“How about a few more days? There’re some things I need to do on Relovich because-”
“I already told you this is nonnegotiable,” Duffy said, walking off.
I closed my eyes and slumped at my desk, unable to concentrate, unable to keep my thoughts from drifting back to yesterday, when I was taped up, helpless, frightened. I blinked hard a few times. My head began to pound. I shook out three Tylenol and swallowed them with the dregs of my coffee.
A secretary from the captain’s office called out across the room, “Ash, a cop from Metro is on the line. I’m transferring him to you.”
I could feel my pulse quicken. Metro is the department’s elite patrol unit. Maybe one of the Metro guys scooped up Li’l Eight. I grabbed the phone.
“Detective Levine, this is Dan Freed from the Times. I’m doing a follow-up on the Relovich murder. I’m trying to get some background on Wegland and Patowski and put together-”
“What kind of shit are you trying to pull? You identified yourself as a Metro cop.”
“I never said I was a cop. I just said I was from Metro. I’m on the L.A. Times Metro staff.”
“Don’t play dumb. That’s a bullshit con job and you know it. Call Press Relations,” I said, slamming down the phone.
When I returned to my loft that evening, I was in a nasty mood. I popped open a beer and collapsed on the overstuffed chair by the window. The sun was red and low on the horizon, seeping through the venetian blinds and casting stripes on the polished concrete floor. I drank another beer, stared into space, and angrily thought about how Rip and Li’l Eight had humiliated me.
I fell asleep in the chair, and when I awoke, I checked my digital alarm clock: 6:10. Sitting up, I grabbed my remote control, flipped on ESPN, and distractedly watched a darts tournament, feeling dazed and half-asleep. After staring at the screen for about fifteen minutes, I spotted on top of the television the DVD of the Bae Soo Sung robbery-murder that Tommy Pardo had given me. I had seen it before, but the last time was almost a year ago, so I decided to watch it again.
I slipped the disk into the DVD player and studied the soundless black-and-white security video of a stocky guy in a baggy T-shirt wearing a Shrek mask and black gloves who burst through the front door waving a pistol. Sung raised his hands above his head and stepped away from the counter. Shrek yelled something to Sung. Sung nodded and waved his palms, as if to placate Shrek. He stuffed the bills from the register into a paper bag. Shrek grabbed the bag and headed for the door. But instead of walking out, he spun around, extended the barrel toward Sung. That terrified expression in Sung’s eyes had haunted me since I had first seen it: in an instant he knew he had only a few seconds left to live; he knew he’d never see his wife and children again. Shrek pulled the trigger. A dark rosette burst from Sung’s chest, and he fell to the ground.
For the next twenty minutes, I rewound and played the tape several times, but I didn’t see anything that I hadn’t spotted before. I padded off to the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee, and brought it back to my bed. Sipping the coffee, sitting on the edge of the bed, I played the tape again. When Shrek grabbed the bag of cash with his left hand, I dropped my cup, spilling the coffee on my bed.
Staring at the screen, I was unable to move. I could hear a loud rushing noise, like the roar of the surf. I felt disoriented, like I was underwater, unsure of where the surface was, not knowing whether to swim up or down.
I jumped to my feet and shouted, “Damn! That’s it!”
Quickly rewinding the tape, I froze the image of Shrek grabbing the bag. I crouched a few inches from the television and studied the screen.
When Shrek had entered the store, his left hand was in his pocket. He only removed it to grab the cash bag. In that split second when he pulled his hand out of the pocket and gripped the cash bag I saw something that stunned me.
Two fingers of the left glove flapped a bit, as if there was nothing inside.
The shooter was missing two fingers-his ring finger and the pinkie.
I knew someone missing two fingers. He’d planned to rape me and kill me.
Lil’ Eight.
CHAPTER 38
I waited until eight and called Captain Daryl Sippleman, who was coordinating the search for Li’l Eight. I didn’t want to tip him off about my discovery; I just wanted to know if he was close to arresting Li’l Eight.
“Sorry, Ash, no luck yet,” he said. “But I did bust that woman who set you up.”
“Where they holding her?”
“She’s at the jail over at Seventy-seventh. And don’t worry about Li’l Eight. It’s supposed to heat up over the next few days. The natives will be restless, and they’ll all be out on the streets. We’ll get him.”
“I don’t like the idea of this guy still roaming around.”
“Neither do I,” Sippleman said. “We’ll scoop up his ass. Don’t worry.”
But I was worried. And I wasn’t going to wait around to see when-or if-Sippleman would finally find Li’l Eight. Sippleman had his chance. Now I was going to track him down using my own methods.
I showered, dressed, and headed down to the 77th Division. After parking in back, I hustled over to where they kept the female prisoners. I told the jailer to bring out the woman who’d set me up.
A few minutes later, she shuffled into the interview room, wearing a frayed yellow housedress. When she saw me she shouted, “All because of you that I’m here.”
“No. It’s all because of you. Remember when you told me where I could find Rip? Well, when I got there he tried to kill me. And he was almost able to do it because he knew I was coming. And he knew I was coming because you warned him. That’s why you were arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. That’s why you won’t see the sun shine for the next twenty years.”
She buried her face in her palms. After I let her cry for a few minutes, I said, “There might be a way for me to help you.”
She lifted her head and looked up at me, eyes red and tear-stained. “How?”
“I’ve got to find Li’l Eight. You let me know where I can find him, and I’ll talk to the DA for you. He might cut your sentence.”
“How can I find him from the jailhouse?”
“Follow me.”
I led her down a narrow hallway that smelled of disinfectant to the small windowless sergeant’s office, which was empty. “Sit,” I ordered, pointing to the chair behind the desk.
I handed her a pen and pad, pointed to the phone, and said, “Get me an address.”
During the next fifteen minutes she made a series of calls, the phone jammed between her ear and the crook of her neck, her voice muffled. After slamming the receiver down on the hook, she glared at me and jabbed her finger on a number she’d scrawled on the paper.
“There’s the address right there. You put it out that I tell you where he stayin’, I dead. You understand?”
I grabbed the piece of paper and said, “If he knows I’m coming, you’ll never get out of here. You’ll never see your kids again. You understand?”
After leading her back to the interview room, I left for a moment to tell the jailer not to let the woman make any phone calls for the next twenty-four hours. When I returned, I said, “I want to ask you something else before I leave. You know Li’l Eight?”
“I seen him around a few time.”
“You know anything about a market shooting he was involved in?”
“Don’t know nothin’ ’bout that.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure.”
“You ever hear of a woman named Latisha Patton?”
She crossed her legs. “I heard of her.”
