The Exile Read online

  “Damn, more cops,” the Hispanic taxi driver suddenly grumbled in Spanish, and Raymond looked to the front of the cab. Three blue-and-white Santa Monica police cars were parked directly in front of the terminal building, and uniformed police stood in the doorway. From a distance it was impossible to tell what they were doing.

  “I’m getting sick of this,” the taxi driver complained again. “I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s making life miserable. I hope to hell they catch him and soon, you know what I mean?” He turned to look over the seat at Raymond.

  “Yes, I hope they catch him, too,” Raymond said in Spanish. “This will be fine, I’ll get out here.”

  “Okay.” The driver pulled the cab to the curb and stopped fifty yards from the terminal.

  “Gracias.” Raymond paid him with Josef Speer’s American dollars and got out.

  He waited for the taxi to pull away, then started toward the terminal, wondering if there was another way to the plane that did not involve passing the police, or if he dared try to bluff his way through them, playing the Mexican businessman he was supposed to be and speaking Spanish.

  As he drew closer he could see two policemen sitting in the first patrol car. Four others were at the terminal door, and now he could see what they were doing. Meticulously checking the identification of everyone entering. It would be one thing if he already had the identification papers Bertrand had sent, which he knew were on the plane. But to try to explain who he was without them would draw too much attention. The police would ask questions, and they would have been supplied with copies of his photograph.

  He glanced through the fence at the Gulfstream. The pilots were still chatting, still waiting, but there was no way he could get to them. He hesitated, then decided against it and turned and walked away, back toward the street, the way he had come in.

  63

  LOS ANGELES, 210 RIDGEVIEW LANE. 8:10 P.M.

  Red’s house was a plain, three-bedroom, one-story bungalow with what a real estate person would call a “partial city view” from the backyard. Tonight the view was more than partial. With a clear sky and the overhanging sycamore trees still winter-bare, the lights of L.A. reached like a galaxy almost to the horizon. It was more than magical. It drew the eye into them, and the viewer realized that somewhere out there was Raymond.

  John Barron watched for a short while longer, then turned and walked past several people chatting quietly on the lawn and went back into the house. He was dressed somberly in a dark suit, the same as most everyone else there.

  In the five or ten minutes he’d been outside, the parade of mourners had grown substantially, and more were filing in. One by one, they stopped to give condolences to Red’s wife, Gloria, acknowledge with hugs his two grown daughters, and playfully embrace one or all of his three young grandchildren. Afterward they would move off to other parts of the house for a drink or something to eat and then to talk quietly among themselves.

  Barron knew most of them by sight: Los Angeles mayor Bill Noonan; His Eminence Richard John Emery, Cardinal of Los Angeles; Police Chief Louis Harwood; Los Angeles County Sheriff Peter Black; District Attorney Richard Rojas; venerable Rabbi Jerome Mosesman; almost every member of the city council; the head football coaches from both UCLA and USC. There were more top LAPD brass, too, men Barron knew but couldn’t name; several prominent sports and broadcast figures; an Oscar-winning actor and his wife; a half dozen veteran detectives, one in particular, the tall, craggy-faced Gene VerMeer, who he knew had been one of Red’s oldest and closest friends; and then there were Lee and Polchak and Valparaiso and Halliday, all as soberly dressed as Barron and with women he’d never met but presumed were their wives.

  Standing there, watching the slim, energetic Gloria McClatchy, a highly regarded public schoolteacher in her own right, bravely and graciously playing the role of hostess, Barron was swept by a crush of near-overwhelming emotion: grief, rage, loss, anger, and frustration about their inability to apprehend Raymond, combined with what was, by now, huge physical and mental exhaustion.

  This was the first time he’d seen Halliday or Valparaiso since Red’s death. He knew they’d talked to Polchak because he’d heard him on the radio advising them what had happened at Alfred Neuss’s apartment. Both had been at the house when he’d arrived, but they’d been with Gloria and Red’s daughters, and then other people had started coming and they’d broken away, and since then neither had sought him out or even so much as acknowledged him. So he had to assume that it wasn’t just Polchak and Lee who blamed him for Red’s death, but Valparaiso and Halliday as well and maybe Gene VerMeer and the other detectives.

  And now as he watched them all—Lee and Halliday as they stood silently with their wives; VerMeer and the others talking quietly among themselves; seeing Polchak and Valparaiso go to a makeshift bar in the corner to stand alone with drinks in their hands, saying nothing, their women elsewhere—he began to realize the extent of their grief and knew that his emotions were dwarfed in comparison to theirs. Halliday, as young he was, had known, worked alongside, loved, and respected Red McClatchy for years. Lee and Valparaiso had been shoulder to shoulder with him for more than a decade. Polchak, longer than any of them. Each man knew risk of death came with the job, but that didn’t make it any easier now. Nor did it help knowing Red had died to protect the newest and youngest of them. It helped even less that the murderer was still free and the media were rubbing their faces in it. But perhaps most troublesome of all, he knew they were holding themselves up to the light of the squad’s long and proud history and felt they were unworthy.

  It was enough! Abruptly Barron turned away and walked down a hallway toward the kitchen, not knowing what to do or say or even think. Halfway down, he stopped. Gloria McClatchy sat alone on a small plaid couch in a room that must have been Red’s den, a single lamp turned on in the corner. In one hand she held an untouched cup of coffee; the other gently stroked an old black Labrador who sat at her feet, its head in her lap. She looked old and pale and very tired, as if everything she had had suddenly been whisked from her life.

  This was the Gloria McClatchy who had taken both Barron’s hands in hers when he’d arrived and, although they’d never met, had looked him in the eye and genuinely thanked him for coming. And for being a fine policeman. And then told him how proud Red had been of him.

  “Damn it to hell,” he swore to himself and tears welled up in his eyes. Suddenly he was turning, going back into the living room and pushing through the crowd, dodging one familiar face and then another, trying to find the front door.

  “Raymond!”

  Red’s thundering bellow shot through him as loudly as if he were there. A shout that had pulled the gunman’s deadly attention away from Barron to him in what was the last command of his life.

  “Raymond!”

  He heard Red yell again and half expected to hear the roar of gunfire.

  Then he was at the door and opening it and going outside.

  Cool night air hit him a split second before a wall of light engulfed him in the glare of what seemed like the lights of a thousand television cameras. From the darkness beyond them came a thunderclap chorus of “John!” “John!” “John!” shouted by the mob of unseen reporters screaming for his attention and wanting him to make a statement.

  He ignored them and quickly crossed the lawn at the far side of it, stepping around the yellow POLICE LINE tape that kept the media back. He thought he had seen Dan Ford, but he wasn’t sure. In a moment he was away from them and in the dark and relative quiet of the suburban street walking toward where he’d parked the Mustang. He was almost to it when a voice called out from behind him.

  “Where the hell you goin’?”

  He turned. Polchak was coming toward him, passing under the glow of a streetlight. His jacket was off and his tie was gone, his shirt open partway down the front. He was sweating and breathing heavily, as if he had chased after Barron from the house.

  Polchak stopped and rocked back
on his heels. “I said, where you goin’?”

  Barron stared at him. This morning in the squad room it was evident he’d been drinking, but he hadn’t been drunk. Now he was.

  “Home,” Barron said quietly.

  “No. We’re goin’ downtown for a drink. Just us. Just the squad.”

  “Len, I’m tired, huh? I need to sleep.”

  “Tired?” Polchak took a step forward, his eyes riveted on Barron. “What the hell did you do to get tired except lose him again?” Polchak moved closer still, and Barron could see his Beretta stuck into his waistband as if it had been a purposeful afterthought. “You know who I’m talkin’ about—Raymond.”

  “I didn’t lose him alone, Len. You were right there beside me.”

  Barron saw Polchak’s nostrils flare in his square face and he came in a rush. Grabbing Barron by the jacket, he spun him around hard and slammed him headfirst into the Mustang.

  “He took it for you, you little shit!” Polchak was screaming in rage.

  Barron staggered and turned, putting up a hand. “I’m not going to fight you, Len.”

  The squat detective’s left hand came out of nowhere in reply, hitting Barron somewhere between his mouth and nose, sending him reeling backward onto the street.

  Polchak rushed forward, this time using his feet, kicking at Barron’s head, his ribs, anyplace he could find. “That’s for Red, you bastard fuck!”

  “Len, stop it for Chrissake!” Barron twisted away on the ground and Polchak chased him like a wild man, kicking and kicking.

  “Fuck you, you cock prick!” Polchak was lost, ferocious. “Here’s some more, you little shit-bastard!”

  Suddenly someone was on Polchak’s back, trying to pull him away, “Stop it, Len! Jesus Christ! Stop it!”

  Polchak wheeled, not even looking, throwing a hard right as he did.

  “Aw! Shit! Jesus!” Dan Ford staggered backward, his glasses gone, both hands to his nose, blood gushing between his fingers.

  “Get outta here, you fuck!” Polchak yelled.

  “Len!” Suddenly Lee was right there, out of breath from running, his eyes darting between Polchak and Barron and Ford. “For Chrissake, no more.”

  “Fuck off!” Polchak yelled at Lee, his fists up, his chest thundering in and out.

  Then Valparaiso stepped out of the darkness behind Lee. “Having fun, Len?”

  Polchak suddenly ripped his belt from his pants and wound it around his fist. “I’ll show you some fuckin’ fun.”

  Then Halliday was there. “That’s all, Len, back off.” Halliday’s Beretta automatic was pointed directly at Polchak.

  Polchak glared at the Beretta, then looked to Halliday. “You pull a piece on me?”

  “Your wife’s waiting, Len. Go back to the house.”

  Polchak took a step forward, his eyes fixed on Halliday. “Go ahead, use it.”

  “Len, for Chrissake.” Lee was staring at him. “Calm down.”

  Valparaiso grinned, as if the situation somehow tickled him. “Go ahead, Jimmy, shoot. Can’t make him any uglier.”

  Barron got to his feet and went to Dan Ford. He was wearing a new blue blazer, the old one given up to cover Red’s body at the airport. He found his glasses and gave them to him.

  “Get out of here,” he breathed, and pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to Ford.

  Ford took the handkerchief and put it to his nose, but his attention was fully on Polchak and Halliday.

  “I said get out of here. Now!” Barron’s tone was brutal.

  Ford looked to Barron, then suddenly turned and walked away into the darkness, toward the house and the gathered media.

  It was an interchange Polchak had seen none of. The whole time, he was looking at Halliday. Now he took another step forward, ripping his dress shirt open, tearing it back.

  “You got the balls, Jimmy, give it to me.” Polchak touched the center of his chest. “Right here in the pump.”

  Abruptly Halliday holstered the Beretta. “It’s been a long day, Len. Time to go home.”

  Polchak cocked his head. “What’sa matter? What’s one more little death between friends?”

  Suddenly he looked to the others standing in the harsh semicircle of light thrown by the streetlamp. “Nobody up to it? Then I’ll do it myself.”

  Polchak reached for the Beretta in his waistband. It wasn’t there. Puzzled, he staggered around looking for it.

  “Looking for your gun, Len?”

  Polchak looked back.

  Barron held Polchak’s Beretta loosely in his hand. Blood ran down from his nose but he ignored it. “It’s yours. You want it, take it.”

  In a single motion Barron slid the automatic across the ground to see it stop halfway between him and Polchak. “Go ahead.”

  Polchak glared at Barron, his eyes shining in the dim light like some demented beast’s. “Think I won’t?”

  “I don’t think at all.”

  “I’m the only one here who’s got what it takes.” Polchak’s eyes went to the others. “I can kill anything. Even myself. Watch.”

  Suddenly Polchak bent over and lunged for the gun. In the same instant Barron stepped forward and kicked a field goal. The full weight of it caught Polchak under the jaw, snapping his body upward. For a moment he hung in midair, struggling against gravity; then his legs buckled under him and he dropped to the ground.

  Slowly Barron walked over and picked up Polchak’s gun. He looked at it for a second, then handed it to Halliday. Every last bit of him twisted, wasted, gone.

  Polchak lay on the ground in front of them, his eyes open, his breath coming in huge gasps.

  “He alright?” Barron asked anyone who would answer.

  “Yeah.” Lee nodded.

  “I’m going home.”

  64

  10:41 P.M.

  Barron eased the Mustang past the big growth of bougainvillea bordering his driveway and into his carport, then shut off the engine. Everything hurt; it was agony just to pull off the seat belt and get out of the car. He climbed the long flight of back stairs one step at a time. Sleep, just to sleep, was all he wanted.

  Key in the door, he stepped inside and into the kitchen. Just reaching up to turn on the light was an effort; so was the simple act of locking the door behind him. He took one slow deep breath and then another. Maybe Polchak’s kicks had broken ribs or maybe they were only bruised, he didn’t know.

  He looked across to the dark rectangle of doorway that led to the rest of the house. It seemed years since he’d been home, even longer since he’d done anything even close to normal.

  Slowly he took off his suit jacket and tossed it over a chair, then went to the sink to dampen a dish towel and blot the matted blood from his nose and mouth. Done, he glanced at the answering machine on the sideboard. A bright red number “3” glowed on its face.

  He hit MESSAGE, the number shifted to “1,” and he heard the voice of Pete Noonan, his friend at the FBI whom he’d asked to check FBI terrorist data banks for information on Raymond.

  “John, Pete Noonan. I’m sorry to tell you we’ve got nothing at all on your friend Raymond Thorne. His prints are not on file in any data bank we have, national or international. And there’s no other information on him at all. Whoever he is, he’s not one of ours yet. We’ll keep trying. You know where to reach me if you need anything else, day or night. Real sorry about Red.”

  Beep! The message finished and the number “2” appeared.

  “John, it’s Dan. I think my nose is broken, but I’m okay. I’ll be home in an hour, call me.”

  Beep! Message over, the number “3” appeared.

  Barron turned to hang up the towel.

  “This is Raymond, John.”

  Barron’s head came around like a pistol shot. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up.

  “I’m sorry you’re not home.” Raymond’s voice was calm and very matter-of-fact, making him sound almost genteel. “We have something we need to work out tonig
ht. I’ll be calling again soon.”

  Beep!

  Barron stared at the machine. His number was unlisted. How had Raymond gotten it?

  Immediately he picked up the phone and punched up Halliday’s cell phone. It rang four times before the recorded voice of the wireless operator came on saying the party was unavailable. Barron hung up and called Halliday’s house. Again the phone rang, no one picked up and no answering machine came on. He was about to hang up and try one of the others, Valparaiso or Lee, when someone did pick up. It was a young boy’s voice. “Hello?”

  “This is John Barron. Is your daddy there?”

  “He’s with my mommy, my brother is throwing up.”

  “Would you ask him to come to the phone, please? Tell him it’s important.”

  There was a sharp clunk as the child put the phone down. In the distance he could hear voices. Finally Halliday came on the line.

  “Halliday.”

  “It’s John. I’m sorry to bother you. Raymond called me.”

  “What?”

  “Left word on my machine.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That he wanted to talk to me again tonight. That he’d call back.”

  “How’d he get your number?”

  “No idea.”

  “You alone?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “If he can get your number he can get your address.”

  Barron glanced around the room and again at the dark rectangle of door frame leading from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Absently he touched the Colt automatic in his belt holster.

  “I’m okay.”

  “We’ll put a trace on your phone. If he calls again, keep him on the line as long as you can. He’ll put himself right in a corner. I’m going to send a surveillance unit, give you some protection in case he decides to show up.”