had made them for me a long time ago. Illegal. But what’s that to a tough guy like me? With the rain shell on, you couldn’t see either gun. It wouldn’t be easy to get to the Dan Wesson, but I didn’t expect to have to quick-draw walking out to the Jeep.
When Pike came back, he was wearing the cammie field jacket. He opened the first guitar case and took out a Weatherby Mark V. 30-06 deer buster with an 8-power Bushnell scope and a box of cartridges. He fed four into the gun, locked the bolt, then stood the gun against the arm of the couch. When he opened the second case, Ellen Lang leaned forward. She said, “What’s that?”
“Heckler and Koch. 308 assault rifle,” Pike said.
“Pike shows it to people to scare them,” I said. “It doesn’t really shoot.”
Pike’s mouth twitched. The HK was entirely black. With its Fiberglas stock, pistol grip, carry handle, and flash suppressor, it was an ugly, mean gun. Pike snapped the bolt, then took a sixty-shot banana clip from the duffel bag and seated it. He sprayed the external metal parts of each rifle with a mist of WD40, then wiped each lightly with a greasy cloth. His hands worked with a precise economy. Finished, he stood up, said, “Whenever,” and brought the big guns and the duffel out to the Cherokee.
I gave the slicker to Ellen. “Put this on.”
She put it on.
I put the foil brick into a third shopping bag and gave it to her. “Are you scared?” I said.
She nodded.
I said, “Try to be like me. I’m never scared.”
She carried the dope out to the Cherokee. I watched her climb into the backseat from the kitchen, then stood around, wondering if I’d forgotten anything.
The cat walked in and looked at me. I fed him, poured out a saucer of beer, then locked the door. We drove to Griffith Park in a rain so light it was very much like falling dew.
35
At ten minutes before six, the park was dark and empty and cold, with only light traffic passing the entrance off Los Feliz Boulevard. We turned in and cruised to the back of the park toward the tunnel, past the picnic tables and green lawns and public rest rooms that are habitat for bums, muggers, and homosexual mashers. An old Volkswagen microbus and a Norton motorcycle were parked in the spaces past the rest rooms, but there was no sign of life.
Pike had the radio tuned to the farm reports. To the best of my knowledge, Joe Pike has never been on a farm in his life. Ellen sat in the backseat, the dope on her lap, her eyes luminous in the glow from reflected streetlights.
At the tunnel the road split, one fork disappearing into the tunnel, the other taking a hard right to climb into the mountains up to the observatory. A steel pipe gate blocked the fork that went up. I said, “There’s a fire road about a half mile ahead that’s good for us.”
Pike nodded.
I got out, picked the Yale on the pipe gate, let Pike through, then swung the gate back across and relocked it. It was colder here in Griffith than in my own canyon, with clouds pushing down out of the sky to touch the mountains above us, and my breath fogging the air as I worked against the gate.
The sky along the ridgeline to the east was just beginning to turn violet when Pike engaged the four-wheel- drive and turned off onto the fire road. We went out along the ridge between scrub oak and tumbleweed and yucca trees for about a hundred yards until we came to a small grove of scrub oak. Below, the flat of the park spread in an irregular green triangle, from its apex at the tunnel widening all the way out to the park’s entrance off Los Feliz. We could see everything we would need to.
Pike nodded approvingly. “Nice view.”
“Glad you like it.”
He killed the engine but left the radio on.
We waited.
At ten minutes to seven a Park Service Bronco came out of the tunnel and turned up toward the pipe gate. A woman in a brown Park Service uniform unlocked the gate, swung it out of the road, then climbed back into her Bronco and disappeared through the tunnel. I ate a processed chicken on white and drank coffee. Ellen didn’t have anything. Neither did Pike.
The world brightened even though the sky remained dark gray. The clouds pushed lower, now sitting halfway down the mountains, slowly bleeding moisture. Traffic grew heavy down on the boulevard, and people began to gather at the bus stop, mostly short, stocky Chicano women carrying large purses. Some of them had umbrellas, but some didn’t, and not everybody looked willing to share.
In the back, Ellen pulled her feet up, leaned against the cab wall, and slept. Or pretended to. Pike slouched down behind the wheel, his eyes closed to little slits. That Ellen, that Pike, what a couple of wet blankets. Just when I was going to suggest charades.
At seven-thirty, a white Cadillac turned in off Los Feliz and rolled down past the picnic tables to park across from the rest rooms. Ten minutes later, a cruising police prowl car stopped beside the Volkswagen microbus. Two cops in black slickers got out. One of them rapped on the bus’ side door with his nightstick while the other stayed by their black-and-white with his hand on the butt of his Smith. A young guy in jeans and no shirt climbed out of the bus and talked to the cops for a while and did a lot of nodding and a lot of shivering. Then the cops got back in their car and the kid went back into his bus and the cops drove away. I drank more coffee and ate a sweet gherkin and watched. Two lean women in racing tights pedaled fancy bicycles up through the park from out of the Hollywood traffic and zinged back through the tunnel, their bikes throwing up sprays of water, their fine legs churning. An occasional car took the same path but turned up the mountain instead, passing us moments later. Probably people who worked at the observatory. A tall Hispanic man in tight black pants, plaid shirt, and down vest came up from Hollywood under a pale pink umbrella. He stopped under the restroom awning, shook out his umbrella, then went inside. After a minute, the Caddie opened and a middle-aged white man in designer jeans, tweed sport coat, and glasses hustled across, hands over his head against the rain, and also went into the restroom. More cars passed, more cyclists, some runners. The kid came out of his bus, this time wearing a shirt and shoes and rain jacket, wiped off the Norton’s seat with a piece of newspaper, fired it up, and took off. The middle-aged guy came out of the restroom, hustled back to his Caddie, and drove away. Then the tall man came out, looked at the sky as if expecting it might have cleared, opened his umbrella, and headed back to Hollywood. I ate four jalapeno olives and drank more coffee. Life is drama.
Just after nine, the clouds let go. Rain banged down in big heavy drops that sounded like hail against the Jeep. Pike took a sandwich from the bag and ate it without saying anything. Ellen stirred and sat up but neither ate nor drank.
Just before ten, a Mercury Montego turned into the park and stopped by the picnic tables. There were three men inside, two in the front, one in the back. I said, “Joe.”
“Got’m.”
Ellen Lang leaned forward.
Five minutes later two more sedans pulled up next to the Montego, and five minutes after that, two more cars came. The second-to-last car was the blue Nova.
“He’s fielding a goddamned army for this,” Pike said.
“Sure. He’s heard of us.”
“I don’t see Perry,” Ellen said.
“There’s still time,” I said.
Pike frowned and looked back out the window.
The Tattooed Man got out of the third car and walked up to the Montego. You couldn’t see his tattoos because of the rain jacket he wore, but Ellen said softly, “He’s one of them.” I nodded and finished the jalapeno olives. No one else had had any. Pity.
The Tattooed Man leaned into the Montego, spoke briefly to its driver, then it pulled away, heading toward
