Robert Crais - Free Fall

James Edward said, “Hell, Ray.”

The strawberry-haired woman came out of the dressing room, showered and changed, and gave Ray a ten-megawatt smile as she bounced out of the gym and into the sunshine. I said, “Pretty.”

Ray said, “Uh-huh.”

An older woman pushed her head out of a little glass cubicle that served as an office at the rear of the gym. She called, “Ray, it’s somebody from Twentieth Century-Fox. They say it’s some kind of emergency and they need you to come over and show Bruce Willis how to do something for a movie they’re making.”

James Edward grinned. “Bruce Willis. Damn.”

Ray didn’t look as thrilled with Bruce Willis as did James Edward. “Now?”

“They said right away.”

James Edward said, “These studio dudes hire Ray to set up fight scenes and teach his moves to their actors. Arnold been here, man. Sly Stallone useta come here.”

Ray shook his head. “I can do it tonight, but I can’t do it now. I’ve got a class coming in, now.”

The woman said, “They said right away”

Ray shook his head. “Movie people.” He called back to her. “Tell’m I gotta pass.”

James Edward Washington gave impressed. “Is this fuckin’ righteous or what? Tellin’ Bruce Willis to pass.”

The older woman went back into the glass cubicle.

Ray said, “Jesus Christ, James Edward. It ain’t no big thing.” Ray Depente looked my way and gave embarrassed. “These kids think this movie stuff is a big deal. They don’t know. A client’s a client.”

“Sure.”

“I’ve got a class.”

“Sure.”

A dozen little girls came in, shepherded by a tall erect black woman in a neat dress suit. Most of the little girls were black, but a couple were Hispanic. They all wore clean white karate gies and tennis shoes. They took off their shoes before they stepped onto the mat. Ray uncrossed his arms and smiled. “Here they are, now.”

James Edward Washington laughed and said, “Damn.”

Ray Depente squeezed James Edward’s shoulder again, then told me that it had been a pleasure to meet me, and that if he learned something he would give James Edward a call. Then he turned away and walked out onto the mat to face his class.

The little girls formed a neat line as if they had done it a thousand times before and bowed toward Ray Depente and shouted kun hey with perfect Korean inflection. Ray said something so quietly that I could not hear, and then he bowed to them.

Ray Depente gets five hundred dollars an hour from movie stars, but some things are more important.

James Edward Washington wanted to chill with Ray for a while, so he stayed, and I walked out to my car, making a big deal out of taking off my jacket so that I could look up and down the street and across the intersections. Joe Pike drives an immaculate red Jeep Cherokee, and I was hoping to spot him or the blue sedan, but I saw neither. Of course, maybe they weren’t there. Maybe the blue sedan hadn’t really been following me and I was making a big deal with the jacket for nothing. Elvis Cole, Existential Detective. On the other hand, maybe the guys in the blue sedan were better than me and I wasn’t good enough to spot them.

Not.

I climbed the ramp to the I-10 freeway and went west, changing lanes to avoid slower traffic and speeding up when the traffic allowed and trying to play it normal. Just another Angeleno in the system. It paid off. A quarter mile past the La Brea exit I spotted the blue sedan hiding on the far side of a Ryder moving van, two lanes over. The guy with the Dodgers cap was still driving and the guy with the butch cut was still riding shotgun.

I took the La Cienega exit and went north, timing the lights to get a better view, but always just missing. They were good. Always three or four cars back, always with plenty of separation, and they didn’t seem worried that they’d lose me. That meant they knew they could always pick me up again, or that they were working with a second car. Cops always use a second car.

La Cienega is four lanes, but Caltrans was at it again, and as La Cienega approached Pico, the two northbound lanes became one. There’s a 20/20 Video in a large shopping center on the northeast corner, and the closer I got to the 20/20, the slower I drove. By the time I cleared the work in the intersection, a guy behind me in a Toyota 4?4 had had enough and roared past, giving me the finger. I stayed in the right lane as I crossed Pico, and the remaining two cars behind me turned. Then there was just me and the blue sedan. The driver swung right, making the turn with the two other cars as if they had never intended anything else, and that’s when I picked up the slack car. Floyd Riggens was driving his dark brown sedan two cars back, sitting in traffic behind a couple of guys on mopeds. My, my.

I stayed north on La Cienega and three blocks later the blue sedan sat at a side street ahead of me, waiting. As soon as they made the turn onto Pico they must’ve punched it like an F-16 going into afterburner, then swung north on a parallel side street to come in ahead of me. Floyd would’ve radioed that he still had me in sight, and that we were proceeding northbound, and that’s how they’d know where to wait. Floyd hung back, and after I passed, the blue sedan pulled in behind me again. Right where I wanted them.

I turned east on Beverly, then dropped down Fairfax past CBS Television City to the Farmer’s Market. The Market is a loose collection of buildings surrounded on all sides by parking lots used mostly by tour buses and people from Utah, come to gawk at CBS.

I turned into the north lot and made my way past the buses and about a million empty parking spots toward the east lot. Most of the traffic stays in the north lot, but if you want to get from the north lot to the east, you have to funnel through a cramped drive that runs between a couple of buildings where people sell papayas and framed pictures of Pat Sajak. It’s narrow and it’s cramped and it’s lousy when you’re here on a Saturday and the place is jammed with tourists, but it’s ideal for a private eye looking to spring an ambush.

When I was clear of the little drive, I pulled a quick reverse and backed my car behind a flower truck. A teenaged girl in a white Volkswagen Rabbit came through the gap after me, and, a few seconds later, the blue sedan followed. It came through at a creep, the guy in the passenger seat pointing to the south and the driver sitting high to see what he was pointing at. Whatever he saw he didn’t like it, because he made an angry gesture and looked away and that’s when they saw me. I jumped the Corvette into their path and got out of the car with my hands clear so they could see I had no gun. The kid with the butch bounced out and started yelling into a handi-talkie and the Hispanic guy was running toward me with his badge in one hand and a Browning 9 mm in the other. Floyd Riggens was roaring toward us from the far end of the lot. Thurman wasn’t with him. Thurman wasn’t anywhere around.

The Hispanic guy yelled, “Get your hands up. Out and away from your body.” When the guns come out there’s always a lot of yelling.

The guy with the butch ran over and patted me down with his free hand. I made him for Pinkworth. The other guy for Garcia. While Pinkworth did the shakedown, some of the people from the tour buses began to gather on the walk and look at us. Most of the men were in Bermuda shorts and most of the women were in summer-weight pant suits and just about everyone held a camera. Tourists. They stood in a little group as they watched, and a fat kid with glasses and a DES MOINES sweatshirt said, “Hey, neat.” Maybe they thought we were the CBS version of the Universal stunt show.