Hollywood Crows (24 page)

After finishing their burritos, Jetsam and Flotsam drove back in the direction of the cockfight raid instead of toward their beat.

“Where you going, dude?” Flotsam said.

“To take a look at the big chicken caper.”

“Why?”

“You ever seen a fighting rooster?”

“No, and I got no desire.”

“Might be educational.”

By the time they pulled into the warehouse parking lot, everything was under control. All of the Mexican and Filipino spectators were inside being questioned and having FI cards filled out on them. Everyone was being checked for wants and warrants, and a few were being cited. There was nobody outside the building except Gil Ponce, standing by a stack of metal cages containing the fighting cocks, which were still squawking furiously and pecking at the steel confining them.

Jetsam drove up to the young cop and said, “What’s going down in there, dude?”

“Nothing now,” Gil said. “Just FI-ing everybody and running them for warrants. Gonna book a few. You shoulda been here when we first arrived. One of the organizers of this thing tried to get away, but Gert threw a body block that knocked him flat.”

“Yeah, she would,” Flotsam said.

Then a lithe figure came through the darkness, carrying a steel crate. When she got close, they saw it was Cat Song.

“That rat dog bastard,” she said to the surfer cops. “Treakle’s making us carry the birds out here instead of waiting for Animal Control to do it. He wants to lock up the warehouse and go brag to the watch commander about his great chicken raid and leave us to babysit the birds until Animal Control arrives. I’ve got feathers and chicken shit on my uniform!”

She stacked the cage on top of two others and the fighting cocks made a louder racket at the new arrival.

“How many birds you got?” Jetsam asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Ten, twelve. Haven’t counted them.” Then she turned to Gil Ponce and said, “Come on, sonny, I’m not carrying these things all by myself.”

When they walked back inside the warehouse, Jetsam glanced at Flotsam, who looked like he was about to start whining about his shoulder again.

Jetsam turned out the headlights, jumped out of the black-and-white, and opened the back door on Flotsam’s side.

“What’re you doing, dude?” Flotsam asked.

He watched in amazement when Jetsam grabbed the top crate and swung it into the backseat of their shop, saying, “You had a bad day at Malibu, bro. I’m trying to cheer you up.”

“Just whadda you got on your desktop?” Flotsam said anxiously.

“Now, bro, don’t suck the cool outta this situation,” Jetsam said, closing the door and getting behind the wheel.

“What situation?” Flotsam wanted to know, and soon found out.

Jetsam drove, lights out, and wheeled into the parking lot, where a lone black-and-white was parked in the darkness. And he said, “You still carry that Slim Jim in your war bag?”

“Dude, this is totally uncool,” Flotsam said.

Jetsam got out of the car and said, “Bro, this is fate at work. Look at that old cageless black-and-white sitting there waiting for us. Don’t bitch out on me. This is our destiny!”

“Stay real, dude!” Flotsam said, but nevertheless he was fascinated watching Jetsam get gloved up and slide the Slim Jim inside the car window until he unlocked the door.

“Go to sleep, chicken,” Jetsam said to the caged bird when he transferred the cage through the rear door of Sergeant Treakle’s car. But when he opened the rooster’s cage, he got his finger pecked.

“Ow!” he said. “This ungrateful chicken bit me. And I was starting to like him ’cause he looks so much like Keith Richards.”

“This ain’t cool, is all I got to say,” Flotsam said. But actually he thought it
was
pretty cool. If they didn’t get caught.

When Jetsam closed and locked Sergeant Treakle’s shop and they drove away looking for a likely Dumpster in which to toss the empty cage, Flotsam said, “Do you think the boot might panic and dime us when that heel-clicking, no-lips little Nazi starts trying to figure out who boosted the chicken?”

“I ain’t sure if Ponce’s still a probie,” Jetsam said. “He might own his pink slip by now. Anyways, Cat Song would shove one of those Korean metal chopsticks in his eyeball if he tries to put us behind the grassy knoll. We’re gravy, bro.”

Sergeant Treakle was pleased as punch with the raid when all was said and done. Citations were written to three men who had been drinking in the parking lot when the cops swooped in. Five were arrested for public drunkenness or for outstanding traffic warrants. None were cited for being spectators at the cockfight because it hadn’t started yet. The two organizers were arrested and booked at Hollywood Station on the animal cruelty charge.

After Animal Control arrived and took custody of the birds, Sergeant Treakle made sure that the warehouse was secured and the burglar alarm set. He was meticulous and proud of the job they’d done. And because he was riding with Gert Von Braun and Dan Applewhite, they had to wait until the bitter end. They were hungry and cranky, and both had soiled uniforms from helping to haul the fighting cocks out of the warehouse.

When everyone was gone or driving away except the two midwatch units, Sergeant Treakle said, “Now, Von Braun, I have a treat for you and Applewhite.”

“What’s that?” Gert said doubtfully.

“I’m inviting you to take code seven with me. I’m treating. You name the eating spot.”

With the odor of the frantic birds and the chicken shit still in her nostrils, Gert Von Braun said sourly, “Oh, goody. Let’s go to KFC, Sergeant Treakle. I want wings and a drumstick.”

Gil Ponce suppressed his giggle when he saw that their supervisor was glowering.

“On second thought, you and Applewhite can clear,” Sergeant Treakle said with a frosty glance at Gert. Turning to Cat he said, “Song, you and Ponce can drive me to my car.”

Gert mouthed the words
Sorry, Cat
when she and Dan Applewhite walked to their car.

“Thanks, partner,” Dan said to Gert. “Treakle gives me heartburn so bad I feel like I need a bottle of antacid in my holster with an IV drip attached.”

Sergeant Treakle got into the backseat of Cat and Gil’s shop and they drove quickly to the parking lot staging area without conversation. Upon getting out of their black-and-white, he said, “Stay here till I get it started. The electrical system in that old car is dicey.”

Cat sighed and put the car in park and shook her head at Gil, and they waited. As it turned out, she was eternally glad they did or they might have missed it.

The exhausted bird was down on the floor in the back, apparently asleep, when Sergeant Treakle unlocked the driver’s door and got in, thinking the odor of those horrid birds just wouldn’t go away. The bird apparently stayed asleep when Sergeant Treakle pulled the door closed. The bird didn’t budge when Sergeant Treakle started the engine. But when Sergeant Treakle tooted his horn to signal to 6-X-32 that they could go ahead and clear, the fighting cock exploded in a whirring tornado of claws, horrifying screeches, and flapping wings!

Gil Ponce heard strange sounds, and he picked up the spotlight and shined it on Sergeant Treakle’s car. Then he said, “Cat! Sergeant Treakle’s being attacked!”

“What?” Cat Song said, slamming on the brakes.

Then they both gaped, frozen for an instant, as the enraged rooster raked the back of Sergeant Treakle with sharp claws and pecked at his skull, all the time beating powerful wings and screaming like a cat.

But as loud as the fighting cock shrieked, he wasn’t shrieking half as loudly as Sergeant Jason Treakle, who fell gurgling from the car onto his face. Cat Song ran to the car and poked her baton at the furious bird, driving it back until she could close the door again.

“Oh, my god!” Gil Ponce said. “Sergeant Treakle, are you injured?”

But Sergeant Treakle couldn’t talk. He was making fearful strangling sounds and trying desperately just to breathe.

“Call for an RA!” Cat said to Gil Ponce. “And get that Animal Control truck back here! And then bring me a bag! He’s hyperventilating!”

“A bag?” Gil Ponce said. “Where’ll I get a bag?”

“Forget the bag! Just make the calls!”

“Okay!” Gil said, running to their car.

When he came back, Gil found Cat propping their supervisor upright, easing him gingerly against the door of his shop. He yelped when his wounded back touched metal, and Cat told him to ignore the pain and try to breathe normally.

“Is Sergeant Treakle gonna be okay?” Gil Ponce asked.

“I think so,” Cat Song said. “But he had quite a shock, and he got beat up pretty bad. And he’s just
covered
with chicken shit.”

By the time the paramedics arrived and treated the wounds on Sergeant Treakle’s head, neck, and back, the team from Animal Control had showed up as well. Cat opened the car door for them, then jumped back. But they captured the now docile bird without incident and caged it in the back of their van. The lieutenant was on a day off and the acting watch commander was called to the scene. He happened to be the oldest patrol sergeant at Hollywood Station and was well aware of young Sergeant Treakle’s methods and reputation.

Cat was standing near enough to overhear the senior sergeant say to Sergeant Treakle, “Maybe we should keep this outrageous prank quiet. It’s just the kind of story that little
L.A
.
Times
prick who covers the LAPD would love to get on a local headline. The Department would look silly, and so would you.”

“
Me
look silly?” Sergeant Treakle said. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this! I’d like Internal Affairs to interrogate every officer who was out here and put them all on the polygraph!”

That touched a nerve with the elder supervisor, who had been around long enough to know how unreliable the polygraph is, especially with the overdeveloped superegos of those who make up the police service. He knew that a sociopath’s poly chart is essentially flat lines, but a cop’s looks like a witch’s hat if you so much as ask him if he’s jerked off anytime in the last decade.

“I know you don’t deserve this,” the old sergeant said soothingly. “Nobody deserves this. But everyone who reads the
Times
would laugh at us. Laugh at
you
. If we launch an investigation, it would leak in a heartbeat. Right now, nobody knows about this except Song and Ponce and the paramedics. I’ll talk to all of them.” When he said it, he turned toward Cat, who pretended to be writing in the log.

“They shouldn’t get away with this!” said Sergeant Treakle.

“But we can’t go off half-cocked,” replied the old sergeant.

“Half-
cocked
,” said Gil Ponce, giggling, until Sergeant Treakle scowled at him.

“But I know in my gut who did it!” Sergeant Treakle said.

“Who’s that?”

“That smart-ass vice cop. The Hispanic guy with the beard. I just know it was him.”

“Look, Treakle,” the old sergeant said. “Do you want your family and friends to read a headline that says—”

“Okay, I get it!” Sergeant Treakle said, finding the headline possibilities unbearable to contemplate. “But I know it was that vice cop.”

“Maybe you should ask the captain for a transfer to some other division,” the old sergeant said. “Get a fresh start somewhere else. Does that sound okay?”

“I can’t wait,” Sergeant Treakle agreed. Then, for the first time, he was heard to utter an obscenity. He sat and pondered for a moment and said, “Fucking Hollywood!”

Sergeant Treakle refused to be transported for further medical treatment at Cedars-Sinai when Cat Song said they might need to wear biohazard outfits to clean him up. And he drove the cageless shop back to the station on his own — feathers, chicken shit, and all.

The senior sergeant then spoke with Cat and young Gil Ponce about the need to keep the incident quiet for the good of Hollywood Station. And they indicated that they understood the gravity of a situation where a prank caused injury and terror to the junior supervisor — who would likely be transferring out of the division ASAP. They assured the senior sergeant that they wouldn’t breathe a word of it.

Before an hour had passed, Cat Song had phoned Ronnie Sinclair at home, text-messaged Gert Von Braun, and managed to reach Hollywood Nate on his cell phone, knowing how much he loathed Sergeant Treakle. Everyone thanked her effusively for sharing and promised they wouldn’t breathe a word of it.

Gil Ponce, being one of the officers who had declined an invitation to participate in Bible study with Sergeant Treakle, whispered all the details to Doomsday Dan in the locker room at end-of-watch — with a theological question attached. The young cop wondered if it was possible that in the first instant of being suddenly enveloped in great dark wings and hearing unearthly screeching in his ears, Sergeant Treakle may have smelled sulfur and believed that he’d been seized by the Antichrist himself!

“It’s heartwarming to think so,” the older cop replied. Then he added, “The Oracle always said that doing good police work was the most fun we’d ever have. Well, there’s a pair of anonymous coppers out there who did some
great
police work tonight. I hope they remembered the Oracle.”

T
WO OF THE CROWS
at Hollywood South had worrisome thoughts the next day about Bix Ramstead, but neither was aware of the other’s concern. Ronnie wanted to know if Bix had fallen off the wagon and been drinking on duty the night before, and Nate wanted to know what the hell Bix Ramstead was doing up on Mt. Olympus at the home of Margot Aziz. But neither had the nerve to ask him.

That morning, Ronnie and Bix were tasked to do follow-ups to neighbors of various tanning salons, an aromatherapy salon, an acupuncturist, and a chiropractor. All complaints had come from neighborhood residents and businesspeople, and most concerned illegal parking and nighttime noise. There was an accusation of prostitution directed at tanning salons because of an excessive number of men entering and leaving all day and late in the evenings. One of the tanning salons and the aromatherapy salon had been busted in the past by vice cops posing as customers, but both businesses were said to be under new management.