Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

I looked at Frank, then at Abbot Montoya. I looked at the license again.

“But I'm a convicted felon. It's a state law.”

A fierce pride flashed in Abbot Montoya's eyes then, and I could see the strength and the muscle and the power that had been used to get these things. And I thought that maybe he was right, maybe he and Frank weren't so far from the White Fence gang-bangers they'd been as younger men.

He said, “Temos tu corazon y tu el de nosotros. Para siempre.”

Frank gripped my arm, the same fierce way he had gripped me before. “Do you know what that means, my friend?”

I couldn't answer. All I could do was shake my head.

“It means we love you.”

I nodded.

“That pretty woman, she loves you, too.”

I cried, then, and couldn't stop, not for what I had, but for what I didn't.

Two days later I was hanging a framed copy of the new license in my office when the phone rang. My first thought was that it was John Chen or Stan Watts, but it was neither.

One of the guys who worked in Joe's gun shop said, “You know who I am?”

My heart rate spiked. Just like that, and a cold sweat filmed my chest and back.

“Is this about Joe?”

“You ever been to the old missile control base above Encino? The one they turned into a park? You'll like the view.”

“Is Joe okay? Did you hear from him?”

“No way. Joe's probably dead. I just thought we might get together up at the park, maybe raise one for an old friend.”

“Sure. We could do that.”

“I'll give ya a call sometime. Bring a six-pack.”

“Anytime you want.”

“Sooner the better.”

He hung up.

I locked the office, and drove hard west through the city, and up to Mulholland.

It was a beautiful, clear Friday morning. The rush hour had passed, letting me make good time, but I would've made the time even if the streets had been crushed. It had to be Joe, or word of him, and I drove without thinking or feeling, maybe because I was scared the word would be bad. Sometimes, denial is all you have.

The government had built a missile control base high in the Santa Monica Mountains during the Cold War years. Then it was a top secret radar installation on the lookout for Soviet bombers coming to nuke Los Angeles. Now it was a beautiful little park that almost no one knew about except mountain bikers and hikers, and they only went on weekends.

When I reached the park, a Garcia tortilla company truck was parked off the road. I left my car behind it, hurried into the park, and made my way up the caged metal stairs to the top of the tower. The observation tower had once been a giant radar dome, and from it you could see south to the ocean and north across the San Fernando Valley.

Joe Pike was waiting on the platform.

He stiffened even though I didn't hug him hard. He was pale, and thinner than I'd ever seen him, though the white Garcia bakery shirt made him seem dark.

I said, “Took you long enough to call, goddamnit. Can you spell ‘worry’?”

“I was down in Mexico, getting better.”

“You got to a hospital?”

Pike's mouth twitched. “Not quite. How's the arm?”

“Stiff, but it's okay. I'm more concerned about you. You need anything?”

“I need to find Trudy.”

“I've been looking.” I told him what Watts had reported, and what my own searches had confirmed. Nothing on a black minivan or Trudy or Matt existed anywhere in the system. I also told him that I had no leads.

Pike took that in, and went to the rail. “The police are on my house and the gun shop. They've frozen my accounts, and flagged my credit cards. They've been to see Paulette.”

“Maybe you should go south again. Sooner or later I'll get a hit that we can work with.”

Pike shook his head. “I won't go south to hide, Elvis. I'm going to live it out here, one way or the other.”

“I'm not saying go south to hide. Go to stay free. Coming up here is too big a risk.”

“I'm willing to risk it.”

“And go back to jail?”

Pike's mouth flickered in an awful way. “I'll never go to jail again.”

Then he looked past me, and straightened in a way that made my scalp prickle. “They're on us.”

A flat blue detective sedan and an LAPD radio car slid to a stop by the Garcia van. A second radio car barreled in from the opposite direction, stopping in the center of the road. We didn't wait to see who they were or what they were planning.

Pike went low fast, and snaked down the twisting metal stair toward the ground. I was right behind him. We couldn't see the stair from the platform, or the ground from the stair, but if we could get away from the observation tower, the park opened onto miles of undeveloped mountains that stretched south to Sunset Boulevard and west to the sea. If Pike could get into the sage, there was no way the police could follow him without dogs or helicopters.

As we banged down the stairs, I said, “There's a trail works south through the mountains to a subdivision above the Sunset Strip.”

“I know it.”

“If you follow the trail down, I can pick you up there later.”

It was planning done for nothing.

When we reached the bottom of the stair, Harvey Krantz and two SWAT cops with M16s were waiting.

The SWAT cops covered Joe Pike like he was a coiled cobra. They spread to the sides for crossing fire, their black rifles zeroed on Pike's chest even from ten feet away. Behind them, a cop shouted our location to the people on the road.

Krantz wasn't holding a gun, but his eyes were on Pike as if he were a down-range target. I expected him to start with our rights, or tell us we were under arrest, or maybe even gloat, but he didn't.

Krantz said, “Go for it, Pike. Shoot it out, and you might get away.”

The SWAT cops shifted.

Pike stood with his weight on the balls of his feet, hands away from his body, as relaxed as if he were in a Zen rock garden. He would have a gun somewhere, and he would be wondering if he could get to it, and fire before the SWAT cops cut loose. Even wounded and weak, he would be thinking that. Or maybe he wasn't thinking anything at all; maybe he would just act.

Krantz took a step forward, and spread his hands. “I don't have a gun, Pike. Maybe you'll get me.”

I looked from Krantz to Joe, and knew in that moment that something more than an arrest was happening. The SWAT cops traded an uncertain glance, but didn't lower their guns.

“What's wrong with you, Krantz?” I put up my hands. “Raise your hands, Joe. Goddamnit, raise them !”

Pike didn't move.

Krantz smiled, but it was strained and ugly. He took another step. “Time's running out, Joe. More officers are on the way.”

“Raise your hands, damnit! If you don't, then Krantz wins !”

Pike took a single breath, then looked past Krantz to the SWAT cops, talking to them now. “My hands are going up.”

He raised them.

“Gun in my waistband under my shirt.”

Krantz didn't move.

One of the SWAT cops said, “Krantz, get his damned gun.”

Krantz took out his own gun.

Stan Watts trotted up the path, breathing hard, and stopped when he saw us.

The SWAT cops said, “Hey, Watts, get this bastard's gun.”

Stan Watts took Pike's gun, then took mine, and he stared at Krantz, standing there with his gun at his side. “What in hell's going on, Krantz? Didn't you tell them?”

Krantz's jaw rippled as if he were chewing hard candy, and still his eyes didn't leave Pike. “I wanted Pike to spook. I was hoping he'd give us the excuse.”

I said, “Take his gun, Stan. Please take his gun.”

Watts stared at Krantz, then the gun Krantz held. Krantz's fingers worked at the gun like they had a life of their own. They kneaded and gripped the gun, and maybe wanted to raise it. Stan Watts went over and pried the gun away, and then pushed Krantz back hard.