Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

“It’s good to hear you, too, sir. I have a favor to ask.”

“What you call a favor, we call an expression of love. However we can help, it will never be enough.”

Frank Garcia had hired Pike and me to find the person who murdered his only child. We did, and they’ve been like this ever since.

“Do you know anything about a political management firm called Leverage Associates?”

“I know of them. They are a firm of long standing.”

“I need background information on them and their clients. One of their clients is an LAPD deputy chief named Thomas Marx. Another is Nobel Wilts.”

“Councilman Wilts?”

“Yes, sir. Is Councilman Maldenado a client of theirs?”

“He is not, but it would not matter if he were. Would you like to speak with him about these people?”

“Yes, sir. If he would.”

Mr. Montoya chuckled as if the thought of Maldenado refusing was laughable.

“He will be most happy to see you.”

“Sir, I can’t have Leverage learning of this. The people I ask about, they can’t know I’m asking.”

“ Para siempre. Trust me on this.”

I lowered the phone but remained in the gas station, thinking how easily I had found Angel Tomaso. Having Jack Eisley as a contact had helped, but a couple of phone calls and there he was. Almost as if Bastilla and Crimmens hadn’t been trying. Ivy Casik hadn’t been much more difficult, and now I wondered if Bastilla had bothered to follow up. She had ignored me when I asked.

I fought my way down through the Cahuenga Pass into Hollywood, then up again through the soft hills surrounding the Hollywood Bowl, where Ivy Casik lived. The low apartment building was just as quiet as when I met her, the neighboring apartments locked tight against the world. I rang her bell and knocked, the knocking loud in the silent courtyard.

“May I help you?”

A bald man shaped like a pear had stepped into the courtyard. He was wearing oversize shorts and a baggy undershirt and holding a cocktail glass. A small sign beside his door identified him as the manager.

“I’m here to see Ms. Casik.”

He shook the glass. The courtyard magnified the tinkling ice.

“She isn’t home. Your knocking is quite loud, you know. You don’t have to knock so loud.”

He tinkled the ice again.

“Sorry. I’ll leave a note.”

I took out a card and held it against the building to write a note asking Ivy to call.

The man said, “Is this about the police? They were loud, too.”

I stopped writing to look at him. When I looked, he tinkled the ice, then sipped his drink.

“Was that Detective Bastilla?”

“I don’t know her name.”

Her. I put my hand at Bastilla’s height.

“This tall. Forties. Latina.”

“That’s right. This morning.”

Another sip. Tinkle.

“You know if they spoke with her?”

“Ivy wasn’t home.”

He reached out his hand for the note.

“If you’d like, I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Thanks anyway. I’ll leave it in her box.”

I dropped the card in Ivy’s mailbox, then wound my way down out of the hills toward home. The drive home seemed long, maybe because there was so much to think about, and so little that made any sense.

I put the car in the carport, let myself into the kitchen, then drank a bottle of water. I had parked in the carport and opened the kitchen door and drank the same bottle of water ten thousand times. The cat wasn’t home, but I put out new food for him exactly as I had another ten thousand times. Ten thousand fresh bowls of water. The patterns were reassuring.

I stripped off my shoes and clothes in the kitchen, threw them into the laundry room, then went upstairs to shower, which is what I did every time I came home after being with a body. My patterns continued, but Angel Tomaso did not have the same luxury. His pattern was a single event that could not be washed away.

I did my best in the shower, then put on fresh clothes, went downstairs, and found Pike in the living room. He was holding the cat in his arms like someone cradling a baby. The cat’s eyes were closed. All four of his feet were straight up in the air as if he was drunk.

I said, “I’m going to cook. You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

I took two beers from the fridge, set them on the counter, then told him about Angel Tomaso.

“An anonymous caller tipped the police, and the cops arrived while I was with him.”

“Think they set you up?”

“They couldn’t know I would find him. They couldn’t know I was at his house.”

“Someone watching the body would know.”

I drank more of the beer, then went through the rest.

“They sweated me for a couple of hours, then Marx told me if I didn’t back off he would bring Lou up on charges for disobeying his orders. He would ruin Lou’s career.”

“He threatened Poitras.”

“Yeah. For letting me into Byrd’s house.”

“He actually made the threat.”

“Yes.”

The corner of Pike’s mouth twitched and he leaned against the counter.

“What did he mean, back off?”

I described how Marx was involved with Leverage Associates.

“Marx ran interference for Leverage during the original investigation into the Repko murder. He shut out Darcy and Maddux weeks before Byrd’s body was discovered, and those guys never knew he was involved. Darcy also turned up a security vid made in the alley where Repko was murdered. SID couldn’t do anything with it, so Darcy sent the disk to a CGI house. Thing is, when Byrd turned up, the task force sucked up the disk before the CGI house finished their work. Now nobody knows what happened to it.”

“You think Marx is sitting on it?”

“I don’t know what to think. If it showed Byrd committing the murder, Marx would have used it. If it was garbage, why make it disappear?”

“Maybe it showed someone else.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

Pike took a careful sip of his beer.

“You’re not just talking about Marx, Elvis. You’re talking about an entire task force. Someone would be talking about it. You can’t keep secrets like that.”

“Lindo told me the task force was vertically integrated. Only the people at the top knew the full picture, what Lindo called the inner circle. He said the guys on his team even used to joke about it. Secrets are a lot easier to keep when people don’t know what’s going on.”

“Who ran the show?”

“Marx on top with Bastilla and a dick named Munson. Lindo heard Marx and Munson have some kind of history together.”

Pike put down the cat. He slid from Pike’s arms like molasses and puddled at his feet.

“If Marx is shading the case, Bastilla and Munson would have to go along.”

“He’s a deputy chief, Joe. He can make their careers before he retires.”

The cat peeled himself off the floor. He gazed at Pike, then came over and head-bumped my leg. I poured some of my beer in his beer dish, and watched him lap it.

Pike said, “So what are you going to do?”

“Dig into Leverage. It’s all about Leverage and Marx. While I’m doing that, maybe you can try to dig up something on Munson and Bastilla. Dirty cops leave a dirty trail.”

Pike grunted.

“Have you told Lou?”

I finished the rest of the beer.

“You know Lou. If I tell him, he’ll jump in Marx’s face.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I have to keep him as far from Marx as I can, but I can’t drop this thing now and walk away.”

I glanced at Pike, but Pike was impenetrable.

“You understand what I’m talking about?”

“I understand.”

“If Marx is so worried about something he’s willing to threaten Lou, if I can find that something then I take away his power to threaten.”