Chapter Eleven

Tony Rolf slipped in a side door of the main Scientology office building. Oppenheimer’s office was on the seventh floor, but Rolf avoided the elevators by taking the stairs instead. He was still shaken by his encounter with the cop. The lousy old bastard had been waiting for him. And he had been armed. He could still feel the rush of hot air as the bullet had gone between his legs. A few inches higher and the cop would have blown his balls off.

He made it to the seventh floor without encountering anyone and used the key they had given him to open the outer office. He didn’t have a key to Oppenheimer’s inner office, but he didn’t need one. The set of picklocks in his back pocket would do the job.

He had fled the scene at the hospital in a panic before realizing that no one was pursuing him. He had gone directly to the doctors’ lounge and retrieved the street clothes he had left there, changed, returned the doctor’s ID to the locker he had taken it from, and used his cell phone to call a cab. He was at Scientology headquarters a half hour later.

Inside Oppenheimer’s office he fell into the soft leather couch and closed his eyes. Oppenheimer, he knew, would not arrive until six, his usual hour. That would give them time for a little chat, perhaps one with Regis Walsh as well.

* * *

By one a.m. the Clearwater PD had a new officer assigned to guard duty outside Jocko’s room and a two-man squad car was keeping a tight surveillance of the exterior of the hospital complex. Jocko had insisted on keeping his weapon. The hospital capitulated, but only after he assured them the weapon would only be used under the direst of circumstances.

“What do they think I’m going to do, shoot into the goddamn ceiling every time the Rays win a ball game?” he groused to Harry.

“Okay, Wyatt, just don’t shoot any nurses, especially the cute ones,” Harry said.

“Any more of that Wyatt Earp crap and you better be prepared to dance,” Jocko replied.

* * *

Meg was still on his boat and wide awake when Harry got back. “I wanted to know how your father was,” she explained.

Harry told her about the albino’s attempt on his father’s life, how the guy had taken out the police officer guarding him only to discover that his father was armed and waiting for him.

“This is the second time he’s tried to kill a cop, plus the two women we know he killed. Every cop in the state is looking for him. He shows his albino ass anywhere, he’ll either be lying on a slab in the morgue or sitting in jail.”

“Doesn’t sound like he has much of a chance,” Meg said.

“Not if I find him first, which is what I intend to do.”

“Why is it so important that you find him?”

He looked at her with astonishment. “Twice now that bastard has tried to kill the only man who ever tried to be a father to me. I intend to make sure he doesn’t get a third chance.”

Meg returned to her sailboat and Harry used the opportunity to grab a few hours of sleep.

When he awoke he found Vicky in his galley brewing coffee. “I heard about Jocko,” she said. “So I took some vacation time so I could help you.” She raised her nose and sniffed the air. “Smells like a woman’s been here.” She inclined her head toward the dock. “The sailboat lady?”

“Would you really respect me if I was the kind of guy who kissed and told?”

“Depends on who you’re kissing.”

Harry let that one lie. He noticed that Vicky was blushing.

* * *

“What are you doing here?”

Tony Rolf awoke to the sound of Kenneth Oppenheimer’s voice. The words took a moment to register, as he stared up at the hulking body that was looming above him.

“You’re supposed to be at the house in Safety Harbor. Did something happen?”

He could hear the fear in Oppenheimer’s voice and the sound of it sickened him. In the past few hours he’d subdued one police guard and faced down another cop who had sent a bullet whizzing between his legs. And here was his supposed protector wetting his pants because he’d found him sleeping on his office sofa.

“I went after the old cop—the one who could put me away for dealing with that 1.1 O’Connell woman.” He gave Oppenheimer a detailed account of what had happened. “I escaped without any problems but I couldn’t push it any further and take a chance they could trace me to the safe house.”

“I’ll get you back there before the rest of the staff gets in.”

“What about Walsh? Maybe I should talk to him.”

“I’ll tell him you’re interested in talking to him. If he agrees, he can come to the house in Safety Harbor or reach you by phone.”

“Tell him it’s important to me. Tell him he can either grant me that courtesy or he just might find me waiting in his office some morning.”

Oppenheimer stared at him, wondering if he should say anything. He knew that Rolf was armed with a knife, perhaps even the same weapon he had used to kill the woman in Tarpon Springs. There was no need to push him, no need to put his own life in danger, he decided. He’d get the man out of here and let Walsh handle it.

* * *

“If he’s hiding in Safety Harbor it has to be in some church-owned property, or a house or apartment that belongs to a church member.” Vicky tapped the side of her nose. “We need to talk to somebody in the city clerk’s office.”

While Vicky headed to city hall, Harry and Max expanded the search zone they had started the day before. It was Friday morning and the neighborhoods were quiet. A few mothers pushed strollers and carriages to nearby parks, and numerous retirees were out doing yard work or headed to local hardware stores and garden centers or to one of the local restaurants for breakfast. All in all, it made for easier interviews than normal. Harry and Max each had copies of the police artist sketches of Rolf.

On his twelfth interview Harry got his first solid lead of the day. Jimmy Drake was a seventy-five-year-old retired chief warrant officer. The US Army had been his home for thirty years, until he realized that those who ran it were going to keep sending him to Vietnam until he finally came home in a box. After a third tour he retired and took a job with a major pharmaceutical company where he spent another fifteen years, retiring at sixty-five with two pensions topped off by a monthly Social Security check. Now his garden occupied most of his time, and his pensions provided the means for his second great passion: frequent visits to the areas many upscale restaurants.

Harry learned all of this in his first fifteen minutes of conversation. Jimmy Drake lived alone and he was obviously starved for conversation. He was also a thoroughly nosy neighbor, the kind all cops dream of finding.

“These Scientologists, they’re everywhere. They’re not just in downtown Clearwater, you know,” Jimmy said. “They’re here too. See that house across the street? It’s owned by a guy named Drummer. He’s one of them.” Harry turned to look at the house. Jimmy reached out and took his arm as if preparing to restrain him. “Oh, he’s not there now. Those kooky bastards he works for just sent him and his wife out west for a couple of months—some special training or something. Probably gonna meet up with some spaceship or something. I see lights on over there at night, but it could be set up on a timer. I have one of those for my place if I go out of town.”

“Do you know any other Scientologists who live here in town?” Harry asked.

“No, but I know they’re here,” Jimmy insisted. “I see them coming to Drummer’s house, socializing, you know? Parties, barbeques, and stuff like that. Then I see them around town later. And according to all those articles I read in the Tampa Bay Times, even though it’s not Scientology’s official policy, these guys are only supposed to socialize with other members of their church.”

“So you never saw any of your other neighbors going over there?”

“Not a one, never. And he sure as hell never invited me.” Jimmy let out a derisive snort. “And if he had, I sure as hell wouldn’t have gone. Bunch of fuckin’ kooks, that’s what they are.”

* * *

Harry caught up with Max just as he was finishing a call on his cell. He quickly filled Max in on what Jimmy had told him.

“We’ll check out the house, see if anyone’s there.” Max held up his cell phone.

“Now I got one for you.” He took the sketch of Rolf out of his suit coat pocket and held it up. “You remember our police artist buddy, Jeremy Jeffords. Well, I just got a call from my regular partner, Jimmy Walker. I asked him to do a little digging. It always bugged me that Jocko said the sketch Jeffords did was bullshit. Guess what Walker found out?”

Harry’s face lit up. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not,” Max said. “Jeffords is a member of the church, a dyed-in-the-wool fucking Scientologist.”

Harry’s cell rang; it was Vicky wanting to know their location. Harry told her and a few minutes later she pulled up in her car.

“Been waiting to hear from you guys,” she said. “Have you come up with anything?”

Harry updated her on Max’s new information.

“Son of a bitch,” she said.

Harry nodded toward the house behind them. “That joint is owned by a Scientologist, according to a neighbor I interviewed. He and his wife are supposed to be out of town for a few months on church business.”

“A perfect place for our boy to be stashed,” Vicky said.

“Let’s go shake the doors and look in the windows,” Max said. “See if we can flush this bird.”

* * *

Tony Rolf stayed far back in the shadows as he listened to them knock on the front door and ring the doorbell. One of them even tried the door to see if it was open. Then someone went to the back door and did the same. He had been watching the cops as they gathered outside his little hideaway. He knew all three by sight, given the time he had spent watching Harry Doyle. Now it seemed that this dead detective and his friends might have him cornered. He slipped into the master bedroom and then the adjoining bath. He placed a call to Oppenheimer and waited for him to answer. The cell rang five times and went automatically to voice mail. He left a detailed message, then put his phone on vibrate so any return call wouldn’t give away his presence in the house.

He listened intently as one of the cops moved around the perimeter, covering all the windows, making as much noise as he could. He was certain the other two were watching the front and rear doors. They didn’t know he was there, he thought, or they would have forced their way inside. Instead they were trying to panic him, flush him out one of the two doors.

He tried to remember if he had left any clothing on a chair or the bed. No, he was certain there was nothing they could see that would give them a reason to force their way inside.

* * *

Oppenheimer called back two hours later, explaining that he had been in a meeting that had just ended. When Rolf told him what had happened, there was an eerie silence on the line. Rolf knew that Oppenheimer was calculating the threat, especially the threat to himself. “You’ll have to be moved,” he said.

“That boat we were trying to get Mary Kate O’Connell on, the one that investment clown owns; that’s where I want to go.”

“Edward Tyrell’s boat . . .”

“That’s it. I couldn’t remember his name. I can get out of here myself. It’ll be safer than having you meet me. As soon as I hear that Tyrell is at his boat I’ll slip out of here, grab a cab, and meet him there. You can tell him whatever you want, but just make it clear that I’ll be staying on the boat until you move me to a new location.”

He could hear the relief in Oppenheimer’s voice as he agreed to the plan. It would keep his hands clean if everything went south. If the cops nabbed him as he fled the house, Oppenheimer could deny any involvement. His ass would be safe, the fucking coward. And it wasn’t just Oppenheimer. He knew Walsh was in the background pulling the strings for his puppets—Oppenheimer, Tyrell, and who knew how many others. He hoped that someday he would have a chance to pay all of them back.

Oppenheimer called him again at eleven that evening. Rolf had been watching the street and he was certain the cops were gone. A lone patrol car went by the house every hour, but that seemed to be the only surveillance. Still, he wouldn’t take any chances. He’d jump the fence of the neighboring house and cut through their yard to the street—he’d taken that route before and it had worked well—then head straight to the restaurant at the corner of Main Street where he’d order a beer and call for a cab. Fifteen minutes after the cab arrived he’d be aboard Tyrell’s fifty-three-foot Hatteras yacht. Rolf smiled to himself. It was going to be nice staying in a hideout that could move at high speed if necessary.

* * *

Harry returned to his boat and immediately got on his computer. Meg stuck her head into the salon and requested permission to visit. Harry waved her in.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“We think we may have flushed the albino out and that he’ll try to get out of Safety Harbor tonight, so I’m checking with all cab companies that service the area for any fares carrying single males.”

“What if he goes with a friend from the church?”

“Then we’re screwed,” Harry said. “But I don’t think anybody inside the church is going to stick their neck out that far.”

“Sounds like a long night. I’ll get us a good bottle of wine from my private stock.”

* * *

Tyrell was waiting for Rolf on the dock.

“You’ll be going aboard a friend’s yacht in another marina,” Tyrell explained. “The owner, who is also a client, is out of town on an extended business trip and he asked me to keep an eye on the boat for him. He should be gone for the next three or four weeks and you should be out of the area by the time he gets back.”

“Whose idea was this?” Rolf demanded. He could see that Tyrell was extremely nervous and Rolf was enjoying it.

“It was Mr. Walsh. He feels the police may be able to trace your movements. If they do and it leads to this marina, my boat will be an obvious place to look for you.”

“I want to talk to him,” Rolf said.

“And he wants to talk to you. He asked me to tell you that he’ll call you later tonight.”

Rolf was pleasantly surprised when he saw the new boat. It was a few years older than Tyrell’s but just as large and comfortable. The Hatteras Yachtfish was a serious sportfishing boat, fitted with outriggers and all the gear needed to pursue and catch major game fish, from blue marlin on down to dorado and wahoo. But it also offered luxurious accommodations with three staterooms, each with a private head and shower, a comfortable salon and dining area, and a well-equipped galley. It was docked in a small marina a quarter-mile across the channel from the marina where the so-called dead detective kept his boat—so near and yet so far.

Rolf smiled to himself and looked at Tyrell. He was tall and slender, with a gym-fit body that reeked of money right down to his perfectly capped teeth. And he was ready to wet his pants. The man couldn’t wait to get away from him. “This will do very nicely,” Rolf said, making a circular motion with a finger to take in the entire vessel. He held out a hand. “Keys.”

“Well, you’ll only need keys for the salon door; you won’t be taking her out,” Tyrell said. There was a tremor of fear in his voice.

“I want a full set of keys.” He gave the guy a hard, unblinking stare.

Tyrell swallowed hard. “Yes, yes,” he said. “On second thought, that makes better sense.”

* * *

Kenneth Oppenheimer entered Walsh’s dimly lit office. He had been tersely summoned, which was always a bad sign, so he had dropped what he was doing and had gone directly to the office’s rear door.

“When you saw Tony Rolf, how would you describe his mood?” Walsh asked.

“Volatile.”

“Volatile in what way?”

“In every way; I was uncomfortable being in the same room with him. I had no idea what would set him off and I didn’t know if he was armed, but I assumed he was. After all, he’s killed two women, and he’s tried to kill that retired cop twice now.”

Walsh leaned back in his plush executive desk chair. “Tony has served us well over the years. Don’t you feel we owe him some loyalty . . . If it was your decision, what would you do?”

“I’d get rid of him, one way or the other.”

“Kill him?”

“No, of course not,” Oppenheimer said. “I’m not a killer and I don’t condone it from others.”

“There’s an interesting word in the church’s lexicon. It’s called unmock. It means to have a person or thing disappear, become nothing, cease to exist.”

“Cease to exist as in death?”

“Mr. Hubbard never elaborated on the word. I think it’s fair to say it was left open to interpretation.”

* * *

Tony Rolf sat in one of the salon’s plush chairs and drummed his fingers on a side table. Walsh should have called him by now. He glanced at his watch; it was nearly eleven. They all thought they could put him off, make him wait. But when they wanted him to do something, it had to be done lickity-split. That stupid expression, it had been one of his father’s favorites. But so was: You little freak. That was reserved for when he addressed his only son, the albino, the child whose very existence disgraced him.

His father was convinced his mother had cheated on him with some degenerate who had passed on the inferior gene. None of the doctors the boy went to could convince him he was wrong, and whenever he went on a bender—which was often—he would come home and beat his mother and then him, just on general principle.

He still remembered the day his father had stopped hitting him. He was fourteen and his father was fat and flabby and fifty. That afternoon Tony had gotten a roll of nickels at a bank and wrapped it with tape. A street thug he had befriended had showed him how. Then he held the roll of taped nickels in his right hand and closed his fist around it. His street friend had called them “a poor man’s brass knuckles” and said it would allow him to hit with the power of a professional fighter.

This time, when his father had finished with his mother and turned on him, he was ready. He hit him flush on the jaw with every ounce of strength he had, and the fat bastard had gone down like a bag of wet laundry.

He was on him as soon as he hit the ground and one blow was followed by another and another, as years of hatred and frustration poured out of him. After half a dozen blows his mother wrapped her arms around him and struggled to pull him off.

“Stop, Tony, you’ll kill him, you’ll kill him!”

He had turned and glared at her. “I want to kill him,” he hissed. “I want it more than anything else in the world.”

When he went to bed that night he locked his door from the inside and waited up most of the night. But his father had left the house and stayed away for several days. Finally, when he returned, he acted as though nothing had happened, but Tony knew the miserable bastard was only biding his time, waiting to catch him unawares. That was when he had bought his first knife, a six-inch switchblade finely honed and razor sharp. His street friend had instructed him on its use: stick it hard in the belly and then pull the cutting edge up. He had explained that every vital organ in the human body was only three inches below the skin and a six-inch blade like his was more than enough to cut most of them in half. Now it was just a matter of deciding when and where.

That time came three days later, when his father jimmied open his bedroom door at three a.m. and found Tony sitting in bed waiting for him. The switchblade flashed open and his father stared at it, then turned and ran. Tony never saw him again. Three months later they learned he had been killed in a barroom fight.

His cell phone rang at eleven thirty, driving away his reminiscences.

“I’m sorry to be calling you so late. I hope I didn’t wake you.” Walsh’s voice sounded so calm, as if no danger surrounded them, no threat existed. It was the same as it had been twelve years earlier when Walsh had plucked him off a Los Angeles street only minutes before the police arrived to arrest him. Walsh had opened the doors of the church to him and employed him to help enforce its rules. At Walsh’s suggestion he had changed his name to further thwart the police and they had moved him to Florida.

“No, I was awake.”

“I understand from Ken Oppenheimer that you’re not happy with the support you’re getting. Is that true, Tony?”

“It’s true,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

“What specifically did you find unsupportive?”

“Everything,” Tony snapped. “Everything that matters. I was stashed away in that house in Safety Harbor without regular contact with anyone. Just told to sit and wait.” He instantly regretted lashing out at Walsh. This was the one person in the church who had always been supportive of him. In fact, he had always viewed himself as essentially Walsh’s creation.

“It was my fault,” Walsh said. “I was being overly cautious. I gave the police too much credit. But I won’t make that mistake again.”

Tony thought of how close the police had come. “And maybe I was taking too many chances.”

Walsh chuckled on the other end of the phone. “You are a bit cavalier at times. A touch of restraint would be a good habit to cultivate. But I’ve always felt your occasional lapses were due to an eagerness to do good for the church, and that’s a quality I admire.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Tony, are you familiar with the word unmock?”

“Yes, it means to make someone or something disappear, or stop existing.”

“Precisely, either figuratively or literally, and that’s your job within the church. But only on a direct order from me.”

“I understand.”

“Good. And for the time being we’re going to forget about this retired police officer. His son is the greater danger.”

“Do you want him . . . ?”

“No, not yet, I’d prefer that he be disgraced in some way. But that’s going to require some thought. So, for the time being, you just sit tight and stay out of sight.” Walsh chuckled again, at the rhyming words. “How poetic I am,” he said.

Rolf joined in with a faint laugh.

“I promise you, it won’t be long before we can get you out of here.”

“That’s good to hear,” Rolf said, hanging up the phone.

“You’re the only one who can handle that psychopath,” said Oppenheimer, who’d been listening to the conversation on a muted handset.

“I hope you’re right. And I hope he stays handled. Otherwise we may be forced to unmock Mr. Rolf,” Walsh responded