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

Wozniak wet his lips.

"You've got Paulette and Evelyn to think about."

Wozniak's wife and daughter.

The cloudy eyes flicked to Pike, as bottomless and as dangerous as a thunderhead.

"I've been thinking about them, Pike. You bet your ass."

For just an instant, Pike thought Wozniak's eyes filled. Then Wozniak gave a shudder as if he were shaking out his feelings, and pointed.

"There it is. Now shut the fuck up and play like a cop."

The Islander Palms was a white stucco dump: two stories of frayed carpets, stained beds, and neon palms that looked tacky even in Los Angeles, all of it shaped into an L around a narrow parking lot. The typical customers were whores renting by the hour, wannabe pornographers shooting "amateur" videos, and rent jumpers needing a place to stay while they found a new landlord to stiff.

Pike followed Wozniak into the manager's office, a skinny Hindu with watery eyes. First thing he said was, "I do not wan't trouble, please."

Wozniak had the lead.

"We're looking for a man with a little girl. His name is Leonard De Ville, but he might've used another name."

The Hindu didn't know the name, or about a little girl, but he told them that a man matching the description Woz provided could be found on the second floor in the third room from the top of the L.

Pike said, "You want me to call it in? "

Wozniak went out the door and up the stairs without answering. Pike thought then that he should go back to the car and call, but you don't let your partner go up alone. Pike followed.

They found the third door, listened, but heard nothing. The drapes were pulled. Standing on the exposed balcony, Pike felt as if they were being watched.

Wozniak took the knob side of the door, Pike the hinges. Wozniak rapped on the door, identifying himself as a Los Angeles police officer. Everything about Joe made him want to be the first one inside, but they had settled that two years ago. Wozniak drove, Wozniak went in first, Wozniak called how they made the play. Twenty-two years on the job against Pike s three bought you that. They had done it this way two hundred times.

When De Ville opened the door, they pushed him backward, Wozniak going first and pushing hard.

DeVille said, "Hey, what is this?"Like he'd never been rousted before.

The room was tattered and cheesy, with a closet and bath off the rear. A rumpled double bed rested against the wall like some kind of ugly altar, its dark red bedspread stained and threadbare, one of the stains looking like Mickey Mouse. The room's only other piece of furniture was a cheap dresser edged with cigarette burns and notches cut by a sharp knife. Wozniak held DeVille as Pike cleared the bathroom and the closet, looking for Ramona.

"She's not here."

"Anything else? Clothes, suitcase, toothbrush?"

"Nothing." Indicating that DeVille hadn't been living here, and didn't intend to. He had other uses for the mom.

Wozniak, who had busted DeVille twice in the past, said, "Where is she, Lennie? "

"Who? Hey, I don't do that anymore. C'mon, Officer."

"Where's the camera? "