The Night Crew

Harper punched out without waiting for a reply.

A

'We don't have any other direction,' Harper said. 'This is what we've got.' A few seconds later, he added, 'You're pretty smart, this phone thing. Thinking of it like that.'

The Marshall Hotel was one of the older buildings on Pico, a four-story hollow cube with a brick front and stucco sides, outdoor walkways on the inside of the cube, and windows that looked like holes in an IBM punch card. The bottom floor had a small diner, a check-in desk, and an open courtyard with an above-ground pool and a patio, with a scattering of tables on the patio.

A

Harper followed a minute later, carrying a briefcase. He stopped at the desk, exchanged a few words with the deskman, shook his head and walked out to the patio and took a chair near the pool, on the other side of a clump of palm.

Maran came out a few seconds later, looked around, spotted Harper and his briefcase, and went that way. A

She'd never seen him before, she was quite certain of that.

She took out her cell phone and called Tony's number, heard it ring thirty feet away. Harper answered, and she said, 'I don't know himI've never seen him.'

'Okay. Stay where you are. We'll be right back.'

'Where're you going?' she asked, alarmed.

But he'd rung off. A moment later, on the other side of the patio, Maran and Harper headed toward the hotel.

She had only a moment to think about it, but something in the way Harper moved brought her out of her chair. She took just a second to drop a twenty on the table, to keep the waiter off her back, and followed them. They stepped inside an elevator and as the doors closed, A

She turned the corner, started down toward a gift shop, swerved into a stairwell and started ru

But where, exactly? The doors on the hall were identical, the hallway carpet unexpectedly thick, sound-deadening. She walked slowly down the hall, listening: took a small notebook out of her purse, and a pen; if somebody came along, she'd stop and write in it, as though she were making a note.

But there was nobody in the hall, nothing but silence and the smell of old tobacco smoke.

And then an impact.

Not a sound, exactly, more of a feel; then a sound, muffled, anguished, and another impact. Up ahead, somewhere. she hurried down the hall now, but as quietly as she could, listening. Where was it coming from.

She passed a door. A possibility. Listened. Another impact, a groan: No. Somewhere ahead, the next room.

Another impact, an animal sound, a wounded animal. Across the hall now. Another. She pressed her ear to the door: and with the next impact, she could feel it.

She tried the knob: locked. Hit the door with her fist. 'Jake! Jake! Jaaake!' Her voice rising. She'd scream it, if she had to.

The knob turned under her hand, and Jake was there, on the other side, a dazed, crazy look in his eyes. He held what appeared to be a broken chair leg. One hand was covered with blood, and there were spatters of blood on his golf shirt.

'Ah.' she said, involuntarily. She put a hand on his chest and pushed, and he stepped back, and she went into the room.

Maran was on the floor, face up, bleeding from the nose: he was conscious, but just barely. There was no blood at all on his upper body, but his legs looked wrong. He looked like a paraplegic whose legs had withered.

A

'Hit him,' Harper said. He seemed confused, uncertain of where he was.

'Is he go

'No, I just.' he drifted away, and she caught his arm and squeezed.

'What? Jake?'

'Broke his legs,' he said. He looked at the chair leg in his hand. 'A lot.'

'So let's get out of here,' A

'Call an ambulance,' Harper said.

'We can do that outside,' she said, and she pushed Harper toward the door. Harper dropped the chair leg. A

'Now,' she said.

Harper followed her dumbly through the door, down the stairs, out past the gift shop. She stopped him at a bank of phones, dialled 911, and said, 'There's a man hurt really bad in room three-thirty-three at the Marshall Hotel on Pico. Hurt really bad. Better get an ambulance here fast.'

On the street, she could taste the bile at the back of her throat: 'That the guy?' she asked. She looked up at him, his eyes clearing a bit, and then at the blood splatters on his shirt.

'He sold the stuff to Jacob and his friends. He didn't know Jacob, but he described the whole bunch of them.'

'Jason?'

'He had no idea who Jason was.'

'Maybe he was lying,' A

'No. Christ, he was bragging about it. I asked him if he'd seen the kid who tried to fly off the Shamrock, and he was laughing about it in the elevator. You know what he told me? He sold to the kids because "That's my market". That's what he said, like he was some kind of toy-company executive.'

'Ah, God.'

'"That's my market", for Christ's sake. That was in his roomthat's when I hit him in the face. He was still smiling when he went down.'

'Jake.'

'I feel like I should have strangled the miserable little motherfucker,' Harper said bitterly, as they got to the car. He looked back up the street.

'I wish I'd killed him.'

'So why'd you want the ambulance?' He looked at her, shook his head: 'Because I'm fucked up.'

Chapter 15

Back on the street, moving quickly, Harper still shaky: 'You drive,' he said, tossing her the keys. 'I'm not functioning too well.'

'All right.' She opened the car, climbed in, adjusted the seat. As she pulled away from the curb, she heard the siren: There was usually a siren somewhere in the L. A. background, but this one was closing in. As they pulled away, she saw the flashing lights a few blocks down Pico, headed toward the hotel.

'Ambulance,' A

'I du

The lightbulb went on.

'I've given you a hard time about this co