Body Copy - Michael Craven [44]
So quit embarrassing Mother, Tremaine could almost hear Phillip saying.
Tremaine got back to his hotel, pretty tired now, buzzed, and full, too. He cranked the AC and just enjoyed the quiet hum of the machine. After a few minutes, he clicked off the light. The flight back to L.A. would come early.
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C H A P T E R 1 9
On the way back from LAX, Tremaine heading home to say hey to Lyle and check his mail, regular and electronic, he noticed in his rearview mirror, in the distance, the silver Crown Vic.
“All right, you’re back. Let’s go look at some stuff,” Tremaine said aloud.
Tremaine, now on the 405, put his blinker on well before he had to get off, giving the Crown Vic time to prepare. Sure enough, the car followed, way back there, a tiny image in the rearview.
Tremaine took the Venice Boulevard exit, then headed west out to the beach.
Next, he drove into Marina del Rey and hung a left on Maxella. The Crown Vic mimicked his moves. Tremaine B O D Y C O P Y
took Maxella to Glencoe, then went left on Glencoe to a warehouse district full of machine and glass repair shops.
Tremaine had gotten one of his surfboards repaired in this district a number of weeks ago, so he was familiar with the goings-on of the neighborhood. Just after he passed Gene’s Glass, the block opened up to a large lot, the frame of a new building going up.
In the front of the building, there were a number of cement trucks bearing the name L.A. Stone in large, red letters on the side. Tremaine pulled the Cutlass off the road directly across from the construction site and the trucks.
Two minutes after he pulled over, the Crown Vic slid by, then stopped at the stop sign about a hundred yards past Tremaine. Tremaine thought, I’ll wait for him to go around the block before I do anything.
But the Crown Vic didn’t round the block. It did go right at the sign, but it didn’t show up behind him. Instead, Tremaine spotted it two blocks ahead, now facing him as it pulled into the driveway of a small office building. The Crown Vic settled into park, the passenger side window of the car facing Tremaine. Tremaine knew, whoever this master of investigation was, he was watching.
Tremaine looked in his glove and pulled out an old camera, not even digital, with no film in it. He got out of his car, held the camera to his eye, and pointed it at the cement trucks. Might as well be wearing a goddamn sign.
After pretending to take a series of pictures, he got back in the Cutlass, cranked her up, and left.
The Crown Vic was not in his sights as Tremaine made his way back to Malibu. No, the guy in the Crown Vic had done his work for the day.
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Michael Craven
Home. Tremaine walked in his trailer, barely able to contain his excitement over seeing Lyle. Tremaine shot in the door, smiling from ear to ear, and said, “Hey, Lyle, I’m home!” Lyle didn’t move. Tremaine felt like an old house-wife whose husband had long ago stopped seeing her as anything other than the woman who lived in the house.
Tremaine hung his head a bit and grabbed Lyle’s leash. The noise of the leash didn’t seem to register, either.
After managing to walk Lyle, Tremaine checked his mail, his e-mail, and his phone messages. Then he headed back out into the park, over to good old Marvin Kearns’s trailer. He had to thank him for watching Lyle and, for the first time ever, he was going to ask him for some help on a case.
Tremaine knocked a couple times, but no Marvin. Was he jumping from trailer roof to trailer roof in character as a ninja? Nope, he just wasn’t home. Damn, have to catch him next time.
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C H A P T E R 2 0
That night, at the Lobster, a restaurant right by the Santa Monica Pier that overlooked the Pacific, Nina said, “I like this place. It has a nice feel.”
Tremaine nodded.
Nina said, “You really