"What's your name?"
Straw answered for him.
"This is Kenny. Let's leave it at first names."
Kenny was watching Pike now, his eyes intense.
"Can you describe the guy?"
"Haven't seen him."
Kenny smirked as he slumped against the wall, his interest gone.
"Oh."
"He wanted to know when people came and left, when the shop was empty, what kind of alarms there might be. That means he was here."
"Yeah? So how do you know what he wants?"
Pike stared at Kenny, then looked at Straw.
"Because that's what I would want. He's hunting Wilson and Dru. He blooded the shop to flush them, and probably followed Wilson back to his house, but Mendoza and Gomer got in the way. This isn't about a couple of bangers shaking down a cook. This is bigger."
Straw and Kenny glanced at each other again as if they were having a silent conversation, then Straw shrugged at Pike.
"I don't get it. Why all that business with the blood and the heads if he wanted to kill them? Why not just kill them?"
"I don't know. Maybe to see where they'd go."
Kenny grinned, bugging his eyes like Pike was an idiot.
"Maybe he's crazy. If, you know, he's real."
Straw frowned at Kenny for a moment, thinking.
"Okay. I'm listening. What do you know?"
Pike walked them through his reasoning about the message left in Wilson's shop and the conclusions he drew from the way in which Gomer and Mendoza were murdered. If Straw wondered how Pike knew so much about their bodies, he did not ask.
"Okay, I'm not saying I buy this, but if you're right, and we saw the guy, how would we know?"
Kenny mumbled to himself.
"Wore a shirt, said KILLER. Don't you remember?"
Then Kenny laughed to himself, but Pike was focused on Straw.
"You would have seen him more than once. After three or four passes, you realized you kept seeing him. A fifth pass, and maybe you wondered who he was and why he was interested in Smith's shop."
Kenny glanced at Straw.
"I don't remember anyone like that. You?"
"Only the people who work in the other shops around here, but I'll ask the guys. Maybe one of them saw something."
Kenny crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
"Sure. You ask."
A long-lens camera and a night vision spotting scope were on ballistic carry bags beneath the windows. A video camera hooked by a cable to a nearby laptop computer was part of the jumble. Pike had seen them when he entered, and now pointed them out.
"What about your vid?"
Straw shook his head, and was already moving to show Pike out.
"We tracked Azzara's guys. We never turned the thing on unless we saw one of his bangers. That's all we got."
Pike glanced at the little rectangles cut in the fabric, backlit by the lights below. He wondered how many hours they spent seeing the world through the narrow patchwork windows.
"Check the vid. You never know."
Kenny mumbled again, not opening his eyes.
"That's right. You never know."
Straw told Pike he would call if one of his people had seen something, then showed him out as if Pike had wasted enough of their time. Kenny didn't open his eyes.
After Pike left, he drove back to the canals. It was later now, but not yet as late as when Gomer was murdered.
Pike did not return to the construction site. He parked on Venice Boulevard near Smith's house, then approached on foot. Smith's house. Steve Brown's house. Pike thought of it as Dru's house, and it was now the only dark house on the short, narrow alley. Jared's light was on, but Jared was missing. Probably downstairs with his mother. Rocking the big screen.
Pike used the hidden key to unlock the gate, then went past the house to the fence at the edge of the canal. The smell of the water was strong. He quickly picked out the construction site where Gomer had been murdered. He was not trying to hide. He wanted to be seen.
Pike wondered if the killer used night vision gear. Pike had the equipment, but had decided not to use it. If the killer was here, Pike wanted him to feel like he had the upper hand. Pike noted the cuts and shadows along the banks and between the houses where a spotter could hide, and hoped the man was watching. His presence would mean he had not yet found Dru and Wilson, and they would still be alive. If the killer was watching, he might grow curious why Pike was in their yard, and decide to take a closer look. The killer might decide to kill him, which would be even better. The killer would need to move in close to use his knife, and Pike was fine with close. Pike wanted to learn what he knew.
Light danced on the water. Traffic noise from the surrounding streets was loud, as was the music and voices that bounced along the canals, but all of these living sounds would fade as the night grew deeper.
Pike waited alone in the dark, wondering where Dru and Wilson were, and how the man with the knife knew them, and whether or not they were living or dead. He wondered where they had come from, why they were here, and why he decided to put air in his tires on that particular morning at that particular gas station at that particular time.
None of it mattered, there in the darkness. He had told her he would take care of it. Told her they wouldn't bother her again.
Pike whispered.
"I am here."
Whoever and whatever she was did not matter. If she needed him, he would be there.
Pike whispered again.
Part Four
THE PRINCE OF SOLITUDE
29
Pike changed locations several times during the night, drifting from Dru's house to positions where he had a view of likely areas where someone watching the house might hide. Pike found no one, and as the eastern sky lightened, he grew convinced the killer no longer watched Dru's house. This meant the killer had what he wanted or had tracked Wilson and Dru to another location. Either was bad, and left Pike hungry for a new trail.
At twenty minutes after nine that morning, Pike was crossing the Dell Avenue Bridge when Elvis Cole called.
"Laine came through. He messengered over a disk."
Charles Laine. Dru's neighbor with the surveillance system.
"Show anything?"
"It just arrived, but I need you here to look at it. I've never seen these people. I don't know what they look like."
Pike studied Dru's house across the water with a lack of enthusiasm. Cole was right, but Mendoza and Gomer were dead, so even if they lucked into a glimpse of the abduction, leaving to view a recording of questionable value now felt like a waste of time. Then another possibility occurred to him that left him more interested.
"How many hours of camera time do we have?"
"Seven days from whenever he burned the disk, which was sometime last night. Why?"
Pike told Cole about his conversation with Straw and explained his belief in the killer's professionalism. He had probably reconnoitered Dru's house as well as the takeout shop, and was likely the person who jimmied the kitchen window. This meant it was possible the killer had moved past the camera.
"Okay, get here, and let's see if this stuff is even usable. Laine told me we'll be able to see a little of the street, but we won't know what that means until we see it. We might see nothing but shadows."
The trip through the city took forty minutes, but shortly Pike pulled up outside Cole's A-frame and let himself into the kitchen.
Pike poured himself a cup of black coffee, grabbed a raisin bagel from Cole's stock, and followed his friend to a desk in the living room. They pulled over chairs from the dining table with Cole sitting in front of his Mac. Cole slipped in the disk, and the drive spun up with a soft whine. Neither of them spoke while they waited, as if their expectation wrapped each man in silence.