Body Copy - Michael Craven [60]
The man, a yellow VW Golf. The woman, a white Ford Explorer.
Tremaine was interested in the woman. He watched her drive down the alley, right past him. She hit Cornado and went left toward Seventh. Tremaine cranked up the Cutlass, pulled out from his little space by the brick wall, and followed her.
On Olympic now, headed west, Tremaine had the Ford Explorer in his sights, pretty far up there, lots of cars in between them, but he wasn’t going to lose her. Fifteen minutes later, back in Hollywood, the Explorer went through the light at La Brea, so did the Cutlass.
Tremaine followed the Explorer right down a side street, then left, then right, then onto Wilshire. Tremaine thought, this is her home turf. The Explorer pulled into a metered parking space in front of some little shops and restaurants right there on Wilshire. Tremaine got lucky and found a 188
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spot three spaces up from the Explorer. Tremaine watched the woman get out of her car and walk into a Chinese Restaurant, not fancy, take-out style.
Tremaine got out of the Cutlass and stood next to it, waiting. Ten minutes later, he saw the woman exit the restaurant, a bag of Chinese food in one hand, the keys to her Explorer in the other.
Tremaine started walking toward the Explorer. The woman was next to the driver’s side door as Tremaine was next to the passenger’s side door. She clicked the unlock button on her keychain twice. She opened the back door on the driver’s side and put the bag of Chinese food on the back seat of the Explorer. She shut the back door. Then she opened her door and got in. As she was about to put the keys in the ignition, Tremaine quickly opened the passenger’s side door, got in, and shut the door.
The woman screamed. A wild and fearful look pos-sessed her eyes.
Tremaine said, “Calm down. I’m a cop.”
She looked at him, frozen. She had her keys in her right hand, and Tremaine could see there was a small bottle of mace on her keychain.
“Don’t use that mace. Put your keys on the floor. Do it,” he said. “Do it now.”
She did.
The woman was porn-star attractive. Fake everything.
An almost-orange tan, bright-white bleached teeth, and an absurd chest. And wild-eyed, crazy blue eyes that suggested a sexual confidence that was palpable, impossible to miss.
Tremaine said, “I know what you do, I know what your 189
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boss does, and I want you to know this: I don’t care. I don’t give two shits.”
She stared at him. She was scared, but she had an aggression about her. She’d been in sticky situations before.
And she hadn’t said a word since Tremaine had gotten in.
The only sound she’d made was the initial scream.
Tremaine said, “I’m going to pull some pictures out of my pocket and show them to you. I want you to tell me if the people in the pictures have ever been to one of your shows. We are looking for these people. We do not care what you do at your studio. We are just looking for these people. If we cared what you did at your studio, you would be out of business and your boss would be in jail.
You might be, too.”
Tremaine pulled a picture out of his pocket. It was a picture of Tyler Wilkes. He showed it to the woman.
She said, calmly, “Yeah, he came in. I think a couple times. But he hasn’t been in for a while.”
Tremaine nodded. She wasn’t lying, not yet, at least.
Tremaine said, “Now, I’m going to show you someone else. I want you to tell me the same thing, if he’s ever been to one of your shows.”
Tremaine pulled out a picture of Roger Gale and showed it to the woman.
She looked at it, closely, and said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.”
Tremaine thought, was she lying because she and the karate studio people were somehow involved with Roger Gale, or was she telling the truth?
Tremaine said, “Is it possible that you might not have seen him but someone else did?”
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“It’s possible, if he just came in