The Night Crew

intimidated: there was no crime in knowing dopers. ‘‘Jason did some crank, a little crack when he could get it. He liked cocaine, but he couldn’t afford it most of the time. Some weed.’’
    ‘‘Why’d he leave last night?’’ Wyatt asked.
    Anna shook her head. ‘‘I don’t know. He said he was gonna ride all night, but then, after the jumper . . . I don’t know.’’ She thought about it for a second: now that he was dead—if he was dead, she thought, if that was Jason under the blanket—his hasty departure seemed even odder. ‘‘He said the jumper made him feel bad and he was gonna take off. We all figured that was bullshit—the rest of the crew and me. Maybe something was going on.’’
    ‘‘Why was it bullshit?’’ Glass asked.
    ‘‘ ’Cause I’ve seen him crawl inside a car with a decapitated woman to get a better shot, and the head was laying on the front seat with the eyes still open and a smile on the face,’’ Anna said. ‘‘How’s a jumper gonna bother him? There wasn’t even any blood.’’
    ‘‘Huh.’’ Wyatt nodded, and stared north up the beach, toward the mountains hanging over Malibu, like the hills might have the answer. When it didn’t come, he sighed and said, ‘‘Will you take a look? Just to make sure we’ve got the right guy?’’
    Anna nodded, swallowed, found she had no saliva in her mouth. She saw dead bodies all the time, but not dead friends.
    Wyatt said, ‘‘Frank, lift the corner of the blanket, huh?’’
    Frank stopped whatever he was doing with the leg and picked up the corner of the blanket—Wyatt was watching her face—and there was Jason.
    No drugs, this one.
    He was lying on his stomach, his head slightly downhill toward the water, his face turned toward her. He didn’t look like he was asleep: he looked like he’d been changed to wax. The visible eye was cracked open, and his tongue hung out, like the limp end of a too-long suede belt.
    His head looked wrong, misshapen, and something had happened to his cheeks. There was no blood, so the outlines weren’t clear, but he seemed to have been slashed by a knife or razor. But that hadn’t killed him: a bullet had. In his forehead, just above the visible eye, was a clean dark bullet hole.
    ‘‘Aw, God,’’ Anna said, turning away. She felt like she ought to spit. ‘‘That’s him.’’
    ‘‘All right,’’ Wyatt said. Frank dropped the blanket.
    ‘‘When did you find him?’’
    ‘‘He washed up about, mmm, two hours ago. People saw his body in the surf, thought he was drowning. One of the lifeguards went in after him, pulled him out.’’
    As he spoke, a tear rolled down Anna’s cheek, and she frowned, and brushed it away. No tears. She didn’t cry. Then another one started.
    ‘‘He involved with any gangs? Buying dope, causing them trouble?’’
    ‘‘No . . . I don’t think so. But I don’t know him well enough to say for sure. Why?’’
    Wyatt shrugged: ‘‘Those cuts on his face. They looked like they might be gang signs. They look the same on both sides, both cheeks.’’
    ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘Okay. Listen, we’re gonna need a complete statement from you,’’ Wyatt said. ‘‘When you last saw him, where he lives, who he knows, any troubles he might have had.
    Family. That kind of stuff. The address on his ID isn’t any good.’’
    Anna nodded. ‘‘He moved around a lot—he was living down in Inglewood, I think, an apartment. I’ve never been to his place, but I’ve got a phone number. We’d usually pick him up at the pier, he worked at the ShotShop photo place.’’
    Glass looked down at the pier, a mile south. ‘‘Right here?’’
    ‘‘Yeah.’’ They all turned to look down at the Santa Monica pier, a gray line of buildings thrusting into the water a mile to the south.
    ‘‘Has he been having trouble with anyone? Buying the crank or anything?’’ Wyatt asked.
    ‘‘He was pretty cheerful last night: he was riding with us because he heard about the raid, and set up our contact—he only rides with us once or twice a month, when we’ve got something complicated going on. He just seemed like . . . Jason. Nothing special.’’
    ‘‘And you don’t know about the crank. Who his supplier might have been.’’
    ‘‘No. I don’t,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘You don’t know much about anything, do you?’’ Glass said.
    ‘‘Get off my case,’’ Anna snapped. ‘‘I got a goddamned friend dead on