The Renegades

by T. Jefferson Parker

  He left a message for one of Terry’s regular partners, saying he wanted to talk with him.

  He called another regular partner, the reserve deputy Coleman Draper, who answered on the third ring. Hood told him who he was and what he wanted. Draper said that Terry Laws was one of the finest human beings he’d ever known and there was no time like the present to talk about him, especially if it involved breakfast and would help them find the dirtbag who’d killed him.

  THE SNOW STARTED just as Hood left the prison parking lot. It materialized out of an endless silver-gray cloud that looked to be no more than a hundred feet off the ground. He stood for a minute and let the light, dry flakes fall around him. They were cold on his neck but on his hot punctured cheek they were soothing. The snow settled on the spikes of the Joshua trees, rimming them with white. The storm followed him down Highway 14 but at Agua Dulce turned to rain that roared heavily upon the cruiser roof.

  Hood met Draper in Santa Clarita, between Lancaster and L.A. Draper was average height, wiry, with a clean-shaven face and white hair cut short in the back with a wavy forelock in front. Hood guessed him at roughly his own age—late twenties. Draper had a sly smile and a spark in his gray eyes. His handshake was strong and his clothes were expensive.

  He told Hood that he owned a German car garage down in Venice, lived right around the corner. Hood saw that Draper’s hands were clean.

  “Right,” said Draper. “I don’t do the work anymore. Seven years of that is enough. I’m just the manicured boss now.”

  Draper smiled at the waitress and ordered the works omelet, extra cheese, with a side of biscuits and gravy.

  Hood was agnostic about reservists. He knew that some of them were good people, trying to help, getting a little buzz off the danger. But he also knew that some had a little-dog complex and that some were bullies. Some were rich and some were poor. Whatever they were, Hood knew, once approved, they got a gun, a badge and one dollar a year to work a minimum of five hours a week. Some of them worked full-time for that one dollar a year.

  “Terry was a cool guy,” said Draper. “He brought in his VW one day, said he’d heard good things about my shop. We did a valve job for him and Terry and I hit it off. A few months later he brought me into the Reserves. That was four years ago—’05. We rode as partners. But we were friends. Good friends.”

  Hood watched as Draper looked out the window. Draper blinked twice, quickly, and sighed. “Black dude in Blood red is what I heard. An M249 SAW machine gun.”

  Hood nodded.

  “How many shots did Terry take?”

  “Many.”

  Draper looked at him. “Murder a deputy? That’s a prestige initiation. Fuckin’ animals.”

  “Any threats against Terry?” asked Hood.

  Draper nodded. “Well, he’d popped his share of punks and gangsters. Aryans, black gangstas, Mexican, Eme, MS-13. They all threaten. Even the drunk desert rats threaten. The Antelope Valley, what do you expect? Nothing but the usual trash from those people.”

  “How about a Blood with a grudge?”

  “We busted a guy named Londell Dwayne a month ago—grand theft auto. That’s what it looked like to us, anyway. Turned out to be his girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend’s ride. Something like that. By the time we got to the bottom of it, Londell had spent forty-eight in jail. He’s a big mouth. They might have roughed him up some. Not a happy punk. He’s clicked up with the Antelope Valley Bloods and they’ve got ties to L.A. because most of them came from South Central.”

  At Dwayne’s name, a jolt of adrenaline went through Hood.

  “After the bust Terry tried to help out with Londell’s dog—a pit bull, of course. The dog ended up lost and Londell blamed him. Londell is a hothead. He’s got no self-control. But I don’t know if he could do something like this.”

  “The shooter looked like Londell,” said Hood.

  “Be careful. He was packing a twenty-five auto when we rousted him.”

  The waitress brought more coffee. Hood looked out at the slowing rain and the drenched oleander that ringed the parking lot.

  “It looked planned,” he said.

  “It sounds planned.”

  “Talk to me, Coleman.”

  While they ate, Draper told Hood that Terry was an easygoing man, big on fitness and small on ’tude. Smart. Generous, willing to work hard. One of the good guys.

  Hood asked for the downside. Draper thought for a minute, then said Terry didn’t have enough ego to stand up to some people. He said Terry was happy to show his good side, like being in shape and helping with the Toys for Tots thing, but wanted to hide the fact that he was prone to drinking and depression. Who wouldn’t?

  Draper said Terry’s ex-wife was a bitch but Terry’s two teenaged daughters were good girls who adored him. His second wife was a divorcee, a cute young peach with a taste for nice things.

  “He picked the wrong women without fail,” said Draper. “That was a true talent, and a running joke of ours. But he was loyal to them, to a fault.”

  Draper looked out at the rain and blinked twice again and Hood saw the moisture come to his eyes. Then his eyes became dry and still.

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  “Names and l.k.a.’s of black gangsters he’d rousted or busted.”

  “I’ll have them to you by noon. I’d look at Londell. Tell him I said hi. How are you holding up, Deputy Hood?”

  “I can’t believe what happened.”

  Draper was nodding. “How’d you get mixed up in IA?”

  “They came to me. You know, I’m doing this for Terry.”

  “If you go back to patrol, let’s ride sometime, Charlie. I can learn from you.”

  “Judging from history I’m due back on patrol in about three weeks.”

  Draper smiled. “I heard about all that. You nailed a bad cop. That was a good thing.”

  Hood drank the last of his coffee and got out his wallet. “Draper, how come you do this? You make a dollar a year putting your life on the line. It could have been you sitting next to Laws.”

  Draper stared at Hood. “Deputy Hood, I wish I was sitting next to Terry. I mean no disrespect. Law enforcement is something I feel strongly about. My father was a reserve deputy. His father was a real one. In Jacumba, down by the border.”

  “Rough country.”

  “The roughest in the world.”

  HOOD CALLED ORR and told him what he’d learned about the bad blood between Terry Laws and Londell Dwayne, and that Londell looked enough like the shooter to warrant a knock-and-talk.

  An hour later he met Orr and Bentley in the parking lot of Londell Dwayne’s apartment in Palmdale. The storm had blown through but the sky was dark and shifting. A few inches of fresh white snow lay everywhere. There were snowcapped tumbleweeds piled up against a sign that said “The Oasis—Now Renting.” Londell’s crib was upstairs.

  Hood popped the snap on his hip holster and followed the Bulldogs up the concrete steps. Their weight vibrated the metal staircase, and the snowflakes on the railing wobbled and fell. The front windows of Londell’s place were blacked out with tinfoil and Hood heard a bass line throbbing inside. Bentley timed his knocks between the beats.

  The door opened and the music got louder and Londell stood eye-to-eye in front of them. He was a slender man, no shirt, heavy bling, shorts below his knees and clean white K-SWISS ankle-highs. Hood watched him focus on the badge that Bentley held up. His eyes were deep brown in the middle and yellow outside. He looked at Bentley, then Orr, then Hood. Hood’s nerves rippled—goddamn if Londell didn’t look like the shooter. Facial type. Body shape. Posture.

  “Bentley,” said Dwayne. “The whitest nigga in Antelope Valley.”

  “We’d like to talk to you,” said Bentley.

  “So talk to me.”

  “You’ll have more privacy inside.”

  “None of you is coming in here without no paper.”

  “You know Terry Laws, the deputy,” said Bentle
y.

  “I know he’s room temperature.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “I know he busted my ass for something I didn’t do, and he stole my dog and lost her. Her name is Delilah if you see her. She’s running loose somewhere in this world.”

  “Were you there when Deputy Laws was shot?”

  “Naw, man.”

  “Yeah, man. We’ve got a witness who says the shooter looked a lot like you. He picked your picture right out.”

  “I was here with Latrenya.” He turned back to the room. “Lattie, get over here and tell these guys the truth they want to hear.”

  She appeared beside him, a tall woman with cornrows and hoop earrings. She was older and bigger than Londell. “We were right here. My sister, too. We heard about that killing this morning. We don’t know nothing about it. Nothing.”

  “There,” said Dwayne. “Can you handle that much truth?”

  “You were here all night?” asked Orr.

  “Whole night except out for pizza at Little Caesar’s at seven o’clock sharp. Me and Latrenya and Tawna and Anton, right here where I currently stand.”

  “They don’t have nothing on you, Lonnie. They acting like they do but they don’t.”

  “You heard the woman,” said Londell.

  “Give them Tawna’s number,” she said. “Let ’em talk to her. I’m going to write it down.”

  She was back a moment later with a matchbook. Londell snatched it away from her and gave it to Bentley.

  “See this? This a Pep Boys matchbook and these are the Pep Boys. When you’re done confirming my innocence with the phone number on it, you can poke little holes in their crotches and pull the matches through from the back. Make you laugh. You muthas need to laugh more. I can tell by the looks on your faces.”

  The door slammed.

  The three deputies stood in the parking lot. The snow-frosted tumbleweeds tried to climb the “Now Renting” sign while Orr called the number and put the phone on speaker.

  A polite and soft-spoken girl named Tawna Harris told him she was Latrenya’s sister, and that she and her friend Anton had been with her and Londell from Monday evening around six until just after midnight: TV and King Cobras and Little Caesar’s and more beer and TV. She said that was the whole truth and nothing but.

  Orr asked her a few questions, tried to get a contradiction, but couldn’t. He finally thanked her and punched off.

  The Bulldogs drove away. Hood watched them. He wanted to be a Bulldog himself someday but he’d had his shot in L.A. and now it was gone.

  He drove off, too, then circled back around and parked across the street and down half a block from the entrance of the Oasis. He could see the front door and the foil-covered windows.

  Half an hour later Londell bounced down the stairs. He’d put on a clean white T-shirt and a pair of shades. He drove a sun-faded Chevrolet Impala to a 7-Eleven.

  Hood followed and parked across the street and watched. Londell came out of the store a minute later with a case of beer and a bag of something, flipped off Hood and got back into his car.

  So Hood drove to the Little Caesar’s. The girl behind the counter said she had just talked to two detectives about Londell Dwayne and she’d tell him the same thing she told them: She worked the six-to-midnight last night, she didn’t ever take a break except for the ladies’ room, and she didn’t ever see Londell and his ugly dog and ugly Detroit hoodie and his stuck-up girlfriend, Latrenya, never once, and she paid attention to every person who walked into that place because it was the most boring job in the world and you had to do something to make the time pass. And Londell was gonna make a move on Tawna, she promised Hood that.

  5

  Draper made himself a martini and carried it to his tiny Venice backyard and looked up through the bowing telephone lines at the cool, clear sky. The storm had passed and the stars looked polished. Music played from somewhere as it always did.

  His shoes were quiet on the concrete as he crossed the old driveway and punched the code for the wooden gate. He walked thirty feet down the Amalfi Street sidewalk then into the parking lot of Prestige German Auto. He let himself into the small building, deactivated the alarm system, then walked through the short dark hallway past his office and into the garage. The familiar smells of gasoline and oil and steel and rubber all greeted him. He turned on the overhead fluorescents and saw the five bays, each with a German car either racked up or straddling a repair pit. He sipped the drink and turned off the lights.

  Back in his office he reviewed the last few days of business on the computer. His manager, Heinz, had run a tight, fast ship. Draper liked Germans because they were dogged enough to grapple with the complex cars so proudly overengineered by their countrymen, and intelligent enough to prevail. They were honest with the customers—und here are ze old Bilsteins veetook off—and therefore honest with him. He paid them well. Prestige German had grossed almost twenty thousand dollars in the last week, which after payroll, overhead, and insurance would land thirty-five hundred dollars in Draper’s pocket.

  He locked up and reset the alarm and called Alexia as he walked home.

  “I’m back,” he said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Everything is okay.”

  “Now I’m happy. I’ve missed you. I only breathe properly when you’re here.”

  “I’ll be home in an hour.”

  “I’ll be waiting, Coleman. I’ve missed you very much. And Brittany misses you very much, too.”

  He packed his clothes—mostly dirty—and stopped at the Mexican market for cut flowers, a bottle of the sweet Riesling that Alexia loved, and a sugary churro for the girl.

  Half an hour later Draper pulled into the garage of his Azusa home. Alexia stood in the doorway to the house, backlit by the warm light from the kitchen. She was petite and perfectly proportioned and her black hair shone like that of a groomed racehorse.

  Draper stood there with the roses in his hand, just looking at her. She wore a new white dress with red piping, and a red belt and heels, which were beautiful against her young brown skin. He hadn’t seen her in a week and his heart beat hard as she came down the steps into the garage and opened her arms to him. He hugged her and pressed his nose against her luminous, fragrant hair.

  “I’ll help you with your luggage,” she said.

  “It can wait.”

  Alexia brushed his lips with hers then moved away from Draper, and together they looked through the open door into the house, where two-year-old Brittany waddled toward them. She was a pudgy miniature of her mother, sporting a pink satin dress and pink sneakers.

  “She has a new dress for you, too.”

  “I’m the luckiest man alive.”

  Draper had first seen Alexia almost two years ago, exhausted and dirty and sick, carrying her baby daughter across a dusty lot up near Palmdale. She was cutting through the lot on a 109-degree day, Draper had noted, to save a few steps on her way to the bus stop. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. His mind had instantly filled with possibilities, many of which had since been made real.

  “Are you okay, Cole?”

  “Now I am.”

  He handed Alexia the roses then lifted Brittany by the waist and shifted her to the crook of his arm and they all went into the house.

  After dinner Draper’s cell phone rang and he checked the caller ID before answering. He walked into the spare bedroom and closed the door. It was Hood, asking more questions about Londell Dwayne and his dog and Terry Laws.

  Draper told him what he knew, then returned to the neat little dining room.

  He looked at Alexia. Brittany smiled and drooled and banged her pacifier on the table.

  “What happened, Cole?”

  “A man I work with was shot and killed last night. The shooter got away. That was someone official, with questions.”

  She stood behind him and kneaded his shoulders and neck with her small strong hands. Coleman hung his head and wiped a small
tear from his eye. He kept wondering what Terry had told Laurel. Nothing? Everything?

  “I’m sorry, Cole. I am so sorry for you.”

  “I’m all right now.”

  “When will you have to go away again? No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask that. I know. I’m very sorry.”

  Alexia’s small knowledge of him bordered the vast, willed expanse of her ignorance of him. To Draper it was better than trust.

  “A little to the left. Yes. There.”

  6

  Prosecutor Ariel Reed met Hood in the lobby of the downtown District Attorney building. They had talked on the phone several times but had never met. She was petite and fair-skinned, with dark hair squared off just above the eyes and just below her chin. Her shoulders were straight. She was about Hood’s age and she walked fast. She led him down a hallway and into her office and began talking as she closed the door.

  “We don’t go easy on bad cops,” she said. “The jury’s been impaneled and we’re ready to rock. We’re on the trial docket for week after next, Superior Courtroom Eight—the honorable William Mabry. I’m going to call you as a witness, which means you’ll need to be available.”

  “I’ll be available.”

  The defendant was a Sheriff’s Department deputy that Hood had helped bust last year in L.A. He had been running a stolen goods racket out of a Long Beach warehouse. The DA had charged him with ten felony counts of grand theft, and buying and selling stolen property. He was looking at eight to ten years.

  Ariel gave Hood a level gaze. Her eyes were hazel. She tapped something onto her computer keyboard.

  “I forgot to offer you coffee,” she said.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I go too fast sometimes.”

  “I forget to tie my shoes sometimes,” he said.

  “Our caseload is heavy. To think about it directly is to court insanity. But you detectives know all about that.”

  “Insanity.”