by Robert Crais
Lucy and I stood by my fireplace, neither speaking, staring at each other with hurt eyes, or maybe eyes that didn't hurt enough.
I said, “I love you.”
Lucy went back across the living room into the kitchen, snatched up her suits, and went out the door and drove away.
Joe said, “You should go after her.”
I hadn't heard him approach, I hadn't felt him put his hand on my shoulder. He was in the kitchen, and now he was beside me.
“If it's about me, I would've gone.”
“Your chances are better when it's dark.”
“My chances are what I make them.”
He moved to the table, pulling the chair and sitting so quietly that I heard no sound. Maybe I was listening for other things. The cat reappeared and jumped onto the table to be with him.
I went back into the kitchen, and looked in the bag she'd brought. Salmon steaks, broccoli, and a package of new potatoes. Dinner for two.
Joe spoke from the dining room. “Ever since I've known you, I've looked to you for wisdom.”
Pike was a shape in the shadows, my cat head bumping his hands.
“What in hell does that mean?”
“You're my family. I love you, but sometimes you're a dope.”
I put the food away, and went to the couch. “If you want something, get it yourself.”
Two hours later it was fully dark. During that time, we decided what we would do, and then Joe let himself out the kitchen door, and slipped away into darkness.
Then I was truly alone.
31
• • •
I sat on the couch in my empty house, feeling a tight queasiness as if I'd lost something precious, and thinking that maybe I had. After a while, I called Lucy, and got her machine.
“It's me. Are you there?”
If she was there, she didn't pick up.
“Luce, we need to talk about this. Would you please pick up?”
When she still didn't pick up, I put down the phone and went back to the couch. I sat there some more, then opened the big glass doors to let in the night sounds. Somewhere outside the police were watching, but what did I care? They were the closest thing to company that I had.
I poached one of the salmon steaks in beer, made a sandwich with it, and ate standing in the kitchen near the phone.
Lucy Chenier had been out here for less than a month. She had changed her life to come here, and now everything had gone to hell. It scared me. We weren't mad because we liked different movies, or I had been rude to her friends. We were mad because she had given me a choice between herself and Joe, and she felt I'd chosen Joe. I guess she was right, but I didn't know what to do about that. If she gave me the same choice again, I would decide the same way, and I wasn't sure what that said about me, or us.
Someone pounded hard on the front door. I thought it was the cops, and in a way it was.
Samantha Dolan swayed in the doorway with her hands on her hips, four sheets to the wind.
“You got any of that tequila left?”
“Now isn't a good time, Samantha.”
She started to step in past me just like she'd done before, but this time I didn't move.
“What, you got a hot date with the little woman?”
I didn't move. I could smell the tequila on her. The smell was so heavy it could have been leaking from her pores.
Dolan stared at me in the hard way she has, but then her eyes softened. She shook her head, and all the arrogance was gone. “It isn't a good time for me, either, World's Greatest. Bishop fired me. He's transferring me out of Robbery-Homicide.”
I stepped out of the door and let her in. I felt awkward and small, and guilty for what happened to her, which stacked nicely atop the guilt I felt about Lucy.
I took out the bottle of Cuervo 1800 and poured a couple of fingers into a glass.
“More.”
I gave her more.
“You're not going to have one with me?”
“I've got some beer.”
Dolan sipped the tequila, then took a deep breath and let it out.
“Christ, that's good.”
“How much have you had?”
“Not nearly enough.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “Had a little tiff with your friend?”
“Who?”
“I'm not talking about your cat, stupid. The little woman.” Dolan tipped her glass toward the kitchen. “A purse is sitting on your counter. You aren't the only detective in the house.” She realized what she'd said, and had more of the drink. “Well. Maybe you are.”
Lucy's purse was by the refrigerator, put there when she'd set down the bags. She'd taken her clothes, but forgotten the purse.
Dolan had more of the tequila, then leaned against the counter. “Pike wasn't smart, playing it this way. You talk to him, you should get him to turn himself in.”
“He won't do that.”
“This doesn't help him look innocent.”
“I guess he figures that if the police aren't going to try to clear him, he should do it himself.”
“Maybe we shouldn't talk about this.”
“Maybe not.”
“It just looks bad, is what I'm saying.”
“Let's not talk about it.”
The two of us stood there. It's always a laugh a minute at Chez Cole. I asked her if she wanted to sit, and she did, so we moved into the living room. The tequila followed us.
“I'm sorry about Bishop.”
Dolan shook her head, thoughtful.
She said, “Pike would've been in uniform just before I came on. You know what areas he worked?”
“Did a year in Hollenbeck before moving to Rampart.”
“I started in West L.A. There weren't as many women on the force then as now, and what few of us there were got every shit job that came along.”
She seemed as if she wanted to talk, so I let her talk. I was happy with the beer.
“My first day on the job, right out of the Academy, we go to this house and find two feet sticking up out of the ground.”
“Human feet?”
“Yeah. These two human feet are sticking straight up out of the ground.”
“Bare feet?”
“Yeah, Cole, just lemme tell my story, okay? There's these two bare feet sticking up out of the ground behind this house. So we call it in, and our supervisor comes out, and says, ‘Yeah, that's a couple of feet, all right.’ Only we don't know if there's a body attached. I mean, maybe there's a body down there, but maybe it's just a couple of feet somebody planted.”
“Trying to grow corn.”
“Don't try to be funny. Funny is another in the long list of things you can't pull off.”
I nodded. I thought it was pretty funny, but I'd been drinking.
“So we're standing there with these feet, and we can't touch them until the coroner investigator does his thing, only the coroner investigator tells us he won't be able to get out until the next morning. The supervisor says that somebody's gotta guard the feet. I mean, we can't just leave'm there, right? So the supervisor tells me and my partner to watch the feet.”
“Okay.”
She killed the rest of her tequila, and helped herself to another glass as she went on with her story.
“But then we get this disturbance call, and the supervisor tells my partner he'd better respond. He says to leave the girl with the feet.”
“The girl.”
“Yeah, that's me.”
“I'm up with that part, Samantha.”
She took another blast of the tequila and took out her cigarettes.
“No smoking.”
She frowned, but put the cigarettes away.
“So they take off, and now I'm there alone with the feet in back of this abandoned house, and it's spooky as hell. An hour passes. Two hours. They don't come back. I'm calling on my radio, but no one answers, and I am pissed off. I am majorly pissed. Three hours. Then I hear the creepiest sound I ever heard in my life, t
his kind of ooo-ooo-ooo moaning.”
“What was it?”
“This ghost comes floating between the palm trees. This big white ghost, going ‘ooo-ooo-ooo, I want my feet.’ Real creepy and eerie, see, just like that.”
“Don't tell me. Your partner in a sheet.”
“No, it was the supervisor. He was trying to scare the girl.”
“What did you do?”
“I whip out my Smith and shout, ‘Freeze, motherfucker, LAPD.’ And then I crack off all six rounds point-blank as fast as I can.”
“Dolan. You killed the guy?”
She smiled at me, and it was a lovely smile. “No, you moron. I knew those assholes were going to try some shit like that sooner or later, so I always carried blanks.”
I laughed.
“The supervisor drops to the ground in a little ball, arms over his head, screaming for me not to shoot. I pop all six caps, and then I go over, and say, ‘Hey, Sarge, is this what they mean by foot patrol?’”
I laughed harder, but Dolan took a deep breath and shook her head. I stopped laughing.
“Sam?”
Her eyes turned red, but she shook back the tears. “I put everything I had into this job. I never got married and I didn't have kids, and now it's gone.”
“Can you appeal it? Is there anything you can do?”
“I could request a trial board, but if I go to the board, those pricks could fire me. Bishop just wants me out of Robbery-Homicide. He says I'm not a team player anymore. He says he doesn't trust me.”
“I'm sorry, Samantha. I'm really, really sorry. What happens now?”
“Administrative transfer. I'm on leave until I'm reassigned. They'll put me in one of the divisions, I guess. South Bureau Homicide, maybe, down in South Central.” She looked down at her glass, and seemed surprised that it was empty.
“At least you're still on the job.”
A kindness came to her eyes, as if I was a slow child. “Don't you get it, Cole? Wherever I go, it's downhill. Robbery-Homicide is the top. It's like being in the majors, then having to go down to the farm team in South Buttcrack. Your career's finished. All you're doing is killing time until they make you leave the game. You got any idea what that means to me?”
I didn't know what to say.
“My whole goddamned career has been forcing men like Bishop to let me be a starting player, and now I don't have a goddamned thing.” She looked over at me. “God, I want you.”
I said, “Sam.”
She raised a hand again and shook her head.
“I know. It's the tequila.”
She looked into the empty glass and sighed. She put the glass on the table, and crossed her arms as if she didn't know what to do with herself. She blinked because her eyes were filling again.
She said, “Elvis?”
“What?”
“Will you hold me?”
I didn't move.
“I don't mean like that. I just need to be held, and I don't have anyone else to do it.”
I put down my beer and went over and held her.
Samantha Dolan buried her face in my chest, and after a while the wet of her tears soaked through my shirt. She pulled away and wiped her hands across her face. “This is so pathetic.”
#x201C;It's not pathetic, Samantha.”
She sniffled, and rubbed at her eyes again. “I'm here because I don't have anyone else. I gave everything I had to this goddamned job, and now all I have to show for myself is a guy who's in love with another woman. That's pretty fucking pathetic, if you ask me.”
“No one asked you, Samantha.”
“I want you, goddamnit. I want to sleep with you.”
“Shh.”
Her breast moved against my arm. “I want you to love me.”
“Shh.”
“Don't shush me, goddamnit.”
She traced her fingers along my thigh, her eyes shining in the dim light. She gazed up at me, and she was so close that her breath felt like fireflies on my cheek. She was pretty and tough and funny, and I wanted her. I wanted to hold her, and I wanted her to hold me, and if I could fill her empty places maybe she could fill mine.
But I said, “Dolan, I can't.”
The kitchen door opened then, an alien sound that had no part in this moment.
Lucy was in the kitchen, one hand still on the door, staring at us, a terrible pain cut into her eyes.
I stood.
“Lucy.”
Lucy Chenier snatched her purse from the counter, stalked back across the kitchen, and slammed out the door.
Outside, her car roared to life, the starter screaming on the gears.
Outside, her tires shrieked as she ripped away.
Dolan slumped back into the couch, and said, “Oh, hell.”
The ache in my heart grew so deep that I felt hollow, as if I were only a shell and the weight of the air might crush me.
I went after her.
Lucy's Lexus was parked in front of her apartment, the engine still ticking when I got out of my car. Her apartment was lit, but the glow from the pulled drapes wasn't inviting. Or maybe I was just scared.
I stood in the street, gazing at her windows and listening to her car tick. I leaned against her fender, and put my hand on the hood, feeling its warmth. One flight of stairs up to the second floor, but they might as well have gone on forever.
I climbed, and knocked softly at her door.
“Luce?”
She opened the door, and looked at me without drama. She was crying, sad tears like little windows into a well of hurt.
“Dolan came over because she was fired. She's in love with me, or thinks she is, and she wanted to be with me.”
“You don't have to say this.”
“I told her that I couldn't be with her. I told her that I love you. I was telling her that when you walked in.”
Lucy stepped out of the door and told me to come in. Boxes had been put away. Furniture had been moved.
She said, “You scared me.”
I nodded.
“I don't mean with Dolan. I mean from earlier. I'm angry with you, Elvis. I'm hurt with you.”
Joe.
“You changed your life to come here, Luce. You're worried about Richard, and what's going to happen with Ben. You don't need to worry about me. You don't need to doubt what we have, or how I feel, and what you mean to me. You mean everything to me.”
“I don't know that now.”
I felt as if the world had dropped away and I was hanging in space with no control of myself, as if the slightest breeze could make me turn end over end and there was nothing I could do but let the breeze push me.
“Because of Joe.”
“Because you were willing to put everything that's important to me at risk.”
“Did you want me to call the cops and turn him in?” More tension was in my voice than I wanted there to be.
She closed her eyes and raised a palm.
“I guess you're mad at me, too.”
“I don't like these choices, Luce. I don't like being caught between you and Joe. I don't like Dolan coming to my house because she doesn't have anywhere else to go. I don't like what's happening between us right now.”
She took a breath and let it out. “Then I guess we're both disappointed.”
I nodded.
“I didn't come two thousand miles for this.”
I shook my head.
I said, “Do you love me?”
“I love you, but I don't know how I feel about you right now. I'm not sure how I feel about anything.”
It sounded so final and so complete that I thought I must have missed something. I searched her face, trying to see if there was something in her eyes that I was missing in her voice, but if it was there I couldn't find it. I wanted an emotional catharsis; her measured consideration made my stomach knot.
“What are you saying here, Luce?”
“I'm saying I need to think about us.”
“We're hav
ing a problem right now. Is it such a big problem that you'd question everything we feel for each other?”
“Of course not.”
“That's what thinking about us means. One thing happens, you don't stop being an us.”
I looked around at the boxes. The stuff of her life. This wasn't going the way I had hoped. I wasn't hearing things that I wanted to hear. And I wasn't doing a good job of saying the things I had wanted to say.
Lucy took my hand in both of hers.
“You said I changed my life to come here, but my coming here changes your life, too. The change didn't end when I crossed the city line. The change is still happening.”
I put my arms around her. We held each other, but the uncertainty was like a membrane between us.
After a time, she eased away. She wasn't crying now; she seemed resolved.
“I love you, but you can't stay here tonight.”
“Is it that clear to you?”
“No. Nothing's clear. That's the problem.”
She took my hand again, gently kissed my fingers, and told me to leave.
Sacrifice
The killer presses the needle deep into his quadriceps and injects twice the usual amount of Dianabol. The pain makes him furious, his rage causing his skin to flush a deep red as his blood pressure spikes. He throws himself onto the bench, grips the bar, and pushes.
Three hundred pounds.
He lowers the weight to his chest, lifts, lowers, lifts. Eight reps of herculean inhuman effort that does nothing to appease his anger.
Three hundred motherfucking pounds.
He rolls off the bench and glares at himself in the mirror here in his shitty little rental. Muscles swollen, chest flushed, face murderous. Calm yourself. Take control. Put away the rage and hide yourself from the world.
His face empties.
Become Pike to defeat Pike.
The killer takes a calming breath, returns to the bench, sits.
Pike's escape has changed things, and so have Cole and that bitch Dolan. Knowing that he's been framed, Pike will try to figure out who, and will be coming for him. Cole and Dolan have already tried to get DeVille's file, and that's bad, but he also knows they didn't get it. Without DeVille's file they cannot follow the trail back to him, but they're getting closer, and the killer accepts that they are very close to identifying him.
He must act now. He decides to jump ahead to the final targets, and nothing must stop him. Pike is the wild card, but Cole he can account for. Cole must be distracted. Get his mind off saving Pike, and onto something else.
