The Night Crew

Chapter 10

Harper pushed and Anna weakened: he was having an effect on her. Creek could stay, she decided.

'But you've got to give me space,' she told Creek, when Harper had gone. 'You can't follow me around the house. You can't fix anything.'

'Maybe I could do some painting,' Creek suggested, peering around the front room.

'No painting,' Anna said. 'No fix-up, no clean-up, no hedge-trimming. You sleep, you watch TV. We eat, we got to work.'

He grumbled about it, but agreed. 'I'm gonna have to repark the truck.'

'You've got the truck? I thought Louis dropped you off.'

He shook his head: 'I put him in a cabthe truck's down the block.' The dead-end streets between the canals were too narrow for the truck to maneuver. When they had to stop momentarily at Anna's, they'd leave it at the intersection of Linnie and Dell, usually with Louis to watch it.

'If it's there when Linkhof gets up, he'll call the cops and get it towed.' Linkhof was the antisocial neighbor.

'Yeah. I can ditch it at Jerry's. The cook'll be there, he can see it out the window.'

Anna nodded. 'All right. I'll ride down with you.'

She got a jacket, and when Creek said, 'Gun,' selfconsciously put the Smith in her jacket pocket, on the opposite side from her cell phone, which she carried by habit. 'If the cops see us walking back at this time of night, they'll stop us, and if they frisk us, I'll be downtown again,' Anna said.

'We'll stop at Jerry's, get a coffee. The sky'll be getting light in a half hour, we can walk back then,' Creek said. 'Besides,' he added, 'we're white.'

White.

The way things worked in L.A. Still, the pistol felt like a brick in her pocket as they walked in the dark toward the truck.

The truck represented a lot of heavy lifting. They'd started, five years earlier, with a rusty Dodge van, cast-off video gear and spanners, and a lot of metal shelving from Home Depot, which Louis and Creek had bolted to the floor. The floor on the Dodge leaked, both from rust-outs and the new bolt holes, and Louis sometimes emerged from the back suffering from advanced carbon monoxide poisoning.

After three years of street work, building their reputation and their contacts, walking tapes around to the TV stations, they'd ditched the van and bought the truck from a cable station that had decided to get out of the news business. The truck came with the dish and a compressed-air lift; Louis put in the electronics. The dish alone saved hours every night; if they could use the relay antennas on the mountainand they could from almost anywhere in the Los Angeles bowlthey could dump video and voice to everyone.

And the equipment was getting better: Creek's camera was almost new.

Anna felt a little thump every time she saw the truck: a lot of work. Something she was good at.

But she didn't see the man by the truck until they were almost on top of him, she and Creek talking away, and Creek said, 'Hey.'

The man turnedheavy shoulders, big hands, and she thought of Harperbut this guy was black. He said, 'Anna?'

The questioned slowed Creek: Creek had gone into his long-stride, somewhat-sideways combat approach, closing quickly. But now he hesitated, and Anna said, 'Who is that?' and the man lifted an arm toward Creek, and Creek said, 'No!' and went straight into him.

The shots were loud, the gun spitting short, sharp spikes of fire at Creek, three times, four, five. Creek twisted, still moving in, while Anna clawed at her pocket. Then Creek was on him, reaching, and the man turned to run.

His head snapped back and he screamed, and Anna gave up on the gun and started for Creek. The shooter snapped forward and began to run. Creek let him go, Anna thought. the man disappeared down the street as Anna turned to Creek.

And Creek fell down. Slumped, rolled, looked up at her.

'Gun,' he groaned. 'Get the gun.'

'He's gone.'

'Get gun, get gun,' he said, urgently, and Anna, not wanting to believe, dropped down next to him and said, 'You're okay?'

And in the dim light of the street, saw the black blood on his mouth, on his face and neck, the blood on his shirt.

Lights were coming on down the street and she screamed, 'Police, call the police, ambulance. man shot. This is Anna, call nine-one-one,' and someone shouted back, 'I'm calling.'

Creek grabbed her by the coat and said something urgent but unintelligible. His hand was wrapped in fabric, and Anna plucked it away. A woman's nylon stocking, a little darker than nude; maybe suntan. Creek had pulled it off the shooter's head, snapping his head back. The shooter wasn't black. He'd been wearing a mask.

That all ran through her head in an instant, and then she tossed the stocking away and shouted down at him, 'Are you okay? Goddamn, Creek.'

'Ahh.'

A man was running up the street toward her. 'Anna?'

'Yeah, it's me,' she shouted back, half-standing. 'My friend is shot, somebody help.'

The man arrived, a neighbor named Wilson, stood uncertainly over her in bluebird pajamas. 'Henry's called the cops,' he said.

'Gotta have an ambulance, he's hurt bad,' Anna said, looking up at Wilson, eyes big.

Another neighbor, Logan, was in the street, running toward them, a flashlight in one hand, a gun in the other. 'Somebody hit?'

'Ambulance on the way,' Wilson said.

'Let me take a look,' Logan said. He squatted next to Creek, shined the light on his face and neck: 'Three hits,' he said. 'No arteries.' He pulled up Creek's shirt. There were two small puckered blood entry wounds, one just outside Creek's left nipple, another two inches above that.

'Bad?' Creek mumbled.

'The face isn't bad, I don't think, I can't tell about the chest. The goddamn slugs can rattle around in there.' He pulled the shirt down. 'Nothin' to do but wait.' And to Anna, he said, 'What're you into, darlin'?'

Anna shook her head. 'Cops think it's a fruitcake guy, a nut.'

'Stalkin' ya?'

'Yeah, something like that.' She screamed back down the street. 'Where's the fuckin' ambulance?' And to Creek, 'Hold on, Creek, God.'

More lights were flicking on, and a man shouted back: 'On the way. Two minutes.'

Creek was flat on his back, his eyes half-hung, looking sleepy. She had him by the shirt, blood on her hands and jacket, Logan at his head, and she yelled at him, 'Creek, c'mon, c'mon, hold on.'