The Night Crew

He led them back through the club, to the front, and the; stairs leading up to the party room. The doorman at the top' looked down, and the bouncer yelled, 'Hey, Larry, you seen China?'

'She left.'

'Did she leave with anyone? You see anyone?'

'She was by herself, far as I know.'

A

He shook his head: 'Nobody here like that.'

'You think you could have missed it?'

'No way. Thing like that, a guy's probably a troublemaker. We keep our eye out for troublemakers.'

The outside door opened behind them, and Wyatt came through, followed by two men in suits. The bouncer spotted them and said, 'Shit,' and looked up the stairs at Larry and made a quick throat-cutting sign. Larry stepped out of sight.

'She's not here,' Wyatt asked, coming up.

A

'Could be a joke,' Harper said. 'Louis wouldn't.'

A

'You're sure?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm sure: I knew the voice,' A

'Had you heard it beforeother than at the parking lot, when he jumped you?' Wyatt asked.

A

'Face to face, or on the phone?' asked one of the L.A. cops.

The phone? She hadn't thought of that.

'God, I don't know. I talk to a hundred people every night, ru

Harper chipped in: 'The guy on the door didn't see anyone with a bite on his face. Says he would have seen it.'

'All right,' Wyatt said. He seemed weary, almost too tired to deal with it. 'Let's see if anybody here saw China leave with someone. We got a couple of cars coming.'

'That's all?' A

'Can you think of anything else?' Wyatt asked.

'I'm outa here.' She stepped toward the door, but Wyatt caught her arm.

'Look, we finally got something going on thiswe're pulling together a multi-department task force to track this guy,' he said. 'We're go

'I think it's too late for that,' A

'We still need to talk with you.'

'I'll call you; I'd really appreciate it if you'd tell me if you shake anything out of these people,' she said, gesturing UP the stairs. 'And China: if you hear anything.'

Wyatt looked at Harper. 'Jake, can you control her a little? She's go

Jake said, 'I'll try.'

'You wouldn't hold anything back on us?'

Jake shook his head: 'No. We're not playing games: we just want somebody to get him. I don't think there's anything. Well, we thought for a while that he might be a little older, white-haired, but that's gone up in smoke. A

Wyatt turned to A

Her eyes snapped back and a small, uncertain smile crinkled her face. 'Yeah. I heard you. He's young, I'm sure of it. Forget white hair. That was a wild-goose chase.' And to Jake: 'Let's go.'

Jake's eyebrows went up, but he nodded and said to Wyatt, 'Talk to you tomorrow.'

Norden was waiting out on the sidewalk: she didn't like cops, and now she was leaning against a fire hydrant, smoking, watching the light bars on the cop cars.

'We all done?' she asked.

'Yeah, for tonight,' A

'Drop me at my place; I want to get Harnett's files out of the car,' Norden said.

They dropped her at an apartment off La Brea, waited until I she was inside, then Jake turned to A

A

Jake did a comic double-take: 'Yeah? Well, speak up.'

'It's Wyatt.'

'What?' He gri

'Yeah, an older guy with white hair. You were talking about it and I was looking at him, and all of a sudden, I realized it washim. We were thinking the white-haired guy was after Creek or me, but reallyit was Wyatt checking up on Pam Glass, and what was happening with her and Creek, and he didn't want us to know it. That's why he took off. He's hung up on Pam, and he didn't want Pam to know he was hanging around.'

Harper thought it over for a few seconds, then sighed: 'Are you positive?'

'Ninety-nine percent. Next time we see Wyatt, take a good look at him. He's the guy.'

Harper nodded. 'All right. Christ, we commit a felony, we break into somebody's office and fuck him up and he's an i

'Not especially i

Harper said, 'Yeah, we do. And if we're not very careful, they're go

A

Jake sat up with her for an hour or two, then went to bed. 'You've got to get some sleep,' he said.

'How?'

He looked at her, shrugged. 'If you decide to go out, wake me up. I want to come along. If he's identified me, he could know we're out here. So we've got to take it easy.'

'Okay.'

He pointed a finger at her: 'I swear to God, if you leave without waking me up, I'll kick your ass.'

The dawn came slowly, first a false lightening, then a darkness again, then the real dawn, a great, unhappy light, like an old piece of newsprint being pushed over the mountains to the east.

A

Her eyes either opened, or were already openshe didn't know, it didn't seem like her mind had ever stopped. 'Yeah?'

'Jesus, did you get any sleep at all?'

'I don't know,' she said. She felt wooden. She pushed herself out of the chair, went out to the kitchen, with Harper trailing behind. 'Coffee?'

'I'm go

'Jake, jeez.'

'Give me ten minutes to put you to sleep. Just come on in.'

She followed him back to the bedroom, pulled off her shirt and jeans and bra, pulled on one of his T-shirts and lay down. He snuggled behind her, said, 'Close your eyes.'

'Jake.'

'Just close them, okay? Ten minutes.'

She could feel his arm around her waist, the tops of his thighs on the bottom of hers. She opened her eyes briefly, with difficulty, to look at the clock, and saw the glint of the gun on the nightstand; and closed her eyes again.

The phone woke her.

She startled upright, felt Jake's arm come off her, looked at the clock: She'd been down for four hours. Her mouth tasted like old features taken off a tar road.

Jake was saying, 'Yah. Aw, man, where. all right.'

When he hung up, she rolled over on her back and looked at him, caught his eyes trying to look away. 'China?'

'Yeah. She's dead. They found her body out in Glendale. That was Wyatt, and.'

'What?'

'She's pretty cut up.'