Pike shrugged, and this time I knew he didn't give a damn.
'Let Krantz and everyone think what they want. What I think, and do, is more important.'
Pike took a deep breath then, and cocked the dark glasses my way.
'I missed you, Elvis.'
That made me smile.
'Yeah, Joseph, I missed you, too. It's good to have you back.'
We shook hands then, and I watched him walk down to the Garcia bakery truck and drive away. I stood in the hot wind for a time, telling myself that it was over, that Pike was home, and safe, but even as I told myself these things, it was without a sense that any of it was finished, or resolved.
We were different now. The world had changed.
I wondered if our lives would ever be the same, or as good, and if we were less than we had been.
The devils take their toll, even in this angel town.
Maybe here most of all.
I have lived in my house for many years, but it wasn't my house anymore. It wasn't the cozy A-frame that wrapped me in warm woods and copper sunset light, hanging there off the side of a mountain. It had become a great cavern that left me listening to echoes as I walked from room to room searching for something I could not find. Climbing to the loft took days. Going into the kitchen weeks. Funny, how the absence of a friend can do that. Funny, how it takes a woman three beats of a heart to walk out a door, but the man she's walking away from can't make that same trip in a lifetime.
L.A. REQUIEM 389
Guess that's why you're smiling, Cole. It's so damned funny.
That night, I locked my door, and worked my way down the crooked mountain streets into Hollywood. It gets dark in the canyons first, shadows pooling in the deep cuts as the high ridges hide the sun. Here's a tip: If you leave the canyons you can find the light again, and get a second chance at the day. It doesn't last long, but nobody said second chances will wait for you.
The Sunset Strip was a carnival of middle-aged hipsters rat-racing Porsches, and goateed Val-dudes smoking twenty-dollar Cubano Robustos, and a couple of million young women with flat bellies flashing Rodeo Drive navel rings. I didn't see any of it. Shriners from Des Moines were lined up outside House of Blues like catalog models for JCPenney. Yellow-haired kids clumped outside Johnny Depp's Viper Room, laughing with LAPD motorcycle cops about the latest acid casualty. Didn't see it; didn't hear it. Twilight faded to full-on night, and the night grew later. I drove all the way to the water, then north through the steep mountain passes of Malibu, then back along the Ventura Freeway, just another mass of speeding metal. I felt edgy and unsettled, and thought that maybe if I drove long enough I might find a solution.
I love L.A.
It's a great, sprawling, spread-to-hell city that protects us by its sheer size. Four hundred sixty-five square miles. Eleven million beating hearts in Los Angeles County, documented and not. Eleven million. What are the odds? The girl raped beneath the Hollywood sign isn't your sister, the boy back-stroking in a red pool isn't your son, the splatter patterns on the ATM machine are sourceless urban art. We're safe that way. When it happens it's going to happen to someone else. Only thing is, when she walks out of your door, it isn't someone else. It's you.
I let myself off the freeway at the top of the Santa Monica Mountains and turned east along Mulholland. It's quiet up there, and dark; a million miles from the city even though it lies in the city's heart. The dry air breezed over me like sheer
390
ROBERT CRAIS
silk, and the desert smells of eucalyptus and sage were strong. A black-tailed deer flashed through my headlights. Coyotes with ruby eyes watched me from the grass. I was tired, and thought I should go home because this was silly, all this aimless driving. Just go home and go to sleep and get on with my life. You can save the world tomorrow. Find all the answers you want tomorrow.
After a time I pulled off the road, cut the engine, and stared at the lights that rilled the valley floor. Two million people down there. Put them end to end and they would wrap around the moon. Red taillights lit the freeways like blood pumping through sluggish arteries. An LAPD helicopter orbited over Sherman Oaks, spotlighting something on the ground. Another opera I didn't want to be part of.
I got out of my car and sat cross-legged on the hood. The barrel shape of an owl sat atop a power pole, watching me.
The owl said, 'Who?'
You get that from owls.
A month ago, I had almost been killed. My best friend and partner had almost died, too, and I'd spent every day since then thinking that he was gone. Today, he came very close to dying again. Samantha Dolan was dead, my girlfriend had walked out on me, and here I was sitting in the dark with an owl. The world had changed, all right. Some great large place inside me was empty, and I didn't know if I could fill it again. I was scared.
The air was sultry, and felt good. When I first came here, I fell in love with this place. During the day, Los Angeles is a great playful puppy of a town, anxious to please and quick with a smile. At night, it becomes a treasure chest filled with magic and dreams. All you have to do is chase your dreams. All you need is the magic. All you have to do is survive, but it's that way anywhere. That's what I found here when I first came; that's what more and more people find here every day, always had and always would. It's why they come; that treasure chest of hope.
I could make it right with Lucy. I could pull my life together again and fill that empty place.
L.A. REQUIEM 391
The owl said, 'Who?'
I said, 'Me.'
I climbed back in the car, but I didn't go home. I turned on the radio and made myself comfortable. I didn't need to go home anymore. I was already there.
L.A. isn't the end; it's the beginning.
So was I.
If you enjoyed Robert Crais's
DEMOLITION ANGEL
coming from Doubleday in hardcover in June 2000. Look for it at your favorite bookseller's.
And, in the interim, turn the page for an exciting preview.
1
Code Three Roll Out
Bomb Squad
Silver Lake, California
Charlie Riggio stared at the cardboard box sitting beside the Dumpster. It was a Jolly Green Giant box, with what appeared to be a crumpled brown paper bag sticking up through the top. The box was stamped
'How long has it been there?'
One of the Adam car officers, a Filipino named Ruiz, checked his watch.
'We got our dispatch about two hours ago. We been here since.'
'Find anyone who saw how it got there?'
'Oh, no, dude. Nobody.'
The other officer, a black guy named Mason, nodded.
