Robert Crais - Sunset Express

I stepped past Rossi and slapped LeCedrick's feet from the table. He said, 'Hey!'

I said, 'We've got to get past that right now, LeCedrick.' He tried to get up but I dug my thumb under his jawline beneath his right ear. He said, 'Ow!' and tried to wiggle away, but I stayed with him.

Rossi pulled at me from behind. 'Stop it. We can't do that.'

I didn't stop it. I said, 'You didn't call the hotline about this, they called you. That's the way it started, isn't it?'

He grabbed at my hand, but he couldn't pry it away.

Rossi said, 'Stop it, dammit. That's over the line.'

'Kerris and Truly came to see you and convinced you to speak with your mother, didn't they?'

He was finally listening.

'What did they say, LeCedrick? You hadn't spoken to the woman in years, but you called her and convinced her to change her story. They offer you money? They say they could get you an early release?'

He stopped trying to pull at my hand, and I relaxed the pressure. Rossi said, 'Jesus Christ, they could arrest us for this.'

I said, 'Think about it, LeCedrick. Jonathan and Truly and all those guys went to see her and probably told her what to say and how to say it, and that means she could testify against them.'

Now he was squinting at me, hearing the truth of it, even though it was masked by his suspicions.

'I uncovered a connection between Lester and Green, and two days later Lester went through his shower door and damn near cut off his head. You see that in the papers?'

He nodded.

'The day after that I went to your mother's house to ask why she changed her story, and she was missing. You know Mrs Harris next door? Mrs Harris told me that Kerris had cruised your mother's house three times, that he'd walked around the place and tried to get in.'

He said, 'Mrs Harris?'

'At six this morning Kerris and two other guys went back to her house and turned the place upside down. Why would they do that, LeCedrick?'

Now he was shaking his head. 'This all bullshit.'

'Would Mrs Eleanor Harris bullshit you? You grew up next door to her. Would she bullshit you?'

He made a little headshake. One so tiny that it was hard to see. 'Lady 'bout raised me. Like a second mama.'

Rossi pushed the buzzer, and when the guard came she asked if we could have a phone. He said no problem, brought one, and when he was gone again I turned it toward LeCedrick Earle and said, 'Call her. I've got the number, if you need it.'

He stared at the phone.

'We have to find your mother, LeCedrick. If we don't find her before Kerris, he'll kill her. Do you see?'

He wet his lips.

Rossi said, 'Goddammit, you piece of shit, call the woman.'

LeCedrick Earle snatched up the phone and punched the number without asking for it, and spoke with Mrs Eleanor Harris. When she answered his manner changed, and he hunched over the phone and spoke in a voice that was surprisingly young and considerate. I guess the lessons we learn when we're small stay with us, even as we harden with the years. They spoke for several minutes, and then LeCedrick Earle put down the phone and kept his eyes on it, as if the phone had taken on an importance that dwarfed everything else in the room. He crossed his arms and started rocking. He said, 'Why they do that? Why they go there so early?'

Rossi said, 'They want to kill her. And after they kill her, they will almost certainly arrange to have you killed, and then no one can implicate them in the manufacture of false evidence. Do you see that?'

He didn't say anything.

I said, 'She left the house with a bag. She has a gentleman friend named Mr Lawrence.'

LeCedrick Earle nodded dumbly. 'That old man been chasin' her for years.'

'Would she go there?'

'Sure, she'd go there. She ain't got nobody else.'

I felt something loosen in my chest. I felt like I could breathe again. 'Okay, LeCedrick. That's great. Just great. Do you know where he lives?'

LeCedrick Earle slumped back in the chair with an emptiness that made him seem lost and forever alone. His eyes filled with tears, and the tears spilled down across his cheeks and dripped on his shirt. He said, 'I can't believe this shit. I just can't believe it.'

Rossi said, 'What?'

He rubbed at the tears, then blew his nose. 'I must be the stupidest muthuhfuckuh ever been born. That woman ain't never done nuthin' but what she try to do right, and this what she gets for it. A fool for a son. A goddamned stupid fool.' He was sobbing.

Rossi said, 'Goddammit, LeCedrick, what?'

LeCedrick Earle blinked through the tears at us. 'Your man Kerris called me 'bout an hour ago and asked about old Mr Lawrence, too. He say they need to get her story straight. He say they want her to do a news conference, and I told him where she was. I told him how to get there and now they gonna kill my momma. Ain't I a fool? Ain't I God's own stupid muthuhfuckin' fool?'

I was pressing the buzzer even before he was finished, and Angela Rossi was shaking him until he told us the address, and then we were running out to the Jeep. It was almost certain that Louise Earle was dead, but neither of us was yet willing to give up on her. Maybe we were God's own fools, too.

Pike pushed the Jeep hard out of the parking lot and through the gate and across the land bridge. Angela Rossi used her cell phone to call Tomsic as we were climbing back onto the freeway. She told him about Kerris, and that Louise Earle was probably staying with a Mr Walter Lawrence in Baldwin Hills. They spoke for about six minutes, and then Rossi turned off her phone. 'He's on the way.'

I said, 'You sure you want to go to the scene?'

'Of course.'

Pike glanced at her in the rearview. 'It gets back to the brass that you're involved, it's over for you.'

Rossi took her Browning from under the seat and clipped it onto her waistband. 'I'm going.'

We scorched up the Harbor Freeway to the San Diego, the speedometer pegged at a hundred ten, Pike gliding the Jeep between and around traffic that seemed frozen in space. We drove as much on the shoulder as the main road, and several times Pike stood on the brakes, bringing us to screaming, sliding stops before he would once more stomp the accelerator to rocket around lane-changers or people merging off an entrance ramp. I said, 'We can't help anybody if we're piled up on the side of the road.'

Pike went faster.

Hawthorne slipped past, then Inglewood, and then we were off the freeway and climbing through the southern edge of Baldwin Hills along clean, wide residential streets lined with spacious postwar houses. Baldwin Hills is at the southwestern edge of South Central Los Angeles, where it was developed in the late forties as a homesite for the affluent African-American doctors and dentists and lawyers who served the South-Central community. At one time it was called the black Beverly Hills, though in recent years the community has diversified with upwardly mobile Hispanic, Asian, and Anglo families. Rossi's phone beeped, and she answered, mumbling for maybe ten seconds before ending the call. 'Dan just got off the freeway. They're three minutes behind us, and he's got a black-and-white behind him.'

We used Pike's Thomas Brothers map to find our way through the streets, watching for turns and scoping the area. Mothers were pushing strollers and children were playing with dogs and everyone was enjoying a fine summer day. I said, 'We're almost there.'

We were two blocks from Walter Lawrence's home when a tan Aerostar van passed us going fast in the opposite direction and Pike said, 'That's Kerris. Three others on board.'

Rossi and I twisted around, trying to see. 'Louise Earle's in the back. Looks like Lawrence and someone else, too.' Louise Earle looked scared.