Cold Hit

Chapter 41

It was almost midnight when I walked into the park across from the Glass House. Lieutenant Cubio was pacing in the mist-wet grass, talking on his cell. Emdee Perry was on his SAT phone, speaking low, gesturing, trying to explain to some lap dancer in Inglewood why he was going to be out of pocket for a few days. Broadway sat on a concrete bench a few yards away under a streetlight, doing the same thing with his wife. When they rang off, their faces were tight.

The lights from the windows in Parker Center shown through the trees and made strange patterns on the grass where we stood. Bums drinking wine out of Evian bottles eyed us suspiciously from the benches near the sidewalks. We were standing out here because we didn't think ESD had found all the bugs inside Parker Center.

"You guys know that asset-seizure house off Coldwater?" Cubio asked.

"Yeah," Broadway said. "The stilt house on Rain-wood where we busted the gun drop last spring."

"It's still in our property inventory and it's furnished. That's where you'll set up." Cubio handed us a set of keys. "Except for the chief, Lieutenant Scully, and the four of us, nobody else will know that's where you are. We're gonna run outta clock fast. If you don't get the shit in a bag by Monday, we're gonna be facing a flock of subpoenas and federal court demands."

"We're full throttle," I said.

He nodded. Then he shook each of our hands, wished us luck, and walked briskly back across the street.

"I guess church is over," Emdee drawled.

The mechanics at the Flower Street garage pulled two bugs off my Acura. The Navigator also had two. Broadway selected a blue Chevy Caprice from the motor pool. Perry took a gray Dodge Dart. I arranged to meet them at the safe house in an hour because I had something I needed to take care of.

It was after midnight on Saturday, so the psych ward at Queen of Angels was crowded. Doctor Pepper was still on duty, but he looked like an assembly line worker whose conveyor belt had overrun him. He clearly wasn't happy to see me.

"Who are we going to be tonight? How about Detective Farrell's Uncle Harry?"

I showed Pepper my badge. "We're working an important case. I didn't think you'd let me in."

He glanced at one of his clipboards then handed it to a passing nurse. "I couldn't seem to help your partner, so I'm not his doctor anymore. I'm having him transferred to an abnormal psych unit that's better equipped to deal with his kind of problem."

I didn't like the sound of that. "I need to see him," I demanded.

"This time I guess I should find out if you're armed. It's considered terrible form to allow firearms inside a psych ward."

"Locked in my car." I opened my sport coat and showed him.

I waited while he called a male nurse to escort me to Zack's room. I was lugging the LAPD murder book on Arden Rolaine in one hand, and my briefcase in the other. The nurse pushed some buttons, cleverly hiding the combination with his body. The door swung open, I entered and heard the disconcerting sound of the electric lock buzzing the door shut behind me.

Zack was at the window, still dressed in the same clothes. He looked up as I entered, then leaned against the wall and studied me. There was something different about his demeanor, something distant and slightly lost.

"Hi," I said.

He nodded but said nothing.

"Brought the Arden Rolaine binder like you wanted." He just stood there, so I handed it to him.

"You got a minute? I asked.

"Do I have a minute?" he finally repeated, and shook his head in disbelief.

"Hey look, Zack. ."

But he waved me off, his big hand polishing the air between us.

"I have a few questions on Arden Rolaine's murder," I said, and pulled up one of the plastic chairs. After a moment, he took the other.

"Questions," he said flatly.

"Stuff we discussed that doesn't quite track. I want to get it all straight before I give Underwood this murder book."

"Pretty anal compulsive. Maybe you're the one ought to be in here."

"I'm just trying to find some answers."

"So what is it? What's the big head scratch?"

We looked into each other's eyes. His were empty as train tunnels. Mine probably showed confusion. There was something eerie in Zack's relentless stare.

"Turn to page twenty in the book."

Zack smiled. "Ain't no page twenty. I never filed any of this."

"I know. I did it for you."

He finally opened the book and started flipping pages, shaking his head in wonder. "Boy, Shane has been a busy, busy boy."

"Page twenty," I said. "Your case notes from the fifteenth. The margin note, middle of the page."

He scanned the page then looked up. "So?"

"Says there you were planning to re-interview VR for the June third timeline. Who, or what is VR?"

"VR?" he looked puzzled. "Re-interview VR. . shit, I don't remember writing that."

I didn't like where this was going.

"Can't stand for Vaughn Rolaine," he went on.

"Cause I never met the guy. Couldn't ever find him." He started looking through the book. "If I wrote re-interview, it was probably just a fuck-up. A mistake." He hesitated. "I don't know," he said, finally looking up.

"Could VR be shorthand for victim's relatives?" I asked.

He thought about it. "To be honest, I'm not sure. I was getting pretty hammered most nights last June." He thought some more. "Y'know, though, now that I think back on it, you may be right. VR for victim's relatives. Makes sense." He closed the book. "Mystery solved."

He sat opposite me, looking down again at the binder in his lap, shaking his head in wonder.

"Cotta unanswered questions on this case," he finally said softly.

"Yep. I need to get everything nailed down before I give it over to Underwood. We need to start at the top and run through everything again."

Zack sat quietly for almost a minute, looking at the painted concrete floor between us. It was almost as if he was trying to come to some sort of decision. Then, without warning, he exploded out of his chair. I'd never seen him move so fast.

I lurched up, trying to stand as he smashed me in the face with the murder book, driving me back. I hit the concrete wall hard. The air rushed out of my lungs. Before I could stop him, he had his hands around my throat and was lifting me off the floor, right out of my Florsheims.

I felt my stocking feet kicking, hitting his legs. I wanted to scream out, but my throat was constricted in his powerful grip. We were eye to eye; his face, a mask of rage.

First, my vision blurred.

Then everything went black.

l was in Yuri market.

Everyone around me was speaking Russian, and just like the Russian Roulette, I couldn't understand what anyone was saying. I was wearing Lakers' gear and Martin Kobb had the shopping list. He moved along beside me, young and handsome in his off-duty clothes. We were buying ingredients for a dinner he was going to cook.

"We'll need to baste with a heavier motor oil," Marty said, reaching for a can of Texaco 40-weight. "And we'll chop up some of these for the salad." He pulled several boxes of windshield-wiper blades off the shelf.

"What's in this recipe? " I asked.

"Wait'll you taste it," Kobb said, checking his list. "You get the transmission fluid. I'll find the antifreeze."

Then I was back at the Staples Center The Lakers game was still in progress, but I was walking around in the cheering crowd, unable to find my seat.

"You're in the way!" someone shouted, angrily. "Sit down! "

"If you can't find your place, go home!" Another fan yelled. I looked down at a lady wearing hoop earrings and a UCLA sweatshirt.

"It's in the ninth row. Seat twenty" I said, hoping she could direct me.

"How come you're here? "Her voice and expression hateful. "Nobody wants you anymore. They should just give you back to Child Services like before."

And then I was wandering in a desert. I had my shirt off and was looking for Chooch and Alexa. The sun burned my face and shoulders. I finally saw my wife and son, far away, standing in the shade of a huge Texaco sign. They were waving for me to join them. I started running, but the desert sand was deep and my legs were sluggish. The faster I ran, the further away they seemed.

I heard somebody behind me. I looked back and saw Zack. He was moving much faster, and was about to catch me.

"I saved your ass," he shouted angrily. He was almost on top of me now "I saved your ass, and this is how you pay me back"

He lunged and caught my shoulder, pulling me down.

When I opened my eyes, I was looking at Alexa. She had a cool hand on my forehead. Chooch was standing behind her, worry on his face.

"Dad, we love you. Please be okay," he said softly.

I had a tube down my throat and was breathing through an oxygen mask. My jaw ached where Zack hit me. I tried to say something but Alexa put her finger on my lips.

"Don't talk. You were strangled and hit on the head. You have a severe concussion."

"Zack. .," I managed to say around the throat tube. "Don't talk," she said.

"How?" I struggled to sit up.

She pushed me gently back on the pillows. "He choked you unconscious. Then he either knocked you in the head with your briefcase, or kicked you. He called in an orderly who didn't know him. You were lying on his bed under the covers, the orderly thought he was you and you were him. Zack just used your badge and walked right out.

"The trauma physician wants to keep you very quiet for at least a day. If your brain swells, or fills with fluid, they'll have to operate to relieve pressure. The next six hours are critical. You've got to lie still."

So I closed my eyes.

For the next ten hours I slept. When I woke again, the sun was up and my room was empty. Someone had removed the tube and the oxygen mask.

My head throbbed, my spirits buried in emotional mud. I pulled myself upright and experienced a wave of dizziness.

My briefcase sat open on the table next to the bed with Agent Orange's book still inside. I had so many questions I didn't know where to start. After a minute I pulled out the book, set it on the covers beside me, and tried to collect my thoughts.

Like a buzzard circling a rotting carcass, I scavenged my bleak history with Zack, looking for something to hang on to. The more I thought about it, the worse it got.

I rang the nurse's bell, and a minute later a pleasant African-American woman with a wide, happy face appeared in my doorway.

"I need to talk to my wife," I said.

"She was here all night. Once you were out of danger this morning, she and your son went home. She said she wanted to take a shower, then go to the office and finish up some things." The nurse looked at her watch. "She'll be back later."

"Thanks," I said, and watched as she left. Then I hefted Agent Orange's Motor City Monster up onto my lap and thumbed it open to the contents page.

Chapter one was entitled: "Growing Up to Kill Social Environments and Formative Years."

I turned the page and began to read.