Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

"Is your address Nine-oh-nine Breeze? Name, LaPorte?"

"Uh, yeah, that's it."

He wrote the address down, feeling the spark of adrenaline dumping into his blood. It made his writing on the pad tight and jagged.

"What would you like?"

"Um, does your computer say what we got last time?"

"Regular size, onion, peppers and mushrooms."

"That's good. Same thing."

"Anything to drink? Garlic bread?"

"No, just the pizza."

"Okay, thirty minutes."

She hung up without saying good-bye or giving him the chance to say it. Pierce hung up the phone and turned to head to the door.

Nicole was standing there. Her hair was wet and she wore a white terrycloth robe. It had been his. She gave it to him as a present on their first Christmas together but he never wore it because he wasn't a bathrobe guy. She appropriated it and it was too big on her, and that made her look very sexy in it. She knew what seeing her in the robe did to him and she used it like a flag she would hang out. When she showered and put on the robe, it meant they were going to make love.

But not this time. No more. The look on her face was anything but provocative or sexy.

She glanced down at the Yellow Pages, open to the ads for pizza delivery.

"I can't believe you, Henry. After what just happened and what you did, you just come on down and order a pizza like it's nothing. I used to think you had a conscience."

She walked over to the refrigerator and opened it.

"I asked you to leave."

"I am. But it's not what you think, Nicole. I'm trying to find somebody and this is the only way."

She took a bottle of water from the refrigerator and started unscrewing the cap.

"I asked you to leave," she said again.

"All right, I'm leaving."

He made a move to squeeze between her and the kitchen's center island. But suddenly he changed course and moved into her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her toward him. He kissed her on the mouth. She quickly pushed him back, spilling water on both of them.

"Good-bye," he said before she could speak. "I still love you."

As he walked toward the door he slid the key to the house off his key ring. He dropped it on the small entry table under the mirror by the door. He turned and looked back at her as he opened the door. And she turned away.

Breeze was one of the Venice walk streets, which meant Pierce would have to get out of his car to get close to it. In several neighborhoods near the beach the small bungalows were built facing each other, with only a sidewalk between them. No streets. Narrow alleys ran behind the houses so owners had access to their garages. But the fronts of the homes bordered the shared sidewalk. It was a distinct plan in Venice, a design to promote neighborliness and at the same time put more homes on smaller parcels of land. Walk street houses were highly prized.

Pierce found a parking space at the curb on Ocean near the hand-painted war memorial and walked down to Breeze. It was nearly seven o'clock and the sky was beginning to acquire the burnt-orange color of a smoggy sunset. The address he had gotten from Domino's was halfway down the block. Pierce strolled along the sidewalk like he was on his way to the beach for the sunset. As he passed 909 he nonchalantly took a look. It was a yellow bungalow, smaller than most of the others on the block, with a wide front porch with an old glider seat on it. Like most of the houses on the block, it had a white picket fence out front with a gate.

The curtains behind the front windows were drawn. The light on the ceiling over the porch was on and he took this as a bad sign. It was too early for the light to be on and he guessed that it had to have been on since the night before. He began to worry, now that he had finally found the place that neither Detective Renner nor Cody Zeller had been able to find, that Lucy LaPorte would be gone.

He continued his walk to where Breeze ended at Speedway and there was a beach parking lot. He thought about going back to his car and bringing it over to the lot, but then figured it wasn't worth the time. He loitered in the lot and watched the sun drop toward the horizon for another ten minutes. He then started back down Breeze.

This time he walked even more slowly and his eyes scanned all the homes for signs of activity. It was a quiet night on Breeze. He saw no one. He heard no one, not even a television voice. He passed 909 again and saw no indication that the tiny house was currently inhabited.

As he got to the end of Breeze a blue pickup truck pulled up and stopped at the mouth of the sidewalk. It had the familiar Domino's sign on the top. A small man of Mexican descent jumped out with a red insulated pizza carrier and quickly headed down the sidewalk. Pierce let him get a good lead and then followed. He could smell the pizza despite the insulation. It smelled good. He was hungry. When the man walked across the porch to the front door of 909, Pierce slowed to a stop and used a red bougainvillea tree in the next-door neighbor's yard as a blind.

The pizza man knocked twice -louder the second time -and looked like he was about to give up when the door was opened. Pierce realized he had chosen a poor location to watch from because the angle of view prevented him from seeing into the house. But then he heard a voice and knew it was Lucy LaPorte who had answered the door.

"I didn't order that."

"Are you sure? I have Nine oh nine Breeze."

The pizza man opened the side of his carrier and pulled out a flat box. He read something off the side.

"LaPorte, regular with onion, pepper and mushroom."

She giggled.

"Well, that's me and that's what I usually get but I didn't order that one tonight. Maybe it was like a computer glitch or something and the order came in again."

The man looked down at the pizza and sadly shook his head.

"Well, okay then. I tell them."

He shoved the box back into the carrier and turned from the door. As he came down off the porch the door to the house was closed behind him. Pierce was waiting for him by the bougainvillea tree with a twenty-dollar bill.

"Hey, if she doesn't want it, I'll take it."

The pizza man's face brightened.

"Okay, fine with me."

Pierce exchanged the twenty for the pizza.

"Keep the change."

The pizza man's face brightened further. He had turned a delivery disaster into a large tip.

"Thank you! Have a good night."

"I'll try."

Without hesitation Pierce carried the pizza to 909, went through the front gate and up onto the porch. He knocked on the door and was thankful there was no peephole -at least that he could see. It took only a few seconds for her to answer the door this time.

Her eyes were cast down -to the expected level of the small pizza man. When she raised them and saw Pierce and registered the damage to his face, the shock contorted her own unbruised, undamaged face.

"Hey, Lucy. You said next time bring you a pizza. Remember?"

"What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here. I told you not to bother me."

"You told me not to call you. I didn't."

She tried to close the door but he was expecting it. He shot his hand out and stiff-armed the door. He held it open while she tried to push it closed. But the pressure was weak.

She either wasn't really trying or she just didn't have the juice. He was able to keep the door open with one hand and hold the pizza up like a waiter with the other.

"We have to talk."

"Not now. You have to go."

"Now."

She relented and stopped what little pressure she was putting on the door. He kept his hand on it just in case it was a trick.

"Okay, what do you want?"

"First of all, I want to come in. I don't like standing out here."