Nocturnal Read online

  “ ‘Use the night’?” Horn echoed.

  Reggie nodded. “He made sure I never saw his face. He moved fast. No sound. He used darkness and shadow as camouflage. Like a ninja or something.”

  “You saying a ninja did all this?”

  “Of course not,” Reggie replied. “But this guy was definitely a trained killer. And he wiped out a mid-level cartel in a matter of minutes, stopped a major arms deal, and saved my ass,” Reggie confirmed.

  “Let’s talk about that,” Horn said. “Why didn’t he kill you?”

  “He didn’t say. But if he’d wanted to kill me, I couldn’t have stopped him.”

  Horn eyed Reggie with suspicion. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “Gentlemen, I think that’s enough.” The voice came from behind. Surprised, Horn and Castle turned around. A middle-aged man, full head of hair gone gray, with a moustache and small goatee beard greeted them. Wearing jeans, sneakers, a threadbare gray sweatshirt and a military style leather jacket, the only thing that identified him as a cop was the DEA badge dangling from a lanyard around his neck.

  “Well. Special Agent Coulter. So nice of you to drop by.” Horn’s words seared with hostility.

  Walt Coulter smiled, letting the insult pass him by. He stepped forward, ignoring Horn and Castle, and stopped in front of Reggie. “You okay, cowboy?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  He put an avuncular arm around Reggie’s shoulder. “Come on, kid. I’ll buy you a breakfast burrito and a coffee. Then we’ll talk.” He started to lead Reggie away.

  “Now hold on a goddamned minute, Coulter,” Horn exploded. Coulter stopped. “That’s my officer there. He hasn’t been debriefed.”

  Coulter smiled over his shoulder. “Your officer was assigned to me for my Federal joint task force. Signed over to me personally by you, as a matter of fact. That makes him my officer until such time as I say otherwise, understand?”

  Coulter jabbed an index finger in Horn’s direction. “You want to talk to my officer? You have questions for my officer? Submit a written request. Maybe I’ll grant it. Otherwise, he’s off limits to you. Got it?” He and Reggie resumed walking away.

  “We’re not done here, Coulter!”

  Coulter turned around. This time, he was not smiling. “Yes, we are. My agent barely escaped with his life. He’s hungry and tired. I’m taking him to breakfast. I’ll copy you his report later this week after he’s submitted it – if you’re lucky.” Coulter pointed a finger again. “And it’s ‘Special Agent Coulter’ to you. You will call me by my proper rank. Understand -- Captain?” He walked away without waiting for a response.

  Horn stood there, eyes wide, mouth agape. He simply could not believe he had just gotten into a pissing contest – with a fucking Fed, no less! – and lost. He turned and looked at Castle, who had wisely turned his attention elsewhere, watching the forensics team collecting evidence and blood samples for processing.

  “Come on, Castle,” Horn said, deflated. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Back in their unmarked police car, Horn turned to Castle.

  “Did any of that seem strange to you?”

  Castle looked at him. The whole thing seemed strange to him.

  “Like something from the Twilight Zone, right?” Horn pressed.

  “Something.”

  Horn stared out the windshield for a moment. “Why leave Downing alive? He killed everyone else – “

  “He didn’t just kill them, Cap. He slaughtered them. The entire scene was like a meat packing plant from Hell. Oh, and by the way, he left someone alive,” Castle corrected. “Rudy Valdez is alive.”

  Horn nodded. “Why those two? A foot soldier and an undercover cop. What kind of message does that send?” He began counting things off on his fingers, one by one. “To law enforcement? To rival gangs? To the cartels?” His hand opened, palm up, an unanswered question. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Castle thought for a moment. No hypothesis came to mind. He mentally connected the dots, but no discernable pattern emerged.

  “A guy like this,” Horn said, softly, like he was thinking out loud, “his kills are fast. Clean. They’re messy, they’re bloody, but they’re not reckless or random, you know?”

  Castle nodded. “I’m with you so far.”

  Horn thought a moment longer. “If this was a regular murder scene, and you saw this kind of carnage in the method of execution, what would you think?”

  “Crime of passion. Like the killer knew the victims and hated them. A lot.”

  “Yeah.” The moment hung. “or something deliberately brutal to send a message.”

  “What are you thinking, Cap?”

  “Not sure.”

  The moment passed. Horn got back on track.

  “Point is, Downing’s right. This guy’s been trained. He doesn’t do random. He doesn’t make mistakes.” Horn paused a moment, formulating his words. “There’s a reason for every decision he makes.”

  “Professional killers tend to be perfectionists,” Castle said. “Acute attention to detail. They live in an unforgiving profession that allows no margin for error.”

  “Those two were left alive for a very specific reason.” He turned and looked at Castle. “I’d like to know why.”

  Castle grinned. “Well, things being what they are... if we can’t talk to Reggie...”

  “We’ll talk to Rudy Valdez,” Horn finished for him.

  A dull white Toyota Celica, a relic from the late eighties, pulled into the parking lot beside an outdated greasy spoon called Mama’s Diner. The car wheezed its way into a parking stall. The engine sputtered, backfired, then died. White smoke wafted from the rusted tailpipe, smelling of burned oil and cheap gasoline.

  Doors creaked open, stiff hinges groaning their protests. Coulter, who had been driving, got out on the left. Reggie practically fell out the other side.

  “Why is it I’m more scared riding in this car than what I was doing last night?” Reggie asked.

  Coulter grinned, swatting at the smoke wafting his direction from the tailpipe. “Show some backbone, kid. This car’s a classic!”

  “A classic clunker,” Reggie persisted as they walked towards the restaurant.

  “Wait ‘til I get this baby restored. She’ll look like she belongs in a museum.”

  “She belongs a salvage yard.”

  Coulter patted Reggie on the shoulder, all in good fun. “You gotta have faith things work out.”

  Once seated inside, they ordered. Reggie opted for scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast. Coulter ordered coffee and toast. Coulter watched as Reggie stared out the window for a while. Reggie wasn’t ready to talk yet. Coulter knew that from experience. Give him time. He’ll come ‘round on his own.

  Coulter sipped coffee that tasted like battery acid while Reggie devoured breakfast. He raised his empty cup towards the waitress. She noticed, came over with the pot, and topped off his mug. She disappeared while Coulter stirred his sugar and cream into his coffee.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” he asked.

  Reggie wiped his mouth with his napkin. “What?”

  “Being alive.”

  Reggie grinned, pointed at Coulter with his fork, then went back to eating.

  Coulter stared out the window a moment. “Why are you still alive?”

  Reggie put his fork down. His plate was mostly empty now. He grabbed his coffee mug, took a sip, swallowed.

  “Honestly, I got no fucking idea,” he said. Elbows on the table, he held his mug with both hands near his mouth. “This one guy. He...” he shook his head. “If he’d wanted me dead, I’d be in a body bag.” He inhaled as if to continue speaking, then exhaled quickly, completely, more like a sigh than anything else.

  Coulter noticed the change. “What?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Everything’s always nothing until it becomes something,” Coulter said.

  Reggie hesitated. Coulter sat in silence. “He wasn
’t there to kill me.”

  Coulter was intrigued. “What do you mean?”

  “It was almost like...”

  “What?”

  “It was almost like he was protecting me. Like he was there to take care of me.”

  “What makes you think that?” Coulter asked in a carefully modulated tone.

  “He knew I was not a criminal.” Reggie leaned forward and whispered. “He knew my real name, Walt. He knew I was a cop.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t know. But we’ve got another problem. Johnnie Wolf and El Gecko knew I was a cop, too. Johnnie was going to turn my pancreas into mincemeat with one of those AA-12’s. They claimed they have someone inside the Police Department.”

  Coulter sat back in his seat once again.

  The waitress buzzed back in, silently topped off Reggie’s cheap stoneware coffee mug. She threw him a smile, then flitted away. Reggie doctored his coffee, took a test sip before speaking again. When he did, his voice was low.

  “Walt, I believe them.”

  “I do too.”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Reggie sipped his coffee, put it down. He interlocked his fingers together, elbows on the table. He furrowed his brow, thinking.

  “What?” Walt asked.

  “My mystery savior knew I was a cop, but there’s more.” He looked Walt directly in the eye. “He knew me, Walt. Everything about me. My life story.”

  Walt glanced around, casing the place. Looking for danger.

  Reggie leaned over the table towards Coulter. “Johnnie and El Gecko were garden-variety traffickers. Take them out, and someone just fills that void. But their bosses are gonna want to know what happened. So if the cops know I survived...”

  “They’ll be gunning for you.”

  A door leading out of the kitchen banged open. Reggie spun, grabbing for his gun, but relaxed when he saw it was just a bus boy, about sixteen or seventeen years old. Probably working to save for college, or maybe sending money home South of the border.

  Coulter thought for a moment. “You need to go to ground, son. At least for a little while.”

  Reggie stood up. “I figured something like this would happen sooner or later.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I’ve got a ‘go bag’. Cash. Gun. Ammo. New I.D.”

  “Can I drop you off somewhere?”

  “I’m safer on my own.”

  Reggie walked towards the back of the restaurant. Glancing around, he slipped through the metal swinging doors into the kitchen. He silently moved past the mildly surprised grill cooks, and pushed the back door open. Sunshine spilled in, blotting out his body as he stepped outside. Then the door swung shut, clipping off the invading sunlight.

  It was as if Reginald Downing had never been there at all.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Horn and Castle parked directly outside precinct Headquarters. Horn had been quiet during the drive back, which was unusual. Castle had expected to endure yet another barrage of profanity–laden conspiracy theories about God knows what, with a few baseless accusations that Reggie Downing was a dirty cop. Instead, Horn had sat still and slightly hunched, staring out the window. Castle had glanced at him a few times, and his position never changed. Horn simply sat there, his right elbow propped on the door near the window glass, his thumb and forefinger cupping his chin.

  Castle killed the engine. He looked over at Horn, who did not budge. “Ummm, Captain?”

  Horn came out of his mental meanderings. He opened his door, got out. He closed the door, but did not move. He turned to look at Castle.

  “Let’s assume for a minute that Downing wasn’t yanking our chain,” he started. “Now, there’s no way just one guy could take out all those people without the others seeing him and sounding the alarm, right?”

  “But Downing said there was only one.”

  “Exactly,” Horn replied, “and that’s what doesn’t fit.”

  “But you said we’re assuming he didn’t lie to us, sir.”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “All Downing really said was that he saw only one guy in the cargo hold, right?”

  “Right.”

  Horn threw up his hands in a voila! movement. “But that doesn’t mean there weren’t others outside. Downing just didn’t see them.”

  “Our mystery man on the boat claimed he did it all himself.”

  “He lied,” Horn said simply. “And in his highly emotional state, Downing believed him.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Horn turned and headed towards the sidewalk. Castle followed. “We got a lot of work to do.”

  “What?”

  “Listen and learn, kid,” Horn said, stopping. “If I’m right, a new crew’s in town. Someone’s going into business for themselves.”

  Castle moved when Horn turned and lurched towards the Police Building front entrance. “You mean someone’s going to war with the cartels?” he asked.

  Horn nodded and said, “Assume they got better intel than us. Assume they know who survived last night.”

  “And that Reggie is a cop.”

  Horn pointed a finger at Castle. “Smart boy. No wonder you’re a Sergeant in only eight years.”

  “They’ll come after him.”

  “They know what happens when they kill cops,” Horn answered. “It’s bad for business. But if they do make a move, well, Downing’s no pushover. He can handle himself.”

  They pushed through the front doors and entered the building. Telephones rang, insistent, unanswered, while the soft rumble of a dozen conversations combined and filled the background with white noise.

  To Horn’s left, a uniformed cop handcuffed a sullen young teenager to a bench. Based on his extreme youth and paint – stained fingertips, Horn pegged him as a tagger. When the cop told the boy to sit still and wait, the kid flipped him off and said, “Fuck you, Cop”. To his credit, the cop ignored the little shit and went about the business of calling the punk’s parents.

  To Horn’s right, a Detective sat at his desk, interviewing an exhausted woman slumping in her chair he had seen before. He could not remember her name, but knew every line on her sagging face. Her rap sheet came to mind. A career prostitute, she sold her badly aging body to support her drug habit. She’d lost a real career, a husband and two kids somewhere along the way. Now she gave twenty-dollar blowjobs in the stairwells of dingy alleyways.

  Just another day at the office.

  The Greyhound bus terminal experienced a lull in activity. The last of the morning busses, bound for places like Los Angeles, Reno, and Phoenix, had pulled out minutes ago. The next wave of arriving busses weren’t due to arrive for another half hour, around noon. Porters stood near the loading docks, talking, or listening to music on their phones.

  Inside the terminal, a few passengers sat in uncomfortable chairs. One old woman dozed. A young couple in their teens made out in the corner. A Marine in uniform ordered a sandwich and coffee at the short order grill. The middle-aged woman who worked the newsstand had no customers. Bored, she read a tabloid magazine she had taken out of its rack. When she was done, she would put it back.

  No one noticed the sloppy, hunched over figure that careened past the front doors and staggered towards the bus station lockers. Tall and thin, the man wore an oversized dark blue hoodie up over his head, his face in shadow. Black sunglasses hid his eyes. A small, half empty bottle of cheap whiskey protruded from his back pocket.. Smelling of alcohol, he stumbled towards the lockers mumbling to himself.

  He careened closer, seeing surveillance camera on the ceiling pointed at the lockers. He tucked his left shoulder, dipped his head a bit, and cast his gaze down. He babbled incoherent conspiracy theories about invisible laser beams from surveillance cameras entering his brain and stealing his thoughts.

  When he stopped in front of the bank of loc
kers, all the surveillance camera recorded was the image of what appeared to be a street person, maybe a burned out druggie limping in.

  He fumbled around, looking for something. He patted the pockets on his shirt, his hoodie, his pants searching. His search grew more urgent.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” he muttered as he continued to pat himself down. Finally, frantic fingers found a familiar piece of thin brass. Smooth on one side, carefully serrated on the other, with a plastic ball on top.

  A wave of relief washed over his body. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, held his fist up a few inches from his face. He willed himself to open his eyes and his fisted hand to open. What he saw resting in his palm allowed the weight of the world to fall from his shoulders.

  A bus station locker key.

  He memorized the number etched into the plastic top, then found the corresponding locker number. After a couple of bungled attempts, he managed to insert the key and turn the lock. Inside, a nondescript dark blue duffle bag waited. He hauled the bag out and slung it over his shoulder.

  He took an unsteady step backwards. The spring-loaded locker door slammed shut the moment he let go. He flinched at the loud bang as the door slammed shut. Keeping his back to the camera, he lumbered away. The bum staggered deeper into the passenger waiting area. The passengers studiously ignored him. He stopped to rest near a door that lead out to a loading platform. The sign above the door stated PASSENGERS WITH TICKETS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

  His eyes moved upwards at the sign, then around. Passengers still ignored him. The old lady still slept in her chair. The Marine stood at a high bar table, consuming his sandwich and coffee. He knew the Marine noticed him. But Marines are trained to be aware of their surroundings, so this did not alarm him. He concentrated on the two uniformed Greyhound employees on the other side of the room, talking.

  Something didn’t feel right. One of them threw a glance his way, then went right back to her conversation. Neither employee looked his way again.

  Ah, being homeless. The surest way to become invisible. No one saw you. No one wanted to see you. Hide in plain sight. Where no one will notice.