Racing the Light (Elvis Cole #19; Joe Pike #8)(8)

“His mother believes he was kidnapped.”

Largo groaned.

“C’mon, Cole, the Men in Black? Area 51? You should be ashamed of yourself, taking money from this woman.”

“The Area 51 stuff is beside the point. He’s missing. She hired me to find him.”

“Then look in Area 51. That’s where you’ll find him.”

“Thanks for nothing, Largo. Sorry I bothered you.”

“I mean it. Did she mention his arrest record?”

I hesitated.

“No.”

“Two pops for misdemeanor trespassing, the first twenty-six months ago, the second nineteen months ago. Want to guess where?”

“Area 51.”

“How about that? One mile on the wrong side of Rachel, Nevada, which is as close as the military lets anyone get.”

“You think he went back?”

Largo laughed.

“His mother does. Anything else I can help with?”

I tried to think of something.

“Does his record show other arrests?”

“Nope. Only the two trespasses.”

“Was he arrested with anyone else?”

“Hang on.”

I heard background noises, but couldn’t make out what they were. Then she returned.

“The first arrest, a Ryan Seborg was with him. His mother probably mentioned him.”

“She did.”

“Her boy flew solo the second time. The record doesn’t name anyone else.”

I said, “Damn.”

“Cole—”

She hesitated.

“For what it’s worth, I extended the BOLO to Arizona and Nevada, and looped in Vegas PD and the Nevada sheriffs. Maybe they’ll spot him.”

I nodded, but she probably didn’t see it.

“Okay, Detective. Thanks.”

I hung up, gathered the pages, and slipped them into the envelope. The elevator was silent as I rode down to the lobby. I picked up a turkey baguette, and took it to my car.

As soon as I pulled out from beneath my building, the temperature climbed. Maybe the heat was a warning. Maybe I should’ve listened. I didn’t.





4





The low hills between Los Feliz and the Silver Lake Reservoir were crowded with small, working-class homes, slapped-together apartment houses, and discount transmission shops. Joshua Schumacher’s address led to an unlikely village of six stucco bungalows, each of the six painted a different color. The bungalows stepped uphill in two columns of three, facing each other across a central concrete stair that zigzagged between them like a deflated S. Pink, yellow, and blue were on the left. Red, mauve, and peach were on the right. Nobody was outside watering plants and no voices or music came from the windows. Everyone was probably at work. Or abducted. Schumacher lived in the middle bungalow on the left. The yellow.

I parked downhill by a fire hydrant and climbed to the yellow. The front door was open. A thin kid with limp sandy hair sat outside the door. He stood when he saw me.

“Mr. Cole?”

“Elvis. You must be Ryan.”

Ryan Seborg wore cargo shorts and a green T-shirt, and looked to be in his early twenties. The limp hair curtained his eyes, but he pushed it aside.

“I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll try. Where do we start?”

“We’ll start with you. Where do you think he went?”

Seborg shrugged and stepped into the bungalow.

“I dunno. He didn’t tell me he was going away. He just left.”

I followed him into a stuffy living room crowded with tired furniture and cardboard boxes stacked along a wall. A mound of bedding was heaped at the foot of the couch and open soda cans and takeout cups dotted the room like dead flies. A small dining area with a casement window was separated from a tiny kitchen by a counter loaded with takeout food containers. A short hall directly ahead led to a bathroom and a bedroom, but the living room walls stopped me. Dozens of photos of UFOs printed from the internet were pinned to the walls. Scattered among them were images of the Pyramids, the Nazca Lines, pre-Aztec temples, Stonehenge, and hand-drawn sketches of aliens. So many photos covered the walls they overlapped like fish scales.

I looked at Ryan.

“Adele believes he went to Area 51. Maybe she’s right.”

Seborg dropped onto the couch, and crossed his arms.

“I know what she thinks, but she’s wrong. Josh doesn’t want to do Area 51 anymore. He wants to rebrand the show. He wants to go mainstream.”

Ryan didn’t look happy about going mainstream.

I tipped my head toward the hall.

“What’s back there, his bedroom?”

“Our studio and the bathroom. We turned his bedroom into a studio, so now he sleeps out here. He keeps his clothes and stuff in the boxes.”

He shrugged toward the boxes lining the wall.

I took a quick tour through the bungalow. The studio was a small, dim room split by a narrow table. Swivel chairs and microphones faced each other across the near end of the table. A desktop computer cabled to two oversized monitors filled the opposite end. Acoustic foam panels covered the ceiling and half of the walls. The remaining half was covered by even more photos. A large poster showed a glowing UFO hovering above the desert. Two words stood tall beneath the spacecraft. they’re here.