Last Looks by Howard Michael Gould

Author:Howard Michael Gould
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

It was the same car, it had to be, a blue Cadillac behind him on Oxnard and refusing to pass. He hung a right on Hazeltine to see what would happen, and when he looked over his shoulder half a block later, sure enough, it was right there. Left on Hatteras, same thing. Waldo pulled over by a hydrant and the Caddy stopped about twenty yards back without leaving his lane. Waldo stared at the driver, an ordinary-looking white man behind sunglasses, middle-aged or balding early. They waited each other out.

A Lexus SUV came up behind the Cadillac and was forced to stop. The Lexus driver tapped the horn but the balding guy just glanced at his rearview and looked back at Waldo. The SUV waited for a break in the opposing traffic, then pulled around the Caddy.

Waldo started pedaling again. He picked up speed, found a double driveway and glided onto the sidewalk. He braked hard, spun the bike and headed down the sidewalk in the opposite direction and, as the Cadillac went into a K-turn, tore down an alley and didn’t look back.

Waldo was pretty close to his old neighborhood and knew the streets. Costello ended in a cul-de-sac, which backed onto the parking lot of a Mormon church; he got there just as the Caddy found him, walked his bike across the dirt divider where the Caddy couldn’t follow and he was free. Crossing the church parking lot toward its front on Burbank, he glanced back and saw the Caddy backing up.

The guy would expect him to go left and parallel his original path on Oxnard, so Waldo jogged down to Chandler to go east that way instead, then overshot his target by passing under the freeway and going left back up to Burbank, where he took another left and came around from the far side with no sign of his tail.

Before he knew it he was in front of North Hollywood Division again, again racked with anxiety. But this time he knew he didn’t have a choice.

He decided the play was to take it hard. He slammed open the glass doors with a force that stopped conversation dead in the precinct lobby. Three uniforms and a couple in street clothes, probably civilians, were standing in front of the reception desk, behind which sat a sergeant he didn’t know, a black man with white hair whose name tag said STENNETT. Waldo thought two of the uniforms might look familiar but focusing to place them would slow him down.

He came right at the sergeant. “Charlie Waldo,” he snapped. “You heard my name?” He didn’t give the man a chance to answer. “Bet your ass you heard my name—I used to own this place. Fuck are you?” Sergeant Stennett opened his mouth but Waldo jumped him again. “I don’t give a shit, that’s who. Who I want is, first officer on the scene of the Pinch murder. Then I want info on: one, everyone on crime scene security; two,

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