Free Fall

CHAPTER 31

Thurman said, "How'd it go?" He didn't look at me when he asked.

"We'll know by one o'clock."

"I want to call Jennifer."

"Okay. You hungry?"

"Not especially."

"I am. We've got to kill time and not get caught until one. We'll grab something to eat. You can call Jennifer. We'll move around."

"Fine."

We drove over the hill into Hollywood. I drove, and Thurman sat in the passenger seat. Neither of us said very much or looked at the other, but there wasn't any tension in the car. There was more an awkwardness.

We followed Laurel Canyon down out of the hills, then turned east on Hollywood Boulevard. As we drove, Thurman's eyes raked the sidewalks and the side streets and the alleys, just like they had done when he was riding a black-and-white here, just like they had done when he saved the nine-year-old girl from the nut on the bus. He said, " Hollywood was my first duty assignment when I left the academy."

"Yeah."

"My first partner was a guy named Diaz. He had twelve years on the job and he used to laugh a lot. He used to say, Jesus Christ, why you wanna do this for a living? A good-looking white guy like you, why don't you get a real job?"

I looked over at him.

Thurman laughed at the memory. "I said I wasn't born on Krypton like Clark Kent and I wasn't good enough to be Batman like Bruce Wayne, so this was the next best thing. You get to wear a uniform and drive around in a fast car and put the bad guys behind bars. Diaz got a kick out of that. He started calling me Clark Kent." Thurman fell silent and crossed his arms and stared ahead into Hollywood. Maybe remembering Diaz. Maybe remembering other things. "You think they'll let me stay on the department?"

"We'll see."

"Yeah." We rode like that for a while, and then he said, "I know you're not doing it for me, but I appreciate what you're doing in this."

"They haven't gone for it yet, Thurman. A lot could go wrong."

We went to Musso amp; Frank Grill for breakfast and used the pay phone there to call Lancaster. Mark Thurman spoke to Jennifer Sheridan and I spoke to Joe Pike. I said, "It's happening fast. We should know by one o'clock."

"You want us to come down?"

"No. If it goes right, we'll call you, and then we'll come up. Once we turn over the tape, they'll move on Akeem and the Eight-Deuce. I don't want Jennifer down until those guys are off the street."

"Sounds good."

We took our time with breakfast and didn't leave Musso's until the waiters and the busboys were giving us the glare treatment. When we left, we walked down Hollywood Boulevard to Vine, and then back again, looking at the people and the second-rate shops and trying to kill time. We passed the place where Thurman had gone onto the bus to save the nine-year-old girl. He didn't bring it up.

We picked up the car and drove east to Griffith Park where you can rent horses and ride along trails or in carefully controlled riding pens. The park was crowded, and most of the trail riders were families and kids, but most of the pen riders were serious young women with tight riding pants and heavy leather riding boots and their hair up in buns. We bought diet Cokes and watched them ride.

At eleven minutes before one that afternoon, we pulled into the parking lot at Griffith Observatory at the top of the Hollywood Hills and went into the observatory's great hall to use their pay phone. I figured it was a pretty safe place from which to make the call. You don't find a lot of cops browsing through the meteorite display or admiring the Chesley Bonestell paintings.

At exactly one o'clock by the observatory's time, I called Lou Poitras at his office. Charlie Griggs answered. Mark Thurman stood next to me, watching people come in and go out of the hall. Griggs said, " North Hollywood detectives. Griggs."

"This is Richard Kimball. I've been falsely accused. A guy with one arm did it."

Griggs said, "Let's see you smart off like that when they put you in the gas chamber." Always a riot, Griggs.

"Is Lou there, or do I have to deal with the B team?"

Griggs put me on hold and maybe six seconds later Poitras picked up. "I brought in Baishe, and we talked to a woman named Murphy at the DA." Baishe was Poitras's lieutenant. He didn't much like me. "Murphy brought in someone from the chief's office and someone else from the mayor's office, and we got together on this. Everybody's pretty anxious to see the tape."

"What about Thurman?" When I said his name, Thurman looked at me.

"They'd like to have him, but they're willing to give him up to get the other guys. They don't like it much."

"They don't have to like it, they just have to guarantee it. Does he stay on the job?"

"Yeah."

"Do I have their word?"

"Yes."

When Poitras said yes, I nodded at Thurman and he closed his eyes and sighed as if the results had just come back negative. I said, "Are they going to deal square with the Washington family?"

"Shit, this comes out, the Washingtons are going to own City Hall."

"Are they going to deal square?"

"Yes. That came from the DA's person and the mayor's person."

"Okay. What's the next step?"

"They want Thurman to come in with the tape. They've made a lot of promises with nothing to go on except my word, and they don't like that. It all hinges on the tape. As soon as they see the tape, they'll move on Dees and those other assholes, and they'll move on Akeem D'Muere and anyone wearing Eight-Deuce colors. Everybody comes in."

"Okay."

"We can do it whenever you say. Sooner is better than later."

I looked at Thurman. We would have to call Jennifer and Pike, and then we'd have to go get them and come down. It was eight minutes after one. "How about your office at six?"

"Make it Baishe's office. Let him feel like he's in charge."

"Done."

I hung up the phone and told Mark Thurman the way it was going to be. I said, "We have to call Lancaster."

Thurman said, "Let's not. I want to be the one to tell Jennifer. I want to see her face when I tell her that it's over."

"I told her we'd call."

"I don't care. I want to get flowers. Do you think we could stop for flowers? She likes daisies." He was like a cork that had been pulled down very far into deep water and suddenly released. He was racing higher and higher, and the higher he got the faster he moved. The sadness and the shame were momentarily forgotten and he was grinning like a kid who'd just won first prize in one of those contests they're always having in the backs of comic books.

I said, "Sure. We can get daisies." I guess I was grinning, too.

He said, "Oh, boy." Oh, boy.

We took the four-mile drive down out of Griffith Observatory and stopped at a flower shop in Hollywood for the daisies and then we hopped on the freeway and went north toward Lancaster and the house where Mark Thurman and Jennifer Sheridan had been hiding. It didn't take very long at all.

The neighborhood was alive with kids on skateboards and men and women working on their lawns and teenagers washing cars and the varied stuff of a Saturday afternoon. Joe Pike's Jeep was in front of the house where we had left it, and the drapes were still closed. We pulled into the drive and parked and Thurman got out first. He said, "I want to go in first." He held the flowers like a sixteen-year-old going to his first prom.

I followed him up the walk and stood beside him when he rang the bell once, then unlocked the door, and went in yelling for Jennifer Sheridan. He needn't have bothered.

Pete Garcia was sitting on the couch and Floyd Riggens was sitting in the green Ez-E-Boy. Riggens had his legs crossed and a cold Pabst in his right hand. He made a nasty grin when we walked in and said, "Jennifer's not here, asshole. We've got her, and we want the goddamned tape."