'Jose?'
'Present and accounted for,' the little man joked.
'How much do you think that gold bar is worth?'
'I can tell you to the penny. Gold today is about a thousand dollars a troy ounce. One thousand one hundred and six if you're a stickler for complete accuracy. I could do it exactly with a calculator, but throwing an ax at it, this one brick is worth about four hundred forty thousand dollars, give or take a Chevy Nova.'
What a stitch, this guy.
'Excuse us again,' Jeb said, and pulled me back into the corridor while Hitch stationed himself in the doorway, where he could keep Jose at a distance, but still hear what we were saying.
'We counted a hundred gold bricks in that truck,' Jeb said. 'At four hundred forty K a brick. That's forty-four million. According to Carters case notes, the load was insured by Axeis Cargo Insurance. ACI only had it valued at fifteen million. So what's with that? How can there be more gold now than when the truck was hijacked?'
It was a damn good question.
Then Hitch whispered in my ear, 'Don't ya love this, dawg? We're standing here doing absolutely nothing and Act Three is getting better by the moment.'
Chapter 41
I walked back into the office. Jose had a slight grin on his face.
'If you guys keep running out, I'm going to get an inferiority complex,' he said.
'What was gold selling for in 1983?' I asked.
'A lot less. I'd have to look it up, but it was around three seventy-five a troy ounce.'
I looked at Jeb. 'Then that's the difference. It's worth a lot more per ounce today than it was in eighty- three.'
Jose asked, 'What's really going on here, guys?'
'Can we make arrangements for you to do a full assay at your place?' Jeb said without answering. He had made up his mind that I was right. It was better to risk the one brick as evidence and be absolutely certain of what was in that armored truck.
'Sure,' Jose said. 'But you gotta take care of the transport. I don't want to be responsible for that. You have my address on that card.'
'What kind of test will you do?' Jeb asked.
'Probably the standard X-ray fluorescence scan. That's the one I'd pick 'cause I've got the right equipment in my lab. I'm pretty sure you're wasting your time, because I'm almost positive this bar is the real thing.'
'Do it anyway,' Jeb said. 'We'll have it delivered to your office this afternoon.'
Jose nodded and started to pack up his gear. While he was doing that I lifted the brick. It was amazingly heavy. When you're wearing a gold ring or watch, you're not aware of how dense it really is because it's so small. But melted down into one of these London Good Delivery Bars, the dead weight was impressive.
After Jose left and Jeb went back downstairs with the brick, I began cranking out yawns. It was only eleven A. M., but we'd gone another full night without sleep.
'Hitch, I'm not thinking straight. I think I need to get a few hours' rest. I don't want to take the time to drive all the way home, so I'm gonna rent a motel room nearby.'
My yawns were becoming contagious and Hitch started yawning as well.
'I could use a little sleep myself,' he said. 'But I'm not gonna let my new producing partner crash in some no- tell motel. I got a guest bedroom at my place.'
It sounded good.
We left the team of CSIs swarming over the Brinks truck, told Jeb what we were up to, then got in our separate cars and headed to Hitch's house up in the Mount Olympus development.
It was eleven thirty when we pulled up and parked in the circular drive under his porte cochere.
'Crystal starts early at the restaurant, making her pastries,' Hitch said as we got out of our cars. 'So she's not here.'
We went inside and he showed me to the guest bedroom. It was large and inviting with a European ambience. The decor was Country French. Forest green walls with white trim. The furniture was mostly Italian and French reproductions. The upholstery was an expensive-looking French toile. There was a window that looked out over Hollywood.
Hitch set the clock radio alarm for me. We agreed to get up at five P. M. and he left.
I studied the view. We had to be over a thousand feet up. Low fluffy white clouds hung at eye level against the mountains like movie special effects. I stretched out on the extremely soft king-sized bed and closed my eyes. For a minute I thought I had died and was in heaven. I was already above the clouds and now I began to hear sweet voices singing harmonic madrigals a capella.
I realized after a moment that the music was coming from the clock radio that Hitch had inadvertently turned on when he set the alarm. It was set to a Christian station, the volume low. I was at peace on my supersoft cloud- nine mattress while a children's choir soothed my senses. Not exactly heaven, but close.
I considered turning the radio off, but the music was so soothing I didn't make the effort. Instead I stretched out and listened to the angelic voices. I fell asleep thinking, So this is what real wealth feels like.
Shane Scully had finally achieved his new exalted place, high above the toiling masses, at rest on Mount Olympus.
Chapter 42
I awoke to the smell of something delicious cooking in the kitchen. I lay still for a minute savoring the aroma. Then I looked over at the clock radio. It was five of five in the evening, just minutes before the alarm was set to ring.
The Christian choir was no longer singing and a preacher was in the middle of a sermon about enriching life. I listened for a minute as he told his radio parishioners that the secret to finding love was simply to be open to it. Nice concept, but not one you see very much of in police work.
I rolled over and snapped off the radio. I had slept in my clothes, so I padded into the bathroom to wash my face.
Hitch's guest bath was larger than the one Alexa and I shared in Venice. The fixtures were little gold-plate dolphins that spit water from two ornate faucets into a hand-painted French porcelain basin.
I was beginning to see dolphins in a whole new light. They helped us wash. They helped us hold up our tabletops. It was probably time for me to step up and get some dolphins of my own.
While I was on this train of thought, I began to review the whole movie deal as well.
Was it really such a crime to sell this case to a studio? I mean, who did it really hurt? I'd heard that over twenty L. A. cops were members of the Writers Guild. Was I just being an asshole here? If Hitch and I didn't sell the case, wouldn't some other guy with flat feet and a column in the LA Times just scoop it up and make the sale instead?
I could feel my resolve weakening. It reminded me of those sand castles I used to build when Pop Dix took us to the beach on Saturdays way back when I was six. I'd spend half the morning building one only to stand there in horror as the tide came in and washed it away.
Back then I would curse myself because I hadn't taken the extra effort to build my castle farther from the water. As each wave got closer and stronger, I would watch with growing self-disgust as the foundation crumbled, leaving me to wonder why I didn't carry my plastic water buckets farther up the beach.
That's the way I felt now. How far up the beach should I go to protect the things that were truly important to me?
I took off my shirt and washed my face. There was a can of spray deodorant in the cabinet so I borrowed
