'There's nothing to go on,' Wyatt said. 'Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anythingwe had a guy out on the pier all last night, talking to the fishermen, and he came up with exactly zero. We don't have anything back from the lab yet, so we're not even sure that's where he was killed. And the most likely motive involves the worst anonymous ratshit dopers in the whole goddamn country. So I don't know what more to do. Keep talking to his friends. Like your pal, Creek.'
'Creek's okay,' Anna said.
'He did time for dope,' Wyatt said. 'He was dealing bigtime, is the word.'
'He was smuggling, not dealing. And he quit cold. He hasn't had anything stronger than Jack Daniel's since he got out.' She could hear him yawn, and it irritated her: 'Maybe you need a nap,' she suggested.
Wyatt ignored the sarcasm. 'Yeah, I could. And Pam backs you up on Creek, by the way. She went out to talk to him.'
'Pam? Your partner?'
'Yeah.' Anna half-smiled, and even on the phone, Wyatt picked up the vibration.
'Why? He's a Romeo or something?'
'Not exactly. He does have an effect on. a certain kind of woman.'
'What kind?'
'The anal, blazer-wearing, HermŠs-scarf owning, power-sunglasses type, with no kids.'
'Huh. Like you.'
Anna almost started, then grinned into the phone: she'd deserved it. Wyatt continued, 'Pam's got a collection of HermŠs, but no kids.'
'Big surprise,' Anna said. 'Good-bye.'
'Hey, wait.'
He wanted to talk more about Pamela Glass; Anna wasn't in the mood.
From the Inglewood police station, Anna headed over to Jason's apartment. The apartment was a neat, four-building complex surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence. She took the car through a narrow access gate, which a sign said would be locked at midnight; the sign had been over-painted with graffiti. She glanced at her watch: already three o'clock. She had to move. Creek and Louis would be at her house in two hours, ready to roll.
She left the car in a guest parking slot, and headed into the complex. A dozen people sat in lawn chairs around a swimming pool, drinking beer, talking in the fading sunlight. Old Paul Simon tinkled from a boom box, 'Still Crazy After All These Years'.
Get it over.
Jason's apartment was routine California stucco, tan, concrete steps going up to external walkways, rust stains running down from roof-edge gutters. The weather had been dry, but the walkways smelled like rain. Green, red, yellow and blue doors alternated down the walkways, an uninterested attempt at decor. Anna looked at the keys237found the door, a red one, looked around, waiting for somebody to object. Nobody did; she was alone on the walk. She had a little trouble with the key, finally got it to go and pushed inside.
Smelled carpet cleaner. He hadn't been here long.
The apartment was nearly dark, the only illumination coming through the open door and a back window. The room she was in, the front room, was littered with empty pizza cartons, comic books, Big Gulp plastic cups. A Playboyand a Penthouselay in the middle of the carpet. The cops had dumped everything, and left the litter where they dumped it. She left the door open, groped for the light switch, found it, flicked it. Nothing happened. Lights out.
'Jeez,' she said. Her voice didn't quite fill the room, and she paused, and thought, What? She stepped back and looked out along the walkway, heard voices, a woman's, then the deeper rumbling from a man.
Coming up the stairs. Still worried about being taken for an intruder, she pushed the door shut, stood for a moment in the gloom, waiting for her eyes to adjust. There' d be a circuit breaker somewhere, she thought. Probably in a closet or back in the kitchen.
The apartment was almost tooquiet: like the ghost of Jason had muted all the little normal sounds, the creeping subliminal pitter-patter of cockroaches, warping of wood, flaking of paint. She pushed the feeling away and headed toward the small kitchen nook: Find the light.
He got her as she stepped into the kitchen.
He was off to the right, next to a small dinette table.
Anna was looking the other way, sensed him a fraction of a second before he was on her, started to turn, started to say something, to cry out.
He threw a large hand over her mouth, wrapped a heavy arm around her chest, tripped her with a sweeping leg, and they lurched back into the living room and hit the floor, Anna on the bottom. The impact took her breath away for a second, and she thrashed frantically, trying to get an arm loose, trying to get her feet working, trying to kick, but he was very strong, very professionaclass="underline" he'd done this before.
The arm around her chest tightened and he pulled her head back and said, close by her ear, 'If you scream, I'll punch your lights out. If you stop kicking, I'll let you breathe. C'mon.' They thrashed for another moment, but he'd wrapped a leg around her legs and she felt as though she were fighting an anaconda.
And he said, 'C'mon, goddammit, I don't want to hurt you, I just want you to shut up. If you'll shut up, nod.'
Exhausted, sweating, scared, she relaxed, involuntarily, and nodded and he said, 'I swear to God, if you scream, I'm gonna bust you in the mouth.'
And he took his hand away from her mouth.
She drew a breath to scream, reconsidered: 'Let me go,' she said, trying to look at him. She started thrashing again, trying to turn, but he held her. All she could see was his chin.
'We're gonna go like this over to the couch, and I'm gonna sit you down. I'll be right in front of you and if you yell I'll hit you. I want to be clear about that.'
'All right, all right.' Not hurt yet.
'Here we go.' He rolled, and pried one arm around behind her, caught her fingers in a hold, and she thought, Cop, and said, aloud, That hurts.'
'Not much,' he said. 'Not yet, but it will if you put a move on me.'
'Are you a cop? You sound like a cop.'
'No.' He'd released her legs, got his knees under himself, and slowly pushed up to his feet, pulling Anna along, past a cable reel that Jason was using as a coffee table. Then he pushed her and twirled her at the same time, she found herself staggering uncontrollably backward, until the couch hit her calves and she fell back onto it. He was right there, his face obscured in the gloom, a fist an inch from her chest.
'What's your name?' he asked.
'Let me out of here.'
'What's your fuckin' name?'
'Fuck you.' He didn't seem frightening, somehow. 'Let me out of here.'
'In a minute. Gimme your arms.'
'What?'
'Gimme.' He grabbed one hand, and she tried to jerk free, but he put a hand on her forehead and said, 'Sit still, goddammit.'
'What do you want?'
'Needle tracks.'
What? She stopped fighting, and a penlight clicked on. He turned her arm wrist up, and played the beam down her forearm.
'Other arm.'
She turned her other arm up, and he looked it over, then shined the light into her eyes, dazzling her.
'What's your name?' he asked again.
'Fuck you. Who are you? What the hell are you doing here?'
'You oughta watch your mouth,' he said. 'And it's none of your business. You sit right there. If you start to get up.'
'Yeah, I know, you'll beat me up.'
He sounded embarrassed: 'Yeah.'
He was groping around on the floor, keeping his eyes on her, but not until he moved back to her did she see that he'd picked up her purse. He popped it open and dumped it on the wire-reel table, shined the penlight on it and stirred through it.
Anna's purse was small, and there wasn't much: a billfold, a comb, a lipstick, a roll of Clorets, a handful of change, a couple of ripped-in-half movie tickets. He opened the billfold and looked at her driver's license. She still couldn't see his face, and the light, held chest high, made it more difficult.
'Anna Batory,' he said. He looked up from the license. 'You were with the TV crew.'
She wasn't going to be raped, she decided; probably not beaten up. The guy had a hard force about him, but not the hyped energy that produced an attack. And he knew about her: 'Yeah, I'm with the video crew.'