“What do you think you’re doing? You have no right to barge into my bedroom.”
“I want to meet Joe Carver, the guy who’s so much better than I am.” Herrenberg was pacing around in the bedroom now. Jerry could hear him walk to the bathroom and look in.
Jerry Gaffney was not a man who was reluctant to deliver a cheap, surprise punch, which was one reason he was listening intently to Paul Herrenberg’s location at every moment. But he had been in enough fights to know that he would be foolish to throw away any opportunity to avoid fighting, so he was listening even more intently for reassurance that Herrenberg wasn’t about to open the closet. So what he heard next was both unwelcome and welcome at once. Paul Herrenberg had been staring at Sandy Belknap’s sheets like a detective, and then he dropped to his hands and knees to look under the bed. If he was doing that, he would certainly get to Sandy’s closet next, but meanwhile, he could hardly be more vulnerable.
Jerry Gaffney slid the closet door open, delivered a top-of-the-foot kick to Paul Herrenberg’s face, belly- flopped onto his limp body, and dragged his arms behind him to close the handcuffs on his wrists.
“What the—”
“Don’t talk,” said Gaffney gruffly. Herrenberg was much bigger than Gaffney had anticipated, and he was already thinking that if the cuffs didn’t close in time, he was going to have to go for the gun. “I’m a police officer, and I’m going to—”
“You son of a—”
Jerry dazed him with a punch to the side of his head. “I asked you not to interrupt. You’re going to have two choices. You can cooperate completely, or you can act like an angry asshole. If you do that, you’re going to jail, and the trip will not be easy or pleasant. There are enough charges already to hold you.”
“You can’t just hit me like that. I’ve got a witness.”
“Yes, I can.” Gaffney punched the other side of his head, then grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up as though he might slam Herrenberg’s face on the floor. He held it there for a long, tense moment, then released it. “Now. Do you want to get through this without anything turning ugly?”
Herrenberg seemed to think for a minute, then went limp. “Yes.”
“You just pushed your way into a lady’s apartment after she told you that you weren’t going to be allowed inside. That’s forcible entry. You pushed her aside to get in. That’s battery at least, and maybe even assault. Given the hour and the fact that you saw she isn’t wearing much, you might draw some class-one felony charges.”
“So what are you doing in her apartment?”
He grasped Herrenberg’s hair again and hissed into his ear, “I don’t have to tell you anything.” He released him. “But I will. I’m attempting to apprehend an armed robbery suspect named Joe Carver, who seems to be interested in Miss Belknap. That means that any single stupid thing you do or say is interfering with a felony investigation. It’s also harassing and threatening a brave citizen who has agreed to place herself in danger to act as bait.”
“Oh, shit,” Paul mumbled. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Now I want you to listen carefully, because what you say and do next is going to pretty much determine what the rest of your life will be like. If you’re going to be a hard guy, you might get off with ten years, which is only five served if you’re lucky. But you don’t strike me as lucky.”
“What do I have to do?”
“First, apologize to the lady.”
“I’m sorry, Sandy. I apologize.”
“Now apologize to me for obstructing justice and making me compromise an ongoing investigation.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry who?”
“I’m sorry, officer. Sir.”
His voice sounded so obsequious, so fearful and weak, that Gaffney looked up and saw that Sandy’s face held a look of distaste.
“Now I want you to get up. I will walk you to the door. Then I’ll take the handcuffs off. If you go silently and voluntarily, get in your car, and go away, we’ll forget about filing charges. If I, or some other officer, have to put the cuffs on you again, the charges come back, and we’ll do things the hard way.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll go.”
Gaffney took his arm, helped him up, and guided him to the door. He half-turned. “Sandy, I’ll call you later. Okay? Just to talk.”
She frowned. “Uh, I don’t think so, Paul. I don’t want to talk. If I ever do, I’ll call you.”
“But—”
Gaffney tightened his grip on Herrenberg’s arm to stop the circulation. “She’s being pretty clear. Don’t you think so?”
“Yes.” He half-turned again. “You won’t even talk to me?” There were tears forming in his eyes.
“No. I want you to go away.”
The tension went out of Herrenberg’s muscles. Gaffney unlocked the handcuffs and removed them, then put his hand on his gun, but Herrenberg didn’t even look back to see the gesture. He stepped out the door, down the steps to the outer door, and kept going.
Gaffney closed and locked the door, and turned.
Sandy was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, looking at him with her arms folded. “Are you sleepy?”
“Not now.”
“Me either.” As she stepped backward into the bedroom, she pulled the nightgown up and off, then threw it aside.
20
SPENCE SAT on the roof of the Bank of America building on Ventura Boulevard and watched the sun lighten the sky beyond the gradual curve where Du-Par’s and Trader Joe’s were just visible. He could hear one of the local flocks of escaped parrots screeching in first flight, and the cars that went by on the street weren’t late-night partygoers and insomniacs now. These were regular people on their way to work.
He knelt and reached down for the .308 Remington rifle he had lying on the blanket. He ejected the box magazine, opened the bolt to be sure there was no round in the chamber, and took the weapon apart, removing the barrel and trigger assembly from the stock. He wrapped the parts in the blanket and put it into his backpack. It was clear by now that Joe Carver wasn’t planning to show up to ambush whoever came with the night’s take from the clubs. He wasn’t too surprised. It had seemed unlikely that Carver would strike two nights in a row, and that unlikeliness had been Spence’s main reason for coming.
He slipped the straps over his shoulders and crossed the roof to the back of the building, then climbed down the steel rungs set into the wall. He stayed behind the bank building, then walked along the side of the parking structure to get to the sloping lawn above the Los Angeles River, followed the high metal fence that marked the concrete bank above the concrete channel, and turned where the bridge crossed over the river at Whitsett.
While he was still on Ventura, he passed two other men walking toward bus stops and wearing backpacks. Since the cost of gasoline had gotten ridiculous, more and more people in the eastern part of the Valley had stopped taking cars to work and begun riding the bus wearing backpacks. He passed the bus stop at Whitsett and crossed the bridge.
The night had not been completely wasted. It had given Spence time to think.
Kapak was not wrong about Joe Carver. He really did seem to want to blow Kapak’s life apart. It seemed to Spence that Carver had taken up the work with enthusiasm, and he was actually making progress in ruining Kapak. But it didn’t make Spence relish the idea of killing Carver.
Spence approached his car watchfully, then put the backpack in the trunk, got on the freeway at Laurel Canyon, and drove to Kapak’s house. He left his car a hundred feet from the front gate and went through the pedestrian gate with his key. As he passed the garage, he looked in the window and noticed that Kapak’s car was gone. He looked at the house. The windows were all still dark. He went inside, then walked through the building quickly, looking for signs that Kapak had been here.
