The parking lot of the mini-mall that held The Chalked Cue hadn’t changed in a week. I had. I didn’t have a gun anymore and my ribs and head were sore. On the mend, but still sore. I sat in my Mustang parked in front of a Smart & Final store in an outer parking spot with a good view of The Chalked Cue. The store stayed open until 10:00 p.m., and it was now 8:05 p.m. I had another couple hours of cover until the cars cleared out.
I’d called Buckley after I left LJI with what I’d found. He explained to me what I already knew, that the evidence wouldn’t be allowed in court because of how I’d obtained it. However, he agreed with me that once Randall was released, it could be a valuable tool in convincing the DA not to retry the case.
Buckley still wanted DNA from Steven Lunsdorf, if possible. Thus, I sat in my car with a zoom-lensed camera pointed at the front of The Chalked Cue. Moira had offered to ride shotgun, but I convinced her and Buckley that she should continue to stake out Trey instead. I wasn’t going into the bar. Wouldn’t even if I had my gun back. Not even with a howitzer. I’d stay safely outside, collect a cigarette butt, and flee the scene.
A full moon spotlighted the night, muscling out all but the brightest stars. The windows of my Mustang GT were tinted as dark as California would allow. They’re opaque at night. Still, I ducked my head down whenever a car entered the parking lot. Couldn’t be too careful. That was some of Buckley’s wisdom talking.
I knew Lunsdorf was in the bar. His nickname was “Duke,” and there was a Harley parked out front with that name emblazoned in orange flames on its gas tank. He’d come out sooner or later and light up. He’d had yellow smoker’s teeth in his smirking booking photo. I doubted he’d started making healthy choices lately. I’d wait him out. I’d had a lot of practice waiting. I focused my camera on the front of the bar, not through the curtains of someone’s bedroom. This was about murder and possibly freeing an innocent man, not broken marriage vows. As Buckley liked to say, this was a case that mattered.
A rumble pulled the camera down from my eyes. A beat-up Trans Am with a broken muffler or none at all pulled into the parking lot and parked near The Chalked Cue. What was it with these bikers and loud cars? Maybe after years of sitting atop 500cc engines they’d gone deaf, and only trusted a vehicle they could feel through the thundering woofer of life without a muffler.
I put the camera on the Trans Am and a mountain-sized man hoisted himself out of the muscle car. He could have been either the Raptor who cracked my head and ribs and stole my gun, or the guy who’d met with Fellows on the QT in the PB bar and then brought a lawyer to Fellows’ Candlelight Drive hideout. Or it could have been just another Raptor side of beef with a buffalo head of black hair and a Rasputin beard.
I kept the camera pinned on him as he headed for the front door of the bar. The door opened before he got to it and a skinhead version of a Raptor came out. They said something to each other and the mountain turned his head in my direction as he finished the conversation. The light from The Chalked Cue neon sign caught his face and a scar across his eyebrow.
My attacker.
The man who’d pistol-whipped me and put a size 15 Timberland into my ribcage. My breaths came quick and through my nose and my gut turned over. Not because I was afraid. Because fight had kicked in over flight and I wanted revenge.
The man went into the bar and I sat in my car fogging the windows. I’d been hired to do a job, not to get even. But I didn’t want even, I wanted one-up on even. And I wanted my gun back. I hadn’t figured out how I could accomplish one or both yet, but I was working on it. In the meantime, I kept the camera on the front door of The Chalked Cue and waited for a chance to complete the task I’d been hired to do.
I didn’t have to wait very long. Fifteen minutes later, Steven Lunsdorf came out of the bar. Blond buzz cut, white t-shirt, and the rest, all leather. A woman was with him in matching attire. They didn’t go to his chopper, but instead walked over to a eucalyptus tree in the corner of the parking lot. The orange flash of a lighter went up to a cigarette in Lunsdorf’s mouth.
For the first time ever, I blessed the politicians up in Sacramento. Not even a gang as vicious as the Raptors wanted to take on the State of California and smoke in a bar. Or at least the bar owner didn’t want to and was tough enough to make the Raptors comply.
I clipped off twenty or so shots with the camera without using the flash. The images would be a bit fuzzy, but the moon and the lights in the parking lot gave just enough illumination to make them identifiable. After a few minutes, both Lunsdorf and the woman flicked their butts into some ice plant that rimmed the parking lot.
Shit.
It would have been too easy if they’d just dropped the butts where they stood. Time to go to work. I put the camera away, took off my coat, grabbed a long-handled trash picker and paper grocery bag from the passenger seat, and got out of the car. Police always collect potential DNA evidence in paper bags because the evidence can collect mold in plastic. I didn’t expect the cigarette butts to sit long, but I wouldn’t take any chances.
The night had some bite to it, made that much colder without my coat. I wore jeans and a Dickies work shirt that had the name “Dave” above the left pocket. A Charger hat wore down low kept my head warm and gave me some cover.
I walked down the parking lot to the ice plant and zeroed in where Lunsdorf had flung his cigarette butt. There were at least fifty butts in the area, but only ten or fifteen that looked fresh. I plucked them up with the trash picker and smelled them for the scent of smoke. Only seven passed the smell test. Good. A small number for Buckley’s friend at the DNA lab to test.
The good news was that, although Lunsdorf’s DNA was not in any known database, his fingerprints would be. He’d been arrested a couple times and his prints would be in the FBI’s IAFIS database. So, if I’d found the correct butt, his fingerprints would be on it, and the DNA on the butt could be linked to him.
I went back to my car and secured the paper bag with the cigarette butts in the trunk. While I was there, I pulled up the floor panel that covered the spare tire. Wedged next to the tire was a small duffel bag. The bag was gray, but it may as well have been black. It was where I kept my off-the-record tools. It held a lock-pick set, a blackjack, and a slim jim. For black-bag jobs. Bob Reitzmeyer didn’t know about the bag. Neither did Buckley. They had never asked me to step over the line. That was my choice. I didn’t use the contents of the bag often, but every time I did, I broke the law. I tossed the duffel onto the passenger seat.
I’d taken care of my professional task. Now I had a personal one to handle. I got into the Mustang, drove down the parking lot toward The Chalked Cue, and parked next to the Trans Am.
The man who owned the Trans Am had taken my gun away from me. A gun that I’d never fired and probably never would. Maybe never could. But I’d been a cop. Your gun was a piece of you. The man had taken my gun. A piece of me was missing.
Now was time to take it back.
My late father had told me long ago that sometimes you had to do what was right even when the law says it’s wrong. Two years later, he was pushed off the police force for doing something wrong that I don’t think even he thought was right. I didn’t allow myself that cover. I just did what needed to get done. Tonight, I was just doing what I wanted done. No greater good involved.
I pulled out the slim jim and the lock-pick set from the duffel bag. The slim jim was a two-foot-long flat metal rod, about an inch and a half wide, with a plastic handle on one end and a hook cut out of the metal on the other. It was used by locksmiths to open car doors with keys locked inside. And by car thieves and rip-off artists. And by me. The slim jim only worked on older cars with the door lock on top. Like a ’70s Trans Am. I could have used the lock-pick set on the car, but the slim jim was quicker. I’d need the picks if there was no latch for the trunk inside the car.
I put my coat back on against the chilled December night. The Trans Am was parked in the second row of cars in front of the bar, so I had cover from a pickup with oversized tires. I scanned the parking lot. Empty of people. I sidled up to the passenger side of the Trans Am where I had more cover, and checked the interior for a blinking light in the dash, signifying an alarm. Nothing. I tried the door handle. Locked. I slipped the hook end of the slim jim between the weather strip and the window near the lock, and gently wiggled it up and down during descent. I felt the hook latch onto something and saw the door lock move slightly. Bingo. I smoothly pulled up the tool and the lock clicked up.
I scanned the lot again, then ducked into the car. Empty Budweiser cans and fast-food wrappers were strewn on the floor below the passenger seat. This guy was a cheap date and a slob. The car smelled of stale beer, a combination of cigarette and marijuana smoke, and BO.
I’d only been inside ten seconds and I already wanted out. But I still had work to do. If my gun was in the car, I was going to find it. I opened the glove compartment and five years’ worth of paper car registrations and take-out menus flopped out. I rummaged through the remaining debris. No gun. I looked under the passenger seat and sifted through more beer cans. Nothing. Same for under the driver’s seat and in the backseat.
I went back into the front seat through the less-exposed passenger door to see if there was a latch for the trunk. I shimmied my torso across the seat and reached underneath the steering wheel in search of a trunk latch. Nothing. When I moved back to the passenger seat, the ashtray caught my eye. It was open a crack, and there was a small, folded piece of paper among smashed cigarette butts. I pulled it out and unfolded it. The address to Trey Fellows’ hideaway was written on it. 5564 Candlelight Drive. Nothing else. I folded the paper up again and put it back in the ashtray, then exited the car.
Had Eric Schmidt, the Raptor who’d visited Trey with Alan Rankin, given the Trans Am owner the address, or had someone else? Someone on LJPD? I didn’t have time to figure out who or what it meant now.
I went around to the trunk and pulled the pick set out of my pocket. I put the tension bar, a small, L-shaped piece of metal that looks like a flat Allen wrench, into the bottom of the key slot. Next the rake, another thin strip of metal that is shaped into a couple waves on the end, went into the top of the lock. I pulled the tension bar to the right while I moved the rake back and forth. One by one, the rake moved the lock pins into place and the key slot moved toward horizontal. I pulled out the tension bar and rake, replaced them with a flat-head screwdriver, twisted it up to vertical and the trunk lid popped open. The whole thing took less than a minute.
I pulled the lid up and looked inside. The trunk was more of a mess than the front seat. More crushed empty beer cans, a crowbar, a Phillips screwdriver, discarded newspapers, work gloves, a heavy chain, and a baseball bat with a small dark stain on the head that could have been dried blood. It could have been something innocent as well. My bet was on the blood.
On top of the mess were hundreds of fresh pine needles, like a tree had recently been shoved into the trunk. I guessed biker gangs celebrated Christmas too. At least the trunk smelled better than the rest of the car. I pulled up the floor panel and checked the spare tire well to see if the Raptor used my hiding place. Nothing. Just the tire. I closed the trunk.
I hadn’t found my gun but I may have found something more valuable, the Candlelight address on the piece of paper in the Raptor’s ashtray. If only I knew what it meant or what to do with it. I went back to my car and put the lock-pick tools back in the duffel bag, then went around to the trunk to put away the bag. A voice grabbed my attention as I opened the trunk. I peeked around it and saw the big Raptor with the scar talking to Steven Lunsdorf outside The Chalked Cue fifty feet away. Lunsdorf had been the Raptors’ de facto shot caller since the real boss had been in prison. I wondered if Scarface was his enforcer. He fit the role.
I pulled the blackjack from the duffel bag, quietly closed the trunk, and crouched down behind my car. I had time to get into the Mustang and drive away before the big guy made it back to his car. That would have been the safe and smart thing to do. The pain in my ribs as I crouched down reminded me that I hadn’t been safe and smart the last time I’d been to The Chalked Cue. It also reminded me of where the pain had come from.
I raised up a few inches so I could get a good look at the bar. The big one was still talking to Lunsdorf out front. I still had time to exit unnoticed.
I stayed put behind the car.
Lunsdorf handed something to the big Raptor, then went back inside the bar. The big dude held something between his thumb and forefinger. Maybe a small piece of paper. He studied it and then put it in the top pocket of his leather jacket. He scanned the parking lot and then headed in my direction.
I felt the blackjack’s cool leather in my hand. The weapon was a leather strap with powdered lead in one end. I’d never used it before. Not even as a cop. If I did now, I could be looking at jail time if the Raptor pressed charges. It wouldn’t matter that he had attacked me before. I was lying in wait. Serious time.
My life would be irrevocably changed by one stupid decision. I’d already made one of those decisions in my life. Ten years ago, I’d chosen not to pick up my wife from the library, and she’d been raped and murdered. I couldn’t throw away the sliver of a life I had left.
I crouched back down and waited for the Raptor to get into his car and drive away. Five seconds later, I heard a key go into a lock and a car door open and shut. The engine didn’t start right up, and I worried that the Raptor might have seen or sensed something wrong about the inside of his car. Maybe there’d been order in the mess. Maybe I hadn’t put every empty Bud can in its proper place. Or maybe he was lighting up a cigarette or a blunt.
A footfall behind me told me I’d been wrong on all counts. “Waiting for somebody, motherfucker?”
I recognized his voice. I wondered if he recognized my back. Then I felt cold steel on my neck. The end of a round cylinder of cold steel. “Stand up slowly, asshole.”
I’d felt the barrel of a gun pressed against my skin before. Two people had died that night, but not me. Had my luck run out? I did as I was told and the gun barrel stayed pinned to my neck. I kept the blackjack flat against my right leg.
“Think you can sneak up on me?” Apparently not. “Rock picked another dumb motherfucker to do his dirty work. Too bad for you. Start walking to the bar.”
I didn’t know who Rock was, but it didn’t matter right now. I started walking slowly. If we made it into the bar, I’d either come out on a stretcher or in a body bag. I had to get the gun off my neck and make a move. Or just make a move and hope I was faster than his trigger finger. A quick movement would probably get me killed. I prayed a quick sound wouldn’t.