“I didn’t do anything to him.”
“How did you talk him into killing for you?”
“I told him what you tell every soldier. That his efforts would be for the greater good. That his sacrifice would be seen as contributing to a better world. Then Tremell backed it up with cash. Cava was so fucked up he bought it. At least in the beginning he did.”
The van slowed down and Lena watched as the five patrol cars in front of them shut down their flashing lights and pulled ahead. When she looked out the window, she saw the five cars behind them passing on the left and vanishing up the street. The kid driving the Suburban switched off the radio, making a right turn into a parking lot, passing a guard at the gate, and cruising swiftly onto the tarmac. Lena spotted the private jet, felt the burn, and read the sign on the hangar.
BARNES AVIATION.
She turned back to West and caught the broad smile on his face.
“Did you really think we were flying Southwest?” he whispered.
The senator’s bodyguards chuckled. As the van stopped, Lena tried to pull herself together. She could see a handful of private aviation companies on this side of the runway, but every one of them was closed. The lights from Burbank Airport were cutting through the light fog a half mile across the tarmac. West’s pilot was inspecting the jet, and after circling the plane, appeared ready to go. Then the young driver climbed out of the Suburban and began helping a member of the grounds crew transfer the bags.
Lena turned back to West. His eyes were on her. He had been watching her take it all in.
“My apologies for keeping you in the dark,” he said. “I’m sure you understand that it was the only way. You thought that you could rely on the Sheriff’s Department once we reached the airport. You thought that you could milk what happened out of me, and West Hollywood’s finest would back you up. And just like Denny Ramira, you got your story but guessed wrong.”
Lena had been holding her.45 in her hand ever since she set eyes on the jet. Now she lifted it out of the darkness and pointed the muzzle at West’s face. The senator laughed at her.
“It won’t work, Detective. You’re a hell of a man, but it won’t work.”
The two bodyguards drew their pistols in unison. Another stretch of silence passed with everyone making eye contact and trading heavy secrets.
West shrugged. “It really won’t work here, Detective. You’re outmanned and you’re outgunned. Bringing me in to face my sins just isn’t in the cards tonight. And let’s face it. It isn’t worth losing your life over when you could live to fight the fight another day. You better hand me that. My friends get nervous and even a private aviation company has a thing about people pointing guns.”
Lena didn’t move, her Smith amp; Wesson up and ready. “Where are you going, West?”
“Paradise,” he said. “Now, hand over the gun. There’s no sense dying tonight.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled. After a long stretch, she passed the gun over and felt her body shudder. The senator grinned, but took a deep breath, too.
“That’s better,” he said. “Much better.”
The driver returned to the Suburban and climbed in behind the wheel. “Everything’s ready,” he said. “You’re all set, sir.”
West offered the kid Lena’s.45. “Thanks, Juan. Thanks for everything. You’ll need to keep this until we take off. Maybe we’ll see each other again sometime.”
The kid stared at the weapon and was clearly nervous. But when West handed him the gun, he looked at Lena and pointed it at her.
She sat back in the seat, watching the two bodyguards file out ahead of West. When the senator turned back and shot her a parting glance, she remembered the card in her pocket and dug it out.
“You forgot this,” she said.
West didn’t seem to understand, but stepped closer as she extended her hand.
“Your business card,” she said. “I won’t be needing your help anymore.”
He glanced at the card, then slipped it into his pocket and smiled at her.
“You never know,” he said.
And that was it. Lena sat in the van keeping one eye on the nervous kid with the loaded.45 in his hand, and the other on the jet taxiing down the runway en route to paradise. After about five minutes she heard the roar of the engines and looked out the window as the jet rocketed down the short runway and strained to make the steep climb out over Hollywood Hills. It sounded a lot like thunder. A lot like a passing storm. When it was over, when the jet carrying West and his bodyguards finally faded into the heavens, the kid tossed her the.45 and asked if she wanted a lift home.
53
She had spent the last four days thinking it over and couldn’t decide who was worse. Both Tremell and West were responsible for the murders. Both had been motivated by greed and had a hand in the deaths that resulted from the marketing and use of Formula D. The only real difference between the two was that West sold out everybody. That Tremell was in a jail cell on suicide watch, while West was free and clear and probably living large.
It was Christmas Eve. A cold, grim afternoon in Hollywood Hills.
Tracking West’s escape over the past few days had proved fruitless. The jet flew directly to the Cayman Islands. According to the pilot, who returned to Burbank the following morning, West and his companions boarded another plane waiting for them on the tarmac. No flight plan was available-the plane never returned-and the FBI had taken over the case.
Lena closed the tray on her CD player and adjusted the volume. She had loaded it up with some of her favorites. Nat King Cole because it was Christmas Eve. Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Stephen Stills’s Super Session for reasons she couldn’t explain, Gerry Mulligan and Astor Piazzolla because she was thinking that West probably made a run for South America and the music might trigger something in her imagination that would help, and that import CD she had heard Cava listening to. Hope Radio by Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters. She had ordered the album on the Internet three days ago and had been listening to it ever since it arrived.
She sat down on the couch and looked at the Christmas tree on the porch outside the slider. The tree was alive. Although she didn’t have any ornaments, she had spent the afternoon stringing white lights through its branches. The tree was a rental from a company in Hollywood who delivered it to her door and would pick it up after the new year. The rental fee covered their expenses for planting the tree in the hills that had been destroyed by the wildfires last spring.
But her mind wasn’t really on the holiday right now. There were still too many things to remember. Too many things that she could learn from. And too many images she wanted to forget.
Rhodes was with his sister in Oxnard, so she didn’t really have anyone to talk to. Jennifer Bloom had been released from the hospital and was with her brother in Vegas. The family of Beth Gillman, the girl Cava had abducted from the Cock-a-doodle-do and murdered in the garage on Barton Avenue, had been located in Portland and notified of their daughter’s death. And Vinny Bing the Cadillac King had been found hanging from the garage at his dealership, his cable TV show still running because network executives thought that they might get a ratings boost.
It might add up, Lena thought. But it played havoc with the soul.
Someone knocked on her front door. She walked over and pulled it open, then gazed at her visitor for a long time.
It was Chief Logan, dressed casually in a sweater and a pair of slacks. And he was holding a bottle of Pinot Noir in his hand.
“A friend of mine lives just west of Pasadena,” he said. “He’s got a great wine cellar. He said that he knows you and thought you might like this. I guess you ate dinner together in the kitchen at Patina once. He was celebrating the birth of his grandkids. I was hoping we might share it.”