their limbs intact and with solid service records, but by all accounts, they left Iraq as changed and disillusioned men. Angry, bitter men, according to Karen. They resigned their commissions and bailed on the Marines as soon as they landed on home soil and moved back to San Diego County. Soon after that, they formed the Babylon Eagles. Interestingly, it seemed that Pennebaker was the one who had coined the club’s name.
A couple of their war buddies joined them. So did Pennebaker’s younger brother, Marty, who’d been floating around aimlessly and barely scraping by. The two missing faces in the photo gallery at the clubhouse—those were the Pennebaker brothers. Then, about a year into the club’s life, a scuffle with a rival biker gang left Marty bleeding to death on the street. Pennebaker went ballistic. He found the guy who killed his brother and beat him to a pulp. He then did something unexpected and turned himself in.
At the trial, two things worked in his favor. The biker he’d killed was a scumbag who had a rap sheet as long as his arm. Also, Pennebaker’s story resonated with the jury at a time when there was a general feeling that our government wasn’t really looking after the returning veterans with the care they deserved. Guru was given a seven-year sentence for manslaughter. He ended up serving only four of them at Ironwood, getting out early on good behavior. That was about fifteen months ago.
Then he disappeared.
The ATF didn’t have a take on that. According to Karen, he came out of prison with a new mind-set and didn’t want to have anything to do with the club anymore. He saw Walker one time—Karen didn’t see him—then he was gone.
No records. Nothing. The man had gone totally off-grid.
I was now twice as interested in finding him. He could potentially help us track down our Mexican bad guy by telling us who he and Walker used to ride shotgun for. Beyond that, the “dropping out” business got my curiosity pinging. He disappears and all kinds of bad stuff starts happening to his ex-bike brothers. Could be a coincidence. They did happen—occasionally.
I couldn’t know until we found him.
32
As he took the I-95 up to Mamaroneck, narcotics detective Andy Perrini wondered why Octavio Guerra was so keen to locate the archaeologist who’d turned to writing hokey novels. Obviously there was an angle—the Mexican fixer always had an angle—but Perrini had several of his own irons in the fire right now, so he had decided to not try to second-guess his paymaster on this occasion.
He already knew Tess Chaykin’s address; it was in the file he’d prepared for Guerra a few weeks back. The house belonged to Tess’s mother, Eileen, though the widowed Mrs. Chaykin appeared to no longer live there. He hadn’t been asked to discover where she was, and if Perrini had one rule when he was working for someone else, it was always to do the bare minimum necessary, unless extra effort somehow meant he could skim a bit more wedge off the deal.
Chaykin’s boyfriend, an FBI agent assigned to the CounterTerrorism Task Force who had been the primary subject of his report, had moved in a couple of years ago and the pair of them were now playing house with Chaykin’s teenage daughter, Kim. Perrini cringed at the thought of having to live with someone else’s kid. But even worse than that was the thought of having to combine family responsibilities with pleasure. He always kept the two strictly compartmentalized. Rachel and the boys in Greenpoint, and Louise in the apartment on Second Avenue, which he paid for with what he euphemistically called his nontaxable income.
Perrini turned onto Mamaroneck Avenue just after two P.M. and flicked on his GPS’s soporific female voice for the final part of the journey.
He’d read up on Mamaroneck before he’d set out. The whole civic setup seemed to be unnecessarily complex, with both a village and a town using the same name, but only part of the Village of Mamaroneck was in the Town of Mamaroneck, although all of the Village of Larchmont was considered part of the Town of Mamaroneck. The town’s website even had a page to help you determine whether you lived there or not. Apparently “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” had been written and first performed in the town, which seemed to be its proudest moment. All of this reminded Perrini of why he generally never ventured north of Mount Vernon.
He arrived at his destination and immediately wiped the GPS’s memory. He drove along the tree-lined street just within the speed limit and took a good look at the target house and at those on either side. Over the years he’d learned to take in a huge amount of information with only the smallest of glances. As he turned off the street and started to circle back, he already knew that Tess’s house had no car parked outside, that the mailbox hadn’t been emptied in a couple of days, and that the drapes had been left half open in that ridiculous way that people think sends a signal to passers-by that they’re at home when they’re really out of town. The feature of the property in which he was most interested was plainly accessible from one side but shielded from the other by a large rhododendron bush. And it was of the perfect type, though he was, of course, prepared for every eventuality.
The neighbors to the left had two boys who were still too young for summer camp—a fact he’d gleaned from the two boy’s bikes of different sizes left casually on the grass—but appeared to be out at present. The neighbors on the other side appeared to be retired, which he deduced both from the immaculate garden and the selection of walking sticks leaning against the inside of the porch. The gleaming Lexus in the driveway told him that at least one of them was home. Which suited Perrini perfectly.
Now back where he started, Perrini pulled in about a hundred yards short of the Chaykin house and parked behind a blue Prius. He then called Chaykin’s home number again—he’d programmed it into the throwaway he’d bought with cash a few hours earlier. He let it ring for the maximum time allowed by the network, then re-pocketed the phone once the line had gone dead. It was just as he had called it.
No one home.
He fished out a clipboard and a Phillips screwdriver from the stakeout detritus on the backseat and loosened the laces on one of his patent leather shoes, then he climbed out of the car and set off. He walked casually down the street, straightening his tie and sweeping his fingers through his mane of onyx-black hair, a feature that had served him well over the years with both female interview subjects and the still-delectable Louise, who’d been barely twenty when they’d first hooked up.
As he approached the front of Chaykin’s property he looked down, noticed his shoelace was undone, and knelt beside the rhododendron bush as if to retie it. He laid down the clipboard, took out the Phillips head, and quickly loosened the screws holding the street number to the gatepost on the near side of Chaykin’s driveway. When he had them sufficiently free of the wood, he angled the Phillips head down behind the screw heads, pried off the faux-iron plaque, and quickly put it and the screws in his pocket. Then he tied his shoelace, picked up his clipboard, and continued on his way.
He walked confidently across the driveway of the retired couple, past their immaculate Lexus, and rang the doorbell, holding his clipboard in that officious manner that filled most ordinary citizens with preprogrammed discomfort.
A woman in her sixties opened the door, wearing a well-cut pantsuit and a string of real pearls. A ripple of satisfaction ran through Perrini’s chest. This was almost going to be too easy.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Perrini said in the tone he normally reserved for Rachel’s mother and the precinct captain’s wife. “I’m from the Fire Prevention Office down on Weaver Street. We’re currently going around making sure everyone has their house number clearly displayed from the street, as stipulated by town law.”
The woman immediately looked over Perrini’s shoulder at the painted china disc stuck to her low picket fence. It was still there. She swung her eyes back to Perrini with a quizzical look.
He smiled.
“You are of course within regulations yourself, ma’am. And a very pretty sign, I might add. Looks lovely against your mimosa.”
It was the woman’s turn to smile.
Perrini cast his eyes onto his clipboard, on which rather incongruously sat that week’s roster for the Ninth Precinct’s narcotics squad.
“No, ma’am. I am inquiring with regard to the house number of your neighbor”—Perrini tapped his clipboard
