by Don Winslow
Slow your roll, girl.
Fortunately, the server arrives with the menus.
Chris orders a chicken-mango-sausage scramble with cheddar and onion, Carolyn gets pineapple upside-down pancakes topped with pineapple butter.
“So how’s work?” she asks. And why am I starting every sentence with “So”? And please don’t say, Yeah, good.
To her relief he doesn’t. What he says is, “Well, I had something funny happen to me last night.”
He tells what is actually, yes, a funny story about Superman and Spartacus.
“You really said you had Kryptonite?” Carolyn asks.
Chris shrugs. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
The food arrives.
Carolyn notices that Chris waits, his fork poised, for her to take a first bite before he starts eating.
I want to meet this guy’s mother, she thinks.
Slow . . . slow . . . the roll.
“How’s yours?” Chris asks.
“It’s great,” she says. “But the sugar crash is going to be brutal.”
“Right?” Chris says. He takes a bite of the sausage, then a sip of coffee, and then says, “Tell me about you.”
She goes with the auto-cliché response. “What about me?”
“Where you’re from,” Chris says. “Where you went to school, how you got into your work, what you like to do when you’re not working . . .”
She finds herself telling him, going into a monologue about being from Madison, Wisconsin, going to undergraduate school there and then deciding she’d had enough cold weather and snow to last her, like, forever, so she got her master’s at Stanford and then her doctorate at UCSD and fell into her dream job at the primate house at the zoo. How her parents are both professors at Wisconsin, her father in chemistry, her mother in French literature, and how she has an older sister, by two years—married, kids—and a younger brother, and when she’s not working, she likes to run, go to movies, go to the beach, the usual stuff, and then she realizes that she’s been talking nonstop for at least ten minutes and that he’s just sitting there listening and probably knows more about her from those ten minutes than Asshole learned in three years.
Carolyn feels herself blush, and then she says, “I’m sorry. I’ve just been talking and talking.”
“I asked,” Chris says.
Yes, she thinks. You did. “So . . . your turn.”
“Not much to tell.” He shrugs again. “I was born and raised here, in Tierra Santa. My dad is a software engineer, my mom teaches third grade. Good people. I have two older sisters—I’m the baby of the family. Went to SDSU. I’m a cop, I’ve always wanted to be a cop. That’s about it.”
“What do you like about being a cop?” Carolyn asks.
“Everything,” Chris says. “It gets me out and around, every shift is something different, and I guess I like helping people.”
Yeah, I guess you do, she thinks.
“What do you like about your job?” Chris asks.
“I love the animals,” she says. “They can’t speak for themselves, so they kind of need me. And they’re always real. Never phony. You know, sometimes I think I like apes more than I like people.”
Carolyn worries about why this is. Is it because apes don’t reject you, don’t cheat on you, that they give “unconditional love”? Is it because she needs to be needed? Is she going to become one of those lonely middle-aged women who can only relate to animals? Then she says, “Even though they do throw their poop at me sometimes.”
“I’ve had people do that,” Chris says.
“No shit?”
They both laugh.
They’ve finished their food, and if this was him politely accepting a thank-you gesture, then they each get up and go their own ways.
She signals for the check, but when it comes, Chris reaches out and takes it.
“This was supposed to be a thank-you,” Carolyn says.
“It was also supposed to be lunch,” Chris says. “I asked you.”
Another passive-aggressive assertion of the male power structure, she starts to think, and then remembers that Professor Asshole isn’t here to say that and that she really doesn’t mind Chris picking up the check.
“Can I at least leave the tip?” she asks.
“Okay.”
“Five?”
“Maybe more like ten?” he says.
She lays down a ten and gets up. “Well, this has been—”
“Yeah, this has been nice.”
Nice, she thinks. Kiss of death. Nice is taking your grandmother to Olive Garden, or—
“You want to go to the beach?” he says.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you liked going to the beach,” Chris says. “I was asking if you want to go to the beach.”
“You mean now?”
“It’s a nice day,” he says.
Yes, it is, Carolyn thinks.
Yes, it is a nice day.
Hollis Bamburger really is stupid. So stupid that he goes back to the same park, to the same guy, to buy a new gun.
Well, a used gun.
Hopefully just one that wasn’t used in a previous crime. Hollis is scared enough about the crimes he’s committed, never mind the ones other people did. So he’s counting on Montalbo to sell him a clean gun.
He meets him in the same vacant lot.
“I need a piece,” Hollis says.
“Why are you wearing a turtleneck?” Montalbo asks. “It’s a hundred and three out.”
“I haven’t had a chance to do laundry,” Hollis says, thinking fast.
“You hiding a mike under there?” Montalbo asks.
“No,” Hollis says, thinking fast. “I need a piece.”
“I sold you one,” the Mexican says.
“I need another one.”
“How come?”
It’s a good question, because if this guero used the gun in a crime and if it gets tracked back to who sold it to him, Montalbo could be on the hook for whatever stupid shit this guy did.
Which is probably very stupid.
“I got rid of it,” Hollis says.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” Hollis asks.
Now Montalbo is more nervous, because it’s also possible that the guero has been busted for something and he’s traded up for a Mexican gun dealer. It’s been his experience that there are few things San Diego cops like to get more than Mexican gun dealers. Montalbo ranks it:
Krispy Kremes
Mexican drug dealers
Mexican gun dealers
“I can’t help you,” Montalbo says. “Tell the cops no sale.”
“Come on, man.”
“Get out of here before I beat the shit out of you.”
Hollis glances around and sees the Mexican’s buddies starting to circle like wolves, behavior he’s familiar with from the yard at Chino. He’s scared, but not as scared as he is of going back to Lee without a gun.
Lee does not handle frustration well.
Thinking fast, Hollis comes up with a genius idea. “I’ll cut you in on the take.”
Montalbo asks, “How big a cut?”
Because Montalbo has conflicting needs—he needs not to get busted, but he also needs cash—and now these needs are in direct conflict with each other. Montalbo has a bad gambling problem, or more accurately he has a problem with bad gambling, and owes money to Victor Lopez, a loan shark who’s running out of patience. Montalbo owes him a couple of grand, but if he could give him just a few hundred, it would buy some more patience.
“Ten points,” Hollis says.
“I can lay my hands on an S&W 39 automatic,” Montalbo says.
“That’s older than dirt.”
“You want it or not?”
“How much?” Hollis asks.
“Five hundred,” Montalbo says.
It’s worth at most two-fifty.
“I’ll give you three,” Hollis says. If he pays five, they did the last job at a loss, an
d that will not make Lee happy, and Lee is already going to be unhappy about giving Montalbo a cut of the job.
Lee has a low tolerance for unhappiness.
But Hollis has a solution to this problem—he’ll pay Montalbo out of his own share.
“Four,” Montalbo says. “Plus the ten points. Final offer.”
“Is it clean?” Hollis asks.
“As a nun’s chocha,” Montalbo says. He has no idea if it’s clean or not. For all he knows, it could have been used in the Lincoln assassination.
“Give me your number,” Montalbo says. “I’ll text you when I have it.”
“What about bullets?”
“You bought a gun,” Montalbo says. “No one said nothing about ammunition.”
“What good is a gun without bullets?” Hollis asks.
“Not much, I wouldn’t think.”
Hollis sighs. “How much?”
“Ten bucks apiece,” Montalbo says.
“That’s a rip.”
“So do a robbery without bullets,” Montalbo says. “See how it goes.”
Hollis thinks about it. Actually, he has done a robbery without bullets because usually the gun alone is enough to scare people into opening the till.
Lee does not share this philosophy.
“The only time an empty gun works,” he’s said, “is in Dirty Harry.”
Hollis gives Montalbo his number.
Chris takes a deep breath and then makes himself walk into police headquarters on Broadway.
He’s still not sure this is a good idea.
Carolyn thought it was.
It was actually her idea.
To his surprise they’d spent the whole afternoon walking Pacific Beach, and more to his surprise he found himself telling her all about his problems on the job.
“Why would the Robbery people be unhappy at you for solving a robbery?” she asked.
“Because it’s their job,” he said. “And I guess I made them look bad. It’s like maybe if you went over to . . . I don’t know, the reptile department or something and solved a problem with a boa constrictor.”
“Yeah, they wouldn’t like that.”
“Right?” Chris said. “The really bad thing is that this is the unit I really want to catch on with, and now they’re pissed off at me.”
“Go talk to them,” Carolyn said.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Chris says. “We talk when we’re talked to.”
“And how is that working?”
Not great, Chris had to admit. He also had to admit that he was starting to really like Carolyn Voight. Smart, pretty and . . . nice. And maybe just being nice to me because I tried to rescue her chimp, because the woman has a Ph.D. and is probably way too intelligent to want to date a cop. She probably came to the beach because she felt bad about my broken nose.
By the end of the afternoon, he really wanted to ask her out again, but the last thing he wanted was a pity date.
So he didn’t.
But he did decide to take her advice about going to talk to Lubesnick, because she was right—what did he have to lose?
Now he shows his badge, walks into the Robbery Unit, and asks the receptionist, “Is Lieutenant Lubesnick in?”
The receptionist smiles at him. “And who may I say is calling?”
“Officer Shea,” Chris says. “Christopher Shea.”
“Okay, Officer Christopher Shea,” she says, “let me see if he’s available for you.”
But just then the door opens and Lubesnick comes out. He sees Chris and says, “I know you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“But where from?”
“Uhh, we met in Balboa Park.”
Lubesnick stares at him for a second, then breaks into a big, crooked grin and says—loudly, “Monkey Man! Hey, everyone, we have a celebrity in our midst!”
A bunch of detectives look up from their work and either smile sardonically or frown at Chris. He feels himself turn red—these are the same people he hopes to work with someday.
He hears himself say, “Actually, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about, sir.”
“Okay, come on in,” Lubesnick says. He looks at the receptionist and says, sotto voce, “Give it two minutes, then buzz me and pretend there’s a call I have to take.”
“You bet, Lou.”
Lubesnick leads Chris into his office, gestures for him to sit down and says, “So?”
“It’s about the robbery arrest I made the other day,” Chris says. “I want to apologize. I was out of line.”
“Do you watch football, Officer Shea?”
“Until the Chargers left, sir.”
“So do you know what happens when one defensive back leaves his zone to go into another back’s zone?” Lubesnick asks. “The other side scores a touchdown. See, if you do our job, what are we supposed to do? We’d be out of work.”
“I understand, sir.”
Lubesnick looks at him for a long moment. “Actually, you worked the perp pretty well. You have some game. Brown tells me you want to come to Robbery for your next assignment.”
“That’s what I’m hoping for, sir.”
“And you think showing us up is the way to do it?” Lubesnick says.
“I wasn’t trying to show anyone up.”
“Like you weren’t trying to fall out of a tree?’ Lubesnick asks. “Like you weren’t trying to go WWE down in the Lamp? Yeah, I’ve had my eye on you, Shea.”
Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, Chris thinks. Good thing if he’s talent-spotting me to maybe bring me into his unit, bad thing if he’s looking at me with an eye to make sure he never, ever brings me into his unit.
The buzzer sounds.
“Lou, you have—”
Lubesnick winks at Chris. “Ellen, tell the pretend caller I’ll pretend to call him right back.”
“You got it, boss,” Ellen says. “I’ll take his pretend number.”
Lubesnick clicks off and says to Chris, “Anyway, I’ll relay your heartfelt apology to the unit and make sure they know you meant no harm. I respect your coming in—that showed me something. Now go away.”
Chris stands up. “Thank you, sir.”
“You know the question that has yet to be answered?” Lubesnick asks. “Where did that gun come from?”
Chris walks out of the unit, feeling the amused stares on his back.
But what he’s really thinking about is Lubesnick. What was the lieutenant telling him? To chase the gun down? Or not to chase the gun down? It’s ambiguous, because he clearly heard Lubesnick tell him to stay in his lane.
Yeah, Chris thinks, except the lane I’m in doesn’t lead to where I want to go. And maybe Lou Lubesnick is telling me to pull in to the lane that does.
Carolyn is pissed.
And pissed at herself for being pissed.
That Christopher Shea dropped her off at her place, thanked her for the nice afternoon, and then didn’t ask for another date.
She spent that whole night—and it was a Saturday night, another Saturday night with solo Netflix and solo chill—being pissed off, had a shower and went to bed (by eleven, for God’s sake) and woke up the next morning pissed.
Spent her long Sunday run being pissed.
Watched 90 Day Fiancé (maybe she should find a nice Nigerian prince to go out with) pissed.
Woke up Monday morning and went to work having made the slight but important transition from being pissed at Christopher Shea to being pissed at herself.
Why should I care? she asked herself.
If he’s not interested in me, I’m sure as hell not interested in him.
Who does he think he is?
He’s not a good tree climber, that’s for sure. Probably a lousy kisser, too. She realizes that she’s gone back to being angry at Shea and forces herself to return her negative attention where it belongs.
What did I do? she asks herself. What didn’t I do?
I talked about myself, I let him talk about himsel
f (the man spilled his professional guts to me), I looked really cute walking on the beach, I thought I made it clear that I was there for the right reasons.
What don’t I have that he wants?
“What’s wrong with me?” she asks.
Champ doesn’t have an answer.
But he reaches his hand out.
The gun, Chris learns, was registered to a solid citizen and stolen in a home burglary that the solid citizen dutifully reported to the police.
So that’s a dead end.
Chris visits the Laboratory Unit and gets a little pushback as to what a uniformed patrol officer was doing asking these questions. Luckily for him, the woman on duty realizes that he’s the Monkey Man, takes some pity on him and shows him the test results.
“Actually,” she says, “you’re the first one to ask.”
The gun in question is a .38 Colt Cobra Special with double action and a Hogue Overmold grip.
The grip has Champ’s prints all over it, but that’s all.
So Chris has to take a different tack—i.e., what was happening in the vicinity of the zoo that night?
He goes to Data Systems and asks for a printout of calls that came into Central Division prior to the Champ call.
“Did a detective send you?” the DS officer, Schneider, asks.
“No.”
“Then no can do,” Schneider says. “Unless you’re the investigating officer on an active case, and you’re a patrol officer, right?”
“What if Lubesnick sent me?” Chris asks.
“Did he?”
“You want to call him and ask?” This is Thanksgiving-turkey stuff, this is him stretching his neck way out on the block. If Schneider calls Robbery and Lubesnick answers WTF, Chris’s career is a carcass.
He’s betting Schneider won’t make the call, because if Lubesnick did send him, he’s going to chew Schneider a new one.
“Central?” Schneider asks.
“Right.”
A few minutes later, Chris is looking at all the radio calls to Central Division before Champ went into his Scarface routine. A couple of domestic disturbances, a creep exposing himself in Balboa Park, the mandatory fistfight in the Lamp, but nothing about an armed robbery or a gun.
Maybe it was an animal-rights activist, Chris thinks.
But then he thinks it through. Balboa Park is the easternmost border of Central Division.
It borders Mid City Division.
So if something happened in, say, North Park, the suspect could have run into Balboa.