“We will need you to step into the bathroom for a moment, please. We need to search you before we let you in to see John.” A female officer appears to ask me and to steer me into the bathroom before I can even answer.
“Uh, no. Sure,” I mumble. Oh shit. I hope they don’t find the pot I hid for John in the baby powder. I’ve found his “important papers”—the stash he begged me for on the phone, exactly where he told me—and I hope Big Tom will let it slide, knowing how badly John needs it to calm his nerves.
Smoothing down her shirt, Sharon steps out of the bathroom next, and we are asked if we have anything in our bags to tell them about. “Nope. Nothing.”
“Hello, Sharon.” A brown-haired man approaches us from the table near the balcony. “How have you been?”
“Tom. Hi. Well, could be better… you know,” Sharon addresses the husky man in a familiar tone.
“And this must be Dawn. I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” he says, shaking my hand in turn.
Sharon sees my bewilderment. “Dawn. This is Tom. Big Tom.”
“Oh. Hi. Nice to meet you finally.” A tiny sense of calm sparks in me as I realize this longtime friend is here—someone John worked with on the right side of the law.
Another man approaches and stretches out his hand to introduce himself.
“And this is Bob… Bob Sousa. Another lead investigator on this case,” Big Tom announces.
“Hi, uh, nice to meet you two. We’re real glad you’re both here. If everything works out, John will be helping us… and a lot of other people.” His speech ends abruptly, and like a good detective he stops himself from going any further. “Well. Shall we?”
He takes hold of the knob of a door connecting the room to the next, taps, and pushes it open. “Company’s here, John.”
A flurry of officers buzzes around and clears an opening that reveals John, pale and sick-looking in a borrowed tan suit jacket and jeans, sitting on the end of a king-sized bed. “Hey, baby. You guys made it.” He stands up and comes toward us with his arms outstretched. He smiles nervously, relieved and apprehensive, eyes darting back and forth between Sharon and me, wrapping his arms around us in a group hug. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Everything’s going to be all right now… now that we’re together.” He kisses both of us on the cheek, squeezing hard. “Here. Let me take your bags. Do you want something to eat?” Like servants waiting for his command, John motions erratically for Big Tom to get someone with a menu.
We are confused for a moment. “No, uh. Well—,” Sharon says.
“Well, I think I’ll leave you all alone for right now to catch up. Don’t you think so, John?” Big Tom looks large and awkward, uncomfortable in a fat, choking tie and boxy shoes.
“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Tom.”
“Right. So if you need anything, John, you know what to do.” He signals for everyone to clear the room.
When the door shuts, John rushes up and checks the lock. “Sharon. Dawn. I’m so glad you’re here. Did they help you board the dogs and lock the house?” He steps between us anxiously and plants another kiss on each of our cheeks. “Dawn, you made it to Sharon’s. I told them to let you go… that you didn’t know anything. Let’s order something to eat. You can have anything you want. Filet mignon, prime rib… whatever you like.” His behavior is erratic, wild.
“John?” Sharon interrupts. “What’s going on?”
“Let’s eat first. I have a lot to talk to you two about, but not on an empty stomach. They’re paying top dollar to take care of us. We might as well take advantage of it.” John’s anxiety is extreme, and I take it to mean he’s worried we’ll be uncomfortable. He herds us over to a round table by the floor-to-ceiling-curtained windows and passes out menus.
“All right. If you say so,” Sharon says dryly.
As if we’re at a fancy restaurant, each of us orders a high-end dinner, which is delivered promptly by plainclothes officers armed with sawed-off shotguns—the same officers who guard our door constantly. We eat slowly and formally and make small, unfunny comments. John orders a bottle of thirty-year-old Scotch with the meal and passes around small shots to take the edge off the tense situation. From his jacket pocket, John retrieves a Tiparillo and draws in the rich, heavy smoke, offering each of us our own.
“Well. I guess we need to get down to business.” Breaking the uncomfortable emptiness in the air, John stands up as a dictator would, cigar in hand, as if he is going to make a speech. “Sharon, I need to talk to you first, uh, in private. Do you mind?” He pulls her chair out for her.
Without a word, Sharon complies. It looks to me as though she has shrunk a size; with tiny steps, she follows John’s looming shadow into the bathroom.
The door sharply slams as Sharon returns from the bathroom. “He wants to see you,” she says, blandly and without emotion. She beelines over to the large picture window and pulls back the drapes to sit on the ledge overlooking downtown LA.
I watch her stiff, robotic movements and mistake them for resolve. John steps out right behind her, wiping his red-rimmed eyes, and spies her perched at the sill. This is hard, I tell myself.
“Dawn?” John reaches out his hand to me and guides me to the bathroom. The room is steamy, the water running in the tub.
“Shhh.” He puts his finger to his lips. He pulls his hair back from his forehead and wipes away another tear before taking both my hands in his. “Baby…” He clears his throat. “You know this is about the murders on Wonderland, right?”
I look deep into his tired, sunken eyes. “Did you do something, John?”
“No! Listen. I went that night to get the money for us to leave. You know—sell the dope. I stopped to pick up my messages first, and when I got back in the car Diles was waiting. He put a gun to the back of my head!”
“You mean Eddie’s bodyguard?” I can feel that night on my skin as if it’s happening right now.
“There were other guys in the car too. They forced me, baby.” He lets out a sob. “They took everything I had—the dope, the money, my briefcase with my address book! Eddie got it, and I couldn’t let him find out about you or Sharon… our families too. Your mother, my mother… And, and they took me and forced me to let them into the house… buzz them in… and stay… and watch as they murdered those people.” He is shaking, his hands pulling on my arm, slippery from the steam in the air. “They tried to get away with robbing Nash, baby. Nobody gets away with that shit. No one!” Then the weight of his confession overwhelms him. His shoulders drop; he hides his face in his hands and weeps.
The blood drains from my face. The thick humidity and the shot of Scotch make my head heavy, and my stomach folds over on itself. I reach out to rest my head on John’s shoulder.
“The police found my fingerprints, and now they want to blame me for the murders!”
Easily I take John’s side. “They can’t blame you, John. What are you going to do?”
“If I tell everything I know about Nash and… well… people—we’re talking drugs, arson… murder, baby—they’ll give us protection, put us in the Witness Protection Program. You, me, and Sharon. We can start a new life together like we wanted, baby. That’s all I ever wanted was to start over. What do you say? Will you come with me? I told them you two had to be safe first, that I’d only do this if you guys said yes!”