Pike followed the Hollywood Freeway into the northeast part of the Valley, joined up with the Golden State, and dropped off less than a mile later into a flat landscape where low buildings stood guard over empty lots veined by dried weeds and crumbling concrete. Rows of faceless buildings lined the larger streets, surrounded by equally faceless tract homes, all of which were bleached by the hazy light, and perpetually powdered by dust blown down from the mountains. Telephone poles lining the streets were strung with so many cables and wires they cut the sky like spiderwebs, as if to snare the people who lived there.
Pike did not have to check the Thomas Guide again. Having seen it once, he knew the route, and skirted around the Hansen Dam Park past nurseries, outdoor storage facilities, and row after row of sun-bleached, dusty homes. He found Diamond Reclamations on a four-lane boulevard at the foot of Little Tujunga Canyon, fenced between a Mom’s Basement public storage location and a stone yard where Bobcat loaders were moving slabs of limestone and marble. A huge Do-It-Yourself home improvement center sat directly across, surrounded by acres of parking and a couple of hundred parked cars. Dozens of sturdy brown men were clustered at the entrances to the Do-It-Yourself, come up from Mexico and Central America, ready and willing to work.
Pike pulled into the Do-It-Yourself center, hiding his Jeep in plain sight among the parked cars and trucks. Diamond Reclamations was a scrap-metal yard. A yellow single-story building sat at the street with eight-foot red letters painted across the front: SCRAP METAL WANTED SALVAGE AUTO PARTS STEEL. A gravel drive ran past the front building to a small parking lot.
Behind the parking lot was a larger, two-story corrugated-steel building. The front building blocked most of what lay behind it from view, but Pike could see that the grounds were crowded with stacked auto chassis, rusting pipes, and other types of scrap metal. Two new sedans were parked out front on the street, and two more sedans and a large truck were in the parking lot, but the gravel drive was chained off, and a sign in the front office window read CLOSED. As Pike watched, a man in a blue shirt came out of the front office building, and crunched across the parking lot to the corrugated building. As he reached the door, he spoke to someone Pike didn’t see, and then that man stepped out from behind the parked truck. He was a big man with a big gut, and thick legs to carry it. The two men laughed about something, then the man in the blue shirt went into the building. The big man studied the passing traffic, then slowly returned to his place behind the truck.
Everything about the man’s body language defined him. Guard. Darko probably traveled with bodyguards, and this man was likely one of his guards. Pike wondered how many more guards were inside and around the building.
Pike decided against calling their phone number again. He wondered if the phone rang in the smaller front building or the large corrugated building. Darko might be in one or the other. The man who murdered Frank and Cindy Meyer, Little Frank, and Joey.
Pike said, “Almost there, bud.”
Three of the Latin workmen broke away from the group by the entrance, and came toward Pike across the parking lot. They had probably been waiting for work since early that morning, and were taking a bathroom break or going for a piece of fruit.
Pike rolled down his window and motioned them over. Pike spoke Spanish pretty well, along with French, gutter German, a little Vietnamese, a little Arabic, and enough Swahili to make himself understood to most Bantu speakers.
“Excuse me. May I ask you a question?”
The three men exchanged glances before they approached, and the youngest man answered in English.
“My cousin is a very good mason, but we can also work with pipes and rough carpentry. I have three years’ experience with painting and dry wall.”
They had mistaken Pike for a contractor.
Pike said, “I’m sorry, but I am not looking for workmen. I have a question about the business across the street.”
He pointed, and all three men followed his finger.
“The scrap yard?”
“Yes. I see people and cars, but the entrance is chained. I have metal to sell, but the sign says closed. How long has it been like this?”
The three men spoke among themselves in Spanish. Pike understood most of their conversation, and gathered that all three were regulars at the home improvement center. He knew this to be true at home improvement centers, paint stores, and hardware stores throughout Los Angeles. The same workers gathered daily at the same locations, and were often met by the same contractors, landscapers, and construction foremen.
The three men reached a consensus, and the younger man finally answered.
“The people are there, but the chain is up. It has been like this three or four days.”
Since the murders in Westwood.
“Before that, the chain was down and the business open?”
“Yes, sir. Before the chain, the trucks come to bring or take the metal, but now, they no longer come. My cousin and I, we go there to see if they need good workers, but they tell us to leave. Now the chain is always up, and the trucks do not come, just the men in their nice cars.”
“The men you spoke with, they were here in the front? The little building is the office?”
Pike pointed again, and the men nodded.
“Yes, the men in there. They are not friendly.”
“This was the man in the blue shirt? I just saw him. He was the rude one?”
“There were two men, and both were rude. We see other men in the back, but we were scared to ask them.”
“Did they have Americano accents?”
“No, sir. They speak with a different flavor.”
“One more question. In the evening, do these men leave for the day?”
They had another discussion, this time with the older man doing most of the talking. Then the younger man answered.
“We cannot know. If we have no job when lunch ends, we go, but we arrive before seven in the morning, and the men are always there with cars in the lot. They must come with the sun to be here before us, but they are.”
“The nice cars?”
“Sí. Yes. They are very nice.”
“And they come and go during the day?”
“Sometimes. Mostly no, but sometimes. The man will take down the chain, and they go in or come out, but mostly no.”
“Sometimes different cars?”
“Sí. Sometimes.”
“Muchas gracias, mis amigos.”
Pike offered a twenty-dollar bill for their help, but the men refused and continued on their way. As they were leaving, the man in the blue shirt reappeared and returned to the front building.
Pike thought about dialing the number again to see if anyone answered, but then it occurred to him to see if the business had a second number. He opened his cell phone to call Information, but his phone could not find a signal. This confirmed the reason behind the landline.
Pike brought a handful of quarters to a pay phone hanging beside the center’s entrance to make the call, and asked if they had a listing for Diamond Reclamations in Lake View Terrace. They did, and a computer voice gave him the listing. It was different from the number he had.
Pike copied the new number, then called Information again for the same listing, and asked if Diamond had more than one number. The operator now read off two numbers, and the second number was the number from Grebner’s phone.
Pike thumbed in more money, and dialed the newest number. He watched the office as he dialed.
A male voice answered on the second ring, and Pike wondered if he was the man in the blue shirt. East European accent, but the accent was light.