Spider Bones

Schoon started to object. Face Mask stopped him with a raised hand.

“Kids today talk about something called a bucket list. You ever hear of that?”

“No.”

“It’s shit you want to do before they plant you in the ground. You know, before you kick the bucket.”

Schoon said nothing.

“I did some things when I was young don’t make me proud. I spent most of my life looking over one shoulder. Now they tell me my insides is hash. My list says I gotta put things to rest.”

Face Mask drew a long, deep breath.

“Here’s the deal. Take it or leave it. You get what you need on Lapasa. I go home to die at peace in my bed.”

Schoon thought it over.

“I’ll have to clear this with the DA.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Face Mask slouched back in his chair.

SCHOON JOINED US SECONDS LATER.

“How do I proceed?” he asked Lô.

“I’ve got no objection to you dealing on Xander Lapasa. He’s talking forty years ago. A murder in Vietnam. Jurisdiction would be a nightmare. Besides, the guy may have zilch. Maybe he’s trying to cash in on some rumor he heard.”

I’d thought of that, too.

“But stay away from Kealoha and Faalogo,” Lô said. “If the scumbag’s moving drugs into my city he’s going down. Cancer or no cancer.”

“This may take a while,” Schoon said.

It didn’t. Ten minutes later he was back.

“The DA agrees. We give Lapasa rope, hope he hangs himself on something else. A prosecutor will join us shortly, but the DA said to proceed since we’re recording and Lapasa has counsel present. Besides, he doesn’t think we have jurisdiction since the alleged crime took place in Vietnam and the perp was active-duty military.”

Schoon left. A minute later he reappeared on the screen and took his seat.

“All right,” he said. “You have immunity on anything you say regarding Xander Lapasa.”

Face Mask looked at his lawyer.

“We’d like that in writing,” Epstein said.

“You shall have it,” Schoon replied.

Epstein nodded.

Schoon picked up his pen. “Tell me about the death of Alexander Lapasa.”

The pharmacy mask shrank inward, puffed out. Then, “Lapasa and I are waiting for a chopper to take us up-country.”

“Where was this?” Schoon asked.

“Long Binh.”

My heart began beating so loud I thought the others might hear it.

“To pass the time we start chewing the fat. I ask why he’s out of uni. He says he’s civvy, in-country looking for business ops once the war wraps up.

“We finally lift off. The chopper’s barely in the air when we take a hit, go down hard. The pilot, copilot, and crew chief buy it. Same for a kid riding in back. I walk away. So does Lapasa.” Face Mask shrugged. “Seemed like a perfect business op for me.”

Sweet Mother Mary!

I shot a hand out to Ryan. “Give me your cell.”

“What?”

“Just give me your cell.” Sharp.

Ryan did.

I punched buttons, my eyes jumping between the phone and the man on the screen. Schoon was now asking about dates.

“January, nineteen sixty-eight.”

“The day?”

“I don’t know.”

Da

“The maintenance worker who witnessed the Huey crash at Long Binh. Did you ever track him down?”

“Harlan Kramer?”

“Whatever.”

“I talked to him. He’s retired and living in Killeen, Texas. Didn’t learn anything new—”

“Did you ask how many men boarded the Huey?”

“The manifest listed five. Four crew members and Spider Lowery.”

“But did you ask him how many boarded?”

“No.”

“Call him back. Ask him.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“What’s going on—”

“Just do it. Let me know what he says.”

I got up. Paced. Gnawed flesh from my thumb.

Ryan and Lô looked at me like I’d gone over the edge.

On the monitor, Schoon was asking Face Mask to describe Xander Lapasa. The weapon.

Finally the phone rang.

“Kramer saw six men board—four crew, a recently released prisoner, and a civilian.” Da

“And he never mentioned it because he figured they had a manifest.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, Da

I refocused on the man on the screen.

“How far did you and Mr. Lapasa travel from the scene of the crash?”

Face Mask shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe a quarter mile.”

“On foot.”

“No. We called a fucking cab.”

“And you shot him.”

“How many times I gotta keep saying it?”

The dark pupils. The Al Pacino brows.

Of course.

That was the message my id was pinging.

“Then what?”

“I put one of my tags on his body and split.”

“What was your reason for being in Long Binh at that time?”

“I was getting out of jail.”

“It’s Spider,” I whispered.

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Who?” Lô asked.

“John Lowery. People called him Spider.”

“Tabarnac.”

“Who?” Lô repeated.

“Ssshh.” I hushed them both, wanting to hear the rest of Spider’s account.

“—you go after shooting Mr. Lapasa?”

“Saigon for a few years. Then Thailand. Bangkok. Chiang Mai. Chumphon. Back to Bangkok. Stayed there until eighty-six.”

“Then?”

“Got homesick.”

“You returned to the United States?”

Spider nodded.

“Using an eighteen-year-old passport.” Schoon sounded dubious.

“I got a new one.”

“How was that possible?”

“This dipshit crawl out from under some rock?” Spider asked Epstein, voice oozing scorn.

“Continue,” Schoon said.

“That’s it.” Spider shrugged. “I been here ever since.”

“Living as Al Lapasa.”

“Keeping clean. Paying taxes. Even got a pooch.”

“Your real identity, sir?”

Face Mask looked at Epstein.

Epstein nodded.

“John Charles Lowery. Born March twenty-first, nineteen fifty, in Lumberton, North Carolina. Father Plato. Mother Harriet.”

I knew. Still, hearing it sent an electric charge through me.

“Look, I gotta eat,” Spider said. “How about you scare up some sandwiches, maybe a couple sodas.”

Schoon looked momentarily undecided. Then, “Perhaps we do need another break.”

Nickie’s lawyer rose and walked off-camera. I suspected he’d decided it was time to phone his client.

I turned to face Ryan and Lô.

For a full thirty seconds no one ventured an opinion. Lô went first.

“My gut says this asshole’s full of shit.”

“It has to be Spider,” I said. “Who else would know about Long Binh? The Huey crash? Xander’s reason for traveling to Vietnam?”

“How could Xander have been on a military chopper?” Lô asked.

“Civilians hitched rides all the time,” I said.

“He look right for it?”

I pulled two pictures from my purse. The snapshot I’d found in Jean Laurier’s desk drawer. The team photo Plato had taken from his album.

The three of us studied the face of young Spider. That of the man on the screen.

Both had the same dark eyes and heavy curved brows.

“Hard to tell with the mask,” Lô said. “Plus this guy’s circling the drain.”

“The eyes seem right,” Ryan said.

“If the man’s lying, what’s his motive?” I asked.

No one had a theory on that.

“One thing bothers me,” Lô said. “How’d this Spider, not being Samoan, hook up with SOS?”

Or a theory on that.

“If he is legit, that would explain Spider’s dog tag turning up with Xander Lapasa’s body,” I said.

“It wouldn’t explain us rolling Spider’s prints off the Hemmingford vic,” Ryan countered.

“No,” I agreed. “But it would explain why DNA showed that that man could not be Harriet’s son.”

“Anyone thirsty?” Lô rose.

“Diet Coke,” I said.