On the Grind (2009) (17 page)

I was congratulated by half a dozen Haven Park cops for not puking or browning my pants like shit-stain Larry Miller. They all said I had balls.

I walked around greeting guys. Two topless dancers wanted to take me into the changing room and give me a party, but I managed to escape that indignity.

Then someone introduced me to Oscar Juarez. He was a well
-
built, clean-cut guy, about twenty-three, with a baby face and chocolate-brown eyes.

"Somebody just told me this party is in your honor," Oscar said, smiling. "So whats the deal with that?"

As I was trying to figure out that remark, I wondered if he'd also passed the orange grove test. But if he had, shouldn't he know the reason I was being honored? He looked very young and innocent. It was hard for me to picture him mixed up in this.

"I guess you know what I just went through," I said, watching his dark eyes carefully, looking for any sign.

"I'm sorry?" he said, perplexed.

"The orange grove?"

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

I should have been relieved, but his answer presented me with a new dilemma. Was he really the only street cop in Haven Park who wasn't on the grind, or was he playing me, trying to get me to confide in him so I'd give myself up? Was I still under suspicion? Was my entire orange grove loyalty test just an elaborate head feint? When you're working undercover, you tend to overthink everything.

Rick Ross, who was currently twenty yards away inside the cabana doing a line of blow, had been the one who suggested Oscar might be okay. Did I really want to take his word for anything? I decided I'd better not trust Officer Juarez either. I moved on.

Cecil Bratano had a six-car garage and an hour later I was down there with five or so guests I didn't know, admiring the mayor s impressive car collection. All the garage doors were open and each space contained a beautifully maintained, sixties sports car. He had a Porsche 356B, two Austin Healys, and a classic MGB-GT in mint condition. But the star of his collection was a perfectly restored turquoise-and-white 1960 Cadillac El Dorado convertible. It sat on a pristine concrete floor, its chrome and big fins glittering impressively.

An elderly Hispanic man with silver hair who looked dapper in a dark suit informed me that he took care of the collection and that the Shelby was worth over two hundred thousand. He told me proudly that Cecil had paid cash for all of them. Not bad for an elementary school dropout.

At about eleven-thirty, Talbot Jones found me in the garage. "Follow me," he said. "The man wants to see you now."

Chapter
31

Captain Jones led the way through the erowd of milling party guests into the mayor s magnificent mansion.

Like lots of guys who made their money late in life, Cecil Bratano needed to show it off. He had crammed way too much expensive stuff into his house. The downstairs looked like a decorators showroom --priceless Louis XV antiques and turn-of-the
-
century carved wooden tables crowded each other for space on the main floor. There were oversized original paintings in gilded frames and swag lamps with fringed shades. The house reminded me of a Louisiana whorehouse with its dark velvet draperies and nude bronzed statues that seemed to stand everywhere in unabashed poses.

I followed Talbot Jones up the red-carpeted circular staircase and once we got to the top landing, he led me straight across the hall, opened a door and pulled me into a large linen closet stacked with folded sheets.

'This is different" I said, trying to keep it friendly. Even though I was grinning, I had my feet spread for balance, ready for anything.

"I gotta go through you, Shane. Sorry. Nobody talks to the mayor unless we check for a wire first."

"I thought I just made the team. Member of the posse."

"Don't argue. Turn around and hold out your arms."

It worried me that I kept getting all these body searches. Fortunately, the wire Agent Love had given we was still on my dresser at the hotel.

"Don't be a problem, Scully. This isn't about you; it's about protocol. We're very careful when it comes to Cecil, so just do it."

I patiently endured another frisk, but was beginning to suspect I would never get a murder solicitation on tape if this continued.

After he was finished Jones said, "Follow me."

We found Cecil Bratano holding court with about ten people, half of them beautiful women, in a large, wood-paneled game room that was also crammed with expensive stuff. Music equipment was jammed into every available open space. There was a full-sized Wurlitzer organ, an electronic keyboard, a drum set and at least twenty celebrity guitars on chrome stands, all signed in Magic Marker by music legends like Elvis, Johnny Cash and, of course, Frankie Valli.

An entire wall was devoted to a flat screen for video gaming. An ornately carved antique pool table dominated the center of the room. It all shone impressively, but there was so much, it only managed to seem like clutter.

Mayor Cecil Bratano was on the far side of the room. He was a man of Hispanic descent in his mid
-
to late fifties. I'd read numerous briefing reports on him that made him out to be a corrup
t t
hug. In person, he was nothing like I'd expected. The mayor was a short, merry man with twinkling eyes, a trimmed mustache, and an infectious smile that was disarming even from twenty feet away. He wore a white Mexican guayabera shirt with tan linen pants and designer shoes that had to have set him back at least a grand. He also wore too many heavy diamond and gold accessories. His watch band could have balanced the national debt of Honduras. Thinning gray hair was slicked back and laid flat against a perfectly formed skull.

Talbot Jones led me up to him and introduced us. After we shook hands, the mayor smiled and said, "So you're my new patrolman." He had absolutely no trace of an accent. Behind his dark eyes, fierce intelligence burned.

"That's me," I said, my own smile widening to match his.

"Congratulations, Shane. It's damn hard to get on this department."

A week earlier I would have thought he was joking, but after kneeling in that orange grove with my own socks in my mouth, I knew he wasn't.

"This is some house," I said. Meaningless chitchat but I wanted him to make the first move.

"Yes. Yes, it is. Come here, let me show you something."

He stood, took my arm, and led me away from his admiring crowd. We stepped out onto a large balcony that overlooked his property and the twinkling city lights of Ladera Heights and Haven Park beyond. He stood almost a head shorter than I, gazing at the city below, momentarily overcome by the view. It was almost as if he were seeing it for the first time.

"When I was a boy growing up in that city down there, I only had a view of an alley wall," he said pensively. "Now I have this."

I nodded.

"It's funny how a man gets to his correct station in life," lie continued. "I'm certainly not a philosopher and even though I know what I had to go through to acquire my wealth, there are still times when I stop and wonder."

"I understand that," I said, searching for some common ground. "I was also born poor. Living as a child in poverty can make you wary of good fortune." Exposing a limited grasp of philosophy with that sentence.

"Then you know what it feels like to climb from a low place. Some part of you is always looking down, afraid of the fall."

"I used to think of that all the time," I told him. "And then, two weeks ago, it actually happened. I lost everything."

He didn't comment. He seemed far back in his head somewhere. Some dark recollection had dimmed his smile, the remnants now hidden under his meticulously trimmed mustache.

"Did you know that I dropped out of school when I was only twelve?" he finally said, suddenly coming out of his reverie. "I had to get a job to feed my family. I hated having to quit my education, because I loved school, loved learning. All I wanted to do was go back there. And eventually, that's what I did."

"I read a story on you that said you quit school in the sixth grade," I said. "It didn't mention that you went back later."

"I didn't return as a student. I was hired as the school's crossing guard.

"I used to look at the children in that school, many who didn't want to be there, and wonder how they could take their education for granted. None of them seemed to understand how lucky they were, what a great opportunity they were wasting."

"School didn't seem important to me at that age either," I said. "It's a mistake you only discover later."

He nodded, thought for a minute, then said, "From my low position wearing my silly uniform, I decided to do something about it. Two years later, I ran for the Haven Park School Board. Won in a landslide. Six years after that, head of Haven Park's Public Works Department, then I ran Public Housing. Now I run the whole shebang." He focused his powerful personality at me. "So you see it's important to stay in school, even if you have to be the crossing guard."

"That's a good story." We both looked down at his amazing property and the twinkling lights of the city he controlled.

"Now that you've been here for a little while, what do you think of all this?" he asked, gesturing out at the distant towns below.

"Of Haven Park?" I asked, and he nodded. "I like it here. I'm also extremely grateful to you and to the police department for giving me a second chance. After my problems in L
. A
., you were the only one who reached out your hand, sir. I'll never forget you for it."

"I've observed that men often say they are grateful, but when an opportunity presents itself to return an important favor they develop short memories."

"Won't be a problem with me."

He appraised me carefully. "I know something of you. I've been told you have some unique skills."

That remark certainly made it sound as if somebody had already listened to my Sammy from Miami tape. I was hoping he'd pursue this, but his mood suddenly changed again. The relentless smile temporarily disappeared as he laid a large hand that glittered with diamonds and gold on my shoulder.

"People say I'm a throwback. That I live forty years behind the times. They laugh at my preference for old music, at my love of sixties sports cars and the way I dress. What they don't understand is a man must paint a life much as he would a picture, choosing the colors carefully. I have chosen colors from a simpler time."

He retrieved his diamond-studded hand and continued. "Back then it was much easier to see the path. Today, there are conditions. We call it political correctness, but if you want my opinion, it's really just social guilt over having so much.

"In your own field of law enforcement, there is the confusing Police Discretionary Rule, which favors the criminal and causes many valid arrests to be thrown out in court. Or thcres the lunatic Miranda ruling. You must tell a criminal not to talk before you question him. In real estate its rent control and equal housing. Education has minority quotas. There's a ton of civil litigation crowding the courts that should be covered by common sense. It goes on and on. Forty years ago, none of this existed. This attempt to be all things to all people is destroying our great country. In Haven Park I'm setting the clock back to a simpler time."

I was thinking this guy was somewhere to the right of the Mississippi Klan, but what I said was, "It's gotten so a police officer has a better chance of going to jail than the criminals he's chasing."

He nodded and suddenly the smile flashed back on. We stood listening as another old song began to play. Cecil finally turned away from the view. "I might have a way for you to pay me back for this sense of gratitude you say you feel. If you agree to help me I would be willing to compensate you nicely. If you can accomplish what I want, you will become a respected part of my inner circle. If you fail, you will fall much further than you did two weeks ago in L
. A
. This favor includes some inherent but I think manageable risksInterested?"

"You bet," I said eagerly. "Lay it on me, sir."

"Not now." He smiled. "I never talk business at a party. We will speak tomorrow or the next day. Tonight you should enjoy yourself. Familiarize yourself further with my little experiment in social engineering. We'll talk shortly."

Then he patted my shoulder again, and, without another word, left me on the balcony looking down at the nude girls in the pool and the milling crowd of crooked cops and corrupt politicians.

I realized that I'd stopped breathing toward the end of our conversation. I let out a long slow lungful of air. The idea that I might be about to penetrate this corrupt politician's inner circle both frightened and invigorated me.

As I stood there the Sinatra song changed. Now Frank was singing "From the Bottom to the Top."

Chapter
32

"I'm not wearing this thing." I threw the wire and recorder down on the wooden bench beside Ophelia Love. It was a little past one A
. M
., and we were back inside Little Swiss, in a shopping mall parking lot on the outskirts of Compton. Alexa had been replaced, but Ophelia had broken a strict FBI rule demanding interagency celibacy, and allowed my wife to attend this midnight meeting. I also thought she liked our departments cool little eight-wheel undercover truck.