The Night Crew

And now she thought, this perfect house she'd built in Venice, with all the homely touches from the Midwest: was this a nest for Clark? Is that where the energy had come from? Because he'd like it. Nohe'd love it. She'd been obsessive about it, all the small touches, the quilts, the rag carpets on the wooden floors, the folk art, the pottery.

Was that what she'd been doing? Building for a man who'd engineered a break that had hurt her worse than anything since the death of her mother?

'Bellagio,' Louis said.

Anna, frowned, missing it. 'What?'

'The body was found off Bellagio.'

'Over a fence?' she asked, sitting up.

'Yeah.'

'Get an address,' she snapped. To Coughlin: 'If it's over a fence, it could be the Bel Air Country Club. Get up on the freeway, let's go.'

The body was on the golf course, but so were the cops, and they couldn't get close. Coughlin edged the truck up to a cop car and the cop said, 'Get the fuck out of here.'

'Hey, I'm just trying.'

'Didn't you hear me, dummy? Get the fuck out of here,' the cop said. He was young, with a pale, Nordic face, untouched by any apparent emotion other than irritation.

'All right, but I gotta go up there to turn around.'

'Hey! You ain't coming through here,' the cop said. 'Just back it up.'

'I can't back it up.'

'Back the fuckin' truck up or I'll have your ass out here on the street, wise-guy.'

Coughlin backed the truck up, muttering under his breath, Anna and Louis watched in amusement, and when they finally got turned, Louis said, 'Fuckin' pigs.'

Coughlin looked up into the mirror and said, 'I shoulda kicked his ass.'

'They would have thumped you like a tub of apple juice,' Anna said.

Coughlin continued on down the street, paused at the corner, snarled, 'Little fuckin' Nazi rat.' And then: 'You gotta put up with this all the time?'

'All the time,' Anna said. 'The cops see the dish on the roof, and it's open season.'

'You cause us a lot of trouble,' Coughlin said.

'No, we don't,' Anna said. 'You cause yourself a lot of trouble. Like your little Nazi back there. He could have been polite; instead, he treats us like dirt. So. why should we be nice?'

'Shit.' Coughlin put the truck into a driveway, backed up, turned around.

Anna said, 'What're you doing?'

'Going back.'

Louis and Anna sat in silence as Coughlin took the truck back up the road, then slowed as he came to the cop car blocking access to the body. The young cop saw them coming, put his hands on his hips, shook his head and then jabbed a finger at the curb. Coughlin pulled over and rolled the window down.

'Are you deaf or stupid?' the cop asked, looking up at Coughlin.

Coughlin stuck an ID card out the window. 'I'm a sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department, working an undercover detail, is what I am. And what I feel like doing is coming out there and kicking your ass up around your neck, you little prick,' he said. 'But I can't because I'd be breakin' cover. So what I'm gonna do instead, is, I'm gonna call my buddy down in personnel and see if we can fuck with your records. See if we need anybody directing traffic around sewer projects about sixteen hours a day.'

He went on for a while, while the young cop opened and shut his mouth like a dying fish. Then Coughlin threw the truck into reverse, backed into a drive, and headed out again.

'Feel better?' Anna asked.

'Much.' Then: 'First time I've ever done anything like that.'

'You oughta do it more often,' Anna said. 'Good for everybody's souls.'

She'd liked him before. Now she liked him better. After a while, she said. 'You might be able to make a living at this.'

'Yeah?'

'Maybe. You got the first part of the attitude.'

But that was it for the night. The following cars waited at both ends of Dell, watching cars, and for people on foot; Coughlin walked her down to her house, where a light showed in the window. Harper came to the door.

'Anything?'

'Nothing,' Coughlin said.

'All quiet here,' Harper said.

Anna said, 'It was absolutely flat. No feeling of anything. I think the guy has backed off.'

'No. He's fixed on you. He can't help himself. He's hanging around, but he knows we're here, too. He'll try to figure something out.'

'Nobody'll get in or out of here,' Coughlin said. 'We've got vans at both ends, night vision gear, the whole works.'

'Just gotta wait,' Harper said.

When Coughlin was gone, Harper asked, 'Do you want something to eat?'

'I usually have soup, or something light,' Anna said. 'Something to get the buzz off.'

'Got chicken noodle soup in the kitchen,' he said. 'Go wash your face; I'll get it.'

They sat at the table, eating the soup and soda crackers, and she talked about the night with Coughlin; and as they talked, she felt looser and easier, and suddenly was enjoying herself. The time of the early morning, coming down, had always been one of her favorites; sharing it suddenly seemed to make it even better.

Then Harper said, seriously, 'I'm not very romantic.'

That had nothing to do with the night. She said, cautiously, 'What?'

'I don't know how to talk about thisI didn't know how to talk about it with my wife, but I.' He seemed embarrassed. 'I sort of. hunger for you.'

'We could probably think of a way to take the edge off,' she said, lightly, instinctively deflecting him.

'I'm not talking about sex; or I am, but not only sex,' he said. He looked around the kitchen. 'I'm just, right now, eating soup, having the best time I've had in fifteen years. And I just don't want it to stop.'

'That's pretty romantic,' she said. He flushed, and then she did, sitting with the soup, and then Harper said, 'Eat your soup.'

'I am.'

'Well, hurry.'

Before she went to sleep, Harper a weighty lump on the other side of the bed, Anna was suddenly suffused with a sense of sadness and fear: she'd missed this, but she was also afraid of it. Afraid that it would end; afraid that it wouldn't end. Afraid that she could lose control.

Harper got up in the morning. Anna made a few noises at him as he crept out of the bedroom, then went back to sleep. The phone rang just after one, and she crawled across the bed to pick it up.

Creek. 'How'd it go last night?'

'Okay,' she said. 'You don't have to hurry and heal up anymore. This cop is a great cameraman.' There was a second of silence and she said, 'Jesus, Creek, that was a joke.'

'Pretty fuckin' funny,' he said.

'God, you get shot a little and people start having to be sensitive around you. what're you doing?'

Another second of silence. 'I was thinking about Clark again. And if you say he's not the guy, then I believe you ninety-nine percent: I'm serious. But since we've got people being killed, you've gotta check the other one percent.'

'I'm not talking to the cops about Clark,' she said.

'I understand that,' he said. 'You've got to get Harper to checkPam will help. She's got a badge, Harper's a lawyer, they could find out all kinds of stuff. And it'd all be in the family that way.'

She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, 'He didn't do it.'

'I believe you,' he said. 'But.'

'I'll talk to Jake,' she said.

Harper was on the tiny strip of canal-side lawn with a golf club, making slow-motion swings. Anna looked out over the sink, saw him, and when he turned, waved, and he twirled the club like a baton and headed for the door.

'Morning,' he said. 'Or good afternoon.'

'Want to run?' she asked.

'Love to, but I'd probably have a heart attack,' he said.

'Well, I'm gonna go down to the beach and run.'

'No, you're not,' he said.