Sunset Express

by Robert Crais

  “Me, too, Studly. Oh, you don’t know.”

  We talked for another hour, mostly about where we would go and what we would do and how excited we were that we would see each other again. When my food was warm I sat on the kitchen floor, eating as we talked, and the cat came over and stared at me. Purring. Lucy asked about Green and the Teddy Martin case, and as I told her I listened to the soft country sounds of k.d. lang behind her, and the passing voices of Ben and his best friend as they tumbled through her home. The sounds of Lucy Chenier’s life. I told her about the videographer and that Green was shorter and thinner than he looked on television, though still imposing, but after a while our conversation drifted back to us, and to how our tans from Cancun were fading and how much fun we’d had drinking blue iced cocktails and eating the fresh ceviche that the hotel chefs would make at the beach, and then after a while the conversation was over.

  Lucy blew me a kiss and hung up and I lay back on the kitchen floor with the phone on my stomach, grinning at the ceiling. The cat stopped purring and came closer to stare into my face. He looked concerned. Maybe he didn’t know I was grinning. Maybe he thought I was dying of some sort of hideous facial stricture. Is that possible? Death by grinning. I said, “She’s coming to see us.”

  He hopped up onto my chest and sniffed at my chin and began to buzz again. The certainty of love.

  Later, I washed the dishes and shut the lights and went up to bed. I lay there for a very long time, but sleep wouldn’t come. I could only think of Lucy, and of seeing her, and as I thought the grin seemed to grow. Perhaps the grin would grow so wide that it would crash through the sides of the house and slop down across the mountain and just keep expanding until it became The Grin That Ate L.A. Of course, if that happened, the grin would eat LAX and Lucy couldn’t land. Then where would I be?

  At a little after two that morning, I went downstairs to the guest room and stripped the bed and put on fresh linen and then dusted and vacuumed and cleaned the guest bath. I figured I could borrow a camper’s cot from Joe Pike; Ben could use the cot and Lucy could have the bed.

  At sixteen minutes before four, I went out onto the deck and stared down at the lights in the canyon below. A family of coyotes who live around Franklin Reservoir were singing, and a great desert owl who lived in the eucalyptus trees made his hooting call. I breathed the cool night air and listened to the coyotes and the owl, and I thought how fine it was that so much of my being could have so suddenly become focused on an airplane’s time of arrival.

  I did not sleep, but I did not mind.

  4

  By nine o’clock the next morning I had gained some measure of control over the sappy grin and was once more feeling focused, productive, and ready to swing into investigative action. Sappy grins are fine in your personal life but somehow seem less than professional when one is representing the Big Green Defense Machine. Credibility, as they say, is everything.

  By eight-forty I had shaved, showered, and phoned Terminal Island to arrange an interview with LeCedrick Earle. I was eating a breakfast of nonfat yogurt and sliced bananas when Eddie Ditko called and said, “Hold on a sec while I fire up a smoke.” First thing out of his mouth.

  “Top of the morning to you, too, Edward.”

  There was the sound of the strike and a little pause like maybe Eddie was sucking up half of the earth’s pollutant supply, and then a burst of coughing that sounded wet and phlegmy. He said, “Christ, I’m passing blood.”

  So much for breakfast. I pushed the bowl away and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Think I’m gonna drop a goddamned lung.” He croaked it out between coughs.

  “You want to call back?”

  The coughs settled to a phlegmy wheezing. “Nah, nah, I’m fine.” When he got his breathing under control, he said, “Whadda they make these things outta nowadays, fiberglass? Ya gotta rip the filters off to get any taste.”

  “Jesus Christ, Eddie.”

  Eddie Ditko said, “Listen, I made a few calls and got some stuff for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Rossi looks like a pretty sharp gal.” Gal. “Divorced. Got a couple of little boys. Her ex is some kind of middle manager at Water and Power.”

  “All right.” I was making notes. I had been thinking that she might’ve married well and gotten the expensive house in the divorce, but middle managers at Water and Power aren’t known for their bank accounts.

  “She was top of her class at the academy and moved right up the promotion ladder once she got into uniform. She responded to more calls, worked more hours, and made more arrests than all but three other officers with her time in grade. That’s probably where the marriage went.”

  I was still writing.

  “The LeCedrick Earle bust is what led to the gold shield, and everybody kind of figured that Rossi had a shot at being the first female chief of detectives until the Miranda thing. You blow a murder-one case because you failed to Mirandize a suspect, and that’s it for you. She lost a grade in rank and received a letter of censure. That pretty much killed her career.”

  I was nodding as I wrote. Everything he said was confirming both Haig and Truly. “What happened with the Miranda?”

  “Two idiots armed with machetes robbed a Burito King in Silverlake and hacked three people to death. Rossi spotted a car matching the getaway vehicle and collared one of the suspects after a high-speed chase. She was jazzed from the pursuit and forgot to give the guy his warning before he confessed and implicated his accomplice. They hadda let both idiots walk, and Rossi took the heat for it. You see?”

  “Man. Did she dispute the Miranda?”

  “Nope. She blew it and she admitted it. How about that?” Like he was surprised that someone would take responsibility for their actions. “I can fax you this stuff, you want.”

  “Thanks, Eddie. What about Earle?”

  “Another genius. Rossi tags the guy for a taillight violation and he slides across a C-note with his license, which he saw some moron do in a Dirty Harry movie. Rossi recognizes the Franklin’s a fake and tells him it’ll cost him a lot more than that, so he brings her back to his house where he pulls out a stash and says she can have all she wants. She says thank you very much and let’s go to jail.”

  “That’s her side of it.”

  Eddie laughed. “Yeah, sure. Your man LeCedrick is what we call a career-type criminal. Prior to the funny-money arrest, he’d been in and out of the system half a dozen times, mostly dope and burglary charges, including two prior associations with a guy named Waylon Mustapha. Mustapha makes his living by selling down funny money for points.” Selling for points is when you discount the face value of the counterfeit money to sell it in quantity. Sort of like being a broker. “My guy at the PD says that the bills they recovered when Rossi made the collar matched up with the goods Mustapha handles.”

  I tapped the pen against the pad, frowning. “Just because LeCedrick was a creep most times doesn’t mean he was a creep that time.”

  Eddie laughed harder. “Keep dreaming.”

  I said, “You hear anything that would indicate she might be willing to fudge a case?”

  “You talk to his mother?”

  “Whose mother?”

  “Earle’s mother was in the house when Rossi made the collar. She saw the whole thing.”

  “Anything in the file?”

  “Nada. IA would’ve talked to her, though. ’Course, whether they listened is a different matter.”

  “Do you have her address, Eddie?”

  He did, and he gave it to me. It was the same address in Olympic Park as that listed on LeCedrick Earle’s arrest report. I hung up, then phoned information for Louise Earle’s number and called her. I still needed to see LeCedrick, but maybe I could see her first. Maybe she had something to offer that might bolster his version of events, or clarify it. I let the phone ring ten times but got no answer. Guess I’d have to see LeCedrick sans clarity.

  I hung up again, washed the dishes
, then climbed into my car and made the long drive south to see LeCedrick Earle.

  The harbor town of San Pedro lies on the water at the southeast point of the Palos Verdes peninsula, sixty miles south of Los Angeles. It’s pretty much a straight shot down the San Diego Freeway across a rolling flat fuzz of low buildings and single-family homes, past Inglewood and Hawthorne and Gardena to Torrance, and then yet farther south on the Harbor Freeway to the water. The Port of Los Angeles is down there, with the gleaming white cruise ships that come and go and the great Queen Mary that forever stays and the U. S. Federal Correctional Facility at Terminal Island.

  Terminal Island is on the western side of the harbor, and the facility itself is on the outermost end of the island. The Queen Mary is next door, as are the berths for the cruise ships, but neither can be seen from the prison. From the prison, you could only see open water, and the water looked very much like iron. Sort of like the bars of the cells.

  I crossed a land bridge to the island and followed the signs to the prison, and pretty soon I passed through a high chain-link gate and parked at the administration building. A tall link fence topped by concertina wire surrounded the prison, which was new and modern and clean. A guard tower overlooked the grounds, but it was new and modern and clean, too. No gun ports. No swivel-mounted machine guns. No snarling guard dogs or barrel-chested yard-bulls sapping prisoners into line. All of the guards wore blue blazers and ties, and none of them carried guns. They carried walkie-talkies, instead. Modern justice.

  I went inside to the reception desk, identified myself, and told the guard that I had an appointment to see LeCedrick Earle. The guard was a clean-cut guy in his early thirties. He found my name in his log, then turned it around for me. “Sign here, please. Are you armed?”

  “Nope.”

  He flipped through a large loose-leaf book until he found Earle’s name, then used his phone to tell someone that he wanted prisoner number E2847 brought out. When he was finished he smiled at me and said, “Someone will be right out for you. Wait by the sally port.”

  A couple of minutes later a second guard brought me through the sally port to a glass-walled interview room. A neat new table sat in the middle of the floor with four comfortable chairs around it. A second glass door was behind the table, and there was a nice gray berber carpet. The air smelled of Airwick. If it weren’t for the guards peering in at you and the wire in the glass, you’d never know you were in a prison. Portrait of the Big House as corporate America.

  Thirty seconds later the same guard opened the rear door and an African-American guy in his late twenties came in and squinted at me. “You that guy come about Rossi?”

  The guard said, “Buzz me when you’re done and I’ll come get him.” The guard had bored eyes and spoke to me as if Earle wasn’t there and hadn’t said anything.

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  The guard left, locking the door.

  LeCedrick Earle was maybe an inch shorter than me, with dark glossy skin and a shaved head. He was wearing a prison-issue orange jumpsuit and Keds. I said, “That’s right. I work for an attorney named Jonathan Green.”

  “You a lawyer?”

  “Nope. I’m a private investigator.”

  Earle shrugged. “I saw that ad in the paper and called. I talked to some guy say he was a lawyer.”

  “The ad was about information leading to the arrest of James X for the murder of Susan Martin.” Truly had filled me in before he’d left the office. “You know anything about that?”

  He dropped into the near chair, put his feet on the table, and crossed his arms. Showing smug. “Don’t give a damn about that. I know about Rossi. I read in the paper she one of the cops arrest Teddy Martin. She put the fuck on me, I figure she maybe put the fuck on him, too.”

  “You don’t care about the reward?”

  “Fuck the reward.” Giving me righteous. Giving me can-you-believe-this? “Can’t a brother just wanna do his civic duty?”

  “I read your arrest report, and I read the letter of complaint your lawyer filed against her. What happened with that?”

  “Shit, what you think happened? They didn’t do a goddamned thing. Say it’s my word against hers.”

  “Your mother was there.”

  All the show and the exaggeration flicked away. His eyes darkened and his face seemed to knot. “Yes, well, she don’t know nothing. Just a crazy old lady scared of the police.”

  I said, “Okay, so the arrest report is wrong and Rossi is lying.”

  “Goddamned right. Bitch set me up.”

  “She says that you tried to buy your way out of a traffic violation with a fake C-note.”

  “Bullshit. That money was real.”

  “You really tried to buy your way out with a C?”

  “Man, I had so many outstanding warrants I was scared she was gonna run me in. That’s what I was tryin’ to avoid.”

  “So what happened?”

  He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. “I pass her the note and she laughs. She says she don’t come that cheap and I say it’s all I got. She says I guess we gonna get locked down, then won’t we? I’m gettin’ the Hershey squirts cause of all the warrants, so I say I got a few hundred stashed at the house. She says let’s see it, and that’s when we go home.”

  “She followed you to your house to get more money.”

  “Oh, yeah. That part’s true.”

  “Okay.”

  “So we get there and go inside and I got the money back in my room, not much, a few hundred, but it’s real. I worked for that cash.”

  “Okay.”

  “We go back to my room to get the money and the next thing I know the gun’s coming out and she’s screamin’ at me to get on the floor an’ I’m squirtin’ for real’ cause I think the crazy bitch gonna shoot me and so I go down and she snaps on the cuffs and then she takes this little bag of cash from under her jacket and that’s the shit.”

  “The funny money?”

  He was nodding. “I say, what’s that? I say, whatchu think you doin’? She say shut the fuck up. Oh, man, next thing I know more cars are pullin’ up and she’s tellin’ them other cops that the flash cash is mine and now I’m in here. How you like that shit?”

  I stared at LeCedrick Earle and LeCedrick Earle stared back. His eyes did not waver. I said, “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Thinkin’ what?”

  “Wondering about you and Waylon Mustapha.”

  He waved his hand. “That’s just bullshit bad luck.” He waved the hand some more. “Waylon grow up down the street from me. Waylon and me know each other since kindergarten and blow a little smoke together, that’s all. I can’t help it I know Waylon. I know guys who killed people, an’ I ain’t no murderer.”

  “The money Rossi booked into evidence matched with paper that Waylon deals.”

  LeCedrick crossed his arms and grinned. “Half the funny money on the street come from Waylon. She probably got it from the goddamned evidence room. She mighta even bought it from Waylon his own damn self.”

  “Okay.” I stared at him some more.

  LeCedrick Earle started to fidget. “Now what you lookin’ at? You don’t believe me, jus’ say so, callin’ me a liar.” He got up and walked in a little circle.

  I said, “I’m going to write down everything you’ve said. I’m going to check it out. I’m going to pass it along to Jonathan Green. You sure you don’t want a piece of the money?”

  “Fuck the money. I just wanna get out of here.”

  I nodded.

  He jabbed a finger at me. “I’m tellin’ you and God and everyone else that bitch set me up. You check it out, you see. Bet she set up this Teddy Martin, too.”

  I said, “Something about what you’re saying bothers me, LeCedrick. You want to help me with something?”

  His eyes narrowed. Suspicious. “What?”

  “If she wanted to set you up, she didn’t need to go to your house
. All she had to do is bust you on the street and say she found the money under the front seat.”

  “Damn bitch is crazy! Who know how a goddamn crazy bitch think?” He threw up both hands, then came back to the table and slapped the buzzer for the guards. “Shit on this. I shoulda known you asshole muthuhfuckuhs wouldn’t believe me. Fuck you and fuck her, too. I guess a brother just has to rot in here.”

  The guard came and took LeCedrick Earle back to his cell.

  5

  As I tooled north back to Los Angeles I tried to keep an open mind. Just because someone looks like a liar and acts like a liar doesn’t mean that he is a liar. It doesn’t even mean he’s a liar when his story is full of holes. Even the truth has been known to have holes. Of course, when his story doesn’t make sense it becomes a little more difficult to swallow. I could see Angela Rossi’s side of it, but not LeCedrick Earle’s. Rossi’s report said that she followed Earle to his house because he only had the single hundred-dollar bill on his person and she knew that he could plead innocent to a knowledge of its being counterfeit; she reasoned that if he had more at home as he stated, he couldn’t reasonably deny knowledge and the intent to defraud, and the arrest would stick. LeCedrick Earle said that she followed him to his home where she produced a hidden amount of counterfeit money and made the arrest. He opined that she might’ve done this so that there would be no witnesses, yet Mrs. Louise Earle had been there and Rossi apparently consummated the arrest. Rossi’s version made sense and LeCedrick Earle’s didn’t.

  Still, people sometimes do strange things for strange reasons, and I decided to see what Mrs. Louise Earle had to offer. I expected that she would support her son’s claims, but in the doing perhaps she would add something to give them greater credence.

  I opened Truly’s envelope, shook out my notes, and looked up her address. It would be polite to pull off the freeway and call again to see if she was at home, but when people know you’re coming they often find reasons to leave. I decided to risk it.

  Forty-five minutes later I dropped off the Harbor Freeway onto Martin Luther King Boulevard, and five minutes after that I found my way to Olympic Park.