Beckman drove, while Masuto sat in the back seat of the car and talked to Maria. As they swung up Sunset Boulevard toward West Hollywood, he said to Beckman, “Easy, Sy. I don’t want to attract any attention, and I don’t want any sheriff’s cars or L.A. police pulling us over to find out what we’re up to. Just stay on it nice and easy.”
The girl was crying again. “I gave you my promise, Maria,” Masuto said to her. “I told you no harm would come to you and that I am not an immigration agent.” He repeated it in Spanish. “So no more crying. We have only a little time, and you must answer my questions.”
“I will try.”
He gave her his handkerchief. “Dry your tears. You are not betraying anyone. Do you think that people who murder, who will kill a small child-do you think such people can be betrayed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then believe me. Now tell me, before, when you spoke of the car, was that the car he drove you in, this man, Frank?”
“Yes.”
“Where was it parked when you left the hotel that night?”
“Down the hill from the service entrance.”
“What kind of a car was it? A fine car?”
“A splendid car. A Mercedes. I asked him how a busboy could drive such a car.”
“Yes? What did he say?”
“It was not his car. A friend’s.”
“Did you ask him what friend?”
“He said a dear friend. It made me think it was a woman,” Maria said. “I don’t know why. I just thought so. And I asked him. He became very angry.”
“Did he tell you?”
“No.”
“What color was the car?”
“Dark red.”
“Did you notice the license plates?”
She nodded. “Yes, the state of Nevada.”
“You said he lived with his brother?”
“He said that.”
“You didn’t see the brother?”
“No. Only Frank-Issa.”
They had turned south on La Cienega now, and then left into Fountain Avenue. Beckman said over his shoulder, “I caught that about the red Mercedes. We could find out if Binnie Vance owns a red Mercedes.”
“It will all be over by that time, one way or another.”
“I could put it on the horn.”
“No!” Masuto snapped. “I don’t want anything on the radio. I don’t want any questions or answers.”
“Okay, Masao. It’s your shtick.”
“Did he say anything about seeing you again-or when?” Masuto asked the girl.
“I did,” she replied plaintively. “He was nice.”
“Did he say he would see you again?”
“He said maybe. He said he didn’t know if he would stay with the job or not. He didn’t like being a busboy.”
“Him and the brother makes three,” Beckman said.
“Yes.” Then Masuto asked the girl, “Did he speak of any other friends? Any other brothers?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“It don’t mean they were actually brothers,” Beckman said.
“I know. It doesn’t matter.”
They drove on in silence for a while, and then Beckman said, “We’ll be coming up on Western in a few minutes. Maria should start looking. What do you want me to do, Masao?”
“Just easy. About twenty-five miles an hour. When she spots the house, don’t stop or slow down.”
They passed Western. “It’s on this side,” said the girl, pointing.
“Don’t point. Just watch. On the right, Sy.”
“There,” said Maria. “That place with the car in the driveway.”
“Red Mercedes with Nevada plates,” Beckman said.
Masuto leaned in front of her as they passed the house, a rundown frame cottage on a street of rundown frame cottages.
“Turn left up to Sunset on the next corner,” Masuto said to Beckman; and then he said to the girl, “We’re going to drop you off on Sunset Boulevard, and you can get a bus there back to the hotel.” He pressed a five-dollar bill into her palm. “This is for bus fare and your trouble. You helped a little girl to live, and you helped other people too, and I thank you. But I don’t want you to say anything about this to anyone. Do you understand?”
She didn’t want to take the money, but he insisted, and when they had dropped her off and turned back toward Fountain, Beckman said, “I don’t know, Masao, the way you let her go. She could have been tied into it.”
“That kid?”
“It happens.”
“Not with a kid like that. No. She gave me what she had.”
They had turned back into Fountain. “How close?” Beckman asked.
“Find a place to park about a block away. Don’t pass it again. I don’t want to press our luck.”
When he had parked the car, Beckman twisted around to face Masuto. “You know, Masao, we’re in L.A. now.”
“We have the legal right to go anywhere in the county in pursuit.”
“We’re not in pursuit.”
“I say we are.”
“Okay. You say we are. I say we should call the Los Angeles cops.”
“Sure. We call in the Los Angeles cops, and they bring the swat team and we have fifty guns around that house with its paper walls and tear gas and the rest of it, and inside you have two half-insane, desperate men who have already been a part of two killings and they’re planning maybe a hundred or two hundred more before the day is out, and they’re holding my kid as a hostage. Suppose it was your kid they had in there, Sy? Would you call in the swat team? Think about it.”
Beckman thought about it for a moment or two, and then he said, “What do you mean, two hundred killings?”
“Just answer my question.”
Beckman drew a deep breath and sighed. “All right, Masao. Your way. What is your way?”
“First thing, Sy, take off your gun.” He removed his own pistol from the holster under his armpit, and handed it to Beckman. “Lock them both up with the fat man’s clothes in the trunk.”
Beckman just stared at him, holding the gun that Masuto had given him. “You’re out of your mind.”
“No, Sy, I’m very sane. That wretched little house is made of matchwood. A bullet would go through the door or even both walls. They could be armed with forty-fives, and a forty-five is like a cannon in that place. If we come in there armed, they’re going to start shooting. I can face getting shot; so can you. I don’t want my daughter to face it.”
“And what in hell do you think is going to happen when we go in there unarmed? Either they kill us or they take us. Then where are we? And how in hell do we get in there? You say the door’s made of matchwood-right? We kick it in and get them before they get us.”
“And suppose one of them’s with Ana?”
“Goddamn it, Masao, we can’t go in there unarmed. How?”
“We knock at the door. They open it. They let us in.” He was peeling off his jacket as he spoke.
