Free Fall

CHAPTER 13

Thirty-five minutes later I pulled up the little road to my house and saw Pike's red Jeep Cherokee under the elm by the front steps. I had left the Farmer's Market before Pike, and I had made good time, but when I got home, there he was, as if he had been there for hours, as if he had been both here and there at the same time. He does this a lot, but I have never been able to figure out how. Teleportation, maybe.

Pike was holding the cat and the two of them were staring at something across the canyon. Looking for more cops, no doubt. I said, "How'd you beat me?"

Pike put down the cat. "I didn't know it was a race." You see how he is?

I turned off the alarm and let us into the kitchen through the carport. I was uncomfortable moving into and through the house, as if I expected more cops to be hiding in a closet or behind the couch. I looked around and wondered if they had been in the house. People have been in my house before. I didn't like it then, and I liked it even less, now.

Pike said, "We're clear."

One minute he's across the room, the next he's right behind you. "How do you know?"

"Went down to the end of the road. Checked the downslope and the upslope. Walked through the house before you got here." He made a little shrug. "We're clear."

A six-thousand-dollar alarm, and it's nothing to Pike.

He said, "You want to tell me about this?"

I took two Falstaffs out of the refrigerator, gave one to Pike and kept one for myself, and then I told him about Jennifer and Thurman and Eric Dees's REACT team. "Four months ago Dees 's team was involved in an arrest in which a man named Charles Lewis Washington died. Washington 's family filed a suit against Dees and the city, but they dropped it when a street gang called the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys pressed them."

Pike took some of the Falstaff and nodded. "So what's the connection between a street gang and Eric Dees?"

"That's the question, isn't it?"

I went upstairs, got the notes I had made on the case, and brought them down. "You hungry?"

"Always."

"I've got some of the venison left."

Pike made a face. "You got something green?" Two years ago he had gone vegetarian.

"Sure. Tuna, also, if you want." He'll sometimes eat fish. "Read the notes first, then we'll talk after."

Pike took the notes, and I went into the freezer for the venison. In the fall, I had hunted the hill country of central California for blacktail deer and had harvested a nice buck. I had kept the tenderloins and chops, and had the rest turned into smoked sausage by a German butcher I know in West L.A. The tenderloins and the chops were gone, but I still had three plump sausage rings. I took two of the rings from the freezer, put them in the microwave to thaw, then went out onto the deck to build the fire. The cat was sitting out there, under the bird feeder. I said, "Forget the birds. We're making Bambi."

The cat blinked at me, then came over and sat by the grill. Venison is one of his favorite things.

I keep a Weber charcoal grill out on the deck, along with a circular redwood picnic table. The same woman who had given me the bird feeder had also helped me build the picnic table. Actually, she had done most of the building and I had done most of the helping, but that had probably worked out better for the table. I scraped the grill, then built a bed of mesquite coals in the pit and fired them. Mesquite charcoal takes a while, so you have to get your fire going before you do anything else.

When the coals were on their way, I went back into the kitchen.

Pike looked up from the report. "We're squaring off against five LAPD officers, and all we're getting paid is forty bucks?"

"Nope. We're also getting forty dollars per month for the next forty-nine months."

Pike shook his head.

"Think of it as job security, Joe. Four years of steady income."

Pike sighed.

I opened another Falstaff, drank half of it on the way upstairs to the shower, and the other half on the way back down. When I got back down, Pike had built a large salad with tuna and garbanzo beans and tomatoes and onions. We brought the salad and the venison out onto the deck.

The sky had deepened, and as the sun settled into a purple pool in the west, the smells of budding eucalyptus and night-blooming jasmine mingled with the mesquite smoke. It was a clean, healthy smell, and made me think, as it always does, of open country and little boys and girls climbing trees and chasing fireflies. Maybe I was one of the little boys. Maybe I still am. There are no fireflies in Los Angeles.

I put the venison on the grill, then sat with Pike at the table and told him about Charles Lewis Washington and the Washington family and what I had learned from Ray Depente about Akeem D'Muere and the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys.

Pike sipped his beer and listened. When I finished he said, "You think the family was telling the truth about Charles Lewis going straight?"

"They believed it."

"Then where'd a guy like that get the cash to buy a solvent business?"

"There is that, yes."

"Maybe he had a partner."

I nodded. "D'Muere funds the pawnshop to front a fence operation, and Lewis's working for D'Muere. I can see that, but why does D'Muere front off the Washington family from pressing their lawsuit? The pawnshop is shut down. The fence operation is history."

"If there's a suit, there's an investigation. There was something else there that he wants to hide."

"Something that Eric Dees knows?"

Pike shrugged.

"If Dees knows about it, it's not hidden."

Pike angled his head around and stared at me. "Unless it's something Eric wants hidden, too."

"Ah." I turned the sausages. Fat was beginning to bubble out of the skin and they smelled wonderful. "Akeem D'Muere and Eric Dees are sharing a secret."

Pike nodded.

"The question arises, how far will they go to protect it?"

Pike stared at me for a moment, then got up and went into the house. I heard the front door open, then I heard his Jeep's door, and then he came back out onto the deck. When he came back, he was wearing his pistol. It's a Colt Python.357 with a four-inch barrel. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. I said, "Guess that means they'll go pretty far."

Pike said, "If five cops are on you, then it's important to them. If they're with you, then they're not doing the work they're supposed to be doing, and that's not easy to cover. Dees's people can't just go to the beach. He has to account for their time to his boss, and he has to produce results with whatever cases they're working."

"And all five guys have to be on board with it."

Pike nodded. "Everybody has to be on board."

I turned the sausages again. The skins were taking on a crunchy texture and the cat had hopped up on the rail that runs around the edge of the deck so he could be as close to the sausage as possible. Any closer and we could serve barbecued cat.

Pike said, "Eric was nervous. That's not like him. Maybe even scared, and that's not like him, either."

"Okay."

"Scared people do atypical things. He was thinking maybe that he could scare you off. Now that he knows that I'm in, it will change what he thinks. He knows that I won't scare."

"Great. That will make him all the more dangerous."

"Yes," Pike said. "It will."

"Maybe Dees is telling the truth. Maybe we're just stepping on a case and he's pissed."

Pike shook his head. "He wants you out, it's easy. He tells his boss and his boss calls you in and you sit down together. You know that." The sky darkened and the hillside below us grew speckled with lights. Pike adjusted his sunglasses, but did not remove them. He never removes them. Even at night. "If he's not playing it straight, then he can't play it straight. That's the first rule every cop learns."

I turned the sausage rings a last time, then took them off the grill and put them onto a maple cutting board. I sliced them at an angle, then put half the meat on my plate and a serious portion on a saucer for the cat. I blew on his to cool it. Pike went into the house and came out with two more Falstaffs and what was left of a loaf of rosemary bread. I took some of the salad and tasted it. Pike had made a dressing of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and minced garlic. I nodded. "Good."

He nodded back.

We ate without speaking for several minutes, and Pike didn't look happy. Of course, since Pike never smiles, it's sometimes tough to tell when he is happy, but there are ways. I said, "What?"

Pike picked up a piece of tuna with his fingers, took a small bite, then held out the rest to the cat. The cat stepped forward and ate with enthusiasm. Pike said, "I haven't seen Eric in many years."

"Was he good?"

"Yes."

"Was he honest?"

Pike turned his head and the dark lenses angled toward me. "If I saw it any other way, I wouldn't have ridden with him."

I nodded. "But people change."

Pike wiped his fingers on his napkin, then turned back to his meal. "Yes. People change."

We ate the rest of the meal in silence, and then we brought the dirty dishes into the kitchen and flipped a nickel to see who would wash. I lost. Midway through the load the phone rang and Joe Pike answered. He said, "Jennifer Sheridan."

I took the phone and said, "Elvis Cole, Personal Detective to Jennifer Sheridan."

Jennifer Sheridan said, "Floyd Riggens just left me. He was here with another officer. They said that I was going to get Mark killed. They said that if I didn't make you stop, something bad would happen." Her voice was tight and compressed and the words came quickly, as if she were keeping a close rein, but just.

"Are you all right?"

"I called Mark, but he's not home."

"What about you? Are you all right?"

I could hear her breathe. She didn't say anything for a time, and then she said, "I'd like someone with me, I think. Would you mind?"

"I'm leaving now."

I hung up. Pike was staring at me, his glasses reflecting the kitchen lights. "Riggens paid her a visit. I'd better go over there."

Pike said, "This isn't going to work out the way she wants it to."

I spread my hands. "I don't know. Maybe we can make it work out that way."

"If Dees and Thurman and these guys are mixed up with Akeem D'Muere, it'll be ugly. She may find out something about him that she wished she didn't know."

I spread my hands again. "Maybe that's the price for being in love."

Pike said, "I'll finish the dishes."

I told him thanks, then I put on the Dan Wesson and drove to see Jennifer Sheridan.