The Night Crew

'Yeah,' Anna said. 'Have you seen China Lake? Or seen her with anybody?'

'What's the problem?'

'We think a fruitcake grabbed her. She could be in serious trouble,' Harper said. He was using his cop voice, and the bouncer said, 'You know, she was here an hour ago. I think I saw her going out, she was alone. Let's go ask Larry.'

He led them back through the club, to the front, and the; stairs leading up to the party room. The doorman at the top' looked down, and the bouncer yelled, 'Hey, Larry, you seen China?'

'She left.'

'Did she leave with anyone? You see anyone?'

'She was by herself, far as I know.'

Anna asked, 'Did you see a guy in here with a bandage on his face? Right by his eye? Or maybe a big bruise?'

He shook his head: 'Nobody here like that.'

'You think you could have missed it?'

'No way. Thing like that, a guy's probably a troublemaker. We keep our eye out for troublemakers.'

The outside door opened behind them, and Wyatt came through, followed by two men in suits. The bouncer spotted them and said, 'Shit,' and looked up the stairs at Larry and made a quick throat-cutting sign. Larry stepped out of sight.

'She's not here,' Wyatt asked, coming up.

Anna shook her head: 'No. She's gone.'

'Could be a joke,' Harper said. 'Louis wouldn't.'

Anna looked at him as though he were crazy, and said, 'No, Louis wouldn't. Jesus, Jake, this is the guy.'

'You're sure?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm sure: I knew the voice,' Anna said.

'Had you heard it beforeother than at the parking lot, when he jumped you?' Wyatt asked.

Anna held her hands to her temples, as Harper had: so hard to think, so little time. Or no time at all. 'I think. I don't know, I'm getting confused. But when he was talking to me in the parking lot, God, it seemed familiar. Not like everyday familiar, but I knew the voice.'

'Face to face, or on the phone?' asked one of the L.A. cops.

The phone? She hadn't thought of that.

'God, I don't know. I talk to a hundred people every night, running around. I don't know.'

Harper chipped in: 'The guy on the door didn't see anyone with a bite on his face. Says he would have seen it.'

'All right,' Wyatt said. He seemed weary, almost too tired to deal with it. 'Let's see if anybody here saw China leave with someone. We got a couple of cars coming.'

'That's all?' Anna asked. 'That's all we can do?'

'Can you think of anything else?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm outa here.' She stepped toward the door, but Wyatt caught her arm.

'Look, we finally got something going on thiswe're pulling together a multi-department task force to track this guy,' he said. 'We're gonna need you. We need to set you up where we can watch you.'

'I think it's too late for that,' Anna said. 'He turned some kind of corner with that phone call. He's gotta know you'll be all over him now.'

'We still need to talk with you.'

'I'll call you; I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me if you shake anything out of these people,' she said, gesturing UP the stairs. 'And China: if you hear anything.'

Wyatt looked at Harper. 'Jake, can you control her a little? She's gonna wind up dead.'

Jake said, 'I'll try.'

'You wouldn't hold anything back on us?'

Jake shook his head: 'No. We're not playing games: we just want somebody to get him. I don't think there's anything. Well, we thought for a while that he might be a little older, white-haired, but that's gone up in smoke. Anna thinks he's young.'

Wyatt turned to Anna, whose eyes seemed to have unfocused, staring at a spot on the other side of Wyatt's face. Wyatt said, 'Anna? Anna?'

Her eyes snapped back and a small, uncertain smile crinkled her face. 'Yeah. I heard you. He's young, I'm sure of it. Forget white hair. That was a wild-goose chase.' And to Jake: 'Let's go.'

Jake's eyebrows went up, but he nodded and said to Wyatt, 'Talk to you tomorrow.'

Norden was waiting out on the sidewalk: she didn't like cops, and now she was leaning against a fire hydrant, smoking, watching the light bars on the cop cars.

'We all done?' she asked.

'Yeah, for tonight,' Anna said.

'Drop me at my place; I want to get Harnett's files out of the car,' Norden said.

They dropped her at an apartment off La Brea, waited until I she was inside, then Jake turned to Anna and said, 'What I was that about the white-haired guy and the wild-goose chase? Harnett was a pretty hot possibility an hour ago. He might not be the killer, but he's involved somewhere.'

Anna shook her head and said, 'Aw, he might have known Jason or something, just a coincidence, but he's not the white-haired man. I know who the white-haired man is.'

Jake did a comic double-take: 'Yeah? Well, speak up.'

'It's Wyatt.'

'What?' He grinned, expecting a punchline.

'Yeah, an older guy with white hair. You were talking about it and I was looking at him, and all of a sudden, I realized it washim. We were thinking the white-haired guy was after Creek or me, but reallyit was Wyatt checking up on Pam Glass, and what was happening with her and Creek, and he didn't want us to know it. That's why he took off. He's hung up on Pam, and he didn't want Pam to know he was hanging around.'

Harper thought it over for a few seconds, then sighed: 'Are you positive?'

'Ninety-nine percent. Next time we see Wyatt, take a good look at him. He's the guy.'

Harper nodded. 'All right. Christ, we commit a felony, we break into somebody's office and fuck him up and he's an innocent bystander.'

'Not especially innocent,' Anna said. 'But we do have a few felonies behind us.'

Harper said, 'Yeah, we do. And if we're not very careful, they're gonna start catching up with us.' He fed the car into a U-turn, and started back toward the hills.

Anna sat up that night; took her gun out of her pocket and spun the cylinder, dumped the shells, dry-fired it at the TV, when the TV was on. Reloaded, looked at it. Waited, for something, not knowing what.

Jake sat up with her for an hour or two, then went to bed. 'You've got to get some sleep,' he said.

'How?'

He looked at her, shrugged. 'If you decide to go out, wake me up. I want to come along. If he's identified me, he could know we're out here. So we've got to take it easy.'

'Okay.'

He pointed a finger at her: 'I swear to God, if you leave without waking me up, I'll kick your ass.'

The dawn came slowly, first a false lightening, then a darkness again, then the real dawn, a great, unhappy light, like an old piece of newsprint being pushed over the mountains to the east.

Anna was sitting in an easy chair, maybe asleep, the gun in her lap, when Jake came out and called her: 'Anna?'

Her eyes either opened, or were already openshe didn't know, it didn't seem like her mind had ever stopped. 'Yeah?'

'Jesus, did you get any sleep at all?'

'I don't know,' she said. She felt wooden. She pushed herself out of the chair, went out to the kitchen, with Harper trailing behind. 'Coffee?'

'I'm gonna try to get a couple more hours. Why don't you come in and lay down?'

'Jake, jeez.'

'Give me ten minutes to put you to sleep. Just come on in.'

She followed him back to the bedroom, pulled off her shirt and jeans and bra, pulled on one of his T-shirts and lay down. He snuggled behind her, said, 'Close your eyes.'

'Jake.'

'Just close them, okay? Ten minutes.'

She could feel his arm around her waist, the tops of his thighs on the bottom of hers. She opened her eyes briefly, with difficulty, to look at the clock, and saw the glint of the gun on the nightstand; and closed her eyes again.

The phone woke her.

She startled upright, felt Jake's arm come off her, looked at the clock: She'd been down for four hours. Her mouth tasted like old features taken off a tar road.

Jake was saying, 'Yah. Aw, man, where. all right.'