The Kill Clause tr-1 Page 21

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you hear about the guy who got his head blown up on the news?”

  “There was something about it on the radio.”

  “Right-winger.” Joshua’s hand rose to his mouth, shielding a stage whisper. “One down, fifty million to go.”

  Upstairs Tim entered his apartment, taking note of the deadness of the air within. It took him about ten minutes with lukewarm sink water and a razor to eradicate his emergent beard.

  He opened the window, then sat cross-legged on the floor and thought about what, at age thirty-three, he had in his life. A mattress, a desk, a gun, bullets. A car with fraudulent plates previously owned by a drug runner.

  He cleaned his gun again, though it was already clean, oiling, polishing, punching the bore brush through the holes in the cylinder. Each punch of the brush he accompanied with a word describing what he could have done to Kindell in the garage. Murder. Slay. Execute. Sacrifice. Destroy. Slaughter.

  The Lane execution had not just righted a judicial wrong, he reminded himself, it had brought him one case closer to Kindell. And to the secret of Ginny’s death.

  After checking the Nokia, he was surprised by the keenness of his disappointment that he had no messages. Dray had not called since he’d left the notes at the house, which stung like hell. It also meant she’d gathered no further information on the case. When he called, he got the machine. He called back just to hear her voice again, then hung up.

  He found himself dialing Bear’s number.

  “Where the hell you been, Rack?”

  “Sorting things out, I guess.”

  “Well, sort faster. The disappearing act isn’t sitting so hot with Dray. Or with me.”

  “How is she?” Only now did Tim grasp his true motivation for phoning Bear. Tim Rackley, Master of High School Social Dynamics.

  “Ask her yourself,” Bear said. “And while we’re at it, what’s your new phone number?”

  “I don’t have one yet.” Tim walked over near the open window. “I’m calling from a pay phone. Still lining out a more permanent place.”

  “I want to see you.”

  “Now’s not the greatest-”

  “Listen, either you can agree to see me, or I’ll come track your ass down. And you know I will. What’s it gonna be?”

  A breeze, contaminated with heat from the alley-backing kitchen below, swept away the dusty smell of the room, if only temporarily. Tim breathed in the amalgam of cool and breath-hot air. The distant touch of a headache cramped him at the temples.

  “All right then,” Bear said. “Yamashiro, early dinner, tomorrow at five-thirty.”

  He hung up before waiting for Tim to agree.

  Tim lay on the mattress, enveloped in darkness. When he dozed off, he dreamed of Ginny. She was laughing at him, petite fingers covering her child-spaced teeth.

  He couldn’t figure out why.

  20

  YAMASHIRO,a japanese restaurant perched atop a hill in East Hollywood, looks down over its steep-sloped front gardens to the distant neon flash of the Boulevard and Sunset. Through the miasma of smog and car exhaust spread low along the Strip, Britney Spears threw a five-foot gaze from a building-side banner ad, all wide grin and vacant eyes, a Dr. T.J. Eckleburg for the aught decade.

  About two years back, Tim and Bear had collared a fugitive who’d injured Kose Nagura’s wife in a jewelry-store heist, and the restaurant manager had shown his gratefulness in the form of ceaseless imploration for them to dine at his restaurant free of charge. Despite their discomfort at the place’s specious high-class ambience and raw-fish fare, they tried to take him up on his offer at least once every few months to avoid insulting him. Besides, the drinks were good, the view from the hilltop bar was the most spectacular in all of L.A., and the building-an exact replica of a grand Kyoto palace-had a certain majestic appeal.

  Tim wound his car up the precipitous snaking drive to the restaurant and left it with the valet. As usual, Kose seated him at the best table immediately upon his entering, a four-top at the restaurant’s southeast apex, where glass wall meets glass wall, providing a panoramic view of the smoldering billboard-and smog-draped buildings below-a view of the L.A. that the Mastersons deplored. The crass money-and fame-grubbing sprawl of middle-class aspiration for stardom, an asphaltopolis that raised child stars as tall as buildings and rewarded greed and ruthlessness, a town where rapists and child-killers could gorge their appetites in like company.

  Tim played with the straw in his water glass, waiting for Bear, rehearsing all the dumb things he knew he was going to say in hope of discovering better wording. A couple to his left was holding hands across the table, casually, as if their easy-found affection were something to be taken for granted, something found everywhere, like frustration, like smog, like aspiring actors. He sensed the deep tug of his need to be with his wife. He reframed his thoughts, deciding what he would impart to Bear, the messenger. A white flag, perhaps.

  Bear appeared, a large form in gray polyester pants and a just-mismatched blazer, stretching past one of the sliding shoji walls leading from the inner courtyard. Tim stood, and they embraced, Bear holding him for an extra beat before sliding into his chair.

  Tim nodded at Bear’s rumpled suit. “You’d better hurry up and get that thing back on the body. The wake’s at seven.”

  “Clever.”

  “Court duty?”

  “Yup. Tannino found out I bet against Italy in the World Cup last year, so he stuck it to me. Two days before I can go out-of-pocket again.” Bear’s face seemed to move and settle into an expression of weariness. “There’s no way for me to say this, so I’m just gonna spit it out.” He paused. “If you don’t knock off the strong, silent routine, Dray’s gonna figure out she’s fine without you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “While you’ve been MIA, Dray’s been going through Ginny’s stuff, getting out of the house, seeing friends. She doing this on her own. You sure you want her to?”

  “Of course I don’t want her to. But we don’t know how to do it together.”

  “Doesn’t seem like you’re knocking yourself out trying.” Bear picked up the paper-hat-folded napkin, then set it back down. “Are you having an affair?”

  Tim fought to find impassivity. “Bear, I understand you’re trying to help, but this isn’t really-”

  “What? My business? Let me tell you what is my business. You may not embarrass your wife. It’s your right to embarrass yourself all you want, but Dray’s been through enough. You’re not gonna drag her through more.”

  “Bear. I’m not having an affair.”

  “I talk to Dray every day. And I’m getting a weird vibe from her when your name comes up, like she doesn’t trust what you’re up to. Plus, if you hadn’t Houdinied on her, I hardly think she’d need-” He stopped. Pulled the napkin from the table and smoothed it across his lap, eyes lowered and regretful.

  “She’d need…?”

  Bear’s hands paused. “Mac. She’s had some really bad nights. Mac slept over a few times-not like that, just on the couch-to see her through.”

  “Mac?” Tim snapped his chopsticks apart and frictioned off the splinters. Hard. “Why didn’t she call you?”

  “Because I’m still your partner first and foremost. Mac’s one of hers. And that’s the wrong damn question. The correct question is, why didn’t she call you?”

  “What’d you tell her?”

  “What do you think I told her? That she was being a fucking idiot, that she should have swallowed her pride and called you, like you should have swallowed your pride and called her.” Bear took no note of the glances from neighboring tables. He shook his head, disgusted. “You’re both stubborn, spiteful people who will die alone.”

  Tim continued to work the chopsticks back and forth, harder. “We decided we needed to take a little time off. We were tangling up in each other.”

  “Have you really not seen her in five days?”

&nbs
p; Tim felt a sudden heat in his cheeks. He took a sip of water, got a mouthful of lemon. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love her.”

  The waiter came up, and Bear ordered quickly for both of them without looking at the menu, naming the spicy shrimp simmered in sake, crab cakes, and seven-spice mussels. He’d been coming here more than once every few months, that was clear. Probably taking the occasional date.

  When the waiter left, Bear fixed Tim with an apologetic stare. “Look, I’m just saying you should call her. You need each other. And she needs you-that house went from full to empty in a hurry. Can’t really blame her for wanting someone around in the wake of all this, even if it is Mac sleeping on the couch. And while we’re at it, when are you coming back to work?”

  Tim looked up, surprised. “I’m not coming back, Bear. You know that.”

  “Tannino’s wondering why he’s having so much trouble reaching you. He’s pulled me into his office twice this week to make clear he hasn’t accepted your resignation.”

  “He doesn’t have a choice.”

  “What are you doing, Rack? What are you up to?”

  “Nothing. I’m just dealing with things on my own for a while.”

  For the first time Tim could remember, he didn’t recognize the look in Bear’s eyes. “Let me add to the list of things that I will make my business. You can’t embarrass me. Not as your partner. And you can’t embarrass the service.” Bear leaned back, crossed his arms. “I know you’re up to something. I don’t know what, but I’ll figure it out if I want to.”

  “You’re overreacting. There’s nothing going on.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have a phone.” Bear’s voice was firm, driving. “So what was the bulge in your pocket when you hugged me? It hasn’t been that long.”

  Tim had instinctively grabbed his cell phones so as not to leave them unattended in the car with the valets. An unforgivable oversight. “Picked it up this morning. 323-471-1213. Don’t give the number to anyone.”

  “Why all the cloak-and-dagger?”

  “There’s still a lot of fallout from the shooting, media hounding me, so I’d just as soon stay under for a while.”

  “Really? I haven’t seen anything lately. Everyone’s whipped up about the Lane assassination now. You hear about the guy who pulled that off? They’re snake eyes on leads-guy must have been an ice-cold professional.” He shook his head. “Cranium ventilation. They always can find a new trick.”

  Tim shrugged. “It’s not so bad. One less mutt on the street.”

  Bear’s forehead furrowed into a wrinkled pane.

  Tim looked down, played with his straw. An emotion rippled through him that took him a moment to identify. Shame. He realized he was giving off nervous energy, so he dropped the straw, placed his hands on his knees.

  Bear pointed at him with a chopstick. “Don’t let Ginny’s death eat you away. Don’t let it corrupt you. There’s enough ignorance out there. The one person I don’t expect it from is you.”

  The waiter arrived with their food, and they ate in silence.

  •A funeral procession passed by while Tim idled at the stoplight at Franklin and Highland. The hearse led, somber and dignified, and a convoy of rain-polished cars followed-Toyotas, Hondas, and the obligatory drove of SUVs. Seized by an impulse, Tim pulled out behind the last car and followed the line of vehicles to the Hollywood Forever Memorial Park. He parked a block and a half away. By the time he’d made his way through the solemn front gate and over the first grassy hill, the ceremony was under way.

  He watched from a distance, the mourners arrayed in black and gray, diminutive like figurines. When the sun managed to knife through the smog, Tim donned sunglasses to cut the glare. The presumed widower shovel-turned a scattering of rocks and dirt into the open grave, and, despite the distance, Tim could hear it patter on the unseen casket. The man collapsed to a knee, and two young men stepped forward quickly, chagrined, to help him up. He managed as best he could, a patch of mud weighing down his wind-flickering trouser leg, the sun glimmering off his cheeks.

  A murder of crows swept in and blanketed an overlooking sycamore, where they looked on, sleek and inauspicious. Tim waited several minutes for the birds to depart, but they didn’t, so finally he turned his back and headed down the too-green slope toward his car.

  21

  “…KCOM’S HAVING A field day, with around-the-clock updates and polls. On Hardball, Chris Matthews hosted Dershowitz, two senators, and Mayor Hahn for a roundtable discussion, and a particularly vivid argument brewed on Donahue yesterday morning during a segment titled, ‘The Lane Slaying: Terrorism or Justice?’”

  Rayner shuffled through his sheaf of notes while the others sat in varying degrees of attentiveness around the table, waiting for his media recap to conclude. Like mirrored objects, Robert and Mitchell sat on either side of the table, each shoved back in his chair, each with his legs loosely crossed, sneaker resting on opposite knee. Their languid postures suggested boredom; at last an attribute they shared with Ananberg. The Stork listened intently-Tim noted he had a tendency to blink frequently when concentrating-and Dumone, leaning back in his chair, statue-still, hands laced across his stomach, took it all in with a silent, almost magnanimous patience.

  Rayner at last reached the final page of his report. “The footage of the execution is making the rounds on the Internet via a chain e-mail with an mpeg attachment-it’s the topic of choice in a wide range of chat rooms. A family-values activist appearing on Oprah this afternoon expressed concern about the impact the footage has had on children. She drew a comparison to the Challenger exploding on live TV or the planes hitting the World Trade Center.”

  “Except those were regrettable events,” Robert said.

  Mitchell’s grin flashed beneath his thick mustache. “It’s adult content, all right.”

  “And now the big news,” Dumone said. “I have it on good authority that LAPD recovered an undisclosed amount of sarin nerve gas in the trunk of Lane’s car. In a canister prepped for aerosol delivery. A briefcase in the passenger seat contained diagrams of KCOM’s air-conditioning system, with the ducts labeled based on ease of accessibility. It seems not unlikely that Lane was planning on leaving a little gift for the government-controlled leftist media on his way back into hiding.”

  “Why hasn’t that information been made public?” Tim asked.

  “Because it shows LAPD’s ass. Particularly after September 11, intel and enforcement communities aren’t rushing to the public to point out their oversights and blind spots. Especially regarding a suspect who’s so obvious. Another atrocity was avoided only because of dumb luck.”

  “And us,” Robert added.

  Rayner smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “The public knows nothing about that, but still the polls are overwhelmingly in our favor.”

  “We didn’t do this for the polls,” Tim said, but Rayner didn’t appear to hear.

  “Three morning talk shows over the past two days featured call-ins regarding variations of the same question: Was Lane’s assassination an undesirable event? ‘No’ scored seventy-six, seventy-two, and sixty-six percent. The proper news shows’ pedestrian interviews were fairly well split between tacit approvers and indignant citizens. A significant minority expressed their disgust that such a thing had occurred, regardless of the character of the victim. One commentator referred to it as ‘pornographic.’”

  “How do you get all this stuff?” Mitchell asked. “I don’t see you watching TV twenty-four/seven.”

  “Media breakdowns on topics relevant to my research are faxed to me twice daily.”

  Ananberg ran her hands over her thighs, smoothing her skirt. She wore a striped dress shirt with well-starched cuffs, cut like a man’s, which oddly made it more feminine, and a sweater arranged in a country-club loop just below her neck. The frames of her glasses peaked out at the top corners. “Grad students,” she said. “The ultimate workhorses. And you don’t even have to groom them.�
��

  “So far my sense of it is, no one knows what to make of us yet,” Rayner said. “So I’d like to raise the obvious consideration at this point, one which I’m sure we’ve all given some thought to. Do we make our position-though not our identities-public?”

  “Absolutely not,” Dumone said. “Too much of an operational risk.”

  “We want more from Lane’s death than public euphoria. It may be more effective to take credit and explain how we arrived at the decision.”

  “I think it’s cowardice not to,” Ananberg said. “No responsible state-no entity I respect or trust-commits secret executions. It was a public act. I say we leak some sort of communique that states how we determined his guilt. ‘We citizens who have empowered ourselves thus, made the decision on the following evidence-’”

  “We do not submit the defendant to the mob in this country,” Dumone said. “Our judges and juries don’t grovel for societal support. They make rulings.”

  Rayner said, “We could release some equivalent to the minutes-”

  “Any sophisticated document would be laden with clues for the press and the authorities,” Tim said.

  “No,” the Stork said. “No way we make a statement. Too great a risk.”

  “It’s irresponsible not to give the public our rationale,” Rayner said. “Without it they’re left with nothing but the aftermath of a lynching.”

  Dumone said, “Lane’s death was all about restraint, precision, circumspection. The public will be able to distinguish it as an execution, not a hit.”

  “Who cares if it’s distinguished?” Robert said.

  “The difference,” Dumone said sharply, “is everything.”

  Rayner said, “A communique would clarify matters precisely.”

  “If you’re with us, toot your car horns on your morning commute,” Tim said.

  “It wouldn’t be that vulgar, Mr. Rackley. We’re trying to force meaningful dialogue from a recalcitrant public here. How does society feel about criminals who get off through loopholes? Should the system be amended? Was Lane’s execution justice?”