“Scotch. I am drinking scotch in honor of our friend Frank. I would rather rip off a twenty-one-gun salute out in the backyard, but my neighbors prefer the drinking. Where was I?”

“Consequence and retribution.”

“Right—”

Jon Stone was grieving, so Pike let him continue.

“But then . . . then they hit Frank the Tank, them not knowing he was Frank the Tank, them thinking he was just another ordinary dead guy without recourse to consequence. So dig this—and this is my favorite part—those assholes are somewhere right now, shootin’ up, corn-holing each other, whatever—they are somewhere right now, and they do not know a shit storm is on the horizon, and it is coming for them.”

Pike said, “Jon? Do you have photographs on your walls?”

“What, like naked chicks?”

“Pictures of your family. Friends.”

“Shit, yeah. I take pictures of everything. I got pictures of fuckin’ human heads. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Hey, man. Those fuckers. Those fucks fucked the pooch this time, didn’t they, fuckin’ with Frank?”

“Get some sleep.”

“I want in on this, bro. I mean it. Whatever.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I’ll call Colin. Colin will be on the first plane.”

“Don’t call Colin.”

“Wallace would come.”

“ Don’t.”

“Fuck it. Hey, Joe? Joe, you there?”

“What?”

Stone was silent for so long Pike thought he had fallen asleep.

“Jon?”

“None of us had families. You never married. Lonny, Colin, not them, either. Wallace got divorced. I’ve been married six fuckin’ times, man, what does that tell you? None of us had kids.”

Pike didn’t know what to say, but maybe Stone voiced it for him, soft, and hoarse from the booze.

“I really wanted Frank to make it. Not just for him.”

Pike closed his phone.

He sat in Frank’s office for almost an hour, alone with himself and the silence, then walked back along the hall to Cindy’s desk. He took the framed picture of Frank in the pool, tucked it into his pocket, then let himself out the way he had entered, and drove home for the night.

They call this the city
The city of angels
All I see is death-dealin’ dangers.

—TATTOOED BEACH SLUTS

Part Two - The First Rule

Part Two

The First Rule

Chapter 8

8

PIKE RETURNED HOME AFTER leaving Frank’s house and found a message waiting from Elvis Cole, who was Pike’s friend and partner in a detective agency. Pike listened while he drank a bottle of water.

Cole said, “Hey. A cop named Terrio came by the office today, asking about you and someone named Frank Meyer. Felt like he was fishing, but he also said this guy Meyer was murdered. Call me.”

Pike deleted the message, then looked up Rahmi’s address on his computer. He was hungry, he wanted to exercise and return Cole’s call, but he needed to keep moving. Movement meant progress, and progress meant finding the men who killed Frank.