Cole said, “I’m getting hungry. You want dinner?”

Cole wanted to go into the kitchen. He wanted to have a glass of the wine and cook, but the girl stared at the windows, wetting her lips.

“He did that a lot?”

“He’s been all over the world.”

“Why?”

“Why would he hire out?”

She nodded.

“He’s an idealist.”

She finally looked back at him.

“I still think it’s creepy. He wouldn’t do that kind of thing if he didn’t enjoy it.”

“No, probably not. But he probably doesn’t enjoy it the way you mean. C’mon, let’s make dinner.”

She turned back to the windows.

“I’m going to wait.”

Cole went to the kitchen, but didn’t begin their dinner. He thought about Pitman. Pitman had told Larkin and her family a version of events that no longer fit with the facts, and probably never had. Cole had caught Pitman in a lie, and now he wondered if Pitman had lied about anything else.

17

John Chen

THE FIREARMS analysis unit was called the gun room. You went in there, all you saw were guns. The walls were lined with cabinets filled with hundreds of guns from the floor to the ceiling. Pistols sprouted from the inner walls of the cabinets like fruit from a dangerous tree; row after row of pistols, impaled on rods in their barrels, one gun next to another, stored that way because so many guns had been backlogged the analysts had no room to store them any other way; each gun with a tag hanging from the trigger guard to identify its make, model, and case number; each gun confiscated, used or believed to have been used in a crime. It was a harvest of bitter fruit.

John Chen eyeballed the hall outside the gun room, cursing his rotten, born-to-be-screwed luck as he made sure no one was coming. Chen hated hanging around so late in the day, but the firearms analysts were so overworked and ever-more-falling-behind that the slave-driving bitch Harriet Munson was constantly on their ass, which meant she was constantly in the gun room, which meant Chen had to wait until Harriet had gone home, which was later than anyone else on the day shift because even Harriet was overworked and behind. And to make matters worse-and matters were always growing worse, which seemed to be John’s inescapable lot in life-Pike was probably working himself into a killer rage at this very moment because he hadn’t heard from Chen about the guns. Chen’s stomach grew queasy as he imagined it. Pike was a monster, a cold-blooded killer, and would probably snap Chen’s neck like a pencil-

– which would be Harriet Munson’s fault, too. That bitch.

That morning, Chen thought for sure he would be able to get what Pike needed ASAP and be well on his way to a ’tangmobile upgrade-but no. As soon as Pike left, Chen had ripped back into the lab with his story of heroically returning to work. He had planned on badgering one of the firearms analysts into jumping the Eagle Rock evidence to the head of the analysis line, but John never had the chance. There he was, describing his courageous recovery from the broken tooth-and what did that bitch, Harriet, do? She ordered him out to a crime scene-right then, right there, right away; do not pass Go or even stop to take a piss. A domestic knife murder in Pacoima, for Christ’s sake. And THEN, as if that wasn’t enough, she sent him on to a body in Atwater, one of those homeless dudes who lived on an island in the L.A. River, found with his skull caved in like a casaba melon, almost certainly having been beaned by another homeless dude over pussy or dope or territory. Now, was THAT any way to reward a guy who overcame a broken tooth to return to work? Chen didn’t get back to the lab until almost six, only to find Harriet haunting the gun room like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Pike was certain to be impatient with the delay and no doubt would be growing angrier and angrier-at John.

Chen lived in an absolute agony of nerves until Harriet left and his chance to corner the firearms analyst appeared. Now, all he had to do was convince her to let him have the Eagle Rock evidence, and he could finally get Pike off his back.

Chen had come prepared.

The duty analyst that day was a tall, thin woman with close-set eyes and yellow teeth named Christine LaMolla. Chen was convinced she was a lesbian.

John crept down the hall, made sure no one was coming, then pressed the buzzer. Being filled with guns, the gun room was kept locked. He heard the lock click, pushed open the door, and entered.

LaMolla turned from her computer and peered at the coffee, smile-less. Lesbians never smiled.

Chen held out the cup. He had raced out to the nearest Starbucks and bought their largest mocha. Even lesbians liked chocolate.

Chen gave her his toothiest smile.

“For you.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

Chen tried to smile enough for both of them.

“I know you work late. I thought you might need it.”

LaMolla glanced at the cup again as if she thought it was laced with acid. John had once asked her out, but she turned him down flat. Lesbian.

Now she eyeballed Chen with equal suspicion. She still hadn’t touched the coffee.

“What do you want, John?”

“You know the shootings we had in Eagle Rock? I need to see the guns.”

Mr. Nonchalant. Mr. Just Another Day at the Office.

Her eyes narrowed even more.

“You didn’t cover the Eagle Rock case.”

“Nah, but something came up in one of my old Inglewood cases. I think they might be connected.”

LaMolla peered at him even harder, then took the coffee. She smelled it, but didn’t taste, then went to the door. She locked it, then leaned with her back to the door, blocking his exit.

John got an unexpected, more-than-a-little-hopeful notion that maybe she wasn’t a lesbian after all; that maybe his luck in all things was about to forever change, and he smiled even wider-

– but then she dropped the mocha into a trash can.

She said, “What the fuck is going on?”

Chen didn’t know what to say, and wasn’t even sure what she meant.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

“Eagle Rock.”

Her beady eyes made her look like a bird of prey. Chen was confused. He tried to cover it by looking, well, confused.

“Yeah, Eagle Rock. I gotta see the guns, Chris. No biggie.”

She studied him, and Chen felt himself squirm. He knew if she kept it up much longer his nervous twitch would fire up like a chain saw. He shrugged, and did his best to look innocent.

“Hey, all I wanna do is see the guns. What’s going on?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Whattaya mean, you wanna know? Jesus Christ, you gonna let me see the guns or not?”

She slowly shook her head.

“The feds took them.”

Chen blinked.

“The feds?”

“Mmm. The three semi’s and the wheel gun bagged in Eagle Rock. Here’s what’s really weird. They took the wheel gun last night-a.357 Colt Python. But then they came back this afternoon for the semi’s.”

Chen saw his chances for a Carrera upgrade circling the drain. Visions of his lost opportunity with Ronda flashed like lightning at the edge of his horizon. But mostly he imagined Joe Pike beating his ass. Pike wasn’t a man you let down. Pike would get even.

Chen blurted, “But that was LAPD evidence! The feds can’t just take our stuff. That’s our stuff!”

“They can when Parker tells us to let them have it.”

“ Parker Center gave them permission?”

LaMolla slowly nodded, still watching him with tiny eyes.

“All I know is, Harriet got the call, and she wouldn’t tell me anything about it, John. She said the sixth floor says let’m have what they want-”

The sixth floor of Parker Center was the power floor-the realm of the Assistant Chiefs.

“-so we did. They took the guns.”