Then he was in the doorway on his left and walking down a gloomy corridor. A sweet smell hung in the air, and the faint sound of music came from behind one of the two doors on the ground floor. He walked up a flight of bare concrete stairs. He hesitated on the landing, sniffing at the air. A large window at the end of the corridor let in the dying light. No signs of anyone lying in wait.
He had already torn away the edge of the pizza box nearest to him, and slipped his hand inside, grasping the rubberized handle of the shark knife he’d bought earlier from a local dive shop. He muttered a faint prayer and glanced at the fragment of blue cloth in his other hand.
He knocked on Bikovsky’s door.
‘Pizza,’ he chanted, the way he’d heard the delivery boys do it. Here, his accent didn’t matter; most delivery boys were of foreign extraction.
There was a shuffling sound inside, and a grunt as Bikovsky approached the door. Kassim felt his stomach tighten and a buzzing began in his ears as the adrenalin kicked in. A glimmer of movement showed in the peep hole, then the door clicked and swung open.
Kassim had a momentary flash of recognition as the man in the doorway emerged from the gloom within the apartment, followed by a fleeting second of doubt. Then the hunting mechanism took over. He flung the pizza box to one side and lunged forward with the knife, his arm as rigid as an iron bar. The blade bit deep, ripping through flesh and vital organs, and Kassim used his free hand to palm-heel the stricken man in the chest, causing him to stagger backwards until his foot caught on a rug and pitched him over with a crash. He lay still, making a hollow keening sound, his eyes wide with shock.
Kassim followed him down, pinning his shoulders. The man’s heels drummed on the floor as shock crashed through his system, and his breathing became ragged.
Then Kassim stared at him with a sense of puzzlement and disbelief. Something was not right. He stood up and rolled the dying man on to his front. With the bloodied point of the knife he ripped open his rear pocket and took out his wallet, flipped it open to reveal a driver’s licence.
It wasn’t Bikovsky.
Then his nerves got the better of him and he was up and running, out of the room where death was hovering and along the corridor. He’d walked into a trap. Instead of Bikovsky, he had killed a police officer — maybe a member of the American FBI. It had been a close resemblance, but in the poor light of the apartment building, an understandable error.
As he ran past an open doorway, a woman stepping out saw the bloodied knife and screamed, a nerve-jangling wail which ran through the whole building.
FORTY
Harry and Rik heard the blood-curdling scream and were up and running together, scrabbling for purchase on the soft sand. Harry switched channels on his radio and called for backup from the LAPD, then concentrated on getting towards the alleyway through the groups of evening strollers.
As they entered the building, there was a crash of breaking glass from upstairs and the woman screamed again.
‘He’s outside,’ said Harry, and turned back towards the alleyway while Rik continued up the stairs. ‘Check Bikovsky — but be careful!’
Outside a cluster of curious onlookers had gathered, forming a barrier across the alley. Over their heads Harry saw Maria, backlit in the kitchen door of the Tex-Mex. She was gesturing towards the far end, where the alley opened into the back streets of Venice Beach. He drew his gun and forced his way through the crowd, instantly making progress once people caught sight of the Ruger.
As he burst out of the alley, he nearly collided with a trail bike wheeling away with its engine screaming, the rider casting a glance over his shoulder. His face was thin and his eyes burning, and Harry knew without a doubt that this was the man they were looking for.
Kassim was heading across a patch of open ground towards Pacific Avenue, where Harry guessed there would be a hundred and one ways for him to disappear. For a brief second he considered trying for a shot at the killer, but two kids on bikes appeared in the background and he lowered his gun.
In the distance he heard the wail of police sirens, and thumbed the safety catch, slipping the Ruger under his shirt. This was no time to be caught waving a handgun in the middle of Los Angeles by a nervous and trigger-happy cop who might shoot first and ask questions later.
‘It wasn’t Bikovsky,’ he told Deane twenty minutes later. He was watching a paramedic drape a green sheet over the body in Bikovsky’s apartment. The dead man was Eddie, the batter. It explained why Maria had shown no signs of recognition when the man had walked by.
Further along the corridor other officers were questioning the woman whose screams had alerted them to Kassim’s presence. She had been fortunate to survive with nothing more damaging than a jolt to her system and a small cut from flying glass when Kassim had made his exit through the window.
Harry handed his mobile to a crime scene officer so that Deane could vouch for his and Rik’s presence. The detective listened and handed it back with a nod, and Harry promised to call Deane later when they were cleared to leave.
It took only a few minutes, with the arrival of an LAPD crime squad lieutenant named McKenzie, to add a surname and occupation to the dead man.
‘It’s Eddie Cruz, professional scumbag,’ the cop muttered coldly. ‘He finally got his true and just deserts.’ He bent and peered with professional interest at the knife wound, then into Eddie’s sightless eyes. ‘I guess it’s true: there is a God up there.’
‘You know him, then?’ said Harry. The cop probably knew all the local names on his territory, right down to their shoe sizes.
McKenzie looked sour. ‘Yeah, more’s the pity. He was a strong-arm guy for a local organization and reputedly moonlighting for one or two others. He breaks things for people. . arms and legs, mostly. We figured him for a recent murder up in Bel Air. Some kid making porno movies was getting too big a share of the market. The established guys didn’t like it and they warned him off. He kept working. Next thing was we found him in a dumpster with his head caved in. We couldn’t prove it was Cruz who did it, but the signs looked right.’
‘Do you know his friend Marty?’
The cop looked surprised. ‘For someone who’s only visiting, you get around the nicest people. Yeah, we know Bell. Him and Cruz are two of a kind, like evil twins. How come you know them?’
Harry explained briefly about his encounter with the men, drawing a fresh look of appraisal from McKenzie, who looked as if he would like to have seen it.
‘When that news gets round,’ he said shortly, ‘you’ll make a lot of new friends — mostly in the porno business.’
A few minutes later, Harry and Rik were walking down the stairs.
‘Where are we going?’ Rik asked.
Harry had got away from McKenzie by using the excuse that he needed to confer with Deane in New York. What he really wanted was to talk to Bikovsky before the LAPD and the FBI put the ex-Marine off-limits.
‘I’ve got a feeling Bikovsky knows more than he thinks. . or more than he’s letting on.’
They were met outside by a crowd of onlookers being pushed back behind a police cordon. Among them were Jerry, concerned about the apartment he let to Bikovsky, and Maria. She was hugging her arms around her, face creased with concern.
‘It’s not Bikovsky,’ Harry explained to Maria. ‘Just a man who was unlucky enough to look like him.’