Private L.A. (Private 6)

“Dartmouth will do that for you,” Carpenter replied before looking at Del Rio. “Those fingerprints you sent me?”

“Yes?”

“They don’t exist.”

“And that’s why you flew three thousand miles to see me?” Del Rio asked.

“I heard your back was broken.”

“Bullshit,” Del Rio said.

“Whatever,” Carpenter replied, his face hardening. “Those fingerprints belong to no one, and because the three of us go way back, I thought you’d want to hear me say that in person. Take it as a warning if you want, but don’t try to find someone who doesn’t exist.”

“Wait,” I said. “Warning from who?”

“People with far more reach than I’ve got,” Carpenter said. “Spooky, spooky spook people.”

“Did Rick tell you where the fingerprints came from?” I asked.

“As a matter of fact, no,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, but it does,” I said.

I told him everything, described seeing the four dead bodies on Malibu Beach, the killings in the CVS, and the explosion on the Huntington Beach Pier. Then I described how a drag-queen shooter playing Marilyn Monroe on skates killed six at Mel’s Drive-In before a granny who would have been the seventh shot him dead.

“This is our first serious clue as to who is behind No Prisoners,” I said. “We need your help or eight will die tomorrow.”

Through all of it, Carpenter had listened impassively, as if he were hearing the plot of a new action movie and not the gruesome details of an actual mass-murder spree.

When I was done, he blinked several times, rubbed his fair cheeks, and pursed his lips. “I read about some of this,” he said. “No Prisoners?”

“That’s the handle,” Del Rio said. “You recognize it?”

Carpenter shook his head.

“But you know those fingerprints,” I said. “Otherwise, I don’t see you coming here at all, as compassionate a man as you are. And I don’t think that warning was coming from any triple-spooky people. I think it’s coming from you.”

Carpenter thought that was funny but said, “No one ever said you were a dummy, Jack. But from me or whoever, take it as fair warning.”

Del Rio said, “There are twenty-one people dead. Innocent people. Eight more may die. Women. Children. Doesn’t that kind of thing get through to you? Or are you so jaded by your life in the shadows that nothing gets through anymore?”

To my surprise, Carpenter’s face cracked and the hard bravado fled, and he honestly seemed to age right in front of me, his eyes hollowing and his cheeks sagging. He said in a weary voice, “These kinds of things get to me more than you could ever imagine, Rick. The things I’ve seen? The stuff I know? I haven’t slept right in years.”

“High time to get some of

it off your chest,” I replied. “Either that or the twenty-one people dead here in L.A. are going to become a permanent part of your nightmares and obsessions.”

Carpenter’s shoulders hunched and he gazed at me as if I were Jacob Marley’s ghost, showing him the length and weight of an invisible chain that threatened to hang from him for all eternity.

“I don’t want that,” he said quietly.

“Then tell us what you know,” Del Rio said. “Help us stop these killings.”

Chapter 98

CARPENTER LOOKED AT the floor for a long time, as if seeing something on the antiseptic film that coated the hospital tiles.

“Okay,” he said at last. “But none of this can become public. And none of this can ever be traced to me. If you attribute the information to me, well …”