Ballantine Books
July 2001
On Sale: July 3, 2001
Featuring: Carol Starkey
395 pages ISBN: 034543448X EAN: 9780345434487 Mass Market Paperback Add to Wish List
"Tell me about the thumb. I know what you told me on
the phone, but tell, me everything now."
Starkey inhaled half an inch of cigarette, then flicked
ash on the floor, not bothering with the ashtray. She did
that every time she was annoyed with being here, which was
always.
"Please use the ashtray, Carol."
"I missed."
"You didn’t miss."
Detective-2 Carol Starkey took another deep pull on the
cigarette and crushed it out. When she first started seeing
this therapist, Dana Williams wouldn’t let her smoke during
session. That was three years and four therapists ago. In
the time Starkey was working her way through the second and
third therapists, Dana had gone back to the smokes herself,
and now didn’t mind. Sometimes they both smoked and the
goddamned room clouded up like the Imperial Valley capped by
an inversion layer.
Starkey shrugged.
"No, I guess I didn’t miss. I’m just pissed off, is
all. It’s been three years, and here I am back where I started."
"With me."
"Yeah. Like in three years I shouldn’t be over this shit."
"So tell me what happened, Carol. Tell me about the
little girl’s thumb."
Starkey fired up another cigarette, then settled back
to recall the little girl’s thumb. Starkey was down to three
packs a day. The progress should have made her feel better,
but didn’t.
"It was Fourth of July. This idiot down in Venice
decides to make his own fireworks and give them away to the
neighbors. A little girl ends up losing the thumb and index
finger on her right hand, so we get the call from the
emergency room."
"Who is ‘we’?"
"Me and my partner that day, Beth Marzik."
"Another woman?"
"Yeah. There’s two of us in CCS."
"Okay."
"By the time we get down there, the family’s gone home,
so we go to the house. The father’s crying, saying how they
found the finger, but not the thumb, and then he shows us
these homemade firecrackers that are so damned big she’s
lucky she didn’t lose the hand."
"He made them?"
"No, a guy in the neighborhood made them, but the
father won’t tell us. He says the man didn’t mean any harm.
I say, your daughter has been maimed, sir, other children
are at risk, sir, but the guy won’t cop. I ask the mother,
but the guy says something in Spanish, and now she won’t
talk, either."
"Why won’t they tell you?"
"People are assholes."
The world according to Carol Starkey, Detective-2 with
LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section. Dana made a note of that
in a leather-bound notebook, an act which Starkey never
liked. The notes gave physical substance to her words,
leaving Starkey feeling vulnerable because she thought of
the notes as evidence. Starkey had more of the cigarette,
then shrugged and went on with it.
"These bombs are six inches long, right? We call’m
Mexican Dynamite. So many of these things are going off, it
sounds like the academy pistol range, so Marzik and I start
a door-to-door. But the neighbors are just like the
father--no one’s telling us anything, and I’m getting madder
and madder. Marzik and I are walking back to the car when I
look down and there’s the thumb. I just looked down and
there it was, this beautiful little thumb, so I scooped it
up and brought it back to the family."
"On the phone, you told me you tried to make the father
eat it."
"I grabbed his collar and pushed it into his mouth. I
did that."
Dana shifted in her chair, Starkey reading from her
body language that she was uncomfortable with the image.
Starkey couldn’t blame her.
"It’s easy to understand why the family filed a complaint."
Starkey finished the cigarette and crushed it out.
"The family didn’t complain."
"Then why--?"
"Marzik. I guess I scared Marzik. She had a talk with
my lieutenant, and Kelso threatened to send me to the bank
for an evaluation."
LAPD maintained its Behavorial Sciences Unit in the Far
East Bank building on Broadway, in Chinatown. Most officers
lived in abject fear of being ordered to the bank, correctly
believing that it called into question their stability, and
ended any hope of career advancement. They had an expression
for it: Overdrawn on the career account.
"If I go to the bank, they’ll never let me back on the
bomb squad."
"And you keep asking to go back?"
"It’s all I’ve wanted since I got out of the hospital."
Irritated now, Starkey stood and lit another cigarette.
Dana studied her, which Starkey also didn’t like. It made
her feel watched, as if Dana was waiting for her to do or
say something more that she could write down. It was a valid
interview technique which Starkey used herself. If you said
nothing, people felt compelled to fill the silence.
"The job is all I have left, damnit."
Starkey blurted it, regretting the defensive edge in
her voice, and felt even more embarrassed when Dana again
scribbled a note.
"So you told Lieutenant Kelso that you would seek help
on your own?"
"Jesus, no. I kissed his ass to get out of it. I know I
have a problem, Dana, but I’ll get help in a way that
doesn’t fuck my career."
"Because of the thumb?"
Starkey stared at Dana Williams with the same flat eyes
she would use on Internal Affairs.
"Because I’m falling apart."
Dana sighed, and a warmth came to her eyes that
infuriated Starkey because she resented having to be here,
and having to reveal herself in ways that made her feel
vulnerable and weak. Carol Starkey did not do ‘weak’ well,
and never had.
"Carol, if you came back because you want me to fix you
as if you were broken, I can’t do that. Therapy isn’t the
same as setting a bone. It takes time."
"It’s been three years. I should be over this by now."
"There’s no ‘should’ here, Carol. Consider what
happened to you. Consider what you survived."
"I’ve had enough with considering it. I’ve considered
it for three fucking years."
A sharp pain began behind her eyes. Just from
considering it.
"Why do you think you keep changing therapists, Carol?"
Starkey shook her head, then lied.
"I don’t know."
"Are you still drinking?"
"I haven’t had a drink in over a year."
"How’s your sleep?"
"A couple of hours, then I’m wide awake."
"Is it the dream?"
Carol felt herself go cold.
"No."
"Anxiety attacks?"
Starkey was wondering how to answer when the pager
clipped to her waist vibrated. She recognized the number as
Kelso’s cell phone, followed by 911, the code the detectives
in the Criminal Conspiracy Section used when they wanted an
immediate response.
"Shit, Dana. I’ve gotta get this."
"Would you like me to leave?"
"No. No, I’ll just step out."
Starkey took her purse out into the waiting room where
a middle-aged woman seated on the couch briefly met her
eyes, then averted her face.
"Sorry."
The woman nodded without looking.
Starkey dug through her purse for her cell phone, then
punched the speed dial to return Kelso’s page. She could
tell he was in his car when he answered.
"It’s me, Lieutenant. What’s up?"
"Where are you?"
Starkey stared at the woman.
"I was looking for shoes."
"I didn’t ask what you were doing, Starkey. I asked
where you were."
She felt the flush of anger when he said it, and shame
that she even gave a damn what he thought.
"The west side."
"All right. The bomb squad had a call-out, and, um, I’m
on my way there now. Carol, we lost Charlie Riggio. He was
killed at the scene."
Starkey’s fingers went cold. Her scalp tingled. It was
called ‘going core.’ The body’s way of protecting itself by
drawing the blood inward to minimize bleeding. A response
left over from our animal pasts when the threat would
involve talons and fangs and something that wanted to rip
you apart. In Starkey’s world, the threat often still did.
"Starkey?"
She turned away and lowered her voice so that the woman
couldn’t hear.
"Sorry, Lieutenant. Was it a bomb? Was it a device that
went off?"
"I don’t know the details yet, but, yes, there was an
explosion."
Sweat leaked from her skin, and her stomach clenched.
Uncontrolled explosions were rare. A bomb squad officer
dying on the job was even more rare. The last time it had
happened was three years ago.
"Anyway, I’m on my way there now. Ah, Starkey, I could
put someone else on this, if you’d rather I did that."
"I’m up in the rotation, Lieutenant. It’s my case."
"All right. I wanted to offer."
He gave her the location, then broke the connection.
The woman on the couch was watching her as if she could read
Starkey’s pain. Starkey saw herself in the waiting-room
mirror, abruptly white beneath her tan. She felt herself
breathing. Shallow, fast breaths.
Starkey put her phone away, then went back to tell Dana
that she would have to end their session early.
"We’ve got a call-out, so I have to go. Ah, listen, I
don’t want you to turn in any of this to the insurance,
okay? I’ll pay out of my own pocket, like before."
"No one can get access to your insurance records,
Carol. Not without your permission. You truly don’t need to
spend the money."
"I’d rather pay."
As Starkey wrote the check, Dana said, "You didn’t
finish the story. Did you catch the man who made the
firecrackers?"
"The little girl’s mother took us to a garage two
blocks away where we found him with eight hundred pounds of
smokeless gunpowder. Eight hundred pounds, and the whole
place is reeking of gasoline because you know what this guy
does for a living? He’s a gardener. If that place had gone
up, it would’ve taken out the whole goddamned block."
"My lord."
Starkey handed over the check, then said her good-byes
and started for the door. She stopped with her hand on the
knob because she remembered something she’d been wondering
about, and had intended to ask Dana.
"There’s something about that guy I’ve been wondering
about. Maybe you can shed some light."
"In what way?"
"This guy we arrested, he tells us he’s been building
fireworks his whole life. You know how we know it’s true?
He’s only got three fingers on his left hand, and two on his
right. He’s blown them off one by one."
Dana turned pale.
"I’ve arrested a dozen guys like that. We call them
chronics. Why do they do that, Dana? What do you say about
people like that who keep going back to the bombs?"
Now Dana took out a cigarette of her own and struck it.
She blew out a fog of smoke and stared at Starkey before
answering.
"I think they want to destroy themselves."
Starkey nodded.
"I’ll call you to reschedule, Dana. Thanks."
Starkey went out to her car, keeping her head down as
she passed the woman in the waiting room. She slid behind
the wheel, but didn’t start the engine. Instead, she opened
her briefcase, and took out a slim silver flask of gin. She
took a long drink, then opened the door, and threw up in the
parking lot.
When she finished heaving, she put away the gin and ate
a Tagamet.
Then, doing her best to get a grip on herself, Carol
Starkey drove across town to a place exactly like the one
where she had died.
Mr. Red
John Michael Fowles leaned back on the bench across
from the school, enjoying the sun, and wondering if he had
made the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Not an easy thing to do
when they didn’t know who you were, but he’d been leaving
clues. He thought he might stop in a Kinko’s later, or maybe
the library, and use one of their computers to check the
FBI’s web page for the standings.
The sun made him smile. He raised his face to it,
letting the warmth soak into him, letting its radiation
brown his skin, marvelling at the enormity of its exploding
gases. That’s the way he liked to think of it: One great
monstrous explosion so large and bright that it could be
seen from ninety-three million miles away, fueled so
infinitely that it would take billions of years to consume
itself, so fucking cool that the very fact of it spawned
life here on this planet, and would eventually consume that
life when it gave a last flickering gasp and blew itself out
billions of years from now.
John thought it would be seriously cool to build a bomb
that big and set the sucker off. How cool it would be to see
those first few nanoseconds of its birth. Way cool.
Thinking about it, John felt a hardening in his groin
of a kind that had never been inspired by any living thing.
The voice said, "Are you Mr. Red?"
John opened his eyes. Even with his sunglasses, he had
to shield his eyes. John flashed the big white teeth.
"I be him. Are you Mr. Karpov?"
Making like a Florida cracker talking street, even
though John was neither from Florida, nor a cracker, nor the
street. He enjoyed the misdirection.
"Yes."
Karpov was an overweight man in his fifties, with a
heavily lined face and graying widow’s peak. A Russian
emigrant of dubious legality with several businesses in the
area. He was clearly nervous, which John expected and
somewhat enjoyed. Wilhelm Karpov was a criminal.
John scooted to the side and patted the bench.
"Here. Sit. We’ll talk."
Karpov dropped like a stone onto the bench. He clutched
a nylon bag with both hands the way an older woman would
hold a purse. In front, for protection.
Karpov said, "Thank you for doing this, sir. I have
these awful problems that must be dealt with. These terrible
enemies."
John put his hand on the bag, gently trying to pry it away.
"I know all about your problems, Mr. Karpov. We don’t
need to say another word about’m."
"Yes. Yes, well, thank you for agreeing to do this.
Thank you."
"You don’t have to thank me, Mr. Karpov, you surely don’t."
John would have never first spoken to the man, let
alone agreed to do what he was about to do and meet Karpov
like this if he had not thoroughly researched Wilhelm
Karpov. John’s business was by referral only, and John had
spoken with those who had referred him. Those men had in
fact asked John’s permission to even suggest his name to
Karpov, and were in a position to assure Karpov’s character.
John was big on character. He was big on secrecy, and
covering one’s ass. Which is why these people did not know
him by his real name, or know anything about him at all
except for his trade. Through them, John knew the complete
details of Karpov’s problem, what would be required, and had
already decided that he would take the job before their
first contact.
That was how you stayed on the Most Wanted List, and
out of prison.
"Leave go of the bag, Mr. Karpov."
Karpov abruptly let go of the bag as if it were
stinging him.
John laughed, taking the bag into his own lap.
"You don’t have to be nervous, Mr. Karpov. You’re among
friends here, believe you me. It don’t get no friendlier
than what I’m feeling for you right now. You know how
friendly it gets?"
Karpov just stared at him, incomprehending.
"I think we’re such good friends, me and you, that I’m
not even gonna look in this bag until later. That’s how such
good friends we are. We’re so fuckin’ tight, you and me,
that I know there is EXACTLY the right amount of cash in
here, and I’m willing to bet your life on it. How’s that for
friendly?"
Karpov’s eyes bulged large, and he swallowed.
"It is all there. It is exactly what you said in
fifties and twenties. Please count it now. Please count it
so that you are satisfied."
John shook his head and dropped the sack onto the bench
opposite Karpov.
"Nope. We’ll just let this little scenario play out the
way it will and hope you didn’t count wrong."
Karpov reached across him for the sack.
"Please."
John laughed and pushed Karpov back.
"Don’t you worry about it, Mr. Karpov. I’m just funnin’
with you."
Funnin’. Like he was an idiot as well as a cracker.
"Here. I want to show you something."
He took a small tube from his pocket and held it out.
It used to be a dime-store flashlight, the kind with a
push-button switch in the end opposite the bulb. It wasn’t a
flashlight anymore
"Go ahead and take it. The damned thing won’t bite."
Karpov took it.
"What is this?"
John tipped his head toward the schoolyard across the
street. It was lunch. The kids were running around, playing
in the few minutes before they would have to troop back into
class.
"Lookit those kids over there. I been watchin’m. Pretty
little girls and boys. Man, look at how they’re just running
around, got all the energy in the world, all that free
spirit and potential. You’re that age, I guess everything’s
still possible, ain’t it? Lookit that little boy in the blue
shirt. Over there to the right, Karpov, jesus, right there.
Good lookin’ little fella, blond, freckles. Christ, bet the
little sonofabitch could grow up fuckin’ all the
cheerleaders he wants, then be the goddamned president to
boot. Shit like that can’t happen over there where you’re
from, can it? But here, man, this is the fuckin’ U.S. of A,
and you can do any goddamned thing you want until they start
tellin’ you that you can’t."
Karpov was staring at him, the tube in his hand forgotten.
"Right now, anything in that child’s head is possible,
and it’ll stay possible ‘til that fuckin’ cheerleader calls
him a pizzaface and her retarded fullback boyfriend beats
the shit out of him for talking to his girl. Right now that
boy is happy, Mr. Karpov, just look at how happy, but all
that is gonna end just as soon as he realizes all those
hopes and dreams he has ain’t never gonna work."
John slowly let his eyes drift to the tube.
"You could save that poor child all that grief, Mr.
Karpov. Somewhere very close to us there is a device. I have
built that device, and placed it carefully, and you now
control it."
Karpov looked at the tube, and swallowed. His
expression was as milky as if he’d held a rattlesnake.
"If you press that little silver button, maybe you can
save that child the pain he’s gonna face. I’m not sayin’ the
device is over there in that school, but I’m sayin’ maybe.
Maybe that whole fuckin’ playground would erupt in a
beautiful red firestorm. Maybe those babies would be hit so
hard by the shockwave that all their shoes would just be
left scattered on the ground, and the clothes and skin would
scorch right off their bones. I ain’t sayin’ that, but there
it is right there in that silver button. You can end that
boy’s pain. You have the power. You can turn the world to
hell, you want, because you have the power right there in
that little button. I have created it, and now I’ve given it
to you. You. Right there in your hand."
Karpov stood and thrust the tube at John.
"I want no part of this. Take it. Take it. I cannot do
that."
John slowly took the tube. He fingered the silver button.
"When I do what you want me to do, Mr. Karpov, people
are gonna die. What’s the fuckin’ difference?"
"The money is all there. Every dollar. All of it."
Karpov walked away without another word. He crossed the
street, walking so fast that his strides became a kind of
hop, as if he expected the world around him to turn to flame.
John dropped the tube into the nylon bag with the money.
They never seemed to appreciate the gift he offered.
John settled back again, stretched his arms along the
backrest to enjoy the sun and the sounds of the children
playing. It was a beautiful day, and would grow even more
beautiful when a second sun had risen.
After a while he got up and walked away to check the
Most Wanted list.
Last week he wasn’t on it.
This week he hoped to be.