Sunset Express

It was as if the other presence was no longer with us, as if by exposing the other it vanished the way a shadow will when exposed to light.

We played until very late, and when Ben went to bed, Lucy and I finished the last of the champagne, and then she followed me upstairs into a night filled with warmth and love and laughter.

CHAPTER 28

The next morning I left the house as the eastern sky bloomed with the onrushing sun and drove to Lucas Worley's condominium on a one-way street just off Gretna Green Way in Brentwood. Gretna Green is a connecting street between Sunset Boulevard and San Vicente, lined with apartment houses and condominium complexes and some very nice single-family homes, but in the dim time just before sunrise the traffic was sparse and the neighborhood still. It was a wonderful time of the day for lurking.

Worley's condo was set between the street and a service alley in a lush green setting. They were nice condos, large and airy and stylishly ideal for former on-the-rise young attorneys turned dope dealers. I slow-cruised the street first, then turned down the alley and idled past the rear. Each condominium had a double carport at its back protected by an overhead wrought-iron door, and Worley's was filled with a gunmetal blue Porsche 911 sporting a vanity plate. The vanity plate read EZLIVN. Guess the loss of his day job hadn't inhibited his lifestyle.

When I reached the end of the alley, Joe Pike and Ray Depente materialized out of the murk and drifted silently to my car. Ray was wearing a black suit over a white shirt with a thin black bow tie. I said, 'When did you go Muslim?'

Ray looked at himself and smiled. 'Joe said you wanted scary. You tell me anything a white boy's more scared of than a Muslim with a hardon?'

Ray Depente was an inch taller than Joe, but slimmer, with mocha skin and gray-flecked hair and the ramrod-straight bearing of a career Marine, which he had been. For the better part of twenty-two years Ray Depente had taught unarmed combat at Camp Pendleton, in Oceanside, California, before retiring to open a karate school in South Central Los Angeles. Now, he taught children the art of selfrespect for ten cents a lesson, and instructed Hollywood actors how to look tough on screen for five hundred dollars an hour. The one paid for the other.

Ray extended his hand and we shook as he said, 'Haven't seen you in a while, my friend. Better get your butt down to my place before you get out of shape.'

'Too many tough guys down there, Ray. Some actor might beat me up.'

Ray smiled wider. 'Way I hear things been going for you, I guess it could happen.' The smile fell away. 'We got a plan for Mr Dope Dealer, or are we just gonna stand around in the dark waitin' to be discovered?' The eastern sky was cooling from pink to violet to blue. Traffic was picking up out on Gretna, and we could hear garbage trucks and cars pulling out of driveways as people left for work. Pretty soon housekeepers would be trudging past to their day work.

Joe tilted his head toward the Porsche. 'Worley's been inside since eight-thirty last night.'

'Is he alone?'

'Yes.'

I said, 'He's got to leave sooner or later. When he leaves we'll go in the house and find his stash. We find the stash, we'll have some leverage.'

Ray said, 'What if he doesn't have a stash?'

I shrugged. 'Then we'll live with him until he scores.'

Ray stared at the Porsche. 'Joe said this guy was a lawyer.'

'Yep. Until he got caught with the dope.'

Ray looked at the nice car and the nice condo and shook his head. 'Asshole.'

Joe and Ray vanished back into the thinning shadows, and I pulled out of the alley and down the little street to Gretna Green. I parked beneath a Moroccan gumball tree with an easy eyes-forward view of Lucas.Worley's street and waited while the air slowly filled with a mist of brightening light and early morning commuter traffic increased and the city began its day.

At twelve minutes after nine that morning the 911 nosed out onto Gretna and turned south, heading for San Vicente. Worley was a pudgy guy with tight curly hair cut short and close-set eyes and a stud in his left ear. He was wearing a tattered dark gray sweatshirt with no sleeves, and his arms were thin and hairy. Probably just running out for coffee.

I left the Corvette, trotted across Gretna and down along the little street to Worley's condo, where Pike and Ray were waiting at the front door. Pike already had the door open.

Lucas Worley's condominium was all high-angled ceilings and stark white walls and rented furniture of the too low, too wide, and too ugly variety. A fabric and plastic ficus sat in the L of two full-sized sofas, and a big-screen TV filled one wall. A stack of stereo equipment ran along the adjoining wall with what looked to be a couple of thousand CDs scattered over the floor and the furniture and on top of the big screen. I guess neatness wasn't one of Lucas Worley's strengths. Framed movie posters from Easy Rider and To Live and Die in L.A. hung above the fireplace opposite mediocre lithographs of Jimi Hendrix and Madonna, and the effect was sort of like a nebbish's fantasy of how a high-end life-in-the-fast-lane hipster would live. He even had a lava lamp. Ray said, 'Would you look at this?'

A framed Harvard Law School diploma was leaning against the lava lamp.

Ray was shaking his head. Incredulous. 'The kids I work with down in South Central bust their asses just to get a high-school diploma so they can get away from this shit, and here this fool is with a goddamned ticket from Harvard Law.'

I said, 'He won't be gone long, Ray. We've got to find the stash.'

Ray moved away from the diploma. He glanced back at it twice and sighed as if he'd seen something so incomprehensible that understanding would forever be denied.

I started for the stairs. 'I'll take the second floor. You guys search down here.'

Pike said, 'Don't bother. It's in the tree.' Pike was circling the ficus.

I stopped at the base of the stairs. 'What do you mean, it's in the tree? How would you know that?'

'Because it's where a lightweight would put it.' Pike grabbed the ficus and yanked it up hard. The ficus came out of its pot, and there was the dope stash. Like Pike had sensed it.

Ray and I stared at each other. We stared at Pike. Ray said, 'Nawwww.'

Pike made a little shrug.

Ray said, 'You're pulling our legs. You saw him foolin' in there through the window last night.'

Pike angled the flat lenses at Ray. 'You think?'

You never know with Pike.

The ficus had covered two Baggies of white powder, one Baggie of brown powder, a metric scale, and assorted drug sales paraphernalia. I told Joe and Ray what I wanted them to do, and when, and then they left. I stayed. I took the dope out of the planter and put it in a neat pile on the coffee table, then replaced the ficus, looked through the scattered CDs until I found something that I liked, put it in the changer, turned on the music, and sat on the couch to wait. The Police. Reggatta De Blanc.

Forty-two minutes later, keys worked the lock, the door swung open, and Lucas Worley came halfway through the door before seeing me. He was carrying a newspaper and a Starbucks cup. He looked surprised, but he hadn't yet seen the dope on the table. 'What the fuck is this? Who are you?'

'Come inside and close the door, Luke. Can I call you Luke? Or is it Lucas? Lucas seems pretentious.' He was a little bit taller than he had looked in the car. His eyes were bright and sharp, and he spoke quickly. You could tell he was used to talking. You could tell he was used to saying bright things and having them appreciated, and you could tell that he thought he was brighter than he really was. Probably where the smugness came from.