Street Dreams (21 page)

“Sounds familiar,” I said. “Red hair?”

He shook his head no. “Brown. Then after ten of us, it turned gray. Batya was tough as a mother, but fair-minded. No sense
of humor, but I could make her laugh.” He eyed me intently. “I like when you laugh. It’s good music.”

I looked down and patted his knee.

He raised my face and kissed me gently. Did it a second time, but with more passion. His hands stroked my arms, lust in those
incredible jeweled eyes. “Still tired?”

“We’re dressed.”

“An easy thing to change if the spirit is willing.”

I bit my lower lip. “If you’re convincing, I could be persuaded.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I like challenges. Especially this kind.”

“Go for it, Yaakov.”

He grinned and started by unbuttoning my blouse and unhooking my bra from the front. Then he unzipped my pants but kept them
on. He laid me down on the mattress; then beginning at my forehead, he gently kissed a path downward, his lips traveling onto
the tip of my nose, onto my mouth, between my breasts, and over my stomach and navel until he reached the top of my pubis.
He lowered the waistband of my panties, his tongue dipping into my thatch of red hair. Softly, he bit the skin. “How do I
do?”

My fingers dived into his kinky black hair as I moved his mouth lower. “Very convincing.” I sucked in my breath when he hit
the right spot. “Oh Lord, yes, I am
definitely
persuaded.”

W
e eventually made
it to dinner, then hit a ten o’clock movie. The cinema was followed by drinks at a small jazz club, talking and talking until
the wee hours of the morning. We had been together for over twelve hours, and though I was zapped, I politely declined Koby’s
offer to bunk down at his place. I didn’t have to work until the afternoon, but I wanted to wake up in my own bed, on my own
time. He didn’t look insulted. On the contrary, I felt he needed breathing room as well.

We were quiet on the way home, tapped out on ideas, and happy to let the stereo provide the background noise. We were sailing
on Sunset back into Silver Lake, his car finally missing a light and gliding to a stop. There were no other vehicles about
us, no cross-traffic in sight.

But there was a lone pedestrian crossing the street. A woman— hunched and wrapped in a heavy black coat. She was clutching
a purse to her chest.

I was suddenly alert. I looked at my watch: three in the morning.

“Poor thing,” Koby whispered. “Can’t we take her to a shelter?”

“I don’t know if she’s homeless,” I told him. “No shopping cart, no bags … just a purse. She’s also wearing sheer stockings,
and in this light, her ankles look normal.”

“Ankles?”

“Most of the homeless women have terrible ankles from walking in ill-fitting shoes. And also, the poor health.”

“Hooker?”

“Not one that I recognize. To me, it looks like she had a fight with a boyfriend, and he kicked her out of the car. Look at
the downcast gait.”

“Then perhaps we can take her home. It’s dangerous out here.”

Before I could agree, the horrid scene played out in slo-mo. A Jeep Cherokee SUV, tearing
against
the light, smashed into her, five yards before the safety of the sidewalk. As the body flew upward, a Dodge Caravan minivan
crossed the intersection, just in time for the Jeep to smack it broadside, flipping it over. As the woman fell back to earth,
she was hit a second time by the minivan, spinning and bouncing on its roof, the van careening totally out of control until
it crashed into a power pole. Electricity sparked. The noise was deafening. The woman had been propelled clear across the
boulevard and had landed on the asphalt with a thud. The Jeep did a two-tire screeching turn, speeding off to freedom.

“Shit!”
Koby screamed. He punched open a dashboard door, extracted a pair of latex gloves, and snapped them over his hands. He was
out of the car before I could unbuckle my seat belt.
“Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move!”
he yelled out to the passengers in the wrecked minivan. He was running over to the woman’s inert body.

I raced out of the car, cell phone in my shaking hand.

“Go to the van and tell them not to move!” Koby ordered me. He was leaning over the pedestrian, checking her neck for a pulse.
The face was unrecognizable pulp, her body as limp as a rag doll. I bit back bile and ran over to the van, calling 911 as
my eyes gawked at the smoking hunk of sheared steel and tangled wires, the entire mess reeking of spilled gas and oil and
the metallic stink of burned flesh. Inside, the air bags had deployed, but even so, there was so much blood, guts, and moaning
that I nearly fainted at the grisly sight. But as soon as the operator came over my cell, I was surprised by my calm tone,
telling him the precise location while requesting paramedics and the fire department stat.

After I hung up, with my mouth still agape, I stared at the carnage inside, unsure how to proceed. I just kept repeating over
and over for the passengers not to move, hoping that the panic in my voice wasn’t noticeable. When Koby finally appeared at
my side, I exhaled audible relief. Immediately, he went to work, his voice as soothing as lapping waves, as he told the passengers—two
men, two women, a couple of kids, and a lifeless baby—not to move while he assessed the damage. Blood was spurting from the
arm of one of the women. He tore off his shirt and tied up the artery. Though the night was cold, he was sweating and breathing
hard. “You call 911?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got a first-aid kit and blanket in the back of my car.”

“I’m on it.” I rushed over to the car, my boot heels clacking against the street, then popped the trunk, taking out the kit
as well as a flashlight and a blanket. He had another set of gloves in the kit, so I put them on, then brought the supplies
to him and shone the light into the car.

“You brought the flashlight. Someone was thinking. Shine it here.”

“What about the pedestri … ?”

“Gone. Ah, you’re gloved. Press down here, okay? No, not there … here.”

The wail of sirens in the background. At this hour, the noise could be heard blocks away. As I applied pressure to a leaking
vessel with my left hand, I called 911 again with my right. Then I tucked the phone between my shoulder and cheek, so I could
free up the other hand to direct light to where Koby was working. He was trying to liberate the infant—thankfully, he had
found a pulse—but a web of razor-sharp metal was in his way.

“This is Officer Cynthia Decker from LAPD. I just reported a fatal hit-and-run traffic accident. I need to hook up with radio
dispatch so I can give out pertinent information to all cruisers near the scene.”

My neck was constricted, screwed up into a god-awful position to secure the phone, and the muscles began to throb. Adrenaline
was shooting through my system, choking my breathing with pounding heartbeats. Still, when the police RTO came on the line,
I had found my voice.

“Reporting a hit-and-run with fatalities. The vehicle was a late-model Jeep Cherokee, dark in color, last four digits of the
license plate—Henry-five-two-three, again, Henry-five-two-three—last seen heading northbound on Terrazzo Avenue. All officers
in the area respond immediately. Requesting additional units to the scene of the accident—Terrazzo and Sunset.”

I waited until the operator repeated the information. When she did, I hung up, put the phone down, and rolled my neck. Koby
was wrist deep in blood, dressing horrid gashes with gauze from the kit. It was like plugging up the proverbial dike with
a finger.

The sirens grew louder. I could see flashing lights in the reflection of the shattered window glass. The EMTs arrived less
than three minutes after my first call, though it had seemed much longer. When they pushed me out of the way, I wanted to
say thank you. Koby spoke rapidly while continuing his work, informing them about the infant, then requesting to speak to
the doctor on the ambulance phone. When my date started conversing in medical lingo, I walked away, trying to figure out how
to be useful.

With great trepidation, I walked over to the thrown body and held my mouth. I regarded her—discarded, her limbs broken and
distorted. Her skull had been cracked open and brain was oozing out. The urge to puke was almost as strong as the urge to
pass out. I jerked my eyes away from the corpse just as an unmarked car pulled up. Two people got out, flashing their badges.
They needn’t have bothered, because I knew both of them by more than just name.

Hayley Marx was a fellow officer in Hollywood, the closest thing I had to a friend in the Department. We used to eat dinner
together twice a month, but now our schedules conflicted. We kept meaning to make time, but never got around to it. She looked
great, her tall frame svelte in a black pantsuit. She’d grown out her blond hair so that it now brushed her earlobes, softening
her face.

The man she was with was the last guy on earth I wanted to see. Detective Scott Oliver worked Homicide under my father’s leadership.
Once, they had been colleagues, and there remained festering resentment over my father’s promotion, further aggravated by
my idiotic fling with Oliver. It was over almost before it started, but I was told by sources close to both of us that he
wasn’t thrilled. God only knew why. I wasn’t a day at the beach.

Scott was a sharp dresser. He had on a black jacket, black T-shirt, and khaki pants. His face was handsome in that middle-aged-man
rugged way, and his thick hair had silvered at the seams. Ordinarily, his penetrating stare would have put me under, but at
the moment, I was preoccupied with other things.

“Decker!” he barked out.

“Oh my God!” Hayley gasped. “You all right, Cin?”

I started babbling. “We were sitting at the intersection when a Jeep just smashed into her.” I realized I was sobbing. “I
don’t know if we should move her out of the way—”

“First just calm down!” Oliver told me.

“Okay, okay—”

“Because we can’t move her until Traffic and Homicide get here. It was a hit-and-run, right?”

“Yes.”

“We heard it go over the box; I’m sure others heard it, too. Just hang for a moment.” Oliver turned to Hayley. “I’ve got some
crime tape in the trunk of my car. Can you get it for me?”

“I’ll go with you,” I told her.

“No, you stay here and tell me
exactly
what happened.”

Another cruiser had arrived: two more guys from my division— Bader and Guensweit. With others there, it made it easier to
tell the story; the crowd mitigated the queasy feeling. Scott told the uniformed officers to rope off the body while he took
me aside and pushed me for details.

“I told you, I only remember the last four digits of the license plate number, Scott. It happened so fast—”

“Just let me get a physical picture, okay?”

“Okay.”

He sighed, making me feel like an errant child. Hayley said, “It’ll be okay, Cin—”

“Can you not interrupt, Marx?” Oliver’s eyes went to my face. “So you’re heading eastbound, stopped at a light.”

“Yes … exactly where the car is parked now. We haven’t moved it.”

“So where was the Jeep coming from?” Oliver asked.

“I told you I don’t
know.
There were no cars on either side of us. The Jeep just came out of nowhere and ran the light.”

“Then it came up from behind you?” Oliver asked.

“Maybe. Probably. I don’t know, Scott, I wasn’t driving. I wasn’t checking the rearview mirror.”

“Who was driving?”

“Koby.” I turned toward the crash site. “My date. He’s over there somewhere, helping out the paramedics.”

“He’s a doctor?” Hayley asked.

“A nurse.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

I exploded. “What the hell difference does it make?”

“Cin, I’m sorry—”

“She had a purse!” I suddenly recalled. “The woman … she was holding a purse. I remember pointing it out to Koby as we watched
her cross the street. She looked so sad.” I began to pace. “We’ve got to find the purse. It’s bound to have her ID. I’ve got
to find it—”

“No, you’ve got to sit down,” Oliver told me.

“No, no, I’m okay. …”

Another cruiser pulled up. Oliver said, “Cindy, sit down! That’s an order. I’ll call it into Hollywood Homicide.”

But I didn’t listen. As Oliver left with Hayley to give instructions to the next set of units, I started hunting around for
the handbag. There was blood all over the place. Piercing screams and sobs were coming from the pile of mangled metal. The
group of EMTs working on the accident had grown. There were now two ambulances and two fire trucks with lots of firefighters
in yellow slickers standing by. They were bringing out the Jaws of Life.

Koby emerged from the shadows, speaking to a paramedic, using his hands as he talked. I stared at him, in awe of how fast
he had reacted. I jumped when Oliver tapped me on the shoulder.

“I told you to sit down.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

Silence.

“Who’s your date?” Oliver asked.

I pointed to Koby. “Him.”

“Shirtless wonder?”

I jerked my head around and glared at him.

Oliver let out a bitter chuckle and shook his head. “Does Daddy know you’re eating chocolate cake?”

Stunned didn’t even remotely approximate the way those words hit me. Rage welled up so quickly, it made my eyes tear. The
old Cindy would have slapped his face and berated him with a string of curse words. But if I had learned anything the past
year, it was the value of saying as little as possible.

“Stay away from me, Oliver.” My voice was feral. “Stay
far
away.”

“Hey!” Hayley shouted as she tied up the last bit of crime tape. “Everything okay?”

The absolute fury must have showed on my face. “Just fine, Marx.” I stalked off, snapping off my gloves, and continued searching
for the purse. Oliver had the good sense not to follow. Hayley joined me a minute later with a flashlight. “What’d he say
to you?”