L A Woman

I looked at the lot and spied several security cameras. “Could I look at your security tapes for that day?”

“Sure. The cops already looked, so they’re still out. We use one for each twenty-four hours. Come on, you can use the meeting room. The TV and player are set up.”

**

He gave me directions on how to use the remote to fast forward, reverse and freeze any part of the tape, and then he left me alone in the room. It took me a minute to locate the Firebirds, then I fast-forwarded the tapes until I saw people near them. The camera took images about every two seconds so the people and passing cars seemed to jerk across the screen in little jumps.

Several times, there were people by the Firebirds but none of them got in and drove one away. I almost missed the car when it moved and had to rewind the tape and look again.

No one was near it, but I saw a small hand reach up from between the cars and open the passenger door. A shadowy figure moved across the console and into the driver’s seat. I got one flash of a long braided ponytail and a glimpse of a young, pretty face, then the engine started and the Firebird drove off the lot and into traffic.

I backed up the tape again until I was a good five minutes before the theft. I watched every angle and never saw her. I did it again, this time rewinding even further, but there was no image of her anywhere. Wherever she had crawled from, it had started out of camera range.

I went out of the room and saw Miguel, “Thanks,” I said.

“You do any good?”

“No, I never even saw her, just her hand, then the car was gone.”

“Yeah, she was a sneaky one. Let me know if you catch her. We have a reward for it.”

I shook his hand, “I’ll keep that in mind.” As I went out of the building, I saw the car wash guys over by my pickup. They were laughing and carrying on like it was a fiesta.

When I got closer I could see that one held an old fishing rod and had hooked his line under Shamu’s large, welded pipe front bumper and was acting like he’d hooked a big one.

One of them said, “Give him line!” The fisherman acted like he was letting off the drag, then he jerked again like he was re-setting the hook and the fight was on again.

“It’s a big one, hombre. Looks like two tons!”

The fisherman said in a mock strained voice, “Captain, what kind of fish is it?”

The one who told him to give it line said, “It’s a guppy!”

I reached them and said, “Very funny.” They collapsed in hysterics. When they finally caught their breath I asked, “Have you seen the security tape of the car theft?”

They shook their heads no. The fisherman said, “They told us about it, but that’s all.”

“You have any idea which way that woman could have crawled from to get to the Firebird without being seen?”

They all pointed to the southwest corner of the lot. The fisherman said, “Had to be from there. Only place you can’t see real easy, and she could sneak by the wash rack there before she ducked down.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem. We got to have a little fun with Jaws here,” he patted the hood of my pickup.

“It’s not a shark, it’s a killer whale.”

The fisherman said, “It’s a truck, amigo. What kind of mushrooms you been eating?” They all thought that was a riot. He added, “Next time you come by, bring it in and we’ll wash it. Won’t cost you nothing.”

**

I drove toward the office and thought about the woman. From the few images I’d seen on the news tape and the one glimpse of her face on the security cameras, I agreed with Archie’s estimate of her being around nineteen or twenty.

Somebody that young and that good a thief and escape artist is rare. Odds were she had a record, so we might be able to find her through the LAPD or County Sheriff’s department. It was something Hondo and I could discuss.

The only problem with the Sheriff’s department was that we still owed our contact there. Sergeant Vick Best was as good as they come, but he was a bit testy with us right now.

I finally reached Venice, pulled into the gym parking lot, and found a space in front of our office. Hondo had the DVD of the news footage loaded in the player. He had two mugs of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee ready for us, along with a half-dozen donuts. I grabbed a donut and sat down. I said, “Have you watched it already?”