Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

“Go wait in the car.”

“I'm your superior officer!”

Watts told the SWAT cops they were done, then told us to put our hands down. He wet his lips like his mouth was dry. “You're not under arrest. Branford's dropping the charges. You hear that, Pike? Branford's with your attorney right now. SID put Sobek's vehicle at Dersh's house. That's enough to get you off the hook.”

I gripped Pike's arm, and held it. John Chen had come through.

Krantz pushed past Watts and jabbed his finger at Pike. It was exactly the same move he'd made at Lake Hollywood the first time I saw him. “I don't give a rat's ass what SID says, Pike; you're a murderer.”

Watts said, “Stop it, Harvey.”

Krantz jabbed again.

“You killed Wozniak, and I still believe you killed Dersh.”

Krantz jabbed again, and this time Pike grabbed his finger so quickly that Harvey Krantz did not see him move. Krantz shrieked as he dropped to the ground, screaming, “You're under arrest, goddamnit! That's assaulting an officer! You're under arrest.”

Pike and Watts and I stared at him there on the ground, red-faced and screaming, and then Watts helped him up, saying, “We're not going to arrest anyone, Harvey. Go back to the car and wait for me.”

Krantz shook him off, and walked away without another word.

I said, “Get him off the street, Watts. He came up here to murder Pike. He meant what he said.”

Watts pursed his lips, watching until Krantz was gone, then considered Pike. “You could make a complaint, I guess. There's grounds.”

Pike shook his head.

I said, “That's it? We're just going to forget what happened here?”

Watts put the frying pan face on me. “What happened, Cole? We came up to give you the word, we did.”

“How'd you know we were here?”

“We've been running taps twenty-four/seven on phones Pike's employees are known to use. The wire guys heard Pike's boy tell you about this place, and figured it out.”

Watts glanced back to the road where Harvey Krantz was waiting in their car, alone.

Watts handed back our guns, holding on to Pike's as Pike reached for it. “What Krantz said about hoping you'd give us an excuse, that's bullshit. He's just upset. I don't play it that way, and he wouldn't either. Bauman said you hadn't been in touch, so we figured if there was a shot at reaching you up here, we should take it.”

I said, “Sure, Watts.”

“Screw you, Cole. That's the way it is.”

“Sure.”

Watts followed after Krantz, and pretty soon the police mounted their cars, and left great brown clouds of dust as they drove away. I guess Harvey Krantz hated Pike so much he had to believe Pike was guilty no matter what. I guess that kind of hate can make you do things you ordinarily wouldn't do.

“Watts can say whatever he wants, but Krantz wanted it. You don't bring tactical officers to tell some guy he's off the hook. You don't even roll out. If Krantz didn't want it, he could've put the word through me and Charlie and the guys at your shop. You would've heard.”

Pike nodded without comment, and I wondered if he even gave a damn. Maybe it was better not to.

I said, “What are you going to do?”

“Call Paulette.”

“Does it bother you, what Krantz said about Wozniak? That you're still carrying the blame?”

Pike shrugged, and this time I knew he didn't give a damn.

“Let Krantz and everyone think what they want. What I think, and do, is more important.”

Pike took a deep breath then, and cocked the dark glasses my way.

“I missed you, Elvis.”

That made me smile.

“Yeah, Joseph, I missed you, too. It's good to have you back.”

We shook hands then, and I watched him walk down to the Garcia bakery truck and drive away. I stood in the hot wind for a time, telling myself that it was over, that Pike was home, and safe, but even as I told myself these things, it was without a sense that any of it was finished, or resolved.

We were different now. The world had changed.

I wondered if our lives would ever be the same, or as good, and if we were less than we had been.

The devils take their toll, even in this angel town.

Maybe here most of all.

I have lived in my house for many years, but it wasn't my house anymore. It wasn't the cozy A-frame that wrapped me in warm woods and copper sunset light, hanging there off the side of a mountain. It had become a great cavern that left me listening to echoes as I walked from room to room searching for something I could not find. Climbing to the loft took days. Going into the kitchen weeks. Funny, how the absence of a friend can do that. Funny, how it takes a woman three beats of a heart to walk out a door, but the man she's walking away from can't make that same trip in a lifetime.

Guess that's why you're smiling, Cole. It's so damned funny.

That night, I locked my door, and worked my way down the crooked mountain streets into Hollywood. It gets dark in the canyons first, shadows pooling in the deep cuts as the high ridges hide the sun. Here's a tip: If you leave the canyons you can find the light again, and get a second chance at the day. It doesn't last long, but nobody said second chances will wait for you.

The Sunset Strip was a carnival of middle-aged hipsters rat-racing Porsches, and goateed Val-dudes smoking twenty-dollar Cubano Robustos, and a couple of million young women with flat bellies flashing Rodeo Drive navel rings. I didn't see any of it. Shriners from Des Moines were lined up outside House of Blues like catalog models for JCPenney. Yellow-haired kids clumped outside Johnny Depp's Viper Room, laughing with LAPD motorcycle cops about the latest acid casualty. Didn't see it; didn't hear it. Twilight faded to full-on night, and the night grew later. I drove all the way to the water, then north through the steep mountain passes of Malibu, then back along the Ventura Freeway, just another mass of speeding metal. I felt edgy and unsettled, and thought that maybe if I drove long enough I might find a solution.

I love L.A.

It's a great, sprawling, spread-to-hell city that protects us by its sheer size. Four hundred sixty-five square miles. Eleven million beating hearts in Los Angeles County, documented and not. Eleven million. What are the odds? The girl raped beneath the Hollywood sign isn't your sister, the boy backstroking in a red pool isn't your son, the splatter patterns on the ATM machine are sourceless urban art. We're safe that way. When it happens it's going to happen to someone else. Only thing is, when she walks out of your door, it isn't someone else. It's you.

I let myself off the freeway at the top of the Santa Monica Mountains and turned east along Mulholland. It's quiet up there, and dark; a million miles from the city even though it lies in the city's heart. The dry air breezed over me like sheer silk, and the desert smells of eucalyptus and sage were strong. A black-tailed deer flashed through my headlights. Coyotes with ruby eyes watched me from the grass. I was tired, and thought I should go home because this was silly, all this aimless driving. Just go home and go to sleep and get on with my life. You can save the world tomorrow. Find all the answers you want tomorrow.

After a time I pulled off the road, cut the engine, and stared at the lights that filled the valley floor. Two million people down there. Put them end to end and they would wrap around the moon. Red taillights lit the freeways like blood pumping through sluggish arteries. An LAPD helicopter orbited over Sherman Oaks, spotlighting something on the ground. Another opera I didn't want to be part of.

I got out of my car and sat cross-legged on the hood. The barrel shape of an owl sat atop a power pole, watching me.

The owl said, “Who?”