Chapter 6

Late afternoon.

The day felt like it had gone on forever. Anna was a night person. A full day in the sun left her feeling burned, dried out, and the midday traffic magnified the feeling. At night, Los Angeles traffic was manageable. If she had to drive during the day all the time, she'd move to Oregon. Or Nevada. Or anywhere else. In the small red Corolla, half a car length ahead of a cannibalistic Chevy Suburban, walled in by a daredevil in a brown UPS truck, she felt like she was trapped in a clamshell, and she was the clam.

After the excitement of the prowler, she'd tried to go back to bed; not because she was sleepy, but because she felt she ought to. She never got up until noon, at the earliest.

But she hadn't been able to sleep. She'd gone to bed too early, under the influence of the booze, and the chase had gotten her cranked up.

So after lying awake for an hour, she got up, showered, went downstairs, ate breakfastand got sleepy. She fought it for a while, and finally, at eight o'clock, crashed on the couch. When she got up, three hours later, she felt like her mouth was full of fungus. Off to a cranky start: and trying to figure out the funeral made her even more cranky.

Since the case involved murder, and was believed to involve drugs, the medical examiner wanted to get tissue tests back before releasing the body for cremation. She should call back, she was told, every day or two.

For how long?

'Well, you know. whatever it takes,' the clerk said.

The cops had no similar problems with Jason's apartment. They had taken out two cardboard cartons of paper, and that was it. A sleepy Inglewood police sergeant, a fax from the Odums in his hand, gave her the keys.

'We're all done with it,' he said.

'Are you really working hard on this?'

He yawned and rubbed his eyes, causing her to yawn in sympathy. 'Yeah, yeah,' he said. 'We are, but it's basically a Santa Monica case. Nothing happened down here.'

She borrowed the cop's phone to call Wyatt, at Santa Monica, and as she waited for the transfer, frowned at the fax from the Odums. They had a fax? Did everybody have a fax?

'Yeah, Wyatt.'

'I'm down in Inglewood. Are you doing anything up there?'

Wyatt talked for a couple of minutes, and Anna decided that he wasn't doing much.

'There's nothing to go on,' Wyatt said. 'Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anythingwe had a guy out on the pier all last night, talking to the fishermen, and he came up with exactly zero. We don't have anything back from the lab yet, so we're not even sure that's where he was killed. And the most likely motive involves the worst anonymous ratshit dopers in the whole goddamn country. So I don't know what more to do. Keep talking to his friends. Like your pal, Creek.'

'Creek's okay,' Anna said.

'He did time for dope,' Wyatt said. 'He was dealing bigtime, is the word.'

'He was smuggling, not dealing. And he quit cold. He hasn't had anything stronger than Jack Daniel's since he got out.' She could hear him yawn, and it irritated her: 'Maybe you need a nap,' she suggested.

Wyatt ignored the sarcasm. 'Yeah, I could. And Pam backs you up on Creek, by the way. She went out to talk to him.'

'Pam? Your partner?'

'Yeah.' Anna half-smiled, and even on the phone, Wyatt picked up the vibration.

'Why? He's a Romeo or something?'

'Not exactly. He does have an effect on. a certain kind of woman.'

'What kind?'

'The anal, blazer-wearing, HermŠs-scarf owning, power-sunglasses type, with no kids.'

'Huh. Like you.'

Anna almost started, then grinned into the phone: she'd deserved it. Wyatt continued, 'Pam's got a collection of HermŠs, but no kids.'

'Big surprise,' Anna said. 'Good-bye.'

'Hey, wait.'

He wanted to talk more about Pamela Glass; Anna wasn't in the mood.

From the Inglewood police station, Anna headed over to Jason's apartment. The apartment was a neat, four-building complex surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence. She took the car through a narrow access gate, which a sign said would be locked at midnight; the sign had been over-painted with graffiti. She glanced at her watch: already three o'clock. She had to move. Creek and Louis would be at her house in two hours, ready to roll.

She left the car in a guest parking slot, and headed into the complex. A dozen people sat in lawn chairs around a swimming pool, drinking beer, talking in the fading sunlight. Old Paul Simon tinkled from a boom box, 'Still Crazy After All These Years'.

Get it over.

Jason's apartment was routine California stucco, tan, concrete steps going up to external walkways, rust stains running down from roof-edge gutters. The weather had been dry, but the walkways smelled like rain. Green, red, yellow and blue doors alternated down the walkways, an uninterested attempt at decor. Anna looked at the keys237found the door, a red one, looked around, waiting for somebody to object. Nobody did; she was alone on the walk. She had a little trouble with the key, finally got it to go and pushed inside.

Smelled carpet cleaner. He hadn't been here long.

The apartment was nearly dark, the only illumination coming through the open door and a back window. The room she was in, the front room, was littered with empty pizza cartons, comic books, Big Gulp plastic cups. A Playboyand a Penthouselay in the middle of the carpet. The cops had dumped everything, and left the litter where they dumped it. She left the door open, groped for the light switch, found it, flicked it. Nothing happened. Lights out.

'Jeez,' she said. Her voice didn't quite fill the room, and she paused, and thought, What? She stepped back and looked out along the walkway, heard voices, a woman's, then the deeper rumbling from a man.

Coming up the stairs. Still worried about being taken for an intruder, she pushed the door shut, stood for a moment in the gloom, waiting for her eyes to adjust. There' d be a circuit breaker somewhere, she thought. Probably in a closet or back in the kitchen.

The apartment was almost tooquiet: like the ghost of Jason had muted all the little normal sounds, the creeping subliminal pitter-patter of cockroaches, warping of wood, flaking of paint. She pushed the feeling away and headed toward the small kitchen nook: Find the light.

He got her as she stepped into the kitchen.

He was off to the right, next to a small dinette table.

Anna was looking the other way, sensed him a fraction of a second before he was on her, started to turn, started to say something, to cry out.

He threw a large hand over her mouth, wrapped a heavy arm around her chest, tripped her with a sweeping leg, and they lurched back into the living room and hit the floor, Anna on the bottom. The impact took her breath away for a second, and she thrashed frantically, trying to get an arm loose, trying to get her feet working, trying to kick, but he was very strong, very professional: he'd done this before.

The arm around her chest tightened and he pulled her head back and said, close by her ear, 'If you scream, I'll punch your lights out. If you stop kicking, I'll let you breathe. C'mon.' They thrashed for another moment, but he'd wrapped a leg around her legs and she felt as though she were fighting an anaconda.

And he said, 'C'mon, goddammit, I don't want to hurt you, I just want you to shut up. If you'll shut up, nod.'

Exhausted, sweating, scared, she relaxed, involuntarily, and nodded and he said, 'I swear to God, if you scream, I'm gonna bust you in the mouth.'

And he took his hand away from her mouth.

She drew a breath to scream, reconsidered: 'Let me go,' she said, trying to look at him. She started thrashing again, trying to turn, but he held her. All she could see was his chin.