The Night Crew

'Even if I did, I'm not sure I'd recognize him,' she said. 'But I don't think so.'

'Name is Sean MacAllister,' Harper said. 'Been busted three times on minor drug stuff, once with O'Brien in the car.'

Anna was nodding: 'Jesus, we do know him. Sean, oh my God.'

Harper was going on: '. The bust never got to trial because there was some problem with the stop. O'Brien lived here for a couple of weeks, between apartments.'

'I don't knowwe never picked up Jason here. Are you sure that's him?' As she said it, she had to turn away.

'Pretty sure,' Harper said. 'His billfold was still in his pocket.'

'So what do you want from us? Why don't you just call the cops?' Creek asked.

'I wanted you to look at this,' Harper said. He was standing next to the bed, and he pointed to the man's bare chest. A knife rip crossed it from armpit to armpit.

'What?' Anna asked.

'Read it,' Harper said.

'Read it?'

She and Creek edged closer. She couldn't see it, but Creek could: he looked at her suddenly and she said again, 'What?'

'Says "Anna",' Creek said, almost to himself.

And then she saw it: her name in carved flesh. 'My God.' She stood in shock for a moment, then turned to Harper: 'Why?'

'I don't know.' He was watching her closely. 'He was a small-time dealer, that's about all I know.'

'Your son's dealer?'

'I don't know. I hope not. I tracked him through your pal O'Brien.' He looked around the room. 'All I found was a little grass. Nothing else.'

'No dots,' Anna said, and he nodded. She looked at the grotesquerie again, the muscle mass that had once been human, the Anna, and she turned away from the bed, suddenly felt as though a hand had been clapped over her mouth, suffocating her: 'I gotta get out of here.'

Chapter 8

Harper and Creek followed her outside, and Anna held her head over the picket fence and gagged. Nothing came up but a stream of saliva. After a moment, she turned back to the two men: 'Sorry.'

'So you didn't know the guy,' Harper said, a statement, not a question.

'Not except to nod to. I never met Jason's friends, except on the job.'

Harper was looking at her skeptically, and Anna said, 'Look, Jason was a part-timer. He worked maybe once or twice a month, when he came up with something.'

'Dope stuff?'

'No. Usually UCLA stuff. The night your son died, that was the last time we saw him. He had the inside track on a college animal rights group that raided the medical labs at UCLA.'

'I saw it on TV, the pig thing,' Harper said. 'How'd that connect with my kid?'

Creek said, 'It didn't. The raid was college kids, and your son was at a high-school party. The only connection was that they were a few blocks apart about the same time, and we happened to catch them both.'

Harper rubbed his chin, looking at Creek. 'You're sure?'

'Work it out yourself.'

Harper looked away, into the middle distance, then back, and nodded. 'All right. But my kid's dead, your friend's dead, they shared a dealer, and now a dealer's deadand Anna's name is carved on his chest. Something'sgoing on.'

'Did you see any of these dot things in therethe wizards?' Anna asked.

'How'd you know about the wizards?' Harper asked sharply.

'Wyatt told me. He told me about you so I wouldn't report that I was mugged.'

'Okay.' He looked at his shoes. 'Sorry about the thing at the apartment. I didn't know who it was, I was in there illegally, sort of. Not a good place to be caught messing with an apartment.'

'So how'd you track this guy down?' Anna asked, looking at the house.

'Got Wyatt to check Jason on the computer, found the arrest, got MacAllister's name, checked with the phone company and got an address. No problem.'

'You keep stepping into shit like this, it's gonna be a problem,' Creek said. 'Leave it to the cops.'

'I can't.' Harper shook his head: 'I've got a slightly different agenda than the cops.'

'What? Revenge?' Anna asked.

'Nah.' Harper said. He looked back at the house, as Anna had. 'But I'd like a little justice.'

'Leave it to the cops,' Creek said again.

'You don't get justice from cops,' Harper said. 'You get procedure. Sometimes you get arrests. Occasionally you get convictions. You never get justice.'

'So what do we do here?' Creek asked.

Anna took out her phone. 'Make a call.'

They called Wyatt at home, hoping for a charitable referral to the local Burbank cops.

'What?' Wyatt grumbled into the mouthpiece. His voice was thickened by sleep.

Anna identified herself and told him about the man on the bed.

'Stay out of the house, don't touch anything,' Wyatt said. He was awake now, and unhappy. 'I'm gonna call L.A.'

'I think we're in Burbank,' she said.

'All right, I'll call Burbank. You wait.'

'We're in the street right outside the house,' Anna said, glancing at Harper. 'It's a little complicated. I'd better let you talk to your friend Jake.'

'Jake? What's he doing there?' Wyatt asked, even more unhappy.

'I'll let him tell you,' Anna said, and she handed the phone to Harper.

Louis stuck his head out of the truck: 'We've got a fire in Hollywood Hills, the girlfriend of somebody big, the way the fire guys are talking.'

'Forget it,' Anna said, cutting him off. 'We've got problems.'

The first cop car arrived five minutes after Harper got off the phone: not Burbank, but North Hollywood. Burbank was two blocks away. The cops talked to Harper, briefly, a little chilly, and started the murder routine: cops around the house, neighbors on lawns, yellow crime scene tape, medical examiners, L.A. homicide detectives and, eventually, Wyatt. He nodded wordlessly as he passed them, flashed a badge at a cop outside the door and went in. Five minutes later, he was back out.

'What a mess,' he said.

'Yeah,' Anna said. 'And we had a prowler at my house this morning. He had a gun.'

'I hope you called someone,' Wyatt said.

'I live in Venice. The neighbors chased him off, the cops came over and had a Coke.'

'Might not be you,' Wyatt said. 'I mean, on the guy's chest.'

She got a quick mental flash of the body, and felt herself tighten up: whoever had done that was far gone. But she wouldn't fool herself, either: 'C'mon, how many Annas do you know?'

Wyatt said, 'All right. I don't want to scare you any more than you are, butremember the cuts on O'Brien's face? I thought they looked like gang marks?'

'Yes?'

'They were like this, remember?' He made a quick slashing triangle design on the palm of his hand with the opposite index finger.

'Triangles,' Anna said.

'Or A's,' Wyatt said quietly. 'Upside-down As.'

'Oh, no.' She put her hands to her cheeks. 'Can't be A's.'

'Could be,' Wyatt said. 'We gotta have a serious talk with the L.A. guys.'

'Are they upset?' She looked toward the house. 'About us going inside?'

Wyatt glanced toward Harper: 'Not as much as you might think.'

'Wasn't her fault anyway,' Harper said, stepping into the conversation. 'She didn't know what she was gonna see. I took her in. I thought she might say somethingmight know the guy.'

'Did she?'

Harper glanced at her, then suddenly grinned, the first time she'd seen him smile. Nice smile, she thought. 'No. She went outside and barfed.'

'Did not,' Anna said.

Creek, looking past them, said apprehensively, 'Uh-oh, here we go.'

An L.A. detective was headed their way, the languid, dangerous stroll affected by cops when they were being cool. He was carrying a rolled pamphlet. He glanced at Anna, nodded at Creek and said to Harper, 'How are you, Jake?'

A movie line: one that should have been followed by a cigarette flicked into the street. Harper shrugged: 'You heard about my kid.'