The Forgotten (33 page)

Decker felt his heart beating so fast it took his breath away. The kid was in so much pain, all he wanted to do was hug him and make the agony go away. But he held back. “Did she ridicule you?”

“No…just the opposite.” He pulled his hand away and touched his sore cheek again. “It would have been better if she had. Then I could have hated her with a pure hate. Instead, she told me to lie still…while I was still in her…that I’d become aroused again in a few minutes, and the second time, it would last longer and it would be better. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Decker ran his fingers through thick hair. “Did you use a condom?”

“Yes.”

“You have to tell me the truth with this one.”

“Dad, I swear on Abba’s grave—”

“You don’t have to go that far,” Decker said. “Where’d you get protection if this tryst was totally spontaneous?”

“I don’t think the house belonged to Ruby. I think it belonged to a guy. He had a drawer filled with them. I think all the shit—all the stuff—the whips and boots and uniforms—I think it was his stuff, not hers.”

Darrell Holt’s sexual hideaway. Decker said, “What happened after the sex?”

Jacob said, “We got dressed and she took me home. The ride was totally silent. Nothing. Not even a good-bye.” He blew out air. “I never saw her again. Never talked to her, never talked to any of them really. It was over a year ago, and I swear I haven’t touched anything stronger than an aspirin. I also swore off girls until I’m…older. It was just…too easy. The whole thing scared me to death! In a way that you never could. Nothing like a brush with hell to make you feel suddenly grateful. Since then, I’ve been playing catch-up with my life and it hasn’t been easy.”

“And you think that’s where Ruby is? At this shack?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“You have guts, I’ll give you that. You did the right thing by telling me.”

“I had no choice. We’re all
Tselem Elokim
—created in God’s likeness.” He smiled sadly. “Guess the rabbis taught me something.”

Decker closed his eyes and opened them. “I’m sorry I slapped you. It was reprehensible.”

“I lost my temper, you lost yours.” He gave another smile. “I would have slugged you back, but you’re bigger than I am. I’m pragmatic if nothing else.”

Decker got up. “You need some ice for that cheek.”

“Why? Is there a red mark?”

“Yep.”

“A big one?”

“Huge.” Decker took out a cold pack and gave it to him. “Here.”

Jacob put it on his cheek. “I get hit with basketballs all the time. I’m always getting red marks and welts on my face because I’m so fair. It’ll go down in a couple of hours. Don’t worry about it.”

Decker was quiet, feeling drained and sick. He was at least five inches taller and outweighed Jacob by sixty, seventy pounds. He was not only a failure as a father, but also a fail
ure as a human being. Still, he had a job to do, which he supposed made him a decent cop. One out of three, pretty good odds in baseball.

Jacob patted his hand. “I mean it, Dad. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Decker said, “Is there
anything
you remember about your location?”

“Yeah. That
was
the point of this whole awful thing. As we were riding home, I saw a street sign—Herald Way. About five minutes, maybe ten minutes later we were back on Devonshire. If I had been driving back then, I would have noticed more. But this was before I had my driver’s license. I didn’t know the streets like I do now.”

“How old were you?”

“About two months shy of sixteen. She was about twenty-two. Pretty heady stuff, huh. Obviously, she got off on younger boys—me, Ernesto, there were probably others.”

Consistent with what Erin had told him. Decker said, “She took you somewhere in the mountains, but not far from town.”

“Yeah.”

“If I drove you around up there, do you think you might remember more?”

“Possibly.”

Decker stood up. “Then let’s go for a ride.”

“What about Hannah?”

“You know where Sammy is?”

“Yeah.”

“Call him and tell him to come home to baby-sit. This takes precedence.”

“I could call up Eema—”

“Don’t do that!” Decker found his voice had risen. “She’d kill me if she found out I was taking you house hunting for a maniac.” His eyes went to his son’s cheek. “She’d also kill me for other reasons. I’m a first-class jerk sometimes!”

“Join the club.” He got up from his chair. “Forget it, Peter. I’ve been riding you pretty hard this last year. Whatever went on here will stay between us.”

Decker couldn’t remember the last time the boy had called him Peter. The anger was still there. He said, “While you’re calling Sammy, I’ll call up Webster and Martinez. I want some professional lookout riding with us. Besides, maybe they’ll know where the hell Herald Way is.”

It showed up
on the map as a tiny vein that bled into the mountains. According to the latest L.A. street atlas, Herald Way did boast a single listed cross street—a bigger road but only in the comparative sense—called Manor Lane. Bert Martinez drove; Tom Webster sat shotgun, with his hand grazing against the butt of his holstered gun. In the back, Decker was belted in, but kept leaning his body over his stepson, covering him like a woolen overcoat. The valley daytime temperatures had reached triple digits, and the night remained warm and stuffy. Jacob was sweating under his father’s weight.

“Dad, I can’t breathe.”

“Stay down.”

“I am down! If I were any more down, I couldn’t see out the window. That sort of defeats the purpose—”

“Slow down, Bert.” Decker looked around. No streetlights; it was dark, empty, and wooded. The organic smell of decomposing foliage was mixed with the pungent stink of skunk markings. The humid air rang with a chorus of insect mating calls, accompanied by hoots from the local owls. The traffic from the distant boulevard came off as a continuous purr. “Okay, now stop here.”

Martinez put on the brakes. They were at the marked intersection.

“There are the street signs—Manor Lane and Herald Way.” Decker leaned over to the front seat and pointed out the windshield. “It’s right in the headlights.”

Jacob nodded.

“Do you remember this spot?”

The teen leaned forward as well. “Yeah…” Jacob’s heart was pounding. “Yeah, this is it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I remember the way the signs pointed down…off-kilter. You know, I should sit up front—that’s where I was seated when she drove me home.”

“I know. But the back is safer. You’re right behind where you were, so your view is pretty much the same.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have a view from the front windshield. It’ll make a difference, Dad.”

“We’ll have to forgo it. Which way from here, Jacob?”

“I…I’m not sure.”

“That’s okay. Take your time.”

His stepfather’s voice was soothing. Jacob’s mind was a swirl of unpleasant memories. He did some hand gestures that simulated turns, but shook his head. “I remember going down. So which way does the road rise the most?”

“To the left,” Webster answered.

“Then go to the left,” Decker ordered. “Sit back and put on your seat belt.”

“All right, all right. Stop being such a mother hen.”

“If I were a mother hen, you wouldn’t be here.”

Martinez turned left, dragging the Honda along a partially paved road. The shocks, even at the current crawl, protested with each bump, dip, and pothole. Gravel churned under the tires. Bert flipped the switch into all-wheel-drive mode. “I knew this car would come in handy one day.”

“First time you’ve ever used it?” Webster asked.

“For mountain roads, yeah. My wife uses AWD when she goes out in heavy rain.”

“Anything look familiar?” Decker asked his son.

Jacob’s eyes scanned the terrain of shapes and shadows. “No. It…it all looks the same.”

“Don’t worry. We’re going on a long shot. Nothing is expected from you.”

Which was good because nothing was what he was going to get.
Jacob swallowed hard. It was impossible for Peter to imagine how drugs could distort perception. But being stoned had its paradoxical effects. Some things from that night had been indelibly etched in his mind, as unique as his thumbprint. The eucalyptus tree, for instance, its trunk bent and cracked from what had been recent canyon winds. It had reminded Jacob of a hunchbacked crone holding a walking stick, a role he had cast for Ruby even after they had been intimate. Even as her life hung in limbo, Jacob couldn’t help but demonize her.

His eyes scanned the clumps of mountainside, hunting for the unusual shape. During the summer, everything was in full bloom, the clumps of fertile fauna casting silhouettes against the charcoal sky. Branches danced in short breaths of wind. He hadn’t told his father about the broken trunk, because then Dad would have asked him every ten seconds if this one or that one was the correct tree. For the integrity of his own psyche, Jacob couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes.

Where was that tree? Did it even exist?

The car inched along its path. Webster spoke. “Is this place
on
Herald Way?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Jacob answered.

“So we should be looking for a side street?”

“I guess.”

“Trouble is, there aren’t any listed side streets.”

“I remember turning…” Jacob licked his lips, now cracked from habit and heat. He took out a stick designed for chapped lips and smeared it over the raw areas. “It was a long time ago.”
And I was flying at mach speed.
“It could have been just a twist in the road.”

“There are certainly enough of them,” Martinez said.

And then he saw the crone. Son of a gun, it was still there, walking stick and all. Jacob said, “We’re on the right pathway. That broken tree…” He pointed. “I remember seeing that. I bet there’s a turn—”

“There it is.” Martinez brought the car to a standstill. “On the left.” The roadway wasn’t much bigger than a hiking trail, but seemed wide enough to accommodate a car. In the gleam of the headlights, he could make out thin tire tracks—a lightweight motorcycle or a mountain bike. “Should we go up, Loo?”

“We’re getting into tricky territory.” Decker was staring at the narrow passageway. “We’ve got to think about an escape route. If he came after us on a motorbike, we’d have some maneuvering problems.”

“But he’d be out in the open,” Webster said. “
We’d
be protected by the car.”

Martinez said, “But he could also run rings around us, pick off a tire or two while we couldn’t get near him. We should go up on foot.”

“Then we’d be sitting ducks,” Webster said.

“But if we take the car up, it would make noise,” Martinez countered. “Talk about announcing your arrival.”

“Bert, if we go up on foot,
we’re
out in the open without any protection.”

“There’s plenty of coverage. And we have weapons. We’re fine unless he lobs a grenade or has land-mined the place. Even then, we can call in for backup if the situation gets bad.”

Decker broke in, “We’re not here to initiate anything. That means no raids no matter how easy it looks. This is just a lay-of-the-land kind of thing. Then we call for backup. What concerns me is taking Jacob up there on foot.”

“You need me,” Jacob said.

“I know that—”

“I’m not worried.”

“That’s the problem. You should be.”

“Okay, then, I am worried.”

Decker tossed him a look. Jacob tossed him back a smile. “How about some code names—Caleb and Joshua?”

“You’re way too cocky, guy!”

Jacob grew serious. “I want to redeem myself.”

Decker held his stepson’s cheek. “There’s nothing to redeem.”

But Jacob didn’t believe him. “How about if we walk up a couple hundred yards, and I’ll see if I recognize anything. How much trouble could that cause?”

“Plenty,” Decker said.

“First off, even if I find the place, Ruby may not even be there. Secondly, what’s the point of being so close and not getting it perfect?”

“Your heart stays beating.”

“You’re just worried about Eema.”

Decker smiled. “True, but that’s not the entire picture.”

Martinez said, “Let Tom and me go up and have a look around. You can stay here with him—”

“But you don’t know what to look for,” Jacob said. Without asking, he got out of the car. Decker dogged him immediately, grabbed his elbow. Then he put his finger to his lips. He whispered, “We turn back when I say so.”

Jacob nodded, his chest tightening, his breaths rapid and hollow. The other two emerged, Martinez holding the flashlight as the quartet inched their way up the turnoff. It was nothing more than a rut cut into dense brush. Insects twittered, owls hooted, coyotes ululated.

Fifty feet up.

Towering trees framed both sides of the road. The geography resulted in limited vision: it was hard to see anything that stood behind the leafy skyscrapers. The sky began to lighten, having turned from charcoal to steel as the moon began to rise, a semicircle of silver light.

One hundred feet.

Their footsteps were measured…deliberate, largely
silent except for the accidental scrape against the ground. Any noise that they made was muffled handily by nighttime animal sounds.

Two hundred feet.

Martinez kept the light localized and on the ground, not wanting to give their presence away by inadvertently shining a beam in an unseen building window. The disadvantage was that he couldn’t spot anything in the brush-covered mountainside.

Three hundred and fifty.

Decker’s steps became halting, his attitude more hesitant as they walked up into the unmapped lane and farther away from the car. The tire tracks had all but faded…dissolving. Where did they go?

Four hundred…four fifty, and still no sign of any kind of outpost. Except for the serpentine passageway, there wasn’t any indication of human habitation. Either the shack wasn’t nearby or was hidden within the overgrowth.

Five hundred feet up the roadway…about one-tenth of a mile. Not much in distance, a short jog to get back to the car. About ten seconds…maybe fifteen. A lot could happen in fifteen seconds. Images darted across Decker’s brain, specifically, the inferno that had destroyed the Order of the Rings of God. How close had they been to that crematorium, saved by seconds from becoming ashes of death? The horrible snapshot became too strong a picture to stifle, even with the strongest of rationalizations. Decker’s growing concern for his son’s welfare outweighed a life
possibly
at stake. He had been holding Jacob’s arm. He tightened his grip, causing the teen to jump.

“We’re going back,” he whispered.

“What! Why?” the boy whispered back.

“Because we’re too far out. Because I say so.”

“But we’re almost there.”

Martinez entered the conversation. “How much farther up?”

“I’m not sure, but I think we’re close,” Jacob insisted.

“You think?” Decker shook his head. “That’s not good enough. You don’t even know if this is the right turnoff.”

“No, it’s the right turnoff. I’m positive.” Jacob regarded his stepfather’s skepticism. “I know I was stoned, but you notice things.” His eyes scanned the terrain. Then he squinted, jutting his head forward. “Is that light up there?”

“Where?” Martinez asked.

Jacob pointed. “See that speck of light about…I guess about a hundred yards to the right of that huge sycamore?”

Though his night vision wasn’t perfect, Decker could discern faint illumination. He wasn’t sure if it was light or possibly an animal with reflective eyes, shooting back beams in the darkness. “Maybe there’s something.”

“Y’all talking about the light over to the right and up?”

“Exactly,” Jacob said.

“About two o’clock,” Martinez said. “I see it. What do you want to do, Loo?”

Decker said, “I want to go back before—”

Suddenly, the dim light grew stronger and wider. There was no time to think…barely enough time to react. Decker threw himself atop his stepson, sending both of them belly-first onto the ground. Martinez, also a Nam vet, pulled Webster down as his own stomach hit the dirt. The bullets came by in a steady stream—
thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack
—whizzing past them over their heads. Remaining on his stomach, Decker dragged Jacob into the brush, keeping both of them horizontal as he moved.

Some things you never forget
.

Seconds passed. Then the light disappeared. Nothing but darkness. Or maybe Decker just couldn’t see anything because he was pressed against the ground and had no line of vision. His heart was flying out of his chest. He knew he was going to survive this one, not for his sake, but for Jacob’s. The boy’s chin had been scraped raw. He was shaken. Other than that, he appeared all right.

Martinez spoke first. “Think he has an infrared scope?”

“Probably,” Decker said. “He’s a survivalist.”

“Then we’re daylight,” Martinez said.

Decker said, “If he can see us, that’s true.”

“Then why isn’t he shooting?” Webster said.

“Because he can’t see us,” Decker answered.

Martinez said, “Brush is thick out here. Loo, if you crawl downward staying inside the woods, you stand a good chance. You go with Jacob and I’ll create a diversion.”

“You do that, you might as well put a bull’s-eye on your forehead,” Decker said.

“So what now?” Webster asked.

Decker pulled out his cell phone. The signal was weak, but 911 was able to hear even through the static. “We stay put and wait for fucking backup.”

Several patrol cars arrived minutes later, tires spitting out dust and gravel. Decker could see the cloud of grit even though the black-and-whites had settled down the road from their inconvenient campsite. The cruisers’ immediate arrival, complete with sirens and lights, did not draw out gunfire, leaving all in a state of limbo. Was the shooter still in the house? Had he or she taken off? Maybe the shooter was just biding time, waiting to pick off someone who came into view. It could be that the cops had parked out of the shooter’s line of view. The trick now was to get everyone down the road and safely inside the cars.

Decker whispered into the mouthpiece. “There are four of us…five hundred feet up, on the right side of the road. How many cruisers do you have down there?”

“Two…a third pulled up. Now we have three.”

“Okay. Right now, don’t do anything until we have more metal. You’ve got to call this in because I want a two-cruiser blockade at either end of the road, standard pattern, cars parked grill to grill. I’ll also need a couple of cars to come pick us up. Hold off on the flying power until you’ve delivered us. When you have more vehicles, I’ll give you further orders.”

Decker cut the line.

Jacob said, “We’re just going to wait here?”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Am I smothering you?”

“Sort of.”