by Riley, A. M.
“Somebody killed him, I heard.”
Albert inhaled deeply. Exhaled, and around the smoke, said, “Bad for
him.”
“Well, and then I heard he might not be dead after all.”
Albert raised his left eyebrow so that it matched his scarred right.
“I'm looking for anybody who might have known him. Anybody who might
be a friend who maybe Paolo would call.”
Albert thought about this for a while, smoking. My little spate of activity
and the smell of the weed made the hunger just that much worse.
“You know that theory about the first forty-eight hours on a homicide? It's
like that. I need to find this guy soon.”
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“I'll make some calls,” said Albert, squeezing his joint out with his thumb
and forefinger and pocketing the roach.
“Thanks, man.”
“But I don't want you with your monster face pushing your crotch up
against my ass no more, 'mano. Find your own ride.”
“You aren't going to leave me here?” We were in a no-man's land. Auto
glass factories, buses, and the prison towers.
I watched him kick his bike into gear, the engine roaring like a lion with
emphysema. “Albert, all I need is a ride to the Wilshire Impound.”
Albert ripped his engine a couple times. It was his own special way of
expressing emotion, I think. “You are a pain in the ass,” he pronounced. “Climb
aboard.” And, as I did so, “Try not to rub off on me.”
* * * * *
The Wilshire District Impound yard looked like a military barracks, two
rows of Hurricane fencing topped by barbed wire and 1930s-style LAPD
bunker-style buildings on three sides.
Albert parked his bike a block down La Brea and followed me up the
street, chains ringing on his boots as he strolled.
Two truly ugly pit bulls threw themselves at the back fence and caught the
attention of an officer in a light blue shirt and shining new police cap who
immediately started over toward where Albert and I loitered.
He and I scooted back across the street and hopped over the low fence
surrounding an outdoor bistro. I sat and lit a cigarette while Albert looked
down at me, laughing. “No way you're getting in there, 'mano,” he said.
“Shut up.” I flicked ash, studying the lot. Big stadium lights lit every nook
and cranny. Cars were stacked on metal trestles and I couldn't even guess
what they had done with the bikes. Getting in there would be only a tiny part of
the battle. Getting the bike out would be the bigger problem.
“I can get in, but we need someone to bring the bike out.”
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He straddled a chair. “Easy enough. Just ask them.”
“Yeah, I think I will.” I hopped to my feet. “You keep an eye on that officer
and see where he goes while I go into the office and talk up the desk clerk.”
The desk clerk was one of those LAPD career paper jockeys. She wore the
uniform and a little gold badge above her name tag and probably told her
friends that she was a cop. She probably pulled in twice the salary I did, so
who was I to judge her?
“Excuse me, ma'am.”
She stopped and managed a weak smile. Women always react with a kind
of pleased surprise when they first see me. If they could read my mind they'd
spit in my eye, I bet. I gave her a pained smile back. “I was told I'd find my car
here?”
“Yes, sir?” She started pulling out forms. “If you'll just fill out this…”
“Uh, ma'am.” I lifted the forms in apparent helplessness. “Thing is, I don't
know the VIN number and the registration is in my car.”
“Were you issued a ticket?”
“Ma'am?” I tried to look stupid. It didn't take much acting.
“The information you need would be on the ticket you received when your
car was impounded.”
“Ma'am, I didn't get no ticket. I came out of the bar and my car was gone. I
called the police and they said to come here and git it.” I tried to look both
stupid and drunk. Once again, little acting required.
She was getting pissed off but she still thought I was cute enough to
bother with.
“What is the make and model of your car?”
“Um, well, that's the thing? It's not my car exactly. See, my girlfriend let
me borrow it on account of my other car is in the shop and all's I remember is
that it's green? But, ma'am, if I saw it I could tell you.”
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“I'm sorry, sir. If the car doesn't belong to you, we won't be able to release
it to you anyway. You'll have to call your girlfriend and have her come here
and—”
“Oh no,” I said, in horror. “She'll kill me.”
“I'm sorry, sir.” She'd had it. She was done. “I can't help you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sorry, sir.”
I pouted for a minute then said, “Do you know where there's a phone?”
“No, sir.” She turned to the next person in line.
I wandered, stupid, upset, and drunk, around the room and stood vaguely
in the line. I tried a couple more times to get her attention and when I'd made
her determined to ignore me, I sidled up to the side door and slipped through
it.
I was halfway across the lot when a security officer saw me.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“They told me you were getting my bike?”
“Your bike?”
“An '84 Silverado with extended fork and dual carbs,” I said, waving my
arms. “It's taken me four hours to raise the cash to pay the fine, and I've been
waiting for them to bring it out for me.”
The officer looked toward a back corner of the lot. That must be where the
bikes were kept. “I'm sorry, I haven't received a notice.”
“Goddammit. I'm going crazy, man. I heard she was dinged by the tow. Did
you see her when they brought her in?”
“A Silverado Harley?” He looked back toward that back corner again. “I
might have.”
“Just let me look at her, will you, buddy? I just want to know she's all
right.”
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“I can't, sir. I'm sorry.” He walked me back to the offices and left me by a
soft drink dispenser then wandered back toward the back corner.
When I came around the corner, Albert was smiling. “He went straight to
it, 'mano. Your ride is right there behind that red Kawasaki.”
I could see my baby's chrome from where I stood.
“Okay, now I need you to go to the other side and try to climb the fence,” I
said to Albert.
“What? You pendejo, man.”
“Don't get in, just make a lot of noise trying.”
“Fuck.”
But he did it. I waited until I heard the mild ruckus. Every bored man and
dog on the lot running to join in on the action, then I took a few steps and, half
expecting to fall and crack my head open, I ran up the wall of the bunker.
And I was on the roof.
I'd been thinking about this trick ever since I'd seen Caballo and Betsy
pull it off at the gallery, sort of practicing it in my mind. It was a rush to
actually have it work.
the officers to not let the dogs kill him. I ran and then leaped, easily and lightly,
right behind the space where my bike was stored.
Happily, it had been rolled out for some reason recently. Probably the lab
looking for evidence, and I was able to wheel it behind the other bikes and a
row of cars three deep on racks. Fifty yards from the back gate, I just jumped
on, pumped the clutch, and took her through the gate.
I think one of the pits got out and tore down the street behind me for a few
blocks, but I lost him on the 10. Twenty minutes later, I circled back and found
Albert sitting calmly on his bike, tapping marijuana down in a pipe. A block
from the police station. Arrogant SOB.
“You owe me,” he said.
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“Yeah yeah yeah. I'm good for it.”
He eyed me, inhaling deeply; the pot was thick in the air when he exhaled
and offered me the pipe. I shook my head. “I got a call from a dude says he
knew Paolo Spence,” he said.
“What's his name?”
He shook his head. “Said he'd meet with you. Discuss.”
“Okay, where?”
He nodded and straightened, threw one long leg over the bike, and gripped
the choke. “Follow me, 'mano.”
* * * * *
The Tips Restaurant is just an all-night diner of the sort that college
students and struggling actors will meet in, drinking coffee and ordering
enough onion rings and fries to excuse their staying and chatting for hours at a
time.
This Tips had become something of a landmark though. Its age,
impossibly bland Formica-covered interior, and location were still exactly the
same as they had been twenty years earlier when Peter and I had used to stop
for coffee during our breaks.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” He keeps his hair cut very short, in
the LAPD military tradition, but we've been putting in some long hours since the
Prop 13 cutbacks and he's missed a trim. The hair at the temples and sideburns
is white gold and curling.
“Do you have to use that much ketchup?” I ask.
He looks at his plate where a small mound of fries is dwarfed by the puddle
of ketchup. “Yes?”
“It's wasteful,” I say.
He can't believe me. “You're worried about wasting ketchup?”
I take the bottle from him and shake it over my hamburger.
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Peter's grinning. “You drive a car that gets about five miles to the gallon and
you're worried about wasting ketchup?”
“Those are two completely unrelated subjects,” I say. I pluck out the pickle
and press the two sides of my burger together so that the juices ooze out onto the
plate.
“Yesterday, you told me you sat in line for an hour to get gas. When was the
last time you sat in line to buy ketchup?” asked Peter.
He's got me and I know it, but I hide my smile behind my burger. “Ketchup
will be the next to go,” I say. “Mark my words.”
The French fry he throws at me gets stuck in my hair.
Albert surveyed the place, then led me to a booth near the windows. The
man sitting in the booth wore a faded green John Deere Tractors cap and
looked up at Albert with pale blue eyes, the whites red around the edges. “Mi
dios,” he said. “What is wrong with him?”
“What?”
Albert grinned and put a placating hand on my arm. “My friend always
looks like a fiend,” he said.
A fiend?
I held out my hand. “I'm called Sn—”
“I don't need to know your name,” said the guy. His voice was low and he
scanned the restaurant, furtive and wary, as he spoke. “I'm supposed to be
working for the FBI but those bastards don't pay squat.”
“Okay, but what do I call you?”
“Call me Whitey.”
He glared when I laughed and Albert gave me his charming, diamond-
flashing smile. Okay, whatever. I waved toward the back of the restaurant.
“Let's get another booth. There's a draft here.” And less of a chance of someone
noticing that yours truly not only looked like a fiend, but had no reflection.
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We found one in the back, against a wall, and ordered coffee. Tips doesn't
serve espresso or double double caramel lattes.
According to my watch, it was nearly three a.m. Sunrise was at six a.m. “I
haven't got a lot of time,” I told them. “What do you know?”
Whitey rested his hand against his face so that only Albert and I could see
him when he spoke. Really, I figure all informants have reason to be paranoid,
but this fucktard's been watching too much X-Files. “There's a rival gang in the
Mongols' territory.”
Great. Another bloodbath. “The Angels swore a truce,” I said. “What
happened?”
“Not the Angels. Not the Mexicans. Somebody new.”
This was hardly newsworthy. Idiots get a few dozen other idiots together
and think they are the kings of their patch of Compton. And then they are
dead. “So?”
“They are a death squad,” said Alberto. “Rumor has it they are up from
Colombia. Nobody knows where they came from.”
“And what has that to do with my friend with the holes in his neck?”
The guy's eyes were such a pale blue, they almost looked white. He leaned
across to whisper, “They say they are the Chupacabra.”
“Right.” The mythological vampire dog of Mexican legend.
“No, no, no, that is their gang name. They took credit for killing Richard
Ortiz.”
I leaned across the table and gazed into those almost white eyes. His
pupils were like twin dots. Pinprick-sized holes. Crystal or some meth
derivative, I guessed. Very expensive. “That was a good guess, Mr. FBI
informant. So what do you know besides street rumors? You got anything
worth paying for?”
“Paolo Spence is their leader. He calls himself Ozone.”
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I sat back. Whitey knew he'd told me something significant by my silence.
“You got any idea where I can find Ozone?”
“They say he is like an evil spirit. They say he lives in Hell,” said my overly
dramatic friend. “But I heard he has a house in Pasadena.”
I pulled out the roll of money Peter gave me and started peeling off bills,
tossing them across the table, where the guy snatched them up as fast as a
starving dog snatching at scraps.
“You got an address?” I asked him.
He gazed longingly at the remaining money in my hand. “No.”
“You've got another two hundred if you get me an address in the next four
hours,” I said. “A hundred if I get it in the next eight. Fifty if you can come up
with it by this time tomorrow.” By then I'd be a rampaging bloodsucking fiend, I
figured. “After that, I'll have found someone else with the info and you don't get
squat,” I said, pocketing the wad. I rattled off my prepaid cell number.
He pulled his hat a little lower over his eyes, wet his lips, and nodded.
“Ye
ah yeah. I'll call you soon,” he said. He slid out of the booth, looked around,
and slunk out.
“That was quite a performance,” I said to Albert after we'd watched our
friend run into an old lady, recoil, and run into a bush before finally finding his
way out to the parking lot and beyond. “Think any of it was true?”
Albert raised his shoulder in an amused shrug and smoothed his hand
over his pate. “What is truth?”
“What the fuck kind of answer is that?”
“It was a quote,” said Albert. He shook his head. “I didn't expect you to
recognize it.”
A bookish biker. Christ.
I took out my pack of cigarettes and played with one. They'd outlawed
smoking in public places since I'd quit. It sucked half the charm out of all-
night restaurants.
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“If what Whitey says is true, these guys are planning to make a big
statement.”
“They all like you, 'mano?” He said it casually enough but I felt that he'd
been holding back questions since the morgue.
“Maybe.”
His gaze went to my face, then away again. “Dangerous fuckers. There's a
lot of money out there for dangerous fuckers who can fly over rooftops.” I could
smell his blood. Rich, dark with the espresso he constantly drank. Alive with
adrenaline.
“There's a few details you don't need to know yet, but we don't want these
guys running around, Albert. They won't stick to meth distribution.”
“Ah.”
“Everyone is in danger. Maybe you could be in danger too. Where are you
staying?”
He looked sideways at me. Dark eyes measuring, and then the skin
crinkled at the edges as his lips spread in a smile. “I have a trailer up on
Mulholland. I can take you there.”
“You don't have to.” I buried my face in a coffee cup.
“But I want to, friend. You will protect me from the Chupacabra, no?”
I was going to have to find shelter before dawn and I was fairly certain I
could trust Alberto, as long as I had the cash to pay him. I pulled out my wallet
and threw enough money down on the table for the coffee, plus a couple of