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  He covered the pad with his hand. “No, smartass. If you must know, it’s another speech I’ve got to make this afternoon with the mayor.”

  “Aren’t we popular.”

  Vick sighed, “All I ever wanted to do was street work.” He looked out the window and sighed again.

  “I’d like to look at the paintings from Landman’s Malibu house,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just a gut feeling. I won’t take long, Vick. And I’m not interfering.”

  He squinted at me with one eye, like Popeye. “You find anything, you share, okay?”

  “Deal.”

  We went to the evidence room and against the far wall were the paintings. Vick left a deputy with me so they wouldn’t have to explain an unguarded civilian loose in the bowels of the Department. I went through them all and then started with the half-finished painting of Landman as a Border Patrol Agent standing at the bluff. I studied it for several minutes, but didn’t see anything I hadn’t seen before. I went through the remaining paintings and studied them one by one, hoping something would jump out at me, but nothing did. After half an hour, I stepped back and rested against a shelf. I had all the paintings lined up and facing me. I went down them one by one from left to right. Something was nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I closed my eyes and thought through everything, then let my mind go where it wanted.

  For some reason I began to see myself as a kid, sitting at the kitchen table with my parents and putting together one of those thousand-piece puzzles. I let my mind go with it, watching my younger self take two pieces out of the pile and link them together before putting them in the puzzle.

  My eyes opened and I looked at the canvases. I moved one canvas beside the painting of Landman on the bluff. It was a continuation of the painting, showing a long canyon. I looked at the remaining paintings and found a third. In it, the canyon extended, and at the far end was a small cave, with several figures in the entrance. The figures all had strawberry blond hair.

  **

  I thanked Vick and said I wasn’t sure that I had found anything, but would keep him advised. He shooed me out and returned to writing his speech.

  I drove Shamu through increasing traffic toward the Caspian Diamond, eager to talk to Hondo about the paintings. It took me almost an hour to get there. A Lexus was exiting as I entered, and it squealed tires as it hit the highway. Hondo wasn’t in his Mercedes. Heavy rock music seeped through the walls of the Diamond and I could hear it through my closed windows. I had a funny feeling in my stomach and parked beside Hondo’s convertible. I didn’t walk, I trotted toward the door. The deafening sounds of a Guns N Roses oldie, Welcome to the Jungle vibrated the building and the air around it.

  When I was ten feet away, the door burst open and Hondo staggered out with two feet of slim, shining blade protruding from his chest. I caught Hondo as he fell and saw the silver hilt of the sword cane hard against his back, like a pushpin stuck into cardboard.

  There was commotion and angry yells growing louder from the darkness of the doorway. Music throbbed the air as Axl scream-sang, “Welcome to the jungle, welcome to the...nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah naaah...” I pulled my magnum and pointed it at the door as I put the other arm around Hondo’s chest and drug him to my truck.

  A man appeared, the one whose eyes I had soaped, and he raised his pistol. I fired three fast shots and he yelped and fell back into the dark. I felt behind me, found the door handle and opened the passenger door.

  Hondo said, “I can make it.” I don’t know how, but he stood on his feet and pulled himself into the cab. I kept the magnum on the door and went to the driver’s side, got in and started the engine.

  When we started moving, several others came out of the door and one had a shotgun. I snapped off two shots and made them duck, but they fired from hunched positions and I heard the buckshot and bullets thunk into the side of the truck. I whipped the wheel and squealed through the other cars and was on the road headed for the hospital before they fired another shot.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Hondo groaned. He used an index finger to touch the needle-sharp point of the sword, whispering in a pain-filled voice, “Sticky situation.”

  The guy is making jokes. “Can’t leave you alone for a minute,” I said. “So what happened, was there a sign on the door saying, ‘Free Shishkebab’ and you just had to have some?” I glanced at him as I snaked through the heavy traffic. Flecks of bright blood dappled his lips.

  “You’re...you’re like a thorn in my side.” Hondo said.

  The traffic slowed to a stall and I could see the dust from a collision maybe two hundred yards ahead. I turned the wheel and drove Shamu over the curb and into a strip mall lot and powered over curbs, across streets and over landscaped areas where I demolished a dozen small trees and shrubs. The hospital was four blocks away, so I continued overland. At the end of another strip mall, I roared over the curb, crossed a side street, and then slid into a paint store parking lot.

  I glanced at Hondo and his head rested against the window, his eyes closed. A long mound of dirt and gravel blocked the way to the hospital. I glanced at the highway. Still no movement. A construction crew readied to rebuild the side road, and safety signs lined the top of the mounds and on both ends. Men in hard hats waited for heavy machinery to do their magic.

  “This might be bumpy,” I said to Hondo, but he didn’t hear. I put Shamu in four-wheel drive, held Hondo’s shoulder and drove over the ten-foot high mound as men yelled at me from both sides.

  I crossed several more store parking lots and then raced across manicured grass to the hospital. As I pulled into the Emergency Entrance, Hondo touched my arm. “Accident,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  “No police. Fell on it...” and he passed out again.

  The people in emergency are fast and good. They looked at me when I said it was an accident, but they focused on their patient and ignored my story.

  I called Hunter and sat in the waiting room. She came down the hall and sat by me. A half dozen other people waiting on injured loved ones waited in chairs and leaned against the wall.

  “How is he?” Hunter asked.

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. He was coherent when we got here.”

  “The Doctor hasn’t talked to you?”

  “Not yet. They’re still with him.” Hunter reached for my hand and held it as we sat and listened to the sounds that trickled out of ER into the waiting room.

  **

  It was another hour before a young doctor came out to talk to us. He said, “Your friend is going to make it.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. Hunter hugged my arm.

  The Doctor said, “One lung collapsed and the blade scraped the outside of the heart, but didn’t puncture it. The sword was wedged so tight we had to go in and pry the ribs apart before we could remove it.” He was agitated and had more to say, so we waited. “Your friend is very tough, even telling us before he was sedated that he fell on the sword, but...and here is where I’m having problems, there was evidence that the sword had been yanked back and forth several times, like someone trying to dislodge it. Would that have been you?”

  “Not me, Doctor. I got there after he’d fallen. He told me the handle hung in a banister when he fell and he’d pulled against it trying to get loose.”

  The doctor mulled that over. “He’ll be in recovery for another hour, then we’ll put him in a room. You can visit him then.” He paused, “Your friend is...very in control. Most people go into shock, but his pulse and respiration remained steady. Was he by chance in the military?” I nodded. He continued, “I thought maybe that was it. Lots of signs of violence on that young man’s body.”

  I didn’t elaborate.

  The Doctor said, “He also said he wanted the sword with him after he woke up and to tell you, let me get this right, ‘We’ll have a pointed conversation’ when he wakes up. I assume that is a joke.”

 
; I nodded. “Always the kidder.”

  “The sword in his room is something we can’t allow.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  The doctor nodded, then went back through the doors and we went to the cafeteria to drink some coffee until Hondo was in his room.

  Hunter said, “Found out a few things.”

  I’d been thinking of Hondo, but said, “Like what?”

  “For one, Bond Savitch was a Russian citizen who immigrated as a child twenty years ago and became a naturalized US citizen eleven years ago. She came over with her parents and lived as a LAPR” --she pronounced it lap-er -- “until she had the required residency to naturalize.”

  “What’s a LAPR?”

  “Lawfully Admitted Permanent Resident. It’s Immigration terminology.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Uh-huh. Our friend Mr. Rakes was an officer in the Spetsnaz, the Soviet Special Forces, before he was sent to prison.”

  “Did it say what charge?”

  “He was jailed as a political prisoner, is what I read.”

  “That’s the last thing I’d have thought.”

  “Me too. Some of our records from former Soviet countries are a little, ahh, cloudy. It was all they had to go with his application though, so he was allowed in after being released from prison and pardoned by the Russian government. He’s a LAPR, too.”

  “Did you happen to look up Simon Mortay?”

  “No, but I can tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.” I could still see Mortay with his sword cane the day Hondo faced him down.

  A nurse came over to tell us Hondo was in his room and we went up.

  **

  Hondo’s chest was bandaged and there was a drain tube leading out of the gauze to a soft plastic bag attached to the bottom of his bed frame. There was watery pink fluid dripping into it. An IV drip was going in his left arm. He looked sleepy and had dark hollows under his eyes, but he was awake.

  I pointed to the drain bag below his bed. “They going to run that back through?”

  Hondo said, “One can only hope.”

  Hunter moved beside him and brushed the hair from his forehead. “You’ve probably felt better, huh?”

  Hondo nodded. I said, “They won’t allow you to have the sword in here.”

  He shrugged, “I thought it was worth a try.”

  I said, “You feel up to telling us about it?”

  He nodded and told us what happened.

  **

  Hondo parked off-center behind a suburban, thirty yards from the entrance to the Caspian Diamond. He left his driver’s view open to the front door, with the rest of the Mercedes hidden behind the big Chevy. He wore his sunglasses and listened to a CD of Motown’s Greatest Hits, observing those who came and went through the smoked glass door and into the darkness beyond. Each time the door opened music escaped and over the next thirty minutes, Hondo heard clipped refrains from various artists ranging from Eminem to Aerosmith to Adele.

  A Lexus pulled into the parking lot behind him and Hondo watched in his rear view mirror as a petite strawberry blond Hispanic woman got out and walked to the door. She wore tight designer jeans, Reeboks and a tucked-in white tee shirt. The small red purse hung at her hip from a thin strap that ran over the shoulder.

  She opened the door and Hondo heard Katy Perry singing California Gurls as the woman disappeared into the dark. The song went silent as the door closed. Hondo replaced the Motown CD with the Stones and adjusted the volume down. He thought about calling Ronny, but figured he’d wait.

  A thump came from the entrance door. Hondo watched, and several seconds later the door burst open to Katy singing and the small strawberry haired woman running out screaming, her tee shirt half torn off and fluttering behind her. Carl Rakes was several steps behind but caught up fast and yanked her backward by the hair. The woman fell and screamed. Carl wrapped her under one arm and walked back inside. It all happened in less than twenty seconds.

  Hondo took off his glasses, put them on the dash and trotted toward the doors. A large bald headed man wearing a black leather jacket came out and held his hand up for Hondo to stop. Someone inside turned up the volume to ear-splitting levels and Axl Rose vibrated the outside air with, Welcome to the Jungle.

  The man at the door was good. Hondo pulled his Glock and the man leaped at him, grabbing the pistol with both hands. He hit the magazine release and it dropped from the pistol. Hondo fired the remaining round into the man’s shoulder and the man grunted and kicked the magazine into the parking lot. Hondo dropped the Glock and hit him with a three-punch combination. The man crashed into the wall, then sunk to the ground, head lolling.

  Hondo opened the smoked glass door and walked into darkness and the ear-throbbing music. Carl had the woman at the edge of the bar near the office door. Rakes held her hair with one hand and slapped her hard across the face with the other. “Vhere de Veemin? Vhere de shid Veemin?” The woman had her arms up, but Carl’s blows were knocking them away like they were nothing.

  Carl saw Hondo and snarled orders at two rough looking men. They came at Hondo with their fists clenched. Hondo kicked the first one hard in the face and he went sprawling across the floor. The second one swung a roundhouse at Hondo’s head and Hondo blocked it, then grabbed the man by his throat and crotch, lifted him and threw him into a cluster of tables and chairs. The man landed hard and didn’t get up.

  Carl released the tiny woman, who staggered away, regained her senses and ran by Hondo and out the door. A naked dancer and the rest of the crowed moved as far away as they could get.

  Carl moved to his left as Hondo walked toward him. Rakes circled until Hondo was standing at the edge of the bar, his back to the office door. The air throbbed with the music.

  Carl yelled to be heard, “Voman is gone. Is over. You go now.”

  Hondo said, “Not yet.”

  Carl smiled, “You wish for the hurt from me, Dah? I break your shidsnarl face and piss at your throad.”

  Hondo was concentrating on Rakes when he felt the smallest push of air from behind him. Door, Hondo thought and started to turn as a lightning bolt hit him in the back and rocketed molten-hot pain completely through his chest.

  Hondo went down on his side with a weight riding him to the floor. Simon Mortay was on him, his hand still on the sword cane’s hilt.

  Hondo tried to breath and the pain was terrible, like an exposed nerve in a tooth being scraped with a file. He struggled and heard Carl laugh. The weight came off his back and Simon stood up, then put his foot against Hondo’s back and tried to pull out the sword, but it wouldn’t come. Mortay pulled several times, yanking hard enough to drag Hondo’s body several feet.

  Carl said, “I pull it,” and took a step toward them.

  Hondo pushed with his legs and one arm and got to his feet. He pulled the Black Ops knife from his pocket, opened it with the same move and continued the motion with the blade toward Carl’s throat.

  Carl’s eyes widened and he jerked back. The blade left a tiny red line across the front of his adam’s apple. Mortay yelled and jumped away and he and Carl watched Hondo stagger, holding the knife out toward them, ready to do battle.

  Mortay’s eyes flickered to the side and Hondo turned to see one of the men against the wall raising a pistol. Hondo threw the knife and it buried to the hilt in the man’s shoulder. He screamed and the pistol clattered at his feet. The baldheaded man staggered inside and went behind the bar, reaching for something below the cash register.

  Hondo ran for the doors and burst into daylight.

  **

  “And that’s where Ronny caught me as I fell,” Hondo said.

  “Jesus,” Hunter said.

  “It was my fault,” Hondo said. “I wanted Rakes so bad I got careless.”

  I said, “You’re lucky Mortay likes the blade. If he favored pistols you might not be here.”

  “Oh yeah, I feel real lucky. But you’re right.”

  “Course I’m right. W
orld’s Most Infallible Investigator.”

  “Most Phallic Investigator, is that what you said?” Hunter said.

  “Hey, that’s not nice.”

  Hondo started to smile, then coughed and we saw the pain go through him. He said, “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Us?” I said, “Hey, at least we’re not like Carl Rakes and are gonna piss at your throat. Can you imagine if that guy wrote a dictionary, how the words would look? Or worse, what if he did commercials? Think about him explaining Preparation H. Guy would be unbelievable.”

  Hondo coughed and held up a hand in surrender. A nurse came in and went to him, looking concerned. She said, “You are aggravating him, and he’s been severely injured.”

  I said, “Probably needs a chuckle-ectomy.” Hondo coughed.

  The nurse shooed us from his room. No sense of humor, those nurses.

  **

  I started up Shamu as Hunter said, “Don’t go do anything crazy.”

  “Me? What about you, the female version of Dirty Harry?”

  “I’m just saying, we need to do this with cool heads, not let emotion rule.”

  I said, “And we still haven’t found Bob Landman, who’s in big trouble for sure.”

  “Right. So let’s cool down, figure our next move.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I need to do one thing first. I’ll drop you at the office, then be back in an hour.”

  Hunter looked at me, “Ronny...”

  “Scout’s honor,” I said. “I’m not going after Rakes or Mortay.”

  I dropped Hunter off and headed for Siberia on Sunset. I went inside and Frank Meadows was holding court on the couches with several younger exec types in casual Armani and wearing Rolexes on their tanned wrists.

  Frank said to them, “The real hidden talent is fiscal management. Like I demand at Americas, we know where every penny is going, and where it comes from. Makes all the difference during those lean times between blockbusters.”

  I walked up, “And you’d know all about those lean times, wouldn’t you, Frank. What is it, Americas Studios had produced the four biggest flops in the last five years, that about right?”