the Forgotten Man (2005) (8 page)

"Was this about your father?"

Just like that.

"He isn't my father, for Christ's sake. How do you know about this?"

"Starkey."

"Are you two phone buddies now?"

"She was concerned."

Pike knew much of it from Starkey, but I filled in the rest. Joe Pike had been my closest friend and only partner for almost twenty years, but we had never much shared the facts of our childhoods to any great degree. I'm not sure why, only that it had never seemed necessary and maybe even felt beside the point. Maybe it was enough that we were who we were, and were good with that; or maybe we each felt our baggage was lighter without the weight of someone else's concern. When I reached the part about the Home Away Suites, I showed Pike the bill with Faustina's name and address. Pike glanced at it.

"This isn't the right area code for Scottsdale. His address and phone number don't go together."

The motel record showed 416 as the area code for Faustina's home number.

"What's Scottsdale?"

"Four-eighty."

I brought the invoice to the phone, and punched in the number. A computer chimed immediately to inform me that no such listing existed. Next, I booted up my iMac, signed on to Yahoo's map program, and entered Faustina's address. No such street existed in Scottsdale. I leaned back in my chair and glanced up at Pike; everything I thought I knew about Herbert Faustina was wrong.

"His phone number and address don't exist. He made them up."

Pike studied the invoice again, then handed it back.

"My guess is he made up more than that. Maria Faustina was the first saint of this millennium. She was canonized for her trust in God's Divine Mercy. Five gets you ten he was using an alias."

Pike knows the most surprising things.

I unfolded the morgue photos and showed him the picture of Herbert Faustina's tattoos.

"I guess he sought mercy."

"Maybe," Pike said. "But mercy for what?"

Chapter 11

Yard Work F rederick made three trips down to Payne's house that day, not that so much was left after all these years, but the bags were awkward. Each time he came down, he was terrified the police would be waiting. He crept through the trees, gut-sick with fear until he saw that the coast was clear.

Once everything was down, Frederick fired up Payne's gas grill. He used four full cans of propane, then mixed the ashes with gasoline and burned them in a fifty-five-gallon drum Payne used for burning trash. After the second burn, he bagged the residue, then scrubbed the drum with Clorox. He drove the ashes out along Highway 126 to Lake Piru, washed out the bags with lake water, then stopped at two nurseries in Canyon Country before heading back. Late that afternoon when the sun was beginning to weaken, he dusted Payne's property with a generous mix of warfarin, ant poison, cayenne pepper, and arsenic. The police might eventually bring dogs to search the property, but when their mutts hoovered up Frederick's little surprise, they wouldn't last long. Frederick felt satisfied with a job well done.

With the evidence gone and the grounds laced with poison, Frederick let himself back into Payne's house to think. Payne had always told him they would be punished. Frederick thought he meant they would burn in Everlasting Hell - especially after Payne began tattooing himself and talking to Jesus - but maybe it wasn't that at all. Frederick woke every morning knowing that someone somewhere was hunting them; entire armies were probably trying to find them.

Maybe now they had.

Thoughts swirled through Frederick's head like whispering voices, and he felt himself beginning to panic.

"Stop."

Frederick sat motionless at the table except for his right leg. His foot bounced with a will of its own, separate and apart from him, faster as the buzzing grew louder.

"Make it stop."

Frederick knew he was in trouble. They were trying to get him, and they might have already found Payne - mercenaries, masked assassins, maybe even criminals; hired killers paid to find and punish them. Maybe they had snatched Payne and his car, too; made their move so quickly that Payne simply vanished.

Frederick realized if they found Payne, then they might be watching him right now. He felt the weight of their eyes. He heard their covered whispers.

Frederick 's foot bounced until the table shook; a ceramic Jesus danced to the edge of the table and fell. When it shattered, Frederick clutched his leg, and pounded his thigh -

"Stop it! STOPITSTOPITSTOPIT!"

He lurched to his feet, stumbled into the kitchen, and saw a fresh message waiting on Payne's machine. Someone had called that day while Frederick worked in the yard.

Frederick played the message, and a voice he had heard only once - the time he let Payne talk him into going to the Catholic church that Sunday - came from the machine.

"Payne, this is Father Wills. I hope you're well, but I'm concerned I haven't heard from you. Please call or come by. It's important we continue our discussion."

Frederick 's stomach clenched, and he tasted sardines.

What discussion?

Father Wills was a priest, and priests took confession.

What had Payne told him?

What was the knowing suspicious tone in Father Wills's voice?

Payne had probably confessed his ass off to every priest and minister and rabbi in town. Frederick started shaking, and the buzzing returned -

Frederick deleted the message.

He breathed hard, drawing in ragged and hideous breaths until it occurred to him that Payne might have told his confessor where he was going and what he was going to do. Father Wills might know.

Frederick decided to ask.

Chapter 12

D uring the nine days Herbert Faustina resided in the Home Away Suites, he made forty-six phone calls, but none were to any number I recognized. He had not phoned my office. The bill listed each number dialed and the duration of the call because the motel charged by the minute. Of the forty-six numbers dialed, Faustina had called 411 an even dozen times. Pike and I divided the remaining thirty-four numbers between us, then began dialing to see who answered, me on the house line and Pike on his cell. The first two calls Faustina made were to the information operator. A woman with a steady voice answered on the third.

"Los Angeles Police, West L. A. Station. May I help you?"

I was surprised, and wasn't sure what to say.

"This is the police. May I help you?"

"Is there an Officer Faustina?"

"I don't see that name on the roll."

"Do you recognize that name, Faustina?"

"Who is this?"

I apologized and hung up. Faustina had spoken to the West L. A. Station for six minutes, which was long enough to be transferred through every unit in the building. He might have asked to speak with me, and, when I wasn't there, asked for J. Edgar Hoover. Anyone loopy enough to believe he was my father would want Hoover on the case.

I glanced over at Joe.

"He called West L. A. Station. How about that?"

Pike said, "Uh."

A man with a gruff voice answered the next number.

"Police, Southeast."

When I hung up, Pike was waiting.

"Another station?"

"Yeah. He called Southeast."

"He also called Newton."

Herbert Faustina had spoken with Southeast for eleven minutes, and Newton for eight. The next three numbers brought me to Pacific, the 77th, and Hollenbeck.

When I leaned back, Pike had still more.

"Devonshire, Foothill, and North Hollywood."

Three more of LAPD's eighteen patrol areas.

"Okay, this is strange. Why would he call all these police stations?"

"The newspapers described you as a detective. Maybe he thought you were a police detective, and called the stations trying to find you."

"Possible."

Pike shrugged and returned to his phone.

"Or not."

The next number connected me to a Rite Aid pharmacy, and the ninth with the Auto Club. The tenth number brought me to LAPD's Hollywood Station, but the eleventh was different. A man with the hushed voice of a late-night disk jockey answered on the first ring.

"Golden Escorts, discreet and professional."

Faustina had spent twenty-three minutes on the phone with Golden Escorts. I remembered the little throwaway newspaper in his suitcase, the one showing the naked woman with metallic blue hair - the Hard-X Times. I hung up.

"He had more on his mind than finding me. He called an escort service."

"Golden Escorts?"

"You got them, too?"

"Twice. He called them last Wednesday, then again on Friday. Maybe he thought call girls would know how to find you."

"Humor doesn't suit you."

Pike's face was flat and expressionless. Maybe he meant it.

We checked the call dates and saw that during Faustina's nine days at Home Away Suites, he had phoned Golden Escorts three times. He called them on his second night at the motel, then again on his fifth and ninth nights. The ninth night was yesterday - the night he was murdered. I felt a little pop of adrenaline when I tied the escort service to the date of his death. It felt like a clue.

I said, "Keep dialing, and let's see what else we get."

The remaining calls included two more police stations. All together, he had phoned twelve patrol areas out of the eighteen into which LAPD divides Los Angeles. The remaining calls also included three take-out restaurants, a Pep Boys auto parts, two churches in North Hollywood, and the Crystal Cathedral. No one at any of these places recognized his name or remembered his call. Excepting the information number, Golden Escorts was the only number he phoned more than once, and the only escort service.

When we finished identifying every number Faustina called, I phoned Golden Escorts again. The same man answered in exactly the same way.

"Golden Escorts, discreet and professional."

"I saw your ad in the Hard-X Times."

"Groovy. You need a date for tonight?"

"Can I get someone to come to my motel?"

"No problem. We take cash, Visa, and MasterCard, no AmEx, and we offer both male and female escorts for nonsexual outcall companionship. Prostitution is illegal and that's not what we sell. Anything that happens between you and the escort, well, that's between you and the escort. You understand?"

He gave me the boilerplate in case I was Vice.

"I understand."

"Groovy. Tell me where you are, how much you want to spend, and what kind of companion you're looking for."

"I'm at the Home Away Suites. You know where it is."

"Like the back of my teeth."

"Groovy. I'd like the same girl I had last time."

"You've used us before?"

"Oh, sure. Three times."

"Who is this?"

"Herbert Faustina."

The line went dead. After three conversations, he knew Faustina's voice well enough to know I wasn't him.

I called a friend of mine at the phone company and gave her the number. If it turned out to be a cell, we would have to backtrace through the billing address, and all of that could take a long time. If we got lucky, it would be a hard line. We were lucky. Ninety seconds later she gave me their address.

Groovy.

Chapter 13

G olden Escorts occupied a tiny clapboard house in Venice north of the canals, six blocks from the ocean. The neighborhood was typical of Venice , where microscopic houses were set on lots so narrow they shouldered together like cards in a deck. To the untrained eye, many streets in Venice looked like tenements, sporting broken sidewalks, beach-bum decor, and rent-a-wreck parking, but the cheapest house on the block would go for six hundred thousand dollars. Location was everything. The house itself was a Craftsman knockoff sporting a tiny front porch, yellow paint, and a weather vane shaped like a whale. The windows were lit, but women with heavy makeup weren't lingering on the sidewalk and a red light didn't burn over the door. Escort services weren't brothels with prostitutes lying around in negligees; they functioned more like dispatchers for independent contractors - they ran ads, fielded calls, and doled out assignments by phone. Sometimes they provided a driver for the girl, but most times not, and the smaller services were almost always located in a private home or apartment.

Pike and I parked on the cross street, then walked back to the house like two citizens out for a stroll. Pardy and Diaz would have to hope for cooperation, but Pike and I weren't Pardy and Diaz.

Pike said, "Give me a minute."

He waited for a car to pass, then slipped down along the east side of the house and vanished into the shadows. I continued on to the next corner. It was a nice night in Venice. The ocean smelled fresh. Six minutes later, Pike reappeared. I walked back and joined him in front of the house.