Perhaps if I were a better detective I could have gotten a line on him, or found his body, though not if Joe was alive and covering his tracks.
Telling myself that was better than thinking him dead.
When I wasn't at the desert I haunted Santa Monica, walking Joe's route both during the day and at night, talking to clerks and surfers and gang-bangers and bodybuilders and maintenance people and food vendors and the limitless armies of street people. I walked the night route so often that the hookers who worked Ocean Avenue brought home-baked pie for me and Starbucks coffee. Maybe it was the cast. They all wanted to sign it.
My friends at the FBI and the DMV ran still more searches for black minivans, and people named Trudy and Matt, and I even got them to badger their friends in other states to do the same. Nothing turned up, and after a while my friends stopped returning my calls. I guess our friendship had its limits.
Eight days after I left the hospital I phoned Stan Watts. “Is there anything on Joe?”
“Not yet.”
“Has SID finished with Sobek's garage?”
He sighed. “Man, you don't give up, do you?”
“Not even after I'm dead.”
“They finished, but you're not going to like it much. They got this sharp kid over there named Chen. He tied Sobek to all of the vics except Dersh. I'm sorry.”
“Maybe he missed something.”
“This kid is sharp, Cole. He lasered Dersh's place looking for fibers that could've come from Sobek's, but found nothing. He lasered Sobek's, looking for something that might've come from Dersh, but that was a bust, too. He doped both places, and ran gas chromes, but struck out all the way around. I was hoping he'd find something that put Sobek with Dersh, too, but there's nothing.”
Chen was the guy who'd done the work up at Lake Hollywood. I remember being impressed when I'd read it. “Think you could send over these new reports?”
“Shit, there's gotta be two hundred pages here.”
“Just the work he did on Dersh's place, and Sobek's garage. I don't need the others.”
“You got a fax there?”
“Yeah.” I gave him the number.
He said, “You really been taking a cab out to the desert?”
“How'd you hear about that?”
“You know something, Cole? You and Dolan were of the same stripe. I can see why she liked you.”
Then he hung up.
While I waited for the fax, I reread Chen's Lake Hollywood report, and was again impressed with its detail. By the time I finished, the new reports had arrived, and I found them exhaustive. Chen had collected over one hundred separate fiber and soil samples from Dersh's home and property, and compared them with samples taken from Sobek's apartment, clothing, shoes, and vehicle, but found nothing that would tie the two together. No physical evidence tied Dersh to Joe Pike, either, but that didn't seem to bother Krantz.
I read the new report twice, but by the end of the second reading felt as if I was wasting my time—no matter how often I turned the pages, no new evidence appeared, and Chen's evidentiary conclusions remained unchanged. I was thinking that my time would be better spent looking for Trudy, or going back to the desert, when I realized that something was different between the work that Chen had done at Lake Hollywood and the work he'd done at Dersh's house.
I had read these reports hoping to find something exculpatory for Pike, but maybe what I was looking for wasn't something that was in the report. Maybe it had been left out.
I phoned the SID office, and asked for John Chen.
The woman who answered the phone said, “May I tell him what it's regarding?”
I was still thinking about what the report didn't say when I answered her.
“Tell him it's about Joe Pike.”
41
• • •
The New, Improved John Chen
John Chen had leased the Porsche Boxster—also known as the 'tang-mobile—on the very day he was promoted for his exemplary performance in the Karen Garcia homicide. He couldn't afford it, but John had decided that one could either accept one's miserable place in life (even if, like John, one was born to it) or defy it, and you could defy it if you just had the balls to take action. This was the new, improved John Chen, redefining himself with the motto: If I can take it, it's mine.
First comes the 'tang-mobile, then comes the 'tang.
Just as John Chen had had his eye on the Boxster, so had he been head over heels in heat for Teresa Wu, a microbiology graduate student at UCLA and part-time assistant at SID. Teresa Wu had lustrous black hair, skin the color of warm butter, and professorial red glasses that John thought were the sexiest thing going.
Still flush with the accolades he'd garnered for his work at Lake Hollywood, John drove back to the office, made sure everyone there knew about the Boxster, then asked Teresa Wu for a date.
It was the first time he had asked her out, and only the second time he'd spoken to her. It was only the third time he'd been brave enough to ask out anyone.
Teresa Wu peered at him over the top of the red glasses, rolled her eyes as if he'd just asked her to share a snot sandwich, and said, “Oh, please, John. No way.”
Bitch.
That was a week ago, but part of John's newfound philosophy was a second motto: No guts, no nookie. John had spent the next seven days working up his nut to ask her out again, and was just about to do so when some guy named Elvis Cole called, wanting to speak with him.
Now Teresa had left for school, and John put down the phone with a feeling of annoyance. Not only had the incoming call blown today's chance at Teresa Wu, but Chen didn't like it that Cole implied he had missed something at the crime scene. Chen liked it even less that he'd allowed the guy to badger him into meeting back at the Dersh house. Still, Chen was curious to hear what Cole had to offer; after all, if Chen could make a headline breakthrough on the Dersh case, Teresa Wu might change her mind about going out with him. How could she turn down a guy with a Boxster and his name on the front page of the L.A. Times?
Forty minutes later, John Chen tooled his 'tang-mobile into Dersh's drive beside a green-and-white cab. The police tape had been removed from Dersh's door, and the house long released as a crime scene. Now it was nothing more than bait for the morbid.
As Chen shut down the Boxster, a man whose arm stuck from his body in a shoulder cast climbed out of the cab. He looked like a waiter.
The man said, “Mr. Chen. I'm Elvis Cole.”
There's a dorky name for you. Elvis.
Chen eyed Cole sourly, thinking that Cole probably wanted him to falsify or plant evidence. “You're Pike's partner?”
“That's right. Thanks for coming out.”
Cole offered his good hand. He wasn't as big as Pike, but his grip was uncomfortably hard—like Pike, he was probably another gym rat with too many Y chromosomes who played private eye so he could bully people. Chen shook hands quickly and stepped away, wondering if Cole was dangerous.
“I don't have a lot of time, Mr. Cole. They're expecting me back at the office five minutes ago.”
“This won't take long.”
Cole started down the alley alongside Dersh's home without waiting, and Chen found himself following. John resented that: Ballsy guys lead; they don't follow.
Cole said, “When you covered the Lake Hollywood scene, you backtracked the shooter to a fire road and found where he'd parked his car.”
Chen's eyes narrowed. He automatically didn't like this, because Pike had done the tracking and he'd only tagged along. Chen, of course, had left that part out of his report.
“And?”
“There's no mention of the shooter's vehicle in the Dersh report. I was wondering if you looked for it.”
Chen felt a flood of relief and irritation at the same time. So that was the guy's big idea; that was why he'd wanted to meet. Chen put an edge in his voice, letting this guy know he wasn't just some a-hole with a pocket caddy.
“Of course, I loo
ked for it. Mrs. Kimmel heard the shooter's car door slam in front of her next-door neighbor's house. I checked the street and the curbs there and in front of the next house for possible tread marks, too, but there was nothing.”
“Did you look for oil drips?”
Cole said it just like that, without accusation, and Chen felt himself darken.
“What do you mean?”
“The Lake Hollywood report mentions oil drips that you found at the scene. You took samples up there and identified the oil.”
“Penzoil 10-40.”
“If the shooter's car was leaking up at the lake, it probably left drops here, too. If we found them, maybe you could prove they'd come from the same vehicle.”
Chen darkened even more, his face burning at the same time he felt a grim excitement. Cole had something here. Chen could compare brand, additives, and carbon particulate concentration to match the two samples. If he got a match, it would break open the Dersh case and guarantee headline coverage!
But when they reached the street, Chen's enthusiasm waned. The tarmac had last been refreshed in the sixties, and showed pothole plugs, the scorched weathering of L.A.'s inferno heat, and a webwork of tiny earthquake cracks. In the general area where Chen reasoned that the shooter had parked, any number of drips dotted the road, and they might've been anything: transmission fluid, power steering fluid, oil, brake fluid, antifreeze, the hawked lugey of a passing motorist, or bird shit.
Chen said, “I don't know, Cole. It's been two weeks; anything that dripped that night has been weathered, dried, driven over, maybe contaminated with other substances. We won't be able to find anything.”
“We won't know if we don't look, John.”
Chen walked along the edge of the street, kicking pebbles and frowning. The damned street was so speckled it looked like measles. Still, it was an interesting idea, and if it panned out, the benefits might be enormous. Sex with Teresa Wu.
Chen dropped down into a push-up position the way Pike had shown him and considered the light on the road's surface. He let everything blur except the light, and noticed that some drips shined more than others. Those would be fresher. Chen moved to the curb, and imagined a car parked there, an SUV like the one at Lake Hollywood. He went low again in that place, looking for drip patterns. A vehicle parked for a time would not leave a single drip, but several, the dots overlapping.
Cole said, “What do you think?”
John Chen, lost in the street, did not hear him.
“John?”
“Huh?”
“What do you think?”
“I think it's a long shot.”
“Is there any other kind?”
John Chen went back to the Boxster for his evidence kit, then spent the rest of the afternoon taking samples, and daydreaming about Teresa Wu.
42
• • •
Exactly twenty-four days after the City of Los Angeles district attorney's Office registered my conviction with the state, I received a letter from the California State Licensing Board revoking my investigator's license. In the same mail, the California Sheriffs Commission revoked my license to carry a firearm. So much for the Elvis Cole Detective Agency. So much for being a detective. Maybe I could become a sod farmer.
Two days later the doctors cut off my cast, and I began physical therapy. It hurt worse than any physical pain I'd ever felt, even worse than being shot. But my arm worked, and I could drive again. Also, I no longer looked like a waiter.
I drove to my office for the first time since the desert, walked up the four flights, and sat at my desk. I had been in that office for over ten years. I knew the people who worked in the insurance office across the hall, and I used to date the woman who owned the beauty supply company next door. I bought sandwiches from the little deli in the lobby, and did my banking in the lobby bank. Joe had an office there, too, though it was empty. He had never used it, and now perhaps never would.
I watched Pinocchio's eyes move from side to side, and said, “I guess I could hang you in the loft.”
When the phone rang, I said, “Elvis Cole Detective Agency. We're out of business.”
Frank Garcia said, “What do you mean, out of business?”
“Just a joke, Frank. How you doing?” I didn't want to get into it.
“How come you haven't called? How come you and that pretty lady haven't come see me?”
“Been busy. You know.”
“What's that pretty lady's name? The one works for Channel 8?”
“Lucy Chenier.”
“I want you two to come have dinner. I'm lonely, and I want my friends around. Will you?”
“You mind if it's just me, Frank?”
“Is something wrong? You don't sound so good.”
“I'm worried about Joe.”
Frank didn't say anything for a while, but then he said, “Yeah, well, some things we can control, and some we can't. You sure you're all right?”
“I'm fine.”
I spoke to Lucy every day, but over time our calls grew shorter and less frequent. I didn't enjoy them, and felt worse after we had spoken. It was probably the same for Lucy, too.
Stan Watts called, time to time, or I called him, but there was still no word about Joe. I phoned John Chen on eight separate occasions to see if he'd gotten anything from the tests he'd run, but he never returned my calls. I still don't know why. I stayed in touch with Joe's gun shop, and went through the motions of searching for the mysterious girl in the black van, but without real hope of finding anything. After a time, I felt like a stranger in my own life; all the things that had been real to me were changing.
On Wednesday of that week, I phoned my landlady and gave up my office. The Elvis Cole Detective Agency was out of business. My partner, my girlfriend, and now my business were gone, and I felt nothing. Maybe when I lost my license I had gone, too, and that was why I didn't feel anything. I wondered if they were hiring at Disneyland.
On Thursday, I parked in Frank Garcia's drive, and went to the door expecting dinner. Abbot Montoya answered, which surprised me.
He said, “Frank and I had a little business, and he invited me to stay. I hope you don't mind.”
“You know better than that.”
He led me into the living room, where Frank was sitting in his chair.
I said, “Hi, Frank.”
He didn't answer; he just sat there for a moment, smiling with a warmth that reached all the way into my heart.
He said, “How come I gotta find out from other people?”
“What?”
“You weren't kidding about being out of business. You lost your license.”
“There's nothing to be said for it, Frank. How'd you find out?”
“That pretty lady, Ms. Chenier. She called me about it.”
“Lucy called you?” That surprised me.
“She explained what happened. She said you lost it helping Joe get away.”
I shrugged, giving his own words back to him. “There's things we can control, things we can't.” I wasn't comfortable talking about it, and didn't want to.
Frank Garcia handed me an envelope.
I held it back without opening it. “I told you. You don't owe me a nickel.”
“It's not money. Open it.”
I opened it.
Inside, there was a California state investigator's license made out in my name, along with a license to carry a concealed weapon. There was also a brief, terse letter from a director of the state board, apologizing for any inconvenience I might've suffered for the temporary loss of my licenses.
I looked at Frank, then at Abbot Montoya. I looked at the license again.
“But I'm a convicted felon. It's a state law.”
A fierce pride flashed in Abbot Montoya's eyes then, and I could see the strength and the muscle and the power that had been used to get these things. And I thought that maybe he was right, maybe he and Frank weren't so far from the White Fence gang-bangers they'd been as youn
ger men.
He said, “Temos tu corazón y tu el de nosotros. Para siempre.”
Frank gripped my arm, the same fierce way he had gripped me before. “Do you know what that means, my friend?”
I couldn't answer. All I could do was shake my head.
“It means we love you.”
I nodded.
“That pretty woman, she loves you, too.”
I cried, then, and couldn't stop, not for what I had, but for what I didn't.
43
• • •
Two days later I was hanging a framed copy of the new license in my office when the phone rang. My first thought was that it was John Chen or Stan Watts, but it was neither.
One of the guys who worked in Joe's gun shop said, “You know who I am?”
My heart rate spiked. Just like that, and a cold sweat filmed my chest and back.
“Is this about Joe?”
“You ever been to the old missile control base above Encino? The one they turned into a park? You'll like the view.”
“Is Joe okay? Did you hear from him?”
“No way. Joe's probably dead. I just thought we might get together up at the park, maybe raise one for an old friend.”
“Sure. We could do that.”
“I'll give ya a call sometime. Bring a six-pack.”
“Anytime you want.”
“Sooner the better.”
He hung up.
I locked the office, and drove hard west through the city, and up to Mulholland.
It was a beautiful, clear Friday morning. The rush hour had passed, letting me make good time, but I would've made the time even if the streets had been crushed. It had to be Joe, or word of him, and I drove without thinking or feeling, maybe because I was scared the word would be bad. Sometimes, denial is all you have.
The government had built a missile control base high in the Santa Monica Mountains during the Cold War years. Then it was a top secret radar installation on the lookout for Soviet bombers coming to nuke Los Angeles. Now it was a beautiful little park that almost no one knew about except mountain bikers and hikers, and they only went on weekends.