Robert Crais - Free Fall

I stayed down.

The guy standing guard by the Monte Carlo dove into the open passenger door, and the big Benelli came out over the top of him and cut loose, putting most of its pellets into the Volkswagen. Pike popped two fast shots at the Monte Carlo, and then the Monte Carlo roared to life and fishtailed its right rear into the Volkswagen and then into the side of the garage door and then it was gone.

I ran forward and pulled Bone Dee out of the VW. The driver was dead. Bone Dee screamed when I grabbed him and yelled that he’d been shot and I told him I didn’t give a damn. I pushed him down on the cement and made sure he wasn’t armed and then I went to James Edward Washington but James Edward Washington was dead. “Jesus Christ.”

Pike said, “You okay?”

I shook my head. I took a deep breath and let it out and then I began to shake.

Pike said, “We’re going to have company.” He put his Python down carefully, so as not to mar the finish. “You hear them?”

“Yes.”

I think Pike heard them before me, but maybe not. The sirens came in from both sides of the alley and then people were yelling and two cops I’d never seen before leapfrogged through the door. They were in street clothes and were carrying shotguns, and one took up a position in the doorway and the other rolled in and came up behind the Volkswagen’s left front fender, much as Pike had. They screamed POLICE when they made their advance and told us to put down our weapons. Habit. Our weapons were already down. I said, “Guy by the Volkswagen is wounded. The other three are dead.”

A third cop appeared in the opposite side of the door with another shotgun. “Keep your hands away from your body and get down on the ground. Do it now.” He had long hair tied back with a blue bandana.

Pike and I did what they said, but they came in hard anyway, like we knew they would, one of them going to Pike and one of them coming to me and the third going to Bone Dee. The one who went to Bone Dee was short. More cars pulled up outside, and you could hear the whoop-whoop of the paramedics on their way in.

The cop who came to me put his knee into my back and twisted my hands around behind me and fit me with cuffs. You get knees in your back twice at the same crime scene, and you know it’s not shaping up as a good day. I said, “My wallet’s on the floorboard of the Corvette. My name is Elvis Cole. I’m a private investigator. I’m one of the good guys.”

The cop with the bandana said, “Shut the fuck up.”

They cuffed Pike and they cuffed Bone Dee and then the short cop said, “I got the keys,” and went to my Corvette. The cop with the bandana went with him. They moved with clarity and purpose.

The other cop picked up my wallet and looked through it. He said, “Hey, the sonofabitch wasn’t lying. He’s got an investigator’s license.”

The cop with the bandana said, “Not for long.”

A couple of bluesuits came in and said, “Everything cool?”

The cop with the bandana said, “We’ll see.”

The short cop fumbled with the keys, then opened the trunk and made one of the world’s widest grins. You’d think he’d won Lotto. “Bingo. Just where they said.” He reached into the trunk and pulled out a baggie of crack cocaine worth about eight thousand dollars and tossed it to the cop with the bandana. What Bone Dee and the guy with the carbine had been doing behind me.

I looked at Joe Pike and Pike’s mouth twitched.

I said, “It isn’t mine.” I pointed at Bone Dee. “It’s his.”

The cop with the bandana said, “Sure. That’s what they all say.” Then he took out a little white card, told us we were under arrest, and read us our rights.

After that he brought us to jail.

The cop with the bandana was named Micelli. He put Pike into a gray sedan and me into a black-and-white, and then they drove us to the Seventy-seventh. Micelli rode in the sedan.

The Seventy-seventh Division is a one-story red brick building just off Broadway with diagonal curbside parking out front and a ten-foot chain-link fence around the sides and back. The officers who work the Doubleseven park their personal cars inside the fence and hope for the best. Concertina wire runs along the top of the fence to keep out the bad guys, but you leave personal items in your car at your own risk. Your car sort of sits there at your own risk, too. The bad guys have been known to steal the patrol cars.

We turned through a wide chain-link gate and rolled around the back side of the building past the maintenance garage and about two dozen parked black-and-whites and up to an entry they have for uniformed officers and prospective felons. Micelli got out first and spoke with a couple of uniformed cops, then disappeared into the building. The uniforms brought us inside past the evidence lockers and went through our pockets and took our wallets and our watches and our personal belongings. They did me first, calling off the items to an overweight property sergeant who noted every item on a large manila envelope, and then they did Pike. When they did Pike, they pulled off the hip holster for his .357, the ankle holster for his .380, an eight-inch Buck hunting knife, four speed-loaders for the .357, and two extra .380 magazines. The overweight sergeant said, “Jesus Christ, you expecting a goddamned war?”

The uniform who did Pike grinned. “Look who it is.”

The sergeant opened Pike’s wallet, then blinked at Pike. “Jesus Christ. You’re him.”

The uniformed cop took off Pike’s sunglasses and handed them to the sergeant. Pike squinted at the suddenly bright light, and I saw for the first time in months how Pike’s eyes were a deep liquid blue. My friend Ellen Lang says that there is a lot of hurt in the blue, but I have never been able to see it. Maybe he just hides it better with me. Maybe she sees his eyes more often than I.

Micelli came back as they were finishing and I said, “Play this one smart, Micelli. There’s a detective sergeant in North Hollywood named Poitras who’ll vouch for us, and an assistant DA named Morris who’ll back Poitras up. Give’m a call and let’s get this straight.”

Micelli signed the property forms. “You got connections, that what you telling me?”

“I’m telling you these guys know us, and they’ll know we’ve been set up.”

Micelli grinned at the property sergeant. “You ever hear that before, Sarge? You ever hear a guy we’re bringing in say he was set up?”

The sergeant shook his head. “No way. I’ve never heard that before.”

I said, “For Christ’s sake, Micelli, check me out. It’s a goddamned phone call.”

Micelli finished signing the forms and glanced over at me. “Listen up, pogue. I don’t care if you’ve been hamboning the goddamned mayor. You’re mine until I say otherwise.” He gave the clipboard to the property sergeant, and then he told the uniforms to bring us to interrogation. He walked away.

Pike said, “Cops.”

The uniforms brought us through a heavy metal door and into a long sterile hall that held all the charm of a urinal in a men’s room. There were little rooms on either side of the hall, and they put Pike into the first room and me into the second. The rooms sported the latest in interrogation-room technology with pus-yellow walls and water-stained acoustical ceilings and heavy-duty soundproofing so passing liberals couldn’t hear the rubber hoses being worked. There was a small hardwood table in the center of the floor with a single straight-backed metal chair on either side of it. Someone had used a broken pencil to cut a message into the wall. In interrogation, no one can hear you scream. Cop, probably. Detainees weren’t allowed pencils.