Hollywood Crows (13 page)

Gert Von Braun said to Gil Ponce, “I’ll see you at the station.”

“I think maybe there is one real man on the midwatch,” Flotsam said, watching Gert get in her shop. “At least we didn’t get spit at.”

Finally having negotiated her way through the traffic on Hollywood Boulevard, Cat Song double-parked across from the parking structure and trotted over to the group of cops, where she saw the purse snatcher wipe something on the front of his T-shirt and then use both hands to do something to his face.

But her mind was on her young boot, who had nearly gotten himself killed, and she was very mad when she pulled Gil Ponce aside and said quietly, “You almost got pancaked by that head-up-ass tourist in the Ford. You were very lucky. Dumb and lucky.”

“I misjudged his speed,” Gil Ponce said.

“Listen, man of steel,” she said, “you can play Russian roulette, date Phil Spector, or otherwise self-destruct on your own time, but not on mine. There’s no place for a kamikaze kid in my shop.”

“I’m sorry, Cat,” Gil said. “But we got him. We got the guy!”

Jetsam walked over to Cat Song and pointed at Gert Von Braun driving away. “She dunked an eyeball in my Gatorade!” he said. “And swished it around!”

“What?” said Cat Song.

T
HE NEXT DAY
was one where all the watches had to listen to roll call training prepared by the LAPD’s Behavioral Science Services about recognizing suicidal behaviors. The California Highway Patrol, which was a much smaller law enforcement agency than the LAPD, had been experiencing a frightening suicide cluster. Eight of their officers of both genders had committed suicide in the prior year alone, the rate being five times higher than the national average for law enforcement. Suicide was a subject that cops did not wish to talk about. It was disturbing to think about and unnatural that far more cops murder themselves than are murdered by criminals. And that if they stay on the Job long enough, they will have worked with or around some cop who does it.

They preferred to treat it much like others in high-risk jobs treat death, the way fighter pilots treat the deaths of colleagues by blaming nearly all air crashes on pilot errors that they themselves would not have made.

Cops would say, “He probably got into massive debt and couldn’t find a way out.”

Or, “She probably was into drugs or booze and it all got to be too much.”

Or, “He probably had some bipolar shit in his DNA and just went mental. So why didn’t he just hang out at UCLA and shoot law students before they metastasize?”

The first question that a cop asked the sergeant who read the material at day-watch roll call was “Why the CHP? They got it made. Like working for the auto club. Triple A with guns. How hard is that? Why should they be capping themselves?”

And another cop said, “What if they had to live under a federal consent decree like we do? Along with a police commission full of cop-hating political hacks? They’d be setting themselves on fire like Buddhist monks.”

The training bulletin was meaningless to the young coppers at the various roll calls. Why were they being briefed about it? Whatever drove those poor bastards to bite it had nothing to do with
their
young lives.

The senior sergeant, who recognized the defense mechanisms and knew that the BSS shrink assigned to Hollywood Station was the loneliest underworked guy in the division, said, “Yeah, I guess reading this material is a waste of time. It could never happen to us tough guys, could it?”

That morning, before Ronnie and Bix Ramstead could tend to their many calls for quality-of-life service, they were to assist two other Crows with Homeless Outreach, that is, cleaning out the transient encampment in the Hollywood Hills. The other Crows on that assignment were Hollywood Nate Weiss and Rita Kravitz, neither of whom wanted to be there.

Their task was to roust the transients and write citations for trespassing in a mountain fire district. They called it “hitting the billy goat trail,” and for this one, even Nate wore boots and BDUs, the black battle-dress uniform favored by SWAT officers. The encampment was behind the Hollywood Bowl, in the hills and canyons where one could see the lighted cross on the promontory overlooking the John Anson Ford Theater’s parking lot. That parking lot was where older Hollywood cops used to go after night watch for a brew or two, sometimes with a few badge bunnies joining in the fun. That was before the former chief of police, whom they called Lord Voldemort, put a stop to it and to most other activities that provided any enjoyment whatsoever.

Rita Kravitz started complaining the moment they parked their Ford Explorer and started up the steep hillside. She slipped twice and had to grab at some brush and tumbleweed, getting thorns in her hand and breaking an acrylic nail.

“Goddamnit!” she muttered after the second fall. “Now a scorpion will probably sting me.”

“Or you might step on a rattlesnake,” Nate said, climbing behind her. “They say the babies are the deadliest.”

“Shut up,” Rita said.

Then Bix Ramstead slipped and skidded down the slope a few feet until he grabbed a handful of brush and pulled himself upright.

“I’m too old for this,” he said.

Ronnie, who wasn’t having an easy time either, said, “Everybody’s too old for this. How the hell do the homeless geezers do it?”

“They must have a helicopter stashed somewhere,” Hollywood Nate said, wiping sweat from his brow. “This is steeper than a dinner tab at the Ivy.” Then he added, “Where I happen to be going next week with a director pal of mine.” Nate was disappointed that everybody was too tired and grumpy to give a shit.

When they finally got to the encampment, there were only three little tents in place, made from blue tarps that had probably been stolen from a construction site. A homeless transient was cooking a hot dog over a small fire pit dug into the dry earth.

“Morning, Officers,” he said when he saw them.

He looked seventy, but he could have been fifty. His clothing was typical: a sweatshirt over a T-shirt over another T-shirt, even on this hot, smoggy day. And a pair of baggy dungarees, none of it having been dipped in soapy water for several weeks. Or months.

“I recognize you,” Bix Ramstead said. “I thought we told you to leave last time I was here.”

“I did leave,” he said.

“But you’re still here,” Bix said.

“That was then. This is now.”

“You weren’t supposed to come back.”

“Oh,” the guy said. “I didn’t know you meant forever.”

“Why don’t you go to the homeless shelter?” Bix said.

“Too many rules,” the transient said. “A man’s gotta be free. It’s what America’s all about.”

“I’m getting all choked up,” Rita Kravitz said. Then she looked in the second makeshift tent, where a fat woman was snoring, surrounded by empty cans of Mexican beer. Rita kicked the bottom of her filthy bare feet until she sat up and said, “What the fuck?”

Hollywood Nate went to the third tent and heard more snoring. Powerful chainsaw snores, along with wheezes and whistles and snuffling.

“Hey, dude!” Nate said. “Rise and shine!”

The snoring continued, rhythm unbroken. Nate grabbed the tent and started shaking it.

“Earthquake!” he yelled. “Run for your life!”

Still there was no change in the pattern of snores or the whistling snuffles.

Nate grabbed the tent in both hands and shook it violently, yelling, “Get your ass up!”

And it worked. A deep voice from within the tent bellowed, “I’ll kill you, you motherfucker! I’m armed! If I come out, you’re a dead man, you son of a bitch! Hear me? Dead!”

Nate leaped back and drew his Glock, tripping on a loose chunk of sandstone and falling flat on his ass, tumbling backward several feet down the hillside.

Ronnie drew her Beretta and so did Rita Kravitz. Bix Ramstead pulled his nine and his baton, just in case deadly force was not in the cards. And they all started yelling.

“Crawl out!” Rita Kravitz ordered. “Hands first!”

“Let’s see your hands!” Ronnie ordered. “Your hands!”

“Now!” Bix Ramstead ordered. “Crawl out now!”

As Hollywood Nate scrambled to his feet and advanced on the tent, looking for cover if the guy should come out shooting, the tent flap was thrown open and four guns were deployed diagonally, leveled at the tent.

A wizened transient with a wild white beard halfway down his puny bare chest popped his head out, holding his “weapon,” a piece of broom handle, and saw the four cops pointing pistols at him.

He offered an apologetic, toothless smile and said, “I’m just not a morning person.”

Things were getting desperate for Leonard Stilwell. Nothing was working out in a world where trust was eroding. The old burglary targets had gotten harder what with more sophisticated alarms and window bars. His short flirtation with purse picking had terrified him after seeing what happened to the long-haired guy in flip-flops. He’d tried the ATM scam for three nights straight and never again was able to score the way he had with the Iranian woman. One of the chumps figured it out right away and threatened to call the cops.

He had no rock left, no crystal meth, not even a blunt to mellow him out before he hit the streets, contemplating a degrading life as a common shoplifter. Then he thought of old customers to whom he had sold stolen cases of liquor. He thought of Ali Aziz.

It was late afternoon by the time he arrived at the Leopard Lounge on Sunset Boulevard. The nightclub would not be open yet, but he knew workers would be there cleaning and setting up. This was the hour when he used to drive up to the back door with Whitey Dawson and get his prearranged cash payment from Ali. Leonard banged on the front door and was admitted by a Mexican busboy who recognized him. Ali was in work clothes behind the bar, checking the stock.

“Ali!” Leonard said, slapping palms with the nightclub owner.

“Leonard!” Ali said with a grin, displaying the gold eyetooth that Leonard figured was a status symbol in shitty sand countries.

“Can we go in your office and talk?” Leonard asked. “Just for five minutes?”

“For my old friend Leonard, yes,” Ali said.

And Leonard was glad he’d worn his only clean T-shirt and freshly laundered jeans. His sneakers were worn out, but he felt that he didn’t look as poor and desperate as he really was.

When they got inside the office, Ali said, “You got some liquor for me, Leonard?”

“Well, no, not yet. But I’m working on it.”

Ali turned sullen. He didn’t ask Leonard to sit. If this thief wasn’t selling liquor, what could he possibly want?

“So?” Ali said, sitting on the corner of his desk.

“I got this deal in the works, Ali,” Leonard began, “but I need an advance. Not much, but enough to pay a guy to give me an alarm code.”

“Advance?” Ali said, and he started fidgeting with one of his gold pinkie rings, the one with a big white stone that Leonard doubted was real.

“Maybe… five hundred?”

“You wish to borrow five hundred dollars?” Ali said, incredulous.

“As an advance against my fee when I deliver the stock.”

“You are going crazy,” Ali said, standing up. “Crazy, Leonard.”

“Wait, Ali!” Leonard said. “Two hundred. I think I could shake the alarm code loose for two hundred.”

“You waste my time,” Ali said, checking the face on his huge gold watch.

“Ali,” Leonard said, “we done lots of business in the past. I can still help you out. I got several plans in the works.”

Ali Aziz glanced at the photos on the shelf over the TV. Then at Leonard, then back at the pictures. He went around his desk and sat in his executive chair and motioned Leonard to the client chair.

Leonard’s legs were shaky and his hands were sweating now. He needed some rock bad. Perspiration was running down his freckled cheeks from his rusty hairline, and sweat beaded under his sockets, beneath the vacant blue-eyed stare. But he was full of hope and he waited.

Nearly a minute passed before Ali spoke. When he did, he said, “Leonard, you are a good thief, no?”

“I’m the best,” Leonard Stilwell said, trying to look confident. “You know that. We never had no trouble when Whitey and me sold you liquor. No trouble at all.”

“No trouble,” Ali said. “That is so. But now Whitey is dead.”

“And if I just had the alarm code that this guy said he’d…”

Ali shook his head, waving his hand palm down, and Leonard shut up.

“You are giving me a big idea,” Ali said. “About the alarm code. You enter and steal from business buildings many times,” Ali said. “You also can enter and steal from a house, no?”

“Yeah, sure, but why would I want to? There’s nothing in most houses. Even the big houses up where you live. People don’t keep cash laying around no more. Everything’s done with credit cards. And a lot of that fancy jewelry you see at red carpet events? It’s fake.”

“How you know where I live?”

“You told me one time,” Leonard said. “Up in the hills. Mount Olympus, right?”

Ali nodded. “Okay, but I do not live there no more. My bitch wife is living there with my son. We are in a very big divorce fight. The house is sold and we must wait for escrow to close up.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Leonard said, unable to concentrate fully. Thinking how fast he was going to drive his Honda to Pablo’s Tacos or the cyber café and score something to smoke, wondering how much he could get out of this Ay-rab.

“I am thinking that I need for you to enter my house on a Thursday. At four o’clock in the day. There is something I must have for my divorce fight.”

“What something?”

“Bank papers. Very important.”

“Can’t you just ask for them? Or have your lawyer do it?”

“Impossible,” Ali said. “My bitch wife is not going to give them. She wishes to use the documents against me.”

“Are they in a safe? I never done a safe.”

“No, just in a desk drawer.”

Now Leonard was perspiring even more. This didn’t sound right. He didn’t like the way Ali was explaining it. There was too much hesitation, like he was making it up as he went along. If he’d only smoked one little blunt to mellow him out, he could think better.