The Night Crew

Chapter 19

Harper was driving down the narrow canyon road, through the night, occasional snapshots of the L.A. lights ahead of them. He was not happy with the trip: he wanted to spend the evening at his house, but Anna was going hunting, with or without him.

'BJ's: that was the only time Jason and MacAllister were hooked into me, so the guy must've been at the party.'

'No,' Harper said, shaking his head. 'You don't know how many times they told that story.'

'What's the point of telling it if nobody sees the woman? It's no big deal being in a three-way anymore, you can get one for fifty bucks down on the strip.'

'Really?' he pretended to perk up.

She ignored it: '. so I figure what happened is, I show up at the party, ask around for him, he's a little unhappy when I blow him offhe was really a mess, but he thought he could still do it, he needed the moneyand so he starts spreading the story with his pal. Whoever it is saw me, and heard the story. Had to be.'

'Doesn't have to be.'

She sighed: 'Okay. Not technically: but that's all I've got, and I'm going with it.'

The party box was running hard. Anna led the way up the narrow, smoke-filled stairway, the buzz-cut hulk at the door looking past her at Harper. When Harper looked up at him, he stepped out of sight into the party room, and a moment later stepped back out; Anna realized that a warning was now rippling through the roomHarper had been taken for a cop.

The hulk was a redneck, a southern kid with a layer of hard fat in his face and under his Eat More SpamT-shirt. He nodded vaguely at Anna and said to Harper with a thin, sarcastic edge, 'We're checking IDs, officer.'

Harper smiled a cop smile at him and said, 'I'm proud of you.'

'Have you got a warrant?'

Harper opened his mouth, but Anna cut in: 'He's not a cop. Not anymore.'

The hulk was doubtful: 'So what's he want? He don't fit here.'

'He's taking care of me,' Anna said. 'Do you know Jason O'Brien and Sean MacAllister?'

A spark of interest lit in the hulk's eyes: 'I heard they're dead.'

'That's right. Now the guy who killed them is coming after me. We're trying to find out who it is.'

The hulk's forehead wrinkled as he thought about it, and then he said, 'You know who'd know? Trip what's-his-face. He hung with the guy. hang on one second.'

He stepped out of sight again, and a moment later was back: 'Come on,' he said.

Harper looked at Anna and showed a quarter-inch of a smile: he'd caught the warning move, and now the cancellation.

The party room was actually four rooms: a bar area, a large tiled dance room, and two smaller rooms at the sides, with rickety plastic lawn tables and chairs. All four rooms stank of tobacco smoke, and an edge of something sharper: crack, Anna thought. No grass; this club was a little harder than a pothead might want.

The population dressed in black, both male and female. Harper, with his blue shirt and sport coat, looked like he'd just arrived from Iowa. The hulk led them to the second room, spotted a thin man in a black mock turtle, with oval gold-rimmed glasses, and held up a finger. The man tipped his head and the hulk led them over.

'This is a TV lady, used to work with Jason O'Brien.'

'Anna,' the man said. He smiled quickly, a click on-and-off, showing a couple of pointy canine teeth. He looked at Harper: 'Who's your attractive friend?'

'Jake Harper,' Harper said, and stuck out his hand. The man took it, warily, but Jake shook cheerfully and said, 'Is it Trip?'

'Yes, Trip.' He had a drawl, a very faint cultured hint of New Orleans. 'I heard about Jason and Sean. Not the details.'

'You don't seem surprised,' Anna said. 'Do your friends get killed a lot?'

'From time to time,' Trip said, with faint amusement.

Anna nodded: 'Okay. I came up here one night, about three weeks ago, to pick Jason up, but he was too messed up to work,' she said. 'But that night, he started a rumor that he and MacAllister and I were in a three-way. We think whoever killed them heard the rumor. We're wondering who was here that I might know, or might know me.'

Trip pursed his lips, then said, 'Well, I suppose ninety percent of the people here are in film, one way or another. Writers or actors or directors, or trying to be. And you're actually doing some media, so. I don't know; maybe several people knew you, or of you.'

Anna shook her head: 'I didn't see anybody I knew.'

'Let me think.' Trip turned slightly away and closed his eyes, and then waited; and after a few seconds, opened them and turned slightly back to her and said, 'Were you? In a three-way?'

'No.'

Trip let his eyes drift to Harper: 'Too bad; they're kinda fun.'

'I keep telling her,' Harper said. 'I even got the other woman.'

'Shut up,' Anna snapped. To Trip: 'Somebody who must've been tight with MacAllister and Jason both.'

'MacAllister did some work in porno: acting work. Jason might've taken the pictures, I don't knowbut both were friends with the guy who produces them. Dick Harnett, Bunny Films, they're out in Burbank.'

'That's it?'

'Actually, no. You know who else used to hang with them? China Lake.'

'Who?'

'China Lake, the actress. She played a junkie girl on "90210" one week. She was up here with them a couple of times.'

'Bunny Films, in Burbank, and China Lakeyou know where we can find her?'

'Probably practising for her role as a junkie girl,' Trip drawled, letting the New Orleans out again. 'Look downstairs in the ladies' restroom. Dark-haired girl, shaved around the ears.'

The women's restroom was a sewer, four metal booths on an uneven concrete floor, everything a little damp, the stink of urine and vomit in the air: China was alone, staring at herself in a cracked mirror, her eyes underlined with gray rings of exhaustion, her shoulders not much more than bare bone. Anna thought she might be nineteen.

'China?'

She turned her head and looked first at Anna, then at Harper, with little interest: that Harper should be in a woman's restroom didn't seem worthy of comment, or even notice. 'Yeah?'

'My name is Anna Batory. I used to work with Jason O'Brien, before he got killed.'

'I heard he was dead, and Sean,' she said. She turned back to the mirror. 'You got anything good on you?' Without waiting for an answer, to Harper, 'Are you a cop?'

'No.' He shook his head: 'We're looking for whoever killed Jason; they're coming after Anna here.'

'Really? You got anything good on you?'

Anna shook her head: 'We're looking for a guy who might have hung out with Jason and MacAllister. Pretty big guy, about like Jake.' She nodded at Jake. 'And a little out of shape. Not real fat, just sort of fleshy. Could be pretty weird.'

'That's everybody I know,' China said. 'Except.'

'What?'

'Most of them are skinny. You sure you don't have anything good on you? You look like you do, like you got money.'

They talked for another two minutes: a woman came in, glanced at Harper, said nothing, just went on to a booth and closed the door. Harper looked at Anna, faintly embarrassed, looked at China, who'd gone back to her mirror, and shook his head. Nothing here.

'All right,' Anna said. She held a card out to China, and when the woman didn't take it, slipped it into a pocket in China's small leather purse. 'If you hear anything, or think of anybody, call me. There might be. something good in it.'

China brightened. 'You got something good?'

'Great lead,' Harper said, as they left the club. 'Now what?'

'Bunny films.'

'Anna, it's ten o'clock at night.'

'So, we bang on a doormaybe there'll be somebody around. What else are we gonna do?'

'I could come up with something.'

Behind them, in the club, a man leaned in the door of the women's restroom and said, 'Aren't you China Lake?'

China turned and said, 'Hey: You got anything good on you?'

The man shrugged, and unconsciously reached up to touch his cheekbone. 'Probably,' he said. 'I got a little of everything.'

'You do?' China brightened, the circles seeming to fade from beneath her eyes. She looked almost young enough to be her age. 'I've been waiting for you.'