The Night Crew

through?’’
    Creek nodded.
    ‘‘I’m gonna see if I can get the Madsons to come over there.’’
    Jason came up and Anna asked, ‘‘How’d you do?’’
    ‘‘I got his face all the way to the ground,’’ Jason said, with trembling satisfaction. ‘‘He hit twenty feet away.’’
    ‘‘That’s great,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Look up there, to the left of where he was. I want you to yell, ‘Jim and Lucille Madson, come to the window.’ ’’
    ‘‘What?’’
    ‘‘ ‘Jim and Lucille’—I don’t have the lungs for it.’’
    ‘‘You got nice lungs,’’ Jason said; and his eyes seemed to loop. Stoned, or coming down. Too much of this lately; the last time she’d gone to pick him up, he’d been wrecked.
    ‘‘Just yell the names, huh?’’ she said.
    ‘‘Yes, Mom.’’
    Jason yelled, and after a minute, the Madsons came to the window and peered out.
    ‘‘Get them?’’ Anna asked.
    Creek had the camera on the window. ‘‘Yes.’’
    The Madsons went inside and Jason dropped the camera off his shoulder, his face suddenly somber.
    ‘‘You know what?’’
    ‘‘What? Look, we gotta get . . .’’
    ‘‘I think I’m gonna hurl . . .’’
    Anna leaned closer to him: ‘‘What the heck are you doing, Jase? Are you stoned?’’
    ‘‘No, no, no . . . I’m just having a little trouble dealing with this,’’ Jason said. He looked at the body.
    ‘‘At what?’’ Anna cocked her head, puzzled.
    ‘‘I’m just . . . my head’s fucked up,’’ he said. Then: ‘‘Anna, I’m sorry, but I gotta go,’’ he said. He pulled off the headset and handed it to her, shamefaced. ‘‘I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen this before. I’ve seen bodies, but this was
. . . He was smiling at me.’’ He turned his knees in, so he was standing on the edges of his tennis shoes, head down, like an embarrassed little boy. ‘‘I gotta go. You gotta couple of bucks I could borrow until we sell this shit? Take it out of my cut?’’
    Anna stared at him for a second. Concerned, not angry. ‘‘Jase, how bad is it?’’
    ‘‘It’s nothing,’’ Jason insisted. ‘‘You’re probably done for tonight, anyway. You gotta couple of bucks?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, sure,’’ Anna said. She dug in her pants pocket, came up with a short roll of twenties, gave him two.
    ‘‘Thanks.’’
    And he went, hurrying away across the stone patio, Creek peering after him. In the background, they could hear sirens: fire rescue, too late.
    ‘‘What was that all about?’’ Anna asked, watching as Jason went out to the street.
    Creek shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know.’’
    ‘‘Well . . .’’ Anna hoisted the camera, looked through the eyepiece, focused on the group of cops around the body and ran off fifteen seconds of tape. Then she ran it back, forty-five seconds, and replayed.
    The jump was there, in and out of focus, but undeniably real, taking her breath away: and at the last second, the man’s arms flailing, his face passing through the rectangle of the lens display, then the unyielding stone patio.
    ‘‘Jeez,’’ she said. She looked at Creek. ‘‘This is . . .’’ She groped for a concept, and found one: ‘‘This is Hollywood .’’
    Creek muttered, ‘‘Better go. The pigs are about to fly.’’ She nodded and they headed for the truck, walking fast, but not too fast. The cops were disorganized at the moment, but five minutes from now they wouldn’t be. This would not be a good time to be noticed.
    Louis had backed the truck into the street, jockeyed it into a no-parking zone.
    ‘‘Where’s Jason?’’ he asked, as Anna and Creek unloaded the cameras.
    ‘‘Took off,’’ Anna shrugged.
    ‘‘How come? Did he shoot it?’’
    ‘‘Yeah, he got some great stuff,’’ Anna said. ‘‘I don’t know what his problem is: he freaked.’’
    ‘‘Don’t sound like the Jason we know and love,’’ Louis said, puzzled.
    An ambulance went by, and Creek turned the truck in another U and they headed through light traffic back west down Wilshire.
    ‘‘We get it all?’’ Louis asked.
    ‘‘We got it all,’’ Anna said. ‘‘The jump is an A-plus-plus. Probably the best thing we’ve ever had, exclusive. I’m gonna sell it with the pig as a package.’’
    ‘‘As a poke,’’ Louis said.
    ‘‘Yeah. Let’s find a spot where we can see the mountain.’’ Anna pushed a speed-dial button on the cell phone, waited a moment, then said, ‘‘Let me speak to