'If it's there when Linkhof gets up, he'll call the cops and get it towed.' Linkhof was the antisocial neighbor.
'Yeah. I can ditch it at Jerry's. The cook'll be there, he can see it out the window.'
Anna nodded. 'All right. I'll ride down with you.'
She got a jacket, and when Creek said, 'Gun,' selfconsciously put the Smith in her jacket pocket, on the opposite side from her cell phone, which she carried by habit. 'If the cops see us walking back at this time of night, they'll stop us, and if they frisk us, I'll be downtown again,' Anna said.
'We'll stop at Jerry's, get a coffee. The sky'll be getting light in a half hour, we can walk back then,' Creek said. 'Besides,' he added, 'we're white.'
White.
The way things worked in L.A. Still, the pistol felt like a brick in her pocket as they walked in the dark toward the truck.
The truck represented a lot of heavy lifting. They'd started, five years earlier, with a rusty Dodge van, cast-off video gear and spanners, and a lot of metal shelving from Home Depot, which Louis and Creek had bolted to the floor. The floor on the Dodge leaked, both from rust-outs and the new bolt holes, and Louis sometimes emerged from the back suffering from advanced carbon monoxide poisoning.
After three years of street work, building their reputation and their contacts, walking tapes around to the TV stations, they'd ditched the van and bought the truck from a cable station that had decided to get out of the news business. The truck came with the dish and a compressed-air lift; Louis put in the electronics. The dish alone saved hours every night; if they could use the relay antennas on the mountainand they could from almost anywhere in the Los Angeles bowlthey could dump video and voice to everyone.
And the equipment was getting better: Creek's camera was almost new.
Anna felt a little thump every time she saw the truck: a lot of work. Something she was good at.
But she didn't see the man by the truck until they were almost on top of him, she and Creek talking away, and Creek said, 'Hey.'
The man turnedheavy shoulders, big hands, and she thought of Harperbut this guy was black. He said, 'Anna?'
The questioned slowed Creek: Creek had gone into his long-stride, somewhat-sideways combat approach, closing quickly. But now he hesitated, and Anna said, 'Who is that?' and the man lifted an arm toward Creek, and Creek said, 'No!' and went straight into him.
The shots were loud, the gun spitting short, sharp spikes of fire at Creek, three times, four, five. Creek twisted, still moving in, while Anna clawed at her pocket. Then Creek was on him, reaching, and the man turned to run.
His head snapped back and he screamed, and Anna gave up on the gun and started for Creek. The shooter snapped forward and began to run. Creek let him go, Anna thought. the man disappeared down the street as Anna turned to Creek.
And Creek fell down. Slumped, rolled, looked up at her.
'Gun,' he groaned. 'Get the gun.'
'He's gone.'
'Get gun, get gun,' he said, urgently, and Anna, not wanting to believe, dropped down next to him and said, 'You're okay?'
And in the dim light of the street, saw the black blood on his mouth, on his face and neck, the blood on his shirt.
Lights were coming on down the street and she screamed, 'Police, call the police, ambulance. man shot. This is Anna, call nine-one-one,' and someone shouted back, 'I'm calling.'
Creek grabbed her by the coat and said something urgent but unintelligible. His hand was wrapped in fabric, and Anna plucked it away. A woman's nylon stocking, a little darker than nude; maybe suntan. Creek had pulled it off the shooter's head, snapping his head back. The shooter wasn't black. He'd been wearing a mask.
That all ran through her head in an instant, and then she tossed the stocking away and shouted down at him, 'Are you okay? Goddamn, Creek.'
'Ahh.'
A man was running up the street toward her. 'Anna?'
'Yeah, it's me,' she shouted back, half-standing. 'My friend is shot, somebody help.'
The man arrived, a neighbor named Wilson, stood uncertainly over her in bluebird pajamas. 'Henry's called the cops,' he said.
'Gotta have an ambulance, he's hurt bad,' Anna said, looking up at Wilson, eyes big.
Another neighbor, Logan, was in the street, running toward them, a flashlight in one hand, a gun in the other. 'Somebody hit?'
'Ambulance on the way,' Wilson said.
'Let me take a look,' Logan said. He squatted next to Creek, shined the light on his face and neck: 'Three hits,' he said. 'No arteries.' He pulled up Creek's shirt. There were two small puckered blood entry wounds, one just outside Creek's left nipple, another two inches above that.
'Bad?' Creek mumbled.
'The face isn't bad, I don't think, I can't tell about the chest. The goddamn slugs can rattle around in there.' He pulled the shirt down. 'Nothin' to do but wait.' And to Anna, he said, 'What're you into, darlin'?'
Anna shook her head. 'Cops think it's a fruitcake guy, a nut.'
'Stalkin' ya?'
'Yeah, something like that.' She screamed back down the street. 'Where's the fuckin' ambulance?' And to Creek, 'Hold on, Creek, God.'
More lights were flicking on, and a man shouted back: 'On the way. Two minutes.'
Creek was flat on his back, his eyes half-hung, looking sleepy. She had him by the shirt, blood on her hands and jacket, Logan at his head, and she yelled at him, 'Creek, c'mon, c'mon, hold on.'
Chapter 11
Neighbors started leaking down the street, and built a ring around Creek and Anna. Then the cops arrived, two car lengths ahead of the ambulance, and the ambulance attendants dropped an oxygen mask on Creek's face and lifted him onto a gurney.
Anna, pushed away, stepped up next to the truck, felt the pistol against her leg. The cops were right there, the red rack lights banging off the houses, the neighbors gathering, everybody watching Creek.
If the cops found the gun on her, they'd take it, they'd ask questions: might hold her until they checked the gun against slugs taken from Creek. She didn't have that time. The truck door was right there, and she stepped up, and inside, toward the back. She opened the hideout box where they kept the Nagra, looked guiltily toward the open door, pulled the gun out and dropped it in the box.
When she stepped back to the door, Creek was going into the ambulance, his eyes staring up at the night sky. Logan stepped over: 'Blood pressure's not too bad, that's what they said.'
'Jesus, Logan.' She clutched his arm, let go.
'If he's not bleeding out, he'll be okay,' he said. Logan was watching his hands: he wanted to pat her somewhere, but wasn't sure exactly where, how she'd take the intimacy. 'Once he hits the OR, they'll handle it.'
The ambulance eased away from sight, carefully working through side-stepping neighbors, then the driver hit the siren button and the ambulance disappeared down the block and around the corner. A uniformed cop walked over to them, one hand resting casually on his pistol. 'Are you the lady who was with him?'
Anna nodded: 'Listen, there's a lot going on here. You've got to call the Santa Monica, or L.A. County.'
The cop put her in the back of his car, but left the door open while he and his partner worked the street, taking names and addresses of witnesses. Another cop car arrived, and two more cops began pushing people back toward their homes.
Anna slumped in the back seat, her mind filled with Creek. He was a big man, almost overmuscled, hardened by life. but on the ground, looking up at her, he'd seemed almost frail, baby-like, dependent. Helpless.