Stalking The Angel

me and one lane over. There was another Asian guy with him. Hmmmm. When the light changed and Ishida went straight, I hung a left onto Sixth. Two cars later, the Taurus followed. I stayed on Sixth to San Pedro and went south. The Taurus came south, too. I took the Dan Wesson out of the glove box and put it between my legs. Freud would've loved that.

At a spotlight on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Commerce, the Taurus pulled up on my left. I looked over. The guy in the Grateful Dead shirt and the other guy were staring at me and they were not smiling. I gripped the Dan Wesson in my right hand and said, 'Sony makes a fine TV.'

The guy on the passenger side said something to the driver, then turned back to me and flipped open a small black leather case with a silver and gold L.A.P.D. badge in it. 'Put it over to the curb, asshole.'

'Moi?'

The Taurus bucked out ahead under the red light and jerked to the right, blocking me. They were out and coming before the Taurus stopped rocking. I put both hands on the top of the steering wheel and left them there.

The guy who had shown me the badge came directly at me. The other guy walked the long way around the car and came up from behind. The car behind us blew its horn. I said, 'I swear to God, Officer. I came to a full stop.'

The one with the badge had the sort of face they hand out to bantamweights, all flat planes and busted nose, and a knotty build to go with it. I made him for forty but he could've been younger. He said, 'Get out of the car.'

I kept my hands on the wheel. 'There's a Dan Wesson.38 sitting here between my legs.'

Grateful Dead had a gun under my ear before I finished the sentence. The other cop brought his gun out, too, and put it in my face and reached through the window and lifted out the Dan Wesson. Grateful Dead pulled me out of the Corvette and shoved me against the fender and frisked me and took my wallet. Other horns were blowing but nobody seemed to give a damn.

I said, 'Why are you guys watching Nobu Ishida?'

The bantamweight saw the license and said, 'PI.'

Grateful Dead said, 'Shit.' He put away his gun.

The boxer tossed my wallet into the Corvette and dropped the Dan Wesson into the roof bay behind the driver's seat. I said, 'How about those search and seizure laws, huh?'

They got back in their Taurus and left, and pretty soon the horns stopped blowing and traffic began to move. Well, well, well.

I drove back to my office and called the cops. A voice said, 'North Hollywood detectives.'

'Lou Poitras, please.'

I got put on hold and had to wait and then somebody said, 'Poitras.'

'There's an importer down on Ki Street in Little Tokyo named Nobu Ishida.' I spelled it for him. 'I was on him today when two Asian cops come out of my trunk and take me off the board.'

Lou Poitras said, 'You got that four bucks you owe me?' These cops.

'Don't be small, Lou. I call up with a matter of great import and you bring up a paltry four dollars.'

'Great import. Shit.'

'They took me out just long enough to lose Ishida. They don't say three words. They flash their guns all over Pershing Square and they don't even rub my nose in it the way you cops like to do. Maybe they're cops. Maybe they're just two guys pretending to be cops.'

He thought about that. I could hear him breathe over the phone. 'You see a badge?'

'Not long enough to get a number.'

'How about a tag?'

'Maroon Ford Taurus. Three-W-W-L-seven-eight-eight.'

Poitras said, 'Stick around. I'll get back to you,' and hung up.

I got up, opened the glass doors that lead out to the little balcony, went back to my desk, and put my feet up. Stick around.

Half an hour later I got up again and went out onto the balcony. Sometimes, when the smog is gone and the weather is clear, you can stand on the balcony and see all the way down Santa Monica Boulevard to the ocean. Now, the heat was up and the smog was in and I felt lucky to see across the street.

I went back in the office, dug around in the little refrigerator I have there, and found a bottle of Negra Modelo beer. Negra Modelo is a dark Mexican beer and may be the best dark beer brewed anywhere in the world. I sipped some and watched the Pinocchio clock. After a while I turned on the radio and tuned to KLSX. Bananarama singing it was a cruel summer. They're not George Thorogood, but they're not bad. I went back onto the balcony and looked out over Los Angeles and thought about what it would be like to marry and have children. I would have two or three daughters and we would watch Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers together and then roll around on the floor like puppies. When they grew up they would like Kenneth Tobey movies. Would they look like me, or their mother? I went back into the office, closed the glass doors, and sat in one of the director's chairs. You think the damnedest things when you're waiting for a call.

Maybe Lou Poitras had lost my phone number and was desperately searching the police computers in his attempts to contact me. Maybe he had obtained forbidden information concerning the two cops who'd fronted me and was now lying dead in a pool of blood behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile. Maybe I was bored stiff.

At five minutes after seven I was flat on my back on the floor, staring at the ceiling and wondering if aliens from space had ever visited the earth. At ten minutes after seven, the phone rang. I got up off the floor as if I had not been waiting most of the day, sauntered over, and casually picked up the receiver. 'Laid-back Detectives, where your problems are no problem.'

It wasn't Lou Poitras. It was Sheila Warren. She was crying. She said, 'Mr. Cole? Are you there? Who is this?' The words spilled out around coughing sobs. It was tough to understand her. She still sounded drunk.

I said, 'Is anyone hurt?'

'They said they would kill me. They said they would kill Bradley and me and that they would burn the house down.'

'Who?'

'The people who stole the book. You've got to come over. Please. I'm terrified.' She said something else but she was sobbing again and I couldn't make it out.

I hung up. One thing about this business, it doesn't stay boring for long.

Chapter 6

When I got to the Warren home it was still standing. There was no fire, no hazy smoke blotting out a blood-red sun, no siege tower breaching the front wall. It was dark and cool and pleasant, the way it gets at twilight just as the sun settles beneath the horizon. Hatcher sat in the same light blue Titan Securities Thunderbird and watched me pull into the drive and park. He came over. He didn't look too worried.

I said, 'Everything all right?'

'She phone you about the call?'

'Seemed pretty upset.'

'Yeah. Well.' He hacked up something thick and phlegmy and spit it at the bushes. Sinus.

I said, 'You don't act like anything out of the ordinary has happened.'

He patted his jacket below his left arm. 'Anything out of the ordinary comes around here, I'll give it some of this.'

'Wow,' I said. 'I'm surprised she bothered to call me with you out here.'

Hatcher snorted and went back to the T-bird. 'You'll see. You're around here enough, you'll see.'

The voice of experience.

I walked over to the front door, rang the bell twice, and waited. In a little bit, Sheila Warren's voice came from behind the door. 'Who's there?'

'Elvis Cole.'