by Robert Crais
"I don't have a lot of time, Mr. Cole. They're expecting me back at the office five minutes ago."
"This won't take long."
Cole started down the alley alongside Dersh's home without
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waiting, and Chen found himself following. John resented that: Ballsy guys lead; they don't follow.
Cole said, "When you covered the Lake Hollywood scene, you backtracked the shooter to a fire road and found where he'd parked his car."
Chen's eyes narrowed. He automatically didn't like this, because Pike had done the tracking and he'd only tagged along. Chen, of course, had left that part out of his report.
"And?"
"There's no mention of the shooter's vehicle in the Dersh report. I was wondering if you looked for it."
Chen felt a flood of relief and irritation at the same time. So that was the guy's big idea; that was why he'd wanted to meet. Chen put an edge in his voice, letting this guy know he wasn't just some a-hole with a pocket caddy.
"Of course, I looked for it. Mrs. Kimmel heard the shooter's car door slam in front of her next-door neighbor's house. I checked the street and the curbs there and in front of the next house for possible tread marks, too, but there was nothing."
"Did you look for oil drips?"
Cole said it just like that, without accusation, and Chen felt himself darken.
"What do you mean?"
"The Lake Hollywood report mentions oil drips that you found at the scene. You took samples up there and identified the oil."
"Penzoil 10-40."
"If the shooter's car was leaking up at the lake, it probably left drops here, too. If we found them, maybe you could prove they'd come from the same vehicle."
Chen darkened even more, his face burning at the same time he felt a grim excitement. Cole had something here. Chen could compare brand, additives, and carbon particulate concentration to match the two samples. If he got a match, it would break open the Dersh case and guarantee headline coverage!
But when they reached the street, Chen's enthusiasm waned. The tarmac had last been refreshed in the sixties, and
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showed pothole plugs, the scorched weathering of L.A.'s inferno heat, and a webwork of tiny earthquake cracks. In the general area where Chen reasoned that the shooter had parked, any number of drips dotted the road, and they might've been anything: transmission fluid, power steering fluid, oil, brake fluid, antifreeze, the hawked lugey of a passing motorist, or bird shit.
Chen said, "I don't know, Cole. It's been two weeks; anything that dripped that night has been weathered, dried, driven over, maybe contaminated with other substances. We won't be able to find anything."
"We won't know if we don't look, John."
Chen walked along the edge of the street, kicking pebbles and frowning. The damned street was so speckled it looked like measles. Still, it was an interesting idea, and if it panned out, the benefits might be enormous. Sex with Teresa Wu.
Chen dropped down into a push-up position the way Pike had shown him and considered the light on the road's surface. He let everything blur except the light, and noticed that some drips shined more than others. Those would be fresher. Chen moved to the curb, and imagined a car parked there, an SUV like the one at Lake Hollywood. He went low again in that place, looking for drip patterns. A vehicle parked for a time would not leave a single drip, but several, the dots overlapping.
Cole said, "What do you think?"
John Chen, lost in the street, did not hear him.
"John?"
"Huh?"
"What do you think?"
"I think it's a long shot."
"Is there any other kind?"
John Chen went back to the Boxster for his evidence kit, then spent the rest of the afternoon taking samples, and daydreaming about Teresa Wu.
42
Exactly twenty-four days after the City of Los Angeles district attorney's Office registered my conviction with the state, I received a letter from the California State Licensing Board revoking my investigator's license. In the same mail, the California Sheriffs Commission revoked my license to carry a firearm. So much for the Elvis Cole Detective Agency. So much for being a detective. Maybe I could become a sod farmer.
Two days later the doctors cut off my cast, and I began physical therapy. It hurt worse than any physical pain I'd ever felt, even worse than being shot. But my arm worked, and I could drive again. Also, I no longer looked like a waiter.
I drove to my office for the first time since the desert, walked up the four flights, and sat at my desk. I had been in that office for over ten years. I knew the people who worked in the insurance office across the hall, and I used to date the woman who owned the beauty supply company next door. I bought sandwiches from the little deli in the lobby, and did my banking in the lobby bank. Joe had an office there, too, though it was empty. He had never used it, and now perhaps never would.
I watched Pinocchio's eyes move from side to side, and said, "I guess I could hang you in the loft."
When the phone rang, I said, "Elvis Cole Detective Agency. We're out of business."
Frank Garcia said, "What do you mean, out of business?"
"Just a joke, Frank. How you doing?" I didn't want to get into it.
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"How come you haven't called? How come you and that pretty lady haven't come see me?"
"Been busy. You know."
"What's that pretty lady's name? The one works for Channel 8?"
"Lucy Chenier."
"I want you two to come have dinner. I'm lonely, and I want my friends around. Will you?"
"You mind if it's just me, Frank?"
"Is something wrong? You don't sound so good."
"I'm worried about Joe."
Frank didn't say anything for a while, but then he said, "Yeah, well, some things we can control, and some we can't. You sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine."
I spoke to Lucy every day, but over time our calls grew shorter and less frequent. I didn't enjoy them, and felt worse after we had spoken. It was probably the same for Lucy, too.
Stan Watts called, time to time, or I called him, but there was still no word about Joe. I phoned John Chen on eight separate occasions to see if he'd gotten anything from the tests he'd run, but he never returned my calls. I still don't know why. I stayed in touch with Joe's gun shop, and went through the motions of searching for the mysterious girl in the black van, but without real hope of finding anything. After a time, I felt like a stranger in my own life; all the things that had been real to me were changing.
On Wednesday of that week, I phoned my landlady and gave up my office. The Elvis Cole Detective Agency was out of business. My partner, my girlfriend, and now my business were gone, and I felt nothing. Maybe when I lost my license I had gone, too, and that was why I didn't feel anything. I wondered if they were hiring at Disneyland.
On Thursday, I parked in Frank Garcia's drive, and went to the door expecting dinner. Abbot Montoya answered, which surprised me.
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He said, "Frank and I had a little business, and he invited me to stay. I hope you don't mind."
"You know better than that."
He led me into the living room, where Frank was sitting in his chair.
I said, "Hi, Frank."
He didn't answer; he just sat there for a moment, smiling with a warmth that reached all the way into my heart.
He said, "How come I gotta find out from other people?"
"What?"
"You weren't kidding about being out of business. You lost your license."
"There's nothing to be said for it, Frank. How'd you find out?"
"That pretty lady, Ms. Chenier. She called me about it."
"Lucy called you?" That surprised me.
"She explained what happened. She said you lost it helping Joe get away."
I shrugged, giving his own words back to him. "There's things we can control, things we can't." I wasn't comfortable talking about it, and didn't want to.
Frank Garcia handed me an envelope.
I held it back without opening it. "I told you. You don't owe me a nickel."
"It's not money. Open it."
I opened it.
Inside, there was a California state investigator's license made out in my name, along with a license to carry a concealed weapon. There was also a brief, terse letter from a director of the state board, apologizing for any inconvenience I might've suffered for the temporary loss of my licenses.
I looked at Frank, then at Abbot Montoya. I looked at the license again.
"But I'm a convicted felon. It's a state law."
A fierce pride flashed in Abbot Montoya's eyes then, and I could see the strength and the muscle and the power that had been used to get these things. And I thought that maybe he
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was right, maybe he and Frank weren't so far from the White Fence gang-bangers they'd been as younger men.
He said, "Temos tu corazon y tu el de nosotros. Para siempre."
Frank gripped my arm, the same fierce way he had gripped me before. "Do you know what that means, my friend?"
I couldn't answer. All I could do was shake rny head.
"It means we love you."
I nodded.
"That pretty woman, she loves you, too."
I cried, then, and couldn't stop, not for what I had, but for what I didn't.
43
Two days later I was hanging a framed copy of the new license in my office when the phone rang. My first thought was that it was John Chen or Stan Watts, but it was neither.
One of the guys who worked in Joe's gun shop said, "You know who I am?"
My heart rate spiked. Just like that, and a cold sweat filmed my chest and back.
"Is this about Joe?"
"You ever been to the old missile control base above En-cino? The one they turned into a park? You'll like the view."
"Is Joe okay? Did you hear from him?"
"No way. Joe's probably dead. I just thought we might get together up at the park, maybe raise one for an old friend."
"Sure. We could do that."
"I'll give ya a call sometime. Bring a six-pack."
"Anytime you want."
"Sooner the better."
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He hung up.
I locked the office, and drove hard west through the city, and up to Mulholland.
It was a beautiful, clear Friday morning. The rush hour had passed, letting me make good time, but I would've made the time even if the streets had been crushed. It had to be Joe, or word of him, and I drove without thinking or feeling, maybe because I was scared the word would be bad. Sometimes, denial is all you have.
The government had built a missile control base high in the Santa Monica Mountains during the Cold War years. Then it was a top secret radar installation on the lookout for Soviet bombers coming to nuke Los Angeles. Now it was a beautiful little park that almost no one knew about except mountain bikers and hikers, and they only went on weekends.
When I reached the park, a Garcia tortilla company truck was parked off the road. I left my car behind it, hurried into the park, and made my way up the caged metal stairs to the top of the tower. The observation tower had once been a giant radar dome, and from it you could see south to the ocean and north across the San Fernando Valley.
Joe Pike was waiting on the platform.
He stiffened even though I didn't hug him hard. He was pale, and thinner than I'd ever seen him, though the white Garcia bakery shirt made him seem dark.
I said, "Took you long enough to call, goddamnit. Can you spell 'worry'?"
"I was down in Mexico, getting better."
"You got to a hospital? "
Pike's mouth twitched. "Not quite. How's the arm?"
"Stiff, but it's okay. I'm more concerned about you. You need anything?"
"I need to find Trudy."
"I've been looking." I told him what Watts had reported, and what my own searches had confirmed. Nothing on a black minivan or Trudy or Matt existed anywhere in the system. I also told him that I had no leads.
Pike took that in, and went to the rail. "The police are on
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my house and the gun shop. They've frozen my accounts, and flagged my credit cards. They've been to see Paulette."
"Maybe you should go south again. Sooner or later I'll get a hit that we can work with."
Pike shook his head. "I won't go south to hide, Elvis. I'm going to live it out here, one way or the other."
"I'm not saying go south to hide. Go to stay free. Coming up here is too big a risk."
"I'm willing to risk it."
"And go back to jail?"
Pike's mouth flickered in an awful way. "I'll never go to jail again."
Then he looked past me, and straightened in a way that made my scalp prickle. "They're onus."
A flat blue detective sedan and an LAPD radio car slid to a stop by the Garcia van. A second radio car barreled in from the opposite direction, stopping in the center of the road. We didn't wait to see who they were or what they were planning.
Pike went low fast, and snaked down the twisting metal stair toward the ground. I was right behind him. We couldn't see the stair from the platform, or the ground from the stair, but if we could get away from the observation tower, the park opened onto miles of undeveloped mountains that stretched south to Sunset Boulevard and west to the sea. If Pike could get into the sage, there was no way the police could follow him without dogs or helicopters.
As we banged down the stairs, I said, "There's a trail works south through the mountains to a subdivision above the Sunset Strip."
"I know it."
"If you follow the trail down, I can pick you up there later."
It was planning done for nothing.
When we reached the bottom of the stair, Harvey Krantz and two SWAT cops with Ml 6s were waiting.
The SWAT cops covered Joe Pike like he was a coiled cobra. They spread to the sides for crossing fire, their black
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rifles zeroed on Pike's chest even from ten feet away. Behind them, a cop shouted our location to the people on the road.
Krantz wasn't holding a gun, but his eyes were on Pike as if he were a down-range target. I expected him to start with our rights, or tell us we were under arrest, or maybe even gloat, but he didn't.
Krantz said, "Go for it, Pike. Shoot it out, and you might get away."
The SWAT cops shifted.
Pike stood with his weight on the balls of his feet, hands away from his body, as relaxed as if he were in a Zen rock garden. He would have a gun somewhere, and he would be wondering if he could get to it, and fire before the SWAT cops cut loose. Even wounded and weak, he would be thinking that. Or maybe he wasn't thinking anything at all; maybe he would just act.
Krantz took a step forward, and spread his hands. "I don't have a gun, Pike. Maybe you'll get me."
I looked from Krantz to Joe, and knew in that moment that something more than an arrest was happening. The SWAT cops traded an uncertain glance, but didn't lower their guns.
"What's wrong with you, Krantz?" I put up my hands. "Raise your hands, Joe. Goddamnit, raise them "
Pike didn't move.
Krantz smiled, but it was strained and ugly. He took another step. "Time's running out, Joe. More officers are on the way."
"Raise your hands, damnit! If you don't, then Krantz winsl"
Pike took a single breath, then looked past Krantz to the SWAT cops, talking to them now. "My hands are going up."
He raised them.
"Gun in my waistband under my shirt."
Krantz didn't move.
One of the SWAT cops said, "Krantz, get his damned gun."
Krantz
took out his own gun.
Stan Watts trotted up the path, breathing hard, and stopped when he saw us.
