The Night Crew

'Pretty fuckin' fu

'God, you get shot a little and people start having to be sensitive around you. what're you doing?'

Another second of silence. 'I was thinking about Clark again. And if you say he's not the guy, then I believe you ninety-nine percent: I'm serious. But since we've got people being killed, you've gotta check the other one percent.'

'I'm not talking to the cops about Clark,' she said.

'I understand that,' he said. 'You've got to get Harper to checkPam will help. She's got a badge, Harper's a lawyer, they could find out all kinds of stuff. And it'd all be in the family that way.'

She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, 'He didn't do it.'

'I believe you,' he said. 'But.'

'I'll talk to Jake,' she said.

Harper was on the tiny strip of canal-side lawn with a golf club, making slow-motion swings. A

'Morning,' he said. 'Or good afternoon.'

'Want to run?' she asked.

'Love to, but I'd probably have a heart attack,' he said.

'Well, I'm go

'No, you're not,' he said.

'I am, too.'

'No.' He shook his head. 'If I've got to run you downand I couldand carry you back to the house, I will. You're not going to run on the beach. I couldn't keep up with you, and that's something he may have been watching you do. If you want to run someplace else, I'll take you there.'

She put her hands on her hips: 'Now you're messing with me.'

'Damn right,' he said. 'What do you want for breakfast?'

She ran on the beach, but not on Venice Beach. Harper drove her to Santa Monica, parked on the bluff across from an art deco hotel, and they walked down an access stairway, across the highway, and onto the beach a few hundred yards from where Jason had been found.

'I didn't see any cops following,' A

'That's good,' Harper said. 'But they're there.'

She ran most of a mile north, turned, ran back past him to the pier, then back. The beach was nearly empty, and Harper could see her all the way; and she could see everyone around her.

'Not the same,' she said, when she got back. She was barely breathing hard. 'I felt like I was wearing a leash.'

'Go

'Did you think about Clark?' she asked. She'd told him about Creek's phone call.

'I'll talk to Pamthere are a few checks we could get done right away, through the cops, without talking to Wyatt. See if he had any problems with the police back east. I can get credit reports, see if I can find a guy to look around Harvard.'

'That'll take forever.'

'Not with computerswe'll have most of the paper in an hour or two,' he said. 'Getting a guy to look around Harvardwe could hear something tomorrow, if I can find the right guy'

'I don't want him to know about it,' A

'Up to you.'

On the way back, she decided: 'Go ahead with the calls on Clarkbut you know what? I want to see him. Let's see if we can find him.'

'Today? We oughta get some paper on him first.'

'So you said it'd take a couple of hours; so do it. We'll go look at him tonight.'

'What about going out with Coughlin?'

'I'm thinking about putting him off. He's a good guy, but I don't think it's go

'Wyatt seems to.'

'Maybe Wyatt's not thinking about him as much as I am,' A

'Or at the beach, this morning.'

'Except that we've got escorts,' she said. 'Unless.'

'Unless what?'

'Unless he's lost interest. I just can't understand this thing, why he'd be so interested in me.'

Harper looked at her. 'You don't understand because your mind isn't fucked, and his is. Maybe he's still got enough control to lay back, just long enough to loosen you up, and get you thinking that you can go out on your own again. And when you do, he'll be there.'

'Yeah?' The thought scared her, but the fear wasn't blinding.

Because when he found hershe'd have found him.

Chapter 24

A

'I could do it in a few minutes, from here; I'd need his full name and date of birth,' she said.

A

'I'll have it by the time you get here,' Glass said. 'We have a new room, by the way.'

A

'I'll be fine,' she said. 'Where're you going?'

'I've gotta make it down to the office, sign some paychecks. Make some calls back to Boston.'

'Remember.'

'Yeah. I'll go easy.'

A

'Paranoid,' she thought, as she went through the doors.

Creek was outside the new room, walking down the corridor in a flimsy white hospital gown. A

'Goddamn sexual harassment from the boss,' Creek told Glass, who was reading the style section of the LA. Times. 'And I'm hurt.'

'Be brave,' Glass said.

'Like he'd never grabbed a butt,' A

'I do it in a spirit of tenderness and multiculturalism,' Creek said indignantly.

A

Creek sputtered, 'I'd never just sneak up on.' and then his eyes went past A

Wyatt, wearing his raincoat, stepped into the room. 'Hello.'

'Hey.'

'I came to see if I can change your mind,' he said to A

'I don't think so.'

Wyatt brought his eyes back to A

'I can't order you to go, because you're a civilian,' Wyatt said, grimly patient. 'But the shit is go

'It's not working,' A

'He doesn't have to come after you,' Wyatt insisted. 'All he has to do is cruise you. And if we keep you out of sight, except when you're workinghe's go