CHAPTER TWELVE
THE TURNING OF STONES
The walk had only been a block and a half in distance, yet they felt as if every eye in the city was on them. But they were now there. To safety.
“Hurry up,” Tomás exhorted. His wounds were minor, just a series of scratches on his face and one nasty gash inside his mouth.
Jorge, though, was really hurting. Something was seriously wrong with his back and neck, forcing him to walk as if someone had taken his spine and twisted it like a piece of soft metal, deforming the outer shell until it resembled some grotesque medieval sculpture in motion. “Man, I’m moving as fast as I can.”
Tomás turned from the sidewalk to the unwelcomely well-lit walkway that ran in front of the rooms, with Jorge a few steps behind. Theirs was at the inside corner of the motel’s L where the two sections of the structure met. From there they had a perfect view of the parking lot and the intersection beyond. The plan now called for getting cleaned up and rested before the courier arrived for the tape. And they still had to somehow get Sullivan, though that could wait for a while. Just a while.
Jorge limped up to the door as Tomás was fumbling through his pockets.
“Come on, open it,” Jorge said, almost pleaded, his face contorted by pain.
Where is it? “I can’t find it. You have it?”
“The key? No. Come on.”
“I can’t… oh, shit!” Tomás softly punched the door as a release. “I left the key in the car. I put it in that tray between the seats. Shit!”
“All right. No big deal.” Jorge would have cursed his partner if the pain hadn’t been so bad, but all he wanted was to get onto the bed. “It’s gone. Nothing will survive the fire, okay? Just go to the night window and tell them we lost it. Okay? Hurry, man.”
Tomás still was pissed at himself for doing such a stupid thing. At least they’d torched the car, which they knew would destroy any fingerprints or other evidence of their identity. And also the key, now. He got a replacement from the not-real-happy-to-be-awakened night clerk and went back to his partner.
“Five fucking bucks for a key!” He shoved it in the hole and opened the door, letting Jorge in first. He immediately fell onto the bed.
“This hurts, man. Have we got any booze left?”
Tomás checked the dresser drawer. “A little Chivas.”
“Give it.”
The remains were gone in a minute, but it would take longer for the effects to be felt.
“Sleep, Jorge. Just take it easy.” Tomás went to the bathroom and rinsed his mouth out, checking the gash inside in the mirror. “We’ll find Sullivan in the morning.” The taste of blood was heavy as he spoke.
“I want him, Tomás. I want him dead. Dead! And I want him to feel it. No bullet-in-the-head crap — ahhh!” Jorge writhed in pain. “God, is there any Tylenol or anything in there?”
“None.” Tomás came back from the bathroom. “Sorry.”
“Yeah.” He twisted and bent his body into as comfortable a position as he could. “Sullivan will be, too.”
Art and Frankie pulled up just as the fire department had finished dousing the flames with spray from an inch-and-a-half line. The injured cop had seen Sullivan bail out of the Lumina before it fled from the crash scene, so they anticipated no body would be in the smoking hulk.
“You Jefferson?” the LAPD sergeant asked. He was in a foul mood. It hadn’t been a good night for the force.
“Yeah. Anything?” Art stood back while Frankie began examining the steaming remnants of the Lumina.
“Just looks like they pulled it in the alley and set the inside on fire. From there…”
It was obvious. The bulk of the once pretty car was now just charred bare metal, save the extreme front and back.
“VIN?” Art inquired. The vehicle identification number was stamped on a small dash placard below the windshield in front of the driver’s seat.
“Burned pretty bad. We’ll have to pull it off the firewall.” A second stamping of the VIN was located on the firewall in the engine compartment in a not readily accessible place. That prevented easy tampering, but it also prevented quick access for the purpose at hand.
“We don’t have that much time.” Art scratched his head, his fingers finding more scalp than hair. Life was just grand, wasn’t it?
“Art.”
He walked over to his partner, who was crouched down at the vehicle’s rear. It was basically untouched by the intense heat, other than some blistering on the trunk deck. “Look here.”
Art bent down, the LAPD sergeant behind him shining his light on the area just to the right of the trunk lock. “Scratches.”
“Looks like someone peeled off a sticker,” Frankie observed, looking up to her partner. “Like a rental one, maybe.”
Art turned to the sergeant. “You got a pry bar?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’re popping this trunk. Rental companies started putting additional copies of the VIN and the owner information on a little plate under the trunk lining last year.”
The sergeant nodded. Anything to find the perps who caused the deaths of two good cops and the injury of his close friend. “One minute.”
It was less than that. The lock gave way after a few forceful pushes. Art peeled back the soggy carpeting so Frankie could find the placard.
“Got it.” She copied it down and went straight to the radio. Their teams checking rental agencies now had a specific target, and those running down stolens could be redirected. She was back from the broadcast in under a minute.
Art had walked to the front of the car, leaving the sergeant to complete his report.
“Step one,” Frankie said.
Art was silent, his eyes scrutinizing first the damaged front of the car and then the surrounding area. They were in a mixed residential-industrial area southeast of Beverly Hills, though that proximity did nothing for the neighborhood’s aesthetics. The majority of BH was no better, any observer could see upon a short visit. Art had done so on many occasions, each one convincing him that his town house in La Canada was preferable to living in some mansion surrounded by squalor.
The alley jutted off from Rimpau Boulevard, a generous description of the narrow street. Rimpau itself intersected Olympic just a hundred feet from where the alley broke off to connect it with parallel streets. From the spot where he stood, Art tried to imagine where the shooters had gone. Which way?
“Let’s take a walk,” Art led off to the end of the alley — actually its beginning — at Rimpau. Frankie was right with him.
“They came back this way,” Frankie said.
“How do you figure?” Art asked, stopping at the alley’s opening, his eyes scanning the neighborhood.
“Backtrack.” She took a few steps out into the dark street, looking back at Art. “They pulled in this way, probably came up from Olympic.” She pointed down the alley, past the car and in the direction it had been heading. “That way is unfamiliar. My guess is they backtracked out here up to Olympic.”
Art’s head cocked toward his observant and driven partner. “Let’s see what’s up there.”
The walk-up took just a minute. Olympic Boulevard at one in the morning was as deserted as any other major street would be. There were the expected late travelers cruising the street, but very few visible on foot. It was not a safe area, like much of the city, especially after the sun went down.
“And from here?” Art asked.
Frankie looked to the left, toward the east. The street was almost desolate, and there were no pay phones that jumped out at her. None of the familiar blue handset signs. “Not a cab.”