Sunset Express

by Robert Crais

  Rossi said, “Jonathan Green’s scam is falling apart, LeCedrick. He’s falsified evidence and suborned testimony, and now he’s scared that it’s coming out. We believe that he ordered the death of a man named James Lester, and we believe that he’s after your mother, too. If he is, then he’ll probably come after you as well.”

  “Bullshit. You just talkin’ trash.” He wiggled the finger at Rossi. “You just worried cause your ass is in a crack. You know I’m gonna get your ass for puttin’ me in here.” He went to the near chair, plopped down, and put up his feet. “I ain’t sayin’ nothing without my lawyer.”

  “You want Mr. Green?”

  LeCedrick smiled wide. “I think you’ll find that he represents me in all matters criminal and civil. Especially in the civil case where we whack your ass for every nickel in your pension fund for planting bullshit evidence on me.”

  I stepped past Rossi and slapped LeCedrick’s feet from the table. He said, “Hey!”

  I said, “We’ve got to get past that right now, LeCedrick.” He tried to get up but I dug my thumb under his jawline beneath his right ear. He said, “Ow!” and tried to wiggle away, but I stayed with him.

  Rossi pulled at me from behind. “Stop it. We can’t do that.”

  I didn’t stop it. I said, “You didn’t call the hotline about this, they called you. That’s the way it started, isn’t it?”

  He grabbed at my hand, but he couldn’t pry it away.

  Rossi said, “Stop it, dammit. That’s over the line.”

  “Kerris and Truly came to see you and convinced you to speak with your mother, didn’t they?”

  He was finally listening.

  “What did they say, LeCedrick? You hadn’t spoken to the woman in years, but you called her and convinced her to change her story. They offer you money? They say they could get you an early release?”

  He stopped trying to pull at my hand, and I relaxed the pressure. Rossi said, “Jesus Christ, they could arrest us for this.”

  I said, “Think about it, LeCedrick. Jonathan and Truly and all those guys went to see her and probably told her what to say and how to say it, and that means she could testify against them.”

  Now he was squinting at me, hearing the truth of it, even though it was masked by his suspicions.

  “I uncovered a connection between Lester and Green, and two days later Lester went through his shower door and damn near cut off his head. You see that in the papers?”

  He nodded.

  “The day after that I went to your mother’s house to ask why she changed her story, and she was missing. You know Mrs. Harris next door? Mrs. Harris told me that Kerris had cruised your mother’s house three times, that he’d walked around the place and tried to get in.”

  He said, “Mrs. Harris?”

  “At six this morning Kerris and two other guys went back to her house and turned the place upside down. Why would they do that, LeCedrick?”

  Now he was shaking his head. “This all bullshit.”

  “Would Mrs. Eleanor Harris bullshit you? You grew up next door to her. Would she bullshit you?”

  He made a little head-shake. One so tiny that it was hard to see. “Lady ‘bout raised me. Like a second mama.”

  Rossi pushed the buzzer, and when the guard came she asked if we could have a phone. He said no problem, brought one, and when he was gone again I turned it toward LeCedrick Earle and said, “Call her. I’ve got the number, if you need it.”

  He stared at the phone.

  “We have to find your mother, LeCedrick. If we don’t find her before Kerris, he’ll kill her. Do you see?”

  He wet his lips.

  Rossi said, “Goddammit, you piece of shit, call the woman.”

  LeCedrick Earle snatched up the phone and punched the number without asking for it, and spoke with Mrs. Eleanor Harris. When she answered his manner changed, and he hunched over the phone and spoke in a voice that was surprisingly young and considerate. I guess the lessons we learn when we’re small stay with us, even as we harden with the years. They spoke for several minutes, and then LeCedrick Earle put down the phone and kept his eyes on it, as if the phone had taken on an importance that dwarfed everything else in the room. He crossed his arms and started rocking. He said, “Why they do that? Why they go there so early?”

  Rossi said, “They want to kill her. And after they kill her, they will almost certainly arrange to have you killed, and then no one can implicate them in the manufacture of false evidence. Do you see that?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  I said, “She left the house with a bag. She has a gentleman friend named Mr. Lawrence.”

  LeCedrick Earle nodded dumbly. “That old man been chasin’ her for years.”

  “Would she go there?”

  “Sure, she’d go there. She ain’t got nobody else.”

  I felt something loosen in my chest. I felt like I could breathe again. “Okay, LeCedrick. That’s great. Just great. Do you know where he lives?”

  LeCedrick Earle slumped back in the chair with an emptiness that made him seem lost and forever alone. His eyes filled with tears, and the tears spilled down across his cheeks and dripped on his shirt. He said, “I can’t believe this shit. I just can’t believe it.”

  Rossi said, “What?”

  He rubbed at the tears, then blew his nose. “I must be the stupidest muthuhfuckuh ever been born. That woman ain’t never done nuthin’ but what she try to do right, and this what she gets for it. A fool for a son. A goddamned stupid fool.” He was sobbing.

  Rossi said, “Goddammit, LeCedrick, what?”

  LeCedrick Earle blinked through the tears at us. “Your man Kerris called me ’bout an hour ago and asked about old Mr. Lawrence, too. He say they need to get her story straight. He say they want her to do a news conference, and I told him where she was. I told him how to get there and now they gonna kill my momma. Ain’t I a fool? Ain’t I God’s own stupid muthuhfuckin’ fool?”

  I was pressing the buzzer even before he was finished, and Angela Rossi was shaking him until he told us the address, and then we were running out to the Jeep. It was almost certain that Louise Earle was dead, but neither of us was yet willing to give up on her.

  Maybe we were God’s own fools, too.

  33

  Pike pushed the Jeep hard out of the parking lot and through the gate and across the land bridge. Angela Rossi used her cell phone to call Tomsic as we were climbing back onto the freeway. She told him about Kerris, and that Louise Earle was probably staying with a Mr. Walter Lawrence in Baldwin Hills. They spoke for about six minutes, and then Rossi turned off her phone. “He’s on the way.”

  I said, “You sure you want to go to the scene?”

  “Of course.”

  Pike glanced at her in the rearview. “It gets back to the brass that you’re involved, it’s over for you.”

  Rossi took her Browning from under the seat and clipped it onto her waistband. “I’m going.”

  We scorched up the Harbor Freeway to the San Diego, the speedometer pegged at a hundred ten, Pike gliding the Jeep between and around traffic that seemed frozen in space. We drove as much on the shoulder as the main road, and several times Pike stood on the brakes, bringing us to screaming, sliding stops before he would once more stomp the accelerator to rocket around lane-changers or people merging off an entrance ramp. I said, “We can’t help anybody if we’re piled up on the side of the road.”

  Pike went faster.

  Hawthorne slipped past, then Inglewood, and then we were off the freeway and climbing through the southern edge of Baldwin Hills along clean, wide residential streets lined with spacious postwar houses. Baldwin Hills is at the southwestern edge of South Central Los Angeles, where it was developed in the late forties as a homesite for the affluent African-American doctors and dentists and lawyers who served the South-Central community. At one time it was called the black Beverly Hills, though in recent years the community has diversified with upwardly mobil
e Hispanic, Asian, and Anglo families. Rossi’s phone beeped, and she answered, mumbling for maybe ten seconds before ending the call. “Dan just got off the freeway. They’re three minutes behind us, and he’s got a black-and-white behind him.”

  We used Pike’s Thomas Brothers map to find our way through the streets, watching for turns and scoping the area. Mothers were pushing strollers and children were playing with dogs and everyone was enjoying a fine summer day. I said, “We’re almost there.”

  We were two blocks from Walter Lawrence’s home when a tan Aerostar van passed us going fast in the opposite direction and Pike said, “That’s Kerris. Three others on board.”

  Rossi and I twisted around, trying to see. “Louise Earle’s in the back. Looks like Lawrence and someone else, too.” Louise Earle looked scared.

  Rossi said, “The other guy is probably one of Kerris’s security people.”

  Pike jerked the Jeep into a drive and did a fast reversal. I said, “Did they make us?”

  Pike shook his head. The Aerostar turned a far corner, but it hadn’t increased its speed, and its driving seemed even. We went after them, Pike hanging back. In cases like this there are always two choices: You can let them know that you’re there, or you can hide from them. If they know that you’re there they might get nutty and start shooting. As long as they’re not shooting, you’re better off. Louise Earle and Walter Lawrence would be better off, too. Rossi unfastened her seat belt and leaned forward between me and Joe, better to see. “Don’t crowd them, Joseph. Let’s give them room.”

  Pike pursed his lips. “I know, Angela.” Nothing like a backseat driver in a pursuit situation.

  Rossi got on her phone again and told Tomsic where we were and what we were doing. She didn’t cut the circuit this time, but kept up a running flow of information so that Tomsic knew where we were at all times. I said, “Can he get in front of them?”

  “No. He’s west of the hills and behind us. He’s calling in more black-and-whites.”

  I glanced at Rossi, but she seemed impassive. The brass would know now, for sure.

  We followed the van down out of the residential area onto Stocker Boulevard, then started climbing again almost at once, leaving the residential area behind as we wound our way through dry, undeveloped hills dotted with oil pumpers and radio towers. I had hoped that they would turn into the city, but they didn’t. They were heading into a barren place away from prying eyes.

  We followed them deeper into the hills, staying well back, catching only glimpses of their dust trail so that we wouldn’t be seen, and as the peaks rose around us Rossi’s cell phone connection became garbled and our link to Tomsic was broken. She tossed the phone aside.“I lost him.”

  Pike said, “He knows about where we are.”

  “About.”

  Maybe a half mile ahead of us the van turned up the side of a hill along a gravel service road, making its way toward two great radio towers. We could see the towers, and what was probably a maintenance shed at their bases, and another car parked there. I said, “They’re going to kill them. They couldn’t kill them at the house with so many people on the street, but they’re going to do them here.”

  Rossi craned her head out the window. “If we take the road up after them, they’ll see us coming a mile away.”

  Pike slapped the Jeep into four-wheel drive, and we left the road, heading first down into a gully, then up. We lost sight of the towers and the van, but we watched the ridgeline and followed the slope of hills and we did what we could until we came to an elevated pipeline that we could not cross. Pike said, “Looks like we’re on foot.”

  Pike and I were wearing running shoes, but Angela Rossi was wearing dress flats. I said, “Going to be a hard run.”

  She said, “Fuck it.”

  She threw her jacket into the backseat, took her Browning from its holster, then kicked off her shoes and set out at a jog. Barefoot. The ground was rough and bristling with stiff dried grass and foxtails and must have hurt, but she gave no sign.

  The hill was steep and the going was slow. The soil was loose and brittle, and the desiccated grass did not help bind it together. Our feet sunk deep and every step caused a minor landslide, but halfway up the hill we saw the tops of the towers, and pretty soon after that the roof of the shed. We went down to our hands and knees and eased our way to the ridge. The Aerostar was parked next to a bronze Jaguar. Kerris was already out of the van and moving toward the shed. He’d left the van’s driver side door open. The same black security guard I’d seen at Green’s party came out of the shed. The van’s side door slid open and a younger guy with a very short crew cut pushed out. Walter Lawrence climbed out after him, but I guess he wasn’t moving fast enough because the crew cut took his arm and yanked, and Mr. Lawrence stumbled sideways to fall in a little cloud of dust. The black guy ignored all of that and opened the Jag’s trunk to lift out two shovels and a large roll of plastic. Rossi said, “They’re going to execute these people.”

  Pike said, “Yes.”

  I edged higher on the ridge. “They’ll bring them inside the building. Maybe we can work our way around to the backside of the slope and come up behind the building without being seen.” I didn’t think Kerris would just shoot them in the open, even out here in the middle of nowhere.

  Pike started backwards with Rossi behind him when the crew cut leaned into the van and said something to Louise Earle. I guess she didn’t want to get out, because he reached in and pulled. He had her by the upper arm and it must’ve hurt. She tried swatting at him like you might a fly, but it did no good. That’s when Walter Lawrence scrambled up out of the dust and grabbed the crew cut’s jacket and tried pulling him away. Defending his woman. The crew cut guy put a hand on Walter Lawrence’s face and pushed. Walter Lawrence flailed backwards and fell again, landing flat on his back, and the crew cut guy took a steel Smith & Wesson 9mm from beneath his left arm, pointed it at Walter Lawrence, and fired one shot.

  The shot sounded hollow and faraway, and Mrs. Earle screamed just as Elliot Truly stepped out of the maintenance shed.

  34

  Pike worked the Python out of his waist holster and pushed it in front of him, lining up on the crew cut.

  Rossi said, “We’re too far.”

  “If they point a gun at her, Joe.” Ignoring Rossi.

  “I’m on it.”

  Rossi said, “Can he make this shot?”

  We were more than a hundred yards from them. It was a very long shot for a four-inch barrel, but Pike could brace his hand on the ground, and he was the finest pistol shot I’ve ever seen.

  Truly waved his arms, raising hell with Kerris and the guy with the crew cut, and the guy with the crew cut put away his gun. Truly did some more waving, then went back into the maintenance shed. Kerris raised hell with the crew cut too, then he and the black guy lifted Mrs. Earle by the arms and dragged her past Walter Lawrence’s body to the shed. The crew cut went over to the shovels and plastic, and he didn’t look happy about it.

  I said, “We don’t have much time.”

  We crabbed back down beneath the ridgeline and trotted around the side of the hill until we had the maintenance shed between us and the van. The shed was at the base of the north tower, and its structure formed a kind of latticework around the shed and would provide cover between the shed and the Jaguar. We moved fast, but with every passing second I was frightened that we’d hear the second shot. I guess we could’ve just started yelling and let them know we were here, but they had already committed murder; Mrs. Earle would probably catch the first shot.

  When the shed was between us and the van, we crept up the hill to the rear of the base of the north radio tower. I said, “Rossi and I will take the shed. You take the guy at the van.”

  Pike slipped away to the edge of the shed, then disappeared among the girders at the base of the radio tower.

  I looked at Rossi. “You ready?”

  She nodded. Her stockings were shredded, her feet torn and bl
eeding and clotted with dirt and little bits of brown grass. Her nice suit pants were ripped.

  The maintenance shed was a squat cinder block and corrugated metal building built against the base of the north tower. Inside, there would be tools and parts and paint for maintaining the towers and adjusting the repeater antennas. There were no windows, but doors were built into the front and back. Truly had probably been here for a while and had opened the doors for the air. The door nearest the cars was wide and tall so you could move oversized parts and equipment in and out, but the rear door, the door by the tower, was a people door.

  Rossi and I slipped up to the side of the shed, then crept toward the door. We listened, but all we could hear was Mrs. Earle crying. I touched Rossi, then pointed to myself, then the door, telling her that I was going to risk a look. She nodded. I went down onto my hands and knees, edged forward, and peeked inside. Mrs. Earle was on the floor, tied, and Kerris and Truly were standing together just inside the far door. Truly looked nervous, like he didn’t want to be there. The black guy wasn’t inside; he’d probably gone back to help the crew cut with the shovels. I was still looking at them when the guy with the crew cut walked past the side of the shed with the shovel and the plastic and a sour expression and saw us. He did a classic double take, said, “Hey!” then dropped the shovels and plastic to claw for his gun when I shot him two times in the chest. I said, “Get Mrs. Earle.”

  Rossi rolled past into the door with me behind her when we heard three shots from the front of the shed. Kerris grabbed Truly and pushed him in the way and fired fast four times. Rossi said, “Shit.”

  Truly was looking confused and Mrs. Earle was staring at us with wide, frightened eyes, and I was scared that if I tried to hit Kerris I would hit her. I fired high and Kerris fell back, scrambling through the door, firing as he went. Truly turned to run after him, and when he did he turned square into Kerris and was kicked backwards by one of the rounds, and then Kerris was gone. There was shouting out front, Kerris and the black guy, and more firing. The black guy was yelling, “I’m hit! Oh, Holy Jesus, I’m hit!”