The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online Page B

to make a mistake.
    “Where exactly in California?” he asked.
    “Manhattan Beach,” Stone said.
    Carver wanted to reach across the glass tabletop and whack Stone on the side of the head with one of the plasma screens.
    “Do you know where Manhattan Beach is?” he asked instead.
    “Isn’t it down by Lo Jolla and San Diego? Down there?”
    Carver shook his head.
    “First of all, it’s
La
Jolla. And no, Manhattan Beach is not near it, anyway. It’s by L.A. and not too far from Santa Monica. So forget her. We’re
     not going back there for a good long time. You know the rules.”
    “But, Dub, she’s perfect! Plus, I already pulled files on her. L.A.’s a big place. Nobody in Santa Monica is going to care
     about what happens in Manhattan Beach.”
    Carver shook his head emphatically.
    “You can put the files right back. We just burned L.A. for at least three years. I don’t care who you find or how safe you
     think it is. I am not deviating from the protocol. And another thing. My name is Wesley, not Wes, and certainly not Dub.”
    Stone looked down at the glass tabletop and seemed crushed.
    “Tell you what,” Carver said. “I’ll go to work on it and I’ll find us someone. You wait and see and you’ll be very happy.
     I guarantee it.”
    “But it was going to be my turn.”
    Now Stone was pouting.
    “You had your turn and you blew it,” Carver said. “Now it goes to me. So why don’t you go back out there and get to work.
     You still owe me status reports on towers eighty through eighty-five. I want them by the end of the day.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Go. And cheer up, Freddy. We’ll be on the hunt again before the end of the week.”
    Stone stood up and turned toward the door. Carver watched him go, wondering how long it would be before he had to get rid
     of him. Permanently. Working with a partner was always preferable. But eventually all partners got too close and assumed too
     much. They started calling you by a name no one has ever used. They started thinking it was an equal partnership with equal
     voting rights. That was unacceptable and dangerous. One person called the shots. Himself.
    “Close the door, please,” Carver said.
    Stone did as instructed. Carver went back to the cameras. He quickly pulled up the camera over the reception area and saw
     Yolanda sitting behind the counter. Geneva was gone. Jumping from camera to camera he started searching for her.

FOUR: The Big Three-oh

    B y the time Sonny Lester and I left the apartment where Wanda Sessums lived, the projects were alive and busy. School was out
     and the drug dealers and their customers were up. The parking lots, playgrounds and burned-out lawns between the apartment
     buildings were becoming crowded with children and adults. The drug business here was a drive-through operation with an elaborate
     setup involving lookouts and handlers of all ages who would direct buyers through the maze of streets in the projects to a
     buy location that was continuously changed throughout the day. The government planners who designed and built the place had
     no idea they were creating a perfect environment for the cancer that would in one way or another destroy most of its inhabitants.
    I knew all of this because I had ridden with South Bureau narcotics teams on more than one occasion while writing my semiannual
     updates on the local drug war.
    As we crossed a lawn and approached Lester’s company car we moved with a heads-down-minding-our-own-business purpose. We just
     wanted to get out of Dodge. It wasn’t until we were almost right to the car that I saw the young man leaning against the driver’s
     door. He was wearing untied work boots, blue jeans dropped halfway down his blue-patterned boxer shorts and a spotless white
     T-shirt that almost glowed in the afternoon sun. It was the uniform of the Crips set, which ruled the projects. They were
     known as the BH set, which alternately meant Bounty Hunters or Blood Hunters, depending