HOLMAN WAS doing push-ups when someone knocked at his door. He was mechanically grinding them out, one after another, and had been for most of the morning. He had left two more messages on Pollard’s phone the previous evening and was working up his nut to call again. When he heard the knock he figured it was Perry. No one else ever came to his door.
“Hang on.”
Holman pulled on his pants, opened the door, but instead of Perry he found Pollard. He didn’t know what to make of Pollard showing up like this, so he stared at her, surprised.
She said, “We need to talk.”
She wasn’t smiling. She seemed irritated, and she was holding the folder with all the papers he had given her. Holman suddenly realized he was shirtless with his flabby, sweaty white skin, and wished he had pulled on a shirt.
“I thought you were someone else.”
“Let me in, Holman. We have to talk about this.”
Holman backed out of the door to let her pass, then glanced into the hall. Perry’s head disappeared behind the far corner. Holman turned back into his room, but left the door open. He felt embarrassed by his appearance and the shitty room and thought for sure she wouldn’t feel comfortable being inside alone with him. He pulled on a T-shirt to hide himself.
“You get my messages?”
She went back to the door and closed it, but stood with her hand on the knob.
“I did, and I want to ask you something. What are you going to do with the money?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If we find the sixteen million. What do you want to do?”
Holman stared at her. She looked serious. Her face was intent, with her mouth pooched into a tight little knot. She looked like she had come to cut up the pie.
Holman said, “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not kidding.”
Holman studied her a moment longer, then sat on the edge of his bed. He pulled on his shoes just to give himself something to do even though he needed a shower.
“I just want to find out what happened to my boy. We find that money, you can have it. I don’t care what you do with it.”
Holman couldn’t tell if she was disappointed or relieved. Either way, he didn’t give a damn except he still wanted her help.
“Listen, you want to keep it, I won’t rat you out. But just one thing-I won’t let the money keep me from finding Richie’s killer. If it gets down to a choice-keeping that money or finding out what happened-then that money is going back.”
“What about your friend, Moreno?”
“Did you listen to my messages? Yes, he loaned me the car. What’s the big deal with that?”
“Maybe he expects a cut.”
Holman was growing irritated.
“What’s up with you and Moreno? How’d you hear about him?”
“Just answer my question.”
“You haven’t asked a goddamned question. I never mentioned the money to him, but I don’t give a rat’s ass if he keeps it, either. What do you think we’re doing, planning a capital crime?”
“What I think is the police have put you and Moreno together. How would they come to do that?”
“I’ve been over to see him three or four times. Maybe they have him under surveillance.”
“Why would they be watching him if he’s gone straight?”
“Maybe they figured out he helped me find Maria Juarez.”
“Are he and Juarez connected?”
“I asked him to help. Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Chee loaned me the fucking car. I’m not looking for the money-I’m looking for the sonofabitch who killed my son.”
Holman finished with his shoes and looked at her. She was still staring at him, so he stared back. He knew she was trying to read him, but he wasn’t sure why. She finally seemed to make up her mind and let go of the knob.
“Nobody’s keeping that money. If we find it, we’re turning it in.”
“Fine.”
“You good with that?”
“I said it was fine.”
“Your friend Chee good?”
“He loaned me the goddamned car. So far as I know he doesn’t even know about the money. You want to go see him, we’ll go. You can ask him yourself.”
Pollard studied him a moment longer, then took several sheets from the folder.
“Marchenko’s girlfriend was named Alison Whitt. She was a prostitute.”
Pollard brought over the sheets and handed them to him. Holman scanned the top sheet as Pollard talked and saw it was a copy of an LAPD records and identification document on a white female named Alison Whitt. The black-and-white reproduction of her booking photo was crude, but she looked like a kid-midwestern-fresh with light sandy hair.
“Approximately two hours before your son and the other three officers were murdered, Whitt was murdered, too.”
Pollard continued but Holman no longer heard what she was saying. Pictures were snapping through his mind that drowned her out and left him afraid: Fowler and Richie in a dark alley, faces lit by the flashes of their guns. Holman barely heard himself speak.
“Did they kill her?”
“I don’t know.”
Holman clenched his eyes, then opened them, trying to stop the pictures, but Richie’s face only grew larger, lit by the silent flash of his pistol as Pollard went on.
“Fowler called her on the Thursday they came back with the dirt. They spoke for twelve minutes that afternoon. That night was the night Fowler and Richard were out late and came back with dirty shoes.”
Holman stood and went around his bed to the air conditioner, trying to walk away from the nightmare in his head. He focused on the picture of eight-year-old Richie on his dresser, not yet a thief and a killer.
“They killed her. She told them where the money was or maybe she lied or whatever and they killed her.”
“Don’t go there yet, Holman. The police are concentrating on johns and customers she might have met on her day job. The hooking was just a sometimes thing-she was a waitress at a place on Sunset called the Mayan Grille.”
“That’s bullshit. That’s too coincidental, her getting killed on the same night like that.”
“I think it’s bullshit, too, but the guys running this case probably don’t know about her connection with Marchenko. Don’t forget the fifth man. We have five people in Fowler’s group now, and only four of them are dead. The fifth man could be the shooter.”
Holman had forgotten about the fifth man, but now he grabbed on to the thought like a life preserver. The fifth man had been trying to find Allie, too, and now everyone else was dead. He suddenly remembered Maria Juarez.
“Did you find out about Juarez’s wife?”
“I talked to a friend this morning. LAPD still maintains she fled.”
“She didn’t flee; she was taken. That guy who grabbed me took her-Vukovich-he works with Random.”
“My friend is following up. She’s trying to get the videotape Maria made of her husband. I know you told me Random said it was faked, but our people can examine it, too, and we have the best people in the world.”
Our. Like she was still with the Fed.
Holman said, “You’re still going to help me?”
She hesitated, then turned back to the door with her file.
“You’d better not be lying to me.”
“I’m not lying.”
“You’d better not be. Get yourself cleaned up. I’ll be downstairs in the car.”
Holman watched Pollard let herself out, then hurried into the shower.
THE MAYAN GRILLE was a small diner on Sunset near Fairfax that served only breakfast and lunch. Business was good. People were waiting on the sidewalk and the outside tables were packed with young, good-looking people eating pancakes and omelets. Holman hated the place as soon as he saw it and he hated the people outside. He didn’t think about it much at the time, but just looking at them filled him with disgust.
Holman hadn’t spoken as they drove toward the Mayan Grille. He had pretended to listen as Pollard filled him in about Alison Whitt, but mostly he thought about Richie. He wondered if criminal tendencies were inherited as Donna once feared or if a lousy home life could drive someone to crime. Either way, Holman figured the responsibility came back to him. Thinking these things left him feeling sullen as he followed Pollard through the crowd into the restaurant.
Inside was crowded, too. Holman and Pollard were faced with a wall of people, all waiting to be seated. Pollard had trouble seeing past the crowd, but Holman, taller than most everyone else, could see just fine. Most of the guys were dressed in baggy jeans and T-shirts, and most of the girls were wearing belly shirts that showed tattoos across the top of their butts. Everyone seemed more interested in schmoozing than eating, as most of the bused plates were full. Holman decided either none of these people had jobs or they worked in show business or both. Holman and Chee used to cruise the parking lots of places like this, looking for cars to steal.
Pollard said, “The police identified one of the waitresses, a girl named Marki Collen, as having been close to Whitt. She’s the one we want to see.”
“What if she’s not here?”
“I called to make sure. We just have to get her to talk to us. That’s not going to be easy with them being this busy.”
Pollard told him to wait, then worked her way forward to a hostess who was overseeing a sign-up sheet for the waiting customers. Holman watched them speak and saw someone who looked like a manager join them. The manager pointed toward a waitress who was helping a busboy clear a table in the rear, then shook his head. Pollard didn’t look happy when she returned.
“They got twenty people waiting to be seated, they’re shorthanded, and he won’t let her take a break. It’s going to be a while before she can talk to us. You want to go get a coffee and come back when she gets off?”
Holman didn’t want to wait or go anywhere else. Now he was supposed to dick around while a bunch of Hollywood wannabes with nothing better to do than talk about their latest audition ordered food they didn’t eat. Holman’s already bad mood darkened.
“That was her, the one in the back he pointed out?”
“Yeah, Marki Collen.”
“Come on.”
Holman shouldered through the crowd past the hostess and went to the table. The busboy had just wiped it clean and was putting out new setups. Holman pulled a chair and sat, but Pollard hesitated. The hostess had already called two men to be seated, but now she saw Holman had taken the table and was glaring.
Pollard said, “We can’t do this. You’re going to get us thrown out.”
Holman thought, no fucking way.
“It’s going to be fine.”
“We need their cooperation.”
“Trust me. They’re actors.”
Marki Collen was delivering an order to the table behind Holman. She looked harried and pressed, as did every other waitress and busboy in the place. Holman dug out Chee’s money, keeping his wad hidden under the table. He leaned back and tapped Marki’s hip.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, sir.”
“Look at this, Marki.”
She glanced around at her name and Holman showed her a folded hundred-dollar bill. He watched her eyes to make sure it registered, then slipped it into her apron.
“Tell the hostess I’m a friend and you told us to take this table.”
The hostess had flagged the manager, and now they were steaming back toward the table with the two men behind them. Holman watched Marki intercept them, but part of him was hoping the two guys who wanted the table would get in his face. Holman wanted to kick their asses all the way out onto Sunset Boulevard.
Pollard touched his arm.
“Stop it. Stop looking at them like that. Jesus, what’s with this hostility?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You want to fight them over the goddamned table? You’re not on the yard anymore, Holman. We need to talk to this girl.”
Holman realized she was right. He was giving them jailhouse eyes. Holman forced himself to stop staring. He glanced at the surrounding tables. Most every guy in the diner was about Richie’s age. Holman told himself this was why he was so angry. These people were sopping up pancakes, but Richie was bagged in the morgue.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
“Just take it easy.”
Marki squared things with the manager, then returned to the table with a big smile and two menus.
“That was cool, sir. Have I waited on you before?”
“No, it’s not that. We need to ask you about Alison Whitt. We understand you were friends.”
Marki didn’t look moved one way or the other when Holman mentioned Alison’s name. She just shrugged and held her pad as if she was waiting for them to order.
“Well, yeah, kinda. We were buds here at the grill. Listen, this isn’t the greatest time. I have all these tables.”
“A hundred covers a lot of tips, honey.”
Marki shrugged again and shifted her weight.
“The police already talked to me. They talked to everyone here. I don’t know what else I can say.”
Pollard said, “We don’t want to know about her murder so much as a former boyfriend. Did you know she worked as a prostitute?”
Marki giggled nervously, then glanced at the nearest tables to make sure no one was listening before lowering her voice.
“Well, yeah, sure. The police told everyone about it. That’s what they asked us about.”
“Her record shows two arrests about a year ago, but none since. Was she still working?”
“Oh, yeah. That girl was wild-she grooved on the life. She had all these great stories.”
Holman was keeping an eye on the manager, who was pissed off and watching them. Holman was pretty sure he was going to come over because Marki was having a conversation instead of working.
Holman said, “Tell you what, Marki. Put in a couple of orders so your boss doesn’t freak out, then come back for the stories. We’ll look at the menus.”
When she went away, Pollard leaned toward him.
“Did you give that girl a hundred dollars?”
“What of it?”
“I’m not trying to fight with you, Holman.”
“Yes. A hundred.”
“Jesus Christ. Maybe I should have let you pay me.”
“Chee’s money. You wouldn’t want to get contaminated.”
Pollard stared at him. Holman felt a flush of embarrassment and glanced away. He was in a terrible mood and had to get a grip on himself. He looked at the menu.
“You want something to eat? As long as we’re here we might as well eat.”
“Fuck off.”
Holman stared at the menu until Marki returned. Marki told them she could hang for a minute, and Pollard went back to the point as if Holman hadn’t just made an ass of himself.
“Did she ever tell you about her johns?”
“She had funny stories about her johns. Some of them were celebrities.”
“We’re trying to find out about a guy she was with four or five months ago. He might have been her boyfriend, but it’s more likely he was a john. He had an unusual name-Anton Marchenko. A Ukrainian dude?”
Marki smiled, recognizing the name right away.
“That was the pirate. Martin, Marko, Mar-something.”
“Marchenko.”
Holman said, “How was he a pirate?”
Now her smile morphed into a giggle.
“’Cause that was his thing. Allie said he couldn’t get off without pretending he was this badass pirate, you know, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum, how he lived a life of adventure and had all this buried treasure.”
Holman glanced at Pollard and saw the corner of her mouth curl. She returned his glance and nodded. They had something.
Holman looked back at Marki and turned on his friendliest smile.
“No shit? He told her he had buried treasure?”
“He said all kinds of silly stuff. He used to take her to the Hollywood Sign. That’s where he had to do it. He’d never take her back to his place or do it in the car or use a motel. They had to go up to the Hollywood Sign so he could make these speeches and look out over his kingdom.”
Marki giggled again, but Holman saw a problem.
He said, “Allie told you they went to the sign?”
“Yeah. Four or five times.”
“You can’t get to the sign. It’s fenced off and covered by security cameras.”
Marki seemed surprised, then shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her either way.
“That’s what she told me. She said it was a big pain because you have to hike up, but the guy was loaded. He paid her one thousand dollars just for, you know, oral. She said she’d hike up there all day for a thousand dollars.”
A nearby table waved Marki over, leaving Holman and Pollard alone again. Holman was starting to doubt Allie’s story about going up to the sign.
He said, “I’ve been up there. You can get close, but you can’t get to the sign. They have video cameras all over up there. They even have motion detectors.”
“Now waitaminute, Holman-this is making sense. Marchenko and Parsons lived in Beachwood Canyon. The sign is right at the top of their hill. Maybe they hid the money up there.”
“You couldn’t bury sixteen million dollars anywhere around that sign. Sixteen million dollars is big.”
“We’ll see when we get there. We’ll go take a look.”
Holman still had his doubts, but when Marki returned Pollard resumed her questions.
“We’re almost finished, Marki. We’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
“Like he said, a hundred covers a lot of tips.”
“Did Allie know why it always had to be the sign?”
“I don’t know. That’s just where he liked to go.”
“Okay, you mentioned something about speeches. What kind of speeches did he make?”
Marki scrunched her face, thinking.
“Not really speeches, maybe-more like pretend. Like if he was a pirate and kidnapped her, he would screw her on all his stolen treasure. She had to act like that made her really hot, you know, like it would be this big turn-on to get screwed on all these hard gold coins.”
Pollard nodded, encouraging.
“Like that was his turn-on, to do it on the money?”
“I guess.”
Pollard glanced at Holman again, and this time Holman shrugged. Banging on bucks might have been Marchenko’s fantasy, but Holman still couldn’t see planting sixteen million in cash in such a public place. Then he remembered that Richie and Fowler had come home covered in grass and dirt.
Holman said, “When the cops were here before, did you tell them about Marchenko?”
Marki looked surprised.
“Should I have? It was so long ago.”
“No. I was just wondering if they asked.”
Holman was ready to leave, but Pollard wasn’t looking at him.
Pollard said, “Okay, just one more. Do you know how Allie hooked up with this guy?”
“No, uh-uh.”
“Did she have a madam or work for an outcall service?”
Marki screwed up her face again.
“She had someone looking out for her, but he wasn’t a pimp or anything.”
Holman said, “What does that mean, someone looking out for her?”
“It sounds kinda silly. She told me I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
“Allie’s gone. The statute of limitations ran out on that one.”
Marki glanced at the nearby tables, then lowered her voice again.
“Okay, well. Allie worked for the police. She said she didn’t have to worry about getting in trouble ’cause she had this friend who could make it go away. She even got paid for telling about her clients.”
This time when Holman glanced at Pollard, Pollard had turned white.
“Alison was a paid informant?”
Marki made an uneasy grin and shrugged.
“She wasn’t getting rich or anything. She told me they had some kinda cap or something on the amount. Every time she wanted some money this guy hadda get it approved.”
Holman said, “Did she tell you who she worked for?”
“Uh-uh.”
Holman looked back at Pollard, but Pollard was still pale. Holman touched her arm.
“Anything else?”
Pollard shook her head.
Holman peeled off another hundred and slipped it into Marki’s hand.
A DEPRESSED ACTRESS named Peg Entwistle killed herself in 1932 by jumping from the top of the letter H. The letters were fifty feet tall, then and now, and these days the sign stretched some four hundred fifty feet across the top of Mount Lee in the Hollywood Hills. After years of neglect, the Hollywood Sign was rebuilt in the late seventies, but vandals and dickweeds took their toll, so not long thereafter the city closed the area to the public. They surrounded the sign with fences, closed-circuit video cameras, infrared lights, and motion detectors. It was like they were guarding Fort Knox, which wasn’t lost on Holman as he directed Pollard up to the top of Beachwood Canyon. Holman had been going up to the sign since he was a kid.
Pollard looked worried.
“You know how to get there?”
“Yeah. We’re almost there.”
“I thought we had to go through Griffith Park.”
“This way is better. We’re looking for a little street I know.”
Holman still didn’t think they would find anything, but he knew they had to look. Every new discovery they made brought them back to the police, and now they knew a policeman had also been connected to Alison Whitt. If Whitt told her contact officer about Anton Marchenko, then the cops might have known about the Hollywood Sign. Putting the sign together with Marchenko’s fantasy would have inspired them to search the area. Richie might have been part of the search. Holman wondered if Alison Whitt had seen Marchenko in the news. It was likely. She had probably realized her pirate was the bank robber and offered up what she knew to her cop. This had probably inspired her death.
Pollard said, “These canyons are shit. I can’t get a cell signal.”
“Do you want to turn around?”
“No, I don’t want to turn around. I want to check out whether or not this girl was really an informant.”
“They have some kind of informant hotline you can call?”
“Don’t try to be funny, Holman. Please.”
They wound their way up narrow residential streets higher into Beachwood Canyon. The Hollywood Sign grew above them, sometimes visible between houses and trees and sometimes hidden by the mountain. When they reached the top of the ridge, Holman told her to turn.
“Slow down. We’re coming up on it. You can pull over in front of these houses.”
Pollard pulled over and they got out of the car. The street ended abruptly at a large gate. The gate was locked and was hung with a large sign reading CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC.
Pollard looked dubious as she studied the sign.
“This is your shortcut? It’s closed.”
“It’s a fire road. We can follow it up around the peak to the back of the sign. This way cuts a couple of miles off going up through Griffith Park. I’ve been coming up here since I was a kid.”
Pollard tapped the sign, CLOSED.
“Have you ever obeyed the law?”
“No, not really.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Pollard squeezed around the side of the gate. Holman followed, and they started up the road. It was steeper than Holman remembered, but he was older and in lousy shape. He was breathing hard before long, but Pollard seemed to be doing fine. The fire road joined with a paved road, and the paved road grew steeper as it curved around to the back side of the peak. The Hollywood Sign disappeared from view, but the radio tower perched above it steadily grew.
Holman said, “There’s no way those guys brought all that money up here. It’s too far.”
“Marchenko brought his girlfriend up here.”
“She could walk. Would you leave sixteen million laying around in a place like this?”
“I wouldn’t rob thirteen banks and shoot it out with the cops, either.”
The road wrapped around the back side of the mountain as they neared the peak, but curved to the front face again, and suddenlly all of Los Angeles spread out before them as far as Holman could see. Catalina Island floated in the mist almost fifty miles to the southwest. The pudgy cylinder of the Capitol Records Building marked Hollywood, and tight clusters of skyscrapers pushed up like islands dotting the cityscape sea from downtown to Century City.
Pollard said, “Wow.”
Holman didn’t give a damn about the view. The Hollywood Sign was about thirty feet below them, walled off by a green six-foot chain-link fence that ran along the edge of the road. The radio tower waited at the end of the road, bristling with antennas and microwave dishes and surrounded by yet more fences. Holman waved his hand at the sign.
“There it is. You still think they buried the money up here?”
Pollard hooked her fingers into the fence and gazed down at the sign. The downslope was steep. The bases of the letters were too far below them to see.
Pollard said, “Goddamn. Can you get down there?”
“Only if we climb the fence, but it isn’t the fence you’d have to worry about. See the cameras?”
Closed-circuit video cameras were mounted on metal poles dotting the fence by the communications station. The cameras were trained on the sign.
Holman said, “These cameras watch the sign twenty-four hours a day. They have cameras all along the length of the sign and more cameras down below at the base so they can see it from all angles. They’re also set up with infrared so they can watch it at night, and they have motion sensors.”
Pollard stood on her toes, trying to see as far down the slope as possible, then squinted up the road at the communications station. A bristle of cameras sprouted at the station, too. Uphill from the road was a steep slope climbing another twenty or thirty feet to the summit. Pollard glanced uphill, then back to the cameras.
“Who’s on the other end of the cameras?”
“The Park Service. Rangers are watching this thing twenty-four seven.”
Pollard looked uphill again.
“What’s up there?”
“Weeds. It’s just the top of the hill. There’s some old geologic survey gear, but that’s all.”
Pollard set off toward the communications station and Holman followed. She stopped from time to time to peer down at the sign.
She said, “Can we come up from below the sign?”
“That’s why they have the motion detectors. The cameras at the bottom cover the approaching hillsides.”
“Damn, it’s steep. Does it flatten out at the base of the letters?”
“A little, but not much. It’s more like a wide spot in a trail. The sign is pretty much set into the side of the mountain.”
The communications station was surrounded by an even taller fence. The eight-foot fence was topped by barbed wire and concertina wire. The road they were on dead-ended directly into a gate that cut across the road like a wall. They were boxed in by the steep upslope on one side, the fence on the other, and the gate in front of them. Holman thought it felt like being in a chain-link tunnel.
Holman said, “There’s supposed to be a helipad on the other side of the antenna, but I’ve never seen it. That’s how they come up if someone triggers the alarms. They send a chopper.”
Pollard stared up at the surrounding cameras, then gazed back along the road at the way they had come. She looked disappointed.
“You were right, Holman. This place is a fucking compound.”
Holman tried to picture Richie and Fowler and the other two cops coming up here in the middle of the night, but just couldn’t see it. If they suspected Marchenko had hidden the money at or near the sign, where and how would they search? The Hollywood Sign covered a lot of ground and even policemen couldn’t approach the sign without being seen by the Rangers. Holman thought they might have tried telling the Rangers they were conducting an official police investigation, but the chances of that were slim. It would have been a bad move, made even worse by conducting their search at night. The Rangers would have had questions, and stories of the late-night search would have spread beyond the park. If they had tried to bluff their way past the Rangers they would have made their search during the day. Coming out at night meant their search had been a secret.
Pollard said, “You know what I’m thinking about?”
“What?”
“Blow jobs.”
Holman felt himself flush. He glanced away and cleared his throat.
“Yeah?”
Pollard turned in a little circle, spreading her arms at their surroundings.
“So Marchenko brings her up here to have sex, what did he do, just drop trou for his blow job right here in the road? Cameras are everywhere. Other people might come walking up the road. There isn’t any privacy. This is a lousy place for a blow job.”
Holman was uncomfortable with Pollard talking about sex. He glanced at her, but couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact. She suddenly turned and stared up the steep slope rising above them.
“Is there a way up to the top?”
“Yeah, but nothing’s up there.”
“That’s why I want to see it.”
Holman realized her instincts were right. The summit was the only private place on the hill.
They squeezed between the hillside and the corner of the fence by the communication station, then scrambled up a narrow, steep path. It wasn’t easy going like the fire road. Pollard twice fell to her knees, but pretty soon they crested the summit and reached a small clearing at the top of the hill. The only things up here were the survey equipment Holman remembered and brush. Pollard looked around at the 360-degree view that surrounded them and smiled.
“That’s what I’m talking about! If they were doing the nasty, this is where they were doing it.”
Pollard was right. From the clearing, they could see if anyone was approaching on the fire road. The cameras that dotted the fences were below them, and pointed downhill toward the sign. No one was watching the summit.
But Holman still didn’t believe Marchenko and Parsons had buried their money up here. Carrying that much cash would have taken several trips, and each trip would have increased the odds they would be discovered. Even if they were stupid enough to bring the money up here, the hole needed to bury it would have been the size of five or six suitcases. It would have been difficult to dig in the rocky soil, and anyone else who visited the summit would have easily noticed the large area of disturbed soil.
Holman pointed out the heel prints and scuff marks that had been scratched into the clearing.
“Maybe he had the girl up here, but there’s no way they brought the money. You see all these footprints? Hikers come up here all the time.”
Pollard considered the prints, then walked around the edges of the clearing. She seemed to be studying it from different angles.
She said, “This little hill isn’t so big. There’s not a lot of room up here.”
“That’s my point.”
Pollard gazed down at Hollywood.
“But why did he have to come up here to be with the girl? He could’ve pretended to be a pirate anywhere.”
Holman shrugged.
“Why’d he rob thirteen banks dressed like a commando? Freaks happen.”
Holman wasn’t sure she heard him. She was still staring down into Hollywood. Then she shook her head.
“No, Holman, coming up here was important to him. It meant something. That’s one of the things they taught us at Quantico. Even madness has meaning.”
“You think that money was up here?”
She shook her head, but she was still staring down into the canyon.
“No. No, you’re right about that. They didn’t bury sixteen million dollars up here, and Fowler and your boy sure as hell didn’t find it and dig it up. That hole would look like a bomb crater.”
“Okay.”
She pointed down toward the city.
“But he lived right down there in Beachwood Canyon. You see it? Every day when he stepped out of his apartment, he could look up and see this sign. Maybe they didn’t keep the money in their apartment or hide it up here, but something about this place made him feel safe and powerful. That’s why he brought the girl up here.”
“You can see forever. Maybe it made him feel like he was in a crow’s nest, like on one of those old sailing ships.”
Pollard still wasn’t looking at him. She was staring down into Beachwood Canyon like the answers to all of her questions were waiting to be found.
“I don’t think so, Holman. Remember what Alison told Marki? It always had to be here. He couldn’t perform without his fantasies, and the fantasies were about treasure-having sex on the money. Money equals power. Power equals sex. Being here made him feel close to his money, and the money gave him the power to have sex.”
She looked at him.
“Fowler and your son could have picked up dirt and grass in any vacant lot in L.A., but if they knew what Alison knew, they would have come up here. Look around. It isn’t that big. Just look.”
Pollard walked off into the brush, scanning the ground as if she had lost her car keys. Holman thought they were wasting their time, but he turned in the opposite direction.
The only man-made artifact on the summit was a device Holman thought looked like a metal scarecrow. Holman had seen it before. The scarecrow had been set into the ground years ago and bore what appeared to be U.S. Geological Survey markings. Holman guessed it was something for monitoring seismic activity, but he didn’t know.
Holman was in a brushy area ten feet beyond the cage when he found the turned earth.
“Pollard! Agent Pollard!”
It was a small egg-shaped depression about a foot across. The darker, turned earth at its center stood out from the surrounding undisturbed ground.
Pollard appeared at his side, then knelt by the depression. She probed the turned soil with her fingers and tested the surrounding area. She scooped a handful of loose soil from the center, then scooped more. By clearing away the loose soil, she revealed a hard perimeter. She continued clearing loose soil until she finally sat back on her heels. It hadn’t taken long.
Holman said, “What is it?”
She looked at him.
“It’s a hole…Holman. See the hard edge where the shovel bit? Someone dug up something. You saw how it was a depression? Someone removed something, so there wasn’t enough dirt to fill the empty space when they refilled the hole. Hence, the depression.”
“Anyone could have dug this.”
“Yes, anyone could have dug it. But how many people would be up here digging, and what could have been here that someone would want to remove?”
“They had sixteen million dollars. You couldn’t fit sixteen million in a little hole like that.”
Pollard stood, and then both of them stared down at the hole.
“No, but you could hide something that led to the sixteen million-GPS coordinates, an address, keys-”
Holman said, “A treasure map.”
“Yep. Even a pirate’s treasure map.”
Holman glanced up, but Pollard was walking away. He looked down at the hole again as an emptiness grew in his heart. The hole in his heart was larger than this little hole and felt larger than the canyon beneath the Hollywood Sign. It was the emptiness of a father who had failed his only child and cost that child his life.
Richie had not been a good man.
Richie had made a play for the money.
And now Richie had paid the price.
Holman heard Donna’s voice echoing across the cavernous emptiness that filled him, the same four words over and over:
Like father, like son.
POLLARD BRUSHED at the dirt on her hands, wishing she had a Handi Wipe. Dirt was caked under her nails and would be hell to get out, but she didn’t care. Pollard had a high level of confidence the hole was connected with Marchenko and Parsons and the search for their money, but confidence wasn’t proof. She opened her phone. The signal bars showed she had an excellent connection, but she didn’t yet place the call. A man accompanied by a white dog was hiking up the fire road below the summit. She watched them, then considered the cameras perched on their poles, and decided that at least one of the cameras probably included a view of the fire road. The Park Service almost certainly recorded the video feed, but Pollard knew most security videos were stored digitally on a hard drive that recorded over itself as its memory filled. Most security captures in her experience weren’t kept more than forty-eight hours. She doubted that images remained of Fowler and the other officers hiking up the fire road in the middle of the night-if any had ever existed. One or more of the officers had probably made an initial visit during the day. They would have seen the cameras and planned to avoid them, just as they had planned how and where to search.
Pollard studied the surroundings and decided it was possible. She and Holman had followed the fire road as it wrapped around the peak to bring them to the communications facility at the top of the Hollywood Sign. The cameras probably included views of the road as it approached the sign and the antenna, but no one was watching the road on the back side of the mountain. Pollard moved to the edge of the summit and studied the rear-facing slope. It was steep, but Pollard thought it was doable. Scrambling up the slope on a dewy night with poor footing probably even explained the mud on Fowler’s boots.
Pollard opened her phone again and punched up Sanders’ cell number from the memory. Pollard knew Sanders wasn’t in the office because she answered in a normal voice.
“Let me ask you a question, Pollard-what in hell are you and the Hero doing?”
Pollard glanced across the summit at Holman. He was still standing by the hole. She lowered her voice.
“The same thing we were doing yesterday and the day before. Why?”
“Leeds has been getting serious heat from the police is why. Parker Center has been calling and Leeds is going to meetings he won’t tell anyone about and he’s coming apart at the seams.”
“Has he said anything specifically about me?”
“As a matter of fact. He said if any of us were contacted by you we were to report that contact immediately. He also said if any of us were using government time and resources to aide a civilian endeavor-he looked at me when he said it-he would bring disciplinary charges and transfer our asses to Alaska.”
Pollard hesitated, debating how much she should say.
“Where are you?”
“The marina. Some homeless dude pulled a note job, then fell asleep in the park across the street.”
“Are you going to report this call?”
“Are you breaking the law?”
“For God’s sake, no, I am not breaking the law.”
“Then fuck Leeds. I just want to know what’s going on.”
“I’ll tell you, but let me ask first-have you been able to get a copy of the Juarez tape?”
Sanders didn’t immediately answer, but when she did her tone was guarded.
“They told me the tape had been erased. An unfortunate accident, they said.”
“Hang on-Juarez’s alibi tape was destroyed?”
“What they said.”
Pollard took a breath. First Maria Juarez had disappeared, and now her tape had been destroyed, the same tape Maria claimed as her husband’s alibi. Pollard found herself smiling, though without any humor. A hot breeze had picked up, but felt good on her face. She liked being on the summit.
Pollard said, “I’m going to tell you some things. I don’t know everything yet, so do not repeat this.”
“Please.”
“Who’s calling Leeds?”
“I don’t know. The calls come from Parker Center and Leeds doesn’t tell us a goddamned thing. He hasn’t even been in the office for two days.”
“All right. I think we’re looking at a criminal conspiracy among police officers growing out of the Marchenko and Parsons robberies. That conspiracy includes the murder of Holman’s son and the other three officers under the Fourth Street Bridge.”
“Are you shitting me?”
Pollard’s phone beeped with an incoming call.
Sanders said, “What’s that?”
“Incoming call.”
Pollard didn’t recognize the number so she let it go to her voice mail. She resumed her conversation with Sanders.
“We believe the four dead officers plus at least one additional officer were conducting an off-the-books investigation to find the missing sixteen million.”
“Did they find it?”
“I believe they did-or identified its location. My guess now is that once the money was found, at least one member of the conspiracy decided to keep everything for himself. I don’t know that yet, but I’m positive about the conspiracy. I believe this fifth person was connected with Alison Whitt.”
“How does Whitt fit into this?”
“Alison Whitt claimed she was a registered police informant. If that’s true, she might have told what she knew about Marchenko to her contact officer. That officer is potentially a party to the conspiracy.”
Sanders hesitated.
“You want me to identify her contact officer.”
“If she’s registered, she’ll be on an informant list and so will the name of the cop who signed her up.”
“This is going to be tough sledding. I told you how they’re coming down on us.”
“Parker Center is coming down on you. Whitt’s murder is being handled on the divisional level out of Hollywood Station. You might still be able to get some cooperation.”
“All right. Okay, yeah, I’ll see what I can do. You really think this is cop-on-cop murder?”
“That’s the way it’s shaping up.”
“You can’t sit on this, for Christ’s sake. You’re a civilian. You’re talking about murder.”
“When I have something that stands up I’ll give it to you. You can bring it forward through the FBI. Now one more thing-”
“Jesus, more?”
“I want this on record with you. Mike Fowler left a pair of dirty boots on the patio in his backyard. Soil and vegetation samples should be taken from his boots and compared with samples from the summit above the Hollywood Sign.”
“The Hollywood Sign? Why the friggin’ sign?”
“That’s where I am. Marchenko and Parsons hid something related to their robberies up here. I believe Fowler and Richard Holman came here searching for it, and I believe they found something. If you end up bringing this thing forward, you’ll want to see if the soil samples match.”
“Okay. I’m on it. You keep me advised, okay? Stay in touch.”
“Let me know when you get something on Whitt.”
Pollard ended the call, then retrieved the incoming message. It was Peter Williams’ assistant, calling from Pacific West Bank.
“Mr. Williams has arranged for you to access the files you requested. You’ll have to read them here on our premises during normal business hours. Please contact me or our chief security officer, Alma Wantanabe, to make the arrangements.”
Pollard put away her phone and felt like pumping her fist. Williams had delivered and now everything was coming together. Pollard sensed they were close to making a breakthrough and wanted to read the Pacific West files as quickly as possible.
She turned toward Holman and saw he was now squatting beside the hole. She hurried over.
She said, “What are you doing?”
“Putting the dirt back. Someone could break a leg.”
Holman was slowly pushing dirt back into the hole with measured mechanical motions.
“Well, stop playing in the dirt and let’s go. Pacific West has a copy of the police summaries. This is good, Holman. If we can match your cover sheets with the reports, we’ll know what Random took from your son’s desk.”
Holman stood as if he were made of lead and started back down the trail. Pollard related what she had learned about Maria Juarez’s videotape. She considered this development telling, and grew annoyed when Holman didn’t react.
She said, “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re getting close, Holman. We catch a break with these reports or with Whitt being an informant, and everything will come together. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Pollard got pissed off when he didn’t answer. She was about to say something when Holman finally spoke.
He said, “I guess they did it.”
Pollard realized what was bothering him, but she wasn’t sure what to say. Holman had probably been holding out hope his son wasn’t a bad cop but now that hope was gone.
“We still have to find out what happened.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry, Max.”
Holman kept walking.
When they reached the car, Holman got in without a word, but Pollard tried to be encouraging. She turned the car around and headed back down the canyon into Hollywood, telling him what she hoped to find when they reached Pacific West Bank.
He said, “Listen, I don’t want to go to Chinatown. I’d like you to bring me home.”
Pollard felt another flash of irritation. She felt bad for Holman with what he was going through, but here he was with the big shoulders filling the other side of her car like a giant depressed lump, not even looking at her. He reminded her of herself when she sat in the kitchen staring at the goddamned clock.
She said, “We won’t be at the bank that long.”
“I have something else to do. Just drop me home first.”
They were on Gower heading south to the freeway, stopped at a traffic light. Pollard planned to hop on the 101 for an easy slide into Chinatown.
“Holman, listen, we are close, okay? We are really close to making this case happen.”
He didn’t look at her.
“We can make it happen later.”
“Goddamn it, we’re halfway to Chinatown. If I have to bring you to Culver City it’s really out of the way.”
“Forget it. I’ll ride the fuckin’ bus.”
Holman suddenly pushed open the door and stepped out into traffic. Pollard was caught off guard, but she jammed on the brake.
“Holman!”
Horns blew as Holman trotted across traffic.
“Holman! Would you come back here? What are you doing?”
He didn’t look at her. He kept walking.
“Get back in the car!”
He walked south on Gower toward Hollywood. The cars behind her leaned on their horns and Pollard finally crept forward. She watched Holman walking, wondering what he so badly wanted to do. He no longer moved like a zombie or seemed depressed. Pollard thought he looked furious. She had seen his expression on men before, and it frightened her. Holman looked like he wanted to kill someone.
Pollard didn’t turn onto the freeway. She let the traffic flow around her, then eased to the curb, letting Holman walk, but keeping him in sight.
Holman hadn’t lied about taking the bus. Pollard watched him board a westbound bus on Hollywood Boulevard. Following it was a pain in the ass because it stopped at damn near every corner. Each time it stopped she had to wedge her Subaru to the curb even when there was no place to park, then crane her head to see past pedestrians and vehicles in case Holman got off.
When Holman reached Fairfax he finally stepped off, then caught a Fairfax bus heading south. He stayed on the Fairfax bus to Pico, then changed buses again, once more heading west. Pollard believed Holman was going home like he had said, but she couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to lose him, so she followed him, furious at herself for wasting so much time.
Holman left the bus two blocks from his motel. Pollard was worried he might see her, but he never once looked around. Pollard found that odd, as if he had no awareness of his surroundings or maybe he no longer cared.
When he reached his motel she expected him to go inside, but he didn’t. He continued around the side and got into his car, and then she was following him again.
Holman picked up Sepulveda Boulevard and dropped south through the city. Pollard stayed five or six cars back, following him steadily south until Holman surprised her. He stopped near a freeway off-ramp and bought a bouquet of flowers from one of the vendors who haunt the ramps.
Pollard thought, what in hell is he doing?
She found out a few blocks later when Holman arrived at the cemetery.
THE LATE-MORNING sun was breathtakingly hot as Holman turned onto the cemetery grounds. Polished head markers caught the light like coins strewn onto the grass, and the immaculate rolling lawn was so bright Holman squinted behind his sunglasses. The outside temperature gauge on his dashboard showed 98 degrees. The dashboard clock showed 11:19. Holman caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and froze-in that instant, he saw the dated Ray-Ban Wayfarers with his hair shaggy over the temples and was his younger self; the same Holman who ran wild with Chee, doing dope and stealing cars until his life spun out of control. Holman took off the Wayfarers. He must have been stupid, buying the same glasses.
With the midweek morning and the heat, only a few other visitors were scattered throughout the cemetery. A burial was taking place on the far side of the grounds, but only the one, with a small crowd of mourners gathered around a tent.
Holman followed the road up to Donna and parked exactly where he had parked the last time he came. When he opened his car the heat crushed into him like a wave and the glare made him wince. He started to reach for the sunglasses, but thought, no, he didn’t want to remind her of what he used to be.
Holman brought the flowers to her grave. His earlier flowers were now black and brittle. Holman collected the old flowers, then policed the headstone of dead leaves and petals. He took the dead stuff to a trash can by the drive, then brought the fresh flowers back and put them on her grave.
Holman felt badly he hadn’t brought some kind of vase. In this heat, without water, the flowers would be shriveled and dead by the end of the day.
Holman grew even angrier with himself, thinking maybe he was just one of those people who fucked up everything.
He squatted and pressed his hand onto Donna’s marker. The hot metal burned his palm, but Holman pressed harder. He let it burn.
He whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Holman?”
Holman glanced over his shoulder to see Pollard coming toward him. He pulled himself up.
“What did you think I was going to do, rob a bank?”
Pollard stopped beside him and gazed down at the grave.
“Richard’s mother?”
“Yeah. Donna. I should’ve married this girl, but…you know.”
Holman let it drop. Pollard looked up and seemed to study him.
“You okay?”
“Not so good.”
Holman studied Donna’s name on the marker. Donna Banik. It should have been Holman.
“She was proud of him. So was I, but I guess the kid never really had a chance, not with the way I was.”
“Max, don’t do this.”
Pollard touched his arm, but Holman barely felt it, a gesture with no more weight than a wave from a passing car. He studied Pollard, who he knew to be a bright and educated woman.
“I tried to believe in God when I was in prison. That’s part of the twelve-step thing-you have to give yourself to a higher power. They say it doesn’t have to be God, but, c’mon, who are they kidding? I really wanted there to be a Heaven, man-Heaven, angels, God on a throne.”
Holman shrugged, then looked back at the marker. Donna Banik. He wondered if she would mind if he had it changed. He could save up the money and buy a new marker. Donna Holman. Then his eyes suddenly filled when he thought, no, she would probably be ashamed.
Holman wiped at his eyes.
“I got this letter-Donna wrote when Richie finished the police academy. She said how proud she was he wasn’t like me, here he was a policeman and nothing like me. Now, you might think she was being cruel, but she wasn’t. I was grateful. Donna made our boy good and she did it alone. I didn’t give them a goddamned thing. I left them with nothing. Now I hope there’s no goddamned Heaven. I don’t want her up there seeing all this. I don’t want her knowing he turned out like me.”
Holman felt ashamed of himself for saying such things. Pollard was as rigid as a statue. Her mouth was a tight line and her face was grim. When Holman glanced at her, a tear leaked down from behind her sunglasses and rolled to her chin.
Holman lost it when he saw the tear and a sob shuddered his body. He tried to fight it, but he gasped and heaved as tears flooded his eyes, and all he knew in that moment was how much pain he had caused.
He felt Pollard’s arms. She murmured words, but he did not understand what she was saying. She held him hard, and he held her back, but all he knew were the sobs. He wasn’t sure how long he cried. After a while Holman calmed, but he still held her. They just stood there, holding each other. Then Holman realized he was holding her. He stepped back.
“Sorry.”
Pollard’s hand lingered on his arm, but she didn’t say anything. He thought she might, but she turned aside to wipe her eyes.
Holman cleared his throat. He still needed to talk with Donna and he didn’t want Pollard to hear.
“Listen, I want to stick around here for a while. I’ll be okay.”
“Sure. I understand.”
“Why don’t we call it quits for today?”
“No. No, I want to see the reports. I can do that without you.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
Pollard touched his arm again and he reached to touch her hand, but then she turned away. Holman watched her walk to her car in the brutal heat and watched as she drove away. Then he looked back at Donna’s marker.
Holman’s eyes filled again, and now he was glad Pollard had gone. He squatted once more and adjusted the flowers. They were already beginning to wilt.
“Bad or not, he was ours. I’ll do what I have to do.”
Holman smiled, knowing she wouldn’t like it, but at peace with his fate. You just couldn’t beat the bad blood.
“Like son, like father.”
Holman heard a car door close behind him and glanced up into the sun. Two men were coming toward him.
“Max Holman.”
Two more men were coming from the direction of the burial, one with bright red hair.
VUKOVICH AND FUENTES were coming from one side and two more men from the other. Holman could not reach his car. They spread apart as they came like they expected him to run and were ready for it. Holman stood anyway, his heart pounding. The empty plain of the cemetery left him exposed like a fly on a dinner plate with no place to hide and no way to lose them.
Vukovich said, “Easy now.”
Holman started for the gate, and both Fuentes and one of the men behind him widened out.
Vukovich said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Holman broke into a trot and all four men suddenly ran forward. Holman shouted at the burial party.
“Help! Help me!”
Holman reversed course toward his car, knowing he couldn’t make it even as he tried.
“Over here! Help!”
Mourners at the far tent turned as the first two officers converged on him. Holman lowered his shoulder at the last moment and drove into the smaller guy hard, then spun, making a sprint for his car as Vukovich shouted.
“Take him down!”
“Help! Help here!”
Someone slammed into Holman from behind, but he kept on his feet and turned as Fuentes charged from the side, Vukovich shouting, “Stop it, goddamnit-give it up.”
Everything blurred into bodies and arms. Holman swung hard, catching Fuentes in the ear, then someone tackled his legs and he went down. Knees dug into his back and his arms were twisted behind him.
“Help! Help!”
“Shut up, asshole. What do you expect those people to do?”
“Witnesses! People are watching, you bastards!”
“Calm down, Holman. You’re being dramatic.”
Holman didn’t stop struggling until he felt the plastic restraints cut into his wrists. Vukovich lifted his head by the hair and twisted him around so they could see each other.
“Relax. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you in. Relax.”
“I haven’t fucking done anything!”
“You’re fucking up our shit, Holman. We tried to be nice, but could you take the hint? You’re fucking up our shit.”
When they lifted him to his feet, Holman saw that everyone in the burial party was now watching them. The two motorcycle cops who had escorted the hearse were walking over, but Fuentes was trotting out to meet them.
Holman said, “They’re witnesses, goddamnit. They’re gonna remember this.”
“All they’re going to remember is some asshole getting arrested. Stop being stupid.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“In.”
“Why?”
“Just relax, man. You’re going to be fine.”
Holman didn’t like the way Vukovich told him he was going to be fine. It sounded like something you heard before you were murdered.
They stood him up outside their car and went through his pockets. They took his wallet, keys, and cell phone, then checked his ankles, waist, and groin. Fuentes came back and the two motorcycle cops returned to their funeral. Holman watched them go as if they were life preservers drifting away on the current.
Vukovich said, “Okay, load’m up.”
Holman said, “What about my car?”
“We’ll get your car. You’re in the limo.”
“People know, damnit. People know what I’m doing.”
“No, Holman, no one knows anything. Now shut the fuck up.”
Fuentes drove away in Holman’s Highlander as the two new guys pushed him into the backseat of their car. The larger man got into the back with Holman and his partner climbed in behind the wheel. They pulled away as soon as they had the doors locked.
Holman knew they were going to kill him. The two cops didn’t speak to each other or look at him, so Holman made himself think. They were in a typical Crown Victoria detective’s car. Like all police cars, the rear seats and windows locked from the front. Holman wouldn’t be able to open the doors even if he could get his hands free. He would have to wait until he was out of the car, but by then it might be too late. He tested his wrists. The plastic ties had no give and did not slide over his skin. He had heard cons say these new plastic ties were stronger than steel, but Holman had never worn them before. He wondered if they would melt.
Holman studied the two cops. They were both in their thirties with solid builds and burnished faces as if they spent time outdoors. They were fit men and young, but neither had Holman’s heavy shoulders and weight. The man seated beside Holman was wearing a wedding ring.
Holman said, “Did either of you know my son?”
The driver shot a glance in the mirror, but neither answered.
“Was it one of you fuckers gunned him down?”
The driver glanced again and started to say something, but the backseat man cut him off.
“That’s up to Random to tell him.”
Holman figured Random was probably the fifth man, but now Vukovich, Fuentes, and these two guys were also part of the action. Add in Fowler, Richie, and the other two, and that made nine. Holman wondered if anyone else was involved. Sixteen million was a lot of money. There was still plenty to go around. Holman wondered what they knew about Pollard. They had probably followed him from his apartment and they would have seen her at the cemetery. They probably didn’t like the idea of stirring up the FBI, but they wouldn’t be willing to take the chance. When they got rid of him they would get rid of her.
They drove for about fifteen minutes. Holman thought they would take him out into the middle of nowhere or maybe a warehouse, but they turned off Centinela onto a cluttered middle-class street in Mar Vista. Small houses set on narrow lots lined both sides of the street, separated by hedges and shrubs. Fuentes had already arrived. Holman saw his Highlander parked ahead at the curb. Fuentes wasn’t in the car and no one was standing nearby. Holman’s heart started to pound and his palms grew cold. He was getting close and he would have to make his move soon. It felt like walking into a bank or circling a hot Porsche. His life was on the line.
They pulled across the drive of a small yellow house. A narrow drive ran past the side of the house under an arching carport to a garage at the rear of the property, and a blue sedan was parked beneath the arch. Holman didn’t recognize the sedan. Fuentes was probably already inside, but he didn’t know about Vukovich and Random. The entire house might be crawling with people.
The driver shut off their car and unlocked the back doors. The driver got out first, but the backseat man waited. The driver opened Holman’s door, but stood close as if he wanted to block Holman’s way.
“Okay, dude. Get out, but don’t move away from the car. When you’re out, stand straight up, then turn to face the car. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“I think I can handle it.”
They didn’t want the neighbors to see that Holman’s hands were bound behind his back.
“Get out and turn.”
Holman stepped out and turned. The driver immediately stepped up behind him and took a firm grip on his wrists.
“Okay, Tom.”
Tom was the backseater. He got out, then moved to the front of the car, waiting for Holman and the driver.
Holman took in the surrounding houses. Bikes in the front yards and knotted ropes hanging from trees told him this was a family neighborhood. An outboard powerboat was parked in a drive two houses away. He glimpsed low chain-link fences through breaks in the shrubs. No one was outside, but people would be inside with their air conditioners, mostly women with small children this time of day. He could scream his ass off, but no one would hear. If he ran, he would have to go over fences. He hoped none of these people had pit bulls.
Holman said, “You’d better tell me what you want me to do so I don’t fall.”
“We’re going around the front of the car.”
“We going to the front door?”
“Straight down the drive to the carport.”
Holman had already guessed they would use the carport. The front door was open, but the kitchen probably opened under the arch. The door would be hidden. Holman wasn’t going to let them bring him into the house. He figured he would die in the house. If he was going to die he wanted to die out in the open where someone might see, but Holman didn’t plan on dying that day. He glanced at the powerboat again and then at his Highlander.
Holman stepped away from the car. The driver closed the door, then nudged him toward the front. Holman slowly shuffled forward. Tom waited for them at the drive, then walked a few paces ahead, and would reach the door first.
The driver said, “Jesus, you can walk faster than that.”
“You’re bumping my feet. Why don’t you back off and give me some room, for Christ’s sake. You’re going to trip me.”
“Fuck that.”
The driver moved up even closer behind him, which was what Holman wanted. He wanted the driver as close behind as possible in the narrow space between the house and the blue sedan.
Tom stepped under the arch between the house and the car and went to the door. He waited for Holman and the driver, then opened the screen. When the screen door was open, Tom was on one side and Holman and the driver were on the other, sandwiched between the house and the blue sedan.
Holman didn’t wait for the door to open. He swung his right foot high against the house and shoved the driver backwards against the sedan as hard and fast as he could. He jerked his left foot up to join with his right, and crushed hard with both legs, pressing so hard the sedan rocked. He slammed his head backwards and the solid bone-on-bone impact made his eyes sparkle. He hammered backwards again, driving with his thick neck and shoulders and felt the driver go limp as Tom realized what was happening.
“Motherfuck-hey!”
Tom scrambled to get the door closed, but Holman was already running. He didn’t look back. He didn’t run across the street or away from the yellow house. He cut hard across the front yard, then turned again, racing for the backyard. He wanted to get out of sight as quickly as possible. He plowed headfirst through bushes and shrubs and fell across a fence. He heard someone shouting inside the house, but he didn’t stop. When he reached the rear of the house he rolled over another fence into the neighbor’s backyard and kept going. Limbs and branches and sharp things tore at him, but he couldn’t feel their claws. He sprinted across the neighbors’ yard head-on into a wall of shrubs and kicked his way over another fence like an animal. He landed on a sprinkler head. He struggled to his feet and ran, falling over a tricycle as he cut across their yard. Inside, a small dog snarled and snapped at him through a window. He heard shouts and voices two houses away and knew they would be coming, but he moved up along the side of the house toward the street because that’s where he had seen the boat. The boat was in the drive.
Holman crept to the corner of the house. Vukovich and Tom were in the street by their car, Vukovich holding a radio.
Holman crept forward to the boat with its big Mercury outboard motor. He twisted around to push the plastic tie onto the edge of the propeller blade and sawed as hard as he could, hoping that con was wrong about these things being stronger than steel.
He pushed with all of his weight and sawed the tie back and forth. He pushed so hard the tie cut into his skin, but the pain only drove him to push harder and then the tie popped and his hands were free.
Fuentes and Tom were now moving in the opposite direction, but Vukovich was walking down the middle of the street in his direction.
Holman crabbed backwards away from the boat, then slipped across the backyard in the direction from which he had come. They were fanning away from the house and wouldn’t expect him to double back, but this was an old trick he learned as a teenager when he first started breaking into apartments. He jumped back over the fence into the next yard and saw a stack of patio bricks. He took one, and he would need it for what he had planned. He continued across the yard, not crashing across as he had before, but moving quietly and listening. He eased over the fence and was again behind the yellow house. The backyard was empty and quiet. He slipped along the side of the house toward the street, stopping, starting, listening. He couldn’t take too much time because Vukovich and the others would return when they couldn’t find him.
Holman slipped along the side of the yellow house, staying beneath the windows. He could see the Highlander sitting in the street. They would probably see him when he made his move, but if he got lucky they would be too far away to stop him. He edged closer, and that’s when he heard a woman’s voice coming from inside the house.
The voice was familiar. He slowly raised up enough to see into the house.
Maria Juarez was inside with Random.
Holman should never have looked. He knew not to look from years of breaking into houses and apartments and stealing cars, but he made the mistake. Random caught the movement. Random’s eyes widened, and he turned for the door. Holman didn’t wait. He lurched to his feet and crashed through the shrubs. He only had seconds, and now those seconds might not be enough.
He ran for the Highlander as hard as he could and heard the front door open behind him. Vukovich was already on his way back and broke into a run. Holman shattered the Highlander’s passenger-side window with the patio brick, then reached in and unlocked the door, Random screaming behind him.
“He’s here! Vuke! Tommy!”
Holman threw himself inside. Chee had given him two keys, and Holman had left the spare in the console. He jacked it open, fished out the key, then pushed himself into the driver’s seat.
Holman ripped away from the curb and didn’t look back until he was gone.
HOLMAN WANTED to dump the Highlander as quickly as possible. He turned at the next intersection, punched out of the turn, and powered up the street. He resisted the urge to turn again at the next cross-street because turning and zigging were sure ways to lose a pursuit. Amateur car thieves and drunks fleeing arrest always thought they could shake the police in a maze of streets, but Holman knew they couldn’t. Every turn cost speed and time and gave the police an opportunity to draw closer. Speed was life and distance was everything, so Holman powered forward.
Holman knew he had to get out of the residential neighborhoods and into an area with businesses and traffic. He hit Palms Boulevard on the fly, turned toward the freeway, and jammed into the first and largest shopping center he found, a big open-air monster anchored by an Albertsons supermarket.
The Highlander was large, black, and easy to spot, so Holman didn’t want to leave it in the main parking lot. He turned into the service lane behind the shops and stores, and drove along the rear of the shopping center. He pulled over, shut the engine, and looked at himself. His face and arms were scratched and bleeding and his shirt was torn in two places. Streaks of dirt and grass stains striped his clothes. Holman slapped off the dirt as best he could, then spit on his shirt tail to wipe away the blood, but he still looked like hell. He wanted to get away from the Highlander, but the remaining plastic restraint was still attached to his left wrist. Holman had cut the right loop on the boat’s propeller, and now the strands from the severed loop dangled from his left wrist like two strands of spaghetti. He studied the clasp. The restraints worked like a belt except the buckle only worked in one direction. The tongue of the belt could be slipped through the buckle, but tiny teeth prevented the tongue from being withdrawn. The plastic ties had to be cut, only now Holman didn’t have a blade.
Holman started the engine again, turned the air conditioner on high, then pushed in the cigarette lighter. He tried not to think about what he was going to do because he knew it was going to hurt. When the lighter popped out, he pulled the tie as far from his skin as possible and pressed the glowing end onto the plastic. Holman clenched his jaw and held firm, but it burned like a sonofabitch. He had to heat the lighter three more times before the plastic melted through.
Vukovich had taken his keys, wallet, money, and cell phone. Holman searched the floorboards and console, and came up with seventy-two cents. That was it. That was all he had.
Holman locked the Highlander and walked away without looking back. He made his way through a pet store filled with cages of chirping birds and found a pay phone outside the Albertsons. He wanted to warn Pollard and he needed her help, but when he reached the phone he couldn’t remember her number. Holman stood with the phone in his hand, drawing a total blank. He had programmed her number into his cell phone’s memory, but now his phone was gone and he couldn’t remember the number.
Holman started to shake. He slammed the phone into its cradle and shouted.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Three people entering the store stared at him.
Holman realized he was losing it and told himself to calm down. More people were looking. His cuts were bleeding again, so he wiped at his arms, but all that accomplished was smearing the blood. Holman scanned the parking lot. No patrol cars or anonymous Crown Victorias crept past the store. Holman began to calm down after a few minutes and decided to call Chee. He didn’t remember Chee’s number, either, but Chee’s shop was listed.
Holman fed in his coins, then waited while the information operator made the connection.
Chee’s phone rang. Holman expected someone to answer on the first couple of rings, but the ringing went on. Holman cursed his lousy luck, thinking the operator had given him the wrong connection, but then a young woman answered in a tentative voice.
“Hello?”
“I’m calling for Chee.”
“I’m sorry, we’re closed.”
Holman hesitated. It was the middle of the day during the work week. Chee’s shop should not have been closed.
“Marisol? Is this Marisol?”
Her voice came back, even more tentative.
“Yes?”
“This is Max Holman-your dad’s friend. I need to talk to him.”
Holman waited, but Marisol didn’t respond. Then he realized she was crying.
“Marisol?”
“They took him. They came-”
She broke into full-blown sobs and Holman’s fear level spiked.
“Marisol?”
Holman heard a man saying something in the background and Marisol trying to answer, and then the man came on the line, his voice also guarded.
“Who is this?”
“Max Holman. What’s she talking about? What’s going on over there?”
“This is Raul, man. You remember?”
Raul was the kid who put together Holman’s driver’s license.
“Yes. What was she talking about? Where’s Chee?”
“They hooked him up, man. This morning-”
“Who?”
“Fuckin’ cops. They arrested him.”
Holman’s heart started pounding again and he once more scanned the parking lot.
“What the fuck happened? Why did they arrest him?”
Raul lowered his voice like he didn’t want Marisol to hear, but his voice became strained.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened. They came in this morning with warrants, dogs, fuckin’ assholes with machine guns-”
“The police?”
“LAPD, FBI, SWAT, even the fuckin’ ATF-if it’s in the alphabet they were here. They ate this shit up and took his ass in.”
Holman’s mouth had grown dry, but the phone was slippery in his grip. He watched the parking lot and forced himself to breathe.
“Was he hurt? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know.”
Holman almost shouted.
“Why don’t you know? It’s a simple goddamned question.”
“You think they let us stand around an’ watch, muthuhfuckuh?! My ass was proned out! They brought us here in the fuckin’ office!”
“Okay, okay-take it easy. Warrants for what? What were they looking for?”
“Assault rifles and explosives.”
“Jesus Christ, what was Chee doing?”
“Nothin’, bro! Chee’s not into anything over here, fuckin’ explosives! His daughter works here. You think he’d keep explosives? Chee won’t even let us deal stolen air bags.”
“But they arrested him?”
“Hell, yes. They put him in the car right in front of his daughter.”
“Then they must have found something.”
“I don’t know what the fuck they found. They loaded some shit into a truck. They had the fuckin’ Bomb Squad here, Holman! They had those fuckin’ dogs sniffin’ everywhere, but we didn’t have anything like that.”
A computerized voice came on the line, telling Holman he had only one minute left. Holman was out of quarters. His time was running out.
Holman said, “I gotta go, but one more thing. Did they ask about me? Did they try to connect Chee with me in any way?”
Holman waited for the answer, but the line was already dead. Raul had hung up.
Holman put down the phone and studied the parking lot. He believed Chee had been set up, but he didn’t understand why. Chee didn’t know anything of value about Holman that couldn’t be learned from Gail Manelli or Wally Figg or Tony Gilbert. Holman hadn’t even told Chee about the missing sixteen million and his growing suspicions of a police conspiracy, but maybe someone thought he had; maybe someone thought Chee knew more than he did, and this was their way of trying to make him talk. Thinking about it made Holman’s head hurt. Nothing made sense, so Holman stopped thinking about it. He had more immediate problems. No one was coming to give him a ride and more money and a car. Holman was on his own, and his only hope now was to reach Pollard. Reaching Pollard might be her only hope, too.
Holman went back to the Albertsons. He searched out the produce section, then headed for the rear of the store. Every produce section in every market in America had a swinging door in the back, through which produce clerks could push their carts laden with fruits and vegetables. Behind the door was always a refrigerated room into which the perishables were delivered and stored, and all such rooms had still more doors that opened onto loading docks.
Holman let himself out and was once more behind the shopping center. He returned to the Highlander, opened the rear cargo door, and pulled out the floor mats. The emergency tool kit had a screwdriver, pliers, and a jack handle. Holman hadn’t stolen a car in a dozen years, but he still remembered how.
Holman went back to the parking lot.
WHEN POLLARD left Holman at the cemetery she climbed onto the freeway in a confused daze and headed for Chinatown, her head so busy she barely noticed the surrounding cars.
Pollard hadn’t known what to expect when she followed Holman from Hollywood, but he had surprised her yet again. Here was Holman, who allowed himself to get pinched for bank robbery rather than let an old man die. Here was Holman, apologizing to his dead girlfriend for screwing up their son. Pollard hadn’t wanted to leave. She had wanted to stay, just hold his hand and comfort him and lose herself to her feelings.
Pollard’s heart broke when Holman started crying, not so much for him as for herself. Here was Holman, and she knew she could love him. Now, driving away, she fought the frightening suspicion she already did.
Max Holman is a degenerate career criminal ex-con and former drug abuser with no education, no skills, and absolutely no legitimate prospects short of an endless series of minimum-wage jobs. He has no respect for Black Letter law and his only friends are known felons. He will almost certainly end up back in jail within the next year. I have two little boys. What kind of example would he set? What would my mother say? What would everyone say? What if he doesn’t find me attractive?
Pollard arrived at the Pacific West Building in Chinatown forty-five minutes later where Alma Wantanabe, the Pac West operations officer, showed her to a windowless conference room on the third floor. Two institutional blue boxes were waiting on a table.
Wantanabe explained that the LAPD summaries were divided into two distinct groups. One group consisted of divisional files specific to the robberies within those divisions-Newton Division Robbery detectives investigating robberies that had occurred in Newton. The second group of files was compiled by Robbery Special, who had synthesized the divisional reports into their larger, citywide investigation. Pollard knew from experience this was a function of resources. Though Robbery Special had been in charge of the citywide investigation, they employed divisional robbery detectives to pound the pavement on robberies in their local divisions. The divisional detectives then shipped their reports up the food chain to Robbery Special, who worked across divisional boundaries to coordinate and direct a Big Picture investigation.
Wantanabe cautioned her again not to remove or copy any material from the files, then left Pollard alone to work.
Pollard opened her own file for the cover-sheet copies Holman had made before Random confiscated the reports. The cover sheets told Pollard nothing except the case and witness numbers, and the witness numbers told her nothing without the identifying witness list:
Case # 11-621
Witness # 318
Marchenko/Parsons
Interview Summary
Pollard hoped to identify the witnesses through the witness lists, then see what they had to say. She didn’t know the source of the cover sheets, so she started with the box of divisional reports. She emptied the box, then methodically searched for witness lists. She found three lists, but it soon became apparent that the divisional numbering system did not match with her cover sheets. She put the divisional files aside and turned to the Parker Center reports.
Her interest spiked the instant she opened the second box. The first page was a case file introduction signed by the commander of Robbery Special and the two lead detectives in charge of the case. The second lead detective was John B. Random.
Pollard stared at his name. She knew Random from his investigation into the murder of the four police officers. She had assumed he was a homicide detective, yet here he was in charge of a robbery investigation. The same robbery that now overlapped with the murders.
Pollard flipped through the following reports until she found the witness list. It was a thirty-seven-page document listing three hundred forty-six numbered names beginning with witness number one, who was identified as a teller employed at the first bank Marchenko and Parsons robbed. The lowest witness number on Pollard’s cover sheets was #318, followed in consecutive order by 319, 320, 321, 327, and 334. All of her witnesses had come late in the case.
Pollard began matching the numbers on her cover sheets to names, and immediately saw a pattern.
#318 was identified as Lawrence Trehorn, who managed the four-unit apartment building in Beachwood Canyon where Marchenko and Parsons lived.
The next three witnesses were their neighbors.
#327 was an attendant at the West Hollywood health club Marchenko visited.
And #334 was Anton Marchenko’s mother.
Pollard located the individual summaries, but did not immediately read them. She checked for the names of the detectives who conducted the interviews. Random had signed off on Trehorn and Mrs. Marchenko, and Vukovich had signed off on one of the neighbors. Vukovich had been one of the officers with Random who confronted Holman outside his daughter-in-law’s apartment-another detective investigating the murders who had also investigated Marchenko and Parsons.
Pollard thought about Fowler and the fifth man going to see Mrs. Marchenko. She wondered if Fowler had gone to see these other five people, also.
Pollard copied the names and contact information of the five new witnesses, then read through the summaries. She half suspected that at least one of the summaries would reference Alison Whitt, the Hollywood Sign, or the Mayan Grille, but the reports provided nothing except a list of people who were personally known to Marchenko and Parsons. Pollard decided this was the key. None of these summaries were specific to the actual robberies, but all were potentially relevant to establishing what Marchenko and Parsons had done with the money. This would have been why Richard Holman had them, but the questions remained: How had he gotten them and why had Random removed them from Richard’s apartment? It was as if Random didn’t want anyone to have proof that Fowler and his little group were trying to find the money.
When Pollard finished, she returned the summaries to the file in their proper order, then placed the files in their boxes. She kept thinking about Random taking the files. Pollard considered the possibility that Richard had gotten the files from Random, but something about this bothered her. Random knew what was in the summaries. If he was involved with Richard and Fowler, he could have told them what he knew-he didn’t have to give them the files.
Pollard left the boxes on the table, then thanked Alma Wantanabe, who walked her to the elevators. As Pollard rode down, she checked her messages, but Sanders hadn’t yet called. She felt a flash of frustration, then realized she had something almost as good with which to work-Mrs. Marchenko. If Random was the fifth man, Pollard did not need to see the informant list-Mrs. Marchenko would be able to identify him, which would put Random together with Fowler. Finding Alison Whitt’s contact officer would then be icing on the cake.
Pollard decided to call Holman. She wanted to tell him what she had found, then go to Mrs. Marchenko. She was dialing his number when the elevator opened.
Holman was in the lobby, filthy and streaked with dried blood.
HOLMAN REMEMBERED she was going to the Pacific West Building, but he didn’t know if she was still there or how to reach her and he had no money left to make a call. He didn’t want to go to the building. If someone had followed Pollard from the cemetery Holman would be giving himself back to them, but he didn’t know how else to reach her. Holman circled the building until he was scared he would miss her, then waited in the lobby like a nervous dog. He was about to leave when the elevator opened and Pollard stepped out. In that double-take moment when she saw him, her face went white.
“What happened to you? Look at you-what happened?”
Holman was still shaking. He led her away from the elevators. A lobby security guard had already questioned him twice and Holman wanted to leave.
“We gotta get out of here. Vukovich and those guys-they grabbed me again.”
Pollard saw the guard, too, and lowered her voice.
“You’re bleeding-”
“They might have followed you. I’ll tell you outside-”
Holman desperately wanted to leave.
“Who?”
“The cops. They jumped me at the cemetery after you left-”
The shaking grew worse. Holman tried to bring her toward the door, but she pulled him the other way.
“This way. Come with me-”
“We have to go. They’re looking for me.”
“You’re a mess, Max. You stand out. In here-”
Holman let her pull him into the women’s bathroom. She led him to the lavatories, then jerked paper towels from a dispenser and wet them in the sink. Holman wanted to run, but he couldn’t make himself move-the bathroom felt like a rat trap ready to spring.
“They brought me to a house. It was Vukovich and-Random was there. They didn’t arrest me. It wasn’t a goddamn arrest. They fuckin’ took me-”
“Shh. You’re shaking. Try to calm down.”
“We have to get out of here, Katherine.”
She wiped blood from his face and arms, but he couldn’t stop talking any more than he could stop the trembling in his voice. Then he remembered his phone was missing and the terrible helpless feeling he had when he couldn’t reach her.
“I need something to write with-a pen. You got a pen? I tried to call you, but I couldn’t remember your number. I couldn’t fuckin’ remember-”
The trembling grew worse until Holman felt he was shaking apart. He was losing control of himself, but he didn’t seem able to stop.
Pollard tossed the bloody towels, then gripped his arms.
“Max.”
Her eyes seemed to draw him. She stared into his eyes and Holman stared back. Her fingers dug into his arms, but her eyes were calm and her voice was soothing.
“Max, you’re here with me now-”
“I was scared. They had Maria Juarez-”
Holman couldn’t stop looking into her eyes as her fingers massaged his arms.
“You’re safe. You’re with me now, and you’re safe.”
“Jesus, I was so fuckin’ scared.”
Holman stayed with her eyes, but the corners of her lips held a gentle curl that slowed him like an anchor would slow a drifting boat.
His shaking eased.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Yes, I’m better.”
“Good. I want you okay.”
Pollard found a pen in her jacket, then took his arm. She wrote her cell number on the inside of his forearm, then looked up again with softer eyes.
“Now you have my number. You see, Max? Now you can’t lose it.”
Holman could feel that something was now different. She moved closer to him, then slipped her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. Holman stood stiff as a mannequin. He was uncertain and didn’t want to offend her. She whispered into his chest.
“Just for a moment.”
Holman hesitantly touched her back. She didn’t run or jump away. He put his arms around her and laid his cheek on her head. Little by little, he let himself hold her and breathed her in and felt the badness drain away. After a bit Holman felt her stir, and they stepped apart at the same time. Pollard smiled.
“Now we can go. You can tell me what happened in my car.”
Pollard was parked in the building’s basement. Holman described how they had taken him at the cemetery and how he had escaped and what he had seen. She frowned as she listened, but made no comment and asked no questions until he was finished, even when he told her he had stolen a car. She didn’t speak until he was finished, but even then she seemed uncertain.
“All right, it was Vukovich and three other men-one named Fuentes and one named Tom-who arrested you at the cemetery?”
“They didn’t arrest me. They hooked me up, but they didn’t bring me to a station-they brought me to a house. This wasn’t any damn arrest.”
“What did they want?”
“I don’t know what they wanted. I got the hell out of there.”
“Didn’t they say anything?”
“Nothing-”
Then Holman remembered.
“At the cemetery, Vukovich said I was fucking them up, how they tried to be nice but I was fucking them up. He told me they were taking me in, but instead they took me to a goddamned house. I saw that house, there was no way I was going in, no way.”
Pollard frowned harder as if she was trying to make sense of it, but couldn’t.
“All right, and Random was at the house?”
“Yes. With Maria Juarez. Chee said the cops took her and he was right. And now they have Chee. They arrested him this morning.”
Pollard didn’t respond. She still seemed troubled and finally shook her head.
“I don’t get what’s happening here. They grabbed Maria Juarez and now they grabbed you-what were they going to do, hold you prisoner? What could they hope to gain?”
Holman thought it was obvious.
“They’re getting rid of everyone who’s rocking the boat about Random’s case against Warren Juarez. Think about it. Random put the murders on Warren Juarez and closed the case, but Maria said Warren didn’t do it-so they grabbed her. Then I didn’t buy the story they floated, either. They tried to make me back off, and when that didn’t work they bagged me, too. Now they have Chee.”
“Random arrested him?”
“A task force raided his shop this morning looking for guns and explosives. That’s bullshit. I’ve known Chee my whole life and I am telling you that’s bullshit. These bastards must have set him up.”
Pollard still didn’t seem convinced.
“But why involve Chee?”
“Maybe they think I told him about the money. Maybe because he’s been helping me. I don’t know.”
“Could you find the house again, the one where they took you?”
“Absolutely. I can take you there right now.”
“We’re not going there now-”
“We have to. Now that I know where they have her, they’ll clear out. They’ll take that woman with them.”
“Max, listen to me-you’re right. They left as soon as you left and if they were holding Maria Juarez against her will, then they took her with them. If we go back now we’ll find an empty house. If we go to the police about this, what can we tell them? You were kidnapped by four LAPD officers who may or may not have had criminal intent?”
Holman knew she was right. He was a criminal. He had no proof, and no reason to think anyone would believe him.
“Then what can we do?”
“We have to find the fifth man. If we can prove Random is the fifth man we can tie him to Fowler and make our case-”
Pollard paged through her folder and pulled out a newspaper clipping about Richard’s murder. The clipping included a picture of two cops making a statement at Parker Center, and one of the cops was Random.
“I want to show this picture to Mrs. Marchenko. If she fingers Random as the fifth man, I can take what we know to my friends at the FBI. I can make a case with this, Max.”
Holman glanced at Random’s grainy face, then nodded at Pollard. Once more, he knew she was right. She knew this stuff. She was a professional.
Holman reached out to touch the curve of her cheek. She didn’t move away.
“Funny how things work.”
“Yeah.”
Holman turned to open the door.
“I’ll see you over there.”
Pollard grabbed his arm before he could leave.
“Hey! You’re coming with me! You can’t drive around in a stolen car. You want to get bagged for grand theft auto?”
Pollard was right again, but Holman knew he was right in a different way. Random and Vukovich had come for him. They would come for him again. For all he knew, every cop in the city was looking for him, and they would set him up just like they set up Chee.
Holman gently lifted her hand.
“I might have to run, Katherine. I don’t want to run in your car. I don’t want you caught with me.”
Holman squeezed her hand.
“I’ll see you at her place.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond. Holman slid out of her car and trotted away.
HOLMAN LEFT the parking structure as if he was sneaking away from a bank he had just robbed. He still worried that someone had followed Pollard from the cemetery, so he studied the cars and pedestrians outside the building but found no one suspicious. He waited in his stolen car until Pollard pulled into traffic, then followed her to Mrs. Marchenko.
Holman felt better now that he had spoken with Pollard. He sensed they were close to finding out who murdered Richie, and why, and he suspected this was why Random had moved against him. Random had been a major player in the Marchenko case and now he controlled the investigation into the murder of the four officers. How convenient. Random would have known about the missing sixteen million and had probably put together a team to find it that included Fowler, Richie, and the others. Holman bitterly recalled how Random described them-problem officers; drunks and bums who would sell out for the pot of gold. Random wanted to pin the murders on Warren Juarez; Maria Juarez had proof her husband wasn’t the shooter, so the proof disappeared and so did Maria Juarez. Richie had been in possession of reports Random had written, and Random had made the reports disappear. Holman had asked too many questions, so first they cut him off from the other families, then tried to scare him off, and finally tried to make him disappear, too. This was the only explanation Holman could see that made everything fit together. He still didn’t understand how Chee was involved, but he felt sure they had enough. The noose was tightening, so Random was trying to tie off the loose ends and get rid of the hangman. When Holman realized he was the hangman, he smiled. It had to be Random-and he wanted to be Random’s hangman.
When they reached Mrs. Marchenko’s house, Holman parked across the street. Mrs. Marchenko opened her front door even as Holman joined Pollard on the sidewalk.
Pollard said, “I called her from the car.”
Mrs. Marchenko didn’t seem happy to see them. She looked even more suspicious than before.
“I been lookin’ for that article. I don’ see it.”
Pollard smiled brightly.
“Soon. We’re here to tack down a few last details. I have a picture I want to show you.”
Holman followed Pollard and Mrs. Marchenko into her living room. He noticed the broken fan was still broken.
Mrs. Marchenko dropped into her usual chair.
“What picture?”
“Remember the pictures we showed you last time? You were able to identify one of two officers who came to see you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to show you another picture. I want to know if he was the other man.”
Pollard took the clipping from her folder and held it out. Mrs. Marchenko studied it, then nodded.
“Oh, him I know, but that was before-”
Pollard nodded, encouraging.
“Right. He interviewed you after Anton was killed.”
“Right, yah-”
“Did he come back to see you with the other man?”
Mrs. Marchenko settled back in her chair.
“No. It wasn’t him.”
Holman felt a swirl of anger. They were close; they were at the very edge of breaking this thing open and now the old lady was being a roadblock.
“Why don’t you look again-”
“I don’t need to look again. Wasn’t him with that man. Him, I know from before. He was one of that bunch came broke my lamp.”
The old lady looked so smug and contrary that Holman was convinced she was jerking them around.
“For Christ’s sake, lady.”
Pollard held up a hand, warning him to stop.
“So think about that other man, Mrs. Marchenko. Try to remember what he looked like. He didn’t look like this man?”
“No.”
“Can you describe him?”
“He looked like a man. I don’t know. A dark suit, I think.”
Holman suddenly wondered if the fifth man might have been Vukovich.
“Did he have red hair?”
“He was wearing a hat. I don’t know. I told you, I not pay attention.”
Holman’s certainty at nailing Random fell apart like a dream shattered by an alarm clock. Holman was still on the run; Chee was still in jail; Maria Juarez was still a prisoner. Holman snatched the clipping from Pollard and stalked over to Mrs. Marchenko. She jerked backwards as if she thought he might hit her, but Holman didn’t care. He pointed at Random’s picture.
“Are you sure it wasn’t him?”
“Wasn’t him.”
“Max, stop it.”
“How about if I told you he was the sonofabitch who shot your son? Would it look like him then?”
Pollard pushed up from the couch, rigid and angry.
“That’s enough, Max. That’s it.”
Mrs. Marchenko’s bulldog face hardened.
“Was him? Was he the one killed Anton?”
Pollard took the clipping and pushed Holman toward the door.
“No, Mrs. Marchenko. I’m sorry. He didn’t have anything to do with Anton’s death.”
“Then why he say that? Why he say a thing like that?”
Holman stalked out of the house and didn’t stop until he reached the street. He felt like an asshole. He was angry and confused and ashamed of himself all over again, and when Pollard came out she looked furious.
Holman said, “I’m sorry. How could it not be Random? It had to be Random! He’s what ties this all together.”
“Shut up. Just stop. All right, so the fifth man wasn’t Random or Vukovich. We know he wasn’t your son or Mellon or Ash, but he had to be somebody.”
“Random had three or four other guys with him at that house. Maybe it was one of them. Maybe Random has the whole fucking police department working for him.”
“We still have Alison Whitt-”
She already had her cell phone out and was speed-dialing a number.
“If Random was her contact officer, we can still-”
She held up a hand, cutting him off as the person she called answered.
“Yeah, it’s me. What did you get on Alison Whitt?”
Holman waited, watching as Pollard stiffened. Holman knew it was bad even before Pollard lowered the phone. He could read it in the way her shoulders dipped. Pollard stared at him for a moment, then shook her head.
“Alison Whitt was not a registered informant with the Los Angeles Police Department.”
“So what do we do?”
Pollard didn’t answer right away. He knew she was thinking. He was thinking, too. He should have expected it. He knew better than to expect anything to work out.
Pollard finally answered.
“I have her arrest record at my house. I can see who the arresting officers were. Maybe we were wrong in thinking she was a registered informant. Maybe she was just feeding some guy on the sly and I’ll recognize a name.”
Holman smiled, and, again, it was more for himself than her. He took in the lines of her face and the way her hair fell, and remembered again the first time he saw her, pointing a gun at him in the bank.
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“We are not finished with this. We’re close, Max. Random is all over both sides of this crazy thing and all we need is the one missing piece to have it make sense.”
Holman nodded, but he felt only loss. He had tried to play this the right way, the way you’re supposed to play it when you live within the law, but the right way hadn’t worked out.
“You’re a special person, Agent Pollard.”
Her face tightened and she was that young agent again.
“My name is Katherine. Call me by my goddamn name.”
Holman wanted to hold her again. He wanted to hold her close and kiss her, but doing so could only be wrong.
“Don’t help me anymore, Katherine. You’ll only get hurt.”
Holman started toward his car, and now Pollard followed him.
“Waitaminute. What are you going to do?”
“Get new stuff and drop off the grid. They had me and they’re going to come for me again. I can’t let that happen.”
He got into his car, but she stood inside the door and wouldn’t let him close it. Holman tried to ignore her. He wedged his screwdriver into the busted ignition and twisted it to start the engine. Pollard still didn’t get out of the way.
“What are you going to do for money?”
“Chee gave me some money. I have to go, Katherine. Please.”
“Holman!”
Holman looked up at her. Pollard stepped back, then closed the door. She leaned into the window and touched his lips with hers. Holman closed his eyes. He wanted it to go on forever, but knew, like every other good thing in his life, it would not last. When he opened his eyes again, she was watching him.
She said, “I’m not going to quit.”
Holman pulled away. He told himself not to look back. He had learned the hard way that looking back was when you got into trouble, so he told himself not to look, but he glanced in the mirror anyway and saw her in the street, watching him, this incredible woman who had almost been part of his life.
Holman wiped his eyes.
He stared ahead.
He drove.
They hadn’t been able to put the pieces together, but that no longer seemed to matter. Holman was not going to let them get away with Richie’s murder.
POLLARD WAS FURIOUS. Marki had used all the right terms in relating what Whitt told her about being an informant-the registration, the cap, the approval; civilians didn’t know these things unless they knew them firsthand, so Pollard still believed Whitt had been telling the truth.
Pollard one-handed a call back to Sanders as she blasted up the Hollywood Freeway. She hadn’t wanted to get into it in front of Holman, but now she wanted details.
“Hey, it’s me. Can you still talk?”
“What’s wrong?”
“This girl was an informant. I want you to check again.”
“Hey. Whoa. I’m doing you a favor, remember? Leeds would have my ass if he found out.”
“I’m sure this girl wasn’t lying. I believe her.”
“I know you believe her. I can hear your belief coming through the phone, but she wasn’t on the list. Look-maybe some cop was paying her out of his own pocket. That happens all the time.”
“If somebody was using her off the books she wouldn’t have known about payouts being capped and having to be approved. Think about it, April-she was the real thing and she had a cop backing her.”
“Listen to me: She was not on the list. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe she’s under an alias. Check her arrest record for-”
“Now you’re being stupid. Nobody gets paid under an alias.”
Pollard drove in silence for a while, embarrassed by her desperation.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“You know I’m right. What’s going on with you, girl?”
“I was sure.”
“She was a whore. Whores lie. That’s what they do-you’re my best lover, you made me come so good. C’mon, Kat. She made it sound good for her friend because she can make anything sound good. That’s what they do.”
Pollard felt ashamed of herself. Maybe it was Holman. Maybe she needed it to work out for him so badly she had lost her common sense.
“I’m sorry I freaked out on you.”
“Just bring me some more donuts. I’m starting to lose weight. You know I like to keep my weight up.”
Pollard couldn’t even bring herself to smile. She closed her phone and brooded about it as she drove home, her thoughts swinging between her disappointment that Alison Whitt had lied about being an informant and her surprise that Mrs. Marchenko had not identified Random as the fifth man.
It was as if she and Holman had uncovered two separate cases, with Random on both sides-Fowler’s search for the missing money and Warren Juarez’s alleged murder of the four officers. Random had been a principal in the Marchenko investigation and now he controlled the investigation into the murders. Random had immediately closed the murder investigation by naming Warren Juarez the assailant even though unanswered questions remained. He had denied that Fowler and the others were in any way connected to Marchenko and had actively suppressed further inquiry; so actively, it was clear he was hiding something.
Only Fowler and his boys had been searching for the money, and they hadn’t been searching alone; at least one other person was involved-the fifth man. Someone had given them copies of Robbery Special reports they otherwise would not have been able to acquire, and two of those reports had been written by Random, who later confiscated those reports from Richard Holman’s apartment. Someone had also accompanied Fowler to see Mrs. Marchenko, and Pollard believed it likely this was the same person who provided Fowler with information learned from Alison Whitt. Pollard believed Alison Whitt was now the telling key and would still likely connect everything to Random.
But Pollard still had a problem with Maria Juarez. When she disappeared, Random had issued a warrant for her arrest, yet Chee claimed the police had taken her from her cousins’ home. Now, Holman had seen her in Random’s custody. If Random was covering the true murderer of the four officers, why would he hold Maria Juarez captive and not simply kill her? Since her visit to the murder scene, Pollard believed the four officers had knowingly let their killer approach. If the killer was Juarez and if the officers were at the bridge that night on their search for the money, then Juarez must have had a connection with Marchenko. Maybe Maria Juarez knew what her husband had known, and Random needed her help to find the money. This would explain why she was still alive, but Pollard wasn’t happy with the explanation. She was guessing, and guesses were a sucker’s game in any investigation.
Pollard was trying to reconcile why so much of what she had didn’t add up when she pulled into her drive. She hurried through the hellish heat and let herself into the house. She stepped through the front door, her irritation about Alison Whitt now being replaced by her dread at the inevitable phone call to her mother. She was lost in thought as she entered her house, thinking how absolutely nothing was going to work out, when a red-haired man waiting inside pushed the door out of her hands, slamming it shut.
“Welcome home.”
Pollard startled so badly she jerked backwards as another man stepped from the hall, this man holding a credential case with a badge.
“John Random. We’re the police.”
POLLARD SPUN into Vukovich, driving her elbow hard into his ribs. Vukovich grunted and jerked to the side.
“Hey-”
Pollard spun in the opposite direction, thinking she had to get to the kitchen and then out the back door, but Random was already blocking her path.
“Hold it! We’re not going to hurt you. Hold it!”
Random had stopped between Pollard and the kitchen and had come no closer. He was holding up both hands with his badge dangling over his head and Vukovich had made no further move. Pollard edged sideways to see both of them at the same time.
Random said, “Take it easy now. Just relax. If we wanted to hurt you would we be standing here like this?”
Random lowered his hands, but made no move forward. It was a good sign, but Pollard still edged to the side, eyes going between them, kicking herself for leaving her service pistol in the box in her closet, thinking, how stupid could you be? Thinking she might be able to get one of the kitchen knives, but she’d hate to fight these bastards with a knife.
“What do you want?”
Random studied her for a moment longer, then put away his badge.
“Your cooperation. You and Holman have been messing things up for us. Will you give me a chance to explain?”
“Is that why you grabbed him, to explain?”
“I wouldn’t be here now and telling you what I’m about to tell you if you hadn’t forced my hand.”
Vukovich was leaning against the door, watching her, but his eyes were curious and his manner relaxed. Random seemed irritated, but his eyes were tired and his suit was rumpled. Nothing about their body language was threatening. Pollard felt herself begin to relax, but she was still wary.
She said, “Question.”
Random opened his hands, saying go ahead, ask.
“Who murdered those men?”
“Warren Juarez.”
“Bullshit, Random. I don’t believe you and I don’t believe they just happened to be under that bridge. They were looking for Marchenko’s money.”
Random opened his hands again and shrugged, the shrug saying he could take it or leave it whether she believed him.
“Yes, they were looking for the money, but Juarez was the shooter. He was hired by someone to kill them. We’re trying to identify the person who hired him.”
“Stop lying to me. Holman saw Maria Juarez with you at the house.”
“Not lying. That house is a safe house. She was there voluntarily at our request.”
“Why?”
“Juarez didn’t commit suicide. The person who hired him murdered him. We believe he was hired because of his connection with Fowler and that the person who hired him planned to kill him from the beginning. We grew worried that this person might also murder his wife. We brought Holman to the house so Maria could tell him herself. I didn’t expect him to believe me otherwise.”
Pollard watched Random as he spoke and believed he was telling the truth. Everything he was saying made sense. She thought it through and finally nodded.
“All right. Okay, I buy that, but why did you have Chee arrested? I don’t get that.”
Random glanced at Vukovich before looking back at her. He shook his head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Holman’s friend, Chee-Gary Moreno. He was raided this morning and taken into custody. We thought that was you.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“What are we talking about, Random? Am I supposed to believe it was a coincidence?”
Random looked blank, but he glanced at Vukovich again.
“Vuke, see what you can find out.”
Vukovich took out a cell phone and drifted into the dining room toward the kitchen. Pollard could hear him mumbling as she continued with Random.
“If you knew another person was involved with Juarez, why did you close the case?”
“His killer set up the murder to look like a suicide. I wanted him to think we bought it. I wanted him to believe we didn’t know he existed so he would feel safe.”
“Why?”
“We believe this person is a high-level police officer.”
Random said it matter-of-factly and without hesitation. This was exactly what Pollard and Holman had been thinking, only they had figured it was Random. Pollard suddenly realized how the disparities between the two Randoms made sense, and how all the inconsistencies about him could be consistent.
“The fifth man.”
“What’s the fifth man?”
“We knew someone else was involved. We called him the fifth man. We thought it was you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You’ve been running an investigation within an investigation, one public, the other secret-a secret investigation.”
“There was no other way to approach this. The only people who know what we’re doing are my team, the chief, and one assistant chief. This investigation began weeks before those guys were killed. I was informed a group of officers were making a play for the money. We identified most of them, but someone with an intimate knowledge of Marchenko and Parsons was feeding information to Fowler, and Fowler was protecting the sonofabitch like a pit bull. Fowler was the only one who knew this person, the only one who spoke or met with him, and that’s who we were trying to identify.”
“And then the shooting started.”
Random’s face tightened.
“Yes. Then the shooting started, and you and Holman have been kicking so many rocks even divisional officers are beginning to notice. I need you to stop, Pollard. If this man starts feeling the heat we’ll lose him.”
Now Pollard understood the calls Leeds had received from Parker Center. The A-Chief had been trying to find out what she was doing and reaming Leeds to make her stop.
“How is it you know so much about what Fowler did and didn’t do? How do you know Fowler was the only one?”
Random hesitated. It was the first time he had hesitated in answering her questions. Pollard felt a knot in her stomach because she suddenly knew the answer.
She said, “You had someone inside.”
“Richard Holman was working for me.”
The icy air-conditioning grew warm. The house filled with silence, as if it was spreading from her kitchen like spilled syrup. Everything Holman had told her about his conversations with Random flickered in her head.
“You sonofabitch. You should have told him.”
“Telling him would have compromised this investigation.”
“You let the man think his son was dirty. Do you have any idea how much this has been hurting him? Do you give a shit?”
The soft flesh around Random’s eyes tightened. He wet his lips.
“Rich Holman contacted me when Fowler tried to recruit him. Rich had refused, but I convinced him to call Fowler back. I put him in with them, Ms. Pollard, so yes, I give a shit.”
Pollard went to her couch. She paid no attention to Random. She had nothing to say. She thought about Holman. She blinked hard when her eyes began to fill because she didn’t want Random to see her cry: Richie wasn’t a bad guy anymore; Richie was good. Holman wouldn’t have to apologize to Donna.
Random said, “Do you see why it had to be this way?”
“If you’re looking for absolution, forget it. Maybe it did have to be this way, Random, but you’re still an asshole. The man lost his son. All you had to do was talk to him like a human being instead of a dirtbag and none of this would be happening.”
“Will you call him? I need to get you people on board with this before it’s too late.”
Pollard laughed.
“Well, I would, but I can’t. Your guys took his cell phone at the cemetery. I have no way to reach him.”
Random clenched his jaw, but didn’t respond. Vukovich returned from the dining room saying someone would call him back, but Pollard paid no attention. She was wondering if everything she and Holman had done was pointless. The fifth man was probably already gone.
“Well, did they find the money or not? I’m guessing they must have or this suspect you’re looking for wouldn’t have killed these people.”
“We’re not sure. If the money was located, it was found after the murders.”
“They must have found the money, Random. What did they find at the Hollywood Sign?”
Random was clearly surprised.
“How did you know about that?”
“Kicking rocks, you asshole. They found something on the Thursday night, before they were murdered. Whatever they found was buried in a hole approximately twelve inches wide and eighteen inches deep. What was it?”
“Keys. They found twenty-two keys in a blue metal thermos bottle.”
“Just keys? What kind of keys?”
“Rich didn’t see them. It was Fowler who opened the thermos. He told the others what they had, but kept them in his possession.”
“There was nothing about how to find the locks?”
“Just the keys. The next day, Fowler told the others that his partner thought maybe he could figure out what the keys opened. We believe that’s why the meeting was called on the night they were murdered. The last report I got from Rich, he said everyone thought they were going to learn about the money.”
Pollard was thinking about the keys when she realized almost everything Random knew came from Rich Holman. If Fowler shared the wealth, then Rich passed it on to Random, but Fowler had protected his partner. He kept secrets. Pollard suddenly wondered if she didn’t know more about this case than Random.
“Do you know why Marchenko hid those keys at the Hollywood Sign?”
Pollard could see by his expression he didn’t have a clue. He shrugged, guessing at the reason.
“Remote. Close to his apartment.”
“Alison Whitt.”
Random was lost.
“Alison Whitt was a prostitute. Marchenko used to have sex with her up at the sign. You didn’t know this?”
Vukovich shook his head.
“That’s not possible. We interviewed everyone even remotely connected to Marchenko and Parsons. Everyone we talked to said these clowns were eunuchs. They didn’t even have male friends.”
“Holman and I learned about her from Marchenko’s mother. Random, listen to this-approximately a week before the murders, Fowler and another man went to see Marchenko’s mother. They went specifically to ask about Alison Whitt. The man with Fowler that day wasn’t Rich or Mellon or Ash. He must have been Fowler’s partner. She didn’t have a name for him, but you could work her with an artist.”
Random shot a glance at Vukovich.
“Call Fuentes. Have someone go with an artist.”
Vukovich turned away again with his cell phone as Random turned back to Pollard.
“What’s the story on Whitt?”
“Bad. She was murdered on the same night as the others. Whitt’s the connection here, Random. Holman and I learned about her from Mrs. Marchenko, but Fowler and his friend knew about Whitt before they saw Marchenko’s mother. Whitt claimed she was a registered informant, so I figured the fifth man might be her contact, but that didn’t pan out.”
“Waitaminute-how did you find out all this if Whitt was already dead?”
Pollard told him about Marki Collen and the Mayan Grille and Alison Whitt’s stories about Marchenko. Random took out a pad and made notes. When she finished, Random studied what he had written.
“I’ll check her out.”
“You won’t find anything. I had a friend at the Feeb run her name through the roster at Parker. She isn’t on your list.”
Random made a dark smile.
“Thank your friend, but I’ll check it myself.”
Random took out his phone and went to the window as he made his call. While he was talking, Vukovich returned to Pollard.
“Got word on your boy, Chee. It was a righteous bust. Bomb Squad got a tip from the Feeb and rolled in with Metro. They pulled six pounds of C-4 plastic explosive and some det cord out of his shop.”
Pollard stared at Vukovich, then looked at Random, but Random was still talking on his phone.
“The FBI put them onto this?”
“What the man said. Part of a conspiracy investigation, he said, so they rolled over to check it out.”
“When did the call go in?”
“This morning. Early sometime. Is that important?”
Pollard shook her head, feeling a numbness settle low in her legs.
“You sure it was the Feeb?”
“What the man said.”
The numbness spread up into her body.
Random finished his call, then took a business card from his wallet and brought it to Pollard.
“Holman will want to talk to me. That’s okay. Once you reach him, call me, but you have to make him understand he has to back off. That’s imperative here. You can’t tell anyone what I’ve said, and Holman can’t tell his daughter-in-law. You see why we’re playing it like this, don’t you? I hope to Christ it’s not already too late.”
Pollard nodded, but she wasn’t thinking about how Random was playing it. She waited stiffly at the door as they walked away, then turned to face the emptiness of her home. Pollard didn’t believe in coincidence. They taught it at Quantico and she had learned it over hundreds of investigations-coincidence did not occur.
A tip from the Feeb.
Pollard went to her bedroom and dragged a chair into her closet. She pulled the box from her high shelf, the highest shelf where the boys couldn’t reach, and took down her gun.
Pollard knew she might have made a grave and serious mistake. Marki told them Whitt was a registered informant with a cop taking care of her, but “cop” didn’t necessarily mean a policeman and LAPD wasn’t the only law enforcement agency using registered informants. Sheriffs, Secret Service agents, U.S. Marshals, and ATF agents all thought of themselves as cops, and all of them employed registered informants.
Alison Whitt could have been an informant for the FBI. And if she had-
The fifth man was an FBI agent.
Pollard hurried out into the heat and drove into Westwood.
REGISTERED INFORMANTS could be and often were integral in solving crimes and obtaining indictments. The information they provided and their methods of obtaining it were included as part of the legal record in investigators’ reports, writs, warrants, grand jury indictments, motions, briefs, and ultimately trials. The true names of informants were never used, as many of these documents were in the public record. In all such documents, the informant’s name was replaced by a number. This number was the informant’s code number, and the codes-along with investigators’ reports regarding the informant’s reliability and pay vouchers when informants were paid for their information-were held under lock and key to protect the anonymity of the informants. Where and how this list was safeguarded varied by agency, but no one was guarding nuclear launch codes; all an agent had to do was ask his boss for the key.
Pollard had used informants only four times during her three years on the Squad. On each of those four occasions she had requested the Bank Squad’s informant list from Leeds and watched him open a locked file cabinet in which he stored the papers. Each time, he used a brass key taken from a small box he kept in his upper right-hand desk drawer. Pollard didn’t know if the box and the key and the file would be in their same places after eight years, but Sanders would know.
The sky over Westwood was a brilliant clear blue when Pollard rolled into the parking lot. It was eight minutes after two. The black tower shimmered against the sky; an optical trick played by the sun.
Pollard studied the tower. She tried telling herself this was the one-in-a-million chance when a coincidence was just a coincidence, but she didn’t believe it. Alison Whitt’s name was going to be on a form in Leeds’ office. The agent who recruited and used her was almost certainly responsible for murdering six people. That agent might be anyone.
Pollard finally opened her phone to call Sanders. She needed a pass into the building, but Sanders did not answer. Her voice mail picked up on the first ring, indicating Sanders was probably at a crime scene interviewing fresh victims.
Pollard cursed her bad luck, then dialed the Squad’s general number and waited as it rang. On days when the Squad was spread throughout L.A., a duty agent remained in the office to field incoming calls and attend to his or her paperwork. Whenever Pollard had been the duty agent she usually ignored the calls.
“Bank Squad. Agent Delaney.”
Pollard remembered the young agent she met with Bill Cecil. New guys always answered because they weren’t yet jaded.
“This is Katherine Pollard. I met you up in the office with the donuts, remember?”
“Oh, sure. Hi.”
“I’m downstairs. Is April up there?”
Pollard knew Sanders wasn’t in the office, but asking about Sanders was a setup for asking about Leeds. She had to find out if Leeds was in his office because Leeds controlled the list. Pollard wanted Leeds gone.
Delaney said, “I haven’t seen her. I’m pretty much alone here. Everyone’s out on a call.”
“How about Leeds?”
“Um, he was here earlier-no, I don’t see him. It’s pretty busy today.”
Pollard was relieved, but tried to sound disappointed.
“Damn. Kev, listen-I have some things for Leeds I wanted to drop off along with a box of donuts for the Squad. Would you send down a badge?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Great. I’ll see you in a minute.”
Pollard had picked up a box of donuts from Stan’s to justify her visit to the office. She tucked her gun under the seat, then carried the donuts and her file into the building. She brought the file so she would have an excuse to enter Leeds’ office. Pollard waited for her escort like before, then rode up to the thirteenth floor.
When she entered the squad area she scanned the room. Delaney was alone in a cubicle near the door. Pollard flashed a big smile at Delaney as she approached him.
“Man, I used to hate having the duty. I think you need a donut.”
Delaney fished a donut from the box, but seemed uncertain where to put it and had probably taken it only to be polite. His desk was covered in paperwork.
Pollard said, “You want me to leave the box with you?”
Delaney glanced at his desk, noting there was no place to put it.
“Why don’t you leave it in the coffee room?”
“You bet. I’m going to drop these things in Leeds’ office, then I’ll be out of your hair.”
She gestured with the file so he would see it, then turned away. Pollard tried to move with an easy grace, as if her actions were expected and normal. She dropped off the donuts in the coffee room, then stole a glance at Delaney as she stepped back into the squad area. His head was down, busy with his work.
Pollard went to Leeds’ office. She opened the door without hesitation and entered the dragon’s lair. Pollard had not been in Leeds’ office since the day she resigned, but it was as intimidating now as she remembered. Pictures of Leeds with every president since Nixon adorned the walls, along with an inscribed portrait of J. Edgar Hoover, who Leeds revered as an American hero. An actual Wanted poster of John Dillinger hung among the presidents, presented to Leeds by President Reagan.
Pollard took in the office to get her bearings and was relieved to see the file cabinet was still in the corner and Leeds’ desk was unchanged. She hurried to the desk and opened the upper right-hand drawer. Several keys were now in the box, but Pollard recognized the brass key. Now she hurried to the cabinet, worried Delaney would start wondering why she was taking so long. She unlocked the cabinet, opened the drawer, and scanned through the file folders, which were divided alphabetically. She found the W’s, pulled out the folder, then searched through the files. Each file was labeled by the informant’s name and code number.
She was still hoping this would be the one-in-a-million coincidence when she saw the name: Alison Carrie Whitt.
Pollard opened the file to the cover sheet, which contained Alison Whitt’s identifying information. She scanned down the page, searching for the fifth man’s name-
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Pollard jerked at the sound of his voice. Leeds filled the door, his face furious.
“Pollard, stand up! Get away from those files. Delaney! Get in here!”
Pollard slowly stood, but she didn’t put down the file. Delaney appeared in the door behind Leeds. She studied them. Either of their names might be on the sheet, but she didn’t believe it would be Delaney. He was too new.
Pollard pulled herself together. She stood tall and looked Leeds in the eye.
“An agent in this office was involved in the murder of the four officers under the Fourth Street Bridge.”
Even as she said it she thought: Leeds. It could be Leeds.
He advanced toward her across the office, moving carefully.
“Put down the file, Katherine. What you’re doing now is a federal crime.”
“Murdering four police officers is a crime. So is murdering a registered federal informant named Alison Whitt-”
Pollard held out the file.
“Is she your informant, Chris?”
Leeds glanced at Delaney, then hesitated. Delaney was her witness. Pollard went on.
“She’s in your file-Alison Whitt. She was a friend of Marchenko’s. An agent in this office knew that because he knew her. That same agent was involved with Mike Fowler and the other officers in trying to find the sixteen million dollars.”
Leeds glanced at Delaney again, but now Pollard read his hesitancy in a different light. He didn’t seem threatening; now, he was curious.
“What kind of proof do you have?”
She nodded toward the file with all of Holman’s notes and articles and documents.
“It’s all in there. You can call an LAPD detective named Random. He’ll back me up. Alison Whitt was murdered on the same night as the four officers. She was murdered by the person named in her file.”
Leeds stared at her.
“You think it’s me, Katherine?”
“I think it could be.”
Leeds nodded, then slowly smiled.
“Look.”
Pollard skimmed the last few entries on the cover sheet until she found the name.
The name she found was Special Agent William J. Cecil.
Bill Cecil.
One of the kindest men she had ever known.
HOLMAN CRUISED three mall parking lots before he found a red Jeep Cherokee similar to the one he had stolen. Swapping plates with the same make, model, and color vehicle was a trick Holman learned when he stole cars for a living-now if an officer checked Holman’s plate, the vehicle report wouldn’t show that his Jeep had been stolen.
Holman switched the plates, then headed for Culver City. He did not like the idea of returning to his apartment, but he needed the money and the gun. He didn’t even have change to call Perry to see if anyone had come around. Holman kicked himself for not asking Pollard to loan him a few bucks, but it hadn’t occurred to him until later. And this stolen Jeep was clean. He searched the floorboards, seats, console, and cushions, and found nothing-not even trash.
The lunch-hour crush was beginning to ease when Holman reached the Pacific Gardens. He circled the block, looking for loiterers and people waiting in parked cars. Pollard had made good points about the confusing nature of Random’s actions, but whatever their intentions Holman was certain they would come for him again. He circled the block twice more, then parked up the street, watching the motel for almost twenty minutes before he decided to make his move.
Holman left the Jeep on the street alongside the motel and entered through the rear by Perry’s room. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, but heard and saw nothing unusual. Perry wasn’t at his desk.
Holman moved back to Perry’s room and rapped lightly at the door. Inside the room, Perry answered.
“What is it?”
Holman kept his voice low.
“It’s me. Open up.”
Holman heard Perry cursing, but soon the door opened enough for Perry to see out. His pants were bunched around his thighs. Only Perry would answer a door this way.
“I was on the goddamned crapper. What is it?”
“Has anyone been here looking for me?”
“Like who?”
“Like anyone. I thought some people might come around.”
“That woman?”
“No, not her.”
“I’ve been out there all mornin’ til my bowels started to move. I didn’t see anyone.”
“Okay, Perry. Thanks.”
Holman returned to the lobby, then crept up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he checked the hall in both directions but the hall was empty. Holman didn’t stop at his room; he went directly to the utility closet and eased open the door. Holman pushed the mops out of the way and reached into the wall beneath the water valve. The wad of cash and the gun were still behind the pipe. Holman was fishing them out when the muzzle of a gun dug hard behind his left ear.
“Leave go whatever you’ve got, boy. Nothing better come out of there but your hand.”
Holman didn’t move. He didn’t even turn to look, but went rigid with his hand in the wall.
“Pull that hand out slow and empty.”
Holman showed his hand, opening his fingers wide so the man could see.
“That’s good. Now stand there while I cop a feel.”
The man felt Holman’s waist and his crotch and the seat of his pants, then checked down along the inside of his legs to his ankles.
“All right then. You and I have a little problem, but we’re gonna work it out. Turn around slow.”
Holman turned as the man stepped back, giving himself room to react if Holman tried something. Holman saw a bald light-skinned black man wearing a blue suit. The man slipped his pistol into his coat pocket, but held on to it, showing Holman it was ready to go. It took a minute before Holman recognized him.
“I know you.”
“That’s right. I helped put your ass away.”
Holman remembered-FBI Special Agent Cecil had been with Pollard that day in the bank. Holman wondered if Pollard had sent him, but the way Cecil was holding the gun told him Cecil was not here as his friend.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Here’s what we’re going to do-we’re going down those stairs like we’re the best buddies in the world. That old man down there says anything or tries to stop us, you tell him you’ll see him later and keep walking. We get outside, you’ll see a dark green Ford parked out front. You get in. You do anything but what I’m telling you, I’ll kill you in the street.”
Cecil stepped out of the way and Holman went down the stairs and got into the Ford, wondering what was happening. He watched Cecil cross in front of the car, then get in behind the wheel. Cecil took the pistol from his pocket and held it in his lap with his left hand as he pulled away from the curb. Holman studied him. Cecil’s breath was fast and shallow and his face sheened with sweat. His eyes were large, darting between traffic and Holman like a man watching for snakes. He looked like a man who had stolen a car and was trying to get away.
Holman said, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Going to get us sixteen million dollars.”
Holman tried to show nothing, but his right eye watered as the skin surrounding it flickered. Cecil was the fifth man. Cecil had killed Richie. Holman glanced at the gun. When he looked up Cecil was watching him.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I was in with them, but I didn’t have anything to do with those killings. Me and your boy were partners until Juarez lost his mind. Sonofabitch went nuts killing everybody, figuring he could keep the money, I guess. That’s why I took him out. I took him out for killing those people.”
Holman knew Cecil was lying. He saw it in how Cecil made eye contact, arching his eyebrows and nodding his head to fake sincerity. Fences and dope dealers had lied to Holman the same way a hundred times. Cecil was trying to play him, but Holman didn’t understand why. Something had driven Cecil into revealing himself and now the man clearly had a plan that included Holman.
Images of Cecil under the bridge flashed in Holman’s head like a shotgun in the darkness: Cecil cutting loose at point-blank range, the white-gold plume, Richie falling…
Holman glanced at the gun again, wondering if he could get it or push it aside. Holman wanted the sonofabitch-everything he had done since that morning in the CCC when Wally Figg told him Richie was dead had led to finding this man. If Holman could keep from being shot he might be able to punch Cecil out, but then where would he be? He would have to shoot Cecil right there or the cops would come and Cecil would flash his creds-who would they believe? Cecil would split while Holman was trying to talk himself out of a squad car.
Holman thought he might be able to jump out of the car before Cecil shot him. They had just turned onto Wilshire Boulevard, where traffic slowed.
“You don’t have to jump. We get where we’re going, I’m gonna let you out.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Cecil laughed.
“Holman, I’ve been hooking up guys like you for almost thirty years. I know what you’re going to think even before you think it.”
“You know what I’m thinking right now?”
“Yeah, but I won’t hold it against you.”
“I’m thinking why the fuck are you still here if you have sixteen million dollars.”
“Know where it is, just couldn’t get it. That’s where you come in.”
Cecil took a cell phone from the console and dropped it in Holman’s lap.
“Here. Call your boy Chee, see what’s shaking.”
Holman caught the phone but did nothing. He stared at Cecil and now he felt a different kind of dread, one that had nothing to do with Richie.
“Chee was arrested.”
“You already know? Well, good, save us a call. Chee was in possession of six pounds of C-4. Among the evidence confiscated from that shithole he calls a body shop are the telephone numbers of two people suspected of being Al Qaeda sympathizers and the plans for building an improvised explosive device. You see where I’m going with this?”
“You set him up.”
“Ironclad, baby, ironclad. And only I know who planted that shit in his shop, so if you don’t help me get this goddamned money your boy is fucked.”
Without warning, Cecil slammed on the brakes. The car screeched to a stop, throwing Holman into the dash. Horns blew and tires screamed behind them, but Cecil didn’t react. His eyes were hard black chips that stayed on Holman.
“Do you get the picture?”
More horns blew and people cursed, but Cecil’s eyes never wavered. Holman wondered if he was crazy.
“Just take the money and go. What in hell do I have to do with this?”
“Told you-couldn’t get it by myself.”
“Why the hell not? Where is it?”
“Right there.”
Holman followed Cecil’s nod. He was looking at the Beverly Hills branch of Grand California Bank.
CECIL PULLED his car to the curb out of the flow of traffic, and stared at the bank as if it were the eighth wonder of the world.
“Marchenko and Parsons hid all that money in a goddamned bank.”
“You want me to rob a bank?”
“They didn’t deposit the goddamned money, dumbass. It’s in twenty-two safe-deposit boxes, the big kind, not those little ones.”
Cecil reached under his seat and took out a soft pouch that tinkled. He dropped it into Holman’s lap and took back the phone.
“Got the keys here, all twenty-two.”
Holman poured the keys into his hand. The name MOSLER was cut into one side along with a seven-digit number. A four-digit number was on the opposite side.
“This is what they hid at the sign.”
“Guess he figured if he got pinched for something, those keys would be safe up there. Wasn’t anything saying which bank, either, but the manufacturer keeps a record. One phone call, I had it.”
Holman stared down at the keys filling his hand. He shifted them like coins. Sixteen million dollars.
Cecil said, “So now you’re thinking, if he had the keys and knew where it was, why didn’t he just go get the money.”
Holman already knew. Every bank manager in L.A. would recognize Cecil and the other Bank Squad agents on sight. A bank employee would have to accompany him into the vault with the master key because safe-deposit boxes always required two keys-the customer’s and the bank’s-and Cecil would have to sign their ledger. Sixteen million spread among twenty-two boxes was a lot of trips in and out of a bank where you were recognized by the employees and everyone knew you were not a customer and had rented no boxes. Cecil would have been questioned. His comings and goings would have been recorded by security cameras. He would have been made.
“I know why you didn’t get the money. I was wondering how much sixteen million dollars weighs.”
“I can tell you exactly. Bank gets hit, they tell us how many of each denomination was lost. Tally that up, you know how many bills; you have four hundred fifty-four bills in a pound, doesn’t matter what denominations-just do the math. This particular sixteen million weighs eleven hundred forty-two pounds.”
Holman considered the bank again, then glanced back at Cecil. The man was still staring at the bank. Holman would have sworn his eyes glittered green.
“Did you go look at it?”
“Went in one time. Opened box thirty-seven-oh-one. Took thirteen thousand dollars and never went back. Too scared.”
Cecil frowned at himself, disgusted.
“Even wore a goddamn pissant disguise.”
Cecil had gold fever. Men in the joint used to talk about it, trying to make their bad decisions sound romantic by comparing themselves to Old West prospectors; men who got high by dreaming about the pot-of-gold score that would set them up. They thought about it until they thought about nothing else; they obsessed on it until it consumed them and they had nothing else in their lives; they became desperate for it until their desperation made them stupid. This idiot was looking at six first-degree murder hits and all he could see was the money. Holman saw his way in. He smiled.
Cecil said, “What are you smiling at?”
“I thought you knew what I was thinking before I thought it.”
“I do. You’re thinking, why on earth did this pathetic motherfucker pick me?”
“That would be right.”
Cecil’s wet eyes hardened with anger.
“Who would you expect me to get, my wife? You think this is my preferred plan of action? Motherfucker, believe me, I was going to work this out-that money is just sitting there! I had all the time I needed, but you and that bitch got me jammed in a corner. A week ago I had forever; now, I got fifteen minutes, so who in hell should I ask? Call my brother in Denver, maybe the kid who caddies when I play golf? And say what, come help me steal some money? This shit is on you! I will not walk away from sixteen million dollars. I refuse! So here we are. It’s you because I don’t have anyone else. Except for your friend Chee. I own that boy. You fuck me over, I swear to God Almighty that boy will pay the price.”
Cecil settled back like he had run out of gas, but the gun in his lap never wavered.
Holman considered the gun.
“You’ll be gone. What could you do for Chee?”
“You bring out this money, I’ll give you the man who planted those things-tell you when he got the stuff, where, how-everything you need to clear the boy.”
Holman nodded like he was thinking about it, then stared at the bank. He didn’t want Cecil to read his face. Cecil could shoot him right now or wait until Holman brought out the money, but Cecil was going to shoot him either way-this stuff about dealing for Chee was bullshit. Holman knew it and Cecil probably knew he knew it, but Cecil was so crazy needful of the money he had talked himself into believing it like he talked himself into killing four police officers. Holman thought about pretending to go along so he could get away, but then Cecil might escape. Holman wanted the sonofabitch to answer for killing his son. He was beginning to get an idea how he could do it.
“How do you see this playing out?”
“Go to the customer service manager. Tell’m right up front you’re going to be making a lot of trips-you’re picking up tax records and court documents you put here for safekeeping. Make a joke about it, like how you hope they weren’t going on a coffee break. You know how to lie.”
“Sure.”
“The money in those boxes is still bagged up. You’re going to open four boxes at a time. I figure the bag in each box weighs about fifty pounds, two on each shoulder, two hundred pounds, a big guy like you oughta be able to handle that.”
Holman wasn’t listening. He was thinking about something Pollard told him when they believed Random was the fifth man-if they could put Random with Fowler they would own him. Holman decided if he could put Cecil together with the money, Cecil would never be able to explain it away or beat the conviction.
Holman said, “Twenty-two boxes at four boxes a trip. That’s six trips carrying two hundred pounds of money each time. You think they’re not going to stop me?”
“I’m thinking something is better than nothing. Anything goes wrong, just walk away. You’re not robbing the goddamned place, Holman. Just walk away.”
“What if they want to see in the bags?”
“Keep walking. We get what we get.”
Holman had a plan. He thought he could pull it off if he had enough time. Everything depended on having enough time.
“It’s going to take a long time, man. I hate being in a bank that long. I have bad memories.”
“Fuck your memories. You just think about Chee.”
Holman stared at Cecil like he was the stupidest asshole on earth. He wanted Cecil drunk with knowing the money was so close. He wanted Cecil stoned on gold.
“Fuck Chee. I’m the guy risking his ass. What’s in it for me?”
Cecil stared at him, and Holman pressed forward.
“I want half.”
Cecil blinked at him. He glanced at the bank, wet his lips, then looked back at Holman.
“You fuckin’ kidding me?”
“I am not. I figure you owe me, motherfucker, and you know why. You don’t like it, get that fuckin’ money yourself.”
Cecil wet his lips again and Holman knew he was in.
Cecil said, “The first four bags are mine. After that, every four bags you bring out, you get one.”
“Two.”
“One, then two.”
“I can live with that. You be here when I get back with the money or I’m selling your ass to the cops.”
Holman got out of the car and walked toward the bank. His stomach was cramping as if he was going to throw up, but Holman told himself he could make this thing happen if Cecil gave him enough time. Everything depended on Cecil giving him the time.
Holman held the door for a young woman leaving the bank. He smiled at her pleasantly, then stepped inside and took in his surroundings. Banks were usually busy during the lunch hour, but now it was almost four. Five customers were waiting in line for two tellers. Two manager types were at desks behind the teller cages and a young man who was probably a customer service rep manned a desk on the lobby floor. Holman knew right away this bank was a target for robberies. It had no man-trap doors at the entrance, no Plexiglas bandit barriers shielding the tellers, and no security guards. It was a robbery waiting to happen.
Holman went to the head of the customer line, glanced at the customers, then turned to the tellers and raised his voice.
“This is a motherfucking robbery. Empty the drawers. Give me the money.”
Holman checked the time. It was 3:56.
The clock was running.
LARA MYER, age twenty-six, was in the final hour of her shift as a security dispatcher at New Guardian Technologies when her computer flashed, indicating a 2-11 alarm was being received from the Grand California Bank on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. This was no big deal. The time log on her screen showed the time at 3:56:27.
New Guardian provided electronic security services for eleven area banking chains, two hundred sixty-one convenience stores, four supermarket chains, and several hundred warehouses and businesses. On any given day, half of the incoming alarms were false, triggered by power surges, computer glitches, electronic or electrical failure, or human error. Twice a week-every week-a bank teller somewhere in the greater L.A. area accidentally tripped an alarm. People are people. It happens.
Lara followed procedure.
She brought up the Grand Cal (Wilshire-BH branch) page on her screen. This page listed the managers and physical particulars of the bank (number of employees, number of teller windows, security enhancements if any, points of egress, etc). More important, the page allowed her to run a system diagnostic particular to the bank. The diagnostic would check for system problems that could trigger a false alarm.
Lara opened the diagnostic window, then clicked the button labeled CONFIRM. The diagnostic automatically reset the alarm as it searched for power anomalies, hardware malfunctions, or software glitches. If a teller had accidentally triggered the alarm, they sometimes reset at the bank, which automatically canceled and cleared the alarm.
The diagnostic took about ten seconds.
Lara watched as the confirmation appeared.
Two tellers at the Grand Cal Beverly Hills branch had triggered their silent alarms.
Lara swiveled in her chair to call over her shift supervisor.
“We got one.”
Her shift supervisor came over and read the confirmation.
“Call it in.”
Lara pressed a button on her console to dial the Beverly Hills Police Department’s emergency services operator. After she notified Beverly Hills, Lara would call the FBI. She patiently waited as the phone rang four times.
“Beverly Hills emergency services.”
“This is New Guardian operator four-four-one. We show a two-eleven in progress at Grand California Bank on Wilshire Boulevard in your area.”
“Stand by, one.”
Lara knew the emergency services operator would now have to confirm that Lara was for real and not making a crank call. No cars would be dispatched until this was done and Lara had provided all necessary information about the bank.
She glanced at the clock.
3:58:05.
HOLMAN THOUGHT it was going pretty well. No one made a break for the door or fell out with a heart attack like last time. The tellers quietly emptied their drawers. The customers stayed together in their line, watching him as if they were waiting for him to tell them what to do. All in all, they were excellent victims.
Holman said, “Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”
Holman pulled the pouch of keys from his pocket and went to the young man standing at the customer service desk. Holman tossed him the pouch.
“What’s your name?”
“Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”
“David Furillo. I’m married. We have a two-year-old.”
“Congratulations. David, these are safe-deposit box keys, box number on each key just like always. Take your master and open four of these boxes, any four, doesn’t matter. Go do that right now.”
David glanced at the women standing by the desks behind the counter. One of them was probably his boss. Holman touched David’s chin away from the woman so he was looking at Holman.
“Don’t look at her, David. Do what I say.”
David opened his desk for the master box key, then hurried toward the box room.
Holman trotted back across the lobby to the front door. He edged to the door, careful not to expose himself, and peered out. Cecil was still in the car. Holman turned back to the customers.
“Who’s got a cell phone? C’mon, I need a phone. It’s important.”
They milled around uncertainly until a young woman tentatively drew a phone from her purse.
“You can use mine, I guess.”
“Thanks, honey. Everybody stay calm. Everybody relax.”
Holman checked the time as he opened the phone. He had been in the bank two and a half minutes. He was past the window of safety.
Holman trotted back to the door to check Cecil, then held out his arm to read the number on the inside of his forearm.
He called Pollard.
LEEDS HAD cautioned Pollard that Cecil’s connection to Alison Whitt did not ensure a conviction, so they were making arrangements to see if Mrs. Marchenko could pick Cecil’s picture from a six-pack. In the moments when Leeds was placing his call to Random, Pollard had tried to reach Holman by phoning his apartment. When she got no answer, she phoned Perry Wilkes, who told her Holman had been there but had since departed. Wilkes was able to offer no other information.
Alison Whitt’s informant registration form indicated Cecil had first recruited and used her as an informant three years earlier. Cecil had learned of Whitt while investigating the involvement of a onetime singer turned B-level movie star who was suspected of bankrolling a gang of South Central dealers in their dope importation business. In lieu of being arrested for prostitution and possession, Whitt agreed to provide ongoing information about the singer’s contacts with certain gang members. Cecil stated in her registration document that Whitt provided regular and accurate information that aided the prosecution.
Now Pollard was sitting in a cubicle outside Leeds’ office when her phone rang. Hoping it was Holman or Sanders, she checked the caller ID, but did not recognize the number. She decided to let it go to her voice mail, then grudgingly changed her mind.
Holman said, “It’s me.”
“Thank God! Where are you?”
“I’m robbing a bank.”
“Hang on-”
Pollard called out to Leeds.
“I’ve got Holman! Holman’s on the phone-”
Leeds left his desk as Pollard returned to the call. He stood in the door, murmuring into his phone as he watched her.
Pollard said, “The fifth man is an FBI agent named Bill Cecil. He was-”
Holman interrupted her.
“I know. He’s in a green Ford Taurus outside the bank right now. He’s waiting for me-”
Now Pollard interrupted him.
“Whoa, waitaminute. I thought you were kidding.”
“I’m in the Grand California on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Marchenko stashed the money here in safe-deposit boxes. Cecil had the keys-that’s what they found at the Sign-”
“Why are you robbing the bank?”
Leeds frowned.
“What is he doing?”
Pollard waved him quiet as Delaney came over to watch.
Holman was saying, “You know a faster way to get the cops here? We flushed him, Katherine-Cecil had the keys, but he was scared to get the money. I’ve been inside three and a half minutes. The police will be here soon.”
Pollard cupped the phone, glancing at Leeds and Delaney.
“Grand California on Wilshire in B.H. See if they’re reporting a two-eleven.”
She returned to Holman as Delaney ran to call the FBI dispatcher.
“Has anyone been hurt?”
“It’s nothing like that. I want you to tell the cops what’s happening. I figure they won’t listen to me.”
“Max, this is a bad idea.”
“I want the cops to catch him with the money in his possession. He was scared to come in, so I’m gonna bring the money to him-”
“Where’s Cecil now?”
“Parked outside. He’s waiting for the money.”
“Green Taurus?”
“Yeah.”
Pollard cupped the phone and spoke again to Leeds.
“Cecil’s in a green Ford Taurus in front of the bank.”
Leeds relayed the information to Random as Delaney returned, excited.
“Beverly Hills confirms a two-eleven alarm at the location. Units en route.”
Pollard went back to Holman.
“Holman, listen, Cecil is dangerous. He’s already killed six people-”
“He made the mistake of killing my son.”
“Stay in the bank, okay? Do not go outside. This is dangerous and I’m not just talking about Cecil-the responding officers don’t know you’re a good guy. They will not know-”
“You know.”
Holman hung up.
In that instant the line died. A pressure swelled in Pollard as if she was being crushed from the inside out, but she pushed through it and struggled to her feet.
“I’m going to the bank.”
“Let Beverly Hills handle it. You don’t have enough time.”
Pollard ran as fast as she could.
BILL CECIL watched the bank, nervously tapping his foot. The car was in Park, the engine was running, the air conditioner was blowing cold. Cecil sweated as he imagined what was happening inside the bank.
First, Holman would have to make bullshit conversation with the customer service rep. If the dude already had a customer, Holman would have to wait. Cecil thought Holman should be smart enough to come wave or something, let him know if that was the case, but so far he hadn’t. Cecil took this as a good sign, but that didn’t make the waiting any easier.
Next up, the customer rep would bring Holman into the box vault, and he might be one of those lazy laid-back bastards who walked in slow motion.
Once they were inside, Holman would have to sign the ledger while the rep unlocked the master locks on each of the four boxes. The small ones always had an inner steel contents box you could slide in and out, keep your insurance and wills and stuff together, but not the big boxes. The big boxes were just big empty boxes. Holman would use his keys to make sure everything unlocked okay, but he wouldn’t open the boxes until the rep had stepped out.
So then he would pull the money bags, close and relock the boxes, and amble on out of the bank. He’d probably have to say something cute to the rep, but after that it was only ten seconds to the door.
Cecil figured-start to finish without having to wait for another customer-that the entire process should take six minutes. Holman had been in the bank for four minutes, maybe four and a half. No reason to worry.
Cecil tapped his pistol on the lower edge of the steering wheel, thinking he would go peek through the door in another ten seconds.
HOLMAN CLOSED the phone, then glanced out the front door again, worried the police would arrive too soon. It was almost impossible for police to respond in two minutes, but every second after that gave them more time to reach the scene. Holman had now been in the bank two minutes longer than any of his robberies except the one in which he was arrested. He thought back. It had taken Pollard almost six minutes to arrive and they had been on a rolling stakeout, waiting and ready to go. Holman still had a few seconds.
He went back to the customers and returned the girl’s phone.
“Everyone okay? Everybody still cool?”
A man in his forties with wire-rimmed glasses said, “Are we hostages?”
“No one is a hostage. Just stay cool. I’ll be outta your hair in a minute.”
Holman called toward the vault.
“Hey, David! How we doin’ in there?”
David’s voice came from the vault.
“They’re open.”
“You people just stay where you are. The police are on the way.”
Holman trotted across the lobby to the vault. David had four large safe-deposit boxes open and had dragged four nylon gym bags into the center of the floor. Three were blue and one was black.
David said, “What’s in the bags?”
“Somebody’s bad dream. You stay in here, bud. You’ll be safe in here.”
Holman lifted the bags one by one, hooking the straps over his shoulders. Felt heavier than fifty pounds.
David said, “What about these other keys?”
“You keep’m.”
Holman staggered out of the vault and immediately noticed that two of the customers were missing.
The girl who had loaned him her phone pointed at the door.
“They ran away.”
Holman thought, oh shit.
CECIL TOLD himself to give Holman another ten seconds. He wanted the goddamned money, but he didn’t want to die for it or get caught, and the odds of both increased the longer Holman remained in the bank. Cecil finally decided to see what was taking so long. If they had Holman proned out he was going to get the hell out of here as fast as his tired fat ass could carry him.
Cecil shut off the engine as a man and woman ran out of the bank. The woman stumbled as she came through the door and the man almost tripped over her. He pulled her to her feet, then took off running.
Cecil immediately started the engine, ready to drive away, but no one else emerged.
The bank was quiet.
Cecil shut the engine again, slipped his pistol into his holster, then got out of the car, wondering why those people had run. No one else was running, so what could be happening? Cecil started toward the bank, then hesitated, thinking he should get back in the goddamned car and get the hell away.
He glanced up and down Wilshire, but saw no lights or police cars. Everything seemed fine. He looked back at the bank, but now Holman was in the glass door with all these big-ass nylon bags hanging from his shoulders-just standing there. Cecil waved him over, thinking hurry up, what are you waiting for?
Holman didn’t leave the bank. He dropped two of the bags, then gestured for Cecil to come get them.
Cecil didn’t like it. He kept thinking about the two people running away. He flipped out his cell phone and hit a speed-dial button he had already programmed. Holman waved again, so Cecil held up a finger, telling him to wait.
“Beverly Hills Police Department.”
“FBI Special Agent William Cecil, ID number six-six-seven-four. Suspicious activity at the Grand California on Wilshire. Please advise.”
“Copy. We have a two-eleven alarm at that address. Units en route.”
Cecil felt a burning knot in his chest. His eyes flickered. Everything he wanted was sixty feet away, but now it was gone. Sixteen million dollars-gone.
“Ah, confirm the two-eleven. Suspect is a white male, six-two, two-thirty. He is armed. I say again, he is armed. Customers in the bank appear down and disabled.”
“Understand you are FBI six-six-seven-four. Do not approach. Units en route. Thanks for the advisory.”
Cecil stared at Holman, then saw lights in the corner of his eye. Red and blue flashers were turning onto Wilshire three blocks away.
Cecil ran back to his car.
HOLMAN WATCHED Cecil with a bad feeling, confused why the man would be wasting time on his phone when he was so close to the sixteen million. He waved again for Cecil to come get the money, but Cecil kept talking. Holman had the skin-prickling sense something was wrong, then Cecil turned back toward his car. A heartbeat later, red and blue flashes reflected off the glass buildings across the street, and Holman knew his time had run out.
He shoved through the door, the heavy bags of cash swinging like lead pendulums. Two blocks away, cars were pulling to the curbs to let the police cars pass. The cops would be here in seconds.
Holman ran at Cecil as hard as he could, pinballing off two pedestrians. Cecil reached the Taurus, threw open the door, and was climbing inside when Holman caught him from behind. Holman pulled Cecil backwards and both of them fell.
Cecil, trying to climb back into the car, said, “What the fuck are you doing, man? Get out of here.”
Holman dragged himself up Cecil’s leg, hammering at the man with his fist.
Cecil said, “Get off me, goddamnit. Let go!”
Holman should have been more afraid. He should have thought through what he was doing to realize Cecil was a blooded FBI agent with thirty years’ training and experience. But all Holman saw in those moments was Richie running alongside his car, red-faced and crying, calling him a loser; all he knew was the eight-year-old gap-toothed boy in a picture that would continue to fade; all he felt was the blind-furious need to make this man pay.
Holman didn’t see the gun. Cecil must have pulled it while Holman pounded on Cecil’s back as Cecil was crawling toward the car. Holman was still punching, still blindly trying to anchor Cecil to the street, when Cecil rolled over. An exploding white light flashed three times and the sound of thunder echoed on Wilshire Boulevard.
Holman’s world stopped. He heard only the sound of his beating heart.
He stared at Cecil, waiting for the pain. Cecil stared back, his mouth working like a fish. Behind them, the patrol cars slid to a stop as an officer’s amplified voice shouted words Holman did not hear.
Cecil said, “Sonofafuckinbitch.”
Holman looked down. The bags of money were wedged in front of his chest, scorched where the cash had trapped the three bullets.
Cecil shoved the gun across the money into Holman’s chest, but this time he didn’t fire. He dropped the gun into Holman’s arms, then rolled away, coming to his knees with his FBI credentials high over his head, shouting-
“FBI! FBI agent!”
Cecil rolled away, hands up, shouting and pointing at Holman.
“Gun! He’s got a gun! I’ve been shot!”
Holman glanced at the gun, then at the patrol cars. Four uniformed officers were crouched behind their vehicles. Young men about Richie’s age. Aiming.
The amplified voice boomed again in the Wilshire canyon, now behind the sound of approaching sirens.
“Put down the weapon! Drop the weapon but make no sudden moves!”
Holman wasn’t holding the weapon. It was on the money bag directly under his nose. He didn’t move. He was too scared to move.
People had spilled out of the bank. They pointed at Holman as they shouted to the officers.
“That’s him! It was him!”
Cecil staggered to his feet, crabbing away as he waved his credentials.
“I see his hand! I see it, goddamnit! He’s reaching for the gun!”
Holman saw the young men shift behind their weapons. He closed his eyes, held himself perfectly still, and-
– nothing happened.
Holman looked up, but now the four young officers had their guns in the air, surrounded by milling officers. BHPD tactical officers with rifles and shotguns ran toward Cecil, shouting for him to get down on the ground. They tackled him hard, proned him out, then two of them peeled toward Holman.
Holman still didn’t move.
One of the tactical officers stayed back with his shotgun up and ready, but the other approached.
Holman said, “I’m the good guy.”
“Don’t fuckin’ move.”
The near officer lifted away Cecil’s pistol, but he didn’t slam down on Holman or prone him out. Once he had the gun he seemed to relax.
The cop said, “You Holman?”
“He killed my son.”
“That’s what they tell me, buddy. You got him.”
The second cop joined the first.
“Wits said there was shooting. Were you shot?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Stay down. We’re getting a medic.”
Pollard and Leeds shoved through the growing crowd of officers. When Holman saw Pollard he started to rise, but she motioned him to stay down so he did. Holman figured he had come too far to take any chances.
Leeds went to Bill Cecil, but Pollard came directly to Holman, breaking into a trot as she came. She was wearing a blue FBI Windbreaker like the first time he saw her. When Pollard arrived, she gazed down at him, breathing hard, but smiling, then held out her hand.
“I’m here now. You’re safe.”
Holman slipped out of the money bags, took her hand, and let her help him up. He stared at Cecil, still spread-eagled on the street. He watched the officers fold Cecil’s hands behind his back to bind his wrists. He saw Leeds, his face livid and twisted, kick Cecil in the leg, whereupon the Beverly Hills cops shoved Leeds away. Holman turned back to Pollard. He wanted to tell her why everything that happened here and everything that led up to it had been his fault, but his mouth was dry and he was blinking too hard.
She held tight to his hand.
“It’s okay.”
Holman shook his head and toed the bags. It wasn’t okay and never could be.
He said, “Marchenko’s money. This is what Richie wanted.”
She touched his face, turning him.
“No. Oh, no, Max, it wasn’t that way.”
She cupped his face in both her hands.
“Richie wasn’t doing what we thought. Listen-”
Pollard told him how his son died and, more important to Holman, how Richie had lived. Holman broke down, crying there on Wilshire Boulevard, but Pollard held on tight, letting him cry and keeping him safe.