"Crais, Robert - Elvis Cole 08 - L.A. Requiem 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Crais Robert)

Pike walked to the street, then looked back at the parking lot. It was small, and empty of red Mazdas.

He said, "She runs, but maybe she remembers something and doesn't have time to get the smoothie, or she meets someone and they decide to do something else."

"Yeah. Like go to his place for a different kind of smoothie."

Pike looked at me.

"Sorry."

He stared up the hill. "You're probably right. If she runs to the reservoir, she probably follows Lake Hollywood up. Let's drive it."

We followed Lake Hollywood Drive past upscale houses that were built in the thirties and forties, then remodeled heavily in the seventies and eighties into everything from homey ranch-styles to contemporary aeries to postmodern nightmares. Like most older Los Angeles neighborhoods (until the land boom went bust), the homes held the energy of change, as if what was here today might evolve into something else tomorrow. Often, that something else was worse, but just as often it was better. There is great audacity in the willingness to change, more than a little optimism, and a serious dose of courage. It was the courage that I admired most, even though the results often made me cringe. After all, the people who come to Los Angeles are looking for change. Everyone else just stays home.

The road switchbacked up the hillside, meandering past houses and mature oaks that shuddered and swayed with the wind. The streets were littered with leaves and branches and old Gelson's Market bags. We crested the ridge, then drove down to the reservoir. It was choppy and muddy from the .wind. We saw no red Mazdas, and no one who looked like Karen Garcia, but we didn't expect to. The hill was there, so you climbed it, and so far I wasn't too worried about things. Karen was probably just waking up at wherever she'd spent the night, and pretty soon she'd go home or collect her messages, and call her father to calm down the old man. The burden of being an only child.

We were halfway down the mountain and thinking about what to do next when a homeless guy with a backpack and bedroll strolled out of a side street and started down the mountain. He was in his mid-thirties, and burned dark by the sun.

I said, "Pull over."

When Pike slowed, the man stopped and considered us. His eyes were red, and you could smell the body odor even with the wind. He said, "I am a master carpenter looking for work, but no job is too small. I will work for cash, or books." He managed a little pride when he said it, but he probably wasn't a master carpenter and he probably wasn't looking for work.

Pike held out Karen's photograph. "Have you seen this woman?"

"No. I am sorry." Every word like that. Without contractions.

"She jogged through the neighborhood yesterday morning. Blue top. Gray shorts."

He leaned forward and examined the picture more closely. "Black ponytail."

Pike said, "Could be."

"She was running uphill, struggling mightily against the forces that would drag her down. A truck slowed beside her, then sped away. I was listening to Mr. Dave Matthews at the time." He had a Sony Discman suspended from his belt, the earphones hanging loose at his neck.

I said, "What kind of truck?"

He stepped back and looked over Pike's Cherokee.

"This track."

"A red Jeep like this?"

He shrugged. "I think it was this one, but it might've been another."

The corner of Pike's mouth twitched. In all the years I had known him, I have never seen Pike smile, but sometimes you'll get the twitch. For Pike, that's him busting a gut.

I said, "You see the driver?"

He pointed at Pike. "Him."