Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 01 (55 page)

“Double-checking? I already tell you he been here, no one calls me, it’s on the TV.”

“It’s a homicide investigation, sir, we have to be careful,” said the blond cop, looking over Zhukanov’s shoulder at the shelves of toys.

Calling me sir but probably thinking I’m some kind of joke, a clown. The fat guy thought so too, and look where he was.

Having had several hours to think about it, Zhukanov felt good about killing the fat guy—great, even; the Siberian wolf dispatches its prey, paints its muzzle with blood, howls at the moon. While cutting the guy up, Zhukanov had
felt
like howling.

Moving him into the car, then dragging him out had been torture; Zhukanov’s back and shoulders and arms still throbbed. Getting the bastard into pieces turned out to be not so easy, either. He should’ve sharpened the kitchen knives better; that cleaver should’ve gone right through the joints, not stuck like that.

The head, though, had been less of a problem than he expected. Rolling away like a soccer ball, eyes open. That was funny. He felt like kicking it, but you had to get rid of the head and the fingers, let the cops have the rest of the carcass. His plan had been to take the head somewhere it would never be found, but the Boy Scouts had ruined it, hiking through the forest, yelling like drunks. So now the cops had the head; maybe they’d learn who the fat guy was. Big deal. No connection to him; he’d cleaned all the blood. And here was a cop leaning over the very same counter, no clue.

Zhukanov fought not to smile. He’d tossed the knives into five separate storm drains from Valencia to Van Nuys. The fat man’s clothing and billfold ended up in Dumpsters near Fairfax and Melrose—let the Yids get blamed.

No bills in the billfold, just a driver’s license and a nice picture of a naked girl with her legs spread that Zhukanov pocketed. The license he slipped down another drain. The fat man’s name was Moran. So what.

When he got home he washed his bloody clothes, took a shower, had something to eat, worked with the broken gun for a while, still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Then a few glasses of vodka and he was out like a light by three. Five hours later, he was back at the shack waiting for the Yids to return with the kid. If they didn’t, he’d go over to the motor vehicle department on Monday.

But the car showed up, all right, pulling behind the Yid church at nine. Prayer time for the Yids, Zhukanov knew, usually till eleven or so. He kept going back to the alley every fifteen minutes; finally spotted the old guy who’d hidden the kid coming out with an old woman. They drove off, and he followed them in his car. They never noticed—too busy yapping.

And now he had an address without paying for it. Twenty-three Sunrise Court.

He didn’t write it down, the way he had with the license number, because now he was smart; no one would get it unless they paid for it.

And now look how calm he was, facing the white cop. Though if the guy had just showed the badge, no picture of the kid, he might’ve figured it had something to do with Moran—what the hell would he have done then?

“I tell the black guy,” he said. “He never call me back.”

“I’m sorry, sir. We’ve been quite busy—”

“You busy looking for the kid,” said Zhukanov, “but I see him.”

“You saw him several days ago, sir.”

“Maybe,” said Zhukanov, smiling.

“Maybe?”

“Maybe I see him again.”

The blond cop pulled out a little notepad. “When, sir?”

“I tell your black buddy the first time; he never call me back.”

The blond cop frowned, leaned a little closer. “Sir, if you have information—”

“I don’t know,” said Zhukanov, shrugging. “Maybe I forget. The way the black guy forget to call me.”

The pad shut. The cop was annoyed, but he smiled. “Sir, I understand your frustration. Sometimes things get busy and we don’t dot every
i.
If that happened to you, I’m—”

“Dot every
i
is important,” said Zhukanov, not sure what that meant. “But also money.”

“Money?” said the cop.

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“That,” said the cop. “Sure. If we find the boy and he helps us, it’s yours. At least that’s what I was told.”

“No one tell
me.
”

“I’ve seen the forms, sir. My captain signed them. If you’d like to call him—”

“No, no,” said Zhukanov. “I just wanna get it square, you know? Maybe I know something more than I told the black guy, but what if kid runs, you don’t find him? What happens?”

“If your information’s solid, you’ll get partial payment,” said the cop. “Part of the twenty-five thousand. That’s the way we always do it. I’m not saying you could get all of it, but—”

“How much part of it?”

“I don’t know, sir, but generally in these situations it’s around
a third to a half—I’d guess ten, twelve thousand. And if the boy is
there, you’d get all twenty-five—why don’t you speak to my captain—”

“No, no,” said Zhukanov, thinking, If the old Yid did take the kid home with him, the kid could still run; better not dawdle anymore. “I want you should write it down.”

“Write what?”

“What you say. Twelve, fifteen to Zhukanov just for telling, all twenty-five if kid show up.”

“Sir,” said the blond cop, sighing, “I’m not in a position—oh, all right, here you go.”

Ripping a sheet out of his pad, he said, “How do you spell your name?”

Zhukanov told him.

The blond cop printed neatly:

This stipulates that to the best of my knowledge, Mr. V. Zhukanov is due $12,000.00 because of information he
has offered about a missing boy, unknown identity, related to L. Ramsey, PC 187. Should Mr. V. Zhukanov’s information lead directly to this boy and this boy’s information lead to apprehension of a suspect, he would be due $25,000.00.

Det. D. A. Price, Badge # 19823

“Here,” said the cop, “but to be honest, I can’t promise you this means much—”

Zhukanov snatched the paper, read it, and stuffed it down his pants pocket. Now he had a contract. If the bastards gave him trouble, he’d hire Johnnie Cochran, sue the hell out of them.

“I know where he is,” he said. “Enough for the twenty-five.”

The blond cop waited, pen poised.

“The Yids—the Jews from over there got him.” Zhukanov pointed south. “They got a church. The old Jew hid him in there, took him home.”

“You saw this?” said the cop. He straightened and his shoulders widened.

“You bet. I looked for the car, followed it to the old guy’s house this morning.”

“Good detective work, Mr. Zhukanov.”

“In Russia, I was policeman.”

“Really. Well, it paid off, sir. Thank you. And believe me, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get every penny of that twenty-five thousand.”

“You bet,” said Zhukanov. The wolf triumphs!

The blond cop said, “What’s the address?”

“Twenty-three Sunrise Court.” Twenty-five-thousand-dollar address.

“That’s here in Venice?”

“Yeah, yeah, right here.” Idiot, didn’t know his own city. Zhukanov hooked a thumb. “From alley, you go to Speedway, then to Pacific, then five blocks over.”

“Great,” said the cop, closing the pad. “You’ve been a tremendous help, sir—when you say the alley, you mean the one back there?”

“Yeah, yeah—I show you.”

Vaulting over the counter—adrenaline-charged, despite his aching limbs, Zhukanov led the blond cop around the side of the shack, past the shipping-carton trash boxes. If the guy only knew what had been in there yesterday.

“Over there,” he pointed, “is Jew church where I see car. Okay?”

“What kind of car, sir?”

“Lincoln. White, brown roof.”

“Year?”

“Don’t matter, I got something better for you.” Grinning, Zhukanov recited the license number. The cop scrawled in the darkness. “Other way is where he went.”

“North,” said the cop.

“Yeah, yeah, right up to Speedway and then Pacific, five blocks.”

The cop repeated the instructions, a real dummy.

“That’s it,” said Zhukanov. Go find him, you stupid bastard. I’m giving him to you on a platter!

The cop put his pad away and shot out a hand. “Thank you, sir.”

They shook. Firm, manly shake. If the cop only knew the hand he was grasping had been bloody up to the elbow a few hours ago. Zhukanov tried to break the clasp, get the guy moving, but he couldn’t pull away—the cop was holding on to him, yanking him close—what the hell was this? The cop was grinning, like he was going to kiss him, this wasn’t right, this was wrong.

Zhukanov struggled, struck out.

A hand grabbed his wrist, twisted it, something broke, and pain devoured him from fingertip to the bottom of his ear. One quick move, just like Colonel Borokovsky. He cried out involuntarily, and something big and meaty exploded in the middle of his face and he went down.

Then more pain, even worse, burning, searing, like a fire igniting his bowels.

Starting right under his navel, then spreading upward, like a burning rope. Then he felt cold, a strange cold—cold air blowing . . . inside him,
deep
inside, and knew he’d been split open, filleted—the way he’d split the fat bastard and now it had happened to him and he couldn’t do a damn thing, just lie there and take it.

The last thing he felt was a hand going through his pocket.

Fishing out the contract. Liar! Cheater! The money was hi—

CHAPTER

Being alone here is different from the park. Different from Watson.

I’ve got all these rooms, these books, someone who trusts me. Once in a while I hear footsteps out on the sidewalk or someone talking or laughing, a car driving by. But they don’t bother me; I’m here, locked in. I can sleep without waking up to see what’s around. I can read without a flashlight.

I’ve thought about it a lot, and Sam’s right. Tomorrow I’ll find a phone and call the police, tell them about
PLYR 1
. Maybe I can call Mom, too. Tell her I’m okay, not to worry, I’m doing just fine, one day I’ll come back, be able to support her.

What would she do? Cry? Get mad? Beg me to come back?

Or worse:
not
beg me? She must miss me a little.

I stop thinking about it, stretch my feet out on the couch, pull the knit blanket up over my knees, start in on the next
Life
magazine. The main article’s all about John Kennedy and his family, happy and handsome on the beach.

California beach, same sand that’s just a little way up. I could walk over, look at it, pretend to be John Kennedy, come back. But I told Sam I’d stay here, and he gave me the alarm code.

1-1-2-5. I get up and try it. Green light.

Red light, green light, red light.

Green light. I open the door, smell the salt, that beach smell. No one’s out; most of the houses are dark.

I go out to the porch. Feel cold, scared.

Back in the house. Why does just going outside scare me?

I’ll try again later. Back to the Kennedys.

CHAPTER

The owner of the Chinese restaurant had no memory of Balch. Petra and Wil ordered some spring rolls to go, ate them in her car, agreed to drive separately to Venice, meet on Pacific and Rose, walk to Zhukanov’s stand together.

She called the desk at Hollywood station.

“Detective Bishop for you half an hour ago,” said the clerk. Had Stu gotten hold of flight information on Balch?

This operator refused to put Petra through. “No calls to surgical patients past nine, ma’am.”

“I’m a police detective returning another detective’s call. Stuart Bishop.”

“Is Mr. Bishop the patient?”

“No, his wife is.”

“Then I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t put you through.”

“Let me speak to your supervisor, please.”

“I am the supervisor. The rules are for our patients’ welfare and comfort. If you’d like, I can have a message slip sent up to the room telling him you called.”

“Fine, I’ll wait.”

“Can’t do that, ma’am. It’ll take time. We’re understaffed, and I need to keep all the lines open. If it’s important, I’m sure he’ll call back.”

“Sure,” said Petra. “Have a nice night.”

She got back in the car, drove on, hoping it wasn’t that important. Even if they found a flight reservation, she had doubts Balch had actually shown up. The call to Westward Charter had to be a fake-out. Balch had been too careful about everything else to slip up like that.

Meaning what?

He was anywhere
but
Las Vegas. Site of his second wedding. Tomorrow, she’d try to get hold of Amber Leigh. And Helen. Find out why they’d divorced the guy. His kinks, bad habits, what might lead him to murder blondes.

Anywhere but . . . the cabin in the woods? Homicidal Thoreau? If no leads showed up soon, Schoelkopf would probably go straight to
America’s Most Wanted.
Maybe that was the best way to handle it. Take the heat off her and Wil. Off William Bradley Straight, now motherless, poor, poor kid.

And now the guy who’d probably turned him into an orphan had been butchered like the squalid ton of pork he was.

One less felon heard from. Petra felt grim satisfaction about that.

Not that it would stop her from going after the butcher.

CHAPTER

Dinky little house. Light on in the front room,
but dim. The Lincoln parked in back.

So the old man was home with the kid. Was he married? Zhukanov hadn’t mentioned anything about seeing a wife, but that didn’t mean anything; the old guy could’ve gone to temple, left her behind. Maybe she was sick, an invalid.

Easy.

On balance, the walk street was probably an advantage. No cars to hide behind, but no drivers interrupting. No pedestrians either during the half hour he’d watched the house from three different spots.

He tried the back alley again, rubber soles swallowing his footsteps. The newish running shoes; he’d walked around in them, made sure there was no squeak.

Out of the cheap-suit cop getup and into black sweats and a black windbreaker with pockets. The van, rented from a fly-by-night place down near the airport, a perfect dressing room. He’d paid cash, used no ID, leaving the guy who ran the rental lot five hundred in cash as collateral. Five hundred he’d never see again. Worth it. The van was parked four blocks away, east of Main, on a residential street.