The Night Crew (4 page)

As she spoke, the tape ran again, in slow motion, then again, freezing on the boy’s face—not a man, Anna thought, just a child. He hung there in midair, screaming forever on Jason’s tape. The Madsons, from Tilly, Oklahoma, were also shown, but their faces at the window were cut into the jump, so it appeared that the Madsons were watching—as they had been, though not when the tape was shot.

At the end of the report, the tape was run again, and Anna recognized the symptoms: They had a hit on their hands.

Too bad about the kid, but . . . she’d learned to separate herself from the things she covered. If she didn’t, she’d go crazy. And she hadn’t seen the jump, only the aftermath, the heap of crumpled clothing near the pool. Less than she would have seen sitting at her TV, eating her breakfast, like a few million Angelenos were about to do.
Anna drifted away from the television, sat at the piano and started running scales. Scales were a form of meditation, demanding, but also a way to free herself from the tension of the night.

And she could keep an eye on the television while she worked through them. Five minutes after the report on the jump, the blonde anchor, now idiotically cheerful, said something about animal commmandos, and a version of the animal rights tape came up.

The tape had been cut up and given a jittery, silent-movie jerkiness, a Laurel-and-Hardy quality, as the masked animal rights raiders apparently danced with the squealing pig, and dumped the garbage can full of mice. Then the Rat was bowled over by the pig—they ran him falling, crawling, knocked down again; and falling, crawling and knocked down
again:
they had him going up and down like a yo-yo.

The guards, who’d come and gone so quickly, had been caught briefly by both Creek and Jason. Now they were repeatedly shown across the concrete ramp and up the loading dock; and then the tape was run backward, so they seemed to run backward . . . Keystone Kops.

The tape was funny, and Anna grinned as she watched. No sign of the bloodied kid, though. No matter: he’d get his fifteen seconds on another channel.

‘‘Good night,’’ Anna said, pointed the remote at the television and killed it.

She worked on scales for another ten minutes, then closed the lid of the piano, quickly checked on the back to see that the yellow dehumidifier light wasn’t blinking and headed up to the bedroom.

In the world of the night crew, roaming Los Angeles from ten o’clock until dawn, Anna was tough.

In more subtle relationships, in friendly talk from men she didn’t know, at parties, she felt awkward, uneasy, and walked away alone. This shyness had come late: she hadn’t always been like that.

The one big affair of her life—almost four years long, now seven years past—had taken her heart, and she hadn’t yet gotten it back.

She was asleep within minutes of her head touching her pillow. She didn’t dream of anyone: no old lovers, no old times.

But she did feel the space around herself, in her dreams. Full of friends, and still, somehow . . . empty.

three

The two-faced man hurried down the darkened pier, saw the light in the side window, in the back. He carried an eighteeninch Craftsman box-end wrench, the kind used in changing trailer-hitch balls. The heft was right: just the thing. No noise.

He stopped briefly at the store window, looked in past the
Closed
sign. All dark in the sales area—but he could see light coming from under a closed door that led to the back.

He beat on the door, a rough, frantic
bam-bam-bambambam.

‘‘Hey, take an aspirin.’’ The two-faced man nearly jumped out of his shoes. A black man was walking by, carrying a bait bucket, a tackle box and a long spinning rod.

‘‘What?’’ Was this trouble? But the fisherman was walking on, out toward the end of the pier, shaking his head. ‘‘Oh, okay.’’

He must’ve been beating on the door too hard. That’s what it was. The man forced a smile, nodded his head. Had to be careful. He balled his hand into a fist and bit hard on the knuckles, bit until he bled, the pain clearing his mind.

Back to business; he couldn’t allow himself to blow up like this. If there were a mistake, a chance encounter, a random cop—he shuddered at the thought. They’d lock him in a cage like a rat. He’d driven over here at ninety miles an hour: if he’d been stopped, it all would have ended before he had her.

Couldn’t allow that.

He tried again with the door, knocking sedately, as though he were sane.
Light flooded into the interior of the store, through the door at the back. The man knocked again. Noticed the blood trickling down the back of his hand. When did that happen? How did he . . . ?

The door opened. ‘‘Yeah?’’

The boy’s eyes were dulled with dope. But not so dulled, not so far gone that they didn’t drop to his shirt, to the deep red patina that crusted the shirt from neckline to navel, not so far gone that the doper couldn’t say, ‘‘Jesus Christ, what happened to you?’’

The two-faced man didn’t answer. He was already swinging the wrench: the box end caught the boy on the bridge of the nose, and he went down as though he’d been struck by lightning.

The two-faced man turned and looked up the pier toward the street, then down toward the ocean end. Nobody around. Good. He stepped inside, closed the door. The boy had rolled to his knees, was trying to get up. The man grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into the back.
Jason was wrecked. As in train wreck. As in broken. As in dying.

Even through the layers of acid and speed, he could feel the pain. But he wasn’t sure about it. He might wake up. He
might still say, ‘‘Fuck me; what a trip.’’ He had done that in the past.

This stuff he’d peeled off the slick white paper, this was some
bad shit.
A bad batch of chemicals, must’ve got some glue in there, or something.

He wasn’t sure if the pain was the real thing, or just another artifact of his own imagination, an imagination that had grown up behind the counter in a video store, renting horror stories. The horror stories had planted snakes in his mind, dream-memories of bitten-off heads, chainsaw massacres, cut throats, women bricked into walls.

So Jason suffered and groaned and tried to cover himself, and frothed, and somewhere in the remnant of his working brain he wondered:
Is this real?
It was real, all right.

The two-faced man kicked him in the chest, and ribs broke away from Jason’s breastbone. Jason choked on a scream, made bubbles instead. The man was sweating and unbelieving: Jason sat on the floor of the shack, his eyes open, blood running from his mouth and ears, and still he said nothing but, ‘‘Aw, man.’’

The man had been hoping for more: he’d hoped that the doper would plead with him, beg, whimper. That would excite him, would give him the taste of victory. That hadn’t happened, and the heavy work—kicking the boy to death— had grown boring. The boy didn’t plead, didn’t argue: he just groaned and said, ‘‘Aw, man,’’ or sometimes, ‘‘Dude.’’

‘‘Tell me what it’s like when you fuck her,’’ the man crooned. ‘‘Tell me about her tits again. C’mon, tell me. Tell me again what it’s like when you
do the thing
.’’ He kicked him again, and Jason groaned, rocked with the blow, and one arm jerked spasmodically. ‘‘Tell me what it’s like to fuck her . . .’’

No response: maybe a moan.

‘‘Tell me about Creek: he looks like a monster. He looks like Bigfoot. Tell me about Creek. Was he with you two? Were all three of you fucking her? All three at once?’’

But the doper wasn’t talking. He was in never-never land.

‘‘Fuck you,’’ the two-faced man said, finally. He was tired of this. He could hear the ocean pounding against the pilings below them, a rhythmic roar. He took a long-barreled Smith & Wesson .22 revolver from his coat pocket and showed it to the bubbling wreck on the floor.

‘‘See this? I’m gonna shoot you, man.’’

‘‘Dude.’’ Jason was long past recognizing anything, even his own imminent death, the killer realized.

He squatted: ‘‘Gonna shoot you.’’

He pointed the pistol at the boy’s forehead, and when the roar of the surf started to build again, fired it once. The boy’s head bumped back. That was all.

The two-faced man waited for some sensation: nothing came.

‘‘Well, shit,’’ he said. He’d been having more fun when the doper was alive. Had he really fucked her? Anna? He had all the details. So maybe he had.

He stood up, pulled open the window on the ocean-side wall, and looked down. Deep water. Everything dark, but he could hear the water hissing and boiling.

Just like it should be, he thought, looking out, for this kind of scene.

four

At a little after one o’clock, Anna stirred, then woke all at once, aware first of her pillow, then the room, then the faint whine of a jumbo jet blowing out of LAX. She lay in bed for a few minutes, rolled over, looked at the clock, yawned, sat up and stretched.

Showered, washed her hair.

Anna liked dresses, a little on the hippie side, small flowers and low necklines, when she wasn’t working, or working out.

For work, she had a carefully thought-out uniform, designed to make her fit in as many social slots as possible. The uniform consisted of cream-colored silk or white cotton blouses with black slacks, expensive black boots, and one of several linen or light woolen jackets, depending on the season. She had three Herme`s silk scarves, and always carried one or another in a buttoned inside pocket, along with a pair of gold earrings. If she dumped the jacket in the truck and
rolled the sleeves on the blouse, she was hanging out. If she wore the coat, she was all business, still casual, but working. If she added the scarf and earrings, she could get by at anything short of a formal affair. Even at a formal affair, she could pass as a caterer.

Any of the looks might be necessary in a night’s work, doing reconnaissance before the cameras lit up, especially if the work scene involved cops or security people allergic to publicity.

She also needed a more formal look if she’d be on-camera herself. She didn’t like going on-camera—anonymity made everything easier—but sometimes an interviewer was necessary. When there was no choice, she needed the right look.

For the camera guys, appearance didn’t matter: there was no way to camouflage the video lights.
Now, out of the shower, she dried her hair, pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and laced her running shoes. Stopped in the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, bracing against the wall to loosen her calves as she drank it.

The day was fine, cool, with blue skies and a light breeze from the ocean. The beach was a half-mile away, and she loosened up as she walked over on Venice Boulevard, then took a finger street down to the beach.

A very large black man, who’d once been a second-string linebacker for the L.A. Raiders, was doing pull-ups on a rack set into the sand. He lifted a hand to Anna, continuing the pull-up with only one hand. Anna waved back and continued on to the water’s edge, turned right and started running. Six miles: three miles up, three back. She ran along the surf, through the shore birds, a quarter mile behind another runner, feeling the sun.

When she started running, her brain was empty. The further along the beach she got, the more it filled up: Maybe
go south tonight, haven’t been south for a while. Wonder what happened to that burned kid, at that house fire, the last time we went south? Kid was trying to save a cat, wasn’t he? Could be a feature on his recovery? It’d have to be the first item on the run. Louis could get a phone number . . . On the other hand, it might be a bone to throw to Channel Seventeen . . .

Six miles, a little over forty-two minutes. When she got back, the linebacker was sitting on the bottom bench of the basketball bleachers, putting braces on his knees.

‘‘Hey, Dick,’’ Anna said. ‘‘How’re the knees?’’

‘‘Snap-crackle-pop, just like cornflakes,’’ he said.

‘‘Rice Krispies,’’ Anna said.

‘‘Yeah, whatever; ain’t been gettin’ nothing but worse.’’

‘‘Gonna have to decide,’’ Anna said.

‘‘I know.’’ He pushed himself up, hobbled around the edge of the court. ‘‘So stiff I couldn’t walk down to the water.’’

‘‘Take the knife, man,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Anything’s better than this.’’

‘‘Scared of the knife. They put me to sleep, I don’t think I’ll wake up. I’ll die in there.’’

‘‘Oh, come on, Dick . . .’’

They talked for another five minutes, then Anna headed home. As she left, the sad linebacker said, ‘‘If I could run half as good as you, I’d still be playing.’’
The cell phone was chirping when she got home. Louis again, ready to set up for the new night? A little early for that. ‘‘Hello?’’

Not Louis.

‘‘This is Sergeant Hardesty with the Santa Monica police.’’ He sounded a little surprised to be talking with someone.
‘‘Is this Anna Batory?’’ He pronounced her name ‘‘battery.’’

‘‘Ba-Tory,’’ she said. She spread her business cards around, and often got tips on the cell phone. ‘‘What’s happening?’’

‘‘Ma’am, I’m sorry, but there’s been an accident. One of the persons involved carried a card in his billfold that said you should be contacted in case of trouble.’’

She didn’t track for a second, and then the smile died on her face: ‘‘Oh my God, Creek,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Is his name Creek?’’

‘‘I don’t know, ma’am,’’ the voice said, shading toward professional sorrow. ‘‘I don’t have an identification on the person. Could you go down there?’’
The body was on the beach, just at the waterline. If she’d run another five or six miles that morning, she would have tripped over it.

A line of three cop cars, two with light bars and a plain white institutional Chevy, marked the spot; a medical examiner’s van sat ten feet above the water, the longest fingers of surf running up between its tires. At the back of the van, a cluster of civil servants gathered around what looked like a pile of seaweed: a body covered with a wet green blanket. Two uniformed cops kept a semicircle of gawkers on the far side of the cop cars.

Out on the ocean, two Jet Skis chased each other in endless wave-hopping circles, their motors like distant chain saws; beyond them, a badly handled sloop pushed south toward Marina Del Rey, its jib flogging in the stiffening breeze.

Anna trudged across the sand toward the cop cars with a growing dread. She’d tried to call Creek at home, but there’d been no answer. Creek was always out on the water. She’d
thought, any number of times, that he would someday die there.

One of the uniformed cops sidled along the line of cars, cutting off her line: ‘‘They called me,’’ she said, pointing toward the group on the waterline. ‘‘They think that’s a friend of mine.’’

‘‘If you could just wait here . . .’’

She waited by the cars while the cop walked down to the group by the water and said something to a plainclothesman, who looked briefly at Anna and nodded. The cop waved her over, and passed her on his way back to the car. ‘‘Hot,’’ he said as he passed. And he added, ‘‘Hope it’s not your friend.’’

Anna jerked her head in a nod, but the kind words did nothing to help the growing sourness in the back of her throat.

At the water, a balding man in jeans and a t-shirt squatted beside the body, probing it. Two more men sat on the bumper of a medical examiner’s truck, chatting, one with a set of Walkman headphones around his neck. Two plainclothes cops, one male, one female, were watching the man at the body. As Anna came up, they both turned to her.

The woman cop wore designer jeans with a crisp white blouse, and carried a blue blazer folded over one arm. Her round retro-chic sunglasses might have been stolen from one of the three blind mice. She was dark-haired and darkcomplected, a little taller than Anna, with a square chin and square white teeth. She carried an automatic pistol in a shoulder rig.

Her partner was a large man, balding, gray-haired, a little too heavy, with deep crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes. His clothes were straight from JCPenney, and his black wingtips and pant cuffs would be filled with sand.

Like the woman, he’d taken his jacket off, and carried
what appeared to be an antique Smith & Wesson revolver on his belt. There was an odd body language between them, Anna noticed. When they moved, even a foot or two, the guy tracked her, but the woman was unaware of it.

The man smiled, and the woman wrinkled her nose, as though Anna were a smudge on an antique table.

‘‘I’m Jim Wyatt,’’ the cop said. ‘‘This is my partner, Pam Glass.’’ The woman nodded, cool behind her glasses. Wyatt frowned, then said, ‘‘Do I know you? I’ve met you . . .’’

‘‘I do TV news, cop stuff,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You’ve probably seen me around.’’

Wyatt nodded, grinned again, the openness of a good interrogator: ‘‘That’s it. You were at that raid on the burglary ring, God, couple years ago. They thought the guys had killed that woman on Marguerita . . .’’

Anna pointed a finger at him, felt as though she was babbling. She didn’t want to look at the body; she’d do anything to delay it. ‘‘You were the guy who kicked the door.’’

A good piece of tape: the cops filtering across a yard to the target house while a neighbor’s dog went crazy, barking; Wyatt drawing his gun, waiting for others to get in position, but not waiting too long, because of the dog. Then he turned the corner of the house with two guys in body armor and they took down the door.

Creek had gotten the good shots and the cops’d taken three men, a woman, and two hundred pieces of stolen electronic equipment out of the place, everything from home blood pressure kits to cell phones and bread machines. There really hadn’t been much danger, but the tape was nice.

Stalling:
Don’t be Creek, don’t be Creek

. . . ‘‘That was me,’’ Wyatt said, flattered that she remembered, pleased to meet her again. He’d been a hero for several hours. ‘‘Are you still doing the TV stuff?’’

Anna nodded: ‘‘Yeah, same stuff, cops, fires, fights, accidents, movie stars.’’

‘‘A lot of police officers don’t like to be called cops,’’ Glass said, breaking in.

‘‘I know,’’ Anna said. She glanced toward the blanket— an army blanket, olive drab. The man squatting next to it was doing something to an exposed paper-white ankle. Looked too small to be Creek, and too white. No shoe or sock. The skin wrinkled by the water. The victim’s face was still covered by the blanket. To Wyatt, she said, ‘‘I hope to God this isn’t my friend.’’

‘‘His ID said Jason O’Brien . . .’’

She almost fell down. Jason? She’d never thought of Jason. A sense of relief flooded through her, followed instantly by a sense of shame, that she should be so relieved.

Wyatt said, ‘‘Are you all right?’’

She caught herself. ‘‘Aw, jeez . . . Jason?’’

‘‘He had a card that said to call you,’’ Glass said.

Wyatt, looking down at the blanket, said, ‘‘So you’re pretty close?’’

‘‘Not close, but he’s a friend. He was our backup camera, our second camera when we needed one. He used to call me Mom,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He’s a kid—was a kid.’’

‘‘Did you see him yesterday?’’

‘‘Yeah. He was shooting with us last night. He split around eleven.’’

‘‘You didn’t see him after that?’’ Glass asked.

‘‘No.’’ Anna explained about the animal rights protest and the jumper, and Glass and Wyatt nodded. They’d seen the stories. ‘‘So what do you think?’’ Anna asked. ‘‘Drugs?’’

Wyatt shook his head: ‘‘Wasn’t drugs: why’d you think it was?’’

Anna shrugged. ‘‘Jason did a lot of dope, I think. He got weird.’’

‘‘All your friends do dope?’’ Glass asked.

‘‘A couple,’’ Anna said. She wasn’t intimidated: there was no crime in knowing dopers. ‘‘Jason did some crank, a little crack when he could get it. He liked cocaine, but he couldn’t afford it most of the time. Some weed.’’

‘‘Why’d he leave last night?’’ Wyatt asked.

Anna shook her head. ‘‘I don’t know. He said he was gonna ride all night, but then, after the jumper . . . I don’t know.’’ She thought about it for a second: now that he was dead—if he was dead, she thought, if that was Jason under the blanket—his hasty departure seemed even odder. ‘‘He said the jumper made him feel bad and he was gonna take off. We all figured that was bullshit—the rest of the crew and me. Maybe something was going on.’’

‘‘Why was it bullshit?’’ Glass asked.

‘‘ ’Cause I’ve seen him crawl inside a car with a decapitated woman to get a better shot, and the head was laying on the front seat with the eyes still open and a smile on the face,’’ Anna said. ‘‘How’s a jumper gonna bother him? There wasn’t even any blood.’’

‘‘Huh.’’ Wyatt nodded, and stared north up the beach, toward the mountains hanging over Malibu, like the hills might have the answer. When it didn’t come, he sighed and said, ‘‘Will you take a look? Just to make sure we’ve got the right guy?’’

Anna nodded, swallowed, found she had no saliva in her mouth. She saw dead bodies all the time, but not dead friends.

Wyatt said, ‘‘Frank, lift the corner of the blanket, huh?’’

Frank stopped whatever he was doing with the leg and picked up the corner of the blanket—Wyatt was watching her face—and there was Jason.

No drugs, this one.

He was lying on his stomach, his head slightly downhill
toward the water, his face turned toward her. He didn’t look like he was asleep: he looked like he’d been changed to wax. The visible eye was cracked open, and his tongue hung out, like the limp end of a too-long suede belt.

His head looked wrong, misshapen, and something had happened to his cheeks. There was no blood, so the outlines weren’t clear, but he seemed to have been slashed by a knife or razor. But that hadn’t killed him: a bullet had. In his forehead, just above the visible eye, was a clean dark bullet hole.