Pike rolled out of bed, dressed, got together his things, then drove south to Compton across a landscape brilliant with unwavering lights.

Chapter 9

9

PIKE KNEW RAHMI was home the first and only time he drove past in his Jeep because the shiny black Malibu was wedged to the curb. Three in the morning on a weeknight, traffic was nonexistent and the streets were dead. Pike pulled his jacket collar high, his cap low, and slumped behind the wheel. Everyone else in the world might be sleeping, but SIS would be watching. One pass, they would ignore him. Two passes, they would wonder. A third pass, they would likely call in a radio car to see what was going on.

Pike drove to a well-lit, twenty-four-hour Mobil station by the freeway, parked, then called a cab service. While he waited for the cab, he went inside. The attendant was a middle-aged Latin guy with a weak chin who looked scared even though he was behind an inch and a half of bulletproof glass. As soon as Pike walked in, the attendant’s right hand went under the counter.

“Engine trouble. I’m going to leave my Jeep here for a while. Okay?”

Pike held up a twenty-dollar bill, then slipped it under the glass. The attendant didn’t touch it.

“Ain’t nothin’ bad in there, is it?”

“Bad?”

“Like . . . bad?”

Dope or a body.

Pike said, “Engine trouble. I’ll be back.”

The attendant took the twenty with his left hand. He never revealed his right. Pike wondered how many times he had been held up.

Pike went outside and stood in the vapor light breathing cold mist until a lime green cab showed up. It appeared lavender in the silky light.

The cab driver was a young African-American with suspicious eyes, who did a double take when he saw his fare was a white man.

He said, “Car trouble?”

“I have a friend nearby. You can take me to her place.”

“Ah.”

Her. A woman made everything better.

Pike gave the nearest major intersection, but not Rahmi’s address. Pike didn’t want the cabbie to know it if he was later questioned. When they reached Rahmi’s street, Pike told him to cruise the block.

Pike said, “Go slow. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“I thought you knew this girl.”

“It’s been a while.”

The SIS spotters would be watching the cab. This time of morning, they didn’t have anything else to watch. Pike slumped in the shadows of the backseat as they passed Rahmi’s building. The SIS spotters would be on alert now, but Pike wanted to see how Rahmi’s apartment was lit. The lighting was crucial in helping Pike determine where the spotters were hiding, and in planning how to defeat them.

Pike said, “Slower.”

The cab slowed even more. The watch officer was likely keying his radio or kicking his partner, saying they might have something here.