The Promise: An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel (17 page)

Jon Stone

W
HEN
C
OLE CUT HIM FREE
, Jon amscrayed back to West Hollywood. He hadn’t been home long enough to heat his pool, but Jon stripped as he walked through his house, and hit the water like a naked lawn dart.

The cold water slapped him; lit up his skin with a thousand stingers, but was clear, and clean, and cleansing. Jon loved it. First thing he did when he got home from a job: into the pool, out; it was like being reborn.

Jon thought about the woman as he swam, the lady in the brochure. Her eyes were kinda vacant, like holes in her soul, but damned if she wasn’t familiar. Jon felt as if he’d seen her before, and may even have met her, but he couldn’t place her. Pissed Jon off, a man with his memory.

Jon pushed up out of the water, passed under the outdoor shower (the French chicks loved it: sized for three, six wall-mounted black
titanium spray heads with matching overhead rain heads—the award-winning heads unavailable in the U.S., so Jon had carried them from Europe aboard an Air Force MC-130), and went inside to eat.

The lady’s eyes followed him.

Jon nuked a couple of frozen tamales. He took the tamales, a carton of nonfat milk, and his laptop to the couch. Sat there naked, eating while he read about Jacob Breslyn. Articles from the
New York Times
and
Washington Post
confirmed the facts he learned from Cole: A suicide bombing at an outdoor café in Abuja, Nigeria, left fourteen dead and thirty-eight wounded, one of the dead being a young journalist named Jacob Breslyn. Jon Googled the original CNN and BBC video broadcasts. Jon was a practiced expert in bomb damage assessment, and wanted to see if his own assessment would agree with the published accounts.

A female correspondent with a British accent was first on the scene. She broadcast while efforts to secure the area unfolded behind her. For the first minute or so, the reporter filled the frame, but she finally stepped aside, revealing Nigerian emergency vehicles crowded into a small square. The cafés and shops lining the square were lit red and white by the flashers topping the vehicles. Policemen and soldiers ran through haze, shouting in British-accented English and Hausa.

Jon muted the sound and studied the carnage. The windows and glass storefronts lining the square were blown out, and the café’s striped awning was partially collapsed. Vehicle-born IEDs typically blew out walls and left behind the smoldering hulks of obliterated cars and trucks, but Jon saw no significant wall or structural damage. When the camera moved closer, Jon noted the café’s signage and walls were pocked. Tables and chairs in the outdoor area were pushed to the side and upended, but appeared otherwise undamaged. Jon decided shrapnel had caused the pocking, and patrons and first
responders had most likely upended the tables. He concluded that the damage and casualties were caused by forty to sixty pounds of high-explosive material packed with lug nuts and nails to create shrapnel. The device had been designed to kill and maim as many as possible. A terror weapon.

Jon Stone said, “Animals.”

The news reports described the suicide bomber as an unidentified female, approximately twenty to twenty-five years old, whose blood showed traces of methamphetamine, cocaine, and LSD. She carried the explosives in an Australian-made backpack beneath her robes, strapped to her belly. Anyone who saw her would think she was pregnant.

Jon ate the second tamale. He drank a little milk, put his laptop aside, and went outside.

Beautiful day. Sunny and bright.

Jon had spent most of his career gathering intelligence, providing security, rescuing hostages, and, one way or another, in direct, boots-on-the-ground combat with individuals identified as terrorists by the United Nations, the United States government, and the civilized world. This being Nigeria, Jon knew the people responsible for the bombing would be members of Boko Haram, an Islamist militant group with ties to al-Qaeda, or a Boko Haram splinter group known as Ansaru. Both were big on suicide bombings, and often employed women and children as their designated suicides. Neither group had claimed responsibility, but Jon knew this meant little. So many dipshits with ties to al-Qaeda were running around that part of the world, you couldn’t keep track with a scorecard. The shot caller who ordered the bombing would probably never be known, and was likely already dead.

More’s the pity for Ms. Breslyn and the other families.

Jon went back inside, and Googled pictures of Jacob Breslyn. He found a tall young man with a thin face, relaxed smile, and high forehead. Geeky, but growing into himself. An everyday, normal civilian.

Jon suddenly realized why Amy looked familiar, and felt his eyes well.

“Suck it up.”

D-boys sucked it up.

Jon shut his laptop and tossed it aside. He thought of the men who died when he was with Delta, and the eyes of their wives and mothers. Jacob Breslyn had been a civilian. Amy Breslyn was a civilian’s mother. She went to bed one night in a rational world, and woke as collateral damage.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility, and no suspect has been named.

Well, what the fuck?! The poor woman wants to know who killed her son, and she thinks all she has to do is ask a terrorist, hook up with a lunatic here, who somehow—magically—can hook her up with fanatics on the other side of the world, and these people will actually KNOW, and they would actually TELL HER??

Jon said, “I know. It hurts.”

He said it out loud. She wanted the pain to stop, but sometimes it didn’t. When the hurt held tight, a troop had only one choice. Suck it up, or the hurt would kill you.

Jon’s phone chimed, like a bell at the start of a prize fight.

The Caller ID showed
E BOWEN,
E for Ethan, who ran a Professional Military Corporation in London. Jon had worked for Bowen many times.

“’Ey, Jonny lad, you all back an’ rested? Pakistan, don’t you know? A significant bonus.”

Jon had drinks with Ethan in Paris. He had a cush gig coming up, and Jon had been all over it.

Jon said, “Sorry, Ethan. I took something. I’m booked.”

“Wait now? Eight days, in an’ out, as we discussed. You were keen on it.”

“Sorry, man. This one’s personal.”

Jon hung up.

Amy wanted answers, for sure, and someone to blame, but, most of all, she wanted to stop hurting.

Jon’s phone chimed again. This time, it was Pike.

“Cole has a line on the woman. Silver Lake. Here’s the address.”

Jon threw on his clothes and ran to the Rover.

A troop had to suck it up, but another troop could help.

Elvis Cole

S
ILVER
L
AKE
was an older neighborhood between Los Feliz and Echo Park, grown in the hills surrounding a concrete-lined reservoir that gave the area its name. Jon and I parked at the south end of the lake, and drove up with Pike, me riding shotgun and Jon in back. Pike’s GPS led us along the west side of the reservoir past joggers, bicyclists, and people with dogs. After we started away, none of us spoke.

Behind me, Jon clipped a .45 pistol to his waist, pulled on an oversized short-sleeve shirt to cover it, and quietly gazed at the water.

“Pretty today. Look how blue.”

I glanced at the water, but wondered what we’d find at the house.

“Yes. Pretty.”

The water was a deep, rich blue ringed by an emerald green line. The green was light reflecting off concrete beneath the water. The embankment above the water had cracked and been patched so many times, it looked like wrinkled lips. The reservoir once provided water to six hundred thousand homes, but now only offered a beautiful
view. The lovely blue water teemed with cancer-causing ions induced by the sun.

Pike said, “Two minutes.”

We climbed away from the lake on a narrow street lined with Spanish-style houses trimmed in colorful shades of turquoise, lime green, or yellow. The homes were lovely, but were cut into the hillside and built to the curb. Most had no driveways, so the street was lined with parked cars belonging to residents and workers from a construction site.

The Jeep felt stifling and close, like a troop transport on dangerous ground. I told myself Amy would be at this place, but I did not believe it. Whoever lived here was probably at work, most likely a woman, and would know nothing of Charles or Amy’s obsession. Like Meryl Lawrence, everything she believed true about Amy Breslyn would prove false. Amy kept secrets.

Pike said, “Left side. The gray.”

I leaned forward to see.

“Slow down.”

The address belonged to a small stucco house set atop a two-car garage on the uphill side of the street. Two large windows overlooked the street from the room above the garage, and concrete steps with a wrought-iron rail climbed from the curb to a covered porch. The garage door and the front door were pink. I wondered if rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives were hidden behind the pretty pink doors.

Jon said, “What does she drive?”

“Volvo. A beige four-door sedan.”

We passed the construction site, turned around at the first cross street, and drove back. No beige Volvos were seen, no guards were posted, and no one peered from the windows.

I said, “Stop. I’m going up.”

We parked in front of the garage. Pike tried to lift the door, but it didn’t move. The mailbox was empty. Jon went to the far side of the garage, and disappeared up the slope.

Talking wasn’t necessary.

I climbed the steps, and went to the door. Pike flanked to the side, pistol along his leg.

Drapes covered the porch windows, but the drapes were sheer. Glass-door shapes of light were visible, but nothing moved inside, and the house was silent. I pushed the buzzer and knocked. I took out my pick gun to flip the locks, but Jon Stone opened the door. Those D-boys moved fast.

“Clear. Nobody’s home.”

I stepped in past him, discouraged and irritated.

“How’d you get in?”

“Side door off the kitchen.”

The living room opened to a dining room, where French doors revealed a tiled courtyard. Pike peered through the doors, checking the rear.

“Alarm?”

“No. Kitchen’s off the dining room, two bedrooms and a bath are off the hall.”

Pike moved to the kitchen. Jon stayed at the front windows to watch the street, and I hurried to the bedrooms. A hunger to press the chase grew in my belly. I told myself to slow down, but didn’t.

A small bedroom at the back of the house faced the courtyard. The master bedroom was larger and above the garage. I took a quick peek in the back bedroom and hurried back to the master.

A neatly made double bed faced the windows overlooking the street. A dresser hugged the adjoining wall, and a table was set up as a
desk by the windows. Eight or nine women’s outfits hung on a rail in the closet. Five pairs of women’s shoes and three purses huddled beneath the clothes. The clothes looked like things Amy would wear and appeared to be the right size. Eight or nine outfits weren’t many. Her walk-in closet in Hancock Park was crowded with so many clothes I couldn’t tell if any were missing.

I checked the dresser and went to the desk. More clothes were stashed in two dresser drawers, but another two drawers were empty. An inexpensive monitor, a cheapo printer, and a few pads and pens were on the table, but not a phone or computer. Nothing on the desk or in the bedroom identified the person who lived here.

Maybe no one lived here.

Maybe they had, but were gone.

I went back to the living room. Jon was still by the windows.

He said, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

A taupe couch faced matching taupe chairs across a blocky coffee table. Matching end tables that were too large for the space bracketed the couch, and a generic mass-produced painting hung on the wall. The furnishings appeared new, but looked like furnishings found in a discount motel chain.

Pike returned from the kitchen.

“A few plates and staples, leftover takeout, some things in the trash. Looks to be two or three days old. One person, no more.”

“Phone or TV?”

“No.”

I stared at the set-dressing furniture. The woman who lived here was almost certainly Amy, but she hadn’t been crashing with Charles or a friend or even Thomas Lerner. I wondered where she was, and whether she would return. Except for a few clothes, nothing of Amy
was here, and nothing of Jacob. Maybe she wouldn’t return. Maybe she had hooked up with the people she’d been trying to find, and now she was dead, or fleeing the country.

I felt tired. I wanted to sit on the cheap taupe couch, but I went to the door.

“It was her. She was here, but she’s gone.”

Jon hooked his thumbs in his pockets.

“She went to a lot of trouble to set up this place. She might come back.”

“Maybe.”

“I can rig something to let us know.”

I didn’t understand.

“Let us know what?”

“She has Wi-Fi. There’s a hotspot receiver under her desk.”

Jon tugged at the drapes and tapped the wall.

“Put up a motion sensor, we’ll know if someone comes in. AV transmitters here and in the bedroom, we’ll have eyes and ears.”

He shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Won’t even charge you, not that you can afford me.”

Pike said, “Got something to open the garage?”

“Got the tricks in my car.”

Jon Stone was something.

Pike drove us down, and Jon drove back to the house in his Rover. I got into my car, and stared at the misleading blue water. Amy Breslyn was proving herself to be smart, thorough, and well prepared. Bugging the house made sense, but Amy could have similar houses all over town, ready to be used as needed, and abandoned in place. If she didn’t return, the Silver Lake house meant nothing. I needed a new trail, and was thinking about it when Eddie Ditko called.

“I was right about the potential. This sucker’s gonna have legs.”

“Tell me.”

“First, you should know we aren’t the only horses in the race. A dick from L.A. already called Solano.”

“Carter?”

“Stinnis. Know him?”

Doug Stinnis was in Hollywood Homicide when I knew him, before he jumped to the show.

“He’s good. Is this your way of telling me they wouldn’t talk to you?”

Eddie cackled like a man gargling broken glass.

“It’s my way of telling you the cops are ahead. You’re losing.”

Sometimes you had to ignore him.

“Help lessen my shame. What did you find out about the house?”

“Nothing. The prison didn’t know squat about his house until Stinnis told them. You know what else he told them?”

“That he was way ahead of me, and I’m a loser?”

“In so many words. Medillo bought the house from his cellmate, and his cellmate died up at Solano, too.”

I knew the name from the tax records.

“Walter Jacobi?”

“Maybe you aren’t as far behind as I thought. Yeah, Jacobi. Three weeks after the title changed hands, Jacobi died of a drug overdose. Eleven days later, Medillo was murdered.”

“Who killed him?”

“Don’t know. There was a gang fight, a black and brown thing. Medillo was supposedly a bystander, but someone stabbed him sixteen times.”

“The case is still open?”

“Yeah. You know how it works. Two dozen suspects, but the cameras were covered and nobody talked.”

“Do they think the deaths are connected?”

“Never had reason, but they didn’t know about the house. Both these guys were addicts, so someone might’ve blamed Medillo for the old man’s death, but that’s just talk. I asked for their sheets.”

“Did Jacobi have any relatives?”

“Not that they know at Solano, but Medillo had a father and two sisters.”

I remembered them from the obituary.

“Roberto, Nola, and Marisol.”

“See? You’re not as stupid as people say. You want to know about the house, ask his family. They probably helped with the buy.”

“Thanks, Eddie. Send the sheets.”

I lowered the phone, and stared at the lake. The sale or purchase of property by a competent inmate was legal, but the presence of notaries, loan officers, attorneys, and the other people needed to witness and finalize a legal document required the prison’s permission. If the Solano prison officials didn’t know about the transaction, then Medillo and Jacobi hadn’t wanted them to know, which meant something about the transaction was rotten. I wondered if Medillo’s father or sisters were present. Stinnis was probably wondering the same, and might even be with them. I needed a different trail, and the best place to find a trail was at the beginning.

The beginning was Thomas Lerner, and Jennifer Li was still my best and only way to reach him. Her mother hadn’t given me Jennie’s number, but she gave me enough.

I went to find Jennie.