Final Victim Page 5

  Harvey Knox was in a cubicle on the east side of the AUSAs' division on the fifth floor, surrounded by depositions. Short and plump, Harvey had one of those haircuts that have to be carefully arranged and then patted to cover a growing shiny spot. He was ten pounds heavier than when Lockwood had last seen him, five years ago. They'd worked an international business fraud case together. One of the U. S. Customs missions was to protect business from international counterfeit merchandise, and Lockwood had been working a big ring of counterfeiters selling knock-off Louis Vuitton luggage and handbags. This kind of fraud accounted for business losses of over three billion dollars a year and occupied a good percentage of Customs resources.

  Despite the size of the operation, the case had ended like the last reel of a Marx Brothers movie. The Customs agents' inside man had notified them that the main counterfeiter, a Brazilian named Raul Ruiz, was supposedly at that moment standing in his East L. A. warehouse. Harvey and Lockwood decided to take the place down and make the arrest. They had everything they needed to take the case to trial, and the added bonus of having the Brazilian quarterback standing right in the warehouse with the offending merchandise was too good to pass up. Lockwood and his Customs team had gone in and made the arrests while Harvey was in a plain wrapper out front, writing the paper and identifying the suspects from surveillance photographs. They swept the place and lined everybody up, but there was no Raul Ruiz in the conga line. The warehouse was full of Mexican illegals. Lockwood had cuffed the Mexicans and was waiting for INS and an interpreter, when who should pull up in a rental car but El Jefe Grande himself, with two huge Latin bodyguards. Apparently, Ruiz liked gelato mexicano and had gone down the street for a cone. He saw all the activity in the parking lot and hit reverse. Harvey got out of the plain wrapper and ran toward the car, his coattails and comb-over hair flapping. He tried to reach into the driver's side window and yank the keys out of the ignition, but found himself looking down the barrel of a Ruger Red-hawk. The three-hundred-pound driver floored the car, but Harvey's sleeve got caught on the turn indicator, forcing him to run and hop alongside the rental, which was making a looping, tire-skidding turn out of the parking lot.

  Lockwood heard the commotion and ran out just in time to take part in the Harpo Marx conclusion. He pulled his S amp;W long-nose and, with Harvey Knox hopping, running, and dragging ass alongside the car, Lockwood hit a Weaver shooting stance and fired one round. He'd never been a great shot. He'd been aiming at the driver, but he hit and blew the left rear tire. The car lost its rubber and skidded to a stop on the rim. The Customs team took everyone into custody. The shot had saved Harvey's life.

  After he decompressed, Harvey ran around behind Lockwood like a puppy. He told Lockwood he was going to name his firstborn after him. Lockwood said, "Not necessary." Then the AUSA said he was going to buy him a trip to Hawaii. Lockwood said, "Not necessary." Then he said, "What can I do? You saved my life. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here."

  It was then that Lockwood said, "Let me think about that and get back to you." Now, five years later, in Harvey's little cubicle at the Federal Building, he was about to try and collect the debt.

  "Shit, Johnny, how you doing?" Harvey said as he clambered up from behind his depositions, briefs, and yellow pads. He pumped Lock-wood's hand endlessly and Lockwood grinned, glad to see the little attorney.

  Harvey was still trying to hide his bald spot under strands of wispy brown hair, but the battle lines were widening, and Harvey and his hair stylist were losing.

  "How you been? Jeez, good to see you," Harvey said. "I got your message on my machine you were coming. But it didn't say what time. You gotta let me buy you dinner… I'll call Ann."

  "I have to go up to Lompoc tonight and I'm gonna try to see Heather and Claire before I leave; then I have to get to Burbank by six tomorrow to get my ride back to D. C. So it might have to wait."

  "What's up?"

  "I need a favor…"

  Harvey grinned at him. "I remember your style, Johnny, so I hope this favor won't cost me my career."

  "What I have in mind is a little slick," Lockwood admitted.

  Harvey looked at him, shook his head. "Hey, you name it. I wouldn't even be standing here if you hadn't defrocked that Goodyear radial."

  "There's a guy up in Lompoc named Malavida Chacone, a computer cracker. He's doing a nickel. But I checked and he's getting one for three on good behavior, so he's 'short,' less than eighteen months to go. I need to get him a coffee break parole for a few days, and I don't wanna fuck around trying to get a furlough request verified."

  "You want me to write a Special Circumstances Release on a Federal prner?" he said, the smile drifting sideways on his friendly face.

  "You don't have to do it, Harvey, 'cause I know it's kinda between the cracks… but I'm under a lot of pressure here."

  "Why? What's the reason?"

  "Classified. I need him for an interview on a very important case. I'll lock him up every night. But he has information critical to my investigation."

  "Shit, John, that means I'll have to lie on the SCR, say it's life or death, or some damn thing…"

  "That's what it is. I shoulda mentioned that." Lockwood grinned. "And you can't tell me what the case is?"

  "It's a witness protection deal. I can't focus it any sharper than that. I'm really locked down tight on the talking points. But it's big. You're just gonna have to go with me or not. I can't lay it out for you, but I'll stand in front of you if there's a firing squad."

  "Where you gonna take him?"

  "I won't leave the state. Hell, I won't even leave Lompoc. I'll use a motel and have my Wit flown in."

  "Chacone won't leave Lompoc and you'll have him locked up every night?" Harvey had an eyebrow cocked. He'd been in the Justice Department for seven years, and bullshit has its own special odor.

  "He won't leave the motel."

  "John…" It was said like a warning.

  "Okay, look… I'll work something else out. I'll see ya, Harvey. You're looking tired. You should get some time off. Take Annie away, go drink a mai-tai under a palm tree." Lockwood grinned, shook Harvey's hand, and walked out of his cluttered office.

  Harvey caught up to him by the elevator, grabbed his arm, and spun him around. "John, I'm not like you. You get off doing this shit." "It's okay-"

  "No, it's not okay. You saved my life."

  "Come on, Harvey, I took some target practice on a tire. The truth is, I was aiming at the palooka behind the wheel. I missed by a mile. You don't have to do it because of that. You want my opinion, you didn't even need me there. You were seconds from pulling that Brazilian sumo through the window and knocking his dick in the dirt. Least that's the way I saw it."

  Harvey stood looking at him, shifting from one flat foot to the other. "Wait here. I gotta go upstairs and see if I can even find the forms," he finally said.

  Lockwood knew that requests for a Special Circumstances Release from prn were like photographs of Big Foot-they were extremely rare and seldom focused. Very few got issued, because not many cases were so contingent on secrecy that the interview couldn't take place in the attorneys' rooms at the prn. The outstanding exceptions were usually witness protection cases, where the Wit's identity was secret or his life was in extreme danger.

  When Lockwood left the elevator and picked up Karen in the coffee shop, he had the folded paper stuck in his pocket. Even so, he knew that unless he played it just right, the prn officials would cough up a lung laughing at him.

  He had tried to call his ex-wife, Claire, twice from the Airfone and had gotten no answer. He stopped now at a pay phone in the lobby and tried again. There was still nobody answering at her rented house in Studio City. They got back into the LeBaron and headed toward Lompoc, about an hour's drive north of Santa Barbara. Lockwood found an excuse to get off the freeway in Studio City, allegedly for gas, then drove past the address on Moorpark and looked at Claire's small wood-frame house. He slowed and finally parked across
the street. Karen watched, a puzzled look on her face.

  "What's this?"

  "I think it's my ex-wife's house," he said, never averting his eyes. "I haven't been here before."

  "Claire lives here?" Karen said, and when he glanced at her, she instantly looked away.

  "You used your computer clearance to go browsing in my DOR file?" he said, referring to his personnel folder in the Department of Records.

  "Just a quick peek," she said, embarrassed, and then looked at the house, which was a duplex with blue siding and the curtains drawn. The garage was empty. He studied the house for a long time.

  "I have a little girl. Ten years old, named Heather. You probably saw that in there, too. I don't get to see her much," he finally said.

  "Why don't you go ring the bell?"

  "I should call first," he said and accelerated away from the house. His departure had a slight flavor of escape.

  Karen watched him surreptitiously. He drove stoically, but she thought she saw something glinting in the corner of his eye… She wondered if it was a tear or just his reaction to the smoggy L. A. day.

  Chapter 7

  CUTTING AND PIERCING

  Tashay Roberts had been trying to decide. whether to get a nipple pierce like Satan T. Bone wanted. There was very little she wouldn't do for him, but punching holes in her titties was close to the limit. She sat on the purple shag carpet in her older sister's Tampa house in shorts and a halter, and opened the mail wearing latex gloves. Her sister had been traveling in Europe and she and Satan had the place to themselves. One thing was certain: The new Southern tour had produced results. The mail was mostly from Atlanta and Shreveport, but there was stuff from Midland, Texas, and that little town in South Carolina she could never remember the name of, because she'd been dusted the whole time they'd been there, and it was a blur…

  The thing about the nipple pierce that worried her was, she was afraid it would hurt. Satan had two nipple pierces and he said it didn't… But it wasn't like a nose pierce or tummy button, or even the eyebrow pierce she'd had done last summer-which, by the way, hurt like a bitch, even though the hard-on who did it said she'd never feel a thing.

  She suddenly realized that Baby Killer's new album, Chant to the Dead, was already past her favorite cut, so she got up, stretched her long tanned legs, padded across the purple shag to the CD player, and set it to replay "Redneck Burnout." She thought the Chant to the Dead album was a musical leap forward for Baby Killer. "Redneck Burnout" was by far the best cut on the album, the best song they'd ever done. She listened as Satan T. Bone's raspy voice screamed the almost incoherent lyrics:

  "Fuck the bitch and cut off her tits," the song began. "Fill her neck with cum…" Baby Killer was one of about twenty U. S. Death Metal bands. They operated on the extreme edge of rock 'n' roll. Tashay loved the lyrics. They celebrated sex with the dead, baby killing, and mutilation. The audience for this music was small but rabid, and Death Metal operated ih an outer orbit of the music business.

  Tashay moved back to the pile of mail and sat down. She'd been saving the interesting-looking brown-paper-wrapped shoe box with no postmark for last. She swayed with the rhythm of the song as she opened some more mail. Her job was to separate the "wet mail" from the dry. More and more, Satan had been getting blood-soaked things and he was afraid of AIDS, so she had to sit there, wearing the fucking latex gloves, and open the mail.

  Satan T. Bone was tall and skinny. He had black tattoos under each eye, making him look almost like a vampire. He had stringy black hair that he never washed, and had twenty pierces. It seemed he got a new pierce every time he got really wasted. Satan's real name was Bob Shiff, but he had been so influenced by the music of Peter Van Wilkinsen, who called himself Satan Wolf, that Shiff had taken the stage name Satan T. Bone when Van Wilkinsen was arrested in Oslo, Norway, for killing that guy on stage.

  She could see bloodstains through the white envelope on one of the letters and knew it should go in the wet pile. She thought it was way cool that Satan's fans sent blood-soaked letters, even though she suspected that it was just animal blood. Still, it was on there, and it was beautiful and gross. Satan T. Bone was really talking to his audience, small as it was. She decided finally, fuck it… She couldn't wait to see what was in the box, so she got the sharp serrated knife and cut it open, slitting the paper along the top, then the side. She slowly pulled the top back and saw that whatever was inside had been carefully wrapped in cellophane, and then placed inside a plastic bag.

  "What is this?" she said to herself, a smile on her tiny, vacant features. She pushed back her blond hair with her gloved wrist and reached for the object in the box.

  "Cool," she said as she touched the object, then gently lifted it out. It was heavy, maybe almost two pounds. It was squishy yet hard at the same time. She pulled it out of the Baggie, peeled back the tape that held the cellophane, then slowly and carefully unwrapped it.

  A human hand fell onto the purple shag. It had been severed at the wrist and it lay there like a small dead thing. Satan T. Bone's voice screamed through the expensive speaker system:

  It is a very strange night. The bitch didn't fight.

  Tashay Roberts stared at the hand and then slowly picked it up with her latex-gloved fingers. She looked at it carefully. It was delicate, probably a woman's hand. She could see that the fingertips had been surgically removed.

  "This is so fucking cool," she said softly, but she was also afraid. There was no postmark; the box had been hand-delivered by someone. Whoever sent it was definitely way out there… way, way out there. Tashay wondered if she should call Satan or Carl. She knew if she told Satan, he would want to keep the hand. He was a crazy son of a bitch. Keeping the hand could be trouble. Her first boyfriend, Carl Zeno, was a county sheriff. He was also her stepfather. He'd started fucking her brains out when she was just fifteen. He'd kept it up all the years her mother had been on the night shift at the drugstore. Occasionally, when Satan was on the road, she would still go and see him. Carl was her secret addiction. She knew the hand was very bitchin' but very dangerous. Carl would know what to do. After all, he was a cop. She looked at the hand, which was lying on the purple shag, fingers up. If Satan didn't know it had been sent to him, then he couldn't be angry at her.

  She decided she'd go ahead and get the nipple pierce the way he wanted. It was a way to make up for her little deception. She moved to the phone and dialed a number.

  "Carl," she said, the excitement ringing in her voice. "The coolest thing just happened."

  Behind her, through the speakers, Satan T. Bone screamed his degradation.

  Chapter 8

  HANG GLIDING

  After spending the night in two cheap motel rooms in Lompoc, Lockwood and Karen pulled up to the guard shack for visitors' parking at 7:30 on Sunday morning. John showed his Federal buzzer and identified both of them. He got out of the car before even being asked and handed over his gun and holster, which he had packed in his briefcase. They pulled inside the barbed-wire fence and drove to the parking lot.

  They walked in under a huge stone arch where pigeons cooed down like bubbling pon. The visitors' room was ugly. Yellow linoleum, probably left over from some Federal housing project, butted up against turgid green cement walls. The sagging couches were cracked red leather. There was an interior window on one wall where a female prn guard was fielding visitors' requests. The only artwork on display was tattooed on the arms and backs of the men and women who were queued up, waiting to visit. Lockwood moved to the front of the line and shoved his badge under the glass. The stout female guard took his shield and ID, then entered his U. S. Customs badge number into her computer. After a second, Lockwood's picture and ID information came up on the screen. He motioned that Karen was with him, and the guard nodded and buzzed them through. They moved into a back room where a black prn officer sat behind a desk. A sign said this was the:

  VISITING POLICE LOUNGE.

  "John Lockwood," he said to the guard
. "I need to have a chat with Malavida Chacone in a secure room. This is Dr. Karen Dawson; she's a civilian employee with U. S. Customs Service in D. C."

  The guard looked at both John's and Karen's IDs, then motioned for them to be seated. "I'll have to find out where he is and get him transferred up," he said, then moved off to an enclosed phone station.

  "Okay, what we're going to do is solicit this kid. We gotta get him interested. I busted him, so he'll sling a buncha barrio attitude at me, but, bottom line, he wants out of here. So after he's through dissing me, he should jump in our lap. Your job is to show him how much you care. Give him a reason to say yes. The real trick is gonna be putting a move on his counselor. We've gotta score that guy somehow. Leave that up to me."

  "Counselor?"

  "A young con like Malavida always has a counselor to help him through problems. It's usually just a prn guard with an unread subscription to Psychology Today. I'll find a way to co-opt him once I get a look at him."

  "Why not just hand over the paper from Harvey Knox?"

  "That paper is puppyshit. It won't smell right if anyone looks at it too long. Once we get in there, we've gotta move fast. We're either walking out of here with Malavida in an hour, or we're back in the prn Administrator's office, trying to talk our way out of an official reprimand."

  She smiled at him and he looked at her sternly. "It won't be so funny if we get busted. These guys have no sense of humor. It's not like getting a late-paper markdown in college."

  "I'm not worried. I don't mind risk," she said.

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "When I was twelve, I designed an airfoil. It was sort of like a hang-glider, but this was way before hang-gliders. I called it the ALFA Wing. Stood for Airfoil Light Flight Apparatus. I calculated weight and lift. I designed a rudder assembly with a ten-to-one gear ratio. I made this thing out of aluminum rods with plastic sheets and nylon line. My two brothers dared me to test it, so I took it up to the top of Eagle Rock Dam near our house. There was this three-story sheer drop. I harnessed myself in, and my brothers were now scared shitless, begging me not to do it. They released me from the dare. They promised to clean my room for a year. They were panicked I'd kill myself. But it was too late. I ran and jumped off."