The Last Days of Ray Cobb

Chapter 4

Ahead of them, the Uber turned up Saticoy toward Panorama City. Boom-Boom was right. Manny led them to where he’d taken the van a dozen times before. If he didn’t show up with the group, at least he’d be there waiting when Culp showed up. His loyalty wouldn’t be in jeopardy.

The Hyundai pulled up to a ranch-style house. Perfectly suburban with a well-manicured lawn. A standing light in the front yard illuminated the path up to the stained glass front door. The kid got out of the car and it pulled away. Boom-Boom shut off the headlights and they stopped a few houses down while Manny trotted up the front steps.

“Should we grab him?” Boom-Boom asked. His pull toward authority was stronger than Ray had imagined. All of Boom-Boom’s life he had probably defaulted to the most intelligent person in the room. Now, it was the guy he was supposed to be babysitting.

“Hold on,” Ray whispered. He watched the kid trot up to the house and ring the doorbell. He peered through the stained glass windows and then rapped on the door. No one responded. No one came out. He disappeared around the side of the house and Boom-Boom made a move to leave the car.

“Wait,” Ray said again.

“You wanna lose him?” Boom-Boom argued.

“How much time did you spend out on the streets before you took up with Malkin?”

“Enough.”

“Not long enough to pay attention to your environment,” Ray said. “Look at this neighborhood. Nice, but not too nice. Houses punctuated with apartment buildings. Comfortable.”

Boom-Boom peered through the windshield of the Jeep again, looking for any sign of Manny emerging from around the house. The kid’s disappearance didn’t bother Ray in the slightest.

“If what Dmitri said was true, neighbors are going to notice a group of kids piling out of a van into a house regularly and then piling back out. If there was any indication of what really happened in there, I’m sure there would be someone nosey enough to raise a red flag. Look at that place. Simple and inviting. Which means—”

Manny came around the opposite side of the house that he’d gone around. He stood on the lawn for another moment, hoping to see movement inside, then shrugged and pulled out his phone again. Moments later, another car arrived, picked him up, and drove away.

Boom-Boom made a movement to start the Jeep. Ray stopped him again.

“We’re where we need to be.”

Ray got out of the car and walked toward the house, Boom-Boom trailing behind.

“What were you saying about the house? What does it mean?”

Ray stopped short and ducked into the yard of the apartment complex next door. It wasn’t as well lit and would give them access to the back of the house.

“It means,” Ray pointed to the small square window at the base of the house, “it’s one of the few houses in the neighborhood with a basement.”

They crept into the darkened yard and peered through the window. Below them was a finished basement, complete with a pool table and a flat screen.

“We used to call that the rumpus room when I was growing up,” Ray said. “Neighbors will know he has it and if he’s involved with the church, holding a youth group meeting won’t look out of place.”

“How the f**k did you know that s**t?” Boom-Boom asked.

“I used to know a lot of people who spent too much energy trying to look normal. Me included,” Ray said.

“I don’t know what the f**k that means either,” Boom-Boom said.

“Neither did I until I tried to escape it,” Ray said.

Opening up about his former life with Boom-Boom was strangely easy. It was as though the MMA fighter was an amnesiac therapist who didn’t offer ways to solve his problems.

He got up and went to the back door of the house. The kitchen light was on. Either the lights were on a timer or someone had left hastily. No one was home.

He tried the knob. It jiggled more than it should have, but was locked.

“Any chance you’re an expert lock pick?” Ray asked.

“No, but I ain’t the first one to try,” Boom-Boom said, pointing at the door. Ray hadn’t noticed it, but there were several marks in the doorjamb made with some kind of pry bar. And from there, he could see there were paint chips and splinters on the concrete steps. Fresh.

“Whoever did it loosened the lock,” Ray said.

“The kid?”

“Not enough time.”

Boom-Boom wrapped his ping-pong paddle palm around the door handle and turned it hard as he put his shoulder into the wood. It gave a slight crack and more wood splintered onto the ground, but they were inside.

They closed the door behind them and Ray nodded to the stairs by the pantry that led to the basement.

“You don’t wanna check out the rest of the place?” Boom-Boom whispered.

“If whoever got here before us is still here, they avoided that bay window. Only one place to do that.”

Ray went for the knife block and Boom-Boom stopped him.

“You really want to go down there without a weapon?”

“Who said anything about me goin’ down there without a weapon?”

He pulled a taser out of his pocket and showed it to Ray. All this time, Ray had assumed it was Boom-Boom’s fists that were supposed to keep him in line.

Ray held his hands up. “You first.”

Boom-Boom headed for the stairs without question. The first step creaked. He peered back at Ray.

“Ah, the element of surprise,” Ray said.

Boom-Boom continued down the stairs as Ray slid a cast-iron skillet out of the dish rack and hid it behind his back. It was a little Looney Tunes, but anything in a pinch.

They reached the basement and found the same calm scene they’d seen through the window. Boom-Boom turned around to Ray and nodded to the only closed door. Ray nodded back. If Boom-Boom had seen Ray’s weapon, he didn’t mention it.

Playing out the scene of every action movie he’d ever seen, Boom-Boom kicked in the door and then swept aside, waiting for a hail of gunfire.

It didn’t come. But there was a smell both of them were more familiar with than they’d like to admit.

Fresh blood.

Boom-Boom went into the dark room, followed by Ray.

A lone laptop computer sat on a simple desk. The flatscreen monitor showed a frame by frame layout of film editing software displaying a scene that Ray tried not to take too close a look at. The far end of the room was spare, except for a double bed and a few props that made it look like the room of a pre-teen. Theatrical lighting hung from the ceiling, and the cord from a DSLR camera ran from the tripod directly into an external hard drive. Culp was on the bed.

He didn’t look like what Ray had expected. There was no v-neck t-shirt that exposed a tangle of chest hair beneath a gold chain. No ponytail clinging to the dregs of a balding scalp. He was clean cut. Jeans and a golf shirt. The only things that kept him from looking like he was about to go to a PTA meeting were the Bear tattoo on his forearm and the gash across his neck.

“Guess we’re too late,” Ray said.

“He could still be here,” Boom-Boom said, ready to search the house.

“Left and locked the back door behind him. He’s gone.”

“Who do you think ‘he’ is?” Boom-Boom asked. He’d turned his attention to the computer. From the look on his face, Ray could see the scene disgusted him.

Ray stayed in the shadows of the room, keeping his weapon concealed, but the crime scene made him nervous. The killer had used a straight razor and placed it delicately on the bed next to the body.

Just like Osip Kosbur had with Victor Mochulyak.

The realization hit him in a flood that took his breath away.

The Bear was still alive.

Dimitri had lied.

Which meant either Malkin didn’t know or, more likely, he had sent them on a wild goose chase and Boom-Boom was going to take him out as soon as they found the third tattoo.

He swung the skillet back and cracked it across the back of Boom-Boom’s head. It made a resounding clang, but he didn’t go down. He stood up slowly and turned around.

“Oops,” Ray shrugged. The prongs of the taser hit his chest. He was still in a fit of convulsions when Boom-Boom grabbed the laptop and swung it across Ray’s face, halting his consciousness.