I cut through the models, around the partitions, banged into a silver cart rattling cupped paintbrushes, the cramped space cordoned off like some kind of makeshift office—a desk area, clipboards stuck by magnets onto a great metal filing cabinet, a big industrial shelf with cutting and painting tools and parts and glue, hundreds of little mini-wheels and bricks and poles.
And on the floor, Devon Hawley Junior.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” I said, “don’t move! Stay still.”
He was on his belly, crawling slowly, eyes closed, mouth open, slack in the legs, hands tied in thin rope behind his back, his feet thrashing listlessly. He’d been crawling, from the belly, trying to pull himself by his chin, a great big oil spill of blood across his big bald head.
“Oh fuck!” I said, then double-taked, but Hawley twitched, and I dropped to my knees. “Don’t move, don’t move.”
I untied his hands, looked around, jittery, paranoid. His grip loosened, hands trembled.
“Stay, stay.”
He moaned.
I knelt.
He grunted something, two syllables; it sounded like be hard or be hurried or something.
I shook my head in confusion, insisted “stay” and pulled the cell, punched 911 as Devon Hawley Junior groaned with fading powers and lay his broken head down on the dirty, cold floor, one arm flopped over, the skin sickly yellow like curdled milk.
He looked up at me while the phone rang. Behind his bent glasses, the faint twist of life disappointment corkscrewed in his fading gray eyes.
“A man’s been badly injured, he’s—”
“Where are you calling from?”
“Steam World Studios, it’s a warehouse on Soto, he’s got a head wound, he—”
“Is the injured bleeding?”
“Yes, bleeding, very much so.”
I rattled off the address and she repeated it, spoke steady. “Ambulance should be there within the half hour. Please do not move the injured.”
“Yes, I understand, please hurry.”
This rant set off another moan, and I turned back to him.
“Do not move, they say do not move.”
But he couldn’t move anyway, he only grunted from some darkening half-state.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I didn’t know where to put my body, let alone his—then I remembered we were half-hidden, and I pushed the green screens open, half an eye cocked on the writhing man. Even his moans were slowing down.
“Come on come on come on,” I said to no one, dashed past the partitions, then: “Don’t move. I’m not leaving you. I’m not going anywhere,” as I opened the front door and dragged a small trashcan to hold it open.
I shot glances up and down the street—only my car and his, not a soul in sight. I dashed back inside. Hawley’s eyes were fluttering—I dropped and held his twisted wrist, felt the weight of his cold hand.
“Do not die on me. You will not die on me.”
10
Inside an hour, Devon Hawley Junior was stretched out in the back of a Good Shepherd Ambulance headed for County General, and I was in the back of a cop car, uncuffed and heading for God-knows-where. The two policemen up front spoke to each other like old pals.
“They find a weapon?”
“Blaylock’s on detail.”
“Lotta detail.”
The two-way buzzed. “Unit 81-46 reporting.”
“We gotcha. Site is roped, vic is on the way to CG triage in critical. Voluntary wit with us, en route to N-E-W.”
“Thank you, officer.”
The box clicked off, they left-turned onto some shadowy south LA street—barbershops and florists all gated up.
“Looks like robbery to me—hit and quit it.”
“Ahhhh dunnno.” Then: “Nobody can steal that erector set. Plus, there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar Varicam on a tripod sitting in the middle of the place untouched.”
“Chief notify next of kin?”
“Couldn’t find one yet. Next-door neighbor says this guy was a serious loner.”
I chimed in. “That neighbor’s the one who told me Hawley keeps his door unlocked.”
