Pike jerked into a red zone, then trotted back to the drive. The motel was shaped like an L, with an open staircase where the legs of the L joined. The motor court was empty except for the Corolla, two other cars, and a green Schwinn bicycle chained to a metal post. Individual air conditioners jutted from the rooms like tumors, but most of the air conditioners were silent.

Pike reached the office as the man in the green shirt got out of the Corolla. Pike tried to see if anyone was in the office, but the window was opaque with grime. The office door faced the parking lot, but the door was closed and an air conditioner hummed loudly.

The man in the green shirt didn’t bother locking his car. He went to a soft-drink machine against the wall, bought a soda, then walked to a ground-floor room. He stood at the door with his back to the parking lot as he searched for his key.

Pike approached the man from behind. He shifted left or right just enough to stay in the man’s blind spot, moving so quickly that he was outside the office one moment and across the lot in the next, watching the key go in the lock, seeing the door open-

Pike hooked his left arm under the man’s chin, and lifted. He closed his arm on the man’s throat and squeezed as hard as he could, shoving the man into the room as he brought out the Kimber, using the man as a shield.

Pike expected more men, but the room was empty. A single room and a bath.

Pike toed the door closed, still holding the man. The drapes were open, so Pike could see no one was in the parking lot and no one had stirred from the office.

The man kicked and thrashed, but Pike held him up and off balance with a knee. The man punched backwards, clawed at Pike’s arm, and made a gurgling sound. He was a strong man in very good shape. His nails cut into Pike’s skin.

Pike slipped his free arm across the back of the man’s neck and pushed the man’s throat into the crook of his elbow. Pike squeezed and pushed and held it.

The thrashing slowed.

The man stopped kicking.

His body went limp.

21

THE CHOKE hold cut off blood to a man’s brain, putting him to sleep like a laptop when its battery is low. It was an effective way to subdue a person, though sometimes that person did not wake up. Pike sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the man to wake.

The man did not sleep for long. His eyelids fluttered and his head came up. He had the vague expression of a boxer with a mild concussion, but he stiffened when he realized he could not move. Pike had duct-taped the man to a chair. His ankles, thighs, trunk, and arms were bound.

Pike was directly in front of the man, only inches away. He was holding an old Browning 9mm pistol. The man had been carrying the Browning, a cell phone, keys to the car and the room, twelve dollars and sixty cents, a pack of Marlboros, a butane lighter, and a Seiko watch. The man had not been carrying a wallet, credit cards, or any form of identification.

Pike watched the man’s eyes, which were worried but confident. He had a wide, angular face, with small scars laced into his eyebrows and across the bridge of his nose.

Pike said, “You know who I am?”

The man glanced at the door, maybe thinking someone would be there to save him.

Pike repeated himself.

“Do you know who I am?”

The man answered in Spanish.

“Fuck you.”

The Browning flicked out and rocked his head. Pike moved so quickly the man did not know what was happening until his cheek split and blood dripped to his shirt. Pike had not wanted to knock him out.

When the man’s eyes regained focus, Pike reached out with his left hand. This time he moved slowly, as if he were going to caress the man’s cheek. He dug his thumb into the nerve where the jaw hinged with the zygomatic arch. The man tried to twist away, but he was taped to the chair. Pike held the pressure for a long time.

When Pike let go, the man gulped air as if he had been under water. He worked his jaw, giving Pike the eyes you gave someone when you were telling him you would kill him.

Pike’s expression never changed.

Pike said, “I’m going to do that again.”

Pike tucked the Browning into his pocket, then went to the window. The room was small and dingy, with two double beds facing a built-in dresser and desk, and a ragged club chair by the window. Pike had pulled the drapes, but they were the sheer kind through which you could see. A man with a bulging belly was outside the office, smoking, and the office door was open, probably so he could listen for the phone. Pike had already searched the Corolla, and now he searched the room.

The dresser and desk drawers were empty, but Pike found four travel bags heaped in the closet: two canvas duffels, a blue nylon gym bag sporting the Nike swoosh, and a black backpack. Each of the four bags contained men’s clothing, cigarettes, and toiletry items. Pike found an envelope in the backpack containing twenty-six hundred dollars. Tucked in beside the envelope, he found a page from a spiral notebook with handwritten notes and numbers, and a photograph of Larkin Conner Barkley. It hadn’t been clipped from a magazine, but was an actual print, tight on her face, showing her smile.

Hidden among the clothes in each bag were U.S. passports and round-trip airline tickets between Quito, Ecuador, and Los Angeles. The passports showed four men, one of whom was in the chair. The name on the passport was Rulón Martínez, but Pike doubted it was real.

Pike recognized two of the men in the other passports, but not the third. Two were among the crew that invaded the Barkleys’ home. One was the man with the scarred lip who had beaten the Barkleys’ housekeeper. The passport showed his name as Jésus Leone. The other was Walter Bloch. Pike found that odd. A German name. The remaining man, who Pike had never seen, was Ramón Alteiri. The passports claimed all four men were residents of Los Angeles and United States citizens. Pike studied the passports. If they were fakes, they were good fakes. The black backpack with the picture of Larkin belonged to the man with the scar.

Pike shook the clothes and toiletries out of the backpack and put in the passports, the tickets, the Browning, and the other things he wanted to keep, but not the picture of Larkin.

Pike returned to the bed with the picture and held it so the man could see. Pike didn’t say anything; he just made the man look. Then he put it away.

“I can speak Spanish, but English would be better. That good with you?”

The man made a nasty grin like he didn’t give a shit one way or the other.

“You better run, muddafokka. You don’ know what you messin’ with.”

Pike dug his index finger into the soft tissue beneath the man’s collarbone where twenty-six individual nerves joined into the brachial plexus. The supraclavicular nerve, which carried information into the spinal cord, ran close to the skin at that point, following a groove in the bone. When Pike crushed the nerve bundle hard into the bone, the entire brachial plexus fired a pain signal not unlike that from a root canal without novocaine.

The man made a high-pitched buzzing moan. He tried to tear free of the tape and throw over the chair, but Pike pinned his foot with a toe. Veins jumped in the man’s neck like writhing snakes, and tears streamed over his face, streaking the blood on his cheek. He begged Pike to stop, going back to the Spanish, but Pike didn’t stop.

When Pike finally released the pressure, he knew the pain would burn on with the ferocity of ant poison, so he touched another spot, this one in the man’s neck, which reduced the pain. The man sagged, and his face paled to the color of meat left in water.

Pike said, “This is dim mak. That’s Chinese. It means death touch.”