The Two Minute Rule

by Robert Crais

  “Agent Sanders will no longer be helping you.”

  Leeds walked out, but Cecil hesitated, looking sad.

  “I’m sorry about this, lady. The man—I don’t know, he hasn’t been himself. He meant well.”

  “Goodbye, Bill.”

  Pollard watched Cecil leave, then went to the door and locked it.

  She walked back to the phone.

  It was Holman.

  33

  HOLMAN DROPPED Chee a block from his shop, then turned toward Culver City. He played and replayed the news about Maria Juarez, trying to cast it in a light that made sense. He wanted to drive to her house to speak with her cousins, but now he was afraid the same cops would be watching. Why would they bag her, then claim she had split? Why would they issue a warrant for her arrest if they had already arrested her? News of her flight and the warrant had even been in the newspaper.

  Holman didn’t like any of it. The police who thought she fled had been lied to by the cops who knew different. The police who obtained the warrant didn’t know that other cops already knew her whereabouts. Cops were keeping secrets from other cops, and that could only mean one thing: bad cops.

  Holman drove a mile from Chee’s shop, then turned into a parking lot. He speed-dialed Pollard’s number and listened as it rang. The ringing seemed to go on forever, but finally she answered.

  “Now isn’t a good time.”

  Pollard didn’t sound like Pollard. Her voice was remote and failing, and Holman thought he might have gotten the wrong number.

  “Katherine? Is this Agent Pollard?”

  “What?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Now isn’t a good time.”

  She sounded terrible, but Holman believed this was important.

  “Maria Juarez didn’t run. The cops took her. That same cop with the red hair who bounced me—Vukovich. It isn’t like the police have been saying. Vukovich and another cop took her in the middle of the night.”

  Holman waited, but heard only silence.

  “Are you there?”

  “How do you know this?”

  “A friend knows some people who live on her street. They saw it. Just like they saw those guys get me.”

  “What friend?”

  Holman hesitated.

  “Who?”

  Holman still didn’t know what to say.

  “Just…a friend.”

  “Gary Moreno?”

  Holman knew better than to ask how she knew. Asking would be defensive. Being defensive would imply guilt.

  “Yeah, Gary Moreno. He’s a friend. Katherine, we were kids together—”

  “So tight he gave you a car?”

  “He runs a body shop. He has lots of cars—”

  “And so much money you don’t have to work?”

  “He knew my little boy—”

  “A multiple felon and gang member and you didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

  “Katherine—?”

  “What are you doing, Holman?”

  “Nothing—”

  “Don’t call me again.”

  The line was dead.

  Holman hit the speed-dial, but her voice mail picked up. She had turned off the phone. He spoke as fast as he could.

  “Katherine, listen, what should I have said? Chee’s my friend—that’s Gary’s nickname, Chee—and yes he’s a convicted felon, but so am I. I was a criminal all my life; the only people I know are criminals.”

  Her voice mail beeped, cutting him off. Holman cursed and hit the speed-dial again.

  “Now he’s straight just like I’m trying to be straight and he’s my friend so I went to him for help. I don’t know anyone else. I don’t have anyone else. Katherine, please call back. I need you. I need your help to get through this. Agent Pollard, please—”

  Her voice mail beeped again, but this time Holman lowered his phone. He sat in the parking lot, waiting. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know where she lived or how to reach her except through her phone. She had kept it that way to protect herself. Holman sat in his car, feeling alone the way he had been alone on his first night in jail. He wanted to reach out to her, but Agent Pollard had turned off her phone.

  34

  POLLARD’S MOTHER called at dinnertime. That’s the way they had been working it. Her mother would meet the boys when they were brought home from camp, then bring them to her condo in Canyon Country where the boys could play by the pool while her mother played online poker. Texas Hold’em.

  Pollard, knowing it would be awful and steeling herself for the pain, said, “Could they camp out with you tonight?”

  “Katie, do you have a man there?”

  “I’m really tired, Mom. I’m just beat, that’s all. I need the break.”

  “Why are you tired? You’re not sick, are you?”

  “Could they stay?”

  “You didn’t catch anything, did you? Did you catch something from some man? You need a husband but there’s no reason to become a slut.”

  Pollard lowered the phone and stared at it. She could hear her mother still talking, but couldn’t understand the words.

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  “Could they stay?”

  “I guess it would be all right, but what about camp? They’ll be heartbroken if they miss their camp.”

  “Missing one day won’t kill them. They hate camp.”

  “I don’t understand a mother who needs a break from her children. I never needed a break from you or wanted one.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Pollard put down the phone and stared at the clock over her sink. She was in the kitchen. The house was quiet again. She watched the second hand sweep and waited for the tock.

  TOCK.

  Like a gunshot.

  Pollard got up and went back into the living room, wondering if Leeds was right. She had felt a kind of admiration for Holman both back in the day and now, for how he went down and how he had brought himself back. And she had felt a kind of attraction, too. Pollard didn’t like admitting to the attraction. It made her feel stupid. Maybe she had gone Indian without even knowing it. Maybe that’s the way going Indian happened. Maybe it snuck up on you when you weren’t looking and took over before you knew.

  Pollard stared at the papers on the couch and felt disgusted with herself. Her Holman file.

  She said, “Jesus Christ.”

  Sixteen million dollars was a fortune. It was buried treasure, a winning lotto ticket, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was the Lost Dutchman Mine and the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Holman had robbed nine banks for a total score of less than forty thousand. He had pulled ten years and come out with nothing, so why wouldn’t he want the money? Pollard wanted the money. She had dreamed about it, seeing herself in the dream, opening a shitty garage door in a shitty neighborhood, everything covered in grime; pushing up the door and finding the money, a great huge vacuum-packed block of it, sixteen million dollars. She would be set up for life. The boys would be set. Their kids would be set. Her problems would be solved.

  Pollard, of course, would not steal it. Keeping the money was just a fantasy. Like finding Prince Charming.

  But Holman was a lifelong degenerate criminal who had stolen cars, ripped off warehouses, and robbed nine banks—he probably wouldn’t think twice about stealing the money.

  The phone rang. Her house phone, not the cell.

  Pollard’s gut clenched because she was sure it was her mother. The boys had probably bitched about staying over, and now her mother was calling to lay on both barrels of guilt.

  Pollard returned to the kitchen. She didn’t want to answer, but she did. She was already guilty enough.

  April Sanders said, “Are you really helping out the Hero?”

  Pollard closed her eyes and shouldered a fresh load of guilt.

  “I am so sorry, April. Are you in trouble?”

  “Oh, fuck Leeds. Is it true about the Hero?”


  Pollard sighed.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you fucking him?”

  “No! How could you even ask a question like that?”

  “I’d fuck him.”

  “April, shut up!”

  “I wouldn’t marry him, but I’d fuck him.”

  “April—”

  “I found Alison Whitt.”

  “Are you still going to help me?”

  “Of course I’m going to help you, Pollard. Give a sista some credit.”

  Pollard reached for a pen.

  “Okay, April. I owe you, girl. Where is she?”

  “The morgue.”

  Pollard froze with her pen in the air as April’s voice turned somber and professional.

  “What have you gotten yourself into, Pollard? Why are you looking for a dead girl?”

  “She was Marchenko’s girlfriend.”

  “Marchenko didn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “He saw her on multiple occasions. Marchenko’s mother spoke with her at least twice.”

  “Bill and I ran his phone logs, Kat. If we had ID’d a potential girlfriend on the callbacks we would have followed up on her.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe he never phoned her at home or maybe he only called her from his mother’s.”

  Sanders hesitated and Pollard knew she was thinking about it.

  Sanders said, “Whatever. The sheet shows a couple of busts for prostitution, shoplifting, drugs—the usual. She was just a kid—twenty-two years old—and now she’s been killed.”

  Pollard felt the blood tingle again.

  “She was murdered?”

  “The body was found in a Dumpster off Yucca in Hollywood. Ligature marks on the neck indicate strangulation, but the cause of death was cardiac arrest brought on by blood loss. She was stabbed twelve times in the chest and abdomen. Yeah, I’d call that murder.”

  “Was there an arrest?”

  “Nope.”

  “When was she killed?”

  “The same night Holman’s son was killed.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Pollard was thinking of Maria Juarez. She wondered if Maria Juarez would turn up dead, too. Finally, Sanders asked the question.

  “Kat? Do you know what happened to this girl?”

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “Yes, I would tell you. Of course I would.”

  “Okay.”

  “What was the time of death?”

  “Between eleven and eleven-thirty that night.”

  Pollard hesitated, unsure what this might mean or how much she should say, but she owed April the truth.

  “Mike Fowler knew her or knew of her. Do you recognize Fowler’s name?”

  “No, who’s that?”

  “One of the officers killed with Richard Holman that night. He was the senior officer.”

  Pollard knew Sanders was taking notes. Everything she now said would be part of Sanders’ records.

  “Fowler approached Marchenko’s mother about a girl named Allie. He knew Allie and Anton Marchenko were linked, and asked Mrs. Marchenko about her.”

  “What did Mrs. Marchenko tell him?”

  “She denied knowing the girl.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She gave us the first name and allowed us to look through her phone bills to find the number.”

  “You mean you and the Hero?”

  Pollard closed her eyes again.

  “Yeah, me and Holman.”

  “Huh.”

  “Stop.”

  “When were the four officers killed that night?”

  Pollard knew where Sanders was going and had already considered it.

  “One thirty-two. A shotgun pellet broke Mellon’s watch at one thirty-two, so they know the exact time.”

  “So it was possible Fowler and these guys killed the girl earlier. They had time to kill her, then get to the river.”

  “It’s also possible someone else killed the girl, then went to the river to kill the four officers.”

  “Where was the Hero that night?”

  Pollard had already thought of that, too.

  “He has a name, April. Holman was still in custody. He wasn’t released until the next day.”

  “Lucky him.”

  “Listen, April, can you get the police report on Alison Whitt?”

  “Already have it. I’ll fax you a copy when I get home. I don’t want to do it from here.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  “You and the Hero. Man, that’s a shiver.”

  Pollard put down the phone and returned to her living room. Her home didn’t seem quiet anymore, but she knew the sounds now came from her heart. She considered the papers on her couch, thinking more papers would soon be added. The Holman file was growing. A girl had been murdered before his release and now Holman believed the police were lying about Maria Juarez. She wondered again if Maria Juarez was going to turn up dead and whether the fifth man would have something to do with it.

  Pollard thought about the timing and found herself hoping that Holman’s son had nothing to do with murdering Alison Whitt. She had seen him struggle with the guilt he felt about his son’s death and agonize over the growing evidence that his son had been involved in an illegal scheme to recover the stolen money. Holman would be crushed if his son was a murderer.

  Pollard knew she had to tell him about Alison Whitt and find out more about Maria Juarez. Pollard picked up the phone, but hesitated. Leeds’ appearance had taken a toll. His comments about her going Indian had left her feeling foolish and ashamed of herself. She hadn’t gone Indian, but she had been thinking about Holman in ways that disturbed her. Even Sanders had laughed. You and the Hero. Man, that’s a shiver.

  Pollard had to call him, but not just yet. She tossed the phone back onto the couch and went back through the kitchen into the garage. It was hotter than hell even though the sun was down and night had fallen. She waded around bicycles, skateboards, and the vacuum cleaner to a battered grey file cabinet layered with dust. She hadn’t opened the damned thing in years.

  She pulled the top drawer and found the folder containing her old case clippings. Pollard had saved press clippings from her cases and arrests. She had almost tossed the stuff a hundred times, but now was glad she hadn’t. She wanted to read about him again. She needed to remember why the Times had called him the Hero Bandit, and why he deserved a second chance.

  She found the clip and smiled at the headline. Leeds had thrown the paper across the room and cursed the Times for a week, but Pollard had smiled even then. The headline read: Beach Bum a Hero.

  Pollard read the clippings at her kitchen table and remembered how they had met….

  The Beach Bum Bandit

  The woman ahead of him shifted irritably, making a disgusted grunt as she glanced at him for the fourth time. Holman knew she was working herself up to say something, so he ignored her. It didn’t do any good. She finally pulled the trigger.

  “I hate this bank. Only three tellers, and they move like sleepwalkers. Why three tellers when they have ten windows? Shouldn’t they hire more people, they see a line like this? Every time I come here it sucks.”

  Holman kept his eyes down so the bill of his cap blocked his face from the surveillance cameras.

  The woman spoke louder, wanting the other people in line to hear.

  “I have things to do. I can’t spend all day in this bank.”

  Her manner was drawing attention. Everything about her drew attention. She was a large woman wearing a brilliant purple muumuu, orange nails, and an enormous shock of frizzy hair. Holman crossed his arms without responding and tried to become invisible. He was wearing a faded Tommy Bahama beachcomber’s shirt, cream-colored Armani slacks, sandals, and a Santa Monica Pier cap pulled low over his eyes. He was also wearing sunglasses, but so were half the people in line. This was L.A.

  The woman harrumphed again.

  “Well, final
ly. It’s about time.”

  An older man with pickled skin in a pink shirt moved to a teller. The large woman went next, and then it was Holman’s turn. He tried to even his breathing, and hoped the tellers couldn’t see the way he was sweating.

  “Sir, I can help you over here.”

  The teller at the end of the row was a brisk woman with tight features, too much makeup, and rings on her thumbs. Holman shuffled to the window and stood as close as he could. He was carrying a sheet of paper folded in half around a small brown paper bag. He put the note and the bag on the counter in front of her. The note was composed of words he had clipped from a magazine. He waited for her to read it.

  THIS IS A ROBBERY

  PUT YOUR CASH IN

  THE BAG

  Holman spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry.

  “No dye packs. Just give me the money and everything’s cool.”

  Her tight features hardened even more. She stared at him and Holman stared back; then she wet her lips and opened her cash drawer. Holman glanced at the clock behind her. He figured she had already pressed a silent alarm with her foot and the bank’s security company had been alerted. An ex-con Holman knew cautioned him you only had two minutes to get the cash and get out of the bank. Two minutes wasn’t long, but it had been long enough eight times before.

  FBI Special Agent Katherine Pollard stood in the parking lot of the Ralphs Market in Studio City sweating in the afternoon sun. Bill Cecil, in the passenger seat of their anonymous beige g-ride, called out to her.

  “You’re gonna get heatstroke.”

  “All this sitting is killing me.”

  They had been in the parking lot since eight-thirty that morning, a half hour before the banks in the area opened for business. Pollard’s butt was killing her, so she got out of the car every twenty minutes or so to stretch her muscles. When she got out, she left the driver’s-side window down to monitor the two radios on her front seat even though Cecil remained in the car. Cecil was the senior agent, but he was only on hand to assist. The Beach Bum Bandit was Pollard’s case.

  Pollard bent deep at the hips, touching her toes. Pollard hated stretching in public with her big ass, but they had been hovering in the Ralphs lot for three days, praying the Beach Bum would strike again. Leeds had dubbed this one the Beach Bum Bandit because he wore sandals and a Hawaiian shirt, and had shaggy hair pulled back into a ponytail.