Dawn Patrol

80

“No bodies,” the fireman says to Johnny Banzai.

“You're sure,” Johnny says.

The fireman gives him a hard, sarcastic look. He's real thrilled to be out on the beach on a cold, damp night with the surf spitting spray into his face. To put out a fire on a piece-of-crap van that some clown apparently pushed off the bluff for shits and giggles. He says, “I'm going to send this joker a hell of a bill.”

“Do it,” Johnny says.

He leaves the scene and walks back up the stairs to Shrink's, where Teddy D-Cup is still sitting in the Lotus Cottage. Johnny has no real reason to hold Teddy, but he didn't tell him that, and the doctor seems to be in a cowed and obedient frame of mind. He's also about half shit-faced, which makes Johnny wonder what's in an organic martini that makes it organic.

Johnny sits down across from Teddy.

The plasma television has a Lakers game on, the purple and gold of their uniforms as vivid as a Mardi Gras parade.

“So?” Johnny asks.

It's a standard opening of his. Never start by asking a witness a closed-ended question. Just get them talking and they'll tell you the first thing on their minds.

Doesn't work with Teddy. He looks blankly at Johnny and repeats, “‘So?’”

“So what are you doing here?” Johnny asks.

“Visiting a patient.”

“Would that patient be Tammy Roddick?” Johnny asks. In the background, Kobe totally works a defender, blows around him, and slams the ball home.

“What if it is?” Teddy says.

“Where is she?” Johnny asks.

He sees a different look come over Teddy's face. An expression that looks like… is it relief?

“I don't know,” Teddy says. “She wasn't here when I got here.”

“How did you get here?”

“Huh?”

“How did you get here?” Johnny asks. “Your car isn't in the lot.”

“That's a good question,” Teddy says.

“That's why I asked it,” Johnny says. Kobe has the ball again and he's dribbling around. Will not pass it. Typical, Johnny thinks. “Doctor?”

Teddy looks serious and thoughtful. He looks Johnny in the eye and says, “I don't really have an answer to that question.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why don't you have an answer?”

There's a long silence; then Teddy says, “I don't really have an answer to that question, either.”

“Look, asshole,” Johnny says. “I have a dead woman in the morgue who was carrying the ID of a stripper you're probably banging. Now the real Tammy Roddick is missing, Boone's vehicle is Iraq war footage, and I find you in Tammy's room, which you certainly arranged for. Now you can answer my questions in this civilized setting, or I can take you down to the precinct, leave you in a smelly interview room for a few hours, and then see if you can get your thoughts collected.”

It sobers Teddy up a little.

Which turns out not to be a good thing, because it seems as if he suddenly remembers that he's a high-priced surgeon with connections. He looks at Johnny and calmly says, “It's not illegal for a doctor to visit a patient, and I can't control the fact that she wasn't here. As for exploding vans-”

“How did you know it was a van?”

“I have no idea about it,” Teddy says. “As I will explain to the beautiful wife of your chief when I see her. She has a beautiful smile, don't you think? And those eyes…”

“I've never met her.”

“I'd be happy to introduce you.”

The banzai part of Johnny would like to whip the cuffs on Teddy, take him to the house, and show him the other side of life in San Diego, but his more rational side knows that it would be futile and self-defeating. Teddy will have a high-priced lawyer there in five minutes, who will make the correct point that Johnny has no reason to hold his client, no reason at all. So Johnny swallows the smarmy power play about the chief's wife, along with the hard facts about being a cop in a city where great wealth lives alongside great poverty.

Johnny Banzai is neither naпve nor idealistic. He generally takes life as he finds it and doesn't waste his time or energy tilting at windmills. But sometimes it gets to him, the knowledge that if Teddy, for instance, was Mexican, black, Filipino, Samoan, or just plain old white trash, he'd be in the back of Johnny's car already. But Teddy is rich and white, with a good address in La Jolla-substitute Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe, or Torrey Pines if you want-so he skates.

An obvious fact of life, Johnny thinks-the next time a rich white guy gets worked by the cops will be the first time. So get over it. But sometimes he'd like to take the badge, wing it into the ocean, and join Boone on the beach, rather than take any more shit from any of the beautiful people.

Now he says, “Dr. Cole, I have reason to believe that Tammy Roddick's life is in immediate danger. I'm trying to find her before the bad guys do. If you have any knowledge that would help me do that, you should give it to me right now.”

“I really don't,” Teddy says.

“Can you get home all right?” Johnny asks.

“They have a courtesy car,” Teddy says.

“With a driver?” Johnny asks, jutting his chin at the martini.

“Of course.”

Of course, Johnny thinks.