishing the first map when he grew worried. The water had stopped. It had stopped running a long time ago, but Larkin was still in the bathroom.

Cole went to the door and knocked.

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer.

Cole tried the knob, but the door was locked. He knocked again. Harder.

“Larkin?”

“I’m soaking.”

At least she wasn’t killing herself.

Cole returned to the table and went back to work. The tub glugged as it drained, and water ran again, but he let her soak. If she wanted to look like a prune, that was up to her. After a while, she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, went into her bedroom, and closed the door. Cole completed his map of her street, then set to work charting the surrounding streets. He was convinced that Meesh and the Kings had been in the area for a purpose. They had been going to or coming from a target destination, and that target was likely one of the buildings or businesses on his map. Cole was also convinced the feds believed the same; twelve of the sixteen people Cole interviewed had also been questioned by agents of the U.S. Department of Justice. Pitman, Blanchette, and at least two other agents had questioned them about the accident, the Kings, and Meesh.

Cole thought nothing of it until he went through his notes to build a timeline of events. Then he discovered a discrepancy.

Cole worked steadily for almost an hour before Larkin came out of the bedroom. She came out wearing fresh five-hundred-dollar jeans, a tight black Ramones T-shirt, and the iPod. She looked fresh and clean without makeup or jewelry, and her feet were bare. She stretched out on the couch with her feet hanging over the arm, closed her eyes, and rocked to the iPod, her right foot moving with the beat.

Cole said, “Hey.”

Her eyes opened and she looked at him.

Cole said, “The feds didn’t know Meesh was Meesh until you identified him?”

“No.”

“That’s what they told you?”

“Yeah. They got all excited when we finally had his name.”

Cole returned to his timeline, but didn’t really work after that. The twelve people who had been questioned by the feds had all been questioned the day after the accident. The very next day. All twelve stated the feds had shown them pictures of two men, and all twelve had described the same two pictures. It was as if Pitman knew or suspected Meesh was the missing man even before he met with the girl, and had lied about what he knew.

Twenty minutes later, Cole saw movement and glanced up. Larkin rolled off the couch, went to the window, and peered out at the street. The day was dimming, and soon they would have to pull the shades.

Cole said, “If you’re getting hungry I’ll make dinner. I just want to finish this.”

She didn’t hear him. She was looking up the street, then shifted position to look in the opposite direction.

Cole wadded up a piece of paper and bounced it off her back. When she turned, Cole touched his ear, telling her to take off the headset.

She said, “Did you say something?”

“If you’re hungry I’ll make dinner.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for him?”

Him.

“He might be late.”

“I’m okay.”

She went back to the couch and resumed her position, only now her foot didn’t move. Cole went on with his work.

“Was he really in Africa?”

Cole glanced up. She was still stretched out on the couch with her feet up, but now she was looking at him. Cole was surprised Pike told her about Africa. Pike never mentioned those days, and had rarely spoken of them even back when he was making the trips. Way it had been, Pike would say something like, I’ll be gone for a while. Cole would say okay, and a few days later Pike would vanish. Couple of weeks after that, Pike would call, say something like, Everything okay? Cole would say, Sure, everything’s fine, and Pike would say, I’m back if you need me.

Larkin misread Cole’s silence and made a cynical laugh.

“I thought so. I knew he was making it up.”

Cole tamped the pages together and settled back. He had done a lot of work on the map and now had more questions than answers.

“What did he tell you?”

“He watched a woman cut off her own fingers. What a gross thing to say. Like I’m supposed to be impressed by that. What a gross and disgusting thing, trying to scare me.”

“You changed your mind about dinner? I’m pretty much finished here.”

“No.”

She wrapped her arms across her breasts and stared at the ceiling.

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

“You crushing on Joe? I think Larkin is crushing on Joe.”

“I asked him, but he didn’t answer. He does that. I’ll say something and I know he hears, but he ignores me. I don’t like being ignored. It’s rude.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Then why does he do it?”

“I asked him once, but he ignored me.”

Larkin didn’t find it funny.

“So he’s the one who won’t talk, and you’re the one who makes a joke out of everything.”

“Maybe Joe doesn’t answer you because he figures the answers are none of your business.”

“What about the courtesy of polite conversation? Here I am stuck with a man who won’t talk. He never laughs. He won’t smile. He has absolutely no expression on his face.”

“Jeez, with me he’s a laugh riot. I can’t shut the guy up.”

“You’re not funny. You’re one of those people who thinks he’s funny but isn’t. I’m bored, and he gets us this place with no television.”

“Yeah. Having no television is hell.”

“Of course you’d say something like that. You’re his friend.”

Cole laughed.

“You’re probably used to people trying to impress you—they’re trying to be funny or get your attention or make you like them. Don’t confuse that with being interesting. It isn’t. Pike is one of the most interesting men you’ll meet. He just doesn’t want to entertain you, so he doesn’t.”

“It’s still boring.”

“Try reading. Beautiful rich chicks can read, can’t they?”

The corners of her mouth made the curl.

“You talk a lot. Does that mean you’re trying to entertain me?”

“It means I’m trying to entertain myself. You’re kinda dull.”

Larkin rolled off the couch and went back to the window.

“Shouldn’t he be back by now?”

“It’s still early.”

She returned to the couch, but this time she pulled her feet up and crossed her legs. Cole could see she didn’t want to let it go. She was frowning at him as if he was keeping something from her.

“Well, is it true? Was he in Africa?”

“He’s been to Africa many times. He’s been all over the world.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Joe didn’t cut off her fingers.”

“I mean being a mercenary. I understand being drafted and all, but I think it’s sick, getting paid to play soldier.”

“Joe wasn’t playing. He was a professional.”

“I think it’s disgusting. Anyone who enjoys that kind of thing is insane.”

“I guess that depends on what you do and why you do it.”

“You’re just making excuses for him. You’re probably just as sick as him.”

Cole loved her certainty so much he smiled.

“That story he told you about the woman, did he tell you why he was there?”

“Of course not.”

“You still want to know?”

She stared at him as if it was a trick question, but when she finally nodded he told her. He told her the one story. He could have told more.

“A group called the Lord’s Resistance Army was running around Central Africa, mostly in Uganda. They kidnapped girls. What they would do was, they’d blow into a village out in the middle of nowhere, shoot up everything with machine guns, loot the place, and grab the teenage girls. Not one or two, but all of them. They’ve kidnapped hundreds of girls. They take them as slaves, rape them, do whatever. It’s the Third World, Larkin. It’s not like here. Most of the planet isn’t like here. You understand?”

She managed to nod, but Cole sensed she didn’t understand, and couldn’t. They didn’t have police; they had warlords. They didn’t have Republicans and Democrats; they had tribes. In Rwanda, one tribe would target another and hack a million people to death in less than three months. How could an American understand something like that?

“The people in those villages, they’re farmers, maybe have a few cattle, but sometimes these villages get together and pool their money. They figured they needed professionals to stop the kidnappings, so Joe made the trip. Joe and his guys—I think he had five guys with him that time—they arrived in the afternoon. The morning of the day they arrived, a raiding party shot up another village and stole more girls. That woman’s husband and her sons were murdered that morning. That’s the first thing Joe saw when they rolled in that day, this poor woman mutilating herself.”

Larkin stared at him as if she was waiting for more, but when Cole only stared back she wet her lips.

“What did he do?”

Cole knew, but decided to keep it simple.

“Joe did his job. The raids stopped.”

Larkin glanced toward the front windows, but it was darker now, and the light in the room made it impossible to see out.

Cole said, “I’m getting hungry. You want dinner?”

Cole wanted to go into the kitchen. He wanted to have a glass of the wine and cook, but the girl stared at the windows, wetting her lips.

“He did that a lot?”

“He’s been all over the world.”

“Why?”

“Why would he hire out?”

She nodded.

“He’s an idealist.”

She finally looked back at him.

“I still think it’s creepy. He wouldn’t do that kind of thing if he didn’t enjoy it.”

“No, probably not. But he probably doesn’t enjoy it the way you mean. C’mon, let’s make dinner.”

She turned back to the windows.

“I’m going to wait.”

Cole went to the kitchen, but didn’t begin their dinner. He thought about Pitman. Pitman had told Larkin and her family a version of events that no longer fit with the facts, and probably never had. Cole had caught Pitman in a lie, and now he wondered if Pitman had lied about anything else.

John Chen

THE FIREARMS analysis unit was called the gun room. You went in there, all you saw were guns. The walls were lined with cabinets filled with hundreds of guns from the floor to the ceiling. Pistols sprouted from the inner walls of the cabinets like fruit from a dangerous tree; row after row of pistols, impaled on rods in their barrels, one gun next to another, stored that way because so many guns had been backlogged the analysts had no room to store them any other way; each gun with a tag hanging from the trigger guard to identify its make, model, and case number; each gun confiscated, used or believed to have been used in a crime. It was a harvest of bitter fruit.

John Chen eyeballed the hall outside the gun room, cursing his rotten, born-to-be-screwed luck as he made sure no one was coming. Chen hated hanging around so late in the day, but the firearms analysts were so overworked and ever-more-falling-behind that the slave-driving bitch Harriet Munson was constantly on their ass, which meant she was constantly in the gun room, which meant Chen had to wait until Harriet had gone home, which was later than anyone else on the day shift because even Harriet was overworked and behind. And to make matters worse—and matters were always growing worse, which seemed to be John’s inescapable lot in life—Pike was probably working himself into a killer rage at this very moment because he hadn’t heard from Chen about the guns. Chen’s stomach grew queasy as he imagined it. Pike was a monster, a cold-blooded killer, and would probably snap Chen’s neck like a pencil—

—which would be Harriet Munson’s fault, too. That bitch.

That morning, Chen thought for sure he would be able to get what Pike needed ASAP and be well on his way to a ’tangmobile upgrade—but no. As soon as Pike left, Chen had ripped back into the lab with his story of heroically returning to work. He had planned on badgering one of the firearms analysts into jumping the Eagle Rock evidence to the head of the analysis line, but John never had the chance. There he was, describing his courageous recovery from the broken tooth—and what did that bitch, Harriet, do? She ordered him out to a crime scene—right then, right there, right away; do not pass Go or even stop to take a piss. A domestic knife murder in Pacoima, for Christ’s sake. And THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, she sent him on to a body in Atwater, one of those homeless dudes who lived on an island in the L.A. River, found with his skull caved in like a casaba melon, almost certainly having been beaned by another homeless dude over pussy or dope or territory. Now, was THAT any way to reward a guy who overcame a broken tooth to return to work? Chen didn’t get back to the lab until almost six, only to find Harriet haunting the gun room like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Pike was certain to be impatient with the delay and no doubt would be growing angrier and angrier—at John.

Chen lived in an absolute agony of nerves until Harriet left and his chance to corner the firearms analyst appeared. Now, all he had to do was convince her to let him have the Eagle Rock evidence, and he could finally get Pike off his back.

Chen had come prepared.

The duty analyst that day was a tall, thin woman with close-set eyes and yellow teeth named Christine LaMolla. Chen was convinced she was a lesbian.

John crept down the hall, made sure no one was coming, then pressed the buzzer. Being filled with guns, the gun room was kept locked. He heard the lock click, pushed open the door, and entered.

LaMolla turned from her computer and peered at the coffee, smile-less. Lesbians never smiled.

Chen held out the cup. He had raced out to the nearest Starbucks and bought their largest mocha. Even lesbians liked chocolate.

Chen gave her his toothiest smile.

“For you.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

Chen tried to smile enough for both of them.

“I know you work late. I thought you might need it.”

LaMolla glanced at the cup again as if she thought it was laced with acid. John had once asked her out, but she turned him down flat. Lesbian.