Stalking The Angel

Reese's eyes went back to Ellis and flagged to half-mast. I think it was his disdainful look. 'How long were you a cop?'

Ellis chewed harder at his mouth.

I said, 'You gonna bust our ass about this all day or we gonna try to get something done?'

Reese put the look on me.

I said, 'We shoulda brought you guys in. We wanted to bring you guys in. But Ellis is right. It's Warren's ticket and he said no. That's half-assed, but there it is. So this is what we're left with. We can stand here and you can work out on us or we can move past it.'

Reese's eyes went to half-mast again, then he turned to look at the door with the paint. He sucked at a tooth while he looked. 'Poitras said you got Joe Pike for a partner. That true?'

'Yeah.'

Reese shook his head. 'Ain't that some shit.' He finished sucking on the tooth and turned back to me. 'Tell me what you got, from the beginning.'

I gave it to him from the beginning. I had told it so many times to so many cops I thought about making mimeographed copies and handing them out. When I told the part about Nobu Ishida, Jack Ellis said, 'Holy shit.'

We went back up the stairs to the Blue Room. There were cops talking to Bradley Warren and Sheila Warren and the hotel manager and the people who organized the Pacific Men's Club luncheon. Reese stopped in the door and said, 'Which one's Pike?'

Pike was standing in a corner, out of the way. 'Him.'

Reese nodded and sucked the tooth again. 'Do tell,' he said softly.

'You want to meet him?'

Reese gave me flat eyes, then went over and stood by two dicks who were talking to Bradley Warren. Sheila was sitting on the couch, leaning forward into the detective who was interviewing her, touching his thigh every once in a while for emphasis. Jillian Becker stood by the bar. Her eyes were puffy and her mascara had run.

When Bradley saw me, he glared, and said, 'What happened to my daughter?' His face was flushed.

Jillian said, 'Brad.'

He snapped his eyes to her. 'I asked him an appropriate question. Should I have you research his answer?'

Jillian went very red.

I said, 'They knew you were going to be here. They had someone come up through the laundry. Maybe he waited in the restroom or maybe he walked around and was in here with us. We won't know that until we find him.'

'I don't like these 'maybes.' Maybe is a weak word.'

Reese said, 'Maybe somebody shoulda brought the cops in.'

Bradley ignored him. 'I paid for security and I got nothing.' He stabbed a finger at Jack Ellis. 'You're fired.'

Ellis really worked at the inside of his mouth. Bradley Warren looked at me. 'And you? What did you do?' He looked at Jillian Becker again. 'The one you insisted I hire. What did you say about him?'

I said, 'Be careful, Bradley.'

Warren pointed at me. 'You're fired, too.' He looked at Pike. 'You, too. Get out. Get out. All of you.'

Everyone in the small tight room was staring at us.

Even the cops had stopped doing cop things. Jack Ellis swallowed hard, started to say something, but finally just nodded and walked out. I looked at Sheila Warren. There was something bright and anxious in her eyes. Her hand was on the arm of the big cop, frozen there. Jillian Becker stared at the floor.

Reese said, 'Take it easy, Mr. Warren. I got a few questions.'

Bradley Warren sucked in some air, let it out, then glanced at his watch. 'I hope it won't take too long,' he said. 'Maybe they can still make the presentation.'

Joe Pike said, 'Fuck you.'

We left.

Chapter 14

Pike took me back to the Warren house, dropped me off, and drove away without saying anything. I got into the Corvette, went down Beverly Glen into Westwood, and stopped at a little Vietnamese place I know. Ten tables, most of them doubles, cleanly done in pale pinks and pastel blues and run by a Vietnamese man and his wife and their two daughters. The daughters are in their twenties and quite pretty. At the back of the restaurant, where they have the cash register, there's a little color snapshot of the man wearing a South Vietnamese Regular Army uniform. Major. He looked a lot younger then. I spent eleven months in Vietnam, but I've never told the man. I often eat in his restaurant.

The man smiled when he saw me. 'The usual?'

I gave him one of my best smiles. 'Sure. To go.'

I sat at the little table for two they have in the window of the place and waited and watched the people moving past along Westwood Boulevard and felt hollow. There were college kids and general-issue pedestrians and two cops walking a beat, one of them smiling at a girl in a gauzy cotton halter and white and black tiger- striped aerobic tights. The tights started just above her navel and stopped just below her knees. Her calves were tanned. I wondered if the cop would be smiling as much if he had just gotten fired from a job because a kid he had been hired to protect had gotten snatched anyway. Probably not. I wondered if the girl in the white and black tights would smile back quite so brightly. Probably not.

The oldest daughter brought my food from the kitchen while her father rang up the bill. She put the bag on the table and said, 'Squid with garlic and pepper, and a double order of vegetable rice.' I wondered if she could see it on my forehead: Elvis Cole, Failed Protector. She gave me a warm smile and said, 'I put a container of chili sauce in the bag, like always.' Nope. Probably couldn't see it.

I went down to Santa Monica and east to my office. At any number of traffic lights and intersections I waited for people to look my way and point and say nasty things, but no one did. Word was still under wraps.

I put the Corvette in its spot in the parking garage and rode up in the elevator and went into my office and closed the door. There was a message on my answering machine from someone looking for Bob, but that was probably a wrong number. Or maybe it wasn't a wrong number. Maybe I was in the wrong office. Maybe I was in the wrong life.

I put the food on my desk and took off my jacket and put it on a wooden coat hanger and hung it on the back of the door. I took the Dan Wesson out of its holster and put it in my top right drawer, then slipped out of the rig and tossed it onto one of the director's chairs across from my desk, then went over to the little refrigerator and got out a bottle of Negra Modelo beer and opened it and went back to my desk and sat and listened to the quiet. It was peaceful in the office. I liked that. No worries. No sense of loss or unfulfilled obligations. No guilt. I thought about a song a little friend of mine sings: I'm a big brown mouse, I go marching through the house, and I'm not afraid of anything! I sang it softly to myself and sipped the Modelo. Modelo is ideal for soothing that hollow feeling. I think that's why they make it.

After a while I opened the bag and took out the container of squid and the larger container of rice and the little plastic cup of bright red chili paste and the napkins and the chopsticks. I had to move the little figures of Jiminy Cricket and Mickey Mouse to make room for the food. What was it Jiminy Cricket said? Little man, you've had a busy night. I put some of the chili paste on the squid and some on the rice and mixed it and ate and drank the beer. I'm a big brown mouse, I go marching through the house, and I'm noooot afraid of anything!

The sun was low above Catalina, pushing bright yellow rectangles up my eastern wall when the door opened and Joe Pike walked in. I tipped what was maybe the second or third Modelo bottle at him. 'Life in the fast lane,' I said. Maybe it was the fourth.

'Uh-huh.'