The Night Crew

Chapter 7

Along bad day, and still not over.

On the way home, Anna stopped at a traffic light on Santa Monica, and her eyes drifted to a Mobil station on the corner.

A man was washing the windshield on a Volvo station wagon, at a self-serve pump. He was wearing jeans and a loose, wide-sleeved white cotton shirt, such as might be advertised in The New YorkerSea Island cotton, like that.

The instant she saw himhis hair thinner, maybe lighter, maybe speckled with white, a few pounds heavier, but the way his hands connected to his body, something almost indefinablethe very instant she saw him, she thought: Clark.

She slid down in her seat, but couldn't tear her eyes from him. He finished with the squeegee, turned and deftly flipped the squeegee stick back toward a water can hung on the side of the gas pump. The sponge end of the stick hit and slipped perfectly through the hole in the water can: exactly as she'd seen him do it fifty times before.

'Oh my God,' she said aloud.

A car behind her honked, and her eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror, then down to the traffic light. Green. She automatically sent the car through the intersection, then pulled over and turned.

The Volvo was still there, but Clark had gone inside. A moment later, he came back out, slipping his wallet into his pocket, climbed in the car, turned on the lights, eased into the cross street, then zipped across Santa Monica and headed the other way.

She thought about following him.

Thought too long, and he was gone.

Clark.

She drove home on autopilot, random thoughts, images and memories scrambling over each other like rats. She stuck the car in the narrow garage, slipped sideways past the front fender into the house and, without turning on the lights, went to the phone.

She had messages waiting on the answering service: she ignored them, and dialed Cheryl Burns in Eugene, Oregon. She mumbled the number to herself as she poked it into the handset, praying that Cheryl would be in her shop. She was: she answered on the first ring. 'Hello, Pacifica Pottery.'

'Cheryl? This is Anna.'

'Anna!' Pleasure at the other end. They got together every year or so, when Cheryl and her husband brought a load of their wood-fired pots from Oregon down to the L.A. basin. In between visits, they talked on the phone, once every two or three months. Anna and Cheryl shared one of the close connections that time and distance didn't seem to affect. 'How are you? How is everything?'

'Sort of messy right now,' Anna said, thinking about Clark. 'A guy I work with. was murdered.'

'Not Creek!'

'No. A guy named Jason, he was a college kid we used part-time, you don't know him.' Awkward segue: 'Listen, what do you hear from Clark?'

There was an empty heartbeat there, then an almost masculine chuckle: 'Uh-oh. Are you seeing him again?'

'Not seeing him, but I just saw him,' Anna said. 'At a gas station. He's here in L.A. I saw him on Santa Monica.'

'I know. He called and asked for your phone number, last month sometime. I didn't give it to him.'

'He called! Why didn't you tell me?'

'Because you messed each other up so bad the first two times. I didn't want the responsibility.'

'Cheryl,' Anna said, pushing her hair up her forehead in exasperation. 'I can take care of myself.'

'No, you can't.' In her mind's eye, Anna could see her shaking her head. 'Not with Clark.'

'Damn it, Cheryl.'

'. But I saved his L.A. address and phone number in case you called and wanted it,' Cheryl said, with a teasing tone. 'I had the feeling you might hook up. Cosmic vibrations, I guess.'

A little jolt, there. Pleasure? 'What's he doing here?'

'He's got an artist-in-residence gig with UCLA. Composition. Two years, he said, so. he'll be around.' Another dead space, then Cheryl again. 'Well? You want his number?'

'I don't know.'

'I better go get it. then you can tell me about the murder.'

Cheryl read Clark 's phone number; Anna noted it, doodled around it as they talked. At six-thirty, still chatting, Anna casually picked up the TV remote, aimed it at the set in the corner, hit the power and mute buttons and flicked through the channels.

At CNN, the Harper kid was flying off the ledge, followed by ten seconds of talking head, then a shot of the pig taking out the Rat. They'd picked the Keystone Kops version.

'Cheryl, have you seen the TV news thing about the guy who jumped off the ledge here in L.A.?'

'Well, sure, everybody's seen it. You can't get away from it.' Then, excitedly, 'Was that you guys?'

'Yeah. It's getting around. Have you see the animal rights thing, at the medical center?'

'Oh, the guy with the pig. Cracked me up. Was that you, too?'

'About two minutes apart, story to story. And you're getting them way up there in Oregon?'

'Hey, it's not like we're in Tibet.'

As they talked, the Blue Shirt kid came upAnna had forgotten his namebut he'd been interviewed again, probably the day after the animal rights fight. The interviewer was not familiar. The kid was wearing a lab coat, had a fat lip, and a couple of grinning professor-types hung in the background of the interview. Louis had made him into the hero of the piece, and that had influenced the stations who'd picked it up: and it was still building.

What was his name? Like the mountain, right? Not Everest. McKinley. Charles McKinley. He was playing the role just right, Anna thought, watching the muted TV as Cheryl chattered in her ear, a sort of charming, little-boy bashfulness.

Anna and Cheryl were still on the phone when Creek arrived, doing his shave-and-a-haircut knock. Anna walked out to the end of the phone cord to let him in, said, 'Cheryl,' to him, and he called out, 'Hi, Cheryl,' and stuck his head in the refrigerator.

'Cheryl says she wants your body,' Anna said, as he emerged with a bottle of Leinenkugel Light.

'She can have it, as long as she gives it a good cleaning once in a while,' Creek said. As Anna repeated his answer, Creek popped the top on the beer and wandered down the hall. A moment later, Anna heard him tinkling on the piano.

When she got off the phone, she ripped dark's number off the scratch pad where she'd written it, looked at it for a moment, then folded it in two and stuck it under a magnet on the refrigerator.

Clark. She got a Coke from the refrigerator and sat on the piano bench with Creek, facing away from the piano. Creek smelled pleasantly of sun-sweat and turpentine.

'You're early,' she said.

'Thought you might like to talk, running around after Jason like that.' He was chording his way through a fake-book rendition of 'Autumn Leaves'.

'Yeah.' She'd told him that morning about the prowler, now she told him about the man in the apartment.

'Maybe I ought to look him up,' Creek growled, when she finished.

'I don't think so,' she said, reaching over to pat his back. His back felt like a boulder. 'He's got connections with the cops and the cops are talking drugs. You better stay low.'

'I don't want him fuckin' with you,' Creek said.

'I don't think he will,' Anna said. 'I talked to Wyatt about himI was scared, and called Wyatt, and he knew who he was. Oh, and Wyatt told me that his partner was over to interview you.'

'Yeah, I. guess.'

She felt the sudden evasiveness in his voice: 'Look at me, Creek,' she said.

He shook his head. 'I ain't looking at you.'

'Oh my God, you jumped her,' Anna said, half-amused, half-horrified.

'Did not. Jump her,' Creek said. 'And that's a nasty phrase anyway. High school.' He segued to a couple of bars of 'Ain't Misbehavin'. 'But she is a tastylittle thing.'

'Pretty hard edges for a cheesecake,' Anna said. Creek's adventures with women sometimes grew complex.

'Hey, you know, nobody really appreciates what a woman cop goes through every day,' Creek said tartly. 'Especially one with some decent looks.'

'Just how much of her did you look at?'

'None of your business.'

'Ah. And would I be right to suspect that this somehow leads to your getting the cabin painted on the boat? You smell like paint.'

'She wants to learn to race and she's gonna help me with the maintenance,' Creek said defensively. 'So shut up.'

'Help like Teri did.'

Creek shuddered: 'I asked you never to mention that name.'

'Sorry.'

'Now I have to find a priest,' Creek said. 'To cleanse me.'

She smiled now. 'Sorry again.'

'Easy to be sorry,' Creek said. 'You don't have to live with the pain.'

Anna snickered and Creek laughed and went to the 'Jelly Roll Blues', running down the chords.

And after a little while, Anna said, 'Clark is in town.'

The music stopped. Creek turned to her, suddenly pale, as though the tan had run out of his face, like blood. 'Aw, shit,' he said.

They left Anna's at nine-thirty, the long, brutal day dragging on. Creek was brooding, silent. Anna was annoyed by the silence, the annoyance layered atop her already general grumpiness. She'd wanted to talk about Clark, but Creek didn't want to hear it. 'That's toopersonal,' he said. 'I can't tell you what to do and I don't want to think about it. Go find a girlfriend to talk to.'

Louis was sitting outside his apartment, standing on the curb in his white shirt and plaid jacket, carrying the laptop. He'd updated the address database with GPS numbers, and claimed that with his new GPS receiver he should be able to put them within a few feet of their actual position, anywhere in L.A. County, southern Ventura or Santa Barbara.

'What's happening with Jason?' he asked, as he ducked his head and climbed aboard.

'I'm trying to figure out a funeral,' Anna said, as he sat down. Creek pulled away from the curb and Louis brought up the electronics. Anna asked, 'What's going on?'

Louis started monitoring the cops from his apartment, an hour or so before they went out. He had a scanner on an old trunk at the foot of his bed, and Creek claimed to have seen him adjust the volume dial with his toes, without opening his eyes. 'Nothing really heavy, but something's going on with the hookers up on Sunset,' he said, twiddling a dial. 'Hard to tell what's going on, but I think it might make a movie.'

'Boys or girls?' Anna asked.

'Girls. There was a call about ten minutes ago. The cops hit a club up there, cocaine thing, and I guess dumped a bunch of girls out on the street, lined them up, and a fight started. Somebody said it looked like a riot.'

'Everybody'll be there,' Creek said. He sounded as grumpy as Anna felt.

'I don't think so,' Louis said, not yet catching the crankiness in the front seat. 'There hasn't been much on the air. You sorta had to be following it.'

'So let's go,' Anna said.

The riot was a bust.

A few cop cars still lingered, a few girls strolled along the street, mostly looking at reflections in the store windows. There was the familiar air of trouble immediately past, but no actionlike arriving ten minutes after a thunderstorm, with nothing but puddles to show for the violence.

They headed toward the valley, Anna thinking about cruising Ventura. Louis got some movement on the radio, but it was small stuff, and too far south. By the time they'd arrive, there wouldn't be anything to see, or other crews would already be working it.

'Wish the bitches had been doing something,' Louis said. 'Would've made the night simple.'

'Don't call them that,' Anna snapped.

'Why not?' Louis asked. That's what.'

'Shut the fuck up, Louis,' Anna said.

'Ooo, what's your problem?' He was smiling, trying for a bantering attitude, but he didn't understand.

'Best be quiet, Louis,' Creek said, and Louis shut up. A minute later, Anna, now in a sulk, said, 'Sorry, Louis. You can talk now.'

'Is there a problem I don't know about?' he asked tentatively.

'Yeah, but it's mine,' Anna said.

'Fatburger coming up,' Creek said. Creek knew every Fatburger in L.A. County.

'Stop, I need some caffeine,' Anna said. 'Louis?'

'Diet Coke.'

'Fatburger and a Coke,' Creek said.

Anna got the food, waited, paid, carried it out to the parking lot. Two valley guys, in their late teens or early twenties, both with buzz cuts, three-day-artist-hangout stubble and black jackets, were leaning against the hood of a beat-up Buick, and one of them said, 'Hey, mama.'

Anna put the Fatburger sack and three cups of coffee on the hood of the truck and turned back to them: 'Hey, mama, what? Huh? What?'

One of the guys straightened up and said, 'Hey, mama, what'cha doing tonight?'

'I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm working instead of leaning my lazy fat ass on a piece-of-shit junker outside a Fatburger.'

'Hey.' The second guy pushed away from the Buick.

Then Creek got out of the driver's side of the truck and the second guy leaned back against the Buick again, while the first one hitched up his jeans. Creek said, 'Anna, get in the truck.'

'This guy wanted to talk to me,' Anna said.

'Anna!' Creek wasn't talking bullshit. 'Get in the fuckin' truck.'

Anna, still fuming, picked up the food and got in the truck and Creek said, 'Sorry, guys.' Back in the truck, as they pulled out, Creek said, 'What was that all about, huh? You want to get in a fight outside a Fatburger and spend some more time talking to cops? Huh?'

'Bad day.'

'Bad day, my ass,' Creek said. 'Take your fuckin' bad day someplace else.'

'Jesus, you guys, go easy,' Louis said, nervous. Creek and Anna didn't fight.

'Yeah, yeah, gimme a Fatburger,' Creek snarled.

They rode in silence until Anna's cell phone rang.

'Anna Batory?' Male voice. Familiar. Heavy stress, she thought.

'Yeah.'

'This is the guy you met in O'Brien's apartment this afternoon.'

'Yeah, Harper,' Anna said. 'What do you wantwhere'd you get this number?'

He ignored the use of his name and the demand for an explanation of the number. 'I need to see you,' he said. 'Like right now. Actually, I need you to come to where I am.'

'Why should I?'

'Because it has something to do with you,' Harper said. 'I gotta call the cops pretty soon, but I need you over here first.'

'Whathas to do with me?'

'Look, you might be in serious trouble. If you want to know about it before the cops come banging on your door, come see me now. Otherwise. and hey, you might even make a few bucks.'

She thought for a second, then said, 'I'm bringing a friend.'

'It'll cause them trouble,' Harper said.

'I'm not gonna be alone with you. Not after you jumped me, like that, you. abuser.'

Creek looked at her oddly, and Harper, after a second, said, 'Whatever you want to do.'

Harper was waiting under a streetlight on Cumpston, a couple of blocks south of Burbank Boulevard, a neighborhood of stucco ranch homes. The yard behind him was bordered with an evergreen hedge, long untrimmed, and pierced by a picket gate that had curls of white paint peeling off.

Creek got out with Anna.

'I understand you had a problem with Anna,' Creek said, and Anna suddenly realized that she might have a problem with the two men.

Harper had turned toward Creek with a small crouching movement that suggested he'd just set his feet; and he wasn't backing up.

He was good-looking in a mildly beat-up way, Anna thought, a big man with broad shoulders, big hands, a nose that had been broken a couple of times. He carried a heavy tan, with sun-touched hair, like a beach bum, but he was too old for that: late thirties, she thought. He wore an expensive black sport coat, silk, she thought, over a pair of jeans.

And way down in the lizard part of her brain, something went, 'Hmm.'

Creek was gliding sideways and Harper was pivoting to cover him, and Anna said, 'I swear to God, the first one of you guys who throws a punch, I'll kick him in the balls.'

Creek stopped moving and Harper relaxed, spread his hands. He glanced quickly at Anna but spoke to Creek. 'If you had the same problem, you would've done the same thing, pal.'

Creek stared for a moment, then nodded abruptly: 'So what do you want?'

'I want you to come in here,' he said. He tipped his head back toward the house. 'But don't touch anything.'

'Whadda we got?' Creek asked, interested now.

'We got a dead dope dealer,' Harper said.

Anna stopped: 'Have you called the cops?'

'No. I will, soon as you've gone through.'

'The cops could put you in jail for not calling in right away,' Anna said.

'Yeah, maybe, but I've got bigger problems than that. Come on. Maybe you want to bring a camera?'

He said it in a cheap way, and Anna said, 'Shove it.'

While Louis waited with the radios, Harper led them up the walk. The door was just ajar, a light on inside, and Harper took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and pushed the door open with the butt end of it. 'Don't touch the door, don't touch any thing.'

'Was the door open when you got here?'

'Yeah, and the light was on,' he said as they stepped across the threshold. 'As soon as I got in, I knew.'

'Aw, jeez,' Anna said. The smell hit her, and she flinched away from it. Old blood and human waste, mixed up and curdling.

'Flies,' Harper said absently, tilting his head back. Anna looked up, saw hundreds of bluebottle flies clustering around the light. 'Back here.'

He led the way to a bedroom with mustard-covered walls and Rolling Stonescovers thumbtacked to the walls. But the main attraction was a man who, at first glance, looked like a grotesque German Expressionist painting, muscles and blood exposed, everything gone black. He'd been handcuffed to the bed, his feet tied with ripped sheets. He was nude except for a pair of briefs, face up and gagged. He'd been cut to pieces with a knife.

And not quickly, Anna thought. The face looked as though the skin had been peeled off. A halo of blood surrounded the head, as if it had been violently shaken back and forth. So he'd been alive for the peeling.

'Christ, what is this, what're we here for?' Creek asked. 'We've seen this shit.'

'Yeah, so've I,' Harper said. He looked at Anna. 'You know him?'

'Even if I did, I'm not sure I'd recognize him,' she said. 'But I don't think so.'

'Name is Sean MacAllister,' Harper said. 'Been busted three times on minor drug stuff, once with O'Brien in the car.'

Anna was nodding: 'Jesus, we do know him. Sean, oh my God.'

Harper was going on: '. The bust never got to trial because there was some problem with the stop. O'Brien lived here for a couple of weeks, between apartments.'

'I don't knowwe never picked up Jason here. Are you sure that's him?' As she said it, she had to turn away.

'Pretty sure,' Harper said. 'His billfold was still in his pocket.'

'So what do you want from us? Why don't you just call the cops?' Creek asked.

'I wanted you to look at this,' Harper said. He was standing next to the bed, and he pointed to the man's bare chest. A knife rip crossed it from armpit to armpit.

'What?' Anna asked.

'Read it,' Harper said.

'Read it?'

She and Creek edged closer. She couldn't see it, but Creek could: he looked at her suddenly and she said again, 'What?'

'Says "Anna",' Creek said, almost to himself.

And then she saw it: her name in carved flesh. 'My God.' She stood in shock for a moment, then turned to Harper: 'Why?'

'I don't know.' He was watching her closely. 'He was a small-time dealer, that's about all I know.'

'Your son's dealer?'

'I don't know. I hope not. I tracked him through your pal O'Brien.' He looked around the room. 'All I found was a little grass. Nothing else.'

'No dots,' Anna said, and he nodded. She looked at the grotesquerie again, the muscle mass that had once been human, the Anna, and she turned away from the bed, suddenly felt as though a hand had been clapped over her mouth, suffocating her: 'I gotta get out of here.'