I got back on the freeway, northbound for home. Still disappointed and a little pissed off. Reminded myself that everything happens for a reason. Reminded myself that I’ve never believed one word of that sentence.
But this I knew: I would stop Caliphornia and his loyal dunce Hector from whatever they were planning for Lindsey and Voss and whomever their almost six thousand rounds were for.
Halfway to Fallbrook I got a call from a number not in my contacts. It came in at exactly eleven o’clock, from a Las Vegas area code. I hit the earpiece button and waited.
“Mr. Ford, my name is Rasha Samara. I live in Las Vegas. I’m looking for Lindsey Rakes. She’s missing.”
Ring of ear and thump of heart. “What is your relationship with her?”
“We’re acquainted socially,” he said. “I am a businessman. Lindsey Rakes taught my son in school.”
His voice was full and smooth. A slight accent. My imagination readied for liftoff, but I kept it on the ground. So many salient details about Rasha Samara: IvarDuggans had told me that he’d been questioned by UC Irvine campus police for brandishing a janbiya at a party. Taucher had told me that the FBI was looking at him. My own eyes had told me that Samara had handwriting very similar to Caliphornia’s.
“I’ve been trying to contact her for four days now and she hasn’t responded,” he said. “Maybe she simply doesn’t want to communicate with me. If that’s the case, I’m fine with that. Still, I’m worried.”
He sounded reasonable and believable, I thought. “If something is wrong, do you have any idea where she would go?” I asked.
“I think she might have gone back to her previous address — your home in Fallbrook,” said Samara.
“Why do you want to find her?”
A beat. The Oceanside Boulevard exit sign rushed by above me.
“Why do you care? You find people for money.”
“Let’s say I care, Mr. Samara. We’re friends, and I value friends.”
“I value her, too. She’s important to me. Have you seen her?”
“Not in a year and a half.”
“Then I would like to hire you to find her.”
No way I could shield Lindsey and do an honest job for Rasha Samara. But I wanted him close, so I gave him my routine: twenty-four hundred dollars to start, cash only, good for three full days of work. If I got lucky before three days, he’d get a refund. If not, I charged one hundred dollars an hour for additional work. Major credit cards and PayPal accepted.
“Why cash to start?” he asked.
“So I can see the face I’m dealing with,” I said. “And change my mind if that face doesn’t look right. Right is kind of a broad term.”
We set the appointment for eight in the morning. Rather than use my Main Street office, I wanted Rasha to see my property, to see for himself that I had no Lindsey to hide.
I hung up, voice-dialed Burt, told him about tomorrow’s visitor. Asked him to get Lindsey and Zeno a motel for a couple of nights — something pet-friendly, not too far away but not too close.
21
Samara’s white Range Rover came up my driveway at seven fifty-nine the next morning. I’d had my run and punched the bags hard and well. Burt, walking down the drive with a cup of coffee, waved Samara through an open post-and-rail gate and into the barnyard. From where I sat under the big palapa I saw that Rasha had brought a second.
Samara got out of the passenger side and shut the door, then stood still, sizing up the ranch. Snapped his jacket arms down over his shirt cuffs as he considered. He was on the tall side, slender and wide-shouldered in a shimmering gray suit. Athletic and poised. Something like the shape of the man in the Bakersfield video. Sharp-faced, too, like the 4Runner’s driver the night before.
His confederate was an economy-sized block of muscle in a black polo shirt and chinos, with a gun in a paddle-style, inside-the-waistband holster at the small of his back.
I watched Burt introduce himself, shake hands, and motion toward me, Roland Ford, California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services license number PI 537668, firearm permit number 081211, six feet three inches tall, two hundred ten pounds, brown and brown, DOB 1/13/79. College grad, former jarhead, former professional boxer, former sheriff’s deputy, former husband. Likes: dancing, fishing, skiing, hiking, finding missing people, digging up the truth, a good bourbon, a good book. Dislikes: rudeness, ignorance, entitlement, cruelty, irresponsibility, cheating, sloth, parking tickets.
I felt good about myself right then. Early on a cool bright December morning. Watching the men come up the path toward me. I had a full set of teeth, a good cup of coffee, and a bright future so far as I could see. But there was something more, and it was this: last night, when I’d seen all that ammunition and understood that it was very likely to be used for wickedness, I’d felt needed. Needed to protect. To prevent. To vanquish. Nothing better than being necessary. I hadn’t felt that since the day Justine died. But last night, seeing Hector and his partner — whoever he might be — had jumped my adrenaline and my will. Now I felt light and nimble on my war footing. I’d been called again, and was soon to be deployed. My crusade. Roland Ford, paladin.
Rasha’s handshake was rough and strong, contrary to his sleek appearance. We sat opposite each other, midway down the long picnic bench under the palapa. I gave him the pond view. My view was of the old adobe brick house. The casitas stretched along the shore, Lindsey’s number three now without Lindsey, who had departed with Zeno and Burt at daybreak for a Best Western in Oceanside. I’d ordered Dick, Liz, and Clevenger not to interrupt in any way my meeting with Mr. Samara. To my right, Burt and Rasha’s bodyguard — Timothy — stood at ease by the barbecue, talking quietly. The top of Burt’s head came only to the midpoint of Timothy’s torso.
“This is all good,” said Rasha Samara, looking out to the pond and beyond. “It’s good you left it native and drought-tolerant.”
“I pretty much leave it alone,” I said. “You build landscapes for a living.”
“Golf courses. Nothing like this. How old is the house?”
“Well over a century.”
He smiled, more with amusement than warmth. “Americans have a shortened view of history.”
I shrugged. “A century is long to me,” I said. “This whole property was a wedding gift from my wife’s parents.”
“I’ve read about her and the accident,” he said. “Very sad. My wife died of cancer just a few years earlier. Both of them were robbed. So were we. We have a lot in common.”
I nodded. Rasha offered me a cigarette from a silver case. I declined. He lit the smoke with the case and slid it back into his suit-coat pocket. Through the slow-moving cloud I saw Burt and Timothy looking back at me. Timothy had taken on a new alertness, back straight, his big fingers intertwined softly in front of him.
I opened my briefcase and set between us a pen and two copies of my standard contract. It’s a simple document, stating the purpose of the investigation, responsibilities and limitations of both parties, and compensation. It sets forth the basics of my insurance policy — California requires one million dollars of insurance for any PI who carries a firearm while working. It covers injury and destruction of life and property. It felt odd to be taking twenty-four hundred dollars in advance for locating a woman who was living in one of my own rentals.
Rasha glanced through one copy without patience. When we had both signed and dated them, I gave him one, then checked the signature page of my copy. It had the same patient, artful, Arabic flair with which he’d signed his card to Lindsey. I put the contract and the pen back into my briefcase, set it on the pavers at my feet.