The Sentry - By Robert Crais Page 0,59
because they went against his instincts. You didn’t warn your target you were coming. Wilson had seen the message, understood, and immediately disappeared. Pike now felt Wilson’s intention to flee had nothing to do with Mendoza and Gomer and everything to do with the new man’s arrival.
Pike snapped off his light, turned away from the window, and considered the shops across the street as he thought through the contradiction. Wilson had seen the message, panicked, and run. Maybe that was the point—maybe the man warned them because he wanted them to flee, like a hunter flushing game from cover. He had probably been watching Wilson’s shop when Wilson arrived that morning. He probably followed Wilson back to the house, but Mendoza and Gomer interrupted his play.
Pike returned to his Jeep for Jack Straw’s phone number. Straw answered on the third ring, sounding relaxed and hazy like a DJ on an FM jazz station.
Pike said, “Did you have people watching Smith’s shop the past few days?”
“Yeah. On and off. Why?”
“They might have seen the man who killed Mendoza and Gomer.”
“Hang on.”
Pike heard sounds like Straw was cupping his phone. The noises continued for almost a minute before Straw returned to the line.
“Look across the street.”
Pike glanced across, and knew they were watching him. Straw immediately spoke again.
“See the tattoo parlor?”
“Yes.”
“See the office above it?”
Upstairs, black windows with a FOR LEASE sign taped to the glass. Of course.
“Come through the tattoo place, and go out the back. You’ll see a stair. The man at the counter says anything, tell’m you’re with the band.”
Pike crossed between cars and went through the tattoo shop. A bald man with tattoos on his scalp and cheeks and a large metal ring through his nose was reading a James Ellroy novel behind the counter. He glanced up when Pike entered, but went back to reading when Pike pointed at the ceiling.
Pike passed walls lined with thousands of tattoo designs, then through a narrow back door and up a flight of metal stairs. Straw was waiting at the top, wearing jeans and a loose V-neck T-shirt that needed a wash. He showed Pike into a tiny two-room office suite without furniture. The only light came from a single lamp burning in the back room. The front room overlooking the street caught a wedge of light through the partially open door, but the windows overlooking the street were covered with black cloth spotted with small rectangular cutouts for viewing the street. The man in the orange shirt was cross-legged on the floor with his back against the wall. He stared at Pike with indifference and made no move to offer his hand.
It was a bare-bones hide, smelling of pizza, cigarettes, and body odor. Suitcases piled with rumpled clothes were in the corners near air mattresses mounded with sleeping bags. Empty soda cans and Starbucks cups spilled from a garbage bag. Straw’s team had come in light, and hadn’t planned on staying as long as they had.
Straw smiled as he gestured to the room.
“I’d say pull up a chair, but we don’t have chairs.”
“Mendoza and Gomer didn’t trash Smith’s shop. The man who killed them did it, and your guys might have seen him.”
Straw and the orange man stared for a moment, then the orange man tipped forward, interested.
“What does he look like?”
His voice was higher than Pike expected, and hoarse at the edges, as if he was getting over a cold.
“What’s your name?”
Straw answered for him.
“This is Kenny. Let’s leave it at first names.”
Kenny was watching Pike now, his eyes intense.
“Can you describe the guy?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
Kenny smirked as he slumped against the wall, his interest gone.
“Oh.”
“He wanted to know when people came and left, when the shop was empty, what kind of alarms there might be. That means he was here.”
“Yeah? So how do you know what he wants?”
Pike stared at Kenny, then looked at Straw.
“Because that’s what I would want. He’s hunting Wilson and Dru. He blooded the shop to flush them, and probably followed Wilson back to his house, but Mendoza and Gomer got in the way. This isn’t about a couple of bangers shaking down a cook. This is bigger.”
Straw and Kenny glanced at each other again as if they were having a silent conversation, then Straw shrugged at Pike.
“I don’t get it. Why all that business with the blood and the heads if he wanted to kill them? Why not just kill them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to see where they’d go.”
Kenny grinned, bugging his