The Night Crew

But the Porsche went straight on, dropped onto the PCH and suddenly pulled over and gave it up.

Nothing.

Later on, they headed for a truck fire, broke off before they got there. Arrived too late at a shooting incident, found nobody hurt and cops everywhere. Coughlin checked again, and the trailing cars had not spotted anyone tracking them.

'Waste of time,' A

'Got to be a little patient,' Coughlin said.

Very late, they were rolling south on Sepulveda, looking for any movement at all, when Louis said, 'Body found.'

'Where?'

'Mmm. it's over a fence. Must be pretty high, because they can see it but they can't get to it. No address yet.'

'Okay.' Coughlin was concentrating on the driving, Louis worked the radios, and A

The problem was Clark. Were they done? Certainly. Or probably. But all those years ago, when they were working their music together, she playing it, Clark composing; when they were going to concerts together, and clubs, toying with rock 'n roll; when Clark was putting together the 'Jump Rope Concerto', the first work to bring him notice; in the years they were doing that, she had woven a mental web around them, a cocoon to hold themand when suddenly it began to come apart, she'd never dealt with it. She'd fantasized, instead, of pulling all the strands back together.

And now she thought, this perfect house she'd built in Venice, with all the homely touches from the Midwest: was this a nest for Clark? Is that where the energy had come from? Because he'd like it. Nohe'd love it. She'd been obsessive about it, all the small touches, the quilts, the rag carpets on the wooden floors, the folk art, the pottery.

Was that what she'd been doing? Building for a man who'd engineered a break that had hurt her worse than anything since the death of her mother?

'Bellagio,' Louis said.

A

'The body was found off Bellagio.'

'Over a fence?' she asked, sitting up.

'Yeah.'

'Get an address,' she snapped. To Coughlin: 'If it's over a fence, it could be the Bel Air Country Club. Get up on the freeway, let's go.'

The body was on the golf course, but so were the cops, and they couldn't get close. Coughlin edged the truck up to a cop car and the cop said, 'Get the fuck out of here.'

'Hey, I'm just trying.'

'Didn't you hear me, dummy? Get the fuck out of here,' the cop said. He was young, with a pale, Nordic face, untouched by any apparent emotion other than irritation.

'All right, but I gotta go up there to turn around.'

'Hey! You ain't coming through here,' the cop said. 'Just back it up.'

'I can't back it up.'

'Back the fuckin' truck up or I'll have your ass out here on the street, wise-guy.'

Coughlin backed the truck up, muttering under his breath, A

Coughlin looked up into the mirror and said, 'I shoulda kicked his ass.'

'They would have thumped you like a tub of apple juice,' A

Coughlin continued on down the street, paused at the corner, snarled, 'Little fuckin' Nazi rat.' And then: 'You gotta put up with this all the time?'

'All the time,' A

'You cause us a lot of trouble,' Coughlin said.

'No, we don't,' A

'Shit.' Coughlin put the truck into a driveway, backed up, turned around.

A

'Going back.'

Louis and A

'Are you deaf or stupid?' the cop asked, looking up at Coughlin.

Coughlin stuck an ID card out the window. 'I'm a sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department, working an undercover detail, is what I am. And what I feel like doing is coming out there and kicking your ass up around your neck, you little prick,' he said. 'But I can't because I'd be breakin' cover. So what I'm go

He went on for a while, while the young cop opened and shut his mouth like a dying fish. Then Coughlin threw the truck into reverse, backed into a drive, and headed out again.

'Feel better?' A

'Much.' Then: 'First time I've ever done anything like that.'

'You oughta do it more often,' A

She'd liked him before. Now she liked him better. After a while, she said. 'You might be able to make a living at this.'

'Yeah?'

'Maybe. You got the first part of the attitude.'

But that was it for the night. The following cars waited at both ends of Dell, watching cars, and for people on foot; Coughlin walked her down to her house, where a light showed in the window. Harper came to the door.

'Anything?'

'Nothing,' Coughlin said.

'All quiet here,' Harper said.

A

'No. He's fixed on you. He can't help himself. He's hanging around, but he knows we're here, too. He'll try to figure something out.'

'Nobody'll get in or out of here,' Coughlin said. 'We've got vans at both ends, night vision gear, the whole works.'

'Just gotta wait,' Harper said.

When Coughlin was gone, Harper asked, 'Do you want something to eat?'

'I usually have soup, or something light,' A

'Got chicken noodle soup in the kitchen,' he said. 'Go wash your face; I'll get it.'

They sat at the table, eating the soup and soda crackers, and she talked about the night with Coughlin; and as they talked, she felt looser and easier, and suddenly was enjoying herself. The time of the early morning, coming down, had always been one of her favorites; sharing it suddenly seemed to make it even better.

Then Harper said, seriously, 'I'm not very romantic.'

That had nothing to do with the night. She said, cautiously, 'What?'

'I don't know how to talk about thisI didn't know how to talk about it with my wife, but I.' He seemed embarrassed. 'I sort of. hunger for you.'

'We could probably think of a way to take the edge off,' she said, lightly, instinctively deflecting him.

'I'm not talking about sex; or I am, but not only sex,' he said. He looked around the kitchen. 'I'm just, right now, eating soup, having the best time I've had in fifteen years. And I just don't want it to stop.'

'That's pretty romantic,' she said. He flushed, and then she did, sitting with the soup, and then Harper said, 'Eat your soup.'

'I am.'

'Well, hurry.'

Before she went to sleep, Harper a weighty lump on the other side of the bed, A

Harper got up in the morning. A

Creek. 'How'd it go last night?'

'Okay,' she said. 'You don't have to hurry and heal up anymore. This cop is a great cameraman.' There was a second of silence and she said, 'Jesus, Creek, that was a joke.'