I went to the door, but Lou Poitras didn't go with me. I guess there weren't many escaped felons he'd let walk away.
I stopped in the door and looked back at him. 'Tell me the truth, Lou. When you heard about the charges, did you doubt me?'
Lou Poitras shook his head. 'Nope. Neither did Griggs.'
'Thanks, Lou.'
When I turned away, he said, 'Try not to get stopped for a traffic violation. Our orders are shoot to kill.'
Ha ha. That Lou. Some kidder, huh?
Thurman said, 'How'd it go?' He didn't look at me when he asked.
'We'll know by one o'clock.'
'I want to call Jennifer.'
'Okay. You hungry?'
'Not especially.'
'I am. We've got to kill time and not get caught until one. We'll grab something to eat. You can call Jennifer. We'll move around.'
'Fine.'
We drove over the hill into Hollywood. I drove, and Thurman sat in the passenger seat. Neither of us said very much or looked at the other, but there wasn't any tension in the car. There was more an awkwardness.
We followed Laurel Canyon down out of the hills, then turned east on Hollywood Boulevard. As we drove, Thurman's eyes raked the sidewalks and the side streets and the alleys, just like they had done when he was riding a black-and-white here, just like they had done when he saved the nine-year-old girl from the nut on the bus. He said, 'Hollywood was my first duty assignment when I left the academy.'
'Yeah.'
'My first partner was a guy named Diaz. He had twelve years on the job and he used to laugh a lot. He used to say, Jesus Christ, why you wanna do this for a living? A good-looking white guy like you, why don't you get a real job?'
I looked over at him.
Thurman laughed at the memory. 'I said I wasn't born on Krypton like Clark Kent and I wasn't good enough to be Batman like Bruce Wayne, so this was the next best thing. You get to wear a uniform and drive around in a fast car and put the bad guys behind bars. Diaz got a kick out of that. He started calling me Clark Kent.' Thurman fell silent and crossed his arms and stared ahead into Hollywood. Maybe remembering Diaz. Maybe remembering other things. 'You think they'll let me stay on the department?'
'We'll see.'
'Yeah.' We rode like that for a while, and then he said, 'I know you're not doing it for me, but I appreciate what you're doing in this.'
'They haven't gone for it yet, Thurman. A lot could go wrong.'
We went to Musso & Frank Grill for breakfast and used the pay phone there to call Lancaster. Mark Thurman spoke to Jennifer Sheridan and I spoke to Joe Pike. I said, 'It's happening fast. We should know by one o'clock.'
'You want us to come down?'
'No. If it goes right, we'll call you, and then we'll come up. Once we turn over the tape, they'll move on Akeem and the Eight-Deuce. I don't want Jennifer down until those guys are off the street.'
'Sounds good.'
We took our time with breakfast and didn't leave Musso's until the waiters and the busboys were giving us the glare treatment. When we left, we walked down Hollywood Boulevard to Vine, and then back again, looking at the people and the second-rate shops and trying to kill time. We passed the place where Thurman had gone onto the bus to save the nine-year-old girl. He didn't bring it up.
We picked up the car and drove east to Griffith Park where you can rent horses and ride along trails or in carefully controlled riding pens. The park was crowded, and most of the trail riders were families and kids, but most of the pen riders were serious young women with tight riding pants and heavy leather riding boots and their hair up in buns. We bought diet Cokes and watched them ride.
At eleven minutes before one that afternoon, we pulled into the parking lot at Griffith Observatory at the top of the Hollywood Hills and went into the observatory's great hall to use their pay phone. I figured it was a pretty safe place from which to make the call. You don't find a lot of cops browsing through the meteorite display or admiring the Chesley Bonestell paintings.
At exactly one o'clock by the observatory's time, I called Lou Poitras at his office. Charlie Griggs answered. Mark Thurman stood next to me, watching people come in and go out of the hall. Griggs said, 'North Hollywood detectives. Griggs.'
'This is Richard Kimball. I've been falsely accused. A guy with one arm did it.'
Griggs said, 'Let's see you smart off like that when they put you in the gas chamber.' Always a riot, Griggs.
