Time dragged; Danny stayed glued, smelling linament, feeling his muscle aches return. At 6:14 a Rolls-Royce pulled into the carport; a man in a chauffeur’s outfit got out, rang the agency buzzer, spoke into the intercom and walked across the street and out of sight. Lights went off inside–until only a single window was glowing.
Danny thought: Gordean’s driver leaving his car, probably no more “clients” coming in. He spotted a phone booth on the corner, walked over, gave the box a coin and called the DMV Police Line.
“Yes? Who’s requesting?”
Danny eyed the one light still on. “Deputy Upshaw, West Hollywood Squad, and make this fast.”
The operator said, “We’re a little bit backlogged on vehicle registrations, but–”
“This is the police line, not DMV Central. I’m a Homicide detective, so you kick loose for me.”
The man sounded chastised. “We were helping regis–I’m sorry, Deputy. Give me your names.”
Danny said, “I’ve got the numbers and the vehicle descriptions, you give me the names. Four California ‘49s: DB 6841, GX 1167, QS 3334 and TR 4191. Go fast.”
The operator said, “Yessir.” The line buzzed; Danny watched the Felix Gordean Agency. Seconds stretched; the DMV man came back on the line. “Got them, Deputy.”
Danny braced his notepad against the wall. “Go.”
“DB 6841 is Donald Willis Wachtel, 1638 Franklin Street, Santa Monica. GX 1167 is Timothy James Costigan, 11692 Saticoy Street, Van Nuys. On QS 3334, we’ve got Alan Brian Marks with a K-S, 209 4th Avenue, Venice, and TR 4191 is Augie Luis–that’s L-U-I-S–Duarte, 1890 North Vendome, Los Angeles. That’s it.” No sparks on the names–except the “Duarte” seemed vaguely familiar. Danny hung up just as the light in the window went off; he ran back to his car, got in behind the wheel and waited.
Felix Gordean walked out the door a few moments later. He checked the lock and flipped a switch that doused the carport lights, backed the Rolls out and hung a U-turn, then headed west on Sunset. Danny counted to five and pursued.
The Rolls was easy to track–Gordean drove cautiously and stuck to the middle lane. Danny let a car get in front of him and fixed on Gordean’s radio aerial, a long strip of metal with an ornamental Union Jack at the top, oncoming headlight glare making it stand out like a marker.
They cruised west, out of the Strip and into Beverly Hills. At Linden the middle car hung a right turn and headed north; Danny closed the gap on Gordean, touching the Rolls’ bumper with his headlights, then idling back. Beverly Hills became Holmby Hills and Westwood; traffic thinned out to almost nothing. Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, looming greenery dotted with Spanish houses and vacant lots–Sunset Boulevard winding through blackish green darkness. Danny caught the reflection of highbeams in back of him.
He let the throttle up; the beams came on that much stronger, then disappeared. He looked in the rear-view, saw low headlights three car lengths back and no one else on the road; he hit the gas and jammed forward until Gordean’s Rolls was less than a short stone’s throw from the snout of his Chevy. Another check of the rear-view; the back car right on his ass.
Tail.
Moving surveillance on him.
Three-car rolling stakeout.
Danny swallowed and glimpsed a string of vacant lots, dirt shouldered, off the right side of the street. He downshifted, swung a hard right turn, hit the shoulder and fishtailed across rockstrewn dirt, wracking the Chevy’s undercarriage. He saw the tail car on Sunset, lights off and zooming; he cut hard left, went down to first gear, back off dirt onto good hard blacktop. High beams on; second and third, the gas pedal floored. A brown postwar sedan losing ground as he gained on it; him right on the car’s ass, mud smeared across its rear plate, the driver probably near blinded by his lights.
Just then the sedan turned hard right and hauled up a barely lit side street. Danny downshifted, hit the brakes and skidded into a full turnaround brody, stalling the car facing the flow of traffic. Headlights were coming straight at him; he sparked the ignition, popped the clutch and gas, banged over the curb and up the street, horns blasting down on Sunset.