“What are you drinking?”

“Scotch. I am drinking scotch in honor of our friend Frank. I would rather rip off a twenty-one-gun salute out in the backyard, but my neighbors prefer the drinking. Where was I?”

“Consequence and retribution.”

“Right-”

Jon Stone was grieving, so Pike let him continue.

“But then… then they hit Frank the Tank, them not knowing he was Frank the Tank, them thinking he was just another ordinary dead guy without recourse to consequence. So dig this-and this is my favorite part-those assholes are somewhere right now, shootin’ up, corn-holing each other, whatever-they are somewhere right now, and they do not know a shit storm is on the horizon, and it is coming for them.”

Pike said, “Jon? Do you have photographs on your walls?”

“What, like naked chicks?”

“Pictures of your family. Friends.”

“Shit, yeah. I take pictures of everything. I got pictures of fuckin’ human heads. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Hey, man. Those fuckers. Those fucks fucked the pooch this time, didn’t they, fuckin’ with Frank?”

“Get some sleep.”

“I want in on this, bro. I mean it. Whatever.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I’ll call Colin. Colin will be on the first plane.”

“Don’t call Colin.”

“Wallace would come.”

“ Don’t.”

“Fuck it. Hey, Joe? Joe, you there?”

“What?”

Stone was silent for so long Pike thought he had fallen asleep.

“Jon?”

“None of us had families. You never married. Lonny, Colin, not them, either. Wallace got divorced. I’ve been married six fuckin’ times, man, what does that tell you? None of us had kids.”

Pike didn’t know what to say, but maybe Stone voiced it for him, soft, and hoarse from the booze.

“I really wanted Frank to make it. Not just for him.”

Pike closed his phone.

He sat in Frank’s office for almost an hour, alone with himself and the silence, then walked back along the hall to Cindy’s desk. He took the framed picture of Frank in the pool, tucked it into his pocket, then let himself out the way he had entered, and drove home for the night.

They call this the city

The city of angels

All I see is death-dealin’ dangers.

– TATTOOED BEACH SLUTS

Part Two. The First Rule

8

PIKE RETURNED HOME AFTER leaving Frank’s house and found a message waiting from Elvis Cole, who was Pike’s friend and partner in a detective agency. Pike listened while he drank a bottle of water.

Cole said, “Hey. A cop named Terrio came by the office today, asking about you and someone named Frank Meyer. Felt like he was fishing, but he also said this guy Meyer was murdered. Call me.”

Pike deleted the message, then looked up Rahmi’s address on his computer. He was hungry, he wanted to exercise and return Cole’s call, but he needed to keep moving. Movement meant progress, and progress meant finding the men who killed Frank.

The Google Maps feature was like having a spy satellite. Pike typed in Rahmi’s address, and there it was-all of Compton spread out thousands of feet below. Pike zoomed in for a closer look, then went to the street view, which allowed him to see Rahmi’s building as if he were standing in the street. Faded paint. Dying grass. Big Wheel on its side. The Google pictures had been taken on a bright, sunny day, and might have been taken months ago, but they were a good place to start.

Rahmi Johnson lived in a green two-story apartment building 1.67 miles north of the Artesia Freeway in Compton. His building was shaped like a shoe box, with three units on bottom, three on top, and a flat, featureless roof. Rahmi had the center ground-floor apartment. Single-family homes and similar buildings lined Rahmi’s side of the street, set on lots so narrow that some of the homes were turned sideways. Rahmi’s building was sideways. Almost every yard was protected by short chain-link fences, and almost every house had security bars on its windows. The opposite side of the street was lined by single-story commercial buildings.

Because of the sideways orientation, the side of Rahmi’s building faced the street and the front of the building faced the next-door neighbor’s property. Residents entered through a chain-link gate, passed the Big Wheel, then went along the length of their building to reach their apartments. This sideways orientation made it difficult for Pike to see Rahmi’s door from the street. He considered this, and knew the police would have the same problem.

Pike was studying the buildings surrounding Rahmi’s apartment house when his cell phone rang. He saw it was John Chen, and took the call.

“Yes.”

“We confirmed a fourth gun to go with the fourth set of shoe prints. Three of the four guns were used in the earlier murders, but the fourth gun was not. That fourth gun showed casings in the nanny’s room and the family room.”

“How many?”

“Three. The fourth gunman shot Frank Meyer once, and put both bullets in the girl-Ana Markovic. We’re still matching the other bullets and casings, but that’s the prelim. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Thanks.”

Pike put down the phone, and thought about the fourth shooter. The new guy. Someone who had not taken part in the earlier invasions, but had gone to Frank’s house. Pike wondered why a fourth man had joined the crew. Had the original three members known about Frank’s background, and expected more resistance?

Pike finally put it out of his head, and returned to his computer. He studied Rahmi’s building, then the surrounding structures and the commercial properties across the street. He noticed that both sides of the street were lined with parked cars, then went back to the overhead view and realized why. Neither Rahmi’s building nor the other small apartment buildings had driveways or spaces for off-street parking; residents parked on the street. This meant Rahmi’s new Malibu would probably be parked in front of his building.

No building in the area was more than two stories, and most were only a single story. With no overlooking vantage point, the spotter would have to be close. The high density of residents, the on-street parking, and the long-term nature of the surveillance meant the spotter was housed in a nearby building. You couldn’t park a Crown Vic out front for three weeks and expect the neighbors not to notice. Ditto repair vans, delivery trucks, and phony cable trucks. After forty-five minutes of studying the area, Pike believed the surveillance options for SIS were limited. He had a pretty good idea where they would place their spotters, and also how he could reach Rahmi without being seen. He would have to see the area at night and during the day to be sure, but he knew what he had to do.

Pike changed into his workout gear, stretched to warm himself, then eased into the meditative state he always found through yoga. He moved slowly, and with great regard, working deeply through asanas from hatha yoga. He breathed, and felt himself settle. His heart rate slowed. Forty-two beats per minute. His blood pressure, one hundred over sixty. Peace came with certainty, and Pike was certain.

When Pike finished, he eased awake like a bubble rising to the surface of a great flat pond. Dinner was rice and red beans mixed with grilled corn and eggplant; the rice and beans he had made, the corn and eggplant were from a restaurant. After dinner, he showered, cleaned himself, then dressed in briefs and a T-shirt. He returned Cole’s call, but Cole didn’t pick up, so he left a message.

Pike poured a finger of scotch in a short glass, then shut the lights. He sat on his couch, alone in the dark, listening to water burble in the black granite meditation fountain. Listening to the water, it was easy to imagine he was in a natural world where wild things lived. He sipped the scotch, and listened.