April Smith: North of Montana

“Go with God.”

• • •

Three hours later I am in a stuffy interrogation room at the Metropolitan Detention Center with my guy, whose name is Dennis Hill. I had interviewed him when I gave him his rights and had him sign the FD395 form, but he had refused to talk. He’s wearing orange overalls with MDC on the back and looks just as sullen as he did yesterday, when I busted him — a jowly unshaven face and unkempt gray hair matting and merging with curls growing up the back of the neck.

“You’re a pretty good bank robber, Dennis.”

His eyes watch me. I see intelligence there.

“This is not your first job. You’ve just never been caught before. Am I right?”

He doesn’t answer.

“That makes you pretty good. Not great. But good.”

I show him the two surveillance photos, one from his most recent work, the other stretching back into history.

“We pulled down these photos. That’s you. Both times.”

He looks at the photos and back at me with heavy eyes.

“It’s okay, Dennis. You don’t have to say anything. We’ve got you on two.”

I slip the photos back into the envelope.

“You’ve got me on dick.”

His first words. How charming.

“Is that so?”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

He puts both hands on the table and pushes his chair back. I tense involuntarily, even though there is a six-foot-four cop standing at the door.

Dennis runs a hand through his greasy hair.

“You know where I used to live?”

“Paris.”

“Palos Verdes. In a house that was worth at the time … maybe half a million dollars.”

“You must be a better robber than I thought.”

He shakes his head. “I was an executive sales director at Hughes Aero-Space. Made two hundred thousand dollars a year.”

He is quiet, as if waiting for me to put the pieces together. I remember my first impression when I confronted him in his car in the parking lot. He didn’t resist. He seemed edgy … down … on the down side of a high.

“Who got you into the powder?” I ask gently.

“Nobody but myself. High roller. Big deal with women. Nice car. Liked the ponies. Big shit, you know?”

I nod. “You got in over your head. Started selling your assets to pay for the habit. And when you lost it all you got desperate and robbed a bank. It was easy. So you did it again.”

A tremble goes through him. “I’ve got a son. He came to see me this morning. He still loves me.”

He bites a corner off the nail on his thumb.

“You’re a smart, educated guy, Dennis. Why didn’t you go for help?”

“Because I happen to love cocaine.”

We sit in silence for a while. He loves cocaine. I have never heard it said more clearly or more completely without apology. He loves cocaine more than he loves his own son.

I believe I can smell the sweat on him and the sweat on the cop and the rancid layers of sweat on the grimy tile walls of a thousand other murderers, pederasts, rapists, junkies, movie stars, and thieves who will tell you with the same unself-conscious certainty that they did it, whatever it was, because they were in love. And being in love absolves them and makes them innocent.

I stand up. “Let’s get a stenographer in here and get your statement.”

“Statement on what?”

“The other robbery.”

Of course he hasn’t actually admitted to the Culver City job. I’m angling. I’m hoping.

“I didn’t do another robbery.”

I wait it out a moment, thinking, I’m getting somewhere with this guy. We have a rapport. I’ll come back—

Then he says, “I did six.”

• • •

Donnato treats me to lunch the next day at Bora-Bora, a collegiate hangout where the waitresses wear skimpy little shorts and Hawaiian shirts and everything is served in plastic baskets and it is so noisy we can hardly hear each other.

“This is the one that’s going to do it for you,” he says. “Get you above the crowd.”

“I’ll miss you, Donnato.”

He shrugs and takes a bite of a chicken burrito. “You’ve got to move on. I told you: seven years. That’s the time most agents light their blue flame.”

“You think the Kidnapping and Extortion Squad is the right move?”

I have asked him this before but for some reason I want to prolong the moment.

‘I told you: less pressure. More involved cases. You can take some in-service courses, and the supervisor is a nice guy.”

I reach over and smooth some tortilla flakes from his beard.

“What are you going to do without me?”

“Drive some other split-tail crazy with lust.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Ana, I can read you like a book.”

“You are so full of it,” I tell him. “You are the most married man I know.”

“Luckily for you.”

I am dying for a beer but when the waitress comes I order another iced tea.

“Look at you,” I tell my partner. “Can’t take your eyes off her Lycra bicycle shorts.”

“Is that what they’re made of? I thought it was the foreskin of a whale.”

Giggling, “So don’t pretend I’m anything special to you. Just because I’m leaving you forever.”

Suddenly Donnato seems to tire of our little flirtation. He gets that way. He says being a street agent is a young person’s game, although he’s got the tight, honed body of a thirty-year-old. But he has three kids and his heart lies with them. Somewhere along the line being an involved father gained an edge over being an agent, although he still performs both roles with a dedication and intensity most people barely muster for one. You can see the exhaustion come over him like a shade.

“Ana, you’re a terrific agent. I’m really proud of you.”

“Hey …” I am choking with awkwardness, but it has to be said: “You taught me everything I know. I guess this is the time to thank you for it.”

We both look away, embarrassed, catch CNN going on the television set above the bar, and stare at it until the bill arrives; he pays it, and we leave. Back at the office I get the forms from Rosalind and spend the rest of the afternoon composing an eloquent statement on why I should be transferred to C-1, Kidnapping and Extortion.

Just as I am about to leave for a 6:30 p.m. swim workout I get a call from LAPD Detective Sergeant Roth.

“Ana? It’s John.”

He waits. So do I.

Cautiously, “Where are you these days, John?”

“Wilshire Division, crash unit.”

Another silence. I listen to his tense breathing, not knowing what to say.

“You must be a busy boy.”

“I was thinking about you.”

“Only good thoughts, I hope.”

I’ve been standing with the strap of the swimming bag over my shoulder, poised to go, as far from the desk as possible, the curly cord of the telephone receiver stretched taut. They teach you in the academy that anxiety is the same physical response as the body’s flight-or-fight reflex: hearing John Roth’s voice again is producing the exact chemical reaction I would have, to use their example, if a man wearing a ski mask had stepped out of my shower stall.

“I’ve been working a homicide that took place about two weeks ago on Santa Monica Boulevard. A female Hispanic named Violeta Alvarado. No next of kin except for two minors, but a neighbor says the victim was related to an FBI agent named Ana Grey.” He adds, singsong: “It had to be you.”

Tense: “Must be.”

“So then this is a condolence call. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I didn’t even know the deceased.”

I give in to the pull of the telephone. The cord slackens as I sit back down and allow the bag to slump to the floor.

“This is too weird, John. That you would get this case.”