Pike reached for the button to open the door.
“When we got on, what were you going to do, shoot me?”
“I thought you might be one of them. If you were, then, yes, I would have shot you.”
Pike opened the door. A round man got on as Rina Markovic stepped off.
She said, “Perhaps someone will find these bastards, yes?”
“Someone will find them. Yes.”
She studied him for a moment as if taking his measure, and Pike thought her eyes were haunted.
“I am sorry for your friend. I think many families have been lost by this.”
She walked away as the door closed. Pike took the elevator up to his Jeep. He took off the blue dress shirt, slipped on the sleeveless gray sweatshirt, then wound his way down to the exit.
Eight minutes later, he was in a Best Buy parking lot when Lonny Tang called.
6
PIKE WAS WATCHING UCLA students cut between cars on their way home from campus, not far from Frank Meyer’s home, when his phone finally vibrated, three minutes late.
Pike said, “I’m here.”
Carson Epp said, “Lonny, can you hear him okay?”
Lonny’s voice was high-pitched and soft.
“Yeah, I hear him fine. Hey, Joe.”
Epp said, “I’m going to hang up now. That will leave the two of you on the line. Lonny, when you’re finished, just hang up. I’ll check back with you to make sure everything is all right.”
“Okay. Thanks, Carson.”
“Righto, then.”
Pike heard a click as Epp left the line, then the hush of Lonny Tang’s voice.
“Must be bad, you calling like this.”
Pike didn’t know how else to say it, so he gave it to Lonny head-on.
“Frank’s dead. He was murdered two nights ago. Frank and his family.”
Lonny was silent on the other end, but then Pike heard a gentle sobbing. Pike let him cry. If any of them had a right to cry, it was Lonny.
Lonny said, “Sorry. I don’t mean to carry on.”
“It’s okay.”
Lonny got himself together and cleared his throat.
“Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it, Joe. The bastard who did it, they get him?”
“Not yet. The police think it’s a home invasion crew. Frank’s house was the seventh home they’ve hit.”
Lonny cleared his throat again.
“Okay, well, I don’t know what to say. When they get these pricks, will you let me know?”
“I have to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“This crew, they work on good intelligence. Their first six targets were all people like dope dealers and money cleaners. You see where I’m going?”
“Frank had an import business. He imported clothes.”
“If Frank was importing something else, he was in business with someone who gave him up. That person knows who killed him.”
“You think I’m holding out on you, Joe?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is Frank, man. Are you serious?”
“Did he tell you something I should know?”
Lonny was quiet for a while, breathing, and his voice was calm.
“He came to my trial. Not every day, but a couple of times. This once, I asked him if he was sorry he saved me, you know-because if he hadn’t saved me, those men I murdered would still be alive. So I asked if he regretted it. He told me guys like us had each other’s back, so he had my back. He didn’t have any choice.”
“Way it was, Lonny. What would you expect him to say?”
“I know. I just wanted to hear it, I guess, that I still meant something to someone, and wasn’t just a murdering piece of shit.”
Pike remained silent, which spurred Lonny to laugh.
“Thanks for chiming in there, boss. Appreciate the support.”
Lonny suddenly burst out laughing, but the laughter shivered into a sob.
Lonny said, “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“C’mon, Lonny, yes or no. Did Frank tell you he was into something? Maybe ask about certain people or say something that left you wondering?”
“You think if I could help get the pricks who killed him, I wouldn’t be all over it? I’d kill those fuckers myself.”
“ You’re sure?”
“Yes. He was the same Frank we knew. Being an Eagle Scout was in his frakkin’ DNA.”
Pike felt the tightness in his chest ease, feeling a sense of relief.
“Okay, Lon. That’s what I thought, but I had to be sure. You’re the only one he stayed in contact with.”
“I know. She drove a hard bargain, that girl.”
Cindy.
Pike was finished. He wanted to hang up, but he hadn’t spoken with Lonny in a long time, and now he felt guilty. Lonny Tang had been one of his guys for eleven years, on and off, until Lonny got hurt.
Pike asked the obvious.
“How you doing in there?”
“You get used to it. Thirteen years to go, I’m on the beach with a smile.”
“You need anything?”
“Nah. I get all the free meds and medical care I need. I crap blue nuggets and can’t eat spicy foods, but other than that I’m fine.”
On the day Frank Meyer saved Lonny Tang’s life, an RPG explosion sent a rock the size of a golf ball through Lonny Tang’s abdomen. Lonny lost his left kidney, a foot of large intestine, two feet of small intestine, his spleen, part of his liver, half of his stomach, and his health. He was left with a growing addiction to painkillers and no way to pay for them. The Perco cets led to harder drugs, and finally to a bar in Long Beach, which Lonny robbed. When two longshoremen tried to stop him, Lonny shot and killed the bar’s owner and an innocent bystander. Lonny Tang was arrested less than three hours later, passed out in his car after scoring enough dope to deaden the pain. He was tried on two counts of first-degree murder, convicted, and was currently serving twenty-five years to life at the California State Prison in Corcoran.
Pike didn’t know what else to say, so he decided to tie off the conversation.
“Lonny, listen, the police are investigating Frank-”
“They’re not going to find anything.”
“When they go through his phone records, they’ll see he talked to you.”
“I don’t care. I’ll tell’m just what I told you.”
“Tell them whatever you want about Frank. Don’t tell them about me.”
“You didn’t call me. My lawyer called.”
“That’s right.”
“You going after these people?”
“I gotta get going.”
“I hear you, brother.”
Pike was about to hang up when he remembered something else.
“Lonny, you there?”
“I’m here. Where else am I going?”
“One more thing. The police told me Frank had my ink.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“That was years ago, man. This time he came to visit, he showed me. He’d just had’m done.”
“The arrows.”
“Big ol’ red arrows like yours. Cindy was livid. She damn near threw him out of the house.”
Lonny laughed, but Pike felt embarrassed.
“He say anything?”
“Why he got them?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember all the shit she gave him about being a contractor, and how she wouldn’t marry him unless he settled down?”
“Sure.”
“The rest of us were all over him to dump her-what, you’re going to give this chick your balls? But Frank said you told him to go for it. Told him, if he wanted that kind of life, he had to make it happen. He really appreciated that, Joe. It was like you gave him permission.”
Pike considered that for a moment.
“Was he happy?”
“Yeah, brother. Hell, yeah, he was happy. It was like he woke up in someone else’s life. What’s the word? He was content, man.”
Pike said, “Good.”
“Said somethin’ weird, though. Said he’d wake up sometimes, scared God was going to realize he made a mistake, say, ‘Hey, that’s not your life, Frank, you belong back in the shit,’ and take everything away. He was joking when he said it, but still.”
Pike didn’t respond, thinking that sounded like something Frank would say.