"Shit fits you good," he said, proud of his guesses. Then he pulled out a black box from his desk drawer, opened it and handed me two gold metal uniform ornaments.
"Badge and hat piece," he said. "We're outta hats right now 'cause of the Fleetwood expansion. I got more lids coming in. You about a seven and six-eighths?"
"You're pretty good, Arnie."
"Yeah, I rock. Pin that on your shirt. Put the hat piece in your pocket till the new brims come in and get your ass outta here. Your training officer is gonna swing by in twenty minutes to pick you up. You can wait for him by the handball courts out front. Have a good one."
I threaded the badge through the metal eyelets on my uniform shirt and clipped it closed. Number 689. Pinned, tinned and ready to sap Mexicans.
When I went into the Los Angeles Police Academy in Elysian Park, it had taken me eight grueling months to earn my uniform and badge. This was a joke.
I exited the gymnasium and found the handball courts. There was an old wooden bench under a leafless elm, so I sat in the meager shade from the dying tree and waited. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, so I decided to follow the advice on my left shoulder and be forever vigilant.
Chapter 11
"I gotta straighten a guy out in Fleetwood, so let s run over there and I'll show you around," Alonzo Bell said as I got into the passenger side of his black-and-white. He pulled out of the elementary school and continued. "Our shop is Car Nine. In Haven Park we use a regular ten-code like LAPD. I've got us out of service, ten-seven, for the beginning of the tour so I can show you the turf."
"Good deal."
We drove down a commercial street called District, then skirted the edges of Haven Park, went through the neighboring city of Vista and entered Fleetwood.
"I heard shots and some sirens last night," I said as we rode past the mostly residential blocks of single-story, brightly painted stucco houses with dead lawns.
"We had a little street-cleaning action. I didn't hear about it till this morning. The night watch caught some South Side Crips doing corners over on Lincoln Boulevard. It got frisky." Doing corners was street slang for drug dealing.
Bell smiled. "We don't want those guys over here. Two C-homies got splashed, two got hooked and booked. Lotta red sauce got spilled. Big night."
"But you leave the Eighteenth Street Locos alone."
"Eighteenth Streeters are kicking back to us, so they get the hospitality mat. I thought I ran this all down for you at A Fuego," he said, frowning.
I nodded and looked at the passing houses. More dead grass, rusting Chevys. Urban blight.
We drove through Fleetwood to the city administration complex, which was located next to a rundown industrial complex.
Alonzo nosed our unit into a slot. We got out and I followed him inside the two-story city hall building. He approached a pretty, dark-eyed girl with shiny jet-black hair, who was wearing a tight sweater that showed off her jutting breasts.
"Mariana Concheta Brown," he announced. "Maravilloso Mamacita."
"Hey, Al. Where you been? How come none of you hot Haven Park guys come calling anymore?" She smiled at him and he winked at me. Obviously she was more than a friend.
"Meet my new partner, fresh from L. A. Shane Scully, this is Mariana Brown. Her husband s in Iraq."
He winked again, all of this, I guess, to tell me he was laying this war bride.
"Nice to meet you," I said.
"Mariana runs the sorry sack of incompetent dogs who work here. Armando around?" he asked.
Mariana picked up a phone and buzzed. "Sergeant Bell to see you, sir."
A few seconds later, a fat brown middle-aged toad of a guy exited the door behind Mariana. His greasy black hair was slicked back and he had one of those deeply pockmarked complexions that looked like he'd had trouble learning to eat with a fork as a kid.
"It didn't come," Armando said without preamble, growling the words at Alonzo.
"You need to talk to Cal or Gordon 'cause they were bringing it."
"Don't hide behind those mallates. You know how this shits supposed to work. It's your responsibility to make sure my end gets to me."
"Say hi to Shane," Alonzo said. "He's my new partner." Trying to use me to avoid the short ugly man's anger.
Armando glanced at me, then addressed Alonzo again. "This shit's gotta stop."
"I'll check with those guys, see what happened."
Armando turned to face me. "You'll do good down here if you don't forget how things work. Alonzo here, sometimes he's got a bad memory." Then he slapped Bell hard on the shoulder. It wasn't a very friendly gesture. "I want that package before I go home. Make it happen."
Then, without saying goodbye, he turned and went through the door behind Mariana, who was studiously at work not looking at Alonzo, pretending not to have heard the humiliating slap-down.
We walked outside and got back into our shop. "That guy's on the Fleetwood City Council, but he needs to chill. He's getting way too full of himself," Bell growled, working off some anger. "Put us ten-eight."
I picked up the mike. "This is Car Nine. We're ten-eight and clear to take calls at El Norte Park in Fleetwood."
The RTO came back. "Roger, Nine, we show you ten-eight and clear in Fleetwood."
I clicked the mike off and looked over at Alonzo. Whatever had transpired at city hall was still chewing on him and he glowered darkly as he drove. We headed back into Haven Park. On the way, we passed a large political billboard with a picture of a Mexican middleweight boxer named Rocky Chacon. He was in a classic fighter's stance with his feet squared, his red gloves up, facing the camera. Under the picture, written in both Spanish and English, it said:
VOTE FOR A CHAMPION ROCKY CHACON FOR HAVEN PARK MAYOR
"What's with that?" I asked Alonzo, jerking my thumb at the sign as we rolled past.
Bell glanced at the billboard and said, "That's a big problem. That's something all of us better do something about, quick."
He drove in silence for a minute. "You heard about him, right? When he was still fighting? Juan "Rocky" Chacon — 'El Alboratador.'"
"Alborotador means brawler, right?" Alonzo nodded, so I went on. "Yeah, I remember him. The middleweight champ for about six seconds. He was from some little dirt-street town in Baja."
"He lives here now. Became a U. S. citizen. Runs a little grease-pit taco joint with his mother called Mama's Casita. He's some kind of hero to these beaners 'cause they thought he had higganas in the ring. Now this guy is running for mayor on a reform ticket, and according to the last poll in the Haven Park Courier, he actually has a decent shot at winning."
"I thought Cecil Bratano had it all locked up down here."
"He did, but the thing you gotta realize is most of the shit-sticks in this city are illegals, which means they can't vote. Only a couple a thousand registered voters in all of Haven Park. Doesn't take much to swing an election. Nobody counted on this Rocky Chacon character. He's a reformer pledging to stop all the ticket towing and corruption. All of a sudden he's leading in the polls. One of our jobs is to convince Rocky to either drop out or move out. But he's a gutsy little bastard, and so far he's been hanging tough."
Alonzo put on his blinker and slowed as we turned onto Lincoln Boulevard. Then he took a right onto a side street called Flower Avenue and pulled up across from a small but freshly painted Mexican restaurant. Mama's Casita. There was a lot of city roadwork going on in front of the place. A backhoe had torn up the asphalt and was roaring back and forth, throwing up a cloud of dust while blocking the little parking lot beside the restaurant.
"All that roadwork is us," Alonzo said, smiling. "Mayor Bratano authorized it. Gonna tear out the sidewalk and more of the street next week. This asshole and his mama are gonna be serving their tacos in a big dusty hole. Gonna go broke if he doesn't get the message."
"You think a little dust and noise is gonna run him off?" I asked skeptically.
"Probably not, but we don't stop with that. T
here's more. Rocky is my little project." He grinned. "Come on, I'll show ya."
He put the car in gear and pulled out. A few blocks away on 58th Street was a strip mall. There was a storefront in the center with a campaign poster of Rocky in the window. The same stripped-to-the-waist, fight-night pose, CHACON FOR MAYOR OF HAVEN PARK was painted on the window. Bell grabbed the mike off the hook and said, "This is Car Nine at the mall. Fifty-eighth and Flower. Send me two tow trucks, more if you can spare. We got a bunch a illegally maintained vehicles. We're code six at the location."
"Roger. Car Nine is code six and requesting tow trucks at the Flower Avenue Mall," the RTO said.
He hung up. "Follow me. I'll show you how this works."
We got out of the car and walked into the parking lot. Alonzo immediately started writing a towing ticket for every car that had a CHACON FOR MAYOR bumper sticker on it.
"You just write 'em?" I said. "Don't have to be illegally parked or anything?"
"This one has a broken taillight," Bell replied, and shattered the light with his baton. "Against the law to drive an illegally maintained vehicle. Gotta tow it."
"Blue Light Towing is closed for Cinco de Mayo."
"Impound lot only. The garage never shuts down. Those greedy culos even work Easter Sunday."
Just then Chacon came running out of his campaign headquarters. He was only about five feet seven inches tall and 160 pounds. He was around forty years old, and had a ruggedly handsome face dominated by a broken nose. He still looked to be in very good shape.
"What are you doing? I just saw you break that," he shouted at Alonzo. "You been doing this for over a week now."
"You better calm down, sir," Bell said with exaggerated politeness. "Go back inside. This doesn't concern you."
Several campaign workers came out behind Rocky, but they just stood there saying nothing while Alonzo brazenly broke taillights and side mirrors off their cars, then wrote tickets. Rocky Chacon had machismo and wasn't used to taking abuse from another man.
"You are police. You can't do this. It's against the law," he said, rage shaking his voice.
"We are the law." Bell grinned and broke another taillight. Then he wrote another ticket. "It's illegal to drive a vehicle with broken mirrors or brake lights," he said. "These cars cannot be driven, so they're all gonna be impounded. The owners can retrieve them at Blue Light Towing tomorrow. Bring cash."
Chacon started to move toward us with an intense, dangerous look in his black eyes. It looked like he was seconds from going physical. Just then a gray-haired, heavyset woman rushed out of the campaign headquarters and grabbed Rocky's arm.
"No. No, Juanito. This is exactly what they want. No."
"But Mama, they break the law. This is the policeman I told you about. He comes here every day. They can't do this."
"Come inside!" she ordered him. "Leave them! Come! You must do this! Juanito, do as I say!"
She pulled him again. He was clearly torn by the moment, but then reluctantly acquiesced. However, he was full of murderous rage as he walked inside, leaving Alonzo Bell and me to finish writing up the cars. We got seven done before the first tow truck arrived.
"You see how close to the edge he is? He almost lost it and came after us," Alonzo said as he wrote a last ticket, then closed his metal book.
I saw Rocky Chacon looking out the window, talking loudly to his mother and to several people whose cars were about to be towed.
"That guy is a day or two away from assaulting a police officer. Once I get his skinny ass into an I-room Til give him a bare knuckle lesson in city politics he won't ever forget."
Minutes later, two more Blue Light tow trucks pulled into the lot and all three started hooking up the offending vehicles.
"And that is how it's done in Haven Park," Alonzo said proudly.
As we crossed the street to our patrol car I noticed the same tan Chevy with blackwalls parked half a block away, watching us. I turned to walk in that direction and confront whoever was inside, but before I could get there the tan car quickly sped off.
Chapter 12
At the end of our straight eight we both changed into street clothes in the locker room. Alonzo suggested we complete our first day over a few beers at A Fuego. We headed out to the parking lot and he drove me to the club in his brand-new white Cadillac Escalade. I estimated the fancy SUV must have cost him upward of ninety thousand dollars with its state-of-the-art sound system, deluxe interior and chrome spinners. It was a lot of car for a sergeant making sixty or sixty-five thousand base pay. There was little doubt that the Haven Park cafeteria line had paid for his ride. He drove half a mile and turned into the parking lot at A Fuego.
"So after your first tour, whatta you think?" Alonzo said, looking over and grinning as he parked the car in a red no-parking zone up near the front entrance.
"It's a good way to go. Pretty hard to go wrong if you can change the rules to fit the crime," I said, smiling back.
"Got that right," he said.
We walked to the front door and entered. The same relentless, deafening mariachi music rocketed out of half a dozen speakers, bouncing off the walls and against my chest.
Td really like to get my car back," I shouted in his ear to be heard over the music. "Blue Light is closed till tomorrow."
"Nothing is closed when you know the right people," he said. "If you want, I can boot that up for you right now, no sweat."
I nodded, so he held up his hand for me to wait right where I was and headed across the nightclub, where he found Manny Avila in a booth by the kitchen. He shouted something into his ear and pointed at me. Manny smiled in my direction and waved. They exchanged a few more words, then both got up from the table and walked into the club's office through a door behind the bar.
Five minutes later Alonzo returned and handed me an envelope. "All set up. He's calling a guy right now to open the impound lot."
"What's this?" I asked, holding up the envelope.
"Your half of the eight tows we wrote today. Eighty bucks. Keep this up and in six months you'll be driving your own new Escalade."
I grinned and put the cash into my pocket without opening the envelope.
"We can go get your car back right now. Come on, I'll drive you over there. It's only a few blocks."
We headed out of the club and got back into Alonzo's SUV. He pulled out onto the street, and as he made the turn I again saw the tan Chevy following us.
"See that Chevy with the blackwalls?" I said.
"Yep."
"Third time I've spotted that thing. I know this is a small town, but it ain't quite that small."
"Let's see what they want. Better unstrap," Bell said. He pulled out his off-duty backup piece and wedged it under his thigh. I did the same. Then he floored the Escalade and swung a right, squealing rubber as he skidded into a side street. I turned in the seat and saw the tan Chevy fly past. Alonzo spun a smoking gunrunner s one-eighty and roared out again. We were now right behind the car, which was accelerating, trying to get away from us up the street.
"Oh, no, you don't. You're mine now," Alonzo said as he reached under the dash and hit a toggle switch. Red and blue police lights mounted in his grille flashed on the trunk of the Chevy. After half a block of chasing the car, Alonzo leaned on the horn, blasting it relentlessly until the Chevy finally pulled over.
Alonzo and I clutched our backup pieces and jumped out. As soon as our feet hit the pavement, a man and a woman were coming out of the Chevy, and both had guns in their hands.
"Police!" Alonzo shouted.
"FBI," Ophelia Love shouted back, holding up her FBI badge. "Holster those weapons!"
"I know this bitch," I said. "Federal heat."
"Yeah. Cunt is always up in our business down here."
There was no way any of us were about to initiate an interagency shoot-out, so we all put our guns away. An awkward moment followed. Then Alonzo pasted a big, insincere grin on his face.
The fed with Agent Lo
ve had a crew cut and an unsettled expression on his face. He looked implausibly young, just out of Quantico. Agent Love turned and glared at me.
"Is this dickhead on the job down here already?" She sounded amazed. Her voice was full of contempt and she never took those ice-blue eyes off me.
"You're talking about one of Haven Park's finest," Alonzo said. "And I should caution you against calling my probationer a dickhead, because it pisses me off."
"Didn't take him long, did it? But then, you flush a toilet anywhere in L. A. and the shit always comes out here in Haven Park."
"Why are you still following me around?" I growled. "My case in L. A. is closed. No charges filed. This constitutes harassment."
"I work down here," she shot back. "This is my beat. I'm on the federal gun squad, remember? All the illegal firearms in So Cal are coming into L. A. through this town. I'm here to shut that down."
"You need to go get straightened out with Mayor Bratano on that," Alonzo said. "We got a big jurisdictional overlap here. Our department is all over the Eighteenth Street gun-smuggling problem. We don't want federal help."
"You aren't doing anything, except cashing envelopes full of payoff money."
"You got some evidence to go with that, or are you just showing off for your crew cut over there?"
Love's lanky build was tense. She stood with her feet spread defiantly, facing us down under dull streetlamps.
"I'm now a duly sworn member of the Haven Park Police Department," I said hotly. "If I see you behind me again, I'm going to take appropriate action."
"Do whatever pleases you," she snapped back.
"Ophelia, let's go," her young partner said, shifting his weight uneasily.
She took her time as she turned and they both got back in the Chevy and pulled out.
"Little history between you two?" Alonzo asked.
"That bitch is the reason I got thrown out of L. A."
Alonzo Bell dropped me in front of the impound yard and waited as I got my car. There was a Hispanic man waiting just behind the fence. He opened the gate, handed me the key to the MDX and watched as I started it. I noticed one or two of the cars we'd towed this afternoon sitting under the halogen lights in the lot, all of them sporting CHACON FOR MAYOR stickers.
On The Grind ss-8 Page 5