“Where’s here?”
“The King William Hotel, Los Angeles and Fifth. We’ll go in as soon as I decide to. Your arrival will help clarify that decision.”
The return trip to downtown was brain-sapping, the usual rush-hour slog turned toxic by morons texting and vicious reactions to vehicular slights, actual or otherwise. After witnessing countless one-finger salutes, window-muted snarls, red faces, and bulging eyes, I wondered what it would take for a traffic jam to turn into a terrible headline. No way to predict.
Had the world grown meaner? I’d spent most of my adult life dealing with worst-case scenarios, was probably the last guy to ask.
By the time I made my way through the box canyons created by darkened downtown office buildings, the sun had set. As I crossed the western border of Skid Row at Main, the sky was the color of sputum and the streets were strips of lint pied by inkblot shadows and animated by the lurch and stagger of impaired human beings.
The homeless shelters were as fully booked as Oscar after-parties. Piles of trash, makeshift tents fashioned from garbage bags, and shopping carts teeming with scabrous treasure landmarked pockets of improvisation.
I turned onto Los Angeles Street, spotted Milo two buildings north of the King William Hotel. The flop was a seven-story clot of gray brick, once grand, now soft around the edges and scarred by grime. A private security guard who looked ready to enter middle school stood out front, rendered superfluous by Milo’s presence and the four Central Division squad cars positioned twenty yards north. Just beyond the cruisers sat a large, square-edged dark shape.
One of the armored Lenco BearCats used by SWAT as a “rescue vehicle.” “BearCat” was a fittingly macho moniker but its true meaning was Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck. Lovely hunk of military hardware affording safe transport for officers. Also, an armory on wheels. I pictured the King William’s struggling frame shuddering under a barrage of high-tech killing power. Seven stories collapsing as easily as any gunshot victim.
The department owned a fleet of SWAT trucks. Only one had been dispatched to tonight’s gig. I tried to see that as a promising sign.
Milo saw me. His finger-wave lacked energy and his posture was bad.
When I reached him, he said, “You made decent time,” and waved a key. “She’s up on the seventh floor. I figured I’d keep it maximally mellow by leaving the shock troops down here and knocking on her door myself. She opens up, she’s unarmed, it’s over. She resists or ignores, it gets complicated, but still it’s just a single woman and hopefully being with the kid will prevent her doing anything stupid. My question to you is should I use a ruse on her — building manager checking out a pipe — or play it straight?”
I thought about that. Shook my head.
His eyebrows rose. “Nothing in her psyche says one or the other?”
“Apparently, her psyche’s virgin territory for me, but if I had to guess, I’d say fool her. Anything to keep her relaxed and avoid confrontation.”
“You figure she’ll come to the door packing?”
“Who knows? But even if she doesn’t, a gun’s likely to be in the room. And we’re talking a small room, if it’s a typical SRO. That could mean easy reach.”
“True,” he said. “Had a look at similar rooms, they’re all the same according to the desk clerk. Eight by eight … Mommy with a .25 and a 9mm, wonderful. Anything else you think would be helpful?”
“If she doesn’t buy the ruse and stonewalls, I’d be happy to talk to her.”
“You read my mind,” he said. Twitchy smile. “Then again, they trained you to do that.”
The final plan was the SWAT truck would glide past the King William and position itself closer to the building but remain shielded from view by a neighboring ten-story flop named the Pegasus. All officers to remain inside.
Four of the Central uniforms would keep the area free of gawkers, though given the nature of the residents, unpredictability was a more serious factor than usual. A fifth cop would replace the guard out front, three others would keep an eye on the back of the long-incapacitated fire escapes that traced a theoretical escape route down the back of King William to a putrid alley. The hotel’s elevators were already on lockdown.
“Those mofos are always broken anyway, rez-dents use the stairs,” said the desk clerk from behind his Lexan window. Milo and I were the only ones who’d entered the building, both of us in Kevlar vests. The lobby was large but empty, high-ceilinged and blue-gray, reeking of industrial-strength bug spray, chronic disease, scorched tobacco.
The clerk was an immensely fat man in his fifties named DeWayne Smart whose bulk threatened to spill out of his bulletproof booth. His shift was two to ten p.m. His job consisted of collecting cash and vouchers for daily to weekly stays, handing out keys, squinting with suspicion. He’d been one of the three tipsters who’d called in on Ree Sykes, had just re-confirmed her identity after viewing her DMV shot.
“Yope, thas her,” he said, slipping the photo back through the slot.
“She checked in two days ago.”
“Yope. There a cash reward?”
“We’ll see,” said Milo, looking at the key. “No number on this, you’re sure it’s 709?”
Smart exposed a maw of broken, brown teeth. “That’s the Presidential Suite. She got a nice view.”
“You have no central phone line.”
“I told you,” said Smart, peeved. “All the rez-dents get is what they bring with ’em.”
“She bring a cell phone?”
“How should I know?”
I said, “What’s she been like?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s her attitude, has she said or done anything unusual?”
“I never seen her since she checked in,” said Smart. “She went up, never came down. How long’s this gonna last?”
Milo said, “Till it’s over.”
I said, “Residents have what they bring. What did she bring?”
“No idea,” said Smart.
“She have luggage?”
“Louise Veeton — I’m in here, don’t go out to examine, they pay, they go to their rooms.” Smart laughed. “Maybe she come out at night, like a bat.” He flapped his arms. Shoulder fat rippled.
Milo said, “Okay, we’re going up.”
Smart crossed himself.
Milo laughed. “There’s a vote of confidence.”
“Huh?”
Milo copied the gesture.
Smart said, “Yope, whatever it takes.”
A brown door, so overpainted it resembled a melting chocolate bar, led to the stairs. The stairwell walls were pea-green plaster, much of it corroded to warped lath and specked with black mold. The steps were marble, once white, now splashed gray and brown and yellow and colors I couldn’t categorize. Wooden banisters had long given way to vandals, the sole evidence of their presence an occasional splintered post.
We climbed.
Odors varied from floor to floor but the predominant strains were stale piss, ripe vomit, burning sulfur, and more of the nose-stinging bug spray. Clumps of belly-up roaches, water bugs, silverfish, and horseflies attested to the efficacy of the spray. What had finished off the rats moldering on levels 3, 4, and 6 was hard to ascertain. One of the rodent corpses was still fresh and bloody and oozing and some opportunistic creature had ripped open its belly and feasted on the entrails. Maybe a cat. Maybe a who-knows-what.
The mess caught Milo’s attention and he stopped for a moment and swabbed his forehead with a handkerchief and tried to even out his breathing.
He’d been panting since level 2, pores working overtime, hair plastered to his skull as if he’d just showered.