Body Copy - Michael Craven [50]
Tremaine stayed back, nice and careful, following the Crown Vic as it pulled onto National, then ducked into some back roads, then onto Barrington. Tremaine watched, keeping lots of cars between them, as the car pulled over into a little dirt lot that flanked a big park.
The park consisted of a big green field that was split up into some softball fields, some soccer fields, and a picnic area. Tremaine could see it now from where he was parked, on a side street three blocks away from the dirt lot and the park and the Crown Vic.
He watched the young guy get out of his car and walk over to one of the picnic tables and sit down. Tremaine took the keys out of the Cutlass. Then he reached down to the passenger-side floorboard and grabbed the knife that had been pulled on him and Nina the other night at the beach.
Tremaine got out of the car.
He walked the three blocks, quickly and quietly, and now he was on the grass of the park, nearing the picnic table where the guy was sitting. The guy’s back was to Tremaine, who was moving slowly now, being careful and silent, like a cat. Like Darryl. Tremaine watched the guy pull out his phone and start dialing.
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B O D Y C O P Y
The light noise of the park, soccer players, softball players, Frisbee throwers, allowed Tremaine to get closer, closer, closer, right behind him now, without the guy hearing him.
Just as the guy finished dialing, Tremaine, standing directly behind him, raised the knife high in the air and slammed it down into the picnic table, right in front of the guy.
The guy jerked—startled—and dropped his phone.
Tremaine grabbed the cell and looked at the number the phone was calling: Tyler Wilkes. Tremaine ended the call and turned off the phone.
Tremaine walked around the picnic table and sat down across from the guy. The guy looked at Tremaine, then moved his eyes to the knife that was between them, standing straight up, blade an inch deep in the table. The guy looked, in this moment, like a scared animal, very wary of even moving and very aware of his every movement.
“How long you been a P.I.?” Tremaine said.
The young guy with the dark hair and the bad skin didn’t answer.
Tremaine said, “Come on. I know you’ve been following me. You came to my trailer park, to the airport, you watched me take pictures of the L.A. Stone trucks . . . How long you been a P.I.?”
“Not long.”
“You work on your own or for a firm?”
“Firm.”
“I was a simple tailing job, so you got the gig?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to make your job easy for you.”
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The young guy didn’t say anything. He was still a little scared, a little caught off guard. But he motioned with his eyes for Tremaine to continue.
Tremaine said, “Tyler Wilkes is in some serious trouble with some very serious people. A guy named Paul Spinelli, to be exact. Remember that name, Tyler will know who I’m talking about. Tyler wasn’t sure exactly why I came to talk to him in the first place. He wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to him about a guy named Roger Gale or a cement company called L.A. Stone. You know about L.A. Stone; you watched me take pictures of the trucks. We’ve already discussed that. Right now, Tyler’s probably convinced I’m looking into the cement company. Tell him he’s wrong.
Tell him I’m looking into both. And tell him not to talk to anyone about this until I contact him. I’ll be contacting him soon.”
Tremaine looked at the young guy, the young P.I., and said, “You get all that?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Tremaine got up, leaving the young guy sitting at the picnic table looking blankly at his surroundings. At a softball game, a soccer game, a knife standing straight up.
Tremaine went home and looked up the offices for L.A.
Stone. He found them, in Culver City, near all the furniture stores, between Venice and Washington. Then he searched around online for a picture of Paul Spinelli. Found that, too.
The next day, Tremaine drove to the front of the L.A.
Stone building. At one