“This is different though. You have a victim—a woman being raped! I can’t imagine they’ll find you guys liable. Jesus, the asshole’s lucky Lopes didn’t shoot him in the face.”
“We talked about it later, and both of us wished we could have. But with the woman and kid there—”
“Did they file it federal?”
She nodded. “Civil rights violations.”
I shook my head. “Ridiculous . . . Well, still, I bet you guys will be okay. As long as your case doesn’t get assigned to Smetts’s court. That’s one federal judge who hates cops and will do everything he can to help the plaintiff’s case.”
“I’m hoping for a woman judge.”
“That’d be perfect,” I said. “Hopefully, a black woman.”
Josie turned back to the papers on her desk, having finished telling the story that would stay in her mind for the rest of her life. I pictured her shooting the man in the market, a story I had only recently heard, and I knew if she had been able to, she wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot the armed rapist. There was no doubt in my mind that the fighting preceding the rapist’s arrest had been vicious, and not just on the part of Lopes. I had seen him in action, but I could imagine my partner right alongside him.
I had a new perspective about her and Lopes. They had been through the shit together. Floyd would assume—and he had—that Lopes and the hot new detective, Josefina Sanchez, had hooked up and had a fling going or at least in the works. But now I knew what Floyd didn’t: that Lopes and Josie had a history. And now they had a situation to deal with together, a federal civil rights trial. It made sense to me, someone who had been through it. It even provided an explanation for the late-night drinks; they had things to discuss before trial begins.
Floyd’s voice bellowed from behind me. I turned to see him standing at the back door, his shades in place. “Are you coming, Dickie? Jesus.”
I glanced at my watch. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours, if you’re still around. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She smiled curtly. “Goodnight, partner.”
Before walking away, I said, “Hey, partner . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Sorry.”
She smiled and we parted ways.
“What do you suppose they do with the money?” Carlos asked.
The three of them sat in their van across from a windowless structure protected by block walls topped with razor wire. The building appeared as a prison but with various bay doors on at least two sides, from what they could see. The armored truck they were following had pulled up to one such door that lifted automatically and closed after the armored transport had pulled inside.
“I guess they store it there,” Tina said. She was kneeling on the floor between the two front seats, watching through large sunglasses with her one good eye; the other still half closed. Travis was to her left, behind the wheel, and her brother, Carlos, sat riding shotgun.
“I wonder how much money’s in there,” Carlos muttered.
Tina noticed Travis browsing the landscape, taking it all in. He appeared to be deep in thought. Planning. It was quiet inside the van, a steady humming of the air-conditioner and the soft rumble of a motor the only sounds. Occasionally a car or truck would pass them on the road, and the gust of wind would shake their van. Tina was deep in thought as well, first wondering how much money was behind those solid doors, and then thinking about getting all of it and heading south. Which made her again think about how easy it would be to have Travis disappear in Mexico without a trace. She and Carlos would live happily ever after in Mexico, and like royalty. They would have to surround themselves with bodyguards, maybe build a fortress to keep the peasants and killers at bay.
A few minutes later, another armored truck arrived, its brakes squealing as it powered down and turned into the driveway directly across from where the trio sat watching. The exterior gate opened and closed automatically, and the truck motored over to a bay door adjacent to the door where their armored car had driven into.
Carlos said, “How could we get inside? That’s the key. Better than robbing one truck on the street.”
Travis lit a cigarette and took a long drag before lowering his hand. After exhaling a plume of smoke that filled the cab, he glanced at Tina and then to Carlos. “This ain’t a bank. The money has to leave here and go to a bank somewhere. That’s the key. Figure out when all of the money is hauled out in one load, and take that truck down. That’s how you retire from the business.”
The three of them watched in silence for two more hours and counted a total of six trucks arriving and entering the building through the bay doors. Civilian vehicles trickled out, and the pattern seemed to show two employees at a time leaving shortly after another truck arrived and disappeared into the building. Nobody seemed to notice their van. The area was industrial, and little traffic remained other than the activity at the warehouse. Plenty of other cargo vans traveled through the area and were parked along the streets and in the parking lots of businesses. They were somewhere near downtown Los Angeles, though Tina wasn’t sure exactly where.
Just before dark, one of the bay doors opened and a truck pulled out, its headlights on against a dusky sky. The gate closed behind it, and the armored transport rumbled away, its tail lights shrinking in the distance.
Travis started the van and pulled away, following the route the truck had traveled. “That’s the same truck we followed up here. Everyone else has gone home for the day. Where do you suppose this truck is headed?”
“To the bank?”
Travis looked over at Carlos in the passenger’s seat and smiled at him. “Fuckin’ A, to the bank, amigo. Get your guns ready to rock and roll. There’s probably a million bucks in that rig being driven by twenty-dollar-an-hour assholes. What do you want to bet they ain’t willing to die for the man and his money?”
It was nearly nine by the time Floyd and I returned to the office. We had decided to get a bite to eat after visiting with Cedric the Entertainer at his foster home in Watts. During dinner, I told Floyd all about the lawsuit involving Lopes and my partner, Josie. I told him that she and I had talked, and I didn’t think there was anything going on, or anything more to them having gone out for drinks.
He said, “That’s bullshit.”
“What’s the difference? You and I go out for drinks.”
Floyd scoffed at the idea of it being the same thing. He said, “Plus, now you know the two of them have a history together. You didn’t know that before. It makes perfect sense now, Dickie. If they were in the shit together, you know that means they had a drink together after the asshole was booked at the hospital ward that night and the paperwork was finished. Like you and me going to Chinatown after we shoot someone, only they probably didn’t go their separate ways when the drinking was finished. That’s the way it is, Dickie. I’ve tried to tell you that, but you don’t listen. Men and women can’t work together in this kind of an environment without shit happening. And by shit, I mean unadulterated sex.”
“You don’t think they could have got together just to talk about the trial?”
“No.”
“No possibility.”
“Negative. She’s too hot. Those two are banging like a wood screen door in a Texas tornado.”
The conversation and cold beer had kept us at the restaurant past dinner and into the evening hours. When we pulled into the Homicide bureau’s lot, we were surprised to see more than a few cars still remained.
The television at the front desk was tuned to a news station, as it generally is, only it was not muted as usual and an audience had gathered. There were four detectives huddled beneath where it hung on the wall, one of whom had a remote in his hand. He kept fiddling with the volume as the screen showed the type of action that generally preceded our phone lines getting busy: flashing red and blue lights, cop cars, firetrucks, ambulances, the lights from helicopters panning the scene.
“What’s going on?”
&
nbsp; Rich Farris was one of the detectives glued to the action. He glanced back. “Armored car robbery, two dead.”
“Is it ours?”
“No, thank God. It’s in the city. LAPD gets this one.”
With that I found my way to the kitchen where coagulated coffee beckoned me. There was too much of our own action to think about to be worrying about what our brothers in blue had going on.
Floyd joined me. “Make a fresh pot, Dickie, for Christ’s sake.”
“You staying around?”
“I’ll be here for a few, anyway. It looks like they have something cooking downtown.”
“Yeah, but it’s LAPD.”
“You know how it goes, Dickie, they always come in threes. Something like an armored car job is a perfect primer for the whole county to fall apart. You just make us some coffee and hold onto your hat.”
24
Floyd and I lingered near the front desk talking to Rich Farris while half-watching the news coverage of the armored car robbery in downtown Los Angeles. Rich was lamenting about his ex taking him back to court, trying to get a larger cut of his pie. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to retire at this rate. Floyd asked if he had a new woman in his life, and the two lady-killers spun off into an all-consuming conversation about Farris’s complicated sex life.
My attention drifted back to the television where the latest update said three men had been shot. Two guards, and one of the three suspects. The reporter confirmed that all three were now pronounced dead. The two dead guards were said to be employed by L.A. Armored, a local armored transport company owned by a former Los Angeles Police Officer. A woman with bright red lipstick smiled into the camera as she told what she knew about the robbery and deaths, while first responders worked frantically in the background. Those men and women behind her would leave parts of themselves there at the scene with the spirits of the departed, and they’d take other parts home and harbor them for the rest of their lives. The reporter wouldn’t give anything other than her hair and wardrobe a second thought.
I turned from the TV, noticing that Floyd and Farris were no longer talking girls, and an increased level of activity suddenly buzzed around me. Phones were ringing and the two detectives manning them were juggling calls, speaking to some of the callers and placing others on hold. Farris had gone behind the desk and grabbed an empty chair and a ringing line to lend a hand. There were only three phones at the desk, so Floyd and I stood at the counter watching and listening.
Farris put a call on hold and looked up with dark, tired eyes. “It looks like we’ve got a dead cop in Compton. Can you guys roll?”
For the night watch on the Ortiz home in North Long Beach, it had been decided that Farley and Morgan would continue live surveillance after midnight when most of the activity on the street had slowed. The pole camera they had installed did not have night vision capability, so monitoring from afar did not provide sufficient visual coverage.
CW2 James P. Morgan arrived just after eleven and took a position half a block from the target home. He avoided the overhead streetlight by parking beneath a tree. He felt comfortable in the shadows with his carbine resting on his lap. He leaned back and adjusted the squelch and volume of his handheld, knowing it would be much closer to midnight before he was joined by his supervisor, CW3 Charles Farley. Morgan harbored a restlessness that caused him to arrive early and stay longer on nearly every assignment. The same anxiety caused Morgan to never stop thinking about his cases, even during his off time.
Alone in the darkness he thought about their target. PFC Christina Ortiz. AWOL. Or was she dead? Morgan wasn't a religious man, but he did have a sense of spirituality which he attributed to his Native American heritage. Though only one-eighth Cherokee, he was proud of his ancestors who had lived in the isolated hills and valleys of the highest portions of the Southern Appalachians, until driven south. Eventually, his people were forced to give up their lands east of the Mississippi River and migrate to Indian Territory, presently known as Oklahoma. It was Morgan’s ancestors whose journey west would be known as the Trail of Tears. At times, he could hear his forefathers whisper offerings of wisdom and guidance, especially when it involved his warrior spirit. Other times, he could feel their tears of defeat. But all of the time, he felt a spiritual existence that hadn’t come from inside the walls of a church nor from the teachings of man. It was an inner voice that mostly spoke to him when he was alone, hiking and camping in the Great Smoky Mountains, or riding across the coastal plains on any of his several trusted steeds. Occasionally, he could connect with these spirits while confined to the civilized world by gazing across the horizon or settling into quiet darkness, alone in his thoughts. Morgan had always been driven by a desire to see, hear, and touch that which remained unmolested by man.
As the leaves above his government-issued sedan stirred gently in the darkness, the spirits of his forefathers whispered warnings to him. There were never voices, only feelings that Morgan could never describe to others. He never would try. If he did try, he had often thought, he would liken this phenomenon to the feel of a horse. A horse seems to hear your thoughts, to both the success and detriment of horsemen everywhere. Those who know to listen closely to the subtle hints of those magnificent creatures—a nearly imperceivable lift of a head, the softening of an eye, the flick or pinning of his ears—find their interactions with them less volatile. The spoken word is the simplest form of communication, and as such, it is also the most unreliable. As to the feel of a horse, one is better suited to close his eyes and listen to the inner voices. On this night, the winds whispered that trouble awaited him, that violence was unavoidable. Morgan saw the painted faces of his forefathers and silently thanked them as the flow of cool air hastened through his open windows.
Travis grabbed her with both hands and shook her violently. “Get ahold of yourself! Let’s go, damnit!”
He was at the sliding door of the van, parked in the darkness of an alley of crumbled asphalt and weeds. The narrow passage was littered with trash, the walls covered by graffiti. The smell of urine, vomit, and feces had Travis looking in the nearby shadows and crevasses for bums or remnants thereof.
He released his grip of her, and she curled into a ball on the floor of the van among assorted firearms and ammunition and the cases and containers of both. All of which had been scattered throughout the rear of the van during the intense getaway from the botched armored car robbery. She was bawling as she had been for the five minutes it took Travis to drive them several miles from the crime scene, changing directions numerous times and employing counter-surveillance tactics as they traveled most of the way without lights. He had run over someone in an alley, which had forced him to drive several more blocks before deciding to abandon their vehicle.
“We have to go!”
“Nooooooo,” she whaled, “nooooooo.”
He pulled her back to a seated position and ripped her blood-soaked shirt from her and tossed it further into the back of the van. He leaned past her and pulled a duffle bag over to him. He retrieved a black button-up tactical shirt that was twice her size, and told her to put it on while forcing it over her arms. Tina’s face, purple around one eye, was streaked with tears and smeared red from her bloody hands. It was Carlos’s blood, and it covered her. Travis had violently pulled her away from her brother’s dead body and forced her into the van when the shooting had stopped. Now they needed to move out and never look back, or neither would ever see another day of freedom.
With a clean shirt wrapped around her body, but not buttoned, Travis pulled her from the van. He released his grip on her long enough to stuff two pistols into his waistband and sling his AR-15 over his shoulder. “Come on,” he said, as he grabbed her again and tugged her away from the van and further down the desolate passage.
Floyd and I arrived at the scene of the murdered cop. It wasn’t the first time for either of us. We wouldn’t be assigned the case, as neither of us, nor our teams, were up for murders. This would b
e a Team 4 handle, though dead cops were an all-hands-on-deck situation. There would be time to sort out who was doing what, later. For now, we needed to stabilize the situation.
When a cop is killed, to say emotions run high would be a gross understatement. Unfortunately, we were accustomed to the chaos that ensued when a colleague has fallen, as we had stood in many such crime scenes both as patrol deputies and detectives. We had felt the soul-crushing, gut-wrenching reality of our vulnerability as a colleague lay bloody and lifeless, dressed in the same uniform as our own. Because of the same uniform as our own, and for no other good goddamn reason.
Mistakes are made when emotions run high. I recalled a night when a colleague had been killed and the gang member who murdered him was on the run. Floyd and I and scores of other deputies who knew and loved the fallen colleague scoured the streets, the alleys, the motels, bars, and homes of all known gang members, and we leaned heavily on each and every one in order to get information about the whereabouts of the wanted killer. Though arguably ineffective, it was a tactic that came as a natural response for me and for all of my grieving brethren. The public might not accept, understand, or even tolerate all of our conduct, but at the time, the public was furthest from our minds. Because, quite frankly, it was that same public and the gutless politicians who allowed the scourge of these gangsters and their lawlessness to be considered mainstream, if not acceptable. We knew gangs offered society little more than the destruction of life, peace, and prosperity. Those of us who battled them on the front lines understood that the public had no stomach for a real war on gangs. Because a real war on gangs would eliminate them from our society.
As investigators, it was our job to rein in these emotions. To play by the rules—as absurd as they might be—as to not jeopardize the eventual prosecution of the sonofabitch who took the lawman’s life.
Hard-Boiled- Box Set Page 83