Burn (35 page)

He'd gotten so used to the feel of Luther's disc in his waistband that he'd forgotten it was still there until it fell out. Denny felt the jewel case slide down his pants leg when he reached up to grab the cable above Rod's head.

He nearly lost his grip trying to grab the damned thing before it came out the cuff at his ankle.

But it was already gone. All he could do was watch it fall. The guys up above started the winch, retracting the cable, reeling them toward the belly of the chopper. While Denny and Rod went up, the disc tumbled down. Denny watched it fall away, down into the smoke below.

He damned near would have gone down with it if Rod hadn't reached out and grabbed him by the arm.

Denny grabbed back. Up they went.

In the cargo bed of the tanker, Denny collapsed in a coughing fit. Some guy in a helmet and a jumpsuit strapped an oxygen mask over his head. He gave the guy a thumbs-up and sagged back against the hull of the bird.

Across from him, Rod looked like a great big charcoal briquette. He was covered in soot and sweat; his hair hung in his face in ashy gray clumps. He sat on a low bench bolted to the hull, hunched over, holding his own clear plastic mask over his face.

He looked at Denny, lifted the mask. He pointed to

Denny's belt, pointed out the hatch. Over the wind and the thump of the props he shouted, “What the hell was that?”

Denny just rested his head back and gulped O
₂
into his scorched, aching lungs.

“Never mind, ” he mumbled, fogging his mask.

What the hell. They were alive.

It probably wasn't all that important anyway.

Monday, September 3

“Murder Suspect Arrested”

Los Angeles:
On August 17, at approximately 4:00
P.M.
, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department, Robbery Homicide Division and West Los Angeles Area, responded to a call of “suspect there now” at the residence of Los Angeles Police Commissioner Doren Lomax in the 1100 block of San Ysidro Drive in Beverly Hills.

The suspect, identified as 36-year-old Lomax Enterprises employee Todd Todman, was sought by detectives for questioning in the murder of former Lomax Enterprises employee Gregor Tavlin. Todman entered the residence by force after assaulting the housekeeper, Rosa Gonzalez, age 62. The suspect held Gonzalez inside the house while LAPD personnel attempted to establish contact.

The suspect ignored repeated verbal announcements declaring the presence of uniformed police officers and detective personnel at the door. After responding to a telephonic call initiated by Robbery Homicide Division detective Adrian Timms (46 years old, 5 years with the Department), the suspect refused to respond to multiple follow-up calls.

The suspect's actions escalated the situation into a barricaded suspect scenario. Detective personnel and West LA. Area patrol officers contained the exterior of the location. SWAT officers responded to the scene and entered the house, using less than lethal munitions (i.e., bean-bag rounds) to gain control of the suspect.

The suspect was immediately taken into custody. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics were on scene and rendered aid to the suspect and to the injured Gonzalez.

—UPDATE—

Based on information and evidence secured as a result of an ongoing investigation, Los Angeles Police Department detectives charged Todd James Todman on Monday, September 3, for the murder of 47-year-old Los Angeles resident Gregor Tavlin.

Todman already had been in custody without bond on miscellaneous
charges, including suspicion of murder and the aggravated assault of Heather Lomax, age 30, and Rosa Gonzalez, both on August 17.

For further information contact the Los Angeles Police Department, Robbery Homicide Division, at 555-525-5555 or 555-525-5579.

This press release was prepared by Public Information Officer Clark Perry, Media Relations Section, 555-525-5455.

BY
the time it was over, the Calabasas-Mandeville Canyon Firestorm claimed 45, 000 acres, 397 homes, 260 miscellaneous structures, and six lives.

One morning, from the lounge chair on the deck, Andrew watched fragile ash fall over the beach like snow. It lasted almost an hour. Then, somewhere, the prevailing winds must have shifted; as abruptly as it had started, the show was over.

By the end of the following week, fire and forestry department officials pronounced the last lingering edges of the wildfire fully contained.

According to the radio reports, hot spots would probably continue to smolder until the winter rains.

Peter Jeffries told Andrew that he'd probably be called to testify in court at some point.

In the meantime, Jeffries took him where he needed to go when he needed to go there. Andrew answered the same questions a few thousand times. It was hard to satisfy the cops, particularly Detective Timms, but he didn't know what else he could tell them. Andrew had no idea who could have sent them the letter that involved him in the affairs of the Lomax family.

The cops didn't like it, but apparently they hadn't been able to get anything different from anybody else. He pretty much stuck to the truth about the rest. That seemed to work out fine, too.

Otherwise, Andrew stayed around the beach house most days. He began to let the newspapers pile up in the woodbin again.

He made one trip to the nearest Home Depot for a few tools, a few materials. While he was there, he placed an order for a new screen door.

It wasn't always easy working with the cast on his arm, but Andrew managed. He replaced the broken tread at the top of the stairs with a sturdy new piece of cedar. Then he spent three days resealing the entire deck.

He patched and painted the bullet hole he'd put in the ceiling. The crater Luther Vines had knocked in the wall was trickier; Andrew ended up cutting out the section from stud to stud and putting in a new piece of drywall. He taped the seams and mudded them smooth. He asked Caroline if she wanted to change anything as long as he was at it, and she picked a new color for the walls. He repainted them.

Andrew tried not to wonder about his old friend Larry Tomiczek. Usually he made it until the evenings, when he'd take a beer out to the deck and watch the sky turn purple over the water.

One night, he took the six-pack with him. He drank
the whole thing, then dialed Larry's number in Baltimore. He found that it had been disconnected.

He watched the mail in the mornings. He kept hoping he'd find a postcard from someplace tropical one of these days.

Stranger things happened.

But of everything that did happen over the weeks that followed his experience with Heather Lomax in the parking garage downtown, Andrew's vote for single strangest went to something that happened one day in mid-September.

Late on a Saturday morning, Caroline showed up at the beach house in a big floppy hat. She told him to shower up and get dressed and grab his sunblock. There was a food festival on the Third Street Promenade, she said. It was going to be great, and he was going with her whether he felt like it or not. He'd been spending way too much time cooped up alone, she told him. She told him he needed to start getting out of the house once in a while, like a regular person.

Andrew didn't bother resisting. He was hungry anyway.

And he had to admit, it really wasn't a bad day for it. Seventy-five and sunny, with a clean breeze off the ocean. The city had shrugged off the long, hot summer; natives and tourists alike crowded the promenade from curb to curb. The whole place pulsed with a festive, vaguely liberated vibe. The air hung heavy with the rich, mingling smells of a hundred different kinds of food.

They ate themselves silly, strolling up and back again from one sizzling, smoky sidewalk booth to the next. They laughed a lot. It felt good.

At one point, Caroline looked up from her lamb kebob. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed.

“Is that guy waving at us?”

Andrew didn't think so.

But the guy came right up to them, grinning wide. He said, “Hey, man. How's it going?”

Andrew might not have placed the face at all if not for the girl who came up to stand next to the guy. The guy must have gotten a haircut. Andrew didn't recognize him without the ponytail.

The girl looked at Andrew's cast and smiled.

“Look at us, ” she said, holding up her own bandaged arm. “We're twins.”

Andrew had to laugh, despite the alarm bells suddenly clanging in his head. What were the odds?

“Hey” he said. “Nice to see you.”

“You too, man, you too, ” Kyle said. “I can't believe we ran into each other.”

“Kyle, Sonja, this is my cousin, Caroline, ” he said. He slipped Sonja an extra look and said, “Caroline Borland.”

He saw a quick flicker in Sonja's eyes, but she hid it well. She wasn't such a bad actress herself apparently.

“Hi, ” she said.

“Nice to meet you.” Caroline grinned at Andrew. “You're really getting around this town, aren't you?”

“This is Kyle and Sonja, ” he told her. “I ran into them when I went to see Lane at the office that day. Kyle blows things up for the movies.”

“Wow, ” Caroline said.

“I take it you two patched things up?”

“Well, you know, ” Kyle said. “We got to talking.”

“Good for you, ” Andrew told them. He really meant it. “You're a real cute couple.”

Sonja blushed. Kyle just shook his head.

“Man, I don't know what you did that day but you're my hero.” He reached into the pocket of his cargo shorts and handed Andrew a
Crash and Burn Productions
business card. “If you ever need anything. I mean anything, man. You give me a call. Okay?”

Caroline snatched the card from Andrew and looked at it. Her grin became a smile, then a goofy laugh.

Kyle looked at Andrew. He looked at Sonja. “Did I say something stupid?”

Caroline just handed the card back to Andrew. “See that? I told you. No coincidences.”

“Don't mind her, ” Andrew said. “She's on a spare rib high.”

“Right, ” Kyle said. He grinned and said, “Well, look, we gotta bust on out of here. But I'm serious. You ever need anything, you've got my number.”

“I'll tack it on the fridge.”

“Right on. Good running into you, man. Take it easy.”

“You, too, ” Andrew said. “Nice seeing you again, Sonja.”

Sonja waggled her fingers. They went on their way.

After they were gone, Andrew looked at Caroline, who had gone back to her kebob. She was still chuckling to herself beneath the brim of her sun hat.

“What's with you?”

“Not a thing, ” she told him. “I was just wondering when you were going to start thinking about finding yourself a job.”

“Please tell me you're kidding, ” he said.

Caroline just licked her fingers and smacked her lips, still grinning. “I'm not saying another word.”

The cast came off the first week in October. It was about time. Andrew had been using a letter opener to scratch away the itchy dead skin underneath.

He still hadn't seen that postcard from Larry in the mail.