McCALEB STOOD OUTSIDE the station’s lobby waiting for the cab to show. He was steaming about how he had allowed Arrango to play him. Guys like Arrango got off on holding something out to a person and then snatching it away. McCaleb had always known people like Arrango-on both sides of the law.
But there was nothing he could have done about it. For now it was Arrango’s show. McCaleb wasn’t really expecting to hear from him again. He knew that he would have to call him for an answer. That was how the game was played. McCaleb decided he would give it until the next morning before he would call.
When the cab got there, McCaleb got in the back behind the driver. It was a way of discouraging conversation. He checked the name on the dashboard license card and saw it was Russian and unpronounceable. He pulled the small notebook out of his bag and gave the driver the address for the Sherman Market in Canoga Park. They headed north on Reseda Boulevard and then west on Sherman Way until they came to the small market near the intersection of Winnetka Avenue.
The cab pulled into the lot in front of the small store. The place was nondescript, unimpressive, its plate-glass windows plastered with brightly colored sale signs. It looked like a thousand other mini-markets in the city. Except someone had decided that this one was worth robbing and that it was worth killing two people in order to accomplish that goal. Before getting out, McCaleb studied the signs covering the windows. They blocked off a view of the interior. He knew that was probably the reason the shooter had chosen this store. Even if passing motorists glanced over, they wouldn’t see what was going on inside.
Finally, he opened the door and got out. He stepped to the driver’s window and told the man to wait for him. As he went into the store, he heard the tinkling of a bell from above the door. The cash register counter depicted in the video was set up near the back wall directly across from the door. An old woman stood back behind the counter. She was staring at McCaleb and she looked scared. She was Asian. McCaleb realized who she might be.
Looking around as if he had come in with a purpose other than to gawk, he saw the display racks full of candy and picked out a Hershey’s bar. He stepped to the counter and placed it down, noticing that the glass top of the case was still cracked. The full realization that he was in the same spot where Glory Torres had stood and smiled at Mr. Kang then hit him. He looked up at the old woman with a pained expression on his face and nodded.
“Anything else?”
“No, just this.”
She rang it up and he paid her. He studied her hesitant movements. She knew he wasn’t from the neighborhood or a regular customer. She still was not at ease. She probably never would be.
When she gave him his change, McCaleb noticed that the watch she wore on her wrist had a wide, black rubber wristband and a large face. It was a man’s watch and it dwarfed her tiny, seemingly fragile wrist. He had seen the watch before. It had been on Chan Ho Kang’s wrist in the surveillance video. McCaleb remembered focusing on the watch as the video depicted the wounded Kang scrambling for purchase on the counter and then finally falling to the floor.
“Are you Mrs. Kang?” McCaleb asked.
She stopped what she was doing at the register and looked at him.
“Yes. I know you?”
“No. It’s just… I heard about what happened here. To your husband. I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
“Yes, thank you.” Then, seemingly needing an explanation or salve for her wounds, she added, “The only way to keep evil out is to not unlock door. We can’t do that. We must have business.”
Now McCaleb nodded. It was probably something her husband had told her when she worried about his operating a cash business in a violent city.
He thanked her and left, the bell ringing overhead again as he went through the door. He got back in the cab and appraised the front of the market again. It made no sense to him. Why this place? He thought of the video. The shooter’s hand grabbing the cash. He couldn’t have gotten much. McCaleb wished he knew more about the crime, more of the details.
The phone on the wall to the right of the store’s windows caught his eye. It was the one the unidentified Good Samaritan had apparently used. He wondered if it had been processed for prints after they realized he wasn’t coming forward. Probably not. By then it was too late. It was a long shot anyway.
“Where to?” the driver said, his accent discernible in only two syllables.
McCaleb leaned forward to give the man an address but hesitated. He drummed his fingers on the plastic backing of the front seat and thought for a moment.
“Keep the meter running. I’ve got to make a couple calls first.”
He got out again and headed to the pay phone, once more taking his notebook out. He looked up a number and charged the call to his card. It was answered right away.
“ Times, Russell.”
“Did you say Times or Slimes ?”
“Funny, who is this?”
“Keisha, it’s Terry McCaleb.”
“Hey, how’re you doing, man?”
“I’m fine. I wanted to thank you for that story. I should’ve called sooner. But it was nice.”
“Hey, you’re cool. Nobody else ever calls to thank me for anything.”
“Well, I’m not that cool. I was also calling because I need a favor. You got your terminal on?”
“You really know how to spoil a good thing. Yes, my terminal is on. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m looking for something but I’m not sure how to find it. You think you could do one of those key-word searches for me? I’m looking for stories that would be about a robber who shoots people.”
She laughed.
“That’s it?” she said. “You know how often people get shot up in robberies? This is L.A., you know.”
“Yeah, I know, that was stupid. Okay, how about adding in ski mask. And maybe only go back about eighteen months. Think that will narrow it?”
“Maybe.”
He heard her keyboard start clicking as she tapped into the newspaper’s computerized library of story files. By using key words like robbery and ski mask and shooting she would be able to draw up all stories that had contained those words.
“So what’s going on, Terry? I thought you were retired.”
“I am.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. This is like the old days. Are you doing some kind of investigation?”
“Sort of. I’m checking something for a friend and the LAPD’s being the LAPD. And it’s worse when you don’t have a badge.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s not newsworthy yet, Keisha. If it turns out that way, you’ll be the first I let know.”
She blew out her breath in exasperation.
“I hate it when you guys do that,” she protested. “I mean, why should I help you when you won’t let me decide whether something’s a story or not? I’m the newspaper reporter, not you.”
“I know, I know. I guess what I’m saying is that l just want to keep this to myself until I see what is what. I’ll tell you about it after that. I promise, first crack at it. It probably won’t pan out, but I’ll tell you one way or the other. Did you get anything?”
“Yes,” she said in a mock pout. “Six hits in the last eighteen months.”
“Six? What are they?”
“Six stories. I’ll read you the headlines and you tell me if you think you want me to call up the stories.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, here goes. ‘Two Shot in Robbery Attempt,’ then we have ‘Man Shot, Robbed at ATM.’ After that we have ‘Deputies Seek Help in ATM Shooting.’ Let’s see, the next three look like one related case. The headlines are ‘Store Owner, Customer Shot in Robbery,’ followed by ‘Second Victim Dies; Was Times Employee’-oh, shit, I never heard about that. I’ll have to read this one myself-and the last one is ‘Police Seek Good Samaritan.’ Those are the six.”
McCaleb thought for a moment. Six stories, three different incidents.
“Could you pull up the first three and read them if they’re not too long?”
“Why not.”
He listened as her keyboard started clicking. His eyes wandered out past the cab to Sherman Way. It was a four-lane street, busy even at night. He wondered if Arrango and Walters had been able to come up with any witnesses to the shooter’s getaway, anybody besides the Good Samaritan.
McCaleb’s eyes moved across the street and in the parking lot of a strip mall he saw a man sitting in a car. The man raised a newspaper just as McCaleb noticed this and his face disappeared. McCaleb checked the car. It was an old beater, foreign make, which dissuaded him from the possibility that maybe Arrango had put a quick tail on him. He dismissed it as Keisha started reading the newspaper story on her computer screen.
“Okay, the first one ran on October eighth last year. It’s just a short. ‘A husband and wife were shot and wounded Thursday by a would-be robber who was then wrestled to the ground and captured by a group of passersby, Inglewood police said Thursday. The couple were walking along Manchester Boulevard at eleven when a man wearing a ski mask approached and-’ ”
“The guy was captured?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Okay, skip that one. I’m looking for unsolveds, I think.”
“Okay, the next story ran Friday, January twenty-fourth. Headline is ‘Man Shot, Robbed at ATM.’ No byline. It’s another short. ‘A Lancaster man who was withdrawing cash from an automatic teller machine was fatally shot Wednesday night in what Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies called a senseless killing. James Cordell, thirty, was shot once in the head by an unknown assailant who then took the three hundred dollars he had just withdrawn from the machine. The shooting took place at approximately tenP.M. at a Regional State Bank branch in the eighteen-hundred block of Lancaster Road. Sheriff’s detective Jaye Winston said a portion of the shooting was captured on the ATM security camera but not enough to identify the gunman. The one glimpse of the gunman on the camera’s tape showed he was wearing a dark knit ski mask over his head. However, Winston said that the tape revealed that there was no confrontation or refusal on Cordell’s part to turn over the money. “It was absolutely cold-blooded,” Winston said. “This guy just walked up, shot the victim and took the money. It was very cold and brutal. This guy didn’t care. He just wanted the money.” Cordell collapsed in front of the well-lighted machine but his body was not found until another customer came approximately fifteen minutes later. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.’ Okay, that’s that one. You ready for the next?”
“I’m ready.”
McCaleb had been jotting down some of the details from the story into his notebook. He underlined the name Winston three times. He knew Jaye Winston. He thought Winston would be willing to help him-more so than Arrango and Walters had been. Jaye Winston was not a hard tango. McCaleb felt he had finally caught a break.
Keisha Russell started reading the next story.
“Okay, same thing. No byline. It’s short and it ran two days later. ‘Sheriff’s deputies said there were no suspects in the fatal shooting this week of a Lancaster man who was withdrawing money from an automatic teller machine. Detective Jaye Winston said the department wished to speak with any motorists or passersby who were in the area of the eighteen-hundred block of Lancaster Road on Wednesday night and may have seen the assailant before or after the ten-twenty shooting. James Cordell, thirty, was shot once in the head by a robber who wore a ski mask. He died at the scene of the robbery. Three hundred dollars was taken during the robbery. Though part of the incident was captured by the Regional State Bank’s security camera, detectives were unable to identify the suspect because of the mask he wore. “He had to have had it off at one point,” Winston said of the mask. “He didn’t just walk or drive down the street with a mask on. People had to have seen this guy and we want to talk to those people.” ’ Okay, that’s the end.”
McCaleb hadn’t taken any notes from the second story. But he was thinking about what Keisha had read and didn’t respond.
“Terry, you still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Any of it help?”
“I think so. Maybe.”
“And you still won’t tell me what it’s about?”
“Not yet, Keisha, but thanks. You’ll be the first to know.”
He hung up and pulled the business card Arrango had given him out of his shirt pocket. He decided not to wait for Arrango or for the next day. He had a lead he could follow now, whether or not the LAPD cooperated with him. While he was waiting for the call to be answered, he looked across the street. The car with the man reading the newspaper was gone.
The phone was picked up after six rings and he was eventually transferred to Arrango. McCaleb asked if Buskirk was back yet.
“Bad news, amigo,” Arrango said. “The lieutenant’s back all right. But he wants to hold off on turning our book over to you.”
“Yeah, how come?” McCaleb asked, trying to disguise his annoyance.
“Well, I didn’t really ask but I think he was pissed that you didn’t come in to see him first. I told you that. You should’ve followed line of command.”
“That was kind of hard to do, being that he wasn’t there this morning. And I told you, I did ask for him first. Did you tell him that?”
“Yeah, I told him. I think he was in a bad mood, coming from Valley bureau. He probably got his ass chewed about something so then he chewed mine. That’s how it goes sometimes. Right down the food chain. Anyway, look, you’re lucky. We showed you the whole thing on tape. You got a good start there. We shouldn’t’ve done that for you.”
“Some start. You know, it’s amazing that anything ever gets solved with all the bureaucratic bullshit that goes on. I thought the FBI was unique. We used to call it the Federal Bureau of Inertia. But I guess it’s the same all around.”
“Hey, look, we don’t need your shit. We have a whole plate full of it here. My boss seems to think I invited you in here and now he’s pissed at me. I don’t need this. If you want to go away mad, that’s your problem. But just go away.”
“I’m gone, Arrango. You won’t hear from me until I have your shooter. I’ll bring him in for you.”
McCaleb knew it was bullshit grandstanding as soon as he said it. But ever since February ninth he had increasingly found that he had zero tolerance for fools.
Arrango laughed sarcastically in response and said, “Yeah, right. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He hung up.