Sunset Express

'I'll call tomorrow and give you the flight information.'

'Hey, Luce.'

'Hm?'

'I'm really happy about this.'

'Me, too, Studly. Oh, you don't know.'

We talked for another hour, mostly about where we would go and what we would do and how excited we were that we would see each other again. When my food was warm I sat on the kitchen floor, eating as we talked, and the cat came over and stared at me. Purring. Lucy asked about Green and the Teddy Martin case, and as I told her I listened to the soft country sounds of k.d. lang behind her, and the passing voices of Ben and his best friend as they tumbled through her home. The sounds of Lucy Chenier's life. I told her about the videographer and that Green was shorter and thinner than he looked on television, though still imposing, but after a while our conversation drifted back to us, and to how our tans from Cancun were fading and how much fun we'd had drinking blue iced cocktails and eating the fresh ceviche that the hotel chefs would make at the beach, and then after a while the conversation was over.

Lucy blew me a kiss and hung up and I lay back on the kitchen floor with the phone on my stomach, grinning at the ceiling. The cat stopped purring, and came closer to stare into my face. He looked concerned. Maybe he didn't know I was grinning. Maybe he thought I was dying of some sort of hideous facial stricture. Is that possible? Death by grinning. I said, 'She's coming to see us.'

He hopped up onto my chest and sniffed at my chin and began to buzz again. The certainty of love.

Later, I washed the dishes and shut the lights and went up to bed. I lay there for a very long time, but sleep wouldn't come. I could only think of Lucy, and of seeing her, and as I thought the grin seemed to grow. Perhaps the grin would grow so wide that it would crash through the sides of the house and slop down across the mountain and just keep expanding until it became The Grin That Ate L.A. Of course, if that happened, the grin would eat LAX and Lucy couldn't land. Then where would I be?

At a little after two that morning, I went downstairs to the guest room and stripped the bed and put on fresh linen and then dusted and vacuumed and cleaned the guest bath. I figured I could borrow a camper's cot from Joe Pike; Ben could use the cot and Lucy could have the bed.

At sixteen minutes before four, I went out onto the deck and stared down at the lights in the canyon below. A family of coyotes who live around Franklin Reservoir were singing, and a great desert owl who lived in the eucalyptus trees made his hooting call. I breathed the cool night air and listened to the coyotes and the owl, and I thought how fine it was that so much of my being could have so suddenly become focused on an airplane's time of arrival.

I did not sleep, but I did not mind.

CHAPTER 4

By nine o'clock the next morning I had gained some measure of control over the sappy grin and was once more feeling focused, productive, and ready to swing into investigative action. Sappy grins are fine in your personal life but somehow seem less than professional when one is representing the Big Green Defense Machine. Credibility, as they say, is everything.

By eight-forty I had shaved, showered, and phoned Terminal Island to arrange an interview with LeCedrick Earle. I was eating a breakfast of nonfat yogurt and sliced bananas when Eddie Ditko called and said, 'Hold on a sec while I fire up a smoke.' First thing out of his mouth.

'Top of the morning to you, too, Edward.'

There was the sound of the strike and a little pause like maybe Eddie was sucking up half of the earth's pollutant supply, and then a burst of coughing that sounded wet and phlegmy. He said, 'Christ, I'm passing blood.'

So much for breakfast. I pushed the bowl away and said, 'Are you all right?'

'Think I'm gonna drop a goddamned lung.' He croaked it out between coughs.

'You want to call back?'

The coughs settled to a phlegmy wheezing. 'Nah, nah, I'm fine.' When he got his breathing under control, he said, 'Whadda they make these things outta nowadays, fiberglass? Ya gotta rip the filters off to get any taste.'

'Jesus Christ, Eddie.'

Eddie Ditko said, 'Listen, I made a few calls and got some stuff for you.'

'Okay.'

'Rossi looks like a pretty sharp gal.' Gal. 'Divorced. Got a couple of little boys. Her ex is some kind of middle manager at Water and Power.'

'All right.' I was making notes. I had been thinking that she might've married well and gotten the expensive house in the divorce, but middle managers at Water and Power aren't known for their bank accounts.

'She was top of her class at the academy and moved right up the promotion ladder once she got into uniform. She responded to more calls, worked more hours, and made more arrests than all but three other officers with her time in grade. That's probably where the marriage went.'

I was still writing.

'The LeCedrick Earle bust is what led to the gold shield, and everybody kind of figured that Rossi had a shot at being the first female chief of detectives until the Miranda thing. You blow a murder-one case because you failed to Mirandize a suspect, and that's it for you. She lost a grade in rank and received a letter of censure. That pretty much killed her career.'

I was nodding as I wrote. Everything he said was confirming both Haig and Truly. 'What happened with the Miranda?'

'Two idiots armed with machetes robbed a Burito King in Silverlake and hacked three people to death. Rossi spotted a car matching the getaway vehicle and collared one of the suspects after a high-speed chase. She was jazzed from the pursuit and forgot to give the guy his warning before he confessed and implicated his accomplice. They hadda let both idiots walk, and Rossi took the heat for it. You see?'

'Man. Did she dispute the Miranda?'

'Nope. She blew it and she admitted it. How about that?' Like he was surprised that someone would take responsibility for their actions. 'I can fax you this stuff, you want.'

'Thanks, Eddie. What about Earle?'

'Another genius. Rossi tags the guy for a taillight violation and he slides across a C-note with his license, which he saw some moron do in a Dirty Harry movie. Rossi recognizes the Franklin's a fake and tells him it'll cost him a lot more than that, so he brings her back to his house where he pulls out a stash and says she can have all she wants. She says thank you very much and let's go to jail.'

'That's her side of it.'

Eddie laughed. 'Yeah, sure. Your man LeCedrick is what we call a career-type criminal. Prior to the funny-money arrest, he'd been in and out of the system half a dozen times, mostly dope and burglary charges, including two prior associations with a guy named Waylon Mustapha. Mustapha makes his living by selling down funny money for points.' Selling for points is when you discount the face value of the counterfeit money to sell it in quantity. Sort of like being a broker. 'My guy at the PD says that the bills they recovered when Rossi made the collar matched up with the goods Mustapha handles.'

I tapped the pen against the pad, frowning. 'Just because LeCedrick was a creep most times doesn't mean he was a creep that time.'

Eddie laughed harder. 'Keep dreaming.'

I said, 'You hear anything that would indicate she might be willing to fudge a case?'

'You talk to his mother?'

'Whose mother?'

'Earle's mother was in the house when Rossi made the collar. She saw the whole thing.'

'Anything in the file?'

'Nada. I would've talked to her, though. 'Course, whether they listened is a different matter.'

'Do you have her address, Eddie?'

He did, and he gave it to me. It was the same address in Olympic Park as that listed on LeCedrick Earle's arrest report. I hung up, then phoned information for Louise Earle's number and called her. I still needed to see LeCedrick, but maybe I could see her first. Maybe she had something to offer that might bolster his version of events, or clarify it. I let the phone ring ten times but got no answer. Guess I'd have to see LeCedrick sans clarity.