The Night Crew

the beach and I don’t need any bullshit from cops.’’
    Glass took a step toward her, Anna stood her ground, but Wyatt took a half-step himself, between them. ‘‘Pam, take it easy.’’ And to Anna: ‘‘You too.’’
    Anna spent another ten minutes with them, picking up their weird body-dance again, and agreed to drive herself back to the station to make a statement. Wyatt walked part of the way back to her car with her.
    ‘‘Sorry about Pam,’’ he said. ‘‘She hasn’t been doing homicide all that long. She’s still kind of street. ’’
    ‘‘She like to fight?’’ Anna asked.
    ‘‘She’s not afraid of it,’’ Wyatt said, glancing back at the woman, who was peering down at the body.
    ‘‘Listen, last night,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Jason might have been high. I don’t know, I can’t always tell, because he was so hyper. But when we got up to the hotel, for the jumper, he was shaking like a leaf. He was okay when he was shooting, but when we were riding up, he was . . . shaking. Jerking, almost, like spasms in his arms.’’
    ‘‘All right, we’ll tell the doc. You’re gonna be around, right?’’
    ‘‘Yeah. Wait.’’ Anna dug in a pocket, took out a business card, borrowed a pen from Wyatt and said, ‘‘Turn around, let me use your back.’’ Using his back as a writing surface— he seemed to like it—she scribbled two phone numbers on her card, and handed it to him. ‘‘The first number is my home phone, it’s unlisted with an answering machine. The next one is the cell phone I carry around with me. And on the front is the phone in the truck. I’m always around one or two of them.’’
    ‘‘Thanks. Make the statement.’’ He looked back at his partner, sighed and started that way.
    ‘‘Makes your teeth hurt, doesn’t it?’’ Anna said after him.
    He stopped and half-turned. ‘‘What does?’’
    ‘‘Wanting to sleep with her so bad.’’
    Wyatt regarded her gloomily, then broke down in a selfconscious grin. ‘‘I don’t think a woman could ever know how bad it gets,’’ he said. He started walking back, then turned, and in a tone that said this is important , he added: ‘‘And it’s not just that I want to sleep with her, you know. That’s only . . . the start of it.’’

five

    Anna made the statement, and headed south. Creek lived in a town house in Marina Del Rey with two Egyptian Mau cats, seven hundred sailing books and a billiards table he claimed had been stolen from the set of a James Cagney movie. He still wasn’t answering the phone, and Anna suspected that he’d be on his boat.
    Lost Dog was a centerboard S-2/7.9 with a little Honda outboard hanging off the stern, and Creek had sailed it to Honolulu and back. On his return, Anna had presented him with a Certificate of Stupidity, which hung proudly in the main cabin, over the only berth big enough for Creek to sleep on.
    Anna dumped her car in a parking lot, walked across the tarmac to the basin, down the long white ramp, through the clutching, pleasant odors of algae and gasoline. She spotted the Lost Dog ’s kelly-green sail covers, so at least he wasn’t out sailing.
    He was, in fact, down below, installing a marine head where he’d once carried a Porta Potti.
    ‘‘Creek,’’ she called, ‘‘come out of there.’’
    Creek poked his head up the companionway. He was shirtless, had a hacksaw in his hand, and his hair was sodden with sweat. He read Anna’s face and said, ‘‘What happened?’’
    ‘‘Jason’s dead,’’ Anna said bluntly.
    Creek stared at her for a moment, then shook his head wearily, said, ‘‘Aw, shit.’’ He ducked down the companionway and the hacksaw clanged into a toolbox. A moment later, he emerged again, wearing gym shorts, his body as hairy as a seventies shag carpet. ‘‘Fuckin’ crank, I bet,’’ he said.
    ‘‘He was shot,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘Shot?’’ Creek thought about it for a moment, then shrugged, an Italian shrug with hands. ‘‘Still, probably dope.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, maybe,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘What else would it be?’’
    ‘‘I don’t know,’’ Anna said. She filled him in on the details: where the body was found, how. ‘‘I was afraid it was you.’’
    ‘‘Naw; I won’t float.’’
    She let some of it out, now: ‘‘His face looked like notebook paper: it was white, it was like . . .’’ She happened to look into the harbor water, where a small dead fish floated belly-up. ‘‘. . .