The Night Crew

'Didn't get along with the coach,' he said. 'Got along with his wife, though.'

'Ah.'

'The coach and his pals convinced me I'd never make the tour,' he said. 'I was taking the law enforcement sequence because that was the easiest one to fit around the golf. The next thing I knew, I'm working for the L.A. sheriff's department. Nine years, never liked it much: I finally went off to law school because the police work was driving me nuts.'

'What happened with you and your wife?'

'Ah, you know. We just couldn't keep it together. First I was on the street all the time, then I got sent to vice and I was hanging out with dopers and hookers.'

'Mess around a little?'

'Never. But you start to reflect the culture. Sometimes I think I scared her. Or disgusted her,' he said. 'Then I started going to law school full time, and then I moved up to homicide, Christ, I was so busy I never saw either her or the kids.'

And he carefully opened up A

'Pretty normal family, until Mom died,' A

'Did your brother teach you to drive? Like tonight?'

A

'Sexism,' Harper said.

'Severe sexism,' she agreed. 'Once. my dad always took me up to Madison for my music lesson, but one time, in the summer, he'd cut hay when it was supposed to be dry all week, and the next thing you know this big line of thunderstorms popped up over in Mi

'Ten?' he asked.

'Yup. I can drive a tractor, too. And a front-end loader.'

'If you could do plumbing and welding, I'd probably marry you,' he said.

And they necked a little more, until he shifted uncomfortably and said, 'We either stop now, or we. keep going.'

'Better stop,' A

'A little,' he said, and again, some underlying source of amusement seemed to rise to the surface of his eyes.

She turned and headed for the stairs. 'No rattling of doorknobs, okay?'

'Okay,' he said, watching her go. She was on the stairs when he called after her, 'You weren't thinking about this other guy, were you? This Clark weasel-guy?'

'No. no, I wasn't, and he's not a weasel,' she said. And, in fact, the name 'Clark' had never touched her consciousness.

But it did that night.

Sitting on Harper's lap had aroused herhadn't turned her into a blubbering idiot, but she'd liked it, a lotand in her sleep, she relived a night with Clark, pizza and wine and a little grass. And Clark, talking, touching her, turning her on.

She rolled and twisted, and woke a half-dozen times, listening: but nobody touched a doorknob.

Chapter 14

The next morning they bumped around the kitchen, not talking much but jostling each other, eating toast, looking at the blue morning sky, touching; working up to something.

Then Wyatt called for Harper. Harper took the phone from A

'What?' A

'The Malibu cops went over to Tony and Ro

'Over the hill? Down where you were?'

'Yeah. She was trying to get rid of itshe thought they were being busted. But a cop coming up from the next yard saw her, found the bag. They took five pounds of methedrine off the hill, got a warrant, took a half-pound of cocaine out of a bedroom and found receipts for a couple of rental storage places.'

'Almost big enough to make the papers,' A

'Almost. They took the rental places down this morning and found lots of interesting chemicals. There's a factory, somewherethey're still going through the paper, looking for an address.'

'And they're all arrested.'

'All but Tony. Turns out Tony didn't live therehe lives up the hillso they had to let him go.' He looked bleakly pleased with that.

'So what're we going to get out of this? Will they ask about your kid?'

'That's part of the agenda,' Harper said, putting on his grim face. 'As a favor. They owe me, now.'

Creek didn't seem to have changed much, although his doctor said he was improving: 'He was awake, asking about you,' the doc said. 'He was more worried about you than about himself.'

'So he's fine,' A

'No. He's still got one foot in the woods. He could still have a clot problem, the way his lung was damaged. but he's looking better. And that friend of his is a real morale boost.'

Glass was sitting by Creek's bed, reading a mystery, looking up every few minutes to see if he had wakened.

'I should have been here,' A

'. blood work looks fine,' the doctor was saying. 'He could be out walking around in a week, and you'd never know he'd been shot.'

But Creek's face still looked like it had been made of old parchment; A

They were just leaving the hospital when the cell phone rang and A

'Let me talk to Harper.' A man's voice, not one that she knew.

She looked at Harper and said, 'Jake: It's for you.'

Harper took the phone and said, 'Yeah.'

He listened for a moment, then handed it back to A

'What's happening?'

'I gotta drop you off.'

She looked at him, catching his eyes: she was begi

'A

'Shut up. I bailed your butt out last night when you were falling off the cliff: that counts for something.'

'Somethingbut this is different.'

'I'm going,' she said.

Harper drove downtown, hard, jumping lights, busting traffic, ignoring the fingers from angry drivers, getting there. 'Gimme the phone,' he said, as they pulled into a no-parking zone outside the Parker Center. She handed it to him and he poked in a number, listened for a minute, then said, 'We're here,' and then, 'Okay.'

He handed the phone back to A

She nodded and said, 'Okay,' and he hopped out of the car and hurried away. Five minutes later, he was back. He jumped in the car, did a U-turn and they were gone, headed north.