Taken (19 page)

33.

Joe Pike

The house in Mecca contained even less. The plywood had been removed, and the screw holes filled with painter’s putty. No sign remained of Cole or anyone else.

Stone said, “Now what?”

“His car.”

“What?”

“Can’t leave his car at the Burger King.”

“I meant where do we go from here?”

“I know what you meant.”

They left Pike’s Jeep at the Palm Springs airport. Stone drove them to the Burger King, where Pike picked up Cole’s Corvette. He had a key. They would take the Corvette home, get some sleep, and Stone would drive them back in the morning. They would pick up Pike’s Jeep, and sit on the bodies. If nine bodies had been dumped, there might be a tenth.

Two hours and forty-six minutes later, Pike rounded the last curve to Elvis Cole’s A-frame, and guided the old Corvette into the carport.

The house was dark, but Pike knew Cole’s house as well as his own. He turned on the kitchen light, then a table lamp in the living room, then pushed open the glass sliders to Cole’s deck.

The canyon below was dotted with lights. Some of the houses were so close Pike saw the flickering color of televisions, while others held the sky blue shimmer of pools. Pike liked Cole’s deck. He had helped Cole rebuild it when termites attacked the framing, and helped stain the wood every three years. The night air was chill, and smelled of wild fennel.

Pike said, “I hear you.”

The snick-snick-snick of approaching claws, then Cole’s cat bumped against his legs.

Pike looked down at the cat, and the cat looked up. It was a ragged animal, with pale scars lacing its black face and shredded ears.

Pike squatted, and ran the flat of his palm from the cat’s lumpy head along the peak of its spine. The cat enjoyed this for a moment, then stepped away. The fur along his spine rippled. His ears folded, then straightened, and his warrior face grew angry.

Pike said, “He isn’t here.”

Pike went inside. He found an open can of cat food and a bottle of Abita beer in the fridge. He forked the remains of the can into a clean dish, then put out fresh water, the food, and a saucer of beer.

The cat stood by the food, but did not eat.

Pike drank most of the remaining beer, turned on the carport light, and stared at Cole’s car. Filthy. Pike washed his Jeep every day, and waxed it every two months. Cole’s home was neat and orderly, and Cole was fastidiously clean when he cooked, but his car was a mess. Pike did not understand it, though he often wondered if it revealed some truth Pike was unable to understand.

Pike found a mop bucket and towels in the laundry room, squirted dish soap into the bucket, and took the bucket and towels out to the car. An armada of bugs swirled and spiraled around the carport ceiling light.

Pike pulled the hose from the side of the house, filled the bucket with sudsy water, then rinsed the car. He began at the nose, rubbing the car with his hand to slough away the dirt. The cat came out to watch. The water splashed his fur with liquid shrapnel, but the cat did not move.

Pike worked the dirt loose from the hood and sides and tail, then soaked a towel in the soapy water and went over the car again. He rubbed hard, and when the body was clean, he worked on the tires and wheels, then rinsed the body again. He dried the car with the remaining towels, then wiped down the interior.

When Pike finished, he tried to remember when he had last seen Cole’s car this clean. He couldn’t, and didn’t care. It was clean now. When Cole came back, his car was good to go.

Pike dumped the bucket and went inside. He stripped off his clothes, put them in the wash with the towels, then showered in the guest room bath. The cat followed him through the house, and back again when he put his clothes in the dryer.

While the clothes were drying, Pike went upstairs for Cole’s gun-cleaning supplies, and brought them down to the dining table. Cleaning lubricant, cotton patches, a bore brush and cleaning rod, a soft cotton cloth.

Pike unloaded the pistols, and broke down the Kimber. He could take the Kimber apart and reassemble it blindfolded, in the dark, and under any conditions. He did not have to think about what he was doing. His hands knew the way.

The cat watched from the far end of the table. Pike pushed cotton patches wet with cleaning lubricant through the barrel and over the frame and slide and the recoil spring assembly and breech face. Pike glanced at the cat as he worked, and noticed the cat wasn’t looking at Pike; it watched the parts as they were brushed and wiped.

Pike set the recoil spring assembly into the Kimber’s frame, replaced the slide, and fitted the slide lock pin into place. When the Kimber was reassembled, Pike set it aside and worked on the Python. He glanced at the cat again. Its eyes had narrowed into smoldering cuts and its tail flicked like a dangerous snake.

Pike swabbed lubricant through the Python’s cylinder chambers and barrel, then over the recoil plate and under the cylinder star. He ran the brush through the barrel and chambers, then swabbed the steel clean, but did not look at the gun while he cleaned it. He watched the cat.

The cat paced at the far end of the table, stalking from one side to the other, its tail snapping violent strikes that stung the air as the fur on its spine rippled.

Pike reloaded the Kimber. He pushed one fat, golden .45 ACP hollow point after another into the Kimber’s magazine until it was full, then seated it. He rocked the slide to chamber a round, and set the safety.

The cat came toward him, paced away, then returned. Its dark face was as fierce as a Maori. The fur on its spine was spiked like a Mohawk warrior.

Pike put the Kimber aside and loaded the Python. He opened the cylinder and slid a long .357 magnum cartridge into a cylinder chamber.

The cat came closer.

Pike dropped in a second cartridge, then a third, and now the cat stood only inches away, but it no longer looked at the gun. It stared at Pike, and its molten black face was furious.

Pike finished loading the Python. Six chambers, six cartridges. He closed the cylinder, but held tight to the pistol, and stared at Cole’s cat. Elvis Cole’s cat.

The cat licked its feral lips, and made a low growl.

Pike nodded.

“Yes. I’m going to get him.”

He put the guns in their holsters, drank a bottle of water, then called Jon Stone.

“Come get me. I’m not waiting until morning.”

Stone picked him up a few minutes later.

Jack and Krista:

seven days after they were taken

34.

One day after the beating, Jack opened his eyes, blinked, and looked at her. His pupils were dilated.

“Whush on TV?”

“Can you see me? I’m here.”

His eyes rolled, and came back to her.

“Nancie. Mommy ish home.”

Krista touched his lips. A stab of fear arced through her every time he mentioned his aunt.

“Shh, baby. Don’t talk about Nancie.”

His eyes rolled again, widened, then closed.

Jack was stretched out along the wall in their spot beneath their window. The guards had brought Jack back to the room, and placed him by the piss bucket. They had given her ice wrapped in a towel for his head. That was the extent of their aid. Kwan dragged him to their rightful spot under the window. The ice had melted, so she folded the damp towel, and placed it under Jack’s head as a cushion.

Kwan sat nearby. No one else in the room had approached. As if they feared the guards would give them the same.

“Talks more. Good.”

Jack was mostly unconscious yesterday after the beating, and Krista thought he would die. His skin grew pale and clammy, and he would tremble violently between periods of calm. He began mumbling earlier that morning. Krista thought this was a good sign, but didn’t know. Jack was hurt badly. She hoped it was only a concussion, but her head swirled with thoughts of cranial hemorrhages, brain damage, and flat-lined monitors.

Kwan said, “How you?”

When she glanced up, he pointed to her shoulder. They had called her mother yesterday. Medina held her while Rojas placed the call. When her mother was on the line, Medina bit her shoulder to make her scream. He bit hard, and grinded against her.

She answered quickly, and pushed the memory away.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

Kwan grunted, as if he approved of her bravery.

“I kill.”

She glanced at him, and Kwan smiled, but it was dark and shadowed.

“Soon.”

He settled against the wall and closed his eyes, but the smile remained.

Two more Koreans had been released in the hours following Jack’s beating. Rojas made the same speech, claiming they were released to their loving and generous families, but Kwan had once again smirked.

“No pay.”

Krista said, “You think they were killed?”

“No pay, you die.”

“You’re still alive. Who’s paying for you?”

Kwan had only smiled, and said nothing more.

Twenty minutes later, Rojas and Medina had forced her to speak to her mother, and Medina had made her scream.

She touched Jack’s head now, and concentrated on him to distract herself from the memory. She focused on Jack. It was all about keeping Jack alive until they were saved.

She was totally focused on what she might do to help him when the door opened, and Medina, Rojas, and Miguel strode in. She thought Medina was coming for her again, but the three men began kicking the people who were lying in the middle of the room, driving them to the sides. The tall man with the ponytail waited in the door until the floor was clear, then came directly to Krista. She was sure they had come to take Jack away, and shoved to her feet.

“Don’t hurt him! He needs a doctor!”

The tall man pushed her aside, and squatted by Jack. He examined one eye, then the other, and felt Jack’s forehead. Then he stood, and turned to Krista. He spoke excellent Spanish.

“He is strong. How long until his mother returns?”

Krista steadied herself. She was so scared she wanted to throw up, but her panic eased. If the man was asking questions, he could still be convinced.

“He tell me a week, but I am not sure. He does not speak good Spanish, and I do not have the English.”

“You are from Sonora?”

“Si. Hermosillo.”

“How do you know he has money?”

“My mama, she tell me. She worked in their home.”

“She says they are rich?”

Krista tried to answer the way a village girl would answer.

“They have many houses and cars. His mother, she takes trips to wonderful places. The boy, he does not work. None of them work. This is why she ask him to bring me to her.”

Krista did her best to look shy, and a little embarrassed.

“She hopes he will like me.”

The tall man made a tiny smile, and Krista felt a rush of power.

“What kind of cars? Mercedes? Porsches? Bentleys?”

She stared as if he spoke a foreign language, and shook her head.

“I do not know what these are.”

He smiled again, but this time at how stupid she was. This encouraged her even more.

“But she says they are rich.”

Krista knew he was buying her lies because he wanted to believe, so she had to give him something believable without sounding outlandish.

“She told me his father was killed in an accident. They got much money from the insurance. So much they are now rich.”

The tall man grunted as if this made perfect sense, then glanced at Jack, and grunted again.

“He is strong. He will live.”

“He needs a doctor.”

The tall man smiled, but now it was cruel.

“You are his doctor. Save him, and perhaps you can marry his money. I will give you more ice.”

The tall man turned, and Krista watched him go. When the door closed, she sat beside Jack, and touched his head. He was alive. They had survived another day. People were searching.

She leaned against the wall, and considered the tall man’s greed.

She thought,
I am smarter than you. I will beat you.

Then Kwan murmured something she did not understand.

“I didn’t hear you.”

He stared at her.

“They die soon. They die very soon.”

“How do you know?”

“My people will come.”

Krista touched Jack’s head, and tried to hold on to her hope.

“Mine will come, too. They are on their way now.”

Jack Berman moaned, and shivered from a cold no one else felt.

Elvis Cole:

taken

35.

Wander Lawrence Gomez told me we were about to stop, but to leave on the pillowcase. We slowed, turned, crunched over gravel, then braked again.

A door rattled as it lifted, the van eased forward, and the door rattled again. Wander pulled away the pillowcase as the van’s front passenger door and side door opened. A black man was pointing a shotgun at me. A Latin guy in the passenger seat had a pistol locked out in a two-hand combat grip.

I blinked at the black man.

“Are you the Syrian?”

“Boy, I’m from Compton. The man ain’t here. We gonna search you again, and get you back on the road.”

“Why do you have to search me again?”

“Coz that’s the way we do things. Get your ass out of there.”

Wander gave me the ugly smile, which he probably took to be encouraging.

“You checked out fine, bro. Everything’s copacetic.”

The black guy stepped back so I could get out in the tight space between the van and a dark green Ford Explorer. They brought me into an empty house to search me, but Wander stayed with the van. It was the last time I saw him.

A few minutes later they loaded me into the Explorer’s back seat, bagged my head, and brought me to another house. The man from Compton drove. This time when the hood came off, we were wedged into a garage with a black Cadillac Escalade.

Two Latin men stood by an open door at the head of the garage, looking at us. One of the Latin guys was built burly and strong, and the other had a badly fixed cleft lip. I tried to sound jaded, as if I was so familiar with the world of human trafficking, this kind of thing was yesterday’s news.

“Those people aren’t Syrian. Is the man here or not? If we’re not going to do business, fuckit.”

“He’s here. You’re gonna meet him now.”

The two men stepped aside to let us pass, then continued into the garage. They hooked up with the man who rode shotgun in the Explorer.

My driver led me through a utility room and a kitchen, and then to a living room. The house smelled like a cross between sour cabbage and a bus station men’s room. Two guards eyed me from a hall, and another from a futon in the living room. Two futons, a couple of folding chairs, and three table lamps were the only furniture. One of the hall guards went down the hall.

I said, “Nice digs.”

Heavy plywood had been screwed over every window and outside door like armor plate. Even the front door and the sliders. So far as I could see, the only way in or out was through the garage. The house had been converted to a bunker.

Ghazi al-Diri and another man emerged from the back of the house. Al-Diri was a tall, muscular man with dark skin, black eyes, and a frown line between his eyebrows. His black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. He wore stonewashed jeans, a lime-colored knit shirt, and three narrow gold rings on his left hand. The other man was shorter, with tiny eyes and a pocked face.

Al-Diri smiled cordially, and offered his hand.

“Welcome, Mr. Green. I am Ghazi. This is my associate, Vasco Medina.”

Medina showed teeth that looked like a horror-film prop.

“Harlan. I understand you may be able to help me out.”

“This is true. Forgive me, I would offer a seat, but there are no seats to offer.”

“No worries. Is the labor here for me to inspect?”

My heart rate was up, but I tried to appear calm. If the Koreans were here, it was likely the people captured with them would also be here, but there was no certainty.

I was all business and ready to get to it, but al-Diri wasn’t so anxious. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and ignored my question.

“I am told you supply labor. Your interest is agribusiness?”

I gave him the same bullshit I fed Winston Ramos.

“I offer career opportunities to people from emerging nations by supplying low-cost labor to firms open to a workers with untested credentials.”

Al-Diri frowned at me as if he didn’t know whether I was joking, so I pressed ahead.

“Agribusiness. Yes. This is why I have to inspect these people. Age and health are important. Gender, not so much. Are we talking young studs or frail old men? I have to see them before I can give you a price.”

Al-Diri finally nodded as if this made perfect sense, and gestured toward the hall.

“The workers you wish to see are here.”

“Perfect.”

We made cordial conversation as if we weren’t in a drop house reeking of urine where people were tortured and murdered.

He said, “I understand you will not work with the Sinaloas.”

“We had a misunderstanding.”

“They have misunderstandings with many people.”

“Yourself?”

He clapped me on the back.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Here, see what I have for you.”

A guard standing post by a locked door unlocked it as we approached. Al-Diri opened the door, but Medina went inside first. The smell of urine, feces, and unwashed people rolled out of the room like an acid fog. My eyes watered, but al-Diri and Medina didn’t seem to notice.

“We have twenty-three workers I wish to sell. Fourteen men, and nine are women. Three of the men are older, but healthy and still strong. Three speak Spanish, four have some English, but are not fluent. Most have only Korean. You want to touch them? Feel their strength. Some of the women are attractive.”

The room was crowded with people sitting or lying on the floor, but none were Krista Morales or Jack Berman. Most were Asian, but several were Latin, and all of them watched me with sorrowful eyes. They were unwashed, soiled, and the men were unshaven. I tried not to breathe.

I said, “We are speaking of the Koreans?”

“Yes. Only the Koreans.”

“There aren’t twenty-three.”

“There are more in another room. I show you.”

“I was told you had twenty-six.”

Medina flashed the picket-fence teeth.

“You always lose some. Shit happens.”

When Medina opened the second door, Krista Morales and Jack Berman were the first people I saw. They were on the floor against the far wall, and Berman appeared to be sleeping. I saw them, and ignored them. I gave the room a cursory glance, then turned to Ghazi al-Diri.

“I need thirty.”

Al-Diri shook his head.

“Only twenty-three are for sale.”

“I understand, but I need thirty. I lost thirty farmers in San Diego. My buyer needs and expects thirty. These other
pollos
will do.”

I drifted through the room as if I were assessing their suitability. I glanced at Krista and Jack, and realized Berman wasn’t sleeping. His eyes flagged, opened, rolled, and closed. A dark crust had built up around his ear.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Are you American? Can you help him? He’s hurt.”

She was scared. She was so scared she sounded completely different than she had on the phone.

I squatted as if I was looking more closely at Berman, but I looked at her instead and lowered my voice.

“Don’t forget your accent. You’re playing a Mexican.”

She stared as if I had slapped her, but I stood before she could respond and turned to al-Diri.

“What the hell? Are these people injured and sick?”

Medina said, “He ain’t sick. I kicked his ass. You have to do that sometime.”

I stared at Medina, and smiled.

“Yeah. Some people need their ass kicked.”

I turned to al-Diri.

“I deal with injuries all the time. You want me to take a look?”

Al-Diri stepped into the hall, and motioned me to join him.

“This is not important. We have business. Come.”

I glanced back at Krista, and found her still staring at me. I wanted to tell her she was only minutes away from being out of this hell, but I joined al-Diri in the hall.

The burly man from the garage and an Anglo with large hands were in the kitchen when we reached the entry. The burly man motioned Medina over. Al-Diri told me to wait in the living room, and joined their conversation. The four men spoke quietly, which left me feeling alone.

After a while, Medina came over and stood nearby with his arms crossed.

I said, “What’s going on?”

“Fuckin’ Orlato always has some bullshit.”

Orlato was the man with the stomach.

Al-Diri followed Orlato into the kitchen, and the Anglo came over and stood behind me. I tried to watch him and ignore him at the same time.

Thirty seconds later, al-Diri returned from the kitchen, and now a gun dangled alongside his leg.

I said, “What’s the problem?”

Al-Diri raised the gun.

“You.”

Then the Anglo took one step away, and he pointed a gun at me, too.

Orlato came back from the kitchen with a smaller man who looked like a UFC fighter with a loser’s face. He was Winston Ramos’s bodyguard, and had been with us in Rudy Sanchez’s tow.

The Syrian glanced at him, then waved his gun.

“Is this the man?”

“Thas him. He ain’t who he say he is. He’s friends with Ramos.”

Vasco Medina showed me the teeth, then punched me in the face.