Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

Wozniak muttered, “Fuckin'chicken looks like shit.”

“I mean it, Woz. I won't ride with this forever.”

Woz flicked at his cigarette. Nervous. “I got responsibilities.”

“That's why I'm giving you the choice.”

Wozniak leaned toward him so far that the chair tipped. “You think I like this? You think I want it to be this way? Man, I feel like I'm caught in a goddamned vise.”

Karen flashed a great brilliant smile at Joe, and Joe waved. Paulette smiled, and waved, too. They couldn't hear what the men were saying.

“I know it's a vise, Woz. I'm trying to help you with it.”

“Bullshit.”

“You don't have a choice.”

Wozniak watched the two women, then considered Joe. “Don't think I don't know how you feel about her.”

Pike stared at him.

Wozniak nodded. “I've seen you looking at Paulette. A great kid like Karen, and you're looking at my wife.”

Pike stood and looked down at his partner.

“You're going to resign, Woz. And it's going to be soon.”

“I'm warning you, you sonofabitch. If you don't back off, one of us is going to die.”

Paulette and Karen had gone to the grill and were frowning at the chicken. Paulette called, “Abel! I think this chicken is dead!”

Abel Wozniak stared at Joe for a moment longer, and then he stalked back to the grill.

Pike watched Abel and Paulette and Karen, but soon he saw only Paulette. It was as if everything else had grown more and more faint until only she remained.

He had not felt such emptiness since he was a child.

When I left Parker Center even more smokers were outside, watching the news vans arrive. From the number of cops on the sidewalk, there probably weren't many left inside, but you never know. Samantha Dolan wasn't among them, and neither was Stan Watts. Half the dicks on the walk were probably from IAG, and most of them weren't smoking. They were probably taking names of those who were.

I walked down to the covered level looking for Dolan's Beemer, found it, then walked back to the lobby pay phone, and called her. She answered on the second ring.

“Dolan.”

“It's me.”

“Listen, I'm busy right now. I don't want to talk.”

“I'm downstairs, and I want to talk to you. I need those files.”

She lowered her voice. “I'm feeling just a little bit humiliated right now, can you understand that? I don't usually … I don't do what I did this morning.”

“Yeah. I get that. I'm feeling pretty awkward myself.”

“You weren't the one rejected.”

“I'm with somebody else, Samantha. I told you that.” I felt defensive, like I had to justify myself.

“The little woman.”

“Don't call her that. Lucy's tough, too, and she might kick your ass.”

Dolan didn't say anything.

“That was a joke, Dolan.”

“I know. I didn't say anything because I'm smiling.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe I'll call her out and see who's left standing.”

“Did you find out about the files I wanted?”

“It's really hard to talk right now. You know about this new vic?”

“I was with Pike when Krantz and Branford came down. Will you come down to your car? I really need your help right now, but I don't want whatever it is you feel about me to get confused with that.”

When she answered, it was frosty and cool. “I think I can manage not to get confused. Five minutes.”

“Samantha.”

But she'd already hung up.

Dolan was standing at the mouth of the garage, watching the news vans. She wasn't smoking, but a crushed butt was by her toe. Guess I'd caught her between puffs. She also wasn't carrying the files.

She said, “They're going to go crazy with this.”

“Yeah. How are you doing?”

The cool eyes came to me. “You mean, has my ego survived your rejection, or am I grieving the loss of my self-esteem?”

“They don't come any tougher than you, do they?”

She turned back into the garage, and I followed her to the Beemer.

“Okay. Here's what I found out: Wozniak died so long ago that Rampart won't have his file anymore. They would've sent it down to the file morgue by Union Station.”

“None of this is on computer?”

“This is the LAPD, World's Greatest. We got shit for computers.”

I nodded.

“Internal Affairs has their own separate storage facility, with their own procedures for getting into their records. Forget it. But the file morgue is different. We've got a shot at that.”

“Okay.”

“I talked to a detective I know over at Rampart. He said it's pretty much the same story with DeVille. Since he died in prison, the Rampart sex crimes detectives who worked that case would've boxed the file and sent it to storage. We could order it from the district attorney's case file morgue, but we won't have to do that.”

“You got a way to get at the files in storage?”

“I'm there almost every damned day with running the due diligence, but we can't just go in and sign the stuff out. You see?”

“So what do we do?”

“Steal it. You up for that?”

“Yes.”

“Glad you're up for something.”

The Los Angeles Police Department storage facility is an ancient, red brick building in an industrial area just south of the railroad yard. The bricks looked powdery, and I thought that there was probably no way the building could pass an earthquake inspection if it wasn't owned by the LAPD. It was the kind of place that, while you're in it, you're spending most of your time hoping we don't get a big temblor.

Dolan parked the Beemer well away from the other cars that were there, then led me through a plain gray door and along a short hall.

I said, “Hot.”

“The frigging air must be out again. Listen, do us both a favor and don't say anything. I'll do all the talking.”

I didn't answer her.

“Well?”

“You said not to say anything.”

“Try not to act smart. You don't pull it off.”

An overweight civilian clerk named Sid Rogin was reading a magazine behind a low counter. He was in his sixties and balding, with thin, wispy hair, and a glass eye. He brightened when he saw Dolan and put down the magazine. He was also sweating, and had a little fan going. The fan was pathetic. He would've gotten more air from a chihuahua wagging its tail.

“Hey, Sammy, what it is? They still got you running down due diligence?” The middle-class white man does black.

Dolan gave him a sparkling grin. I would've guessed that if anyone called her Sammy she would gun them down on the spot. “Yeah, same old same old. We've got to run down a deceased officer and a perp he was working named Leonard DeVille, also deceased.”

Rogin turned a sign-in log toward her. “Names and badge numbers. What kind of time frame we talking here on the perp?”

She picked up his pen and glanced at me. “I've got it. No sweat.” She told Rogin when DeVille had died.

“You taking out the files?”

“Not if we're lucky. Just gotta look up some dates.” She flashed the bright smile again. “Figure my partner here could look up the officer while I get the perp, save everybody some time.”

“Okay. Step around behind.”

Dolan and I followed Rogin into a series of rooms lined with industrial shelving stacked with dusty cardboard boxes.

“What's the officer's name?”

“Stuart Vincent.” She spelled Vincent.

“Good enough. Officers on this floor. You and I will have to go up to the second for the perps.”

“No problemo.”

We followed Rogin along the aisles, me thinking that all the crummy cardboard boxes looked like little crypts.