The Last Detective (23 page)

The village exploded in chaos. Women scooped childen and infants into their arms and ran to the bush. Children burst into tears. Ramal ran.

“Ramal! What's happening? What do we do?”

“Run! Run NOW!”

Two more South African guards burst from between the huts. The flame-haired man dropped to a knee and fired again—bapbap, bapbap—so fast that the shots sounded as one. Both South Africans fell.

Ramal disappeared into the jungle.

Ahbeba started for her family's hut, then ran back for Julius. She took him by the arm.

“Come with me, Julius! We have to hide!”

A flatbed truck crowded with men roared into the village, horn blowing. Men jumped off the truck in twos and threes as it raced between the huts. The flame-haired man shouted orders at them in Krio, the English-based Creole that was spoken by almost everyone in Sierra Leone.

The rebels fired into the air and beat the running women and children with the butts of their rifles. Ahbeba picked up Julius to run, but more rebels jumped from the truck behind her. A skinny teenager with a rifle as big as himself dragged Ramal from the bush, pushed her down, then kicked her in the back. A man wearing nothing but shorts and a fluorescent pink vest shot at the village dogs, laughing every time a dog screamed and spun in a circle.

Julius shrieked.

“Make them stop!
Make them stop!
”

The flatbed truck skidded to a stop in the center of the village. As quickly as the gunfire had come and gone from the mine, the village was captured. The South Africans were dead. No one was left to protect them. Ahbeba sank to the ground, and tried to pull herself and Julius into the earth. This could not be happening to a princess waiting for a prince.

A muscular man in wraparound sunglasses and a ragged Tupac T-shirt clambered up onto the truck's bed to glare at the villagers. He wore a bone necklace that clattered against the ammo belts slung from his neck. Other men stood beside him, one wearing a headband made of bullets; another, a net shirt sewn with small pouches made from the scrotums of warthogs. They were fierce and terrible warriors, and Ahbeba was very afraid.

The man with the bone necklace waved a sleek black rifle.

“I am Commander Blood! You will know this name and fear it! We are freedom fighters of the Revolutionary United Front, and
you
are traitors to the people of Sierra Leone! You dig our diamonds for outsiders who control the puppet government in Freetown! For this, you will die! We will kill everyone here!”

Commander Blood fired his rifle over the heads of the villagers and ordered his men to line everyone up to be shot.

The flame-haired man and another white man came around the side of the truck. The second man was taller and older than the first, wearing olive-green pants and a black T-shirt. His pale skin was burned from the sun.

He said, “No one's killing anyone. There's a better way to do this.”

He spoke Krio like the flame-haired man.

The two white men were on the ground; Commander Blood stood on the truck's bed. The commander charged like a lion to the edge of the bed so that he towered over the men. He fired his weapon angrily.

“I have given the order! We will kill these traitors so that word will spread throughout the diamond fields! The miners must fear us! Line them up! Now!”

The man in the black shirt swung his arm as if throwing a punch and hooked Commander Blood's legs out from beneath him. The commander landed flat on his back. The man jerked him from the truck to the ground and stomped his head. Three fierce warriors jumped from the truck to help their commander. Ahbeba had never seen men fight so fiercely nor in such strange ways—the man and his flame-haired friend twisted the warriors to the ground so quickly the fight ended in a heartbeat, with the two men defeating four. One of the warriors was left screaming in pain; two others were unconscious or dead.

Ramal edged close to her and whispered.

“They are demons. Look, he wears the mark of the damned!”

As the black-shirted man held Commander Blood by the neck, Ahbeba saw a triangle tattooed on the back of his hand. Ahbeba grew even more fearful. Ramal was wise and knew of such things.

The demon pulled Commander Blood to his feet, then ordered the others to bring the dead South African guards to the well at the center of the village. The commander was dazed and submissive; he did not object. The flame-haired man spoke into a small radio.

Ahbeba waited anxiously to see what would happen. She held Julius close and tried to calm him, fearing that his sobbing might draw the rebels' attention. Twice she saw brief chances to escape, but she could not leave the boy. Ahbeba told herself that there was safety in numbers; that she and Julius would be safe within the crowd.

As the rebels stacked the dead South Africans by the well, a second truck rumbled into the village. This truck was battered and misshapen and cowled with black dust. Great winged fenders hooded the tires like a sorcerer's cloak, and broken headlamps stared crookedly over a grill like a hyena's snaggletoothed grin; the rust on its teeth was the color of dried blood. A dozen young men with glassy unblinking eyes squatted in the truck. Many had bloody bandages wrapped tightly around their upper arms. Those without bandages showed jagged scars cut into these same places.

Ramal, who had been to Freetown and knew of such things, said, “You see their arms? Their skin has been split so that cocaine and amphetamines can be packed into the wounds. They do this to make themselves crazy.”

“Why?”

“It makes them better fighters. Like this, they feel no pain.”

A tall warrior jumped down from the new truck and joined the two white men. He wore a sackcloth tunic and baggy trousers, but that is not what drew Ahbeba's eye; his face was as cut and planed as a finished diamond. His upper arms bore the same scars as his men, but, unlike the others, his face was also marked: three round scars were set like eyes along each cheek and a row of smaller scars lined his forehead. His eyes were fired with a heat that Ahbeba did not understand, but he was breathtakingly beautiful, as beautiful and as princely as any man that Ahbeba had ever seen. He held himself like a king.

The black-shirted man twisted Commander Blood toward the stack of South African corpses.

He said, “This is how you create fear.”

He glanced at the tall African warrior, who motioned his men from the truck. They jumped to the ground, howling and hooting as if possessed. They were not armed with rifles and shotguns like the first group of rebels; they carried rusty machetes and axes.

They swarmed over the dead South African guards. The machetes rose and fell as the crazy-eyed rebels hacked off their heads. They threw the heads into the well.

Ahbeba sobbed and Ramal hid her eyes. All around them, women and children and old men wailed. Ishina Kotay, a strong young woman with two babies, as fast as any boy in the village when she was a girl, jumped to her feet and bolted for the jungle. The flame-haired man shot her in the back.

Ahbeba felt light-headed, as if she had smoked the
majijo
plant. She lost track of what was happening, and vomited. The world grew hazy and small with empty spaces between moments of brilliant clarity. The day had begun with cakes for breakfast as the first kiss of light brushed the ridges above her village. Her mother had spoken of princes.

Commander Blood fired his rifle into the air and jumped up and down, howling like his men. The rest of the rebels jumped up and down, too, caught up in the frenzy.

“Now you know the wrath of the RUF! This is the price you pay for defying us! We will fill the well with your heads!”

The white demon and the tall scarred warrior turned toward the huddled villagers. Ahbeba felt their gaze sweep over her as if their eyes held weight.

The white demon shook his head.

“Stop jumping around like a baboon. If you kill these people, then no one will know what happened here. Only the living can fear you. Do you understand that?”

Commander Blood stopped bouncing.

“Then we must leave living proof.”

“That's right. Proof that will scare the shit out of the other miners. Proof that your enemies can't deny.”

Commander Blood walked over to the headless bodies of the South African guards.

“What could be more terrible that what we have done?”

“This.”

The white demon spoke to the scarred warrior in a language that Ahbeba did not understand, and then the drug-crazed rebels ran forward with their axes and machetes, and hacked off the hands of every man, woman, and child in the village.

Ahbeba Danku and the others were left alive to tell their story, and did.

21
            

time missing: 49 hours, 58 minutes

I
called Starkey from the parking lot while Pike phoned the San Gabriel Information operator. Starkey answered her cell on the sixth ring.

I said, “I have two more names for the BOLO. Are you still at the river?”

“We're gonna be here all night with this mess. Hang on while I grab my pen.”

“The man Mrs. Luna saw with Fallon is named Mazi Ibo, m-a-z-i, i-b-o. He worked for Fallon in Africa.”

“Hang on, Cole, slow down. How do you know that?”

“Pike found someone who recognized the description. You'll be able to get his picture off the NLETS for a positive with Mrs. Luna. Did Richard cop to the ransom?”

“He still denies it. They tore outta here an hour ago, but I think you're onto it, Cole. That poor bastard was shitting bullets.”

Pike lowered his phone and shook his head. Schilling wasn't listed.

“Okay, here's the other name. I don't know whether he's involved, but he might be in contact.”

I gave her Schilling's name and told her how he was connected to Ibo and Fallon.

She said, “Hang on. I gotta get to my radio. I want to put this stuff out on the BOLO.”

“He keeps a mail drop in San Gabriel. We just checked with Information, but they don't show a listing. Can you get it?”

“Yeah. Stand by.”

Pike watched me as I waited, then shook his head again.

“He won't be listed under any name we know.”

“We don't know that. We might get lucky.”

Pike studied the mail drop address, then flicked it with his finger, thinking. He looked up as Starkey came back on the line.

She said, “They got squat for Eric Schilling. What's that address?”

I gestured for the address, but Pike slipped it into his pocket. He took my phone and turned it off.

I said, “What are you doing?”

“They'll have a rental agreement, but she'll have to get a warrant. This place, it'll be closed by the time everyone gets there. They'll have to find the owner, wait for him to come down, it'll take forever. We can get it faster.”

I understood what Pike meant and agreed to it without hesitation, as if the rightness of it was obvious and beyond debate. I was beyond hesitation or even consideration. I had become forward movement. I had become finding Ben.

Pike went to his Jeep and I went to my car, my head filled with the atrocities that Resnick had described. I still heard the flies buzzing inside the van and felt them bumping my face as they swirled up from the blood. I realized that I didn't have my gun. It was locked in my gun safe because Ben had been staying with me, and was still there. I suddenly wanted a weapon badly.

I said, “Joe. My gun's at the house.”

Pike opened his passenger door and reached under the dash. He found a black shape and walked over with the shape palmed flat against his thigh so that bystanders wouldn't see. He passed it to me, then went back to his Jeep. It was a Sig Sauer 9mm in a black clip holster. I clipped it onto my right hip under my shirt. I thought it would make me feel safer, but it didn't.

The I-10 freeway stretched across the width of Los Angeles like a rubber band pulled to its breaking point, running from the sea to the desert, then beyond. Traffic was building and heavy, but we drove hard on our horns, as much on the shoulder as not.

Eric Schilling's mail drop was a private postal service called Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes in a strip mall in a part of San Gabriel where most of the people were of Chinese descent. The mall held three Chinese restaurants, a pharmacy, a pet store, and the postal business. The parking lot was crowded with families on their way to dinner at the restaurants, or lingering outside the pet store. Pike and I parked on the side street, then walked back to the mail drop. It was closed.

Stars & Stripes was a storefront business in full view of the mall, with the pet store on one side and the pharmacy on the other. An alarm strip ran along its glass front and door. Inside, mailboxes were set into the walls in the front part of the store, divided from the back office by a sales counter. The owner had pulled a heavy steel fence across the counter to divide the store into a front and back. Customers could let themselves into the front after hours to get their mail, but not steal the stamps and packages that were kept in the office. The curtain looked strong enough to cage a rhino.

Schilling's box number was or had been 205. We wouldn't know if the box still belonged to Schilling until we were inside. I could see box 205, but I couldn't tell whether it held any mail. For all I knew, Fallon had sent him a treasure map leading to Ben Chenier.

Pike said, “The rental agreements will be in the office. It might be easier to get in through the back.”

We walked around the side of the mall to the alley that ran behind it. More cars lined the alley, along with Dumpsters and service doors for the shops. Two men in white aprons sat on crates in the open door of one of the restaurants. They peeled potatoes and carrots into a large metal bowl.

The name of each business was painted on its service door, along with
NO ENTRANCE
and
PARKING FOR DELIVERY ONLY
. We found the door for Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. It was faced with steel and set with two industrial-strength deadbolt locks. The hinges were heavy-grade, too. You would need a truck and chains to pull them out of the wall.

Pike said, “Can you pick the locks?”

“Yeah, but not fast. These locks are made to resist picks, and we have these guys over here.”

Pike and I looked at the men, who were doing their best to ignore us. It would be faster to go through the front.

We walked back to the parking lot. A Chinese family with three little boys was standing outside the pet store, watching the puppies and kittens inside. The father held his smallest son in his arms, pointing at one of the puppies.

He said, “How about that one? You see how he plays? The one with the spot on his nose.”

Their mother smiled at me as we passed and I smiled back, everything so civil and peaceful, everything so fine.

Pike and I went to the glass door. We could wait for someone to come for their mail and walk in with them, but hanging around for a couple of hours was not an option. Starkey could have arranged a warrant and roused the owner to open the place if we wanted to wait until midnight.

I said, “When we break the door, the alarm is going to ring here in the store. It might also ring at a security station, and they'll call the police. We have to pop the face off his mailbox, get past the curtain, then go through the office. All these people here in the parking lot will see us, and someone will call the police. We won't have much time. Then we have to get out of here. They'll probably get our license numbers.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?”

The evening sky had darkened to a rich blue and was growing darker, but the street lights had not yet flicked on. Families walked along the narrow walk, coming out of the restaurants or waiting for their names to be called. An old man hobbled out of the pharmacy. Cars crept through the little parking lot, hoping for a space. Here we were, about to break into some honest citizen's place of business. We would destroy property, and that property would have to be paid for. We would violate their rights, and that was something you couldn't pay for, and we would scare the hell out of all these people who would end up witnesses against us if and when we were brought to trial.

“Yes, I guess I am. Let me do this part by myself. Why don't you wait in your car?”

Pike said, “Anyone can wait in the car. That isn't me.”

“No, I guess not. Let's put our cars in the alley. We'll go in the front here, but leave through the back.”

We put our cars outside the service door, then walked back around to the front again. Pike brought a crowbar. I brought a flathead screwdriver and my jack handle.

The family from the pet store was standing directly in front of Stars & Stripes Mail Boxes. The man and the woman were trying to decide which restaurant would seat them faster with the kids.

I said, “You're too close to the door. Please step aside.”

The woman said, “I'm sorry. What?”

I pointed at the door with my jack handle.

“There's going to be glass. You need to move.”

Pike stepped close to her husband like a towering shadow.

“Go.”

They suddenly understood what was going to happen and pulled their children away, speaking fast in Chinese.

I hit the door with my jack handle and shattered the glass. The alarm went off with a loud steady buzz that echoed through the parking lot and across the intersection like an air-raid siren. The people in the parking lot and on the sidewalks looked toward the sound. I knocked the remaining glass out of the door frame, and then I went in. Something sharp raked my back. More glass fell, and Pike came in after me.

Pike went for the curtain and I went for the mailbox. The boxes were built sturdy, with bronze metal doors set flush to a metal frame. Each door had a small glass window so you could see whether you had mail and a reinforced lock. Schilling's box was packed with mail.

I worked the screwdriver's blade under the door, then hammered it open with the jack handle. None of the mail was addressed to Eric Schilling or Gene Jeanie; it was addressed to Eric Shear.

“It's him. He's using the name Eric Shear.”

The alarm was so loud that I shouted.

I shoved the letters into my pockets, then ran to help Pike.

The metal curtain ran along tracks in the floor and ceiling so that you couldn't climb over or under, and was stretched between two metal pipes anchored into the walls. We used the crowbar and the jack handle to break away pieces of the wall from under one of the pipes, then pried the pipe from the wall. It bent at a crazy angle and we pushed it aside.

Outside, someone shouted, “Hey, look at that!”

People were gathering in the parking lot. They crouched behind cars or stood in small groups, pointing at the shop and craning their heads to try to see what we were doing. Two men gawked through what was left of the front door, then hurried away. I didn't know how long Pike and I had been inside, but it couldn't have been long: forty seconds; a minute. The alarm clouded the little store with noise. It was so loud that it would cover the sound of approaching sirens.

We shoved through the collapsing curtain and into the office. Towering stacks of packages crowded the floor and an enormous bag of Styrofoam packing peanuts hung from the ceiling. A file cabinet stood in the corner beside a small desk cluttered with what looked like unsorted mail and UPS receipts. Pike checked the service door as I went to the files.

Pike shouted over the alarm that the way was clear.

“We're good. The deadbolts open with levers.”

I opened the top file drawer expecting to see folders filled with paperwork, but the drawer contained office supplies. I pulled the next two drawers, but they only held more supplies. Pike peeked out the back door to see if anyone was coming. Our time was running out.

“Faster.”

“I'm looking.”

I scattered papers, magazines, and envelopes from the desk, then opened its drawer. It was the only drawer left. The drawer had to contain rental agreements for the customers who rented the boxes, but all I found were ordering records for the services and supplies that Stars & Stripes needed to conduct its business; nothing referred to the boxes or the clients who rented them.

Pike tapped my back, and looked toward the parking lot.

“We got a problem.”

An overweight man in a yellow knit shirt was surrounded by people in the parking lot, all of them pointing our way. The shirt was too tight, so his belly bulged over his belt like a Baggie filled with jelly. The word
SECURITY
was stenciled on the shirt over his heart like a badge, and he wore a pistol in a black nylon holster clipped to his right hip. So much flab spilled from his pants that the pistol was almost hidden. He crept forward with his hand on his gun. He looked scared.

I said, “Jesus Christ, where'd he come from?”

“Keep looking.”

Pike slipped past me with his pistol out. I caught his arm.

“Joe, don't.”

“I'm not going to hurt him. Keep looking.”

The guard knelt behind a car and peered over the trunk. Pike moved into the door so that the guard saw him. That was enough. The guard threw himself to the ground and curled up behind the tire. At least he didn't start shooting. Discretion is the better part of valor when all you get is minimum wage.

Pike and I heard the sirens at the same time. He glanced back at me, and I waved him back. We had run out of time.

“Let's go.”

“Did you find it?”

“No.”

Pike fell back past the counter to the service door.

“Keep looking. We have a few seconds.”

“We can't find him from jail.”

“Keep looking.”

That's when I saw the brown cardboard box under the desk. It was just the right size and shape for storing file folders. I pulled it out from under the desk, and pushed off the top. It was filled with folders that were numbered from one to six hundred, and I knew that each number corresponded to a box. I pulled the folder marked 205.

“We're out. Go!”

Pike jerked open the door. Outside, the air was cool and the alarm wasn't so loud. The two men with their potatoes shouted into their kitchen when they saw us, and others came out as we left. We turned our cars onto a service street behind a Cineplex theater eight blocks away, and looked through the file. It contained a rental agreement for Eric Shear. The rental agreement had a phone number and his address.

time missing: 50 hours, 37 minutes

E
ric Shear lived in a four-story apartment building on the western edge of San Gabriel called the Casitas Arms, less than ten minutes from the mail drop. It was a large building, the kind that packed a hundred apartments around a central atrium and billed itself as “secure luxury living.” Places like that are easy to enter.