Sunset Express

Rossi said, 'They want to kill her. And after they kill her, they will almost certainly arrange to have you killed, and then no one can implicate them in the manufacture of false evidence. Do you see that?'

He didn't say anything.

I said, 'She left the house with a bag. She has a gentleman friend named Mr Lawrence.'

LeCedrick Earle nodded dumbly. 'That old man been chasin' her for years.'

'Would she go there?'

'Sure, she'd go there. She ain't got nobody else.'

I felt something loosen in my chest. I felt like I could breathe again. 'Okay, LeCedrick. That's great. Just great. Do you know where he lives?'

LeCedrick Earle slumped back in the chair with an emptiness that made him seem lost and forever alone. His eyes filled with tears, and the tears spilled down across his cheeks and dripped on his shirt. He said, 'I can't believe this shit. I just can't believe it.'

Rossi said, 'What?'

He rubbed at the tears, then blew his nose. 'I must be the stupidest muthuhfuckuh ever been born. That woman ain't never done nuthin' but what she try to do right, and this what she gets for it. A fool for a son. A goddamned stupid fool.' He was sobbing.

Rossi said, 'Goddammit, LeCedrick, what?'

LeCedrick Earle blinked through the tears at us. 'Your man Kerris called me 'bout an hour ago and asked about old Mr Lawrence, too. He say they need to get her story straight. He say they want her to do a news conference, and I told him where she was. I told him how to get there and now they gonna kill my momma. Ain't I a fool? Ain't I God's own stupid muthuhfuckin' fool?'

I was pressing the buzzer even before he was finished, and Angela Rossi was shaking him until he told us the address, and then we were running out to the Jeep. It was almost certain that Louise Earle was dead, but neither of us was yet willing to give up on her. Maybe we were God's own fools, too.

CHAPTER 33

Pike pushed the Jeep hard out of the parking lot and through the gate and across the land bridge. Angela Rossi used her cell phone to call Tomsic as we were climbing back onto the freeway. She told him about Kerris, and that Louise Earle was probably staying with a Mr Walter Lawrence in Baldwin Hills. They spoke for about six minutes, and then Rossi turned off her phone. 'He's on the way.'

I said, 'You sure you want to go to the scene?'

'Of course.'

Pike glanced at her in the rearview. 'It gets back to the brass that you're involved, it's over for you.'

Rossi took her Browning from under the seat and clipped it onto her waistband. 'I'm going.'

We scorched up the Harbor Freeway to the San Diego, the speedometer pegged at a hundred ten, Pike gliding the Jeep between and around traffic that seemed frozen in space. We drove as much on the shoulder as the main road, and several times Pike stood on the brakes, bringing us to screaming, sliding stops before he would once more stomp the accelerator to rocket around lane-changers or people merging off an entrance ramp. I said, 'We can't help anybody if we're piled up on the side of the road.'

Pike went faster.

Hawthorne slipped past, then Inglewood, and then we were off the freeway and climbing through the southern edge of Baldwin Hills along clean, wide residential streets lined with spacious postwar houses. Baldwin Hills is at the southwestern edge of South Central Los Angeles, where it was developed in the late forties as a homesite for the affluent African-American doctors and dentists and lawyers who served the South-Central community. At one time it was called the black Beverly Hills, though in recent years the community has diversified with upwardly mobile Hispanic, Asian, and Anglo families. Rossi's phone beeped, and she answered, mumbling for maybe ten seconds before ending the call. 'Dan just got off the freeway. They're three minutes behind us, and he's got a black-and-white behind him.'

We used Pike's Thomas Brothers map to find our way through the streets, watching for turns and scoping the area. Mothers were pushing strollers and children were playing with dogs and everyone was enjoying a fine summer day. I said, 'We're almost there.'

We were two blocks from Walter Lawrence's home when a tan Aerostar van passed us going fast in the opposite direction and Pike said, 'That's Kerris. Three others on board.'

Rossi and I twisted around, trying to see. 'Louise Earle's in the back. Looks like Lawrence and someone else, too.' Louise Earle looked scared.

Rossi said, 'The other guy is probably one of Kerris's security people.'

Pike jerked the Jeep into a drive and did a fast reversal. I said, 'Did they make us?'

Pike shook his head. The Aerostar turned a far corner, but it hadn't increased its speed, and its driving seemed even. We went after them, Pike hanging back. In cases like this there are always two choices: You can let them know that you're there, or you can hide from them. If they know that you're there they might get nutty and start shooting. As long as they're not shooting, you're better off. Louise Earle and Walter Lawrence would be better off, too. Rossi unfastened her seat belt and leaned forward between me and Joe, better to see. 'Don't crowd them, Joseph. Let's give them room.'

Pike pursed his lips. 'I know, Angela.' Nothing like a backseat driver in a pursuit situation.

Rossi got on her phone again and told Tomsic where we were and what we were doing. She didn't cut the circuit this time, but kept up a running flow of information so that Tomsic knew where we were at all times. I said, 'Can he get in front of them?'

'No. He's west of the hills and behind us. He's calling in more black-and-whites.'

I glanced at Rossi, but she seemed impassive. The brass would know now, for sure.

We followed the van down out of the residential area onto Stacker Boulevard, then started climbing again almost at once, leaving the residential area behind as we wound our way through dry, undeveloped hills dotted with oil pumpers and radio towers. I had hoped that they would turn into the city, but they didn't. They were heading into a barren place away from prying eyes.

We followed them deeper into the hills, staying well back, catching only glimpses of their dust trail so that we wouldn't be seen, and as the peaks rose around us Rossi's cell phone connection became garbled and our link to Tomsic was broken. She tossed the phone aside. 'I lost him.'

Pike said, 'He knows about where we are.'

'About.'

Maybe a half mile ahead of us the van turned up the side of a hill along a gravel service road, making its way toward two great radio towers. We could see the towers, and what was probably a maintenance shed at their bases, and another car parked there. I said, 'They're going to kill them. They couldn't kill them at the house with so many people on the street, but they're going to do them here.'

Rossi craned her head out the window. 'If we take the road up after them, they'll see us coming a mile away.'

Pike slapped the Jeep into four-wheel drive, and we left the road, heading first down into a gully, then up. We lost sight of the towers and the van, but we watched the ridgeline and followed the slope of hills and we did what we could until we came to an elevated pipeline that we could not cross. Pike said, 'Looks like we're on foot.'

Pike and I were wearing running shoes, but Angela Rossi was wearing dress flats. I said, 'Going to be a hard run.'

She said, 'Fuck it.'

She threw her jacket into the backseat, took her Browning from its holster, then kicked off her shoes and set out at a jog. Barefoot. The ground was rough and bristling with stiff dried grass and foxtails and must have hurt, but she gave no sign.