Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  “So what’s your point?”

  I stared off, thinking about my point. Trying to reason my way through all of the information, the issues, the players.

  “My point is this case isn’t any closer to being solved than it was the night you showed up drunk at the crime scene.”

  “Whatever, dude.”

  “We need to get somewhere with it before the next rotation. If we’re not lucky enough to pick up another walkthrough—a good old-fashioned murder-suicide or a no-witness gang shooting—we’re going to be buried and this case will go cold.”

  Floyd sank into the red, cushioned bench seat, leaned his head back with a look of exasperation, and said, “I need a vacation, Dickie.”

  I continued. “We’ve eliminated James Scott and the gangster—”

  “Cedric,” Floyd said, “the gangster with the smoking hot attorney. I’m thinking Hawaii, Dickie, is where I need to go.”

  “Yeah, Cedric. We still have Charlie Wright—”

  “Who didn’t do it.”

  “How do we know?” I asked.

  “The guy’s an asshole,” Floyd said, “but I don’t see him killing his kid just because he wears dresses. You’ve never snorkeled, have you?”

  “I’d say there’s a little more to it than that, if he’s involved—”

  “You don’t even like the beach, for Christ’s sake.”

  “—whether or not he did it, is what we need to resolve. Eliminate him or charge him, cross his name off the list. Who’s left? And no, I don’t snorkel, and no, I don’t like the beach.”

  Floyd sat up. He looked around the restaurant, still apparently bored with the conversation. “No one, unless you want to put your Chinaman buddy on it.”

  “Lanh Hoang?” I said, the name coming out loud, fast. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know why not. And, he’s Vietnamese, you idiot. Why would you even think of him for this? What’re you trying to do, jack this case up more than it already is?”

  “Just throwing out ideas, Dickie. The guy’s a weirdo, just the type to do some weird shit like this. Sitting up there watching through his binoculars, getting his jollies when he should be downstairs with the little missus. Who, I might add, isn’t too shabby herself, really. You never did have a thing for Asian girls, did you, Dickie?”

  “I’ll give you he’s weird, but come on, man.”

  “Maybe the queens got him excited, pushed him over the edge. He learned something about himself he couldn’t deal with. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “What would he have done? Follow them down to Lynwood, see where they’re doing their tricks and whack ‘em for getting him excited?”

  “Maybe he was with them first, couldn’t take any chances.”

  “Crazy.”

  “Well,” Floyd said, arranging his silverware now, “it will give you something to think about anyway. That’s what makes you happy, having shit to think about. Where’s that waitress?”

  Lanh Hoang, for Christ’s sake.

  Floyd seemed to hear my thought, and he grinned.

  “Running around the country with your uptight ass is a chore sometimes. You know it, pal?”

  “I suppose,” I said, listening but thinking about Lanh Hoang, wondering if my partner just took a blind swing and cleared the fences.

  There had been stranger developments in a murder investigation. Much stranger. It only made sense to consider Donna and her dirtbag friends as possible suspects, and even more so to take a look at a guy like Elmer Fudd. But to consider one of our own? A deputy? That seemed a real stretch in a case like this. But, no matter how difficult it could be at times, I knew to keep an open mind, consider all possibilities until they’ve been positively eliminated.

  “But Lanh?”

  “Never know,” he said.

  We waited in silence as the waitress placed our meals before us. After she walked away, Floyd picked up his fork, looked up to me and said, “I think I’ll put in for a couple weeks off when we get back, take some vacation. Let you wrap this case up by yourself. Because honestly, Dickie, you’re really starting to bore me.”

  Coming out of the airport parking structure in sunny Los Angeles, I fished my shades out of my briefcase as Floyd slid his down from the top of his head.

  “Who’re you calling now?”

  “I was going to have the desk run Charlie Wright, see if he’s still in custody.”

  “Why? You’re not wanting to go see him, are you?”

  “I was thinking maybe.”

  “I say if you’re wanting to talk to someone, we go see your buddy, Long Dong.”

  “Lanh Hoang.”

  “Whatever,” Floyd said.

  We left the airport headed east on the Century Freeway toward the office.

  “What would you say to Lanh?” I asked, “Hey Lanh, you’re kind of a strange dude, did you have anything to do with whacking those transsexuals?”

  “I don’t know, Dickie. Just stress him out a little, see how he reacts. I actually was mostly kidding. I’d think you’d be more concerned with getting home at a decent hour, see your wife before she leaves you for a fireman.”

  “It’s two-thirty, and we’ve got work to do. And she would never leave me for a hose jockey. You know that.”

  “It’s been a long week—two weeks, actually,” he reminded me, glancing over and then back at the road ahead. “Go home for Christ’s sake, before you end up sleep—”

  “Watch out!” I yelled, seeing the van swerve toward us in my peripheral vision.

  “Jesus!”

  Floyd glanced my way and yanked the wheel to the left, the vehicle jerking violently, the tires squealing against the pavement. As we straightened, the van crossed into our lane again, coming right at us.

  I yelled, “Look out!”

  “What the hell,” Floyd yelled, swerving again. “Shoot that asshole if he comes at us again.”

  We were back in our lane and he in his, but there was no escape, the crowded freeway confining us to our lane with the van beside us, matching our speed. We were still traveling at about 50 mph.

  “What’s his problem?”

  “He’s trying to kill us, Dickie. Shoot that son-of-a-bitch!”

  I had drawn my pistol after the first near-miss, but thus far had not pointed it toward the assailing vehicle, unsure of the intent of its driver. The van suddenly veered away from our vehicle, out of his lane and into traffic on the other side. There were sounds of screeching tires and horns, followed by the unmistakable sound of metal hitting metal. The van then moved toward us again.

  Floyd yelled, “Shoot him goddammit!”

  I now had my sidearm pointed at the driver’s door, unable to see the driver through his tinted window. I waited, ready for one more assault, my mind racing with the thoughts that accompany questionable shootings: What is his intent? Will the shooting be justified? Are our lives in imminent danger? . . . Where the hell are the cops when you need them?!

  I had the tunnel vision and its slow-motion effect that is common during these types of shoot or don’t shoot scenarios. I continued to focus on the van, which moved slowly but directly at us again, the third time now. Coming at us inch by inch, seemingly with intent, an apparent assault, our lives in imminent danger. Floyd had it right, the son-of-a-bitch was trying to kill us.

  Floyd’s voice seemed distant now, his words processing slowly in my brain as I prepared to defend us, my finger beginning to squeeze the trigger, my sights locked on the driver’s door of the vehicle as Floyd shouted, “Shooooooot! . . . S H O O T !”

  25

  LIEUTENANT JORDAN PULLED onto the eastbound shoulder of the Century Freeway about a half-mile west of the Long Beach Boulevard off-ramp. He parked to the rear of several emergency vehicles: two California Highway Patrol cars, an ambulance, two fire engines, a paramedic’s truck, and three black and white sheriff’s patrol cars. That put him about a hundred feet or so behind the white
van involved in the incident, which now sat on the back of a flatbed tow truck, not far from where Floyd’s recently battered Ford Taurus came to rest.

  The lieutenant walked toward us slowly with one hand in the pocket of his pleated navy-blue slacks. The other hand first caressed his tie and then pushed wire-rimmed sunglasses up onto the bridge of his nose, the lieutenant seeming to take in all the action along the way. There were deputies wearing tan and green, highway patrolmen with their tan uniforms with blue stripes, and a couple of LAPD motor cops with helmets and large mustaches, who had stopped to help with traffic control. Cops seemed to be spread throughout the scene, pointing this way and that, sharing information and discussing the incident among themselves. Firemen stood in bulky yellow pants with reflective stripes, suspenders over white or blue t-shirts under the shade of a shiny red fire truck. Two paramedics wheeled a gurney toward the opened rear doors of an ambulance parked just ahead of the firemen.

  Traffic had backed up for miles. Three of the four lanes had been closed off by road flares where emergency personnel redirected the slow-moving vehicles through an alternate route. The sounds of police and fire dispatch voices crackled from handheld radios and intertwined with idling engines and the occasional blast of a horn.

  Floyd and I stood near his battered green Taurus, silently evaluating the swipes of white paint along the passenger side, the dented doors and fenders, and the flat front tire. The two of us stood stoically, shades on, our sleeves turned up to our elbows, arms crossed as if we were taking in a ballgame, nothing special happening here. The lieutenant arrived at our location, shaking his head.

  “Quite a mess,” Lt. Jordan said, positioning himself to the side of Floyd.

  The three of us now stood shoulder to shoulder, each looking toward the ambulance and watching paramedics heave the gurney into the back of the wagon. The large shape of a body shifted beneath a sheet with the motion. The gurney’s wheels folded beneath itself with two thwacks—the sound of metal hitting metal—and with that the ambulance buttoned up and departed, lights and sirens parting the way.

  The lieutenant leaned forward, craning his neck toward us. “You boys ready to run this by me? The captain wants a call right away. He’s about to have a coronary in the office.”

  Floyd looked at me.

  I shrugged. “It’s your circus, pal.”

  “The man who just departed in the back of that ambulance, was the pilot of that beast over there,” Floyd said, as he gestured toward a tow truck holding a white van with steam still rising from under the hood. “He sideswiped us twice, and nailed a couple of those other cars up ahead.” Floyd turned to look further up the freeway. Lieutenant Jordan leaned back, looking around us to follow Floyd’s gaze, up the freeway toward a black BMW, a red Chevy Impala, and a white Ford pickup truck, a line of smashed up cars parked along the shoulder.

  “When he finished bouncing off half the cars on the freeway, he hit that guardrail over there,” Floyd continued, now with a nod in the direction of a battered steel railing, “came back out and hit another car, then finally came to a stop.”

  The lieutenant shook his head, saying, “Man.”

  “That’s when my partner tried to kill the poor bastard.”

  “Excuse me?” I responded. “Who was yelling for me to shoot the guy?”

  Jordan snapped his head around and said, “You didn’t—”

  “No,” I said, “but for a second or two . . . I mean, it was close.”

  “We had no idea what he was doing, boss,” Floyd said. “For a minute there, I thought it was another Elmer Fudd attack. Seriously seemed like he was trying to kill us.”

  “Elmer Fudd?”

  “That’s what we call the guy who shot Dickie’s car up,” Floyd said, “out there in Downey.”

  “Who we think did it,” I added.

  “So, what’s the deal with this guy in the van?” the lieutenant asked. “Was he drunk?”

  “Maybe a heart attack,” Floyd said, “we’re not entirely sure. He was out of it when we got to the van. In fact, at first it looked like he was dead, hunched over the center console. We pulled him out, checked his vitals, and started CPR. Told one of the idiots standing around watching to call 9-1-1.”

  “Paramedics arrived and put the paddles to him,” I added. “There were able to get him jump-started. That was just a few minutes ago, right before you showed up. How the hell’d you get here so fast, anyway?”

  “I was right over there in Inglewood,” Lieutenant Jordan said, nodding to the west. “You don’t want to know why.”

  “Why?” Floyd and I said simultaneously.

  “Charlie Wright filed a complaint against the two of you, alleging excessive force and false arrest. Captain wanted me to talk to him, see how adamant he is about pursuing charges.”

  “Did you remind him he started the fight?” I asked. “We only went there to talk to him.”

  “You started that fight, Dickie,” Floyd said. “Don’t lie to your lieutenant.”

  “When do I get my new partner?” I asked.

  The lieutenant, accustomed to the banter, said, “Fourth car in two weeks, good chance the captain will have you both back in uniform next month. Listen, I’m going to the hospital, see if this gentleman makes it through. If so, I’ll try to get a statement from him. Could one of you talk to the chippies, see to it we get a copy of their report sent to the office? This is a goddamned mess.”

  “No problem, boss,” I said. “I’ll take care of it while my partner changes the flat on his Taurus.”

  Floyd said, “In my Joseph Abboud? You know what I paid for this suit?”

  Lieutenant Jordan smiled and turned to walk away.

  I turned to Floyd and said, “Better get crackin’, asshole.”

  It was nearly four by the time we limped into the parking lot of our office in Floyd’s Taurus with a donut-sized spare tire and white racing stripes against the green paint. On the bright side, my Crown Vic had been returned from the shop; the bullet holes were patched and painted, and the broken glass had been replaced, and apparently it had a new transmission. I dropped the Ford Tempo keys on my lieutenant’s desk, and nearly kicked up my heels.

  Maybe the day wasn’t so bad after all, I thought, noticing the captain’s office door sat closed and the lights were off. I wouldn’t have to deal with him for at least one more day, and I had my car back. Plus, I didn’t shoot anyone while they were trying to die of a heart attack.

  Then I thought about the transfer, the recent complaint by Charlie Wright, another crashed county car, and I decided that Floyd and I really were having a run of bad luck.

  We decided there had been plenty of excitement for one day and agreed to call it quits. We parted ways in the parking lot, and as we passed each other on the way out, Floyd flipped me off.

  Merging onto the freeway, I called and left a message for my wife, telling her what a hell of a day it had been and how happy I was to be on my way home. I had started to tell her more, say the things that had been on my mind the last two days: how much I loved her, how I regretted being hard to live with at times, how I would try to keep the job in perspective and keep the home fires burning no matter what it took. Ready to say all these things but cut short by a hollow tone announcing the end of the allotted time.

  Probably for the better, I thought; I’d save it to tell her in person. Get a bottle of wine on the way home, hold her and whisper these things in her ear. Make nice with the little woman.

  I thought about the day I had come home to a quiet, half-empty house where an ominous envelope sat on the kitchen counter waiting to announce the divorce. The job had taken its toll on my first marriage, there was no doubt about that. But that was a long time ago, a time when the job and its inconvenient schedules and long hours made up just part of the problem. The other part of the equation—not unique to cop marriages and subsequent divorces—was that I was young, immature in many ways, and camaraderie with my partners seemed paramount. That meant
nightly gatherings at cop bars or parking lots because drinking with the boys seemed more important than coming home in those days. We referred to these gatherings as debriefings, justifying them as the way we reduced the stresses of the job. A way to calm the nerves before returning to civilization.

  There had been all the warning signs: complaints of the crazy hours, requests that I try to go to day shift—like normal husbands who work during the day and are home with their families in the evening—comments about too much drinking eventually escalating to accusations of alcoholism. Several requests for marital counseling, and finally her need for a few weeks away to clear her head. All of these signs but it took coming home to an empty house and a short note to hear a word she said. Then it came across loud and clear.

  A couple years after the divorce, Valerie and I met through mutual friends. Soon after, we fell in love. Neither of us had children, though both were previously married. By the time we tied the knot, I had been promoted to detective.

  Getting off the streets offered fewer hazards in some ways, more in others. Working patrol came with the potential for violence on every call, every traffic stop, and every contact. For that matter, every hour of each shift was a threat to the uniformed cop who had become a target to some in our society. Being promoted to detective certainly negated the target part of the equation, and no longer would I be asked to place myself between two adults who wanted to kill one another, or maybe decide that killing the cop between them would be just as satisfying. Most contacts as a detective were on the detective’s terms, and therefore safer and better controlled. We decided when we would contact a suspect or witness, and generally we would know their backgrounds beforehand and be appropriately prepared. But there were other hazards to the detective’s overall health and well-being, such as longer hours and more mental stress, both primarily due to an overwhelming caseload. The duty of investigating death was accompanied by the burden of unsolved cases, which weighed heavily on the broadest of shoulders. It wasn’t long before I was propelled into the workaholic state that I seemed to embrace.