Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6) QUOTES

1 " The Men’s Central Jail is an anonymous building behind Central Station, less than ten minutes from the Criminal Courts Building in downtown L.A. I parked in a neat, modern underground parking structure, then walked up steps to a very nice plaza. Nicely dressed people were sipping lattes and strolling about the plaza, and no one seemed to mind that the plaza adjoined a place housing felons and gangbangers and the wild men of an otherwise civil society. Perhaps because this is L.A. and the jail is so nice. There’s a fountain in the plaza, and it’s very nice, too. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

2 " She said, “Oh, Studly.” I could see her smile. “The law is not about justice. You know that. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

3 " Throughout the meal Lucy would grin with the knowledge of her secret, and I would ask, “What?” and she would say, “You’ll see.” Then everyone stopped looking at Johnny Depp and turned toward the door. Lucy grinned wider, and I looked, too. Joe came over, gliding across the floor as the room parted for him. Tall men in sleeveless sweatshirts and dark glasses and brilliant red tattoos tend to stand out in Spago. Even Johnny Depp was looking. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

4 " He nodded, approving. When he nodded, the two lesser attorneys nodded, too. No one had bothered to introduce them, but they didn’t seem to mind. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

5 " Jonathan Green sat in one of the leather director’s chairs across from my desk and the two lesser attorneys went to the couch. Truly stayed on his feet. The videographer noticed the Pinocchio clock on the wall, then hustled around to the opposite side of my desk so that he could get both me and the clock in the frame. The Pinocchio clock has eyes that move side to side as it tocks. Photogenic. Like Green. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

6 " Truly said, “We’ve talked to people, Mr. Cole. You’ve an outstanding reputation for diligence, and your integrity is above reproach. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

7 " We said our good-byes and I called Joe Pike to tell him that we were once more employed. His answering machine picked up on the first ring and beeped. He used to have a one-word message that just said, “Speak,” but I guess he felt it was long-winded. Now, there was just the beep. When I asked him how people were supposed to know who they had gotten or what to do, he’d said, “Intelligence test.” That Pike is something, isn’t he? "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

8 " I put everything back into the envelope, then called my friend Eddie Ditko at the Examiner. Eddie has been a reporter for about ten million years, and he answered with a voice that was maybe three weeks away from throat cancer. “Ditko. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

9 " It was eighteen minutes after seven, and I was getting ready to take a shower when the phone rang. Adrienne. I said, “Hi, Adrienne.” Elvis Cole, Too Hip Detective, pretends he can read minds. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

10 " You may be interested in why I am waiting for Adrienne to call.” “I’m sure I don’t want to know.” “Do I detect coolness?” “You detect indifference. They are not the same. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

11 " Lucy blew me a kiss and hung up and I lay back on the kitchen floor with the phone on my stomach, grinning at the ceiling. The cat stopped purring and came closer to stare into my face. He looked concerned. Maybe he didn’t know I was grinning. Maybe he thought I was dying of some sort of hideous facial stricture. Is that possible? Death by grinning. I said, “She’s coming to see us. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

12 " By nine o’clock the next morning I had gained some measure of control over the sappy grin and was once more feeling focused, productive, and ready to swing into investigative action. Sappy grins are fine in your personal life but somehow seem less than professional when one is representing the Big Green Defense Machine. Credibility, as they say, is everything. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

13 " LeCedrick Earle was maybe an inch shorter than me, with dark glossy skin and a shaved head. He was wearing a prison-issue orange jumpsuit and Keds. I said, “That’s right. I work for an attorney named Jonathan Green. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

14 " As I tooled north back to Los Angeles I tried to keep an open mind. Just because someone looks like a liar and acts like a liar doesn’t mean that he is a liar. It doesn’t even mean he’s a liar when his story is full of holes. Even the truth has been known to have holes. Of course, when his story doesn’t make sense it becomes a little more difficult to swallow. I could see Angela Rossi’s side of it, but not LeCedrick Earle’s. Rossi’s report said that she followed Earle to his house because he only had the single hundred-dollar bill on his person and she knew that he could plead innocent to a knowledge of its being counterfeit; she reasoned that if he had more at home as he stated, he couldn’t reasonably deny knowledge and the intent to defraud, and the arrest would stick. LeCedrick Earle said that she followed him to his home where she produced a hidden amount of counterfeit money and made the arrest. He opined that she might’ve done this so that there would be no witnesses, yet Mrs. Louise Earle had been there and Rossi apparently consummated the arrest. Rossi’s version made sense and LeCedrick Earle’s didn’t. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

15 " Still, people sometimes do strange things for strange reasons, and I decided to see what Mrs. Louise Earle had to offer. I expected that she would support her son’s claims, but in the doing perhaps she would add something to give them greater credence. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

16 " A short, slight gentleman was standing in the living room. He had wavy marcelled hair and he was wearing a brown summer-weight suit that had probably been new twenty years ago. His hair was more gray than not, and his skin was the color of fine cocoa parchment. He was holding a small bouquet of zinnias. I made him for his late sixties, but I could’ve been off five years either way. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

17 " Louise Earle was credible, cogent, in full command of her faculties, and did not seem to be a person who would miss seeing a cop carrying a bag of funny money through her living room. Of "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

18 " When I reached the sidewalk a tall, muscular black guy appeared beside my car. As he reached the car a heavy white guy in his early fifties climbed out of a blue sedan parked across the street and started toward me. The black guy was in impeccably pressed designer jeans and a tight knit shirt that showed his muscles, and the white guy was in a rumpled light gray winter-weight suit. A million degrees, and he’s wearing winter weight. Cops. A woman’s voice said, “Excuse me, sir. May I have a word with you?” Polite, and kind of cheery. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

19 " The cheery woman was coming toward me from the adjoining yard as if she had been standing at the corner of the house there, waiting. She was maybe five-eight, and dark the way you’re dark when you spend a lot of time in the sun running and working out and playing sports. I made her for her early- to mid-thirties, but the lines around her eyes and mouth were deep. Probably from all the sun. She was wearing designer jeans like the black guy and Reebok court shoes and a loose linen top that she would probably cover with a linen sport coat if it weren’t so hot. Stylish and attractive, even with the Browning 9mm clipped to her right hip. She badged me with an LAPD detective shield as she approached, still cheery with the smile, and I recognized her just before she said, “Mr. Cole, my name is Angela Rossi. The detective in the gray suit would like to ask you a few questions.” She glanced at the guy in the bad suit and I followed her look just as she knew I would, and when I did she stepped close and threw an overhand with a black leather sap, trying for the side of my head. Sucker shot. I picked up her move and tried to twist out of the way, but she was good and fast and I caught most of the sap on my right cheek with a blossom of pain. The guy in the suit yelled, “Hey!” and the black guy grunted, “Shit!” like they were surprised, too. Rossi followed the sap with a hard knee, but it caught me in the thigh instead of the groin, and then the older guy was there, wedging himself between us, forcing her away and saying, “Dammit, Rossi, you want another beef in your file? Is that what you want? "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)

20 " I left my car in the garage, then followed the guard’s directions past a Spanish tile fountain in the lobby to the elevators, and then to the top floor. Another blazered gentleman smiled at me in the lobby, and a third just happened to be on the elevator. Both were polite and both, like the guard in the parking garage, had the corded necks of men who spent a lot of their time honing confrontational skills. Corded necks are a dead giveaway. "

― Robert Crais , Sunset Express (Elvis Cole, #6)