Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

I brought my beer inside, poured it out, then went back onto the deck. The hawks were still up there. I had thought they were hunting, but maybe they were just enjoying the air. I had thought they were looking for prey, but maybe they were looking at each other instead, and finding joy in each other's company there above the earth. Love hawks.

Relationships are often different than they appear at first glance.

I decided that the killer was someone connected both to Joe and to Dersh. Joe was connected to Dersh the same way Frank was connected to Dersh: Through Karen. Maybe the killer was connected to Joe through Karen, also.

I went inside, dug around for Samantha Dolan's home number, and called her.

She said, “Hey, it's the World's Greatest Everything. Callin' little ol' me.”

She sounded drunk.

“Are you okay, Dolan?”

“Jesus. Would you call me Samantha?”

“Samantha.”

“This has got to be about your buddy, right? I mean, you're not just calling to flirt?”

“It's Joe.”

“I'm out of that, remember? I'm off the Task Force, I don't know what Krantz is doing, and I don't care. Hey, from what I heard, Pike sounds good for it.”

“I know that Branford has a case against him, but I'm telling you that Pike didn't do this.”

“Oh, puh-lease. You weren't there, were you? You didn't see it.”

“I know him, is all. Pike wouldn't go into Dersh's house in the middle of the night and shoot him like that. It isn't Pike's style.”

“What style murder would he use, you know him so well?”

“The kind that can't be seen. Pike could do it and you would never know and would never even think that it might be him. They would disappear, one day here, the next day gone, and you'd be left wondering what happened, Dolan. That's the way Pike would do it, and, believe me, you would never find the body. Pike is the most dangerous man I know, and I've known more than a few. He is without peer.”

Dolan didn't say anything.

“Dolan? You still there?”

“Something tells me you could be pretty dangerous, too.”

I didn't answer. Let her think what she wanted.

Dolan sighed. “Okay, World's Greatest. What do you want?”

“Whoever killed Dersh might be connected to Joe through Karen Garcia, and that goes back to the days Joe rode a black-and-white. Joe's partner was a guy named Abel Wozniak.”

“Sure. The cop Pike killed.”

“You don't have to say it like that, Dolan.”

“There's only one way to say it.”

“I want to find out who was around back then who might hate Pike enough to kill Dersh and frame Pike for it. I'm going to need files and records, and I can't get them without help.”

She didn't answer again.

“Dolan?”

“You got a fucking set on you, you know that? The trouble

I'm in.” She hung up. I called her back, but she had the phone off the hook. Busy.

I called every five minutes for the next half hour. Busy.

“Shit.”

Twenty minutes later I was sitting at the dining-room table and thinking about calling Dolan again when Lucy let herself in. She took off her suit coat and shoes, and went to the fridge without looking at me.

I said, “I guess you heard about Joe.”

“I followed the story at work. We had people at the arraignment.”

“Uh-huh.”

She hadn't come out to give me a kiss, and she hadn't yet looked at me.

“Can I get you something to eat?”

She shook her head.

“Want a glass of wine?”

“Maybe in a minute.”

She was staring into the box.

“What's wrong?”

She stopped staring and closed the door.

“I never knew these things about Joe.”

The day's tension crept back into my shoulders with a dense tightness.

“I saw a tape of Branford arguing against bail. He talked about all the shootings Joe's been involved in, and the men he's killed.”

The tension turned into a stabbing ache.

“I thought of Joe as this strong, quiet man who was your friend, but now it feels like I never knew him. I don't like knowing these things. I don't like knowing a man who would do things like this.”

“You know he treats you well and with respect. You know he's good with Ben, and that he's my best friend.”

Something confused and fearful worked in her eyes. “Branford said that he's killed fourteen men, for God's sake.”

I shrugged. “If you can make it in L.A., you can make it anywhere.”

“This isn't funny to me.”

I tried to do something with the ache but there was nothing to be done. I wanted to call Dolan again, but I didn't. “The men he's killed were trying to kill him, or me, or someone that Joe wanted to protect. He is not a hit man. He has never committed murder for hire, or killed someone simply to kill them. If he's killed, it's because he's put himself in situations that have required it. Just as I have. Maybe there's something wrong with both of us. Is that what you're getting at?”

Lucy came to the door but did not cross through. “No, that isn't what I'm saying. There's just so much to assimilate here. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be like this.” She put on a smile, but it was strained. “I haven't seen you all day and I miss you, and all of this about Joe made me miss you more. I just don't know what to think. I read the documents that Branford submitted to the court, and what was there scared me.”

“They were supposed to scare you, Lucy. That's why Branford used them to argue against bail. You know that.”

I wanted more than anything else to get up and go to her but I couldn't. I thought she might want me to, or that she wanted to come to me, but something was stopping her, too.

“Elvis?”

“What?”

“Did Joe kill that man?”

“No.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes. Yes, I'm sure.”

She nodded, but then her voice came small and from far away.

“I don't think I am. I think that he could've. Maybe I even think that he did.”

We stood without speaking for a time, and then I went into the living room and put on the radio. I did not return to the kitchen.

I sat on the couch, staring out at the darkening sky, and realized that where Joe Pike sat this night, he could only see walls.

I wondered what the killer could see.

Number six

The hot breeze carries the stink of the public rest room to where the killer hides in a stand of red oleander. MacArthur Park is quiet this time of night, a perfect time for hunting.

The killer is flush with excitement at how well things are going. The Task Force still has not connected the five homicides, Hollywood Division detectives have begun turning evidence in Edward Deege's murder, and killing Dersh has proven to be inspired.

Joe Pike is in jail, and will stay there for the rest of his life, until some rat-house lifer pushes a shank between his ribs.

And won't that be fitting.

The killer smiles, just thinking about it. The killer doesn't smile often, learning that trait from Pike, from having studied Pike for so long now, Pike, whom he hates more than any other. But this is a special time, and there is plenty of hate to go around.

Pike, in perfect control.

Pike, in absolute command.

Pike, who took everything from him, and then gave him purpose.

Payback is a motherfucker.

The only possible fly in the ointment is this girl Trudy. The killer did what he could to protect himself from someone like her: He staked out Pike's home, making sure Pike was alone, waiting until the lights went out, then waiting longer still to be sure Pike was asleep before setting off to kill Dersh. The killer suspects that there is no Trudy, and that Pike is making it up, but he can't be sure, and thinks that he may have to find Trudy himself. He could run her name on the NCIC computers, and on VICAP through the FBI. And if someone beats him to her, well, he'll know as quickly as anyone. And deal with her then.