The Dime

by Kathleen Kent

  Taylor’s physical therapist told him, following his most recent minor cardiac event, that channeling his tension into the ball instead of his internal organs—or his fellow law enforcement officers—will help prevent the Big One.

  The bang-up yesterday has hit him hard, though. Civilians being killed does not a happy department make.

  “Yesterday,” Taylor says, “an officer was shot and killed making a simple house call. He left home that morning, probably thinking that he only had a few tickets to write before dinnertime, kissed his wife and two kids good-bye, and went to work. And now we’re going to get to work too.

  “We will split into two teams. Detectives Hoskins and Craddock will follow up with some of Ruiz’s old customers and contacts. Sorry, Ryan, you’re on desk for a day or two. Detectives Rhyzyk and Dutton will be making a visit to Ruiz’s sometime girlfriend, a pross working out of a North Dallas salon. It’s a stretch, but until we get a sighting or some snitch feedback, we’re going fishing.”

  He ends the meeting but crooks a finger at Seth and me.

  Taylor says, “Red and Riot, in my office, please.”

  The sergeant calling us by our nicknames is like a parent using a child’s first and middle names. Never a good sign.

  “You couldn’t have foreseen the woman appearing,” Taylor tells me, “but as lead on the case, the person responsible for your team, you should have been better prepared for the possibility that our dealer would think that Bender was talking to the cops about him and was, therefore, a threat.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. He’s right; I should have anticipated that scenario. I spent last night imagining what could have happened to Ryan if the ricocheted metal had gouged his neck and not his shoulder.

  “Three people were killed on scene, another kidnapped and shot dead. One of ours was wounded.” Taylor looks at me for a long ten seconds, and I take the full weight of his gaze. No defensive body posturing, no excuses.

  Taylor then asks us, “Did Ruiz make either of you?” He points to my head. “After all, you can hardly miss that hair. He certainly was able to recognize the maroon van across the street for a surveillance vehicle.”

  In almost every case while working undercover, I wore a wig. And a few times, in those instances, I’d been mistaken for a high-end tranny: tall, lean, muscular, attitude to spare. Once, while I was arresting a drug dealer who was wearing an evening gown, the transgendered beauty had stared with admiration at my neck. “Damn, honey,” she’d drawled. “I want the name of the surgeon that got your Adam’s apple so small.”

  “Ruiz saw me,” I say. When the dealer looked at me during his drive-by, I knew he’d file my image behind those Mayan orbs. “But if he thought we were cops he would’ve been shooting at us as well.”

  Taylor makes a noise with his bottom lip against his teeth. “I don’t know whether I would take that as reassurance or not.” He glares at Seth. “What do you have to say?”

  “No. Didn’t make me.” Seth shakes his head. “Just a guy out for a jog.”

  A casual observer might take Seth’s dismissive attitude as showboating, but he came by his nickname, Riot, honestly. A few years ago, shortly after he made detective, he found himself alone during a confrontation in an East Dallas biker bar, a raunchy, tin-shack hellhole named the Road Kill. Seth, working undercover, had gone there to make an arrest, expecting the potential arrestee to arrive there alone as well. The biker, though, showed up with five of his buddies, Los Homeboys, the psychopaths who eat Hells Angels for breakfast. Seth arrested the dealer, and the other Homeboys were so impressed with his cool that they went ahead and let him cuff the biker and put him in the car before they removed Seth forcibly from the driver’s seat, freed their friend, and torched the vehicle. They broke three of his ribs and his jaw but let him go with a warning to never come back. He was picked up, staggering along the highway, by a passing patrol car as a potential drunk and taken to the hospital. Hence the nickname Riot, as in “one riot, one Ranger.”

  Ten minutes after our meeting with the sergeant, Seth and I are walking out of the station house. We’ll be driving north a few miles to the Blue Heaven reflexology salon to see if we can find and question Ruiz’s occasional girlfriend Lana Yu. To exit the building, though, I have to walk by Craddock and Hoskins. Craddock, always with a bag of artery-clogging fast food on his desk, is an avid hunter, spending most of his nonessential pay on a taxidermist for his trophy mounts and on ammo to kill his next round of hapless deer or doves or whatever. He is the embodiment of the kind of country cop Uncle Benny would have called a yahoo.

  He fans the air against an invisible wall of heat as I pass and yells, “Uh, Dee-tective Betty, how was your meeting with the sergeant? By the way, I think your hair is on fire.”

  “How’s that spelled, Craddock?” I ask. “F-A-H-R?”

  A capable detective, he’d be tolerable if not for Hoskins always goading him into being an asshole. “By the way, Craddock,” I add, “you’ve got mayonnaise on your chin.”

  I dial Jackie’s number and she picks up on the second ring.

  “I’m fine,” I assure her right away. “Just tell me something good. Rough start to the day.”

  She lowers her voice an octave and whispers, “I’m going to make you wear your boots to bed tonight.”

  I bark out a laugh, drawing looks from the guys in the hallway. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

  I put my phone back in my pocket and wait for Seth to pick me up in the garage. He soon pulls up driving a new Dodge, and as we exit, we pass the battered maroon surveillance van, its Homeboy Pool Company logo on the side panel blown out by AK-47 rounds. The company name was the squad’s little inside joke about the motorcycle club that almost killed Seth.

  “I guess we’ll need to come up with a more convincing banner,” Seth tells me.

  We drive north for twenty minutes to Richardson, a community of two-story brick houses in upper-middle-class enclaves, similar to the neighborhood where we were yesterday. But the devil is in the details, and there are differences in the population if you’re alert to them. Driving on the street that shares real estate with the Blue Heaven massage parlor, you might see a few Asian kids playing in front of a nearby house with little blond-haired Caucasian kids, toys and sports nets littering the lawn. The prostitutes and their families live close to the salon and watch out for one another’s kids during off-hours. Eventually, when election season approaches, the neighbors having figured out there’s prostitution in the ’hood, Vice will move in and make some arrests, but until then Blue Heaven will keep thriving.

  Seth looks over at me a couple of times, waiting for me to speak, and when I don’t, he says, “Riz, you didn’t know it was going to go sideways.”

  I make a noncommittal noise and continue to stare broodingly out of the window. “Stop trying to make me feel better. I’ve gotten worse ass-drubbings from my grandmother.”

  “She the one that was the nun?” Seth asks, and I have to smile.

  “Guess what?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. What? You finally got laid.”

  He looks at me, flashing the perfect set of teeth that always get him laid. “I’m thinking about keeping Bender’s dog. No, now don’t make that face. For starters, poodles are the smartest breed of dog in the world.”

  I sigh and gaze out the window again. It’s killing me how hopeful he’s looking.

  “And second, they don’t shed,” he adds.

  “And third,” I say, “you’re a cop. In Texas. A Texas cop. Isn’t there some kind of rule in the Texas Man’s Handbook that says you’re not allowed to own a poodle? Actually, I should be encouraging you. It would get Hoskins off my back for a change.”

  “No allergens on the skin,” he persists. “I Googled it. Even people with allergies can keep poodles—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I say, laughing. “Would you just shut up about the dog already?”

  “You know, you should get a dog,” he
says, nodding sagely. “A little Scottie, maybe. It might humanize you.” He turns into the mini-mall lot and parks in the handicapped space right in front of the salon. A handwritten banner in the window promises Reflexology for total relaxsashion.

  Seth turns off the car and we sit there for a few minutes watching the male customers on parade, some in shorts, beach shirts, and flip-flops, a couple in business attire, walking in and out of the front door. One man in a Cowboys T-shirt parks as far away from the storefront as possible and takes a meandering route to the massage parlor, as though the snakelike path will throw off any casual observer—for example, a neighbor shopping at the adjacent Dollar Store. You can almost hear him whistling the I’m-just-out-for-a-casual-stroll tune.

  My partner has been staring at the handicapped sign, the white stick figure in the wheelchair painted on a blue background underneath the words BLUE HEAVEN CUSTOMERS ONLY, and says, “Well, that’s a twisted scenario I don’t want to keep in my head.”

  When we walk into the salon, a customer is just leaving. He’s mindlessly humming to himself, regarding his shoes in a happy, fogged sort of way, and he looks up, alarmed, as he passes me in the doorway.

  I smile at him aggressively, hoping I resemble his wife. “Aren’t you late for work?” I mutter to him as he exits the building, blinking into the shattering light.

  Seth follows close behind me, and the receptionist sitting at the desk glances up from her magazine, frowning. The walls of the salon are a strained attempt at Tiffany blue, the furniture prefab, scratched and gouged from frequent, and often hasty, relocations.

  “We’re closing now,” she says automatically. Even though it’s not even the lunch hour, this is the standard response when a nonmale or possible undercover wanders in. She’s Chinese with a long, thin face, somewhere between thirty and fifty. Setting the magazine down, she says a little louder, “We can’t take any more appointments today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “Lana Yu,” I say, showing her my badge. “I’d like to talk to her.”

  Her frown deepens. “She’s not here.”

  “Where is she?” I ask.

  The receptionist has reached under the desk to press the silent alarm, and soon a man, slender, wearing a plaid jacket, appears from somewhere in the back. Despite his willowy shape, he takes a military at-ease stance, hands clasped in front of his pelvis, legs spread slightly apart. His cheekbones are high and prominent, his hair short and spiky. The guy’s the salon’s watchdog and probably a deserter from the Chinese army, and from the spring in his step I’m sure he can goose-step with the best of them.

  “What can I do for you?” he asks politely but with eyes on Seth.

  “We’d like to talk to Lana Yu,” I say. He sees my badge on the desk but shakes his head, looking appropriately apologetic. “She’s not here.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you the manager, Mr. …?”

  “Just Tony. And yes.”

  “All right, Just Tony, I’d like to see your state license to practice massage therapy, please. Oh, and I’d like to see your carry permit also.”

  He looks briefly surprised, but then he smiles and pulls out a battered wallet from his front pocket and hands me his carry permit. Being the salon’s enforcer, he wouldn’t be without a gun nestled snugly behind his plaid jacket. The massage license appears to be harder to find, though, and as the receptionist makes a show of rustling papers around, Tony is tapping his wallet against his chest, indicating that he’s willing to pay us to go away. There will be no state license, of course; it’s easier to pull up tent stakes and move on if class B demeanor charges get too troublesome and costly.

  Seth reaches out his left hand as though he’s going to take the wallet. As Tony extends his arm, Seth grabs Tony’s wrist with one hand and snaps the cuffs on with the other. With a twisting movement he has Tony pressed against the desk, both hands now secured behind him, the gun, a compact Glock, lifted from Tony’s waistband.

  At that moment, a man walks in from the street, and in the process of taking out his own wallet to pay for some realignment, his eyes adjust to the dark and he sees the arrest tableau going on, four pairs of eyes staring at him in various stages of agitation.

  He pulls up short and, without missing a beat, drawls, “Is this the Pegasus Title Company?”

  “No!” Seth and I yell at him at the same time, and I give him the get-lost head twitch. The customer rapidly shuffles backward, apologizes, and disappears through the door.

  “Why did you cuff me?” Tony demands, twisting his head around. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  I have to bend down to get closer to Tony’s face. “I felt threatened.” I study his permit and then tell him, “Okay, here’s the deal. Either you find Lana for us or we’ll be here all day and your customer base is going to dry up. If you know what I mean.”

  A few of the salon women have emerged from their cubicles in the back and are now standing in the hallway, close to the front desk, all eyes on their handler.

  Tony’s eyes tell me that he’d be thrilled to see me facedown in a water tower, but he says, “I’ll give you her address. She’ll be sleeping.”

  “Oh, goody.” I signal Seth to uncuff Tony. “I get to wake Sleeping Beauty. Now, if I find out you’ve called Lana before we get there, I’m coming back here with a warrant and I will shut you down.”

  I take the address from Tony, and as we get back into the car, Seth tells me, “Riz, this is just so Texas. Plenty of paper making it legal to shoot someone, but not a permit in sight to legally rub one down.”

  The address, as it turns out, is not next to the salon but three miles away in a more upscale neighborhood. This time I drive while Seth checks in with Craddock and Hoskins. So far, they have no leads.

  Lana’s house is in a gated community and I show my badge to the uniformed guard in the miniature Versailles that serves as the security station. After I warn him he is not to alert the homeowner, he opens the heavy iron gate—incoming cars to the right, outgoing cars to the left—and we drive through the meandering streets looking for Lana’s place. Upon finding the address, we do an alley drive-by at the back of her house to peer through the sliding iron gate barring the rear entrance. There is only a dark blue BMW convertible parked outside in the rear driveway. We see a two-car garage, but the door is closed, so we can’t tell if another vehicle is hidden there.

  After parking in front of the house at the end of a cul-de-sac, Seth does a quick look-see over the high wooden privacy fence to Lana’s backyard, then hoists himself atop the frame quietly, in one fluid movement. He shakes his head, seeing nothing threatening, and hops down again. We step onto the front porch, Seth standing off to one side, his hand on his firearm. I lean on the doorbell and hear the slapping sound of bare feet coming across the foyer. The door opens a crack, revealing half of a young woman’s face. I hold up my badge, and the eye stares at me, but there’s no movement, either to open the door farther or close it completely. She’s wearing only a long T-shirt, her face smudged with last night’s makeup.

  “Yeah?” she says.

  “Lana Yu?” I edge to the side to get a better look at her. The woman blinks sleepily, yawning extravagantly.

  “Yeah?” she says again, irritated.

  “Are you alone?”

  “What’s this about?” She opens the door a bit wider and steps out onto the porch. “I’m sleeping.” She frowns, but then catches sight of Seth and startles. She has waist-length jet hair, one long section streaked with scarlet, a rounded, slightly pocked face, but a body that only a twenty-something with a home gym can maintain.

  “Tomas Ruiz. You seen him lately?” I ask.

  She’s expressionless, but one expertly tattooed brow inches up a bit. “No,” she says defensively.

  “Can we come in?” I ask.

  “No. You can’t come in.” She crosses her arms, barring the door. “You have a warrant?�
� she asks, but the volume of her voice has edged upward a notch. Too loud for it to have been meant for just us. I hear a rear door closing softly and the jarring sounds of scraping metal. The back gate is opening.

  “Back gate!” I yell to Seth, and he barges past Lana and sprints down the hallway toward the back of the house. For an instant I consider bolting after Seth, but then I think I should get our car—

  “Get the car!” Seth roars from somewhere inside the house, and I run for the Dodge parked out front. I can still hear Lana screaming for Seth to get out of her house as I start the car, put it in drive, and race to the end of the street. Ahead, I see the Beemer slam out of the alley, knocking over an industrial-size trash can, and speed toward what can only be the main enclave exit next to the guard station. I stop the car long enough for Seth, legging it from the rear of the house, to throw himself into the passenger seat. The heavy exit gates at the guard station will open automatically, but slowly, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to catch up to the driver before he can get away. Seth calls for backup, and I’m praying that none of the neighborhood kids decide to dash into the street as we take sliding turns around stop signs and CHILDREN PLAYING warnings, following the Beemer as it grinds over some of the corner yards.

  The car is now approaching the guard station, the gates already opening as I make the last turn a block away. Before the gates can open completely, though, with less than six feet of air between the panels, the Beemer’s engine guns and the body of the car rams through the narrow opening, its side mirrors tearing loose, wide swaths of paint planed raggedly from both sides of the car, with a shower of sparks from metal scraping metal. It flies onto the main street, makes a right-hand turn, and slides dangerously into traffic. The metal exit gates are now stuck, frozen in their partially open state, and the space is not large enough for our Dodge to pass through. With some yelling and wild gesturing from us, the panicked guard opens the entrance’s side gate, but by the time we turn right onto the street, the getaway car is lost from sight.