The Night Crew

Glass looked down at the pier, a mile south. 'Right here?'

'Yeah.' They all turned to look down at the Santa Monica pier, a gray line of buildings thrusting into the water a mile to the south.

'Has he been having trouble with anyone? Buying the crank or something?' Wyatt asked.

'He was pretty cheerful last night: he was riding with us because he heard about the raid, and set up our contacthe only rides with us once or twice a month, when we've got something complicated going on. He just seemed like. Jason. Nothing special.'

'And you don't know about the crank. Who his supplier might have been.'

'No. I don't,' A

'You don't know much about anything, do you?' Glass said.

'Get off my case,' A

Glass took a step toward her, A

A

'Sorry about Pam,' he said. 'She hasn't been doing homicide all that long. She's still kind of street.'

'She like to fight?' A

'She's not afraid of it,' Wyatt said, glancing back at the woman, who was peering down at the body.

'Listen, last night,' A

'All right, we'll tell the doc. You're go

'Yeah. Wait.' A

'Thanks. Make the statement.' He looked back at his partner, sighed and started that way.

'Makes your teeth hurt, doesn't it?' A

He stopped and half-turned. 'What does?'

'Wanting to sleep with her so bad.'

Wyatt regarded her gloomily, then broke down in a self-conscious grin. 'I don't think a woman could ever know how bad it gets,' he said. He started walking back, then turned, and in a tone that said, This is important, he added: 'And it's not just that I want to sleep with her, you know. That's only. the start of it.'

Chapter 5

A

Lost Dogwas a centerboard S-2/7.9 with a little Honda outboard hanging off the stern, and Creek had sailed it to Honolulu and back. On his return, A

A

He was, in fact, down below, installing a marine head where he'd once carried a Porta Potti.

'Creek,' she called, 'come out of there.'

Creek poked his head up the companionway. He was shiftless, had a hacksaw in his hand, and his hair was sodden with sweat. He read A

'Jason's dead,' A

Creek stared at her for a moment, then shook his head wearily, and, 'Aw, shit.' He ducked down the companionway and the hacksaw clanged into a toolbox. A moment later, he emerged again, wearing gym shorts, his body as hairy as a seventies shag carpet. 'Fuckin' crank, I bet,' he said.

'He was shot,' A

'Shot?' Creek thought about it for a moment, then shrugged, an Italian shrug with hands. 'Still, probably dope.'

'Yeah, maybe,' A

'What else would it be?'

'I don't know,' A

'Naw; I won't float.'

She let some of it out, now: 'His face looked like notebook paper: it was white, it was like.' She happened to look into the harbor water, where a small dead fish floated belly-up. '. Like that fish. He didn't look like he'd ever been alive.'

'You know who he hung out with,' Creek said. 'You give those kids enough time, they'll kill you. Fuckin' crazy Hollywood junkie crackheads.'

A

Creek exhaled, threw his head back and looked at the Windex at the top of the mast. 'Wind is shit today,' he said. And: 'They'll be coming to see me.'

A

'Fine with me. I've got work to do on the boat,' Creek said. He flopped his arms, a gesture of resignation. In the bad old days, Creek had run boatloads of grass up from Mexico. He'd never been caught with a load, but at the end, the cops had known all about him, and when he'd been tripped up with a dime bag, they'd used it to put him in Chino for three hard years. He considered himself lucky.

'If this was Alabama, I'd still be inside,' he said. He hadn't smuggled or used drugs in a decade, but if the cops ran his name as a member of the night crew, they'd get a hit when his name came up: and they'd be around. 'You better get in touch with Louis.'

'Already did, on the phone,' A

'Nah, they would of caught you, and then they woulda wondered why you were lying.' He gri

On the afternoons when Creek wasn't working, he'd crank up the Honda outboard, motor out of the marina into the Pacific, raise just enough sail to carry him out a bit further, then back the jib, ease the main, lash the tiller to leeward and drift, sometimes all night, listening to the ocean.

A

Jason had worked with them on and off for two yearsthey'd probably been out with him once a month, perhaps a little more often. Say, thirty times, A

His main shortcoming was a lack of focus: he would get caught by something that interested himmight be a face, or visually tricky shot, and lose track of the story.

A