one after another, and had been for most of the morning. He had left two more messages on Pollard’s phone the previous evening and was working up his nut to call again. When he heard the knock he figured it was Perry. No one else ever came to his door.
“Hang on.”
Holman pulled on his pants, opened the door, but instead of Perry he found Pollard. He didn’t know what to make of Pollard showing up like this, so he stared at her, surprised.
She said, “We need to talk.”
She wasn’t smiling. She seemed irritated, and she was holding the folder with all the papers he had given her. Holman suddenly realized he was shirtless with his flabby, sweaty white skin, and wished he had pulled on a shirt.
“I thought you were someone else.”
“Let me in, Holman. We have to talk about this.”
Holman backed out of the door to let her pass, then glanced into the hall. Perry’s head disappeared behind the far corner. Holman turned back into his room, but left the door open. He felt embarrassed by his appearance and the shitty room and thought for sure she wouldn’t feel comfortable being inside alone with him. He pulled on a T- shirt to hide himself.
“You get my messages?”
She went back to the door and closed it, but stood with her hand on the knob.
“I did, and I want to ask you something. What are you going to do with the money?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If we find the sixteen million. What do you want to do?”
Holman stared at her. She looked serious. Her face was intent, with her mouth pooched into a tight little knot. She looked like she had come to cut up the pie.
Holman said, “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not kidding.”
Holman studied her a moment longer, then sat on the edge of his bed. He pulled on his shoes just to give himself something to do even though he needed a shower.
“I just want to find out what happened to my boy. We find that money, you can have it. I don’t care what you do with it.”
Holman couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved. Either way, he didn’t give a damn except he still wanted her help.
“Listen, you want to keep it, I won’t rat you out. But just one thing-I won’t let the money keep me from finding Richie’s killer. If it gets down to a choice-keeping that money or finding out what happened-then that money is going back.”
“What about your friend, Moreno?”
“Did you listen to my messages? Yes, he loaned me the car. What’s the big deal with that?”
“Maybe he expects a cut.”
Holman was growing irritated.
“What’s up with you and Moreno? How’d you hear about him?”
“Just answer my question.”
“You haven’t asked a goddamned question. I never mentioned the money to him, but I don’t give a rat’s ass if he keeps it, either. What do you think we’re doing, planning a capital crime?”
“What I think is the police have put you and Moreno together. How would they come to do that?”
“I’ve been over to see him three or four times. Maybe they have him under surveillance.”
“Why would they be watching him if he’s gone straight?”
“Maybe they figured out he helped me find Maria Juarez.”
“Are he and Juarez connected?”
“I asked him to help. Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Chee loaned me the fucking car. I’m not looking for the money-I’m looking for the sonofabitch who killed my son.”
Holman finished with his shoes and looked at her. She was still staring at him, so he stared back. He knew she was trying to read him, but he wasn’t sure why. She finally seemed to make up her mind and let go of the knob.
“Nobody’s keeping that money. If we find it, we’re turning it in.”
“Fine.”
“You good with that?”
“I said it was fine.”
“Your friend Chee good?”
“He loaned me the goddamned car. So far as I know he doesn’t even know about the money. You want to go see him, we’ll go. You can ask him yourself.”
Pollard studied him a moment longer, then took several sheets from the folder.
“Marchenko’s girlfriend was named Alison Whitt. She was a prostitute.”
Pollard brought over the sheets and handed them to him. Holman scanned the top sheet as Pollard talked and saw it was a copy of an LAPD records and identification document on a white female named Alison Whitt. The black-and-white reproduction of her booking photo was crude, but she looked like a kid-midwestern-fresh with light sandy hair.
“Approximately two hours before your son and the other three officers were murdered, Whitt was murdered, too.”
Pollard continued but Holman no longer heard what she was saying. Pictures were snapping through his mind that drowned her out and left him afraid: Fowler and Richie in a dark alley, faces lit by the flashes of their guns. Holman barely heard himself speak.
“Did they kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
Holman clenched his eyes, then opened them, trying to stop the pictures, but Richie’s face only grew larger, lit by the silent flash of his pistol as Pollard went on.
“Fowler called her on the Thursday they came back with the dirt. They spoke for twelve minutes that afternoon. That night was the night Fowler and Richard were out late and came back with dirty shoes.”
Holman stood and went around his bed to the air conditioner, trying to walk away from the nightmare in his head. He focused on the picture of eight-year-old Richie on his dresser, not yet a thief and a killer.
“They killed her. She told them where the money was or maybe she lied or whatever and they killed her.”
“Don’t go there yet, Holman. The police are concentrating on johns and customers she might have met on her day job. The hooking was just a sometimes thing-she was a waitress at a place on Sunset called the Mayan Grille.”
“That’s bullshit. That’s too coincidental, her getting killed on the same night like that.”
“I think it’s bullshit, too, but the guys running this case probably don’t know about her connection with Marchenko. Don’t forget the fifth man. We have five people in Fowler’s group now, and only four of them are dead. The fifth man could be the shooter.”
Holman had forgotten about the fifth man, but now he grabbed on to the thought like a life preserver. The fifth man had been trying to find Allie, too, and now everyone else was dead. He suddenly remembered Maria Juarez.
“Did you find out about Juarez’s wife?”
“I talked to a friend this morning. LAPD still maintains she fled.”
“She didn’t flee; she was taken. That guy who grabbed me took her-Vukovich-he works with Random.”
“My friend is following up. She’s trying to get the videotape Maria made of her husband. I know you told me Random said it was faked, but our people can examine it, too, and we have the best people in the world.”
Our. Like she was still with the Fed.
Holman said, “You’re still going to help me?”
She hesitated, then turned back to the door with her file.
“You’d better not be lying to me.”
