Killer Karma

5

Climbing a set of the office tower stairs at Embarcadero Center irked Cole. Not the effort involved, since it used none…the time. He was a ghost, for god’s sake; why did he have to trudge around the world like the living? What kept the instant travel thing from working again? Benay sounded in fear when he talked to her. Despite the lapse of four days since his death it felt critical for him to be in those offices looking for evidence that Gao assaulted her…for what happened that kept her from meeting him. Or whether Benay had some role in his death.

Still, the five more times he tried instant travel on the way up all failed. Reducing him to taking the stairs two at a time until he exited and found himself not in the Flaxx offices as he hoped but the architectural firm occupying most of the floor. He made his way out and around to Flaxx Enterprises.

While its offices occupied much less space than the architects or the financial consultants also on this floor, Flaxx had furnished the reception area inside his big glass entry doors to pretend otherwise…presenting visitors with thick carpet, chrome-and-leather chairs, current slick magazines on the side tables, and a forest of greenery. Cole liked the reception desk best, a big modernistic glass slab that perfectly displayed their eye candy receptionist Gina Galechas.

Cole eyed the desk as he passed it and circled the rubber plants partially screening the hallway beyond. Since Donald Flaxx liked to think that leaving the dumb flatfoot cooling his heels up front demonstrated lack of fear — i.e., a clear conscience — and how busy he was, Cole ended up spending plenty of time with Gina in the four years she worked there. A mistake on Flaxx’s part, because rather than sit appreciating Gina’s legs, Cole chatted her up and led her into office gossip.

Which was how he learned about the three women from Bookkeeping, one of them Benay, who always ate lunch together. A piece of information he dusted off last month and put to use. It had been a simple matter arranging “chance” encounters with the trio over the course of a week, until they finally invited him to join them. There, amid entertaining them with war stories, he had pumped them for information on Bookkeeping’s operations.

Bookkeeping was the whole key to getting away with the burglaries and arson. Flaxx’s head of Bookkeeping, faithful minion Earl Lamper, obviously cooked the books to make the stores look profitable so there appeared to be no motive for faking burglaries. The mystery was how he prevented other members of the staff from noticing. Cole doubted the entire Bookkeeping department engaged in a conspiracy. That could not have lasted six years without a leak. He learned nothing from Benay and her two coworkers, however…who proved more careful than Gina about what they said. He had written the operation as a failure…until Benay called him at work on Monday.

“I’d like to talk to you about some of the store accounts I happen to be working on right now. They’re ones you mentioned the day you had lunch with us. Can you meet me after work?”

His pulse had raced. Maybe he had the break he was looking for! “Pick a place.”

Remembering his elation, Cole grimaced at a new stab of guilt. Because he agreed to the meeting, maybe it painted a target on Benay. Or she might be wrongly branded a cop killer. Even if it turned out she had a part in his death, the whole fatal chain of events began that evening, and he started it.

He worked his way through the offices along the cental hall. The Security office had just a small bank of monitors, but they covered the reception area, central hallway, break room, a supply room, and their one emergency exit at the far rear. That had to be how Benay planned to escape.

Bookkeeping sat quiet and tidy today. Looking from Mrs. Gao’s desk by the door to Benay’s on down the room, he wondered how such a small woman tortured Benay into talking. Maybe she had a black belt in one of the martial arts disciplines. If so, none of the photos and nicknacks on the shelf by her desk reflected that.

They all had some shelves for personal items. He checked Benay’s. If Leach thought the two of them took off together, Benay must be missing. Maybe something here hinted where she would run. A photograph showed her with her two friends here, Kenisha Hayes and Joy Quon…taken at an office Christmas party. A small stand-up calendar had this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and tomorrow circled in red, then X’d out, as was the notation Baja. The missed cruise she mentioned during their Monday meeting. Too bad she had not noted the name of the yacht. It could be a lead to her. He eyed the drawers in her desk with frustration, then turned away and moved across from the desks into Lamper’s glassed-in office. Nothing interesting sat out on Lamper’s desk, but the man had been out sick all week, the reason Benay had access to the files she called him about.

She claimed to be hiding in the men’s room. He went and checked both restrooms without really expecting any sign of her. Anything she might have left either place would have been removed by the cleaning crew Gina told him came in every Saturday.

Finally he reached the end of the hall and the desk of Flaxx’s secretary, Katherine Maldonado…positioned to be his gatekeeper. He eyed the door of Flaxx’s office but decided against going in. He already knew what it looked like.

Flaxx furnished his office as though he headed a major corporation. An acre of desk dominated the room, accompanied by a summit-sized conference table, gentlemen’s club leather chairs, and wood paneled walls hung with large color photographs of Flaxx — health-club buff, smile news-anchor-white, beachboy highlights in hair restored to youthful thickness by implants — opening various stores, playing golf with his father and celebrities, shaking hands with several California governors and a Vice President. A door in one side wall led to Flaxx’s private washroom. Paneling on down the same wall opened to reveal a bar.

The exit sign above the narrow side hallway across from Maldonado’s desk interested Cole more. That was the way Benay intended to leave on Wednesday.

He followed the hall to the emergency stair door, and to his surprise, passed an office. The name plate on its door read: I. L. Carrasco, Asset Management. Whoever occupied that office must feel like a stepchild, stuck back there across from a storeroom and custodial closet. Even Security rated an office on the main hallway.

Cole descended the stairs slowly. A reason for Benay failing to meet him might be that she had been caught in here, and the stairwell might not be cleaned often enough to remove evidence left on Wednesday. However, despite carefully examining each flight for blood or marks on the walls that might have been left by a head or kicking feet striking it, he found nothing.

From the retail levels he made his way down to the garage, and through it to where he remembered parking that night. Where he died. Without surprise, he saw it was the same slot where he found himself standing this afternoon. His remembered terror hung over the row like fog.

Cole started to back away, then halted. Maybe examining the memory would tell him something about the shooting that he lacked the opportunity and presence of mind to appreciate at the time. A Neon parked in his stall now. He sat against its trunk, as he had sat against that of his Taurus that night, and put himself back in the place of his living self.

Checking his watch, Cole saw he had been here ten minutes. Added to what it took him to drive over, Benay should have had time to be down here by now. Unless she showed up soon, he was going to go up after-

Footsteps interrupted the thought. Not the footsteps of a woman in heels…something with softer soles. Moments later their maker appeared, an adolescent boy in Nike’s, jeans, and a jacket that would have looked baggy even on someone twice his weight. He sauntered down the parking row, shoulders and head bobbing in time to music playing through his earphones.

The retail stores had been closed for almost an hour and the boy looked too young to drive…maybe fifteen. Automatically, Cole noted the rest of his descriptors…about five-six, ninety-five to a hundred pounds; Caucasian, or possibly Hispanic since dark hair hung around his face; a Giant’s baseball cap worn backward; carrying a plastic shopping bag.

After a furtive look around, the boy turned in on the passenger side of an SUV several spaces down. Cole automatically headed that way to see what the kid was up to.

Suddenly the kid jumped back into the drive. Cole froze. He wore a plastic Elvis Presley mask and had the shopping bag pulled up over his left forearm…pointed straight ahead and held in place by the kid’s elbow pressed against his side. The plastic conformed to the shape of a gun muzzle inside. Now the bobbing of the kid’s head and shoulders looked like the twitches of a junkie.

After a glance around, the kid slid the bag down his arm far enough to display the butt of a compact semiautomatic…with the hammer cocked and his fingers gripping the weapon so tightly they were white. “Trick or treat.” He pulled the bag up again.

Cole spread his arms away from his body, and made his voice casual. “Are you sure you want to be doing this, partner?”

“Oh, shit!” The reedy voice cracked. “You’re a cop!”

A quick glance down showed Cole that his suit coat hung open far enough to reveal the star still clipped on his belt. Two thoughts raced through his head simultaneously: that he had to prevent the kid from wigging out, and get rid of him before Benay showed up.

Keeping his tone soothing, Cole said, “This doesn’t have to be a problem. Nothing’s happened yet. You can just put down the gun and walk away.”

“Oh, sure.” The hand in the bag twitched.

Cole forced himself not to wince.

“Then you’ll tackle me.”

“No. But if you’re worried, don’t turn away. Back off until you feel it’s a safe distance.” Just go, you little bastard; get the hell out of here.

The tweaker shifted from foot to foot. “As soon as I run, you’ll be on your radio, I bet. I gotta have a better edge than that.” His free right arm reached up across the top of his head, then dropped to rub at his left shoulder and fiddle with edge of the Elvis mask.

Cole waited for a glimpse of the face beneath, but the mask stayed in place.

As though driven by a will of its own, the arm flopped back across the top of the tweaker’s head. “I know. Go get in your car, the passenger side, and toss your gun in the back seat. And move easy.”

Cole moved as though carrying nitroglycerine. “You don’t have to do this.”

The tweaker followed, halting to the rear of the open door, where he stood shifting from foot to foot. His voice slid up a register, cracking. “I been in juvie once. I ain’t goin’ back.” Granite determination rang in the words. “Handcuff yourself behind your ankles.”

Cole breathed slowly. Their positions hid his hands from view, giving him the chance to use a technique he and Razor had practiced for just such situations. As he closed the first cuff around his left wrist, he deflected the rachet section so the blade slid along the outside of the cuff and the pieces overlapped instead of engaging. At the same time he squeezed the other cuff with his left hand, creating sound of a closing cuff. So far, so good.

As Cole started to run the chain behind his ankles, the tweaker said, “No, no…wait…wait. I got a better idea. Lock the other one around the adjustment bar down there in front of the seat.”

Cole complied. As soon as the tweaker left, he would pop the rigged cuff open and be home free.

The tweaker giggled. “I like that. It’s like the bar on the bench in Booking.” In Cole’s peripheral vision his whole body twitched. “It’s gonna be real embarrassing when you’re found and have to tell the other cops what happened. Oh…wait…wait.” He giggled again. “I got an even better idea.”

Peripheral vision caught the tweaker reaching into the car. The next second Cole felt the gun muzzle behind his ear. Surprise, anger, and terror collided in his head in screaming pandemonium. He wrenched desperately at the rigged cuff. No, wait! But before the cry left his throat, explosive pain hurled him into blackness.

Cole’s head snapped forward, staggering him. A spin and lurch against the Neon kept him on his feet. He clung to the spoiler while chaos echoed in his head and sent shivers through the rest of him. Shit. He never expected to relive the damned memory! Had it given him anything except a bad trip?

When the shivers subsided and all but the terror in the air around him faded, Cole realized it did give him more. The Elvis mask did not hide the shooter’s ears. They had no lobes, a distinctive enough feature to help identify him. And while the shooter might well be a kid — there were plenty these days capable of cold-blooded murder — he was no tweaker. Now Cole saw it had all been an act…designed to maneuver him into position for an easy kill. The proof was finding the Taurus. A real junkie would have sold it to a chop shop for drug money, not driven to San Jose and dumped it. Cole also doubted a junkie would bother hauling the body away.

So it was a hit. He had been set up.

The location and timing pointed toward Donald Flaxx arranging it. While the tweaker act seemed a complicated way to make a hit when a drive-by would do the job, it did keep things tidy. The car caught all the blood.

Cole knelt down to peer under the Neon and neighboring vehicles, searching the garage floor. Sure enough, the area looked clean. No stains that might be blood. No spent casing, either. With his body removed, nothing indicated a murder had taken place here. An important point considering the garage’s proximity to the Flaxx offices.

The trouble was, as much as he liked Flaxx for the hit, Flaxx had no motive. Flaxx could sneer at anything Benay found in the files. Criminally greedy pond scum he might be, but not stupid. Part of his arrogance included showing off how familiar he was with the search and seizure rules. So when Benay admitted she and Inspector Dunavan discussed searching the company books, Flaxx would realize it was an illegal search. Which made all her discoveries fruit of the poisoned tree…evidence inadmissible in court.

Cole climbed to his feet and started dusting off his knees before realizing what he was doing. Catching himself, he shook his head — reflexes! — and considered one other problem with Flaxx ordering the hit on him. How could it have been set up in the time between the call to Benay and when the shooter appeared?

Benay, on the other hand, had two days if she wanted him dead. His gut said no…something threatened her and he was still here I order to stop it. Yet the old saw about the fury of a woman scorned ran through Cole’s head. He leaned against the Neon, drumming his fingers on the spoiler, and considered the possibility Benay set him up. Killing him because of Monday seemed extreme, and even two days was not very long to find a hired gun. A psycho might lurk behind those butterflies, though, and, being someone who spelled “weekend” P-A-R-T-Y, she might have connections.

Still…he would swear the fear in her calls was real. Even in memory it felt palpable, as intense as his terror swirling around here.

Or was this his? He had been assuming so because he died here. Now something about it gave him doubts. Cole closed his eyes to concentrate…and found disbelief mixed in the terror, rather than his anger and surprise. This terror was someone else’s. Whose?

“Miss Benay? Sara? Was it you?”

What were the odds of an unrelated incident generating terror in this same spot. What created her terror, though?

Possibilities ran through his head. She came looking for him and arrived in time to witness him being forced into the car and killed. Paralyzed by shock, she stood there instead of running…and the shooter caught and shot her, too. Or she came looking for him and the shooter lay in wait to eliminate her. Her disbelief maybe came from being shot by a kid.

Guilt dragged at Cole’s gut, cold and leaden. In either scenario, his obsession with nailing Flaxx killed her. Her death was his fault even if she set up the hit, and discovered, on arriving to gloat over the body and pay the shooter, he decided to leave no witnesses. That would account for the disbelief. It did not account for removing the bodies, however. Cole saw no reason for that shooter to care if they were found.

All the scenarios gave him one problem. Where Sara was killed. Not standing somewhere here or there would be blood. Not in the car. Razor said nothing about blood anywhere other than the front passenger area. Both the rear seat and trunk must have been checked.

Had Sara had managed to escape, her extreme emotion leaving this psychic residue?

The urgency in him cranked higher. He had to see if she made it home.