The Night Crew

'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 on-and-off, 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 then 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 knowbut 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 used 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 Lakeyou know where we can find her?'

'Probably practising 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 woman'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 bang on a doormaybe 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.'

Chapter 20

On the way out Sunset toward Burbank, Anna spotted a red-haired 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 born-againer.'

'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?'