The Night Crew (18 page)

nineteen

Harper was driving, down the narrow canyon road, through the night, occasional snapshots of the L.A. lights ahead of them. He was not happy with the trip: he wanted to spend the evening at his house, but Anna was going hunting, with or without him.

‘‘BJ’s: that was the only time Jason and MacAllister were hooked into me, so the guy must’ve been at the party.’’

‘‘No,’’ Harper said, shaking his head. ‘‘You don’t know how many times they told that story.’’

‘‘What’s the point of telling it if nobody sees the woman? It’s no big deal being in a three-way anymore, you can get one for fifty bucks down on the strip.’’

‘‘Really?’’ He pretended to perk up.

She ignored it: ‘‘. . . so I figure what happened is, I show up at the party, ask around for him, he’s a little unhappy when I blow him off—he was really a mess, but he thought he could still do it, he needed the money—and so he starts spreading this story with his pal. Whoever it is saw me, and heard the story. Had to be.’’

‘‘Doesn’t have to be.’’

She sighed: ‘‘Okay. Not technically: but that’s all I’ve got, and I’m going with it.’’
The party box was running hard. Anna led the way up the narrow, smoke-filled stairway, the buzz-cut hulk at the door looking past her at Harper. When Harper looked up at him, he stepped out of sight into the party room, and a moment later stepped back out; Anna realized that a warning was now rippling through the room—Harper had been taken for a cop.

The hulk was a redneck, a southern kid with a layer of hard fat in his face and under his
Eat More Spam
t-shirt. He nodded vaguely at Anna and said to Harper with a thin, sarcastic edge, ‘‘We’re checking IDs, officer.’’

Harper smiled a cop smile at him and said, ‘‘I’m proud of you.’’

‘‘Have you got a warrant?’’

Harper opened his mouth, but Anna cut in: ‘‘He’s not a cop. Not anymore.’’

The hulk was doubtful: ‘‘So what’s he want? He don’t fit here.’’

‘‘He’s taking care of me,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Do you know Jason O’Brien and Sean MacAllister?’’

A spark of interest lit in the hulk’s eyes: ‘‘I heard they’re dead.’’

‘‘That’s right. Now the guy who killed them is coming after me. We’re trying to find out who it is.’’

The hulk’s forehead wrinkled as he thought about it, and then he said, ‘‘You know who’d know? Trip what’s-his-face. He hung with. The guy . . . hang on one second.’’

He stepped out of sight again, and a moment later was back: ‘‘Come on,’’ he said.

Harper looked at Anna and showed a quarter-inch of a smile: he’d caught the warning move, and now the cancellation.

The party room was actually four rooms: a bar area, a large tiled dance room, and two smaller rooms at the sides, with rickety plastic lawn tables and chairs. All four rooms stank of tobacco smoke, and an edge of something sharper: crack, Anna thought. No grass; this club was a little harder than a pothead might want.

The population dressed in black, both male and female. Harper, with his blue shirt and sport coat, looked like he’d just arrived from Iowa. The hulk led them to the second room, spotted a thin man in a black mock turtle, with oval gold-rimmed glasses, and held up a finger. The man tipped his head and the hulk led them over.

‘‘This is a TV lady, used to work with Jason O’Brien.’’

‘‘Anna,’’ the man said. He smiled quickly, a click onandoff, showing a couple of pointy canine teeth. He looked at Harper: ‘‘Who’s your attractive friend?’’

‘‘Jake Harper,’’ Harper said, and stuck out his hand. The man took it, warily, but Jake shook cheerfully and said, ‘‘Is it Trip?’’

‘‘Yes, Trip.’’ He had a drawl, a very faint cultured hint of New Orleans. ‘‘I heard about Jason and Sean. Not the details.’’

‘‘You don’t seem surprised,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Do your friends get killed a lot?’’

‘‘From time to time,’’ Trip said, with faint amusement.

Anna nodded: ‘‘Okay. I came up here one night, about three weeks ago, to pick Jason up, but he was too messed up to work,’’ she said. ‘‘But that night, he started a rumor that he and MacAllister and I were in a three-way. We think whoever killed them heard the rumor. We’re wondering who was here that I might know, or might know me.’’

Trip pursed his lips, then said, ‘‘Well, I suppose ninety percent of the people here are in film, one way or another. Writers or actors or directors, or trying to be. And you’re
actually doing some media, so . . . I don’t know; maybe several people knew you, or of you.’’

Anna shook her head: ‘‘I didn’t see anybody I knew.’’

‘‘Let me think . . .’’ Trip turned slightly away and closed his eyes, and they waited; and after a few seconds, opened them and turned slightly back to her and said, ‘‘Were you? In a three-way?’’

‘‘No.’’

Trip let his eyes drift to Harper: ‘‘Too bad; they’re kinda fun.’’

‘‘I keep telling her,’’ Harper said. ‘‘I even got the other woman.’’

‘‘Shut up,’’ Anna snapped. To Trip: ‘‘Somebody who must’ve been tight with MacAllister and Jason both.’’

‘‘MacAllister did some work in porno; acting work. Jason might’ve taken the pictures, I don’t know—but both were friends with the guy who produces them. Dick Harnett, Bunny Films, they’re out in Burbank.’’

‘‘That’s it?’’

‘‘Actually, no. You know who else use to hang with them? China Lake.’’

‘‘Who?’’

‘‘China Lake, the actress. She played a junkie girl on ‘90210’ one week. She was up here with them a couple of times.’’

‘‘Bunny Films, in Burbank, and China Lake—you know where we can find her?’’

‘‘Probably practicing for her role as a junkie girl,’’ Trip drawled, letting the New Orleans out again. ‘‘Look downstairs in the ladies’ restroom. Dark-haired girl, shaved around the ears.’’
The women’s restroom was a sewer, four metal booths on an uneven concrete floor, everything a little damp, the stink
of urine and vomit in the air. China was alone, staring at herself in a cracked mirror, her eyes underlined with gray rings of exhaustion, her shoulders not much more than bare bone. Anna thought she might be nineteen.

‘‘China?’’

She turned her head and looked first at Anna, then at Harper, with little interest: that Harper should be in a women’s restroom didn’t seem worthy of comment, or even notice. ‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘My name is Anna Batory. I used to work with Jason O’Brien, before he got killed.’’

‘‘I heard he was dead, and Sean,’’ she said. She turned back to the mirror. ‘‘You got anything good on you?’’

Without waiting for an answer, to Harper, ‘‘Are you a cop?’’

‘‘No.’’ He shook his head: ‘‘We’re looking for whoever killed Jason; they’re coming after Anna here.’’

‘‘Really? You got anything good on you?’’

Anna shook her head: ‘‘We’re looking for a guy who might have hung out with Jason and MacAllister. Pretty big guy, about like Jake.’’ She nodded at Jake. ‘‘And a little out of shape. Not real fat, just sort of fleshy. Could be pretty weird.’’

‘‘That’s everybody I know,’’ China said. ‘‘Except . . .’’

‘‘What?’’

‘‘Most of them are skinny. You sure you don’t have anything good on you? You look like you do, like you got money.’’

They talked for another two minutes: a woman came in, glanced at Harper, said nothing, just went on to a booth and closed the door. Harper looked at Anna, faintly embarrassed, looked at China, who’d gone back to her mirror, and shook his head. Nothing here.

‘‘All right,’’ Anna said. She held a card out to China, and when the woman didn’t take it, slipped it into a pocket in
China’s small leather purse. ‘‘If you hear anything, or think of anybody, call me. There might be . . . something good in it.’’

China brightened. ‘‘You got something good?’’
‘‘Great lead,’’ Harper said, as they left the club. ‘‘Now what?’’

‘‘Bunny Films.’’

‘‘Anna, it’s ten o’clock at night.’’

‘‘So, we go bang on a door—maybe there’ll be somebody around. What else are we gonna do?’’

‘‘I could come up with something.’’
Behind them, in the club, a man leaned in the door of the women’s restroom and said, ‘‘Aren’t you China Lake?’’

China turned and said, ‘‘Hey: You got anything good on you?’’

The man shrugged, and unconsciously reached up to touch his cheekbone. ‘‘Probably,’’ he said. ‘‘I got a little of everything.’’

‘‘You do?’’ China brightened, the circles seeming to fade from beneath her eyes. She looked almost young enough to be her age. ‘‘I’ve been waiting for you.’’

twenty

On the way out Sunset toward Burbank, Anna spotted a redhaired woman in a leather biker jacket and skinny jeans, leaning on a window, hands in her jeans pocket, smoking a cigarette: ‘‘Stop, pull over,’’ Anna said. ‘‘By that woman.’’

Harper pulled over: ‘‘What’s going on?’’

‘‘How do you roll the window?’’ The window rolled down and Anna yelled, ‘‘Hey, Jenny . . . It’s Anna.’’

The woman had been watching the car as it slowed, and now she smiled, flipped her cigarette up the street and said, ‘‘Anna. Where’ve you been?’’

‘‘Working. Come on, get in.’’ Anna turned around in the front seat, popped the lock on the back door. ‘‘We’ll get something to eat or something.’’

The woman nodded and said, ‘‘Nice wheels,’’ as she slipped into the back seat. And Anna said, ‘‘Jenny Norden, Jake Harper. Jake’s a lawyer, Jenny’s with Lutheran Social Services.’’

Harper’s eyebrows went up: ‘‘You’re pulling my leg.’’

Norden grinned at him and said, ‘‘Nope. I’m a bornagainer.’’

‘‘Anna’s friends,’’ Harper said, as he pulled away from the curb.

‘‘I can’t believe you’re sleeping with a lawyer,’’ Norden said, tongue-in-cheek.

‘‘Who says I am?’’ Anna asked.

‘‘I do,’’ Norden said. ‘‘You’ve got that really clear-skin look.’’

‘‘What’s wrong with lawyers?’’ Harper asked the rearview mirror.

‘‘Nothing. I am one,’’ Norden said.

‘‘Yeah? You know the difference between a lawyer and a trampoline?’’

‘‘You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline,’’ Norden said. ‘‘You know what the lawyer said when he stepped in a cow pie?’’

‘‘Oh my God, I’m melting,’’ Harper said. ‘‘You know the difference between a rooster and a lawyer?’’

‘‘A rooster clucks defiance,’’ Norden said, and Harper said, ‘‘All right, she’s a lawyer.’’

‘‘I told you that,’’ said Anna. Then she laughed, and her laugh made Harper laugh, and he asked, ‘‘What?’’ and Anna said, ‘‘I just got the clucks joke.’’

‘‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t laugh,’’ Harper said.

Then Anna turned in her seat again and said, ‘‘Hey, Jenny! Do you know a guy named Dick Harnett, supposed to be in porno?’’

‘‘Sure—you’re doing a story that’ll ruin his life, I hope,’’ Norden said.

‘‘We don’t even know him—but we need to talk to him. I’ve got a problem.’’ And she explained it.

Norden listened carefully and then said, ‘‘Anna . . .’’
stopped, turned to Harper and said, ‘‘You oughta get her out of here.’’

‘‘I’ve suggested that. She says she’s staying; so I’m staying.’’

‘‘That’s stupid,’’ Norden said. She leaned forward and pointed through the windshield. ‘‘See the place with the moon in the window? Let’s go in there.’’

The Gibbous Moon was run by a pair of gentle, aging hippies who knew Norden; the place smelled of steamed vegetables, olive oil and coffee. The counterman called Norden by name; they found a booth, ordered coffee.

‘‘Dick Harnett was the producer on legitimate TV shows back in the sixties, but he was a sex freak and he started making some porno when that was hip, back around the
Deep Throat
days,’’ Norden said. ‘‘Then feminism came in and porno wasn’t hip anymore and nobody legit would touch him. He was scratching around for a while, but then video came along, and you know, he knew how to do that. And he saw what was going to happen. He was one of the first big-time video-porn distributors.’’

‘‘So he’s rich.’’

‘‘No, no, after a while, it got so every college kid in L.A. was making a porno film with his girlfriend . . . amateur tapes. The bottom’s sort of fallen out of the market. I get the impression that most of those guys are on hard times.’’

‘‘He’s got this Bunny Films . . .’’

‘‘Yeah, pretending he has something to do with
Playboy
. He’s had a dozen companies, probably. He’s getting old, now—he’s still a freak, though, that’s the word.’’

‘‘A sleaze-dog,’’ Anna said.

Norden blew gently on her coffee, then nodded: ‘‘Yeah. And the thing is, there’s always been violence around his films. He sort of gets off on the idea of sex by force. Maybe . . . I don’t know.’’

‘‘Maybe what?’’ Harper asked. ‘‘You think he might be the guy?’’

‘‘He’s not young,’’ Anna said to Harper.

‘‘White hair?’’ Harper asked.

Norden nodded: ‘‘Big white hair. From way back—his first company was called Silver Fox Films.’’

‘‘How do you know all this? From Lutheran Social Services?’’ Harper asked.

‘‘I work with hookers—young girls,’’ Norden said. ‘‘Pull them off the street, try to get them out of the life.’’

‘‘Gets in fistfights in biker bars,’’ Anna said.

‘‘Hey, who doesn’t,’’ Norden said, raising her eyebrows as she looked at Anna.

‘‘Huh.’’ Harper scratched his chin. ‘‘And you know Harnett.’’

‘‘I know who he is—I’ve talked to him. He uses street kids from time to time and I’ve heard that he’s made a couple of videos with really young kids. So he’s on my
interest
list.’’

‘‘You think he might have hired somebody like Jason?’’ Anna asked.

‘‘From what you said, he’s exactly the kind of guy Harnett would use—somebody who wouldn’t cost him too much and does good work. Lot of kids from UCLA have worked for him,’’ Norden said.

Anna said to Harper, ‘‘We’ve got to find him.’’

Harper shook his head: ‘‘First we’ve got to get a look at him. I mean, if he’s the guy . . . you oughta know him.’’

‘‘Never heard the name,’’ Anna said, shaking her head.

‘‘You did that piece on street kids, you might of bumped into him and not known it,’’ Norden said.

‘‘That was six months ago,’’ Anna said. ‘‘This all jumped in the last week.’’

• • •

Back in the car, Anna called Louis and asked him to get a home address of Harnett. As Anna was talking to Louis, Harper asked Norden, ‘‘How’d you get into this? I mean were you . . . ever personally involved with . . . ?’’ He didn’t want to ask her if she’d ever been a hooker.

She was amused: ‘‘No. I went to a Lutheran college in Iowa, and then to Guatemala to work with a mission. I came back and went to law school here in California—Berkeley— and joined Lutheran Social Services as a lawyer. I met some street kids, girls, and I decided I liked the mission work better than the law work. I still do some law . . .’’

‘‘And you’ve still held onto the religious aspect . . . even after seeing all the stuff on the street?’’

‘‘Oh, absolutely,’’ Norden said, nodding, her face serious. ‘‘I accept Jesus Christ as my savior, and I believe that he will return soon and judge us and lead those who deserve it to eternal life.’’

Harper checked the mirror again, and decided she wasn’t joking.

Then Anna hung up the portable and said, ‘‘Louis can’t find a home address. There’re five Richard Harnetts with unlisted phones in the two counties and they’re scattered all over the place.’’

‘‘We’ve still got his office address,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Let’s take a look.’’ And over his shoulder, he said to Norden, ‘‘Can we drop you somewhere?’’

‘‘Heck no. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.’’
On the way to Burbank, Harper made a quick turn down an alley, accelerated, and Anna said, ‘‘What?’’ as they whipped past the backs of a row of small stores.

‘‘Just checking,’’ Harper said, watching his mirror. ‘‘We know he was tracking us.’’

They came out of the alley, crossed a street, and went right
back into the continuation of the alley. At the end, Harper took a left onto a deserted residential street, then a quick right. ‘‘All right,’’ he said.
Bunny Films was on the second floor of a shabby fifties concrete-and-brick low-rise office building, with a narrow parking lot wrapped around the building. There was one car in the lot, but it carried an air of abandonment. No lights showed in the building.

‘‘Come back tomorrow,’’ Harper said.

‘‘Let’s not rush off,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Pull around behind the building. I want to check that door.’’

‘‘Felonies are a Bad Thing,’’ Harper said. ‘‘I’m sure counselor Norden would agree.’’

‘‘I just want to look at the door,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Maybe somebody’s around, they’d let us in.’’

‘‘Ah, man,’’ Harper said, but when Anna asked, ‘‘Who climbed over that fence and got shot at, who broke into that house, who . . .’’ he said, ‘‘Okay, okay,’’ and pulled around back and into a parking space with a ‘‘Reserved for Building Tenant’’ sign. Norden and Anna got out, and Norden said, ‘‘Got shot at?’’ while Harper waited in the car, engine running.

‘‘We’ve had a couple of problems,’’ Anna said. The door was locked: they could see the steel tongue between the door and the frame. ‘‘Not very far in there,’’ Norden said,
stooping to peer at the lock. ‘‘It’s sort of tilted up. I bet if you stuck a screwdriver or a tire iron in there, you could pry the door right open.’’

‘‘Back in a minute,’’ Anna said. At the car, she said, ‘‘Hey, Jake, pop the trunk for a minute.’’

‘‘Why?’’

‘‘I want to look at your golf shoes. Pop the trunk.’’

‘‘Damn it, Anna . . .’’ But he popped the trunk, and the
tool kit was there, in the trunk lid, just as she remembered from the last time she’d been in the trunk, a few seconds before she’d been attacked in the parking lot. She turned the hand screw on the tool-box cover, the cover dropped open. She selected a screwdriver, closed the trunk and walked back to the door.

‘‘What do you think?’’ she asked Norden.

Norden cast a quick look around. A stream of cars was passing on the street, a half-dozen teenagers were lounging around a picnic table at a Foster’s Freeze a hundred feet down the street. Norden said, ‘‘Don’t make any big moves and do it quick.’’

Anna stuck the end of the screwdriver in the gap between the door and the frame, put her weight against it, and when the tongue pulled out of the lock, Norden jerked the door open.

‘‘Talk about irresponsible,’’ Norden said, looking at the door. ‘‘I’m surprised the junkies haven’t carried off the furniture.’’

‘‘Probably scared to,’’ Harper said. He’d killed the engine, and walked up behind them. ‘‘We’re right out in the open, probably nine people calling the cops right now.’’

‘‘Door was open,’’ Norden said.

‘‘Yeah, right. Screwdriver marks all over it, and we’ve still got the screwdriver.’’ Harper pulled the door tight against the frame, took the screwdriver from Anna, pried the frame and door apart again, and popped the lock tongue back into place. ‘‘When I was in uniform, we’d rattle doors, but we’d never try to get inside if the doors were locked,’’ he said.

No Bunny Films was listed on the directory, but they found a Harnett Enterprises on a row of painted steel mailboxes next to the front entrance. The number indicated an office on the second floor. They skipped the small elevator
and climbed a dark, smoke-scented stairway, found a light switch for the second floor and followed a narrow hallway to the end. The office had only a number, but no other identification. An empty name-plate holder was screwed to the wall next to the door.

‘‘Well, shit,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Maybe he moved.’’

‘‘Maybe he just doesn’t want people to know where he is,’’ Anna said. ‘‘If this is his office, there’s gotta be something inside with his home address.

Harper looked up and down the hall, shook his head, put his back against the wall opposite the door, his foot next to the doorknob, and pushed. The lock ripped out of the door, and they were in.

‘‘If the cops come, we’re busted,’’ he said, flipping on the lights. ‘‘Let’s make it quick. And for Christ’s sake, don’t touch anything with your fingertips if you can help it.’’
Harnett’s office was one large room with a desk in the center, filing cabinets around the edge and a small sofa and easy chair combination on a faded Persian carpet in front of the only window. The window looked over the parking lot, and from there over a high fence into a residential back yard. Something in the back yard may have interested Harnett, because a pair of 10 × 50 binoculars sat on the windowsill.

A door led off to the right. It was unlocked, and when Anna pulled it open, she found a closet with a raincoat, a box of shirts, a suit in a plastic wrapper, several rolls of Christmas gift-wrapping paper, a shoe-shine kit in a cardboard box, and two empty suitcases.

The main surface of his L-shaped desk was a heap of business paper—envelopes, faxes, trade magazines, clippings—that flowed across, and in and out of two in and out boxes. The short leg of the L held a Gateway P5-90 tower computer and a Vivitron monitor, with cables to a Hewlett-
Packard laser printer. A short butcher-block table held a Panasonic fax machine and a Canon copier. A large-screen TV sat in a wooden cabinet in the corner, and the lights of two different videotape players glowed from beneath it. The desk telephone had five buttons.

‘‘Busy guy,’’ Anna said. A cup on his desk held a spray of yellow Dixon pencils like a bouquet, and Anna took them out and handed them to Harper and Norden. ‘‘Move stuff with these.’’