Hollywood Crows (33 page)

So it had all been a lie, Leonard thought. Ali Aziz had hired him under completely false pretenses and had lied to him about nearly everything. Well, he had known something was wrong from the get-go and should have guessed sooner that Ali was a complete phony and liar. That’s the way it was nowadays. There wasn’t an honest person left in the whole fucking town.

T
ERRIBLE EVENTS
were to take place on Hollywood Boulevard early that evening, events that left tourists screaming and children in tears. And Leonard Stilwell, flush with greenbacks and desperate for rock, walked right into it.

Things hadn’t been peaceful along the Walk of Fame in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre for some time. There was always a Street Character getting busted for something or other by the Street Character Task Force. Arrests had involved the red Muppet Elmo and Chewbacca and Mr. Incredible, to name a few. And the Crows had meetings where they tried to gather the hundred freelancing Street Characters — many of whom duplicated the same cartoon icons, and many of whom were drug addicts — to warn them that laws against aggressive panhandling would be enforced to the letter.

And it wasn’t that the Street Characters were only fighting the law, they were fighting one another too. For example, when a tourist was snapping photos of a Superman, a SpongeBob SquarePants might hop into the shot and try to hustle half the tip. This caused clashes among the Characters, some of them physical, as well as the forming of cliques. On a given day, one or two of the Spider-Man Characters might align with a Willy Wonka, who might be feuding with a Catwoman or a Shrek. And that might torque off Donald Duck, or the Wolf Man, or one of the many Darth Vaders. It could get ugly when teams like a Lone Ranger and Tonto or a Batman and Robin got hacked off at each other, especially since their tips from tourists depended in no small measure on the partnership itself. What was a Robin without a Batman?

But that was what happened on that Thursday evening, a few hours after Ali Aziz had been so busy perpetrating the future murder of his ex-wife. And shortly after Leonard Stilwell, with a thousand bucks in his kick, could not score at the cyber café or at Pablo’s Tacos because of a mini–task force of narcs who were jacking up every tweaker or street dealer anywhere near those two establishments.

It could have been that everyone, including Street Characters, was particularly gloomy from the announcement that there would no longer be a Hollywood Christmas Parade, an event inaugurated by the Hollywood chamber of commerce in 1928. The popular parade had featured Grand Marshal superstars such as Bob Hope, Gene Autry, James Stewart, Natalie Wood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charlton Heston. But as Hollywood had lost much of its glamour in recent years, so did the parade. Recent Grand Marshals included Tom Arnold, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Fonda. And it had finally gotten so bad that they even had to settle for a local politician, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. That was probably the parade’s death knell.

So, on Hollywood Boulevard, on a scorching summer evening when the bone-dry air hit you in the face like a blast from a hair dryer, and the temperature inside Street Characters’ costumes was unbearable, the stage was set for riot. And to make things worse, a labor dispute was going on, and a local union had a group of members with signs and pickets demonstrating in front of the Kodak Center because of nonunion workers being employed there. A woman officer in plainclothes from LAPD’s Labor Relations Section was monitoring, but that was the only police presence.

Just after sunset, when Hollywood takes on its rosy glow, and the hundreds of tourists in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre feel the buzz that says, anything can happen here, something did. Some said that Robin started it, others blamed it on Batman. Either Robin called Batman “a big fat chiseling faggot” or Batman called Robin “a whiny little sissy punk.” Nobody was ever sure where the truth lay, but there was no doubt that Robin threw the first punch at his partner. It was a hook to Batman’s ample gut and Batman’s plastic breastplate didn’t protect him much.

He went, “Oooooof!” And sat down on Steve McQueen’s footprints, preserved in the cement of the forecourt.

Then a Spider-Man, one of the larger ones who had been aligned with that particular Batman during a recent Street Character feud, put a hand on Robin’s face and shoved him down onto the concrete imprint of Groucho Marx’s cigar.

Then Superman and his pal Wonder Woman — who was actually a wiry transvestite with leg stubble — called Spider-Man a “pukey insect” and proceeded to beat the living shit out of him while tourists screamed and children quaked in fear.

Leonard Stilwell had parked his Honda in the parking lot closest to the Kodak Center. He didn’t give a damn about the excessive parking charges, not with all those Franklins in his pocket. He figured to catch up with Junior tomorrow and give the Fijian back his tools, along with a President Grant.

He was surprised to discover that no matter how much money he had, sometimes there were things that money couldn’t buy. And so far that afternoon and evening, he could not buy rock cocaine anywhere. He hoped that one of the hooks from South L.A. who hung around the subway station might have a few rocks on him. If not, he could risk trying one of the Street Characters in front of the Chinese Theatre, but only as a last resort. He still remembered clearly what had happened at the Kodak Center to big Pluto when he had the dope in his head.

The woman officer from Labor Relations Section had run to the melee, holding up her badge and yelling, “Police officer!” but Superman and Wonder Woman wouldn’t back off and Spider-Man was moaning in pain. And the trouble was far from over.

Batman, having recovered from the blow to the belly, suddenly needed a bowel movement badly. He saw that the labor union pickets had a large trailer parked at the curb, along with an Andy Gump porta-potty attached to it.

Holding his wounded gut, he ran crablike to the Andy Gump, opened the door and stepped inside, and relieved himself with an eruption that could clearly be heard by the outraged pickets guarding the trailer.

When Batman emerged from the Andy Gump, one of the pickets, a diminutive fifty-two-year-old black man, who happened to be the local union representative, said, “Hey, dude, nobody said you could take a dump in our Gump.”

“Batman craps wherever he wants,” said Batman.

The little union steward said, “Batman is jist some jiveass flyin’ rat in a funky ten-dollar cape, far as I’m concerned.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t shit in your hat, you ugly little nigger,” said Batman.

The union rep, who had been a pretty good Golden Gloves bantamweight thirty years earlier, said, “Ain’t no fuckin’ bat gonna front me, not even Count Dracula!”

On the eleven o’clock news that night, the reporter who witnessed the mini-riot showed his audience a Batman cartoon panel and said that what happened next was just like in the comic books: “POW! WHAM! BAM!”

“However,” he added, “it was the caped crusader who got clocked and kissed the concrete.”

Thus, Batman became the second superhero that day to be taken to the ER for multiple contusions and abrasions.

By then, the Labor Relations cop had put out a help call, and the midwatch units just clearing from roll call, with plenty of daylight left, were on their way. Gert Von Braun and Dan Applewhite arrived first and pulled Superman and Wonder Woman away from Spider-Man, Gert grabbing Wonder Woman by the shoulder-length auburn tresses — which suddenly came off in Gert’s hand.

“Mommy!” a young girl shrieked. “Wonder Woman is bald like Daddy!”

Two other night-watch units arrived, and soon there were hundreds of tourists snapping photos like mad and a TV news van caused a traffic jam on Hollywood Boulevard. Leonard Stilwell decided that this was no place for him. He started jogging around the tourists on the Walk of Fame, heading toward the parking lot, but ran smack into 6-X-46 of the midwatch.

“Whoa, dude!” Flotsam said. “It’s him!”

Jetsam grabbed Leonard’s arm as he was hotfooting it past the cops and spun him around. “I been thinking about you, bro,” he said.

Leonard recognized them at once, those heartless, sunburned cops with the bleached-out spiky hairdos. “I got nothing to do with that ruckus back there,” Leonard said.

“Let’s see that piece of paper in your car,” Flotsam said. “The one with the address written on it.”

“What piece of paper?” Leonard said.

“Don’t fuck with us,” Jetsam said.

“I’m not!” Leonard whined. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man!”

“The paper with the address up on Mount Olympus,” Flotsam said. “Do you remember now? And you better give the right answer.”

“Oh, that paper,” Leonard said.

“Yeah, let’s go to your car so I can see it again,” Jetsam said.

“I ain’t got it no more,” Leonard said.

“Why did you have it in the first place?” Jetsam said.

“Have what?” Leonard said.

“Screw you, bro,” Jetsam said, reaching for his handcuffs.

“Wait a minute!” Leonard said. “Gimme a chance to think!”

“Think fast, dude,” Flotsam said. “My partner’s outta patience.”

“I wrote down an address that I got outta the newspaper,” Leonard said. “It was about a job. Somebody needed a housepainter.”

“You’re a housepainter?” Flotsam said.

“Yeah, but I’m outta work at the moment.”

“I been thinking about painting my bedroom,” Flotsam said. “Should I use a semigloss enamel on the bedroom walls or a latex?”

Leonard was getting dry-mouthed now. The only latex he knew about involved the gloves he used on his jobs. He said, “Depends on what you like.”

Jetsam said, “Do most people use oil-base enamel or water-base latex on their bedroom walls?”

Leonard said, “Enamel?”

“Let’s go visit your car, dude,” Flotsam said. “Maybe that piece of paper’s still there.”

When they got to the parking lot, Leonard led them to his car, parked in the far corner. “You ain’t got no right to search my car and you know it,” he said.

“Who says we’re searching your car?” Jetsam said. “We just wanna see that piece of paper again.”

“Then you’ll stop hassling me?” Leonard said.

Jetsam looked at Flotsam and said, “He says we’re hassling him.”

“I’m shocked. Shocked!” Flotsam said.

Leonard opened the car door and got in, reaching for the glove compartment.

“Wait a minute, dude,” Flotsam said.

“I’m gonna see if I put it in the glove box,” Leonard said.

“Wait till my partner gets around and can see in there,” Flotsam said. “That’s how cops get hurt.”

“Me hurt you? Your feelings or what?” Leonard said disgustedly as Jetsam opened the passenger door, his hand on the butt of his nine.

“Now go ahead and open it,” Jetsam said.

Twilight was casting long shadows by then, and Jetsam used his flashlight to illuminate the glove compartment.

Leonard remembered where the note was then and reached up under the visor, saying, “Here it is.” But Leonard didn’t remember that he’d tossed the tension bar and pick in the glove box.

“What’s this?” Jetsam said, his flashlight beam on the locksmith tools.

“What’s what?” Leonard said. And then he remembered what!

“Those strange little objects in the glove compartment,” Jetsam said. “Do you, like, use them to pry off the lids from paint cans?”

Leonard looked in the glove box and said, “They been in the car since I bought it. I don’t know what they are. Are they illegal? Like kiddie porn or something?”

“Get outta the car,” Jetsam said. “And gimme your keys. I don’t think you’ll mind if I look for more strange objects, will you?”

“What’s the use?” Leonard said. “You’ll do it anyways.”

When Leonard Stilwell was standing outside the car, and Jetsam was looking under the front seats and in the trunk, Flotsam patted down Leonard Stilwell, felt the bills in his pocket, and said, “What’s this?”

“Just my money,” Leonard said.

“How much money?” Flotsam said.

“Do I gotta answer that?” Leonard said.

“If you know how much you got, then we’ll figure it’s your money,” Flotsam said. “If you don’t know how much you got, we’ll figure you just picked a pocket or a purse in front of the Kodak Center. And we’ll go look for a victim. Might take a long time.”

“A thousand bucks,” Leonard said. “Ten Ben Franklins.”

The surfer cops looked at each other again and Jetsam said, “You got a thousand bucks in your kick? Where’d you get it?”

“Playing poker,” Leonard said.

“And you got locksmith tools,” Jetsam said, “but they just happened to be in your car when you bought it?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“And you can’t pick a lock?”

“Man, I can hardly pick my nose!” Leonard said. “You guys’re harassing me! This is police harassment!”

“Tell you what, dude,” Flotsam said. “If you can spell
harassment
, we’ll let you go. If you can’t, we’ll take you to Hollywood Station to talk to a detective. How’s that?”

Leonard said, “H-e-r…”

Fifteen minutes later, Leonard Stilwell was sitting with Flotsam in an interview room at Hollywood Station, and Jetsam was in the detective squad room, explaining what they’d found to Compassionate Charlie Gilford, who was irritated to be pulled away from his tape of
Dancing with the Stars
, where Heather Mills McCartney hit the floor but disappointed Charlie when her prosthetic leg stayed attached.

“What we got here is some lock picks and a thousand bucks and a guy with a four-five-nine record,” Charlie said, never eager to do any work whatsoever. “That’s pretty thin for a felony booking. How about that wrong address note? Can’t we pull a victim outta that somehow?”

“The burglary dicks might be able to do it tomorrow,” Jetsam said. “That’s the reason we lock him up tonight, right? To give them forty-eight hours. Come on, this guy’s dirty. I just know it!”

“Lemme get a coffee and think about it,” Charlie said.

Since the federal consent decree had gone into effect six years earlier, the nighttime detective could no longer approve a felony booking. Now the detective could only “advise” a booking, and then it went to the patrol watch commander for a booking “referral.” It seemed that the federal government and its legion of overpaid civilian auditors and overseers didn’t like declaratory phrasing and active verbs that sounded too aggressive. Their preferences created a lot more paperwork, as did everything about the consent decree. But in the end, it all amounted to the same thing. A felony suspect went to the slam for forty-eight hours while the detectives tried to make a case that they could take to the district attorney’s office.