LA Requiem ec-8

by Robert Crais

  Paulette ran to her daughter, again blocking Krantz's line offire.

  I yelled, "Head shot, Krantz! The head! He's wearing a vest!"

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  Sobek charged straight down the hall, and barreled into Paulette, wrapping her in his arms and knocking Evelyn aside. He was crying, and his eyes were hopping as if his brain was on fire. He put his gun to her head.

  "I'm not done yet. I'm not done."

  Krantz yelled, "Drop your gun! Put it down, Curtis!"

  My arm felt wet and tingly, as if worms were crawling beneath the skin. I tried to pick up my gun, but the arm wouldn't work.

  Sobek jammed his weapon harder into Paulette's neck. "You drop your own fuckin' gun, Krantz! You put it down or I'll kill this bitch. I'll do it, you bastard. I'll do it right fuckin' now!"

  Krantz backed up, his gun shaking so badly that if he fired he would as likely hit Paulette as Sobek. I think Krantz knew that, too.

  I tried to pick up my gun with my left hand. Sobek didn't even seem to know I was there anymore. He was focused on Krantz.

  "I MEAN IT GODDAMMIT KRANTZ I'M GONNA DO IT I'M GONNA DO IT RIGHT NOW BLOW HER BRAINS OUT AND THEN I'M GONNA KILL MYSELF I DON'T CARE I DON'T CARE!"

  It is against LAPD policy for an officer to give up his or her weapon. They teach that at the Academy, they live by it, and it is the right thing to teach and live by. You give up your weapon, and you're done.

  But if you don't do what Laurence Sobek says, and someone dies, you will always wonder. It is another choice and another door, and you won't know what lies behind it until you go there.

  He was going to kill her.

  "Okay, Curtis. Just let her go and we'll talk. I'm putting the gun down like you want. Just don't hurt her, Curtis. Please do not hurt her."

  Krantz put his gun on the floor, and for the second time that day I liked Harvey Krantz.

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  I spoke quietly. "Sobek? Why'd you kill Dersh? He wasn't part of this?"

  Crazy eyes danced to me. "Pike killed Dersh. Don't you watch the news?"

  Krantz said, "Shut up, Cole. Curtis, put down the gun. Please."

  Sobek walked Paulette closer to Krantz, shaking his head. "I'm not done yet. They're going to pay for the Coopster. They're going to pay for that."

  Behind Sobek, Pike moved.

  I said, "Tell us about Dersh, Sobek. Tell us why you set up Pike."

  Sobek pointed his gun at me, and cocked the hammer. "I didn't."

  Pike's eyes opened.

  Krantz said, "Darnnit, Cole, shut up. Curtis, don't kill him. Let this woman go."

  Pike pushed himself up. His face was a mask of blood. His shirt was wet with it. He picked up his gun.

  Sobek said, "She's gotta die, and Wozniak's kid is gonna die, too. But you know what, Harvey?"

  "What?"

  Sobek aimed his .357 point-blank at Harvey Krantz.

  "You're gonna die first."

  I said, "DeVille isn't dead."

  Laurence Sobek stopped as if I'd hit him with a board. His face filled with rage, he aimed his gun at me again, then brought it back to Krantz. I could see his gun hand tighten.

  He said, "This is for killing my father."

  Krantz yelled, "NO!"

  Sobek was squeezing the trigger when Joe Pike brought up his weapon and fired one round through the back of Laurence Sobek's head. Sobek collapsed in a heap, and then there was silence.

  Pike fell forward onto his hands, and almost at once tried to push himself up again.

  Paulette said, "Joe, lie down. Please lie down."

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  Krantz just stood there. I could hear the sirens far away now, but drawing closer.

  I struggled to my feet and went to Joe. Blood ran down my arm and dripped from my fingers.

  "Stay down, Joseph. Got an ambulance on the way."

  Pike said, "No. If I go down now, I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. Right, Krantz?"

  Krantz said, "You're going to bleed to death."

  Pike found his feet and stood, using Paulette to steady himself. He put his pistol into the waistband of his pants, then looked at me. "You're shot."

  "You're shot twice."

  Pike nodded. "It's so easy to show you up."

  He staggered then, but I caught him.

  Paulette said, "Please, Joe." She was crying.

  Pike was looking at me. "Maybe there'll be something at Sobek's to put him with Dersh."

  "There wasn't."

  Pike looked tired. He took a handkerchief from his pants, but the blood had soaked through and it was red.

  Paulette Wozniak said, "Oh, damn."

  She pulled off her shirt and used it to wipe his face. She was wearing a white bra, but nobody looked or said anything, and I thought in that moment I could love her myself, truly and always.

  The corner of Joe's mouth twitched, and he touched her face. "Gotta go."

  Paulette blinked at the tears.

  Joe let his fingers linger. "You really are more beautiful."

  Then he turned away for the door, leaving his fingerprints in blood on her face.

  Krantz said, "I can't let you go, Pike. I appreciate what you did, and I'll stand up at your trial, but for now it's over."

  Krantz had his gun again. He was pale, and shaken, but he had the gun.

  I said, "Don't be stupid, Krantz."

  "It's over."

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  Pike kept walking.

  Krantz aimed his gun, but it was shaking as badly now as when he was aiming at Sobek. "I mean it, Pike. You're a wanted man. You are under arrest, and you're going to stand trial. I won't let you leave this house."

  Krantz steadied the gun with his second hand, and pulled back the hammer, and that's when I twisted the gun away from him with my good hand. I shoved him against the wall.

  Krantz screamed, "You're interfering with an officer, god-damnit! You're obstructing justice!"

  Pike walked out the front door without closing the door, and then he was gone.

  I said, "Goodbye, Joe."

  Krantz slumped to the floor and put his face in his hands. The sirens were working their way up the hill and would soon arrive. They would probably pass Pike on their way up, and I wondered if any of them would notice the car driven by the bloody man. Probably not.

  Krantz said, "You shouldn't've done that, Cole. You aided and abetted his escape. I'm going to arrest you. It's going to cost your license."

  I nodded.

  "You didn't help him, you asshole. He's going to bleed to death. He's going to die."

  The sirens arrived.

  39

  Of the two shots Sobek fired at Jerome Williams, only one , connected, nipping an artery in his thigh. He would make it.

  j My own wound was a bit more complicated. The bullet had

  i torn through the outside of my right pectoral muscle, clipped

  the third lateral rib, then exited through my right latissimus i dorsi. One of the hospital's resident surgeons came down to

  take a look, and said, "Hmm." • You have to worry when they say that.

  "I can clean you up," he said. "But you're going to need some reconstructive surgery to the muscle group. Your pec-toris attacher tendon is partially sheared, and the anterior joint capsule needs to be repaired." "How long will that take?" "Four hours, tops."

  "Not how long will the surgery take. How long would I have to be here?" "Three days." "Forget it."

  "Just want you to know the score. I gotta put you out anyway to take care of this."

  "Just give me a local. You're not putting me anywhere, and I'm not going out." I wanted to be awake to find out about Pike. I figured they'd find him bled out on the side of a road. I wanted to be awake when the word came because I wanted to go to him.

  "It's going to hurt like a sonofabitch with just a local." "Pretend you're a dentist and shoot me up, for chrissake." He gave me about two thousand in
jections, then cleaned 362

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  the wound, and stitched the muscles and skin. It hurt worse than he said, but maybe it wasn't just the shoulder.

  When he was done, he said, "I'm giving you a Percocet script for the pain. You're going to need it. When the anesthetic wears off you're going to hurt even worse. This is strong stuff, so be sure you take just what I'm writing here. You need to see your own doctor tomorrow."

  "I'll be in jail."

  He sighed again and handed me the prescription. "Take twice as much."

  He used thirty-two stitches to close the wound.

  Krantz officially arrested me in the Palm Springs Hospital emergency room while Williams was in surgery. Stan Watts had driven out, and he stood there with a blank expression as Krantz read me the rights. Krantz said, "Stan, I'm having him brought to County-USC so they can look at him. Maybe they'll want to book him in the jail ward there, and keep him overnight."

  Watts didn't answer.

  "I want you to be there when they look at him. If they give him a pass, bring him over to Parker for the booking. I'll take care of it myself when I get back."

  Watts didn't answer again; he just kept staring at me with the blank look.

  Krantz walked away to talk to the press.

  When Krantz was gone, Watts said, "I spent the whole ride out trying to figure out whether to blame you for Dolan."

  "I've been doing some of that myself."

  "Yeah, I imagine you would. But I know Dolan more than ten years, and I know what she was like. When she was hit, I saw how you went in. You didn't know what was in there, but you went right in. I saw how you covered her with your jacket."

  He stood there for a time like he didn't know what else to say, then put out his hand. I gave him my left, and we shook.

  I said, "Any word on Pike?"

  "Not yet. Krantz said he was hit pretty bad."

  "Yeah. Bad. You guys finish going through Sobek's garage?"

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  "Most of it. SID's there now."

  "You see anything that clears Pike?"

  Watts shook his head. "No."

  I considered the Percocet script, wondering if it could take away this kind of hurt.

  Watts said, "C'mon, I'll take you back."

  "Krantz called a radio car."

  "Screw the radio car. You can ride with me."

  We didn't say ten words between Palm Springs and L.A. until we were approaching the exit for the County-USC Medical Center, where Krantz had ordered him to bring me.

  "Where's your car?"

  "Dolan's."

  "You drive with that arm?"

  "I can drive."

  He continued past the County-USC exit without a word and brought me to Dolan's. We pulled into her drive, and sat there, staring at the house. Someone would have to go back to Sobek's garage for her Beemer. Someone would have to bring it home.

  "I'm not going to book you tonight, but you gotta come in tomorrow."

  "Krantz will be pissed."

  "You let me worry about Krantz. You gonna come in or am I gonna have to go look for you?"

  "I'll come in."

  He shrugged like he hadn't expected anything else, and said, "Pll bet she's got a pretty good bottle of tequila in there. How about we tip one for her?"

  "Sure."

  Dolan kept a spare house key beneath a clay pot in her backyard. I didn't ask Watts how he knew. When we got inside, Watts knew where she kept the tequila, too.

  Her house was as quiet as any house could be, as if something had vanished from her home when she died. Maybe it had. We sat and drank, and after a while Stan Watts went back into her bedroom. He stayed there for a long time, then came out with a small onyx box, and sat with the box in his lap, and

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  drinking. When he'd had enough to drink, he opened the box and took out a small blue heart. He slipped the heart into his jacket pocket, then put his face in his hands and cried like a baby.

  I sat with him for almost an hour. I didn't ask him about the heart or the box, but I cried with and for him, and for Dolan, too. And for Pike, and me, because my life was falling apart.

  The human heart is worth crying for, even if it's made of onyx.

  After a while I used Dolan's phone to check my messages. Joe hadn't called, and neither had Lucy. The news of Laurence Sobek's identification and the events in Palm Springs had broken, and I hoped she would've called, but there you go.

  I thought that I should call her, but didn't. I don't know why. I could shoot it out with Laurence Sobek, but calling the woman I loved seemed beyond me.

  Instead, I went into Dolan's kitchen for the photograph she'd taken of me at Forest Lawn. I stared at it for a long time, and then I took it. It was right there on the refrigerator, but I hoped that Watts hadn't seen it. I wanted it to be between me and Samantha, and I didn't want it between Watts and her.

  I went back into the living room and told Watts that I had to leave, but he didn't hear me, or, if he heard, didn't think I was worth answering. He was someplace deep within himself, or maybe in that little blue heart. In a way, I guess he was with Dolan.

  I left him like that, got my prescription filled, then drove home, wishing I had a little blue heart of my own. A secret heart where, if I looked real hard, I could find the people who were dear to me.

  40

  My home felt large and hollow that evening. I phoned the guys who work for Joe, but they hadn't heard from him, and were upset by the news. I paced around the house, working up my nut to call Lucy, but thinking of Samantha Dolan. I kept seeing her earlier that morning, telling me she was going to stay after me, that she always got what she wanted, and that she was going to make me love her. Now she was dead and I would never be able to tell her that she already had.

  My shoulder throbbed with a fierceness I didn't think possible. I took some of the Percocet, washed my hands and face, then called Lucy. Even dialing the phone hurt.

  Ben answered on the third ring, lowering his voice when he realized it was me.

  "Mom's mad."

  "I know. Will she speak to me?"

  "You sure you want to?"

  "I'm sure."

  I waited for her to come to the phone, thinking about what I would say and how I would say it. When Lucy picked up, her voice was more distant than I'd hoped.

  She said, "I guess you were right."

  "You heard about Joe?"

  "Lieutenant Krantz called. He told me that Joe left the scene wounded."

  "That's right. I took away Krantz's gun so that Joe could leave. Officially, I'm under arrest. I have to go down to Parker Center tomorrow and turn myself in."

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  "They call that aiding and abetting."

  I felt slow and stupid and sick to my stomach. My entire right side hurt.

  "That's right, Lucy. I took Krantz's gun. I interfered. I committed a felony, and when I'm convicted I'll lose my license, and that's that. I'll get a job as a rent-a-cop, or maybe I can re-up with the Army. Be all I can be."

  Her voice softened. "Were you going to tell me that you were shot?"

  "Krantz tell you that?"

  "Oh, Elvis."

  Sounding tired, she hung up.

  I stood at the phone for a time, thinking that I should call her back, but I didn't.

  Eventually, the cat came home, sniffing hopefully when he eased into the kitchen. I opened a can of Bumble Bee tuna, and sat with him on the floor. The Bumble Bee is his favorite. He lapped at it twice, then came to sniff my shoulder.

  He licked at the bandages, and I let him.

  There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it

  away when it's offered.

  * * *

  The next morning, Charlie brought me to Parker Center, where Krantz and Stan Watts walked me through the booking process. Neither Krantz nor Watts mentioned that I had spent the night at home. Maybe they had
worked it out between them.