Sunset Express

I said, 'Terry has a way with words, all right.'

Robert said, 'We didn't know who the guy was and he was poking around an officer. You know how it is.'

'Sure.' Samura squared his hat, then nodded toward his radio car. His partner drifted away. Samura started after him, then turned back and looked me over. 'I'd never heard Terry Ito say a good thing about anybody. Terry know you work with Joe Pike?'

'Yes.'

Samura cracked the world's smallest grin, then went back to his car and drove away. The three girls were still gaggled at their front door, but most of the other faces had disappeared from the windows. You've seen one crime scene, you've seen'm all.

Tomsic looked at Rossi. 'Okay. We know who this guy is and what he's doing. You okay with it?'

She made a grudging shrug.

Tomsic looked back to me. 'How about you? You gonna file a beef because of the sap?'

'Barely touched me.'

Robert laughed. 'Yeah. Look at you.'

Tomsic said, 'Okay, then. Everybody knows where it stands.' He nudged Rossi. 'We don't have to like it, we just have to know where it stands.'

Rossi said, 'One thing.'

I looked at her.

'You're doing a job, and I can live with that. Investigate all you want, but stay the hell away from my home. If you come around my home again, I'll break you down. If you even look at my kids, I'll kill you on the spot.'

Tomsic said, 'Jesus Christ, Angie, knock that shit off. Sayin' shit like that is what gets you in deep.'

She raised a neutral hand. 'Just laying it out.'

I said, 'You're looking good, Rossi. Don't sweat it.'

'Yeah, sure.' She stared at me for another couple of seconds, but she didn't look relaxed and she didn't look as if she believed it was over. She was breathing hard, and the crinkled skin around her eyes was jumping and fluttering as if tiny butterflies were trapped there, trying to get out. Then something that looked like it might've been a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth and she said, 'Tell Joe that Rossi says hi.'

Angela Rossi turned away without another word, crossed the street, and slid into the passenger side of Tomsic's dark blue G-ride. Tomsic joined her, and Robert got into a tan Explorer. In a couple of minutes they were gone. Even the three girls were gone, vanished in their Volkswagen for a belated trip to the beach.

I stood there for a time, alone except for the dull ache in the side of my face, and then I got into my car and drove to my office.

CHAPTER 7

I stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy ice for my eye. A Pakistani gentleman was behind the counter, watching a miniature TV. He was watching an episode of COPS, and he viewed me with suspicion as I paid.

I told him what the ice was for and asked if I could use the bathroom to look at myself, but he said that the bathroom was for employees only. I asked if he had a little mirror that I could borrow, but he said no again. He sneaked a look toward the door as if he wanted me to leave, as if whatever wraith of urban violence had assaulted'me might suddenly be visited upon him and his store. Guess I couldn't blame the guy. You look at enough episodes of COPS, and pretty soon you're thinking that life is a war zone.

I thanked him for the ice, then went out to the car and looked at my eye in the rearview mirror. A neat little mouse was riding high on my right cheek and was already starting to color. Great. I wrapped a handful of ice in my handkerchief and drove back to my office with one hand. Nothing like bucking rush-hour traffic with a faceful of ice.

It was just after five when I reached my building and turned down the ramp into the building's garage. A line of cars was on its way out, but most of the garage was already empty. Cindy's Mazda was missing, and so were the cars belonging to the people who worked at the insurance company across the hall from my office. I left my car in its spot, walked up to the lobby, then took the elevator to my floor. Lights off, doors locked, empty. Empty was good. Maybe if Los Angeles had been empty I would've been able to spot two carloads of cops tailing me around half the city.

I let myself into my office, popped on the lights, and found Joe Pike sitting at my desk. I said, 'You could've turned on the lights, Joe. We're not broke.'

Pike cocked his head to the side, looking at my eye. 'Is that a pimple?'

'Ha-ha.' That Pike is a riot. A real comedian, that guy.

Joe Pike is six foot one, with long ropey muscles, dark hair cut short, and bright red arrows tattooed on the outside of each deltoid. He got the tattoos in a faraway place long before it was stylish for rock stars and TV actors and Gen X rave queens to flash skin art. The arrows point forward, and are not a fashion statement. They are a statement of being. Pike was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off and Levi's and dark pilot's glasses. Even at night he wears the glasses. For all I know he sleeps in them.

I went to a little mirror I have on the wall and looked at the eye. The side of my face hurt like hell, but the ice was working; the swelling had stopped. 'Your friend Angela Rossi hit me with a six-ounce sap. Suckered me with an eye move.'

'I know.'

I looked at him. 'How do you know?'

He got up, took two Falstaffs from the little fridge, and handed one to me. If you listened as hard as you could, you still wouldn't hear him move. 'Angie called and told me. She wanted to know what we were doing.'

'She called you.'

He popped the tab on his Falstaff and had some. 'I've been here a while. Lucy called. I didn't know she was coming out.'

'Tomorrow.'

'I left her flight information on your desk.' Pike took his beer to the couch. 'Why are we working for Theodore Martin?'

'We're not. We're working for Jonathan Green.' I told him about Haig and his allegations that Rossi would fabricate evidence to boost her career. I told him about LeCedrick Earle and his allegations that Rossi had done just that. 'Green hired us to look into the allegations. I told him that we would report what we found, even if it hurt his case. He said okay.'

'Lawyers are lizard people.' Life is simple for Pike.

'Lucy's a lawyer.'

Pike's head shifted a quarter of an inch. 'Not Lucy.'

I said again, 'Angela Rossi called you.'

He stared at me with impenetrable black lenses. Two months before I'd had canvas Roman shades installed on the French doors to cut the western exposure in the afternoon, and when the shades were down the office filled with a beautiful gold light. They were down now, and Pike was bathed in the light. It made his dark glasses glow. 'We worked Rampart Division together. She was coming on when I was going out.' Pike had spent three years riding in a radio car for LAPD. 'I knew Haig. Haig was an asshole. I knew Rossi, too. I didn't ride in a car with her, but she seemed like a straight shooter.'

'Okay.'

'That what you find?'

I took my ice and my Falstaff and went to my desk. I saw the notepaper with Lucy's flight information. Pike's printing was meticulously neat, but so small it was almost impossible to read. 'She's aggressive, ambitious, and no one likes her much, but there's no evidence that she dumped LeCedrick Earle or anyone else. Haig comes across like a crank, and Earle's own mother said that her son is a liar.'

Pike nodded.

'The only thing that doesn't fit is her house. Two years ago she bought a condo in the Marina that had to go for four hundred thousand dollars. I've got a call in to Adrienne Martin.'

'Forget the house. Her mother left her an apartment building in Long Beach. When Rossi sold it she had to roll the cash into another property or get hit with the capital gains.'

I stared at him.

'We were close.'

'I see.'

'Very close.' Still hidden behind the black lenses.

I stared at him some more, and then I nodded. 'I guess that's it, then. No crime, no graft, no corruption. Jonathan won't like it, but there it is.' There hadn't been much to check and it hadn't taken long, but it rarely does when everything is above board.