Sunset Express Read online

  I said, “LeCedrick Earle claims that she planted the money, and Truly says that you agree.” I felt something gritty on the arms of the chair and looked. More flecks. Sort of like brown dandruff.

  Haig chewed at the cigar, then took it out and examined it. The end was soggy and frayed, and while he looked he absently spit little pieces of tobacco off his tongue. I saw a piece land on an air filter catalog. I saw another piece land on the framed photo of young LAPD Haig. Haig didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t care. I lifted my elbows from the chair and brushed at my arms. Yuck. Haig shook his head. “Nope. I didn’t say that. I said that I wouldn’t put it past the bitch.”

  “But you don’t know?”

  He shrugged and spit more tobacco. “If you read the arrest report you know I wasn’t listed as an arresting officer. Rossi went back later without me. That way only one name gets credit for the collar. You see how she was?”

  “She cut you out.”

  Another shrug. “Just her way. When it came to wearin’ a uniform she was just passin’ through and she made no secret of it. All she used to talk about was gettin’ ahead, gettin’ that gold shield. She told me she’d do anything to get that gold shield, and that’s what I told Truly. I had to listen to that every goddamned day like a goddamned matrah.”

  “Mantra.”

  “Whatever.”

  The Hispanic woman rapped at the glass then stepped into Haig’s office. She was holding a clipboard. “Warren wan’s you to sign these estimates.”

  Haig grinned and made a little c’mere gesture. “Lemme see what you’ve got.”

  She kept her eyes down when she crossed to him, probably because Haig was making a big deal out of looking at her. A gold wedding band and a large, ornate engagement ring were on her left hand, the stone square and flat and enormous, and probably zircon. The polished gold of the rings looked warm against her brown skin. She said, “Warren says a truck is here with the new tires. He says he needs you to come see.” Warren was probably Haig’s assistant.

  “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Haig took the clipboard and flipped through a couple of pages without really looking at them. He used one hand to flip the pages and the other to feel her right hip. He scratched his name and handed back the board, still with the big grin. “Gracias, babe. Lookin’ good.”

  “Warren says he needs you about the new tires.” Like Warren had been making a thing and she didn’t want to mention it, but felt obligated.

  Haig’s grin turned brittle. “Tell Warren to hold his water. I’ll come when I come. Comprende?” He patted her hip again, letting his hand linger.

  She took the board and walked out, Haig watching her go. He spit more tobacco, and I thought that if any of the flecks landed on me I might shoot him. Haig glanced at his watch and frowned. Warren.

  I said, “Okay, Rossi was ambitious. But did she ever do anything illegal to your knowledge?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Ever rig an arrest?”

  Haig shook his head.

  “Plant evidence?”

  “Not with me around.” Offended.

  “You told Truly that you thought Rossi was capable of falsifying evidence. You said that your statement was based upon your experience as her partner. Do you really know anything, Haig, or are you just blowing smoke?”

  Haig frowned. “Look, Rossi used to skirt the line all the time. She’d do anything to make a case, go through a window, pop a trunk, jump a fence. I used to say, hey, you ever heard of the search and seizure laws? You ever heard of a warrant?”

  “And what would she do when you said that?”

  “Look at me like I’m an asshole.” He chewed at the cigar some more, then suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped it into the trash. “Christ, she made me crazy in the car, always running plates, always looking for the collar.”

  “Sounds like good police work.”

  “Try livin’ with it every day.” He glanced at his watch again. “I gotta get going.”

  “One more thing. You weren’t with her when she made the Miranda violation.”

  “Nah. That was later. I was already off the job and she was a detective-one. Rossi the hot shot, bustin’ balls like always.”

  “Then how do you know about it?”

  “I saw her after. Bobby Driskoll’s retirement up at the Revolver and Athletic Club.” The Revolver and Athletic Club is the Police Academy’s bar. “She was goin’ on about it, sayin’ how rotten it was, sayin’ that she was going to do whatever it took to get her career back on track.”

  “Were there other people around?”

  “Hell, yes. Rossi never made a secret about her ambition. ‘They can’t keep me down.’ That’s the way she talked. ‘All it takes is one big bust and I’m on top again.’ Like that.”

  “But you have no personal knowledge of her having done anything illegal?”

  Haig frowned at me. “Any bitch that in-your-face is up to something.”

  I closed the pad and put it away. Jonathan Green probably wasn’t going to like what I had to say about Haig. “Tell me something, Haig. Are you an asshole by choice?”

  Haig gave me the hard cop eyes, and then the slick grin came back and he stood. “Yeah, I guess it sounds that way, but there’s more to it than her attitude. You see where she lives?”

  I didn’t know what he meant. “No.”

  “Go see where she lives.”

  We walked out to the little showroom together. A guy who was probably Warren was standing with a black guy in a Goodyear shirt, and together they were reading what was probably a delivery manifest. They looked up when we came out and Warren said, “We got those tires.”

  Haig ignored him. He slipped behind the counter and I went to the door, and neither of us said anything to the other.

  The Hispanic woman was behind the counter. Haig moved against her and mumbled something that the rest of us couldn’t hear. She didn’t look at him, and she didn’t respond. She stared at the TV, as if by staring hard enough it wouldn’t be happening.

  I went out into the sun, thinking that maybe I should have shot him anyway.

  3

  The two kids with their skateboards were gone, but the dog was still sitting by the churro cart, watching the vaquero. The vaquero was still waving his churro at the passing cars and looking sad. All the way up from Zacatecas to stand on a corner and sell something that no one except a couple of kids and a dog wanted. A man who had worked with the Brahmas, no less.

  I climbed into my car and opened Truly’s envelope and looked at Angela Rossi’s address, wondering what Haig had meant about seeing where she lived. 724 Clarion Way. I looked up Clarion Way in the Thomas Brothers Guide, found it in Marina del Rey, and thought, “Well, hell.”

  The Marina wraps around the ocean on a stretch of sand just south of Santa Monica. It’s home to sitcom writers and music producers and people who own Carpeteria franchises, maybe, but not cops. The cheapest house in the Marina maybe goes for six hundred thousand, and even the smallest apartments would set you back fifteen hundred a month before utilities. Condos had to start at three hundred grand. Raymond Haig was probably just a raging sexist who had been shown up on the job and was working out on the person who had shown him up, but how did that explain a cop living in the Marina? Of course, there were probably ten million explanations for how Rossi might live there, but I probably wouldn’t ferret them out sitting in front of a tire store in Glendale.

  The churro salesman caught me staring at him and gestured with the churro, his eyes somehow embarrassed in their sadness. I climbed out of my car and paid him thirty-five cents for ten inches of fried dough that had been dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. He thanked me profusely, but he still seemed sad. I guess there’s only so much you can do.

  I went back to my car and worked my way across the valley floor, then up onto the San Diego Freeway and down through the westside of Los Angeles to the Marina. It was sunny and
bright, with the sun still riding a couple of hours above the horizon. The air smelled of the sea and crisp white gulls floated and circled overhead, eyeing McDonald’s and Taco Bell parking lots for fast-food leftovers. Women with ponytails raced along the wide boulevards on Rollerblades and shirtless young men pedaled hard on two-thousand-dollar mountain bikes, and everybody had great tans. Aging vaqueros selling rubber-hose churros weren’t in evidence, but maybe I hadn’t looked close enough.

  I turned down Admiralty Way with its wide green traffic island and drove along the Silver Strand to a short cul-de-sac lined with low-density condominiums partially hidden behind tropical plantings. Clarion Way. Seven twenty-four was part of a four-unit building at the front of the curve, and even from the street I could see that the units were large and spacious and expensive. Definitely not cop digs. A gated drive led down beneath the building, and a gated walk led along the front of the units. A mail drop was built into the front gate, along with a security phone so that you could call inside to let the residents know you’d come to visit. I circled the cul-de-sac, parked across the street at the curb, and walked back to the mail drop to see if Angela Rossi’s name matched the address. No names. I guess the postman was expected to know who lived where.

  A thin man with thick glasses and a bulging forehead squinted out at me from behind the gate. “May I help you?”

  I gave him one of my better smiles and tried to look reasonable. “Do you know if Keith’s home?”

  He frowned at me. “Keith?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. Keith Adams in seven two four. He said he’d wait for me, but no one answers.”

  He shook his head. “You must have the wrong address. There are only four of us in the building, and no one by that name lives here.”

  I dug out my wallet, drew a cash receipt from Hughes Market, and frowned at it. “It says seven twenty-four Clarion.”

  He was shaking his head before I finished. “Maybe there’s another Clarion. I know the woman in seven twenty-four. I don’t think she’s home now.” The woman.

  “You don’t think we could be talking about Keith’s wife, do you?” I peered through the gate. A boy’s red bike was leaning against a planter in the entry to seven two four. A plastic hamper filled with Nerfballs stood behind the bike.

  He put his hands on his hips, still shaking the head. “Oh, no. It’s just Angie and her kids.” Angie. You see how it adds up?

  I put my wallet away and scratched my head. Klem Kadiddlehopper comes to the big city. “Has she lived here long? Maybe Keith moved.” Trying to find out how a cop could afford to live here. Trying to find out if she rented or stayed with a friend or had won the place in a lottery.

  “Not long. She moved in two years ago.”

  “She own it, or does she rent?”

  Now he was frowning. Suspicious. “Why don’t you leave your number. Maybe the lady knows something about your friend and will call you.” The detective presses his luck a tad too hard.

  “That’s okay. I’m pretty sure I’ve got Keith’s number back at the office.”

  I thanked him for his time, went back to my car, then drove to a pay phone in a little shopping center at the mouth of the Marina where I called a realtor friend who works in Pacific Palisades. A bright woman’s voice said, “Westside Realty, how may I help you?”

  I tried to sound like a G-man. “Adrienne Carter, please.”

  “May I tell her who’s calling?”

  “Richard Tracy.”

  “Please hold.”

  Maybe twenty seconds later another woman’s voice came on. “This is Adrienne Carter.”

  “I’d like to buy the Hearst Castle. Wanna handle the deal?”

  Adrienne Carter laughed. “Dick Tracy. Oh, please.”

  I gave her Angela Rossi’s address and asked if she could run an owner-of-record check for me. I told her it was a matter of utmost urgency and the security of the nation depended on her. She said, “I’ll bet, Dick.” I think I had started something that I was going to regret.

  Forty minutes later I made the slow pull up Laurel Canyon into the mountains above Hollywood and the rustic A-frame I have there. It’s woodsy where I live, and though I have neighbors, our homes are separated by mature eucalyptus and olive trees that give us shade and lend stability to the steep slopes upon which we live. I bought the place many years ago when it was in disrepair and, over time, have rebuilt and refinished it both alone and with the help of friends.

  I parked in the carport, let myself in through the kitchen, and was looking in the refrigerator for something to eat when the cat door squeaked and the cat who lives with me walked in. I said, “Hey.”

  The cat is large and black and one ear sits kind of cocked to the side from when he was head-shot with a .22. The flat top of his head is laced with scars and his ears are shredded and lumpy. When he was younger he would often bring me bits of squirrel and bird to share, but he’s older now and the gifts are not as frequent. Perhaps he’s slowing, or perhaps he’s just less generous. He snicked across the floor and sat by his bowl. “Naow.”

  “I’m hungry, too. Hang on.”

  I took out leftover chicken that I’d baked with garlic and rosemary, and a half can of tuna. I turned the oven to 350, wrapped the chicken and canned new potatoes together in foil, then put it in the oven to heat. I forked the tuna into the cat’s bowl, then set the can next to it so he could lick the juice. He prefers the chicken, but the garlic gives him gas, so I’ve had to draw the line. He doesn’t like me for it, but there you go.

  It was eighteen minutes after seven, and I was getting ready to take a shower when the phone rang. Adrienne. I said, “Hi, Adrienne.” Elvis Cole, Too Hip Detective, pretends he can read minds.

  Lucy Chenier said, “Adrienne?” The Too Hip Detective steps in deep doo-doo.

  “A realtor friend,” I said. “I’m expecting her to call with some information I need.”

  “Do tell. Well, heaven forbid I should tie up your line.”

  I gave her Groucho. “Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have tie me up, heh heh.”

  “Oh, you.” I love it when she says ‘oh, you.’ And then she said, “Hi, Studly.”

  I felt the smile start deep in my chest and grow large like an expanding bubble, and then I was standing in my kitchen with the phone and Lucy Chenier’s presence seemed to fill the house with warmth and light. I said, “I miss you, Luce.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Hmm-mm.” We often have conversations like this.

  I had met Lucy Chenier three months earlier when I was working in Louisiana for an actress named Jodi Taylor. Lucy was Jodi Taylor’s lawyer and I was Jodi Taylor’s detective, and the attraction, as they say, was immediate. We had called each other regularly since then, and two months ago I had flown back to Louisiana to spend a long weekend with Lucy and her eight-year-old son, Ben. Three weeks after that, Lucy and I had met in Cancun for four days of snorkeling and grilled shrimp and sunburns, and it was harder still to say good-byes when she boarded her plane and I boarded mine. Thereafter, the phoning grew more frequent, and the conversation less necessary, and soon we were in a kind of comfortable/uncomfortable place where the occasional murmur on the other end of the line was enough, but not nearly enough. Over the weeks an increasing part of my day has become the anticipation of the evening’s call, when I would sit in my home and Lucy would sit in hers and we would share a few minutes together linked by two thousand miles of fiber-optic satellite relays. It wasn’t as nice as actually being with her, but if romance were easy, everyone would do it. I said, “You may be interested in why I am waiting for Adrienne to call.”

  “I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

  “Do I detect coolness?”

  “You detect indifference. They are not the same.”

  I said, “Ha. We’ll see if you feel the same after you hear my news.”

  She said, “Let me guess. You’ve changed your name to Je
rry Lee Lewis Cole?” You see what passes for humor in Louisiana?

  “I’m working with Jonathan Green.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Lucy Chenier said, “Is that true, or is this more of the famous Elvis Cole wit?” Not joking, now.

  “Hired me today for the Big Green Defense Machine.”

  Lucy Chenier made a soft whistling sound, then said, “Oh, Elvis. That’s wonderful.” You see? Impressed. Lucy being impressed made me want to thump my hind leg on the floor and roll over so that she could scratch my belly. She said, “We used to study his cases in law school.”

  “How about that.”

  “It must be very exciting.”

  “He’s just another client.”

  She said, “I have news, too.” She sounded happy, like maybe she was smiling when she said it.

  “Okay.”

  “The firm has business to take care of in Long Beach, and they’re sending me out. Ben’s out of school, so how would you like a couple of freeloading house guests?”

  The background noise of the TV and the CNN newscasters was suddenly a million miles away. I said, “I could handle that.”

  “What?” I guess she hadn’t heard me. I guess my voice had come out hoarse and small.

  “Hold on a minute and let me check my calendar.”

  “You rat.”

  I was smiling. I was smiling so wide that my face felt tight and brittle, as if smiling any farther would make my cheeks crack. “Yes. Yes, I think that would be fine. Are you kidding? That’s great.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  I said, “I’ll be at the airport in an hour.”

  She laughed. “You can be there in an hour, but Ben and I won’t be there until the day after tomorrow. I’m sorry to spring this on you, but I didn’t know for sure until this afternoon.”

  I was too busy smiling to answer.

  “I’ll call tomorrow and give you the flight information.”

  “Hey, Luce.”

  “Hm?”

  “I’m really happy about this.”