The Night Crew

at the Marshall Hotel on Pico. Hurt really bad. Better get an ambulance here fast.’’
    On the street, she could taste the bile at the back of her throat: ‘‘That the guy?’’ she asked. She looked up at him, his eyes clearing a bit, and then at the blood splatters on his shirt.
    ‘‘He sold the stuff to Jacob and his friends. He didn’t know Jacob, but he described the whole bunch of them.’’
    ‘‘Jason?’’
    ‘‘He had no idea who Jason was.’’
    ‘‘Maybe he was lying,’’ Anna said.
    ‘‘No. Christ, he was bragging about it. I asked him if he’d seen the kid who tried to fly off the Shamrock, and he was laughing about it in the elevator. You know what he told me? He sold to the kids because ‘That’s my market.’ That’s what he said, like he was some kind of toy-company executive.’’
    ‘‘Ah, God.’’
    ‘‘ ‘That’s my market,’ for Christ’s sake. That was in his room—that’s when I hit him in the face. He was still smiling when he went down.’’
    ‘‘Jake . . .’’
    ‘‘I feel like I should have strangled the miserable little motherfucker,’’ Harper said bitterly, as they got to the car. He looked back up the street.
    ‘‘I wish I’d killed him.’’
    ‘‘So why’d you want the ambulance?’’
    He looked at her, shook his head: ‘‘Because I’m fucked up.’’

fifteen

    Back on the street, moving quickly, Harper still shaky: ‘‘You drive,’’ he said, tossing her the keys. ‘‘I’m not functioning too well.’’
    ‘‘All right.’’ She opened the car, climbed in, adjusted the seat. As she pulled away from the curb, she heard the siren: There was usually a siren somewhere in the L.A. background, but this one was closing in. As they pulled away, she saw the flashing lights a few blocks down Pico, headed toward the hotel.
    ‘‘Ambulance,’’ Anna said. She looked at Harper. ‘‘If that makes you any happier.’’
    ‘‘I dunno.’’ They spent the next five minutes in a ragged silence, Harper staring out the passenger window, away from her. She took the time to think, working over the logic of a connection between Harper’s son, a high school kid from the southeast burbs, and Jason, a street kid from Hollywood and UCLA. Where was the connection? And it would have to be a massive coincidence . . .
    The lightbulb went on.
    ‘‘I’ve given you a hard time about this connection between your son and Jason,’’ she said. Harper turned toward her; he was still off track, almost uninterested. ‘‘I couldn’t see how there could be a connection. But I let you do all the thinking about it. I had too much other stuff to worry about.’’
    ‘‘Has to be a connection,’’ he said. ‘‘The paper was torn, and it matched—I saw the two ends, I put them together.’’
    ‘‘There is a connection,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s been staring us in the face.’’
    ‘‘What?’’ Now he turned to her.
    ‘‘When your son jumped, Jason was right there, almost underneath him. I didn’t see it, because I was in the hotel, but Jason was close. A few yards away. He was hanging out before your son jumped, he was planning to ride with us all night. But right afterwards, he couldn’t wait to get away from us. Like something had happened in that few minutes. Like he got some drugs.’’
    Harper thought about it, then closed his eyes and said, ‘‘Goddammit.’’ And then: ‘‘We’ve got to look at the tape.’’
    ‘‘You’ve seen it?’’
    ‘‘I saw it a half-dozen times before Ellen called and said it was Jacob. The tape was all over the TV, I didn’t know, just some jerk flying off a building.’’
    ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Anna said, aware of the hollowness of the sentiment: this was what she did. ‘‘Look, I’m gonna call Louis. I never really looked at the raw tape. I was busy selling while Louis did the editing. I looked at Jason’s at the time, but didn’t see anything unusual.’’
    ‘‘So where does Louis live?’’
    She slowed, looked at him carefully: ‘‘You sure you want to look at this stuff?’’
    ‘‘I have to.’’
    ‘‘If there’s something on the tape, it means . . . I mean, there’d be no real connection. So my problem wouldn’t have any connection with yours. Or you.’’
    He smiled, just faintly, then leaned a little closer and patted her on the leg, just once: ‘‘ We’ve got a connection now. Whatever’s on the tape. You’re not sliding away that easily.’’