Gridlock: A Ryan Lock Novel (26 page)

He was short, shorter than Lock anyway, but wide and muscular. She picked out his features for a second before he took a step forward and the changing angle of the light from behind her revealed that he was wearing a clown mask. The nose was red, but around the eyes was purple, and the normally exaggerated smile was blue in colour and had been inverted into a frown.

He seemed to hold himself in an almost semi-permanent squat, like a bull ready to charge. He was wearing a pair of dark slacks and a dirty-white sweatshirt, which was streaked with slicks of a green, oily substance. In his hand, which dangled casually by his side, there was a large knife, taken from the block next to the fridge.

Through the mask she could see dull hazel-brown eyes staring at her. ‘Trick or treat?’ he said. A pink tongue poked slowly through the blue mouth slit of the mask as he licked his lips.

Before she could stop her, Angel, who had retreated back to Carrie’s feet, made her own charge, racing through the gap in the glass door towards the man. Carrie’s breath caught in her throat as she rushed the man, tail flat, teeth bared.

The man stood perfectly still. When Angel was within three feet, his chin shot forward and he shouted at the dog: ‘Go on. Git now.’

Angel stopped dead, then slunk away, her tail between her legs. A feeling of relief swept over Carrie that he hadn’t harmed her. She’d also noted his accent. Southern. But not Deep South. More south-west. Arkansas, maybe. Or northern Arizona.

The man seemed to chuckle, before his eyes rose from Angel and his black pinprick pupils settled on Carrie. His head lowered again so that she could see where the greasy sheen of his forehead slid into his dirty brown hair. He seemed at ease, and as if whatever fear he could read on her face was giving him an intense amount of pleasure.

The smile snapped Carrie out of her fear response long enough to take a breath. She took stock of the situation quickly.

Shit. Her cell phone was on the dining table, which lay beyond the sliding glass door separating the deck from the inside of the house. She might reach it before the man did but she’d never have time to make a call too.

Right now all that stood between her and him was the sliding glass door, which locked from the inside. She could try to hold it shut but she doubted that would work for any length of time.

She glanced back. The tide was coming in but not fast enough to make a jump from the deck anywhere near safe. The sand robbed from the beach by the Santa Ana tides had left a crop of black rocks jutting directly underneath. Jump into wet sand from thirty feet and you might break a leg. Hit the rocks and you’d likely break your neck.

The man had been moving towards her, and was now level with the coffee-table. He picked up Carrie’s cell phone and switched it off with the meaty pad of his left thumb. He was looking at her now, running a wet tongue across his lips as he stared at her breasts.

Something about the gesture snapped a thought into her mind. She had been running through escape routes, but Lock had taught her some basic defense moves. She doubted an elbow strike was going to cut it against this guy wielding a knife, which meant that there was only one smart thing to do. It went against everything she believed in, but it was her only chance of getting out alive.

She took a deep breath and started to scream the one word guaranteed to focus the mind of any multimillionaire Malibu property owner likely to hear her.

‘Fire! Fire!’

The man’s eyes flared wide at her cries. Before she got to shout it a third time, he had wrenched the sliding door back so hard that Carrie, who was trying to hold it shut, tumbled backwards. Next she felt a sharp tug as he grabbed her long hair and began dragging her into the house.

She kicked and punched, at least one fist melting into the man’s chest with no apparent effect. Then the knife was in her face.

‘Be quiet,’ he grunted, as she slid, her sneakers squeaking, over the polished wooden floors.

She screamed again, a guttural sound, raw and without either form or shape. It was the scream of someone being brought to a place beyond rational thought, a scream perhaps only heard from a soldier who’d just caught an IED – or from a woman at the height of childbirth who has only one sentence running on a loop through her mind.

Oh, God, please let this stop
.

The man’s face was level with hers now, his big red nose almost touching her cheek as he whispered into her ear, ‘One way or another, you’re coming with me.’

56

Reardon Galt. It wasn’t a name that Lock had heard before. Not even in passing. But the porn director Gary Fairfax was significant. He thought about calling Levon Hill but decided to wait until he had sorted through the rest of the mail.

It took him the best part of an hour. It looked as though Raven had been using two mailboxes for fans: one for civilians, which she checked regularly and which he’d visited with her that first evening; and this second one for prison inmates. What he really needed now was to see Raven’s side of the dialogue, but those letters would be tucked away in cells deep within the bowels of prisons like Corcoran, Pelican Bay and San Quentin.

Lock knew that Raven’s letters would have been read by the correctional officers. However, he doubted that copies would have been made. Neither was it likely that they would have drawn much attention. The prison guards who went through mail were usually on the lookout for something other than romantic correspondence. Prison mail held a whole host of horrors, from liquid amphetamine soaked and dried into birthday cards all the way through to very sophisticated code messages that were employed to order assassinations on both sides of the prison walls.

There were two envelopes left. Both unopened. Both having arrived in the past week. Neither bore a name on the outside of the envelope or any return address. Lock put them aside while he made a phone call to an old acquaintance, someone he’d hoped he would never have to talk to again.

The phone rang twice and Lock asked to be put through to Louis Marquez, the warden at Pelican Bay Supermax Prison. A few moments later there was a click at the other end of the line.

‘What can I do for you, Lock?’ Marquez asked, sounding harassed but not as unfriendly as Lock had guessed he might.

‘I need to know if you still have an inmate by the name of Reardon Galt, either with you or somewhere else in the system.’

‘I have three and a half thousand men in here, Lock. You know that. They filter in and out.’

Marquez had overstated the filtering part, he thought. Seventy-five per cent of the inmates inside Pelican Bay were serving life without possibility of parole. The only place those men filtered between was general population and the Secure Housing Unit, with an occasional transfer out to San Quentin or Corcoran for the lucky ones who kept their noses clean.

‘I have a prison number for him too.’

Marquez coughed. ‘What’s this about anyway?’

Lock told him that his current client had stupidly entered into a correspondence with an inmate. He was now concerned that said inmate was out and looking to make good on some of the promises he’d made in his letters.

‘Do you keep copies of incoming letters?’ he asked the warden, double-checking his understanding of the procedure.

‘Not unless the Gang Unit has an ongoing investigation and is keeping stuff back as evidence. Otherwise, once mail goes to the inmate that’s it. We’d need another hundred acres and about as many staff to archive everything these guys get,’ Marquez said. ‘Mail’s one of the few things they got going for them.’

‘So would you be able to tell me if you still have Reardon Galt?’

‘Chances are we do, but off the top of my head I’d have to get back to you. Listen, Lock, I can tell you if he’s here or not – I can maybe even stretch to what’s on his jacket. Beyond that, information’s with the probation service. If he’s on the outside and causing this lady problems, I’d put my house on him not being at the address he gave his probation officer.’

‘I understand,’ Lock said. ‘How long do you think it will take you?’

There was a very deep sigh at the other end of the line. ‘Because, Lord knows, I don’t have anything else to do.’

‘I’d appreciate it,’ said Lock, terminating the call.

He went back to the pile of mail on the passenger seat beside him, picking up the first mystery envelope – the one with no return address and an illegible frank mark. He dug a nail under the corner, then stopped. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his Gerber knife and used that to slash open the top of the envelope. Then he pinched out the letter that was inside using the nail of his thumb and forefinger.

At that second Lock’s cell rang. He smiled, thinking it was the warden at Pelican Bay returning his call. It wasn’t.

A minute later, he was drenched with sweat and the Range Rover was barreling down Ventura Boulevard, scattering other drivers in its wake, the engine running flat out, as Lock summoned every iota of concentration to get to Malibu as quickly as he could.

57

The Pacific Coast Highway was at a standstill. From Santa Monica all the way up to Trancas the traffic was inching forward in increments of a few feet every minute. The main tourist route from southern to northern California, this particular stretch also served as a major artery for people commuting back and forth from the Valley to the Westside or down towards LAX airport. And at rush-hour on All Hallows Eve it was gridlocked.

Lock spun the wheel and pulled into the breakdown lane, drawing furious horns and more than a couple of one fingered salutes from other drivers. The road surface wasn’t great so he had to keep his speed below fifty as he tore up the highway.

His stomach was knotted and his guts twisted as he thought of the phone call. A report of a fire had come in from Malibu. The address was 19967 Pacific Coast Highway, the house he had been sharing with Carrie.

The breakdown lane ended, the surface giving way to slopes that buttressed the other side of the highway, and he was forced back into traffic. In typical LA fashion the car ahead wasn’t about to let him merge until he swung violently across, giving the driver of the Mercedes behind him no choice but to let him in ahead. The guy was middle-aged, with long white hair that ran just below his collar. He was gesticulating. Then his door opened and he started to get out.

Lock got out too, and the man saw the look on his face and got back into his vehicle without a word passing.

Lock got back into the Range Rover and squinted through the tinted windshield at the traffic snaked along the coast. His knuckles were white from clutching the steering-wheel too hard. This was impossible. It would take him over thirty minutes to get to the house at this rate. With a clear road, even going at the speed limit, it should have taken five.

The car in front of him moved a few feet giving him hope before its red brake lights extinguished it again a second later. Ten car lengths ahead, the stop light at the turn that took you up into Topanga Canyon was at red – not that it mattered because, apart from a clear gap in the junction, a solid line of immobile cars was all you would meet on the other side.

At the stop light, a weekend warrior type was gunning the engine of a Harley Sportster. Judging how clean and fresh his leathers were, Lock guessed he was probably a personal-injury lawyer or a gynecologist undergoing some kind of mid-life crisis. Lock had a crisis of his own right now, one that really did call for a fast motorbike.

In less than a second, Lock was out of the car and running towards the weekend warrior on the Harley. ‘Get off. I need your bike.’

The man popped his visor up and stared at Lock. ‘Are you out of your goddamn—’

Lock grabbed him by his jacket, but the man managed to shrug him off long enough to gun the engine and take off at speed, ignoring the red light and narrowly avoiding a car stalled in the turn lane in his desire to get away.

‘Dammit,’ Lock said, kicking out at thin air.

He worked his way back towards the Range Rover and got into the driver’s seat but didn’t close the door fully. Every second seemed to drag. A minute seemed like eternity.

He waited, keeping his eye on the side mirror and cursing his stupidity. He’d given the guy on the Harley the split second he’d needed to get away – and he’d taken it.

Less than a minute later, he saw another bike darting northwards between the stationary cars and trucks.

He tensed, choosing his moment. This bike was more of a tourer, the person on it clad in jacket and helmet but with only denim shorts covering his legs. He was taking his time, picking his way past side mirrors, having to squeeze through when he encountered parallel SUVs.

Lock focused hard. Then, at the very last second, as the bike inched past him, he threw open the heavy door of the Range Rover. The handlebars of the bike shifted but not far enough, as its front tyre slammed hard into the door, wrenching at the hinges.

The person on it went over the top of the handlebars and landed awkwardly on the tarmac, but Lock was already out of the Range Rover. The bike was toppled over on to its side, with the engine still running, and he wrestled it backwards, then closed the door. The biker was getting to his feet, dazed but okay.

Lock pulled the bike upright, climbed on to it and took off, almost pulling a wheelie and sending himself to the ground. He eased off on the throttle, the tires found traction and he was on his way.

58

The work truck had been perfect cover. In this part of the city, the men who drove them were invisible to the wealthy white population. As he white-knuckled around hairpin bends, gunning the engine on the straights, not one person gave him a first glance, never mind a second.

He finally dumped the truck on a fire road up in Malibu Canyon and switched to his regular car, a 1995 Saab 900. Then he drove home to the guest house he rented on Colina Drive in Topanga. Under the seat he had a semi-automatic, which he’d bought when he’d first moved out to Los Angeles. Growing up where he had, guns had been a part of everyday life. His father had hunted. So had his brothers.