Pike had seen witnesses have similar explosions of memories when he was an officer. If a witness was given a visual trigger, a memory that had been vague would often snap into focus. Psychologists called these memory cues, and the resulting cascade of recollections were memory chains.
"You remember anything about the second man?"
Jared thought for a moment, but his lips peeled from his teeth in frustrated effort.
"Not really getting him. He was in front, kinda already through the gate. The Cast Man was behind him. I remember black hair. And shades. He might've been wearing shades."
Jared finally ran out of gas.
"Sorry, bro. That's all I got."
Pike could now tie Mendoza to the scene with a picture ID. The second man was almost certainly Gomer, but Mendoza would be enough.
Pike went back to his Jeep to decide on his next play, but knew he would ultimately have to return to Button. Button was the last person to have contact with Smith. Pike wanted to know exactly what Smith said, how he had said it, and when. These things could be crucial, and so could having Button back in the game. The police would increase the pressure on Mendoza, but timing their entry was a trade-off. Once the police reinserted themselves they would block Pike's moves and kill his momentum. He had to cover the primary plays before they came in, and keep himself ahead of the curve.
Pike fished Hector's phone from the box, spent a few seconds figuring it out, then scrolled through the directory. He found Mendoza's number under R MENDOZA, but nothing for GOMER or ALBERTO. No numbers were listed for AZZARA, but he found a number for MIGUEL.
Pike pressed the send button, heard two rings, and Mikie Azzara answered.
"Don't bother me with crap at that body shop."
Answering this way because the caller ID told him it was Hector.
Pike said, "I am here."
Mikie hesitated.
"Who is this?"
"One of your boys wrote it on their wall."
Azzara hesitated again, but this time he recognized Pike's voice.
"How'd you get this phone?"
"I want Mendoza and Gomer."
Azzara lowered his voice, as if he was someplace where he didn't want to be overheard.
"What are you talking about?"
"Mendoza was at their home this morning. Now they're missing."
Azzara cleared his throat. Pike heard something in the background, but couldn't make out what it was. Then Azzara tried to sound reassuring, which left Pike wondering why Azzara wanted to reassure him.
"Listen, I don't know anything about this, but I will find out. I promise you-you don't have to worry. I'm sure these people are fine."
"You're a liar, Miguel. You told me you covered Mendoza's bond. You didn't. What else are you lying about?"
"Would you listen? I'm in the middle of something now, but I will help you here, homes. Just relax. Kick back, give me a few hours, and-"
"Time's up."
Azzara fell silent. It was several seconds before he spoke again. Then his voice was softer, but not reassuring.
"You are making a mistake. You think you're talking to some pretty-boy Mexican, but you are talking to La Eme. We are two hundred thousand strong. You should wait like I say. You don't want to go to war with us."
Pike waited him out, letting the pressure of his silence build. When Azzara finally spoke again his voice showed a strain Pike found curious.
"Are we clear on this? Do you get it?"
Pike said nothing.
"Do. You. Get. It?"
"You don't understand."
"What? What don't I understand?"
"War is what I do."
Pike hung up, then called a friend named Elvis Cole.
15
Experienced investigators referred to the site where an abduction took place as ground zero. It was the intersection where the paths of the victim and perpetrator converged, and merged into one. It was an ambush zone of abrupt furious violence or quiet threat where two paths led in and only one path led out, but these paths weren't made in a vacuum. The physical world was disturbed-a fish rippled the water; a gliding bird cast a shadow. Pike knew this better than most because he spent most of his life trying to move without being heard or seen, or leaving a trail that others could follow. It was difficult. Jared Palmer had seen Reuben Mendoza. This was the first ripple, but Pike knew there would be others. The problem was time. Pike was building a pressure wave and riding it like a surfer shooting the green tunnel. But returning to Smith's house to develop the trail could take hours and would diminish the pressure. The wave would collapse. Pike needed help to maintain the pressure, and believed no one was better at finding and recovering missing persons than his partner, Elvis Cole.
Cole was a licensed private investigator Pike met back in the day when Pike still wore the badge. Not the likeliest of pairings, Pike being so quiet and remote, Cole being one of those people who thought he was funny, but they were more alike than most people knew. Cole was an apprentice then, working for an old-school L.A. dick named George Feider to pile up the three thousand hours of experience the state required for a license. When Cole clocked the three-thousandth hour, Feider was ready to retire and Cole wanted to buy his agency. Pike had resigned from LAPD by then, and was making fat cash on military and security contracts. They bought the agency together, though Pike stayed in the background. He preferred it that way. Unheard and unseen.
While Pike waited for Cole to arrive, he phoned Hydeck and Betsy Harmon, hoping he was wrong about their disappearance and that Wilson or Dru had returned their calls or finally showed up at their kitchen. They hadn't, and Betsy Harmon once more complained that no one had cleaned up the mess.
Twenty-five minutes after Pike called Elvis Cole, Cole slid into Pike's Jeep outside a bar on Abbot Kinney, a few short blocks from the canals. Cole had made good time. If he was in the middle of something when Pike called, he had not mentioned it.
Cole said, "What's going on?"
Pike began with Mendoza's arrest two days earlier, and sketched the sequence of events up to and including his search for Mendoza and his call to Miguel Azzara. When he finished, Cole studied the snapshot of Mendoza before looking up.
"So you don't believe they went to Oregon."
"No. If Mendoza hadn't been seen at the house, then maybe, but Mendoza changes the game."
"So you think, what, he followed them home to threaten them, but it turned into an abduction? He forced Smith to make the call?"
Pike nodded, but did not voice his darker fear-that the abduction had become a body drop.
"Have you tried calling them again?"
"You call, you get voice mail. They don't call back."
Cole nodded, his face vacant as he thought the scene through.
"Which is what would happen if their phones were taken away from them."
"Yes."
Cole glanced over.
"Forgetting Mendoza for a minute-maybe they were so freaked out, they figured enough with the bad news and turned off their phones."
"Wilson, maybe, but not Dru. Dru would call if she could."
"She would?"
Pike realized Cole was staring.
"I know her."
"Ah."
Pike thought he probably should have phrased it another way.
"We had a beer."
"I see."
"We made a date. She asked me to call."
"I understand."
Cole asked for their numbers, saying he would try to learn about their account activity from the service provider. Pike recited the numbers, then gave him Mendoza's shoe box and Hector's phone. Cole fingered through the contents.
"Okay, good-I can work with this. What about the police? Are they treating it as an abduction?"
"They don't know about Mendoza."
Cole glanced up from the box.
"Why not?"