The Night Crew

'Yeah, I. guess.'

She felt the sudden evasiveness in his voice: 'Look at me, Creek,' she said.

He shook his head. 'I ain't looking at you.'

'Oh my God, you jumped her,' Anna said, half-amused, half-horrified.

'Did not. Jump her,' Creek said. 'And that's a nasty phrase anyway. High school.' He segued to a couple of bars of 'Ain't Misbehavin'. 'But she is a tastylittle thing.'

'Pretty hard edges for a cheesecake,' Anna said. Creek's adventures with women sometimes grew complex.

'Hey, you know, nobody really appreciates what a woman cop goes through every day,' Creek said tartly. 'Especially one with some decent looks.'

'Just how much of her did you look at?'

'None of your business.'

'Ah. And would I be right to suspect that this somehow leads to your getting the cabin painted on the boat? You smell like paint.'

'She wants to learn to race and she's gonna help me with the maintenance,' Creek said defensively. 'So shut up.'

'Help like Teri did.'

Creek shuddered: 'I asked you never to mention that name.'

'Sorry.'

'Now I have to find a priest,' Creek said. 'To cleanse me.'

She smiled now. 'Sorry again.'

'Easy to be sorry,' Creek said. 'You don't have to live with the pain.'

Anna snickered and Creek laughed and went to the 'Jelly Roll Blues', running down the chords.

And after a little while, Anna said, 'Clark is in town.'

The music stopped. Creek turned to her, suddenly pale, as though the tan had run out of his face, like blood. 'Aw, shit,' he said.

They left Anna's at nine-thirty, the long, brutal day dragging on. Creek was brooding, silent. Anna was annoyed by the silence, the annoyance layered atop her already general grumpiness. She'd wanted to talk about Clark, but Creek didn't want to hear it. 'That's toopersonal,' he said. 'I can't tell you what to do and I don't want to think about it. Go find a girlfriend to talk to.'

Louis was sitting outside his apartment, standing on the curb in his white shirt and plaid jacket, carrying the laptop. He'd updated the address database with GPS numbers, and claimed that with his new GPS receiver he should be able to put them within a few feet of their actual position, anywhere in L.A. County, southern Ventura or Santa Barbara.

'What's happening with Jason?' he asked, as he ducked his head and climbed aboard.

'I'm trying to figure out a funeral,' Anna said, as he sat down. Creek pulled away from the curb and Louis brought up the electronics. Anna asked, 'What's going on?'

Louis started monitoring the cops from his apartment, an hour or so before they went out. He had a scanner on an old trunk at the foot of his bed, and Creek claimed to have seen him adjust the volume dial with his toes, without opening his eyes. 'Nothing really heavy, but something's going on with the hookers up on Sunset,' he said, twiddling a dial. 'Hard to tell what's going on, but I think it might make a movie.'

'Boys or girls?' Anna asked.

'Girls. There was a call about ten minutes ago. The cops hit a club up there, cocaine thing, and I guess dumped a bunch of girls out on the street, lined them up, and a fight started. Somebody said it looked like a riot.'

'Everybody'll be there,' Creek said. He sounded as grumpy as Anna felt.

'I don't think so,' Louis said, not yet catching the crankiness in the front seat. 'There hasn't been much on the air. You sorta had to be following it.'

'So let's go,' Anna said.

The riot was a bust.

A few cop cars still lingered, a few girls strolled along the street, mostly looking at reflections in the store windows. There was the familiar air of trouble immediately past, but no actionlike arriving ten minutes after a thunderstorm, with nothing but puddles to show for the violence.

They headed toward the valley, Anna thinking about cruising Ventura. Louis got some movement on the radio, but it was small stuff, and too far south. By the time they'd arrive, there wouldn't be anything to see, or other crews would already be working it.

'Wish the bitches had been doing something,' Louis said. 'Would've made the night simple.'

'Don't call them that,' Anna snapped.

'Why not?' Louis asked. That's what.'

'Shut the fuck up, Louis,' Anna said.

'Ooo, what's your problem?' He was smiling, trying for a bantering attitude, but he didn't understand.

'Best be quiet, Louis,' Creek said, and Louis shut up. A minute later, Anna, now in a sulk, said, 'Sorry, Louis. You can talk now.'

'Is there a problem I don't know about?' he asked tentatively.

'Yeah, but it's mine,' Anna said.

'Fatburger coming up,' Creek said. Creek knew every Fatburger in L.A. County.

'Stop, I need some caffeine,' Anna said. 'Louis?'

'Diet Coke.'

'Fatburger and a Coke,' Creek said.

Anna got the food, waited, paid, carried it out to the parking lot. Two valley guys, in their late teens or early twenties, both with buzz cuts, three-day-artist-hangout stubble and black jackets, were leaning against the hood of a beat-up Buick, and one of them said, 'Hey, mama.'

Anna put the Fatburger sack and three cups of coffee on the hood of the truck and turned back to them: 'Hey, mama, what? Huh? What?'

One of the guys straightened up and said, 'Hey, mama, what'cha doing tonight?'

'I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm working instead of leaning my lazy fat ass on a piece-of-shit junker outside a Fatburger.'

'Hey.' The second guy pushed away from the Buick.

Then Creek got out of the driver's side of the truck and the second guy leaned back against the Buick again, while the first one hitched up his jeans. Creek said, 'Anna, get in the truck.'

'This guy wanted to talk to me,' Anna said.

'Anna!' Creek wasn't talking bullshit. 'Get in the fuckin' truck.'

Anna, still fuming, picked up the food and got in the truck and Creek said, 'Sorry, guys.' Back in the truck, as they pulled out, Creek said, 'What was that all about, huh? You want to get in a fight outside a Fatburger and spend some more time talking to cops? Huh?'

'Bad day.'

'Bad day, my ass,' Creek said. 'Take your fuckin' bad day someplace else.'

'Jesus, you guys, go easy,' Louis said, nervous. Creek and Anna didn't fight.

'Yeah, yeah, gimme a Fatburger,' Creek snarled.

They rode in silence until Anna's cell phone rang.

'Anna Batory?' Male voice. Familiar. Heavy stress, she thought.

'Yeah.'

'This is the guy you met in O'Brien's apartment this afternoon.'

'Yeah, Harper,' Anna said. 'What do you wantwhere'd you get this number?'

He ignored the use of his name and the demand for an explanation of the number. 'I need to see you,' he said. 'Like right now. Actually, I need you to come to where I am.'

'Why should I?'

'Because it has something to do with you,' Harper said. 'I gotta call the cops pretty soon, but I need you over here first.'

'Whathas to do with me?'

'Look, you might be in serious trouble. If you want to know about it before the cops come banging on your door, come see me now. Otherwise. and hey, you might even make a few bucks.'

She thought for a second, then said, 'I'm bringing a friend.'

'It'll cause them trouble,' Harper said.

'I'm not gonna be alone with you. Not after you jumped me, like that, you. abuser.'

Creek looked at her oddly, and Harper, after a second, said, 'Whatever you want to do.'

Harper was waiting under a streetlight on Cumpston, a couple of blocks south of Burbank Boulevard, a neighborhood of stucco ranch homes. The yard behind him was bordered with an evergreen hedge, long untrimmed, and pierced by a picket gate that had curls of white paint peeling off.

Creek got out with Anna.

'I understand you had a problem with Anna,' Creek said, and Anna suddenly realized that she might have a problem with the two men.

Harper had turned toward Creek with a small crouching movement that suggested he'd just set his feet; and he wasn't backing up.

He was good-looking in a mildly beat-up way, Anna thought, a big man with broad shoulders, big hands, a nose that had been broken a couple of times. He carried a heavy tan, with sun-touched hair, like a beach bum, but he was too old for that: late thirties, she thought. He wore an expensive black sport coat, silk, she thought, over a pair of jeans.