Tropical Depression (Billy Knight Thrillers 1)

“I think we can rule that one out,” I said. Eddie Jackson had a record in the Billboard Top Forty at least two times a year. He was black. “What else?”

Another hiss of smoke. “Real estate man. Wife’s a teacher. Three kids.”

“Possible?”

“Anything’s possible, Billy. But this the guy that sold Eddie Jackson the house, so it don’t seem too likely.”

“Which leaves Doyle.”

“Which leaves Doyle,” he agreed.

I heard another hiss of breath. But this one was mine.

“Something else kind of interesting,” Ed said. “I took a couple of pictures over and showed ’em to McAuley’s maid. Asked her if the nice man with the badge that picked up Roscoe’s papers was one of them. Guess who she picked out?”

My stomach flip-flopped. “Doyle,” I said, sure that it was.

Ed laughed. “Nope. Phillip Moss.”

I didn’t say anything for a long moment. My head was spinning. “You think Moss is the killer? Maybe protecting Doyle from something, even without Doyle’s knowledge?”

He laughed again. “I don’t think so, Billy. Remember that BOLO I put out on Moss? Well, we got him.”

“Where is he?”

The laughter gurgled out of control into a cough. I waited, not very patiently. When Ed had calmed down again I asked him again. “Where’s Moss, Ed?”

“He’s in the morgue, Billy. Broken neck.”

“Doyle is covering his tracks,” I said. “Making sure nobody can connect him.”

“Uh-huh. Guy that shot Hector could have been Moss.”

“It wasn’t Moss.”

“No, but all you got is one gangbanger witness, and his description could be Moss easy as Doyle.”

“What do we do now?”

Ed laughed one last time. “What you mean we, white man?” he said, and hung up.

I listened to the dial tone for a good twenty seconds before I could convince myself that he meant it. Then I put the receiver back in the cradle and stood up.

Okay. Maybe he was kidding, but if Ed had to choose between his career and saving my ass, I wasn’t sure what he’d do. I’d just have to try not to push him into a corner where he had to decide. I was on my own. No big deal—I had expected to be.

Now I had one good question Ed couldn’t answer: what had I done in the last twenty-four hours that had pushed somebody one step further than they could go without pushing back?

I thought about it for a half-hour. I kept thinking of Nancy, too, but I tried to be tough and spend at least half my thinking on the real problem.

After half an hour I realized two things. The first was that I was still naked. The second, as I pulled on my shorts, was that whatever this hypothetical last straw was, it had to be accidental, if it had happened while I was with Nancy.

I had gone to see Sergeant Whitt, and nobody had cared—not even Sergeant Whitt. I had taken some documents from Parker Center, and nobody had even written me a parking ticket.

So what had I done since then that was more threatening? Talked to Detective Braun. Requested a rap sheet for Phillip Moss. Gone to Marina del Rey with Nancy for dinner. Looked at some boats. Admired one of them until we got chased off. Kissed some. Gone to her place, made love all night…nothing threatening there, not one single thing that might—

Whoa, son, as my Uncle Mack used to say. Slow down here. Back up half a step. What if it wasn’t one thing? What if it was a combination, something somebody perceived as a pattern?

Except there still had to be something final, some last piece that had fallen into place while I was with Nancy, and I had no idea what it could possibly be.