Sunset Express

Her eyes brightened a bit, drawing a little hope. 'Yes. Yes, I'm sure that must be it.'

'I'm sure she'll be back soon.'

The ancient eyes finally smiled, and she turned back to the plants. 'When you find her, you'll keep them away from her, won't you? It must be awful, having people like that around.'

'Yes, ma'am. I'll take good care.'

I helped Mrs Harris water the remainder of Louise Earle's plants, and then I went back to my car, wondering why Kerris had come three times, and wondering if his coming around had had anything to do with her going away. If he had come here three times, that meant he very much wanted to see Louise Earle. Three times was a pattern, and if the pattern maintained, he might return again today. Of course, he might not, but I still didn't have a whole lot else to do.

I went back to my car, drove four blocks to a 7-Eleven, bought two large bottles of chilled Evian water, then drove back to Louise Earle's, parked on the next block behind the Carrier van so that Eleanor Harris couldn't watch me, and continued to wait.

Exactly twelve minutes after I pulled up behind the van and turned off my car, Stan Kerris returned, but did not stop. He was driving a Mercedes SLsoo, and this time he slowly cruised the block, peering at Louise Earle's house, maybe hoping to see if she was home. I copied his tag number, then pulled out the little Canon and took four quick snaps just as he turned the corner.

The Mercedes was small and black, and I was hoping that Jonna Lester would recognize it.

CHAPTER 25

I drove south to a Fast-Foto in a minimall on Jefferson Boulevard about six blocks west of USC. A Persian kid was alone in the place, working at the photo processing machine. He said, 'I'll be with you in a moment.'

'I don't have a moment. I'll pay you twenty bucks if you stop what you're doing and take care of me now.'

He eyed me like maybe I was pulling his leg, but he got up and came to the counter. I put the film on the counter between us. 'There are only four exposures on the roll. I've got to make a call. If they're done when I get back, you get the twenty.'

He wet his lips. 'What size?'

'Whatever's fastest.'

I used a pay phone in the parking lot to call Angela Rossi at home. She didn't answer her phone; her machine got it. Screening. 'Detective Rossi, it's Elvis Cole. I think I might have something.'

She picked up before I finished saying it. She sounded tired, but then she probably hadn't slept last night.

I told her where I was and what I was doing and what I had seen. I said, 'Do you want a piece of it?'

'Yes.' She said it without hesitation and without fear, the way someone would say it when they were still in the game.

'I have to show the pictures to Jonna Lester, first. Call Joe. Have Tomsic call Anna Sherman in the DA's office. If this is going where I think, everything will begin to happen very quickly.'

'I'll be ready.'

'I'll bet you will.'

I hung up, then called Jonna Lester. She answered on the second ring, and I told her that I was on my way to see her.

She said, 'But me and Dorrie was just goin' to the mall!'

'Go to the mall after. This is important, Jonna. Please.' The detective stoops to begging.

'Oh, all right.' Long and drawn out and whiny. 'Dorrie wants to meet you. I told her you were really cute.' Then she giggled.

I hung up and closed my eyes, thinking that only twenty-four hours ago she'd found her husband impaled on glass. Man. I called the information operator last, and asked if they had a listing for Mr Walter Lawrence. They did not…

The Persian kid was waiting at the counter when I went back inside. He had the four shots waiting, too. Fast-Foto, all right. He said, 'That's all you wanted?' You could see the Mercedes clearly in three of the four pictures. You could see Kerris clearly enough to recognize him.

'That's all.'

I paid him for the developing, gave him the extra twenty, then drove hard to the freeway and made my way across town to Jonna Lester. She and her friend, Dorrie, were waiting for me in a cloud of hash smoke so thick that I tried not to breathe. Jonna Lester giggled. 'Y'see. I tol' you he was cute.'

Dorrie giggled, too.

Dorrie looked so much like Jonna that they might've been clones. Same shorts, same top, same clear plastic clogs and dark blue nail polish. Same gum. Dorrie sat on the couch and grinned at me with wide, vacant eyes while I showed the pictures to Jonna. I said, 'Have you ever seen this car?'

She nodded and popped her gum. 'Oh, yeah. That's the guy James went to see.' She didn't even have to think about it.

'The man at the Mayfair?'

'Uh-huh.'

'The man who gave James a large paper bag?'

'Yup.'

Dorrie said, 'You wanna get high an' fuck?'

I went to the phone without asking and called Angela Rossi, who answered on the first ring. 'A man named Stan Kerris met with James Lester twenty-three days ago, eight days before Lester phoned the hotline. Stan Kerris works for Jonathan Green. I think we can build a case that these guys have fabricated evidence and set you up.'

Angela Rossi said, 'That sonofabitch.'

'Yes.'

CHAPTER 26

We agreed to meet on the second floor of Greenblatt's Delicatessen at the eastern end of the Sunset Strip at three that afternoon.

Angela Rossi was pacing in the parking lot behind Greenblatt's when I pulled up at two minutes before three. Rossi was wearing black Levi's and a blue cotton T-shirt and metallic blue Persol sunglasses. She was pacing with her arms crossed and her head down, and when she stopped to wait for me, she scuffed at the fine gravel on the tarmac with her shoes. I said, 'Didn't you think I'd show?'

Rossi shook her head. 'Too wired to sit. I think I'm going to vomit.'

'Is Sherman here?'

'Yeah. She's not happy about it, and she's not happy about me being here.'

I followed Rossi in past the deli counter and up the stairs to the dining room. This late in the afternoon Greenblatt's was mostly empty. Earlier, the upstairs dining room had probably been filled with wannabe television writers and ninety-year-old regulars and Sunset Strip habitues, but not now. Now, the only civilians were a couple of young guys with mushroom cuts and an African-American woman sitting alone with People magazine. Everybody else was cops.

Linc Gibbs, Pete Bishop, Dan Tomsic, and Anna Sherman were sitting at a table as far from everyone else as possible. Gibbs had coffee, and Bishop and Tomsic had iced tea. Anna Sherman didn't have anything, and she was seated with her back to the restaurant, probably because she was concerned about being recognized. Tomsic said, 'Here they are.'

Gibbs and Bishop turned, but Anna Sherman didn't. I hadn't met Gibbs and Bishop before. Tomsic introduced us, but before he was finished, Anna Sherman said, 'I want to make it clear that the only reason I'm here is because Linc and I have a history, and he's asked me to listen. I make no claims that anything said here is off the record. Is that clear?'

Tomsic scowled. 'It's great you're on the right side in this.'

Linc said, 'Dan.'

Tomsic crossed his arms and leaned back, his mouth a hard slash. Nothing like having everyone work to the same end.

Linc Gibbs hooked a thumb toward me. 'As I understand it, we're here to discuss possible criminal wrongdoing on the part of the attorneys involved in Teddy Martin's defense. Is that it?'

'Yes. I believe that Jonathan Green or agents working on his behalf fabricated the James Lester evidence. I believe that Lester was in on it. I suspect that they also coerced Louise Earle into changing her story, but that's only a suspicion. I haven't been able to locate Mrs Earle to ask her about it.'

Anna Sherman pooched her lips into a knot. She was leaning forward on her elbows, arms crossed.