27
Ben Azmeh’s address was a Santa Ana apartment not far from the Civic Center. The street curbs were dense with the cars of working people home for the weekend. A lunch truck was doing slow business in the shadow of the jail. Taucher and I ate standing up, burning through the napkins, watching the occasional jail visitor come and go. I think she caught me looking for the fabled hematoma under her makeup.
“Fifty bucks this address is a shell,” said Taucher. “Like World Pizza.”
“I’ll bet it’s a good address.”
“You’re such a Boy Scout.”
“Indian Guides. Comanche.”
“My mother wouldn’t let me join the Girl Scouts because they were too soft.”
“Maybe not a good fit for you, Joan.”
“I wanted soft. I was a girl.”
Del Sol Apartments was two short blocks south. Ben Azmeh’s unit was ground-floor, at the end of a two-story building. Taucher and I stopped well short, standing beneath skinny palms with shaggy heads. Some of the apartments were strung with Christmas lights. I looked along the sunlit stucco wall of the building, at the first-story patios and second-floor decks crowded with barbecues, bikes, toys, potted plants. Poinsettias in gold- and red-foiled pots, strings of lights on the balconies. The grass along the sidewalk was foot-trampled, and I thought of Blevins stepping in Zeno’s business. Felt happy.
“Follow my lead here, Roland,” she said. “If he’s cooperative, it’s just a friendly FBI talk with old Ben. We’re wondering how he’s doing. Wondering if he might have any concerns to share with us. Like, about fellow Muslims. I’ll get him onto Doctors Without Borders, Aleppo 2015. My guess is he’ll blather heatedly about that, if he’s anything like his brother. If we get inside, it’s strictly a plain-sight. Don’t touch, whatever you do. Don’t, don’t, put on any heat. Nothing about Lindsey, Kenny, or Voss. Nothing about knives, calligraphy, ammunition, or Hector Padilla. I lead. Let him answer my questions. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Taucher gave me a brittle grin. “A short leash for you, Roland. Just like they give me. Now, if Ben won’t cooperate, we’ll be back to fight another day. If he resists, threatens, or makes any kind of aggressive move — I’ll accept your physical help. If this is the guy who killed Kenny Bryce, then I’ll need it. We cuff his butt and call the nearest resident agency, which is less than half a mile from here. We can hold him seventy-two hours as a domestic terror suspect, no Miranda needed. You’ve got a gun back in the truck?”
I nodded.
“Get it.”
My leash was long enough to reach the toolbox bolted into the bed of my truck, from which I took my .45 autoloader, snug in its clip holster. Which I slid between waistband and flank, right side, grip resting in the hollow below my rib cage, snug and easily hidden by my coat. I have a two-shot ankle cannon, too — a four-ten shot-shell over a very hot .357 magnum — prodigiously lethal and made for only the most desperate of straits. I decided against it.
Taucher stood under the thin palms in her black suit, her back to me as she watched the apartment. Square of shoulder, platinum of hair. A businessperson, perhaps. A professional. An undertaker. She struck me as alone in her world, a solitary hunter, though she could have a rich family life, close friends, and strong interests that she had never once mentioned. And why should she? I probably had her all wrong.
We were halfway to unit 24-A when I saw the red “For Rent” sign hanging in the front-porch window. We stopped and for a long silent moment let the defeat sink in.
Caliphornia, I thought: dancing away, a step ahead of us.
As in Bakersfield.
As in last night after the Treasures of Araby?
In this moment it felt like Caliphornia could stay ahead of us for quite a while. I chose not to imagine the carnage that he could deliver with six-thousand-plus rounds of ammunition and a few guns to fire it with.
Who are you?
How can we bring you to us?
What will you fall for?
What do you need?
“So is this bad luck or fate?” asked Joan. “Maybe I should consult Al Ra’ad like Marah and Ben. I bought a Qur’an right after Nine-Eleven. Trying to get a feel for what I was up against. Maybe that was politically incorrect, but I reasoned that religious extremists start with religion. There’s a lot of violence in that book. It’s real us-against-them kind of stuff. I read parts of it. Not the whole thing.”
I thought of the good Muslims I’d run across in my life. From Fallujah to San Diego. “Islam is the hostage,” I said, quoting Hadi Yousef.
“Maybe.”
“Blame the terrorist, not the excuse,” I said.
