Michael Connelly - The Late Show

She got out and walked down the sidewalk back to the house with the yellow French door. She dangled the belt from one hand and called the name Lola out repeatedly. She walked up the driveway that ran next to the house.

“Lola! Here, girl.”

She smelled the pool before she saw it. The sharp odor of chlorine pervaded the rear of the house. She got to the weathered fence and had to stand on her toes to catch a glimpse of what was on the other side. She confirmed the pool and was making a turn to go back out to the street when her eyes caught on the row of windows that ran along the top of the garage door. She hesitated because she wasn’t tall enough to look through the glass. Then she saw the handle on the door, situated about a foot off the driveway surface.

Ballard stepped over. She put one foot on the handle and tested some of her weight against it. It felt sturdy enough. She put her full weight on the handle, and her fingers gripped the thin sill below the windows. She pushed herself up the garage door and looked in.

Parked in the garage was a yellow Camaro.

She dropped to her heels and turned to get back to her car. A man was standing in the driveway, looking at her.

“Oh, hey, have you seen a dog?” Ballard said quickly. “A brindle boxer mix?”

“You mean in my garage?” the man said.

“Sorry about that, but when she gets loose, she likes to hide. It’s a real pain in the butt.”

He was Latino and wearing workout pants, running shoes, and a hoodie, like he was heading out for a jog. She kept her arm in motion so the dangling belt would not be still enough for him to see that it wasn’t a leash. She headed past him toward the street, hoping to not forget the plate number she had read off the Camaro.

“Do you live around here?” the man asked.

“Over on Sierra Vista,” Ballard said. “Have a nice day.”

She kept moving down the driveway. When she got to the street, she called her dog’s name out a few more times but walked on. She got to the Taurus and jumped back in.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I blew it,” she said.

She wanted to run the Camaro’s plate before she forgot the number, but she realized she didn’t have a rover, and of course the rental car had no police radio.

“What happened?” Compton asked.

She was watching her side mirror, expecting to see the man step out of the driveway to track her.

“A guy came out,” she said. “I think he made me.”

“How?” Compton asked.

“I don’t know. Something about his eyes. He made me.”

“Then let’s blow.”

There was no sign of the man in the mirror. She started the car. Just then, she saw the Camaro come out of the driveway and turn the opposite way down Serrano.

“There he goes,” she said. “Yellow Camaro.”

She waited until the Camaro turned right at the end of the block and was out of sight. She U-turned away from the curb and headed in the same direction. She pulled her phone and called the communications center on speed dial. She then recited the license plate and requested a computer run.

“I’ll hold,” she said.

At the corner, she turned right. There was no sign of the Camaro. She gunned the Taurus, and they headed north, block by block, checking right and left for the Camaro. They didn’t see it.

“You think you spooked him?” Compton asked.

“I don’t know,” Ballard said. “He saw me looking through the window of the garage at the car.”

“Shit.”

“Well, what would you have—”

The dispatcher came back with the information and Ballard repeated it so Compton could get it.

“Eugenio Santana Perez, seven fourteen ’seventy-five. No record. Thank you.”

She disconnected.

“The guy’s clean,” Compton said. “Maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Yellow door, yellow Camaro — it’s him,” Ballard said. “He matches Nettles’s story. Maybe the guy just bought the gun off somebody, but it’s not the wrong tree.”

They made their way up to Santa Monica, and there was still no sign of the Camaro.

“Right or left?” Ballard said.

“Fuck it,” Compton said. “He blew right out of there after seeing you. Now I have to call Welborne and tell him we may have fucked this up.”

“Not yet.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Just chill. I’m not finished looking. Besides, there’s still the house. You can give ATF- E that.”

She saw an opening in the traffic and went straight, crossing Santa Monica and staying north. They continued to check streets until they got to Sunset. She then took a right toward the 101 freeway.

“I’ll take you back downtown,” Ballard said, defeat in her voice.

“This is fucked up,” Compton said.

But as they approached the southbound freeway ramp, Ballard saw a glimpse of yellow two blocks ahead. A yellow car had turned into a lot and disappeared.

“Wait, did you see that?” she said. “It was yellow.”

“I didn’t see shit,” Compton said. “Where?”

Ballard drove past the freeway ramp and kept east on Sunset. When she got to the turn-in the yellow car had taken, she saw it was to a Home Depot with a massive parking lot. The entrance was clear and she remembered how it always used to be lined with men looking for day work. That had changed when Immigration and Customs Enforcement started routine immigration roundups.

Ballard pulled in and started cruising the lot. They came upon the yellow Camaro in a spot in the far corner. There were plenty of spaces closer to the entrance to Home Depot, so it appeared abandoned there. Ballard checked the plate. It was the car they were looking for.

“Shit,” she said.

“He’s gone,” Compton said. “Fuck, another guy who watched Heat too many times.”

“What?”

“The movie Heat . From the nineties? Inspired the North Hollywood bank shoot-out?”

“I was on a surfboard in Hawaii most of the nineties.”

“This guy played by De Niro was a robber. He had one rule: first sign of heat, you have to be able to leave everything behind. Just like that.”

Ballard kept cruising, looking at the faces of men on foot in the parking lot, hoping to see the man from the driveway.

She had no luck. Finally, she turned the car into the corner of the lot and came to a stop. Through the windshield they could see the Camaro fifty yards away.

“This is so fucked,” Compton said. “We should’ve just called Welborne. Instead, I listened to you about doing it ourselves.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ballard said. “You’re blaming me? You wanted this just as much as I did.”

“You’re the one who always has to win. To show the guys up.”

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you. If you’re so worried about the feds, why don’t you just Uber your ass out of here. I’ll call Welborne and give him what we’ve got and put it all on me. I mean, why not, right? Everybody else wants to blame me for everything. Just get the fuck out of the car.”

Compton looked at her.

“You’re serious?” he asked.

“Deadly,” Ballard said. “Get the fuck out.”

With his eyes still on her, Compton opened his door like he was threatening to leave if she didn’t stop him.

She didn’t.

Compton got out and looked back in at her. She said nothing and kept her gaze on the Camaro. He slammed the door. She refused to turn to watch him walk away.

“And another one bites the dust,” she said to herself.

Ballard didn’t get to Hollywood Division until almost five o’clock. She had spent most of the afternoon dealing with ATFE and FBI agents, explaining her moves that morning after the interview with Nettles. She left Compton out of it, telling the agents she had acted on her own after leaving Men’s Central. The upset of the feds was mollified to a small degree when she looked at a set of photos they had and identified the man she had seen in the driveway. They said Eugenio Santana Perez was an alias but refused to tell her what his real name was. It was clearly a we’ll-take-it-from-here situation with a heavy tone of you-fucked-this-up-and-now-we-have-to-unfuck-it to top it off.