50 

JOE WAS GETTING IMPATIENT. “Why don’t you just kick it in?” he asked.

“You said you saw somebody in there. What if it’s a burglar? What if he’s armed?”

“Suddenly, you’re a pessimist,” Joe said. “Why don’t you try the keys?”

“What keys?” Carlos knocked loudly. “Police! Open up!”

“The ones you just had made. They came from Dax’s briefcase—maybe he owns the trailer.”

Carlos looked at the two keys and held up one. “This is a Yale key, and that’s a Yale lock.”

“Then they were made for each other,” Joe said. “Try it.”

Carlos inserted the key and tried to turn it. Nothing.

“Jiggle it at little, he said it might be rough.”

Carlos jiggled it and pulled out the key just a hair. The lock turned.

Joe pulled his weapon. “Me, first,” he said, opening the door. As he did, the glass in the door exploded and Joe fell inside, blood coming from his neck.

Carlos drew his weapon and dropped to one knee, then peered around the door. There was a pfft noise, and something struck the doorjamb above his head. He held his pistol out and sprayed the interior of the trailer, then he heard a door slam at the other end. He checked Joe’s pulse. He was moving and had clamped a hand to his neck. He stepped over Joe and ran toward the other end of the trailer, where he found a rear door flapping in the breeze. He stuck his head out and saw no one. He went back to Joe. “Are you alive?”

“It seems so,” Joe replied, sitting up, his hand still holding his neck. Carlos moved his hand and found a neat wound, oozing blood. He put his handkerchief there. “Hold this in place, and keep pressure on it.” He got out his cell phone.

“Don’t call nine-one-one,” Joe said. “I don’t want an ambulance and all that. Just drive me to the nearest emergency room.”

“You’re sure?”

“It was a .22. I’m sure I’m not mortally wounded.”

“Okay.” Carlos got him outside, then closed the door and locked it with his key, then he kicked it open. “Let’s go,” he said.

Carlos helped Joe to the car, left the trailer park, and drove back toward Sunset.

“UCLA,” Joe said. “There’s a hospital there.”

“Right.” They were at the ER entrance in minutes. “Don’t you move, Joe, I’m going to get some help.” He went inside and stepped up to the desk.

“Fill out this form,” the woman behind it said.

“I’m a police officer,” he said, showing his badge. “I’ve got a cop outside in the car with a gunshot wound.”

She picked up a phone and pressed a button. “Code one at the ER entrance,” she said, then hung up. An orderly came through the swinging doors. “Where is he?”

“Just outside, in the car,” Carlos said.

Joe walked in, holding the handkerchief to his neck. “Where do you want me?” he asked.

•   •   •

THEY MADE CARLOS wait outside the treatment room for nearly half an hour before an impossibly young girl in scrubs came out. “Detective Rivera?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m Dr. Reiner.” She held up a plastic zipper bag containing what appeared to be a .22 caliber short slug. “I thought you might want this for a souvenir.”

Carlos put it in his pocket. “Where’s my partner?”

“Right here,” Joe said, walking through the door with a bandage on his neck.

“He didn’t need to go to surgery. The bullet was just under his skin. Good thing it wasn’t a .38 or a 9mm. He’s got a couple of stitches, and he’s had an injection of an antibiotic and a prescription for a pain pill. Take him home and force him to rest.” She walked away.

“So?” Joe said. “Let’s get out of here.” Back in the car he said, “It was a .22 with a silencer. Let’s get it to ballistics.”

“That’s what our two predecessors were shot with. Check on the silencer. I heard the second shot.” He made a U-turn and headed for LAPD headquarters.

An hour later they stood in a lab and looked at a large computer screen that had photos of two bullets. “The top one came out of your partner,” the technician said. “The bottom one came out of Reeves.”

“Send your report to the captain,” Carlos said, then turned to Joe. “Do you want me to take you home and put you to bed?”

“I’ll outlast you,” Joe said.

“Let’s go back to that trailer. I want to see it without the reception committee.”

“Smart move, kicking it open. I doubt if you could explain where the key came from.”

Back in the car, Carlos said, “You’re a tough old bird.”

“High school football,” Joe replied.

“What are you talking about?”

“I had a coach who was a nut on every team member being fit. He particularly worried about spinal injuries, so we had to do this exercise every day where you lay on your back and dug in your heels, arching your back until all that was touching the ground was your heels and the top of your head. Then he yelled at you to keep pushing, until your neck bent back and your nose touched the ground.”

“That’s impossible,” Carlos said.

“It was on the first day, and the second, but on the third day I made my nose touch the ground. We did that every day for the rest of the season, and we all developed necks like bulls. That’s why my shirt size is eighteen and a half inches today. I have to order my shirts off the Internet. I thought all that muscle might come in handy in a car wreck or something, but I never thought it would stop a bullet.”

•   •   •

THEY ARRIVED BACK at the trailer, and this time Carlos went in first, his weapon drawn. He cleared the place. “Neat as a pin,” he said.

Joe sat down on the sofa. “You check the desk. I’m gonna rest, like the kid doctor said.”

Carlos began rifling the drawers and held up a checkbook. He leafed through the index. “Balance of a hundred and thirteen grand,” he said.

“Somebody’s been paying him big for something,” Joe replied. “What’s his name?”

“Dimitri Kasov.”

“The Russian?”

“One and the same.”

“Anything else in there?”

“A printout of an investment account,” Carlos said, holding up the document. “He’s got nearly a million dollars in stocks.”

“I would have thought a hit man would deal in cash and bank it offshore,” Joe said, “not leave a paper trail a mile wide.”

“Maybe he banked offshore, too,” Carlos replied. “Maybe this is just the cherry on the sundae, what the IRS sees.”

Joe got up from the sofa, walked to the desk, and picked up a framed photo of a woman and two young boys, maybe six and seven. “There’s our shooter,” he said, pointing to the younger boy. “The older one looks like the Dimitri I saw on the autopsy table.”

Carlos looked at the younger boy. “So what’s your name, kid?”

Joe pulled the back off the picture frame, took out the photograph, and turned it over. “Stamped Miller Studios,” he read. “Then in ink, ‘Olga Kasov, Dimitri and Sergei.’”

“You ever heard of a Sergei Kasov?”

“Nah,” Joe said, “but I never heard of a Dimitri Kasov until recently.”

“We should go see the captain,” Carlos said.