Free Fall (20 page)

I passed three joggers and, twice, couples walking dogs, once a man and woman with an Akita, and once two men with a black Lab. I nodded at them and they nodded back. Elvis Cole, the Friendly Felon, out for an evening’s stroll.

I left Woodrow Wilson and turned up my road and moved into the trees. The mountain shoulders up there, and the road follows the shoulder into a little canyon. I crept through the scrub oak until the road curved around to my house, and then I saw the plain unmarked sedan sitting in the shadows beneath a willow tree, maybe sixty yards past my front door. I kept the trunk of an oak between myself and the car and I waited. Maybe eight minutes later someone on the passenger’s side moved, then the driver moved, and then they were still again. Shadows within shadows. If there were cops outside the house, there might be cops inside the house. The smart thing to do would be to leave and forget about being in my living room when Jennifer Sheridan called. Of course, if I wasn’t there when she called, maybe she’d never call again. For all I knew, Akeem
D’Muere was closing in on her at this very moment and her last call would be a call for help and I wouldn’t be there to answer it because I’d be off doing the smart thing. Whatever that was.

Across the canyon, headlights moved on mountain roads and someone somewhere laughed and it carried on the night breeze. A woman. I thought about it some more and then I moved down the slope toward my house. Sometimes there is no smart move.

I worked through the trees and the brush until I was beneath my house, and then I climbed up to the deck. There were no police posted along the back and, as best I could tell, none within the house. Of course, I wouldn’t know that for sure until I went in, would I?

I checked to see if the two cops were still in their sedan, and then I went back downslope and found the spare key I keep beneath the deck. I moved back across the slope to the far side of the house, climbed up onto the deck, and let myself in through the glass doors.

The house was still and dark and undisturbed. No cops were lying in wait, and the SWAT team didn’t rappel down from my loft. If the police had been here, they had come and gone without breaking the door and without abusing my possessions.

The message light on my machine was blinking. I played it back, worried that it was Jennifer and that I had missed her call, but it was Lou Poitras. He called me an asshole, and then he hung up. You’ve got to love Lou.

I went into the kitchen, opened a Falstaff, and drank some. The moon was waxing three-quarters, and blue light spilled through the glass steeples at the back of my A-frame to flood the living room. I didn’t need the light. Behind me the cat door clacked and the cat walked into the kitchen. He went to his food bowl.

I said, “It’s been a pretty crummy day. The least you could do is say hello.”

He stared at his bowl.

I took out his dry food and fed him. I watched as he ate, and then I took down a larger bowl and put it on the floor and emptied the box into it. I didn’t know when I would get back, so I figured that this would have to do. I turned on the kitchen tap just enough to drip. He could hop up and drink.

I went to each door to make sure it was locked, then found a nylon overnight bag and packed it with toiletry items and three changes of clothes. The police had my wallet and all the things in it, but I had spare American Express cards and Visa cards in my dresser, along with gas cards and three hundred dollars in cash. I packed that, too.

When I was done I called Charlie Bauman, a lawyer I know who has an office in Santa Monica. I called him at home. Charlie answered on the fourth ring and said, “Hey, Elvis, how’s it going, buddy?” There was music somewhere behind him and he sounded glad to hear from me.

I said, “I’m sitting on the floor in my living room, in the dark, and I’m wanted on three murder counts and a dope charge.”

Charlie said, “Shit, are you out of your nut?” He didn’t sound so happy to hear from me anymore.

I told him about it. When I got to the arrest and the questioning, he stopped me.

“You should’ve called me. Never give up your right to an attorney. That was bush.”

“I’m calling you now, Charlie.”

“Yeah, yeah.
After
you fuck up.”

I gave him the rest of it. When I finished, he didn’t say anything for a while.

“Charlie?”

“You assaulted a police officer, and you escaped?”

“Pike and I. Yeah.”

“Shit.”

I didn’t say anything.

Charlie said, “Okay. You’ve got to come in. Come to my place, and we’ll go in together. I’m sure we can pull bail, even after this.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I can’t come in yet, Charlie. There’s something I’ve got to do.”

Charlie went ballistic. “Are you
fucked
?”

I hung up.

The house was quiet with a stillness that went beyond the auditory or the visual. Outside, a police helicopter tracked across the horizon, overflying Hollywood. Closer, cars wound their way along mountain roads. The phone rang, but I did not answer it. The machine caught it, and Charlie said, “Okay, so you’re not going to go in. Shit, pick up, willya?”

I picked up.

He made a sigh. “All right. I’ll talk to the DA. I’ll start trying to work things out.”

“Sure.”

“Shit, don’t get killed.” He hung up. What a way to say good-bye.

I went back to the aloneness of my house and wondered if in fact Jennifer Sheridan was going to call. Maybe I was just wasting my time, and risking my freedom.

The cat came out of the kitchen and watched me for a while, the way cats will, but then he tired of it and left. I thought that, were I a cat, it might be nice to go with him. Creep through a little grass, stalk a few field mice, maybe hang with a couple of nice lady cats. I guess cats grow weary of human pursuits. So do humans.

Thirty-six minutes later gravel crunched outside my front door and a light played through the entry windows. The cops from the sedan, come to take a look-see.

Footsteps moved to the carport and a second light tracked along the opposite side of the house. I scrambled behind the couch, and tried to wedge myself under it. The footsteps came out onto the deck, and now both lights raked over the couch and the living room and the stairs that lead up to my loft. There was maybe eight feet and a couple of dust bunnies between me and the two cops. I held my breath. The lights worked over the couch again and then the footsteps went away. My, my. Nothing like an adrenaline jolt to help you wile away the hours.

Seventy-two minutes after the cops had come to call, the phone rang again, and this time it was Jennifer Sheridan. When I picked up, she said, “Thank God you’re there.”

“Where are you?” Her voice was low, as if maybe she were calling without Mark knowing. Or maybe because she was just tired.

“I’m with Mark.”

“Where with Mark?”

“I made a mistake getting you involved in this. You have to stop, now. You have to leave us alone.”

“It’s too late to leave you alone, Jennifer.” I told her about the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys. I told her about Eric Dees working through the Eight-Deuce to set me up and I told her about James Edward Washington getting his brains blown out. I said, “They’re killing people. That means Mark is involved. They set us up with the Eight-Deuce and Akeem D’Muere killed James Edward Washington and that’s the same as if they had ordered him killed. They’re accessories before the fact, and if you’re a part of it now, then you’re an accessory after the fact. Do you understand that?”

She was breathing hard, but she didn’t sound frantic. She sounded resolved. “We can’t come back, yet. We have to stay away.”

“Because of Mark?”

“It’s not like what you think. Eric is going to work everything out. We only have to be up here a little while.” Up here.

I said, “Eric isn’t going to work it out, Jennifer. D’Muere is out of control. You need to come in. Tell me where you are.”

“I can’t do that I’m calling to ask you to stop. I want you to leave us alone.”

“I can’t do that. It’s larger than you now, Jennifer. There’s James Edward.”

Jennifer Sheridan hung up.

I stood in the dark with the phone in my hand, and then I replaced the receiver and reset the answering machine. I made sure all of the windows were locked and the alarm was armed and the faucet still dripped for the cat, and then I picked up the overnight bag, let myself out, and moved back down the slope to the trees.

It took just under an hour to work my way back to Mulholland and to the turnout where Joe Pike was waiting. It was a broad, flat area looking out on the valley. Pike’s Jeep was there. So were a Toyota Celica and a Chevy van. Music came from the van.

I slipped into the passenger side of the Jeep and Pike looked at me. The smell of coffee was strong. “She call?”

“Yes. She wouldn’t tell me where she is.”

“You think she’s in danger?”

“I think they’re all in danger. I’m just not sure who they’re in danger from.”

Pike’s mouth twitched. “It’s often like that, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Often.” I stared at the lights of the San Fernando Valley and listened to the music from the van. It sounded Spanish. I said, “If we can’t find her, then we have to stop Akeem. That means we go back to the source.”

Pike nodded. “The guy who set us up.”

“Cool T. Cool T might know.”

Pike shook his head. “What a name.”

Pike started the Jeep and we drove back down into the city and to the motel, and the next day we went for Cool T.

J
oe Pike and I left the motel for Ray Depente’s place at five minutes after eight the next morning. We drove to Ray’s much as you would drive anywhere. SWAT wasn’t waiting on the roof, and the police hadn’t cordoned off the area, and a squadron of black-and-whites with screaming sirens didn’t give chase. We were just two guys in a Jeep. Wanted for murder, maybe, but there you are.

We stopped at a Denny’s for breakfast, and while we were eating, two uniformed cops came in and sat in the smoking section. Pike and I paid, and walked out past them, but they never looked our way. Detective material.

At seven minutes before nine, we pulled into the little parking lot next to Ray Depente’s, and went inside.

Ray Depente was sitting at his desk in the little glass cubicle, talking on the phone and leaning back with his feet up. The older woman who managed the office was behind him, peering into a file cabinet When we stepped out of the door, Ray saw us and put down his feet and stood up. He mumbled something into the phone, then hung up and came around the desk and out
onto the floor. The cops would’ve been here. They would’ve talked to him.

I said, “Hi, Ray. This is a buddy of mine. Joe Pike.”

Ray stopped just outside of striking range and looked over Joe Pike and then squinted back at me. You could see him braining out what he’d have to do and how he’d have to do it to neutralize us. Pike slid two steps to the side, giving himself room if Ray made the move. There weren’t many people in the gym. A young Asian guy sporting a black belt worked three women and a man through an intermediate
kata
, and a young Hispanic guy practiced roundkicks on a heavy bag in the far corner. Some of his leg moves were so fast you couldn’t follow them.

Ray said, “You’ve got no business here. Leave now, before I call the police.”

“I didn’t kill James Edward, Ray. Akeem D’Muere set me up for the bust and D’Muere pulled the trigger.”

“Ain’t the way the police tell it.” Ray took a half step back and turned so that his shoulders were angled to the plane of attack. “Why don’t we give’m a call, let everybody sit down and talk about it.” He made a little head move toward his office.

Pike said, “That won’t happen.”

Ray shifted again, adjusted his angle more toward Joe. “Maybe not, but you never know.” Behind him, the class grunted and worked through their
kata
, and the heavy bag snapped with deep coughing
whumps.
“I won’t tell you again to leave, then we’ll see what happens.” The woman in the little office closed the file and looked out at us and then came around the desk to stand in the door as if she could somehow read the tension.

I said, “You don’t know me, but you know James Edward. You think he was digging for a deal?”

Ray Depente canted his head like he’d been trying not to think of that, and his eyes flicked from me to
Pike, then back. There was a physical quality to time, as if it were suddenly still, and moving through it was like moving through something dense and unyielding. “Maybe you used him for a fool. Maybe you thought you could come down here and rip off the brothers, but it didn’t work out that way. The police said you escaped. An innocent man don’t escape.”

“Bullshit James Edward and I came here to find out what happened at the Premier Pawn Shop. James Edward is dead because the cops involved didn’t want us to find out, and neither does Akeem. Your man Cool T set us up.”

“I know you’re lying. Cool T’s righteous.”

“He set us up. He told us when and where to be, and the Eight-Deuce were there waiting for us.”

Ray was fighting it. You could see him starting to think that maybe I was being square. He wet his lips. “Why in the hell did you come back here?”

“Because Akeem wants to kill a woman named Jennifer Sheridan, and I can’t let that happen.”

“I don’t know anything about it”

“You don’t, but maybe Cool T does, or knows somebody who does.”

Behind us, the Hispanic kid launched a flurry of kicks at the heavy bag, then collapsed to the mat, sweat falling like rain from the dark cloud of his hair. Ray Depente abruptly straightened from his fighting stance. “I’ve got a class due in forty-five minutes.”

“This won’t take long.”

“All right. Let’s talk about it. If what you say makes sense, I’ll see what I can do.”

Ray led us back across the wide parquet floor to the little cubicle and said, “Miriam, I need maybe a few minutes alone with these gentlemen. Would you excuse us, please?” Miriam moved out of the door when she saw us coming and stood beside her desk. She peered at
me and at Pike with obvious distaste. “Who’s going to answer the phones?” ’