Hard-Boiled- Box Set

by Danny R. Smith

  There was a pause as I processed what I was just told about the crazy woman who was likely going to be my next partner. “How’d I not hear about that?”

  “Maybe it’s when you were off last year, I don’t know. It hasn’t been that long ago. The point is, that’s probably how she got here. She got her ticket punched with that one, that’s for sure. Promoted to sergeant and probably isn’t going to stop there. Word is, she’s a good gang detective. Give her a fair shake, Dickie, you might be surprised. Plus, she’s easy on the eyes and probably smells good.”

  “Smells good.”

  “Yeah, dickhead, she emits a pleasant aroma, unlike yourself.”

  3

  Traffic through the conglomeration of intersecting freeways known as the East L.A. interchange—the San Bernardino, the Long Beach, the Golden State, the Hollywood, the Santa Ana—never looks worse than it does on an afternoon when the Dodgers are at home. I tuned the radio to KLAC AM 570 so I could listen to the game while using surface streets to avoid the worst of the congestion. I was headed north, but it wasn’t the most direct route to my home in Burbank. This was reason enough to stop in for a cocktail somewhere and wait while Katherine finished up at the office, telling other crazy cops they’re nuts. I’d send her a text and ask her to join me. She would read it between patients or at the end of her day, which would hopefully be soon. I decided on Buck's in Sierra Madre and signed off with a line of heart emojis; I was becoming proficient with my texting skills.

  I had drunk one beer and just received another when Katherine walked in and plopped her purse, a set of keys, and her cell phone on the bar next to my beer. I pulled it a few inches away from her belongings as she leaned down and kissed me lightly on the lips. Her brown eyes focused further down the bar, and I turned my head to follow her gaze.

  “Is that Marilyn Monroe down there?”

  I looked to see the woman with heavy makeup and bleached hair that was short and wavy. “Marilyn Monroe? Is it even a woman?”

  “Legitimate question.”

  “How was work?” I asked.

  As she settled onto the stool, she said work was okay, that it was more of the same old thing, trying to figure out who’s more nuts, the cops she sees at work or the one she sees at home. And then she added: “Or in a dive bar in Sierra Madre.”

  “I’m comfortable here, surrounded by pirates. And Moby.”

  “Moby? As in Dick?”

  I shook my head and then nodded to draw her attention to the other end of the bar. “The bartender. He looks like Moby, the musician.”

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “You don’t drink here enough.”

  “I mean the musician.”

  “Well, this guy, the bartender, looks like him.” Moby worked his way down the bar, swiping at rings of moisture left along the bar from the bottoms of glasses. “Complete with the bald head and horn-rimmed glasses.”

  He paused across from Katherine and asked what she would have. She paused for a moment, looking past him toward the shelves of liquor that sat beneath a wall which featured a painted pirate scene complete with swashbucklers and their wenches, some of whom were exposing their breasts for the patrons. The mural and several paintings throughout the lounge had been created back in the sixties by a local artist named Frank Bowers, a native Californian who had become an Angeleno during the Great Depression. He specialized in just this type of art, risqué murals in bars and clubs throughout Southern California and down into Mexico, where it is said he painted bullfights and bullfighters, with touches of randy Hispanic ladies showing their wares. According to modern lore, much of the painter’s labor was payment for all of the drinks he had consumed.

  Moby waited. His eyes were locked on Katherine and his brows were lifted in anticipation, a tight-lipped smile across his face.

  “I’ll just have a glass of water for now, please. With a wedge of lemon, if you don’t mind.”

  Moby pulled a glass from somewhere beneath the bar. He scooped it full of ice and used his soda gun to fill it with water.

  “Are you concerned I need a driver?”

  “No, of course not. You have your cop car, so you’re free to drink and drive, right? You can bounce off parked cars while leaving Buck's.”

  “Wow, that was a little judgmental. Did you have a bad day?”

  Moby stabbed a straw through the ice and tucked a wedge of lemon onto the rim of the glass. He set it on a fresh napkin and, as he slid it in front of her, he nodded toward my beer as if to ask if I needed another. I quickly chose my answer based on Katherine’s last statement and shook my head. He sauntered back toward Marilyn whose eyes appeared fixed on the two of us.

  Katherine drank her water and took a moment before answering. “No, I was mostly kidding. But today I had a client who—and this is confidential, I shouldn’t be telling you—was sent to me because your department wants to correlate his bad behavior with the stress of the job.”

  “There’s something to that.”

  “There’s also something to just being a drunk, Richard,” she snapped. “This guy has had two DUIs. The second one involved his hitting a car in the parking lot while leaving a bar. A cops’ bar, of course. Thankfully, he didn’t hurt anyone. I just think it’s irresponsible and a bit audacious to blame it on the job.”

  “Bounced off cars in the parking lot, did he?”

  She sighed and took another drink of water without replying.

  The phone rang, and Moby picked it up. He barked “Buck’s” into the mouthpiece, over the music and conversation and laughter that filled the dark room. He waited, listening, and then he looked up and down the bar before speaking into the phone again. “Not here, haven’t seen him.” He slapped the phone back into its cradle and yelled toward a booth where two elderly men sat sipping some type of whiskey. “Lou, your old lady’s looking for you again.” The man called Lou waved him off as if it were the same old story which interested him not.

  I thought about what Katherine had said as I slowly sipped my beer, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. I thought about the cop who hit the car and all the others who had done the same or worse over the years yet had remained on the job. Many were top brass. The commander of Men’s Central Jail, one of the most populous jails in the country, housing over 10,000 inmates, had actually crashed his unmarked county sedan into a black and white police car from another jurisdiction. Then he tried to flee. After being arrested and booked for drunk driving, the department sent him off for 30 days at the Betty Ford clinic, after which he was deemed fit for duty. Another executive who had had several alcohol-related mishaps—all of which had been swept beneath the department’s lumpy rug—finally crashed into a CHP unit, injuring two officers. The department had to do something, so he was retired.

  “Well, what do you say we blow this place and go grab some dinner, somewhere nice.”

  Her eyes showed fatigue or disinterest. “I don’t know, Richard. I may just have an early and quiet evening. Would you hold it against me?”

  It was equally clear that something was wrong, and that she wasn’t going to divulge to me what it was. Not yet. Not here and now.

  We had been dating for six months and were accustomed to spending a couple of nights a week at one or the other’s apartment. Granted, we had had a rocky start. Our first social outing ended in a gunfight when a man who had been stalking me made his last stand in a bar in Chinatown. Up until then, I had been Katherine’s patient. But the events of that night both ended our professional relationship and launched our romantic affair. At the time, we were both separated from our spouses and in the processes of divorce. Like two drunks trying to be sober together, we were probably the last thing either of us needed at the time. Maybe she was pulling back now. Or, maybe she just had a bad day. I tried to not overthink it, but that seldom works for me. It’s the way I’m wired.

  “I thought you looked tired when you walked in. Go home, take a bath and have a quiet and early evening. I'm go
ing to head out of here after one more beer, unless I can spend a buck in the jukebox and talk Marilyn Monroe into a dance.”

  She glanced down the bar, disinterested. I expected a punch on the shoulder or at least a dirty look. “Okay, I think you’re right, I could use an early evening. You don’t mind?”

  I shook my head.

  She reached over and placed her hand on my forearm, the first offering of affection this evening since the peck on my lips. “What do you have planned tomorrow?”

  “We go on call at six, so I have no plans but to wait and see how his day goes.”

  “His? Who’s that?”

  “The asshole that’s going to start pissing someone off at some point tomorrow and become my next source of overtime.”

  She rolled her eyes and stood, collected her belongings and leaned in to give me a parting kiss. It was less passionate than the first, if that was possible. I watched her walk past Marilyn, who scanned Katherine from head to toe and seemed to scowl as she passed. When the door closed behind her, I signaled Moby for another beer.

  After that one, I switched to gin.

  It was midnight when I left the bar and saw that Katherine had sent a text saying goodnight. It had come in two hours earlier. I opted to ignore it so as to not reveal the time of my departure. Deny everything, admit to nothing, demand proof, and make counter-allegations. Floydism. I pulled out of the lot noting that I hadn’t struck any parked cars, and suddenly I felt anger directed at Katherine. My tires squealed against the asphalt as I accelerated toward the freeway, pleased to see the streets were nearly empty, the quaint town of Sierra Madre all rolled up for the night.

  Out of curiosity I phoned the desk and asked how things were going, and was there a chance our team would come up early. It made a difference as to whether I would shower and put a suit out tonight or wait until morning when Team Five officially went on call for murders. The detective on the desk said her name but I didn’t catch it or recognize it. There were eighty detectives assigned to Homicide and we’d had such a turnover in the last two years, there were plenty I still didn’t know since my return. She said nothing had gone out since yesterday and Team Four had a full line-up. That meant it wasn’t likely Team Five would come up early. I thanked her, disconnected, and settled into my seat. I removed my hat, turned off the air conditioner, and lowered my window to allow the cool night air to flutter against my face.

  And protested my displeasure into the wind, “Women!”

  4

  It was half past seven when I awoke, heart racing, my body damp from sweat under the covers. I stared at the ceiling for several minutes, reliving the Chinatown shooting incident that regularly visited me in my sleep. Six months had passed since the evening Katherine and I first met outside of her office where she had seen me as a patient for many years, off and on. Most of those visits were the results of other shooting incidents; she was one of several shrinks the department used for counseling. After my wife left, the sessions with Dr. Katherine James began feeling different. Where I had previously resented having to meet with a head doctor and talk about my feelings, fears, and the type of recurring dreams I had just experienced, I found myself looking forward to our time together. Eventually I convinced myself that she felt differently about me as well, and I took a chance and asked her out to dinner. She met me for a drink instead, and of all the nights she might have done so, on this night there was an attempt on my life. A serial killer who had a contract to kill me had walked through the doors, intent on taking me out in front of dozens of witnesses. Fortunately, there had been a surveillance detail assigned to cover me after the first attempt several days before. They saw the suspect enter, and two of the team’s members, along with my old partner, Floyd, came in behind him. The shooting started, and amazingly, only the suspect was killed. But in my dreams Katherine is mortally wounded and all of the patrons at the bar between me and the killer are exploding from my errant bullets, complete parts of bodies—heads, torsos, and arms—disappearing in red mist as portrayed in video games. I’ve never played video games, and fortunately, I’ve never hit an innocent bystander during a shooting incident. But for some reason, this had become my greatest fear and it played out time and time again during deep slumbers.

  I sat up and stared at a digital clock and remembered it had been nearly three a.m. before I stopped drinking and crawled into bed. After coming home from Buck's, irritated at Katherine, it seemed a couple more beers were in order. Fortunately, there were plenty in the refrigerator, and it was comfortable on the balcony in a sweatshirt. The streets were empty and the stars hovered over the nearby mountaintops, making it a perfect time and place for contemplation. I sat and drank in silence while trying in vain to figure out women. Soon those thoughts were replaced by memories of the man who had stalked me and tried to kill me, the man who had spent an unknown number of hours sitting on the street below watching me.

  As I stepped into the shower, I realized that as long as I lived here there would be recurring memories and nightmares about the man named Leonard Freeman and the night that my partners and I put him down in Yee Me Loo’s.

  Though it was the first time it had occurred to me, the thought resonated, and I pondered it all the way to the office. But where would I go? I loved my little apartment in Burbank with a view of the mountains and a relatively easy commute to the office. The fact it was a short drive to Katherine’s in Pasadena was an added bonus. But I now knew I’d never enjoy that balcony in the way I had prior to Freeman. It was time to move on.

  For a brief moment, I pictured myself at Katherine’s place. Then I dismissed the thought. Something wasn’t quite right with us at the moment though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I also didn’t think I was ready for that type of commitment yet. My divorce from Valerie wasn’t even final, but it would make strike two. I needed to be very careful about the next pitch I swung at, and make sure it wasn’t going to be a curveball, something I couldn’t possibly manage.

  I walked into the office hungry and hungover, facing an on-call period where Ray and I sat second up in the rotation for murders. That meant we were likely facing a long day and sleepless night. Possibly long days and sleepless nights, plural. You never knew what the next case had in store and where it might take you. Most of the cases were gang- or drug-related, routine investigations that didn’t keep you awake at night worrying about their outcome. Every once in a while, however, the murder gods would slam you with a dead cop or a dead kid and life would cease to exist outside of work for weeks on end. I sat my briefcase on my chair and walked directly to the office kitchen for coffee, hoping for a little luck during this on-call rotation.

  But the second I saw her sitting in the kitchen talking to my lieutenant, I knew my luck had been expended over the last year and a half; I had used it all up surviving two shootouts and two wrecked marriages. Though we had never personally met, I knew who she was. By the way she watched me, I had to assume she knew who I was also. Lt. Joe Black followed her gaze and when his eyes met mine, he smiled widely. “Richard, come meet your new partner.”

  Floyd met me in the hallway as I headed back to the squad room, a fresh cup of coffee in my hand and a scowl on my face. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Dickie?”

  I shook him off and glanced over my shoulder. The table where I had left Joe Black and my new partner, Josefina Sanchez, sat empty, though I hadn’t seen where the two went. Turning back to Floyd, I said, “I got to meet my new partner just now.”

  “She kick your ass?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, it’s coming, I’m sure. With your shitty attitude and her propensity toward violence, it’s bound to happen.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “About?”

  “Propensity for violence. What did Sloan used to say about you, you’ve been in more fights than most bikers?”

  “It was after that little misunderstanding down at the Western Connection—”

  “
Misunderstanding.”

  “—when Donnie got us in a fight with about four or five wannabe cowboys. Lieutenant Marks was on my ass about it, as if it was my fault, and you jumped on his side, saying I do get into more fights than most grown men. Then Joe chimed in and said, ‘Floyd gets in more fights than most biker gangs.’”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “But that was a case of self-defense, like all the others.”

  “Right.”

  “So what’d you two talk about? Did you tell her you’re a workaholic asshole and she will no longer have a personal life?”

  “What I told her, is I looked forward to working with her. I mean, what the hell do I care? Couldn’t be any worse than working with you. Though I do think I’ll miss Ray.”

  “I do realize you’re just grumpy and you don’t really mean that.”

  “It’s not that I’m grumpy; I just happen to have a splitting headache this morning. And so far, this day has been a piece of shit.”

  We stopped at my desk and I noticed the one next to it was cleaned off. There was nothing on top to indicate it had been occupied by Raymond Cortez up until the last few hours. I assumed the drawers were empty too, that Ray had stayed late or come in early and moved back to Unsolveds. Nobody liked moving when the office was full. Like driving in L.A., there was too much traffic to negotiate. Plus, everyone wanted to ask you what you were doing. Desks were cleared out during the hours of darkness around this place.