grocery bag over her head. I went back to the front and around the other side, looking in each window for the boy. I didn’t see him. At the back of the house, there was a wooden door off the kitchen, opened to catch the breeze. I stood just outside the wedge of light, trying to hear into the front room. The men were still laughing. Maybe if I yelled Fire! they’d run. I eased back the hammer on my gun and stepped into the house.
Alarms didn’t go off. The Eskimo didn’t swoop out of the sky. The kitchen was dingy and yellow and hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. There was a roach trap on the floor under the dinette, Taco Bell and Burrito King wrappers on the counter, and the stink of old hot sauce. Someone had built a pyramid of Coors cans on the dinette. From where I was standing I could look down the hall and see the back of Sanchez’s head. I took one step out into the hall, then turned right into the bedroom with Ellen Lang. I could hear her breath hissing softly against the paper bag. She shifted once, then sat motionless. Out in the living room, the men talked and laughed and I heard a bottle clunk the table. I went to Ellen Lang and said quietly, “Don’t speak and don’t move. It’s me.”
I thought it would end then. I thought she would gasp or moan or stumble out of the chair but she didn’t. Her body tensed and she drew up very, very straight. I slipped the bag off her head and untied her wrists. Her eyes were puffy and she had one small red mark in the left corner of her mouth but that was all. She stared at me without blinking.
“Can you walk?”
She nodded once.
“Is Perry here?”
She shook her head.
“I’m going to slip your shoes off. We’re going to go out that door, turn left, and go out through the kitchen. On the deck, we’ll turn right and out to the street. You’ll go first so I can cover our backs.”
She nodded. I slipped her shoes off and handed them to her. Just as she stood up, a toilet flushed and a door across the hall opened and a fourth man came out of the bathroom. He was shorter than me and fat, carrying a Times sports section. He said something in Spanish to the living room and then he saw me. I shot him twice in the chest and he fell sideways. There were shouts and a thump like a chair hitting the floor. I yanked Ellen Lang toward the hall.
The welterweight came around the corner, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. One of his slugs caught the doorjamb and kicked some splinters into my cheek. I shot him in the face, then shoved Ellen through the kitchen and half carried her around the house and out onto the street. The Tattooed Man popped out of the front door and fired five shots- bapbapbapbapbap -then dove back into the house.
Porch lights were coming on and someone was yelling and Wang Chung was coming out over somebody’s radio. I shoved Ellen into the Corvette, fired up, and ran over two garbage cans pulling away. I was shaking and my shirt was wet with sweat and I wasn’t having a great deal of luck seeing past the little silver flashes that bobbed around in front of my eyes. I drove. Slow. Steady. Just trying to get away from there. I think I ran over a dog.
At the bottom of Beachwood, I pulled into an Exxon station and waited for the shakes to pass. When they did I looked at Ellen Lang. She was drawn and pale in the fluorescent Exxon light, and sitting absolutely still. She didn’t whimper and she didn’t tremble but I’m not quite sure she felt anything, either. I touched her hand. It was cold. “Do you need a doctor?”
She shook her head once like back at the house, and looked at me with dulled eyes. I peeled off my jacket, put it around her shoulders, then leaned my head back on the seat. My heart was hammering. Outside on Franklin, night-time Hollywood traffic edged past. A tall skinny kid wearing an old Stetson and a threadbare Levi jacket thumbed for a ride. The Exxon attendant leaned against the gas pump, staring at us, probably wondering what the hell we were doing over in the shadows, probably thinking maybe he should walk over and see, probably deciding nope, this is Hollywood. The attendant went into a service bay.
I closed my eyes. I’d killed one man for sure and probably another. The cops would have to come in, and they wouldn’t like it. I didn’t much like it myself.
I heard her say, “Mort’s dead, isn’t he?”
I turned my head to see her. “Yes.”
“Did he steal those drugs like they said?”
“I don’t know.”
She nodded once more, and that was it. We stayed in the shadows on the side of the Exxon station for a long time. Then I restarted the Corvette, pulled into traffic, and drove slowly toward Laurel Canyon.
21
The Corvette moved easily up the mountain. When cars came up behind us, I steered into turnouts to let them pass. At the far edge of the passenger seat, Ellen Lang sat huddled in the jacket, eyes forward, as I told her what I knew. She only spoke twice. Once to ask me about the girls, and once to answer “no” when I told her the girls were with Janet and asked if she wanted me to bring her there.
We pulled into the carport, killed the engine, and went into the kitchen through the carport door. When we were inside she asked me to please be sure to lock the door, so I had her watch me throw the bolt. I went out to the living room for a bottle of Glenlivet and a couple of glasses that looked like they were made for something besides jam. When I got back she was holding one of my R.H. Forschner steak knives. I put ice into each glass, filled them with the scotch, then pried the steak knife out of her hand and replaced it with a glass. “Drink this, then I’ll show you what we have.”
I dumped mine back, threw out the ice, then refilled the glass and downed that, too. You can’t beat Glenlivet for the smooth mellow glow it gives you, especially after you kill some people. I felt my nose and eyes fill and something large in my throat and I thought I was going to burst. But I bit down on it and managed some more of the scotch and it passed. When she had taken half of hers I led her through the house, first the dining area and living room and powder room on the main floor, then the loft bed above and the master bath. The bottle of scotch went with us. I turned on every light in each room and left it on. We looked in closets and in the storage space under the platform bed. I showed her that the windows and the front door and the sliding glass doors were all locked and I showed her the red light that meant the burglar alarm was armed. When we finished the tour upstairs by the master bath I refilled her drink and said, “You can bathe in here. I’ve got an oversized hot-water heater, so use all you want. There’s buttermilk soap and shampoo in the cabinet and extra towels under the sink.” I went out to the closet and brought back the big white terry robe. “You can wear this. If you’d rather have some clothes, I’ve got a sweat shirt and some jogging shorts that a friend left over. They should fit.”
“Where will you be?”
“In the kitchen. I have to make a call, and then I’ll make us something to eat.”
She thanked me and shut the door. I waited until I heard the water running, then the scotch and I went back to the kitchen. I took off my pistol, put it on the counter, then went into the bathroom and plucked my face. It was like playing buried treasure with a needle and a bright light. I dug out six little pieces of wood, washed, dabbed on alcohol, then looked at myself in the mirror. No permanent damage. At least nothing that you could see.
Back out in the kitchen, I refilled my glass, then dialed Lou Poitras at home. He said, “Do you know what time it is? I got kids in bed.”
“Ellen Lang’s over here. To get her I had to kill a couple of guys up in Beachwood Canyon, in a house just under the Hollywood sign.”
Lou said, “Hold on.” There was a knocking sound, like the receiver had been put down on a table, then nothing, then some scuffing sounds as the phone was picked up, then a little girls voice, giggling. “Judy bit my heiny.”
An extension was lifted and Poitras yelled he had it. A hang-up, and it was just me and Lou again. He said, “You get the boy, too?”
“No.”
“You home?”
“Yeah.”
“Does this have anything to do with you asking about Domingo Duran?”
“Yes.”
