Faye Kellerman

by Street Dreams

  I realized that my own mouth was open and closed it shut. I had never seen this side of my father. I must have looked as shocked as Koby did when I took down El Paso. Behind the closet, Fuego started barking again—loud and angry, ordering a rematch with my father.

  Renaldes was struggling under Dad’s bulk, but he was clearly outmatched. Pepe had some muscle definition but was on the short side—smaller than I was. He had a shaved head and dark eyes, which were popping out of their sockets. He had been wearing a terry-cloth robe when we barged in. Now it had opened up, revealing a chest inked with tattoos—a devil, a snake, a spider, et cetera, et cetera, yawn, yawn. It was hard to say anything about his complexion because he was bright pink from pressure and fear.

  Decker pulled the gun out of Pepe’s mouth and placed it on his forehead. He whispered, “You went after the wrong person, amigo.”

  He choked out, “No se—”

  “Shut up and listen!”

  “Por favor—”

  Decker tightened his grip. Renaldes was literally about to explode. “I said, shut up and listen!”

  He was on the verge of passing out. I brought my hand over my father’s fingers and pried them open, just enough to loosen his grip and give Pepe some air. Decker didn’t even realize I was doing it.

  Decker spoke low and slow. “Someone shot at a cop last night. Someone in a bronze Nova with stolen plates. Now if you’re straight with me, guess what, Pepe? You’ll live. If you give me bullshit, you’ll die. Muy fácil. La verdad o la muerte. Comprendes, amigo?”

  The man’s head bobbed up and down. The dog was now thumping against the closet door. I looked around the room, then pushed the coffee table in front of Fuego’s escape route. I pounded on the door to shut the beast up. It worked for a moment, but then Fuego continued yelping.

  “Who did it, Renaldes? Quien?”

  “No conozco. I don’t know—”

  Again the gun was shoved down Pepe’s throat. Decker counted to ten. “Let’s try it again. Quien tiene un carro—a bronze Nova?”

  Renaldes’s eyes rolled back. My heart was beating a mile a minute, adrenaline pumping through my system. Fuego was damn near hysterical. “He’s losing consciousness!” I called out over the barking. “Ease up!”

  My father regarded my face, his eyes as feral as any zoo animal I’ve ever seen. I think he forgot about me.

  “Ease up!” I repeated louder.

  Decker lessened his grip and took the gun out of Pepe’s mouth.

  “Sit him up,” I told my father. “I’ll get a glass of water.” I patted Pepe’s red and sweaty face. “I can’t control him for too much longer. Don’t piss him off.”

  I went into the kitchenette, banging on the closet door as I walked past it. My chest hurt and I could barely catch my breath. The sink was filthy, filled with crusted dishes from the Jurassic age. Little black ants were crawling on the countertop. I opened a cupboard and searched for a clean glass. I found a couple of blue plastic mugs and filled one with cloudy tap water. I debated taking a drink myself but nixed the opportunity to hydrate myself, fearing unseen microbes. I brought it back to Pepe, again banging on the closet door as I passed it.

  I think Fuego started to get the hint. His resumption of barking was slow on the uptake.

  Pepe was sitting on the couch next to my father, his bald head down, hands clasped and shaking. My father was standing over him, the gun still in his right hand. I gave the small man the water. He drank greedily and actually thanked me.

  “You okay?” I asked Pepe.

  Renaldes eyed Decker. “He es crazy!”

  “Excitable,” I corrected.

  Decker growled at me. “You want to ask him about the Nova, hotshot?”

  “Take it easy,” I responded testily.

  “My finger’s getting itchy.”

  I rolled my eyes at Pepe. His eyes said thank you. Somehow Decker and I had fallen into “Good cop/bad cop,” except it wasn’t completely playacting. I sat next to Pepe.

  “Sunset and Marchant … a little after twelve o’clock last night. Bronze Nova, tinted windows, primer on the driver’s door, dented hood, stolen plates.” I gave him the numbers. “They shot out a ’92 black Toyota Corolla. There was a cop inside the car. Big trouble, Pepe. You don’t want anything to do with it.”

  “I don’t know nothin’.”

  Decker shoved him against the back of the couch, water splashing all over his bare chest. Renaldes’s face went white with fear.

  “Will you stop?” I scolded. I got up to get a towel, banging the closet door as I went. I found several napkins purloined from Tasty Taco and gave them to Pepe to wipe off the droplets.

  Again I sat next to him. I said, “Renaldes, we have a credibility problem.”

  He gave me a blank look.

  I said, “I don’t believe you. No creo you.”

  Decker smiled.

  I said, “Look you are in very serious trouble. Mucho problemos, usted tiene. Comprendes?” I glanced at my father. “Could you translate this?”

  “No need. He understands perfectly.”

  “You’re a big help.” I turned to Pepe and pointed to Decker. “He’s crazy.” I pointed to myself. “I’m not. Work with me, Pepe.”

  “I was no drivin’ last night. I here.”

  “Who can alibi you other than Fuego?”

  A blank stare.

  My eyes went to my father’s face. “Please?”

  Dad asked the question in Spanish.

  Renaldes shrugged, shook his head. “I here,” he repeated.

  “Alone?” I asked. “Solo?”

  “Sí, solo.”

  “Bullshit!” my father spat out. He placed his gun on the top of Renaldes’s head.

  Gently, I pushed it away and touched my forehead with an index finger. I studied Pepe’s face. His complexion had gone from fire to ice; it was now holding a sickly blue pallor. I said, “Renaldes, I believe you. But he doesn’t and that’s a problem.”

  Pepe’s eyes darted back and forth. “I no there. I don’ know!”

  Again my father showed him the gun. I chided him with a wag of the finger. To Pepe, I said, “Look, I got an idea. Tell me who owns the car and maybe I can get this guy”—a thumb in Dad’s direction—“maybe I can get him off your back.”

  His eyes went from my face to Decker’s. I’m not sure he understood everything, but he sure understood the tone. Dad translated what I had told him. Renaldes turned his attention to me.

  “Wha’ car?”

  “A Chevrolet Nova. Bronze. Primer on the driver’s side. Tinted windows. Dented. Old.”

  Renaldes said, “I don’ know de carro. I don’ know who drive … I no there. Pero si el carro es caliente … if eet’s hot, I know de peoples dat … de peoples dat chop.”

  My father and I exchanged glances.

  Pepe sensed a reprieve. “I give you de numeros … de address.” Dad said, “No, you’re going to show us the address.” Renaldes looked at me. I regarded my father. “We’re driving a two-seater.”

  “So give him a thrill. Sit on his lap.”

  37

  Pepe told Decker that he kept his clothes in a box under his bed. I pulled it out and the Loo selected a couple of items, keeping the gun on Renaldes as he got dressed. I took the opportunity to look around the place, periodically knocking the closet door to keep the dog quiet. I was beginning to feel sorry for the beast, but then I seemed to recall some trivia tidbit stating that a pit bull’s jaw could apply around two thousand pounds of pressure. The image of half my face gone kept me honest.

  Rifling through his drawers, I found a bag of pills and a pistol— a Colt .32, fully loaded. I showed it to my father while Pepe tied his sneakers.

  “Amigo,” Decker said.

  Pepe looked up.

  “You’ve got a permit for this?”

  No response.

  “Didn’t think so. We’re going to borrow it.”

  Knowing I was more familiar with the stand
ard police issue Beretta, Decker and I exchanged weapons. He said, “You ever fire this thing, Renaldes? Because I’m going to take this into the lab and it could give you problems if it was used in a crime.”

  “I fin’ it,” Pepe told him.

  “Yeah, like you found these pharmaceuticals?” I held up the bag of pills.

  Renaldes regarded me with tired eyes.

  “Hey,” I said. “You play nice, we place nice.”

  Decker took one of Renaldes’s belts, pulled the small man’s hands behind his back, and secured the wrists together. “Don’t take it personally.” He held one arm, I took the other, and together we spirited him to the door.

  “Wha’ ’bout my dog?”

  “If it doesn’t take too long, he should be fine,” Decker answered. “Let’s go.”

  The Porsche had a micromini backseat. I squeezed in as best I could lengthwise; then Dad placed Pepe in the passenger’s bucket. We undid Renaldes’s hands, then retied them around the seat back. I had a gun, so did Dad. The Loo started the car and we were off.

  In frank talk, we were kidnapping Pepe and that didn’t sit well with my inner child. It also gave me insight—just how easy it was to justify jumping the line. My father wasn’t crooked—I was sure of that—but he seemed to have no problem disregarding due process when it served his purposes.

  So where did that leave me?

  I stood loyal to my father, and to justify my uneasiness, I convinced myself that I was his imaginary angel sitting on his right shoulder, telling him when to rein it in.

  I was holding a gun, prepared to use it if I had to, but the guy wasn’t giving us a lick of problems—just the opposite. He was a passive kind of guy who had lived in the same unit for almost three years. I was beginning to doubt that this wimpy guy was really involved in raping Sarah Sanders. I wondered if maybe Germando El Paso had reversed it for his convenience. Maybe Renaldes had been the lookout while Fedek and El Paso did the nasty. I kept that filed in the back of my head, should we ever make progress on the case.

  “You getting hungry, Pepe?” I asked him.

  “A leetle.”

  “You be good and I’ll buy you some food after it’s over.”

  He nodded, his fingers constantly wiggling against the binds that tied his wrists.

  Decker was silent, driving deep into the industrial part of L.A. County, going east on the freeway to the address given to us by Renaldes. We passed a skyline of old buildings, some of them abandoned with shot-out or boarded-up windows. The sky was dull and smoggy and I had to fight to stay awake. I closed my eyes for just a second, then yanked open the lids when I realized I’d fallen asleep. Pepe apparently had the same idea. He was snoring, chin to his chest. I hadn’t noticed it before but he had a pencil mustache as well as a little swatch of beard under his lower lip.

  As soon as Pepe had entered the picture, I hadn’t addressed my father by name or title. He had been equally circumspect with me. Even while Pepe snoozed, we didn’t chat; both of us knew people heard things in their sleep. It was a tense ride and I was dreadfully tired and sorely uncomfortable. Another ten minutes went by before Decker took the off-ramp into the heart of L.A. County industrial life. The air was thick with slag, smelt, and pollutants, and it hurt to breathe too deeply. The blocks were long—warehouse after warehouse—all of it monotonous and ugly.

  The address Pepe had given us corresponded to a body-and-paint shop, and from what I could tell at first glance, it seemed to be a legitimate one. If it had been a chop shop, it would have been hidden. But it wasn’t. Also, there were no large semis, which provided the usual method for transporting stolen wares. But there were stacks of cars in an open lot, many of them in various states of disrepair. Nothing vintage, just worn and cheap. Renaldes jerked his head up and blinked several times.

  He spoke to my father in Spanish. Dad nodded and parked across the street in another open lot. We sat for a moment, thinking about a game plan. Pepe had slumped low in his seat. Again he spoke in Spanish. I recognized anxiety in his voice. My father translated.

  “He said the owners of this garage are subcontractors for some used-car sellers. They do the painting and bodywork for the dealers. Sometimes they smuggle the hot cars in with the legit cars. Sometimes the dealers buy them. They don’t ask questions.”

  More Spanish.

  The Loo said, “The guys have guns. He told me to be careful.”

  Renaldes said, “Habla con Señor Angus o Señor Morton. Yo no puedo entrar. … I no go inside. Dey keel me.”

  “Let him stay here,” I told my father.

  “All right,” Decker said. “Just keep an eye on him.”

  “I’m going in with you. They have guns, you need backup.”

  “I’m not planning on a shooting match.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on getting shot at, either.” I leaned over the passenger’s seat and flashed Pepe three 20s from this morning’s ATM withdrawal. I tore them in two and put half in Pepe’s pocket. “You stay there nice and quiet, you not only get to go home, but you’ll be sixty bucks richer.” To my father, “Can you translate that?”

  “When it comes to money, I’m sure he understands.”

  I gently thumped the back of my father’s seat. “I’m squished. Let’s go.”

  He got out first, then gave me a hand. The parking lot was un-paved and all dust. The Porsche’s tires had churned up the dirt and it was still flying in the air as we walked toward the body shop.

  “Let me do the talking,” I told Decker. “I’m less threatening and you’re a better shot if it should come to that.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “Listen and you’ll find out.” We walked into the garage. Three cars were up on racks: a ten-year-old red Honda Accord, a six-year-old green Mitsubishi Montero, and a ten-year-old white Suburban, their underbellies serviced by two young Hispanics. One of them was holding a wrench. He saw us and wiped his sweaty face with the back of his arm. I showed him my badge. “I’m looking for Angus or Morton.”

  He eyed me suspiciously, then shifted his gaze to my father. The sight must have had impact. He jerked a finger over his left shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  He had pointed out a tiny office—an all-glass enclosure with two desks, two phones, one computer, and piles of color-coded paper. Only one of the desks was occupied. The guy working was as fat as a barn, with shoulder-length, matted mousy brown hair and an untrimmed goatee. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt that exposed arms inked with tattoos, starting at the wrists. He also had a tattoo on his neck and a tattoo on his forehead, both drawings different renditions of bulls.

  Angus … bull. Ha, ha, I got it.

  I rapped on the glass and held up my badge to the window. The Loo did the same. Angus got up and waddled over to the door. He opened it, his bulk blocking the entryway. He reeked of cigarette smoke; his fingernails were stained amber. “What?”

  “You Angus?” I asked him.

  “What?” he repeated.

  “I’m looking for a car,” I said. “Bronze Nova, maybe a ’91 or ’92, lots of primer on the driver’s side. Tinted windows. In real bad condition, man. At least four bullet holes.”

  “Don’t have it.”

  “So then you don’t mind if we walk around to check.”

  His eyes traveled up and down my body. His voice remained steely. “Yeah, I do mind. What do you want?”

  “The car,” I told him. “The Nova’s driver had the temerity to shoot at me last night. I took it personally.”

  Angus didn’t talk.

  “You don’t want to handle something that hot,” I said. “He shot at a cop.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know it was a cop.”

  “But now you do, so that makes you an accessory if you have the car.”

  Angus said, “I don’t see a warrant.”

  “That’s because I don’t have one. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking.” I smiled. “C’mon, man, let’s play
like good sports, okay? How much you pay for it?”

  Angus was quiet.

  “Look, hombre,” I tried again. “All I want is the car. I can cause you a lot of grief or you can be a good citizen and report it to your local police. I’ll even throw in a reward for your time and effort. What do you say?”

  “Five hundred bucks,” Angus told me.

  “That’s ridiculous! You probably didn’t pay more than a hundred for it.” I rummaged through my wallet. “I got twenty-seven bucks on me.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “No need to get nasty.” I turned to my father. “How much do you have?”

  Dad checked his wallet. “Sixty.”

  I turned back to Angus. “I’m going to need some pocket change. I’ll give you eighty bucks. Take it or leave it.”

  He didn’t deliberate too long, holding out his hand a moment later.

  I gave him the bills. “Where?”

  “Not here,” Angus said. “But I know where. You don’t come back here no more, it’ll show up where it’s supposed to show up.”

  I turned to the Loo for advice. Decker said, “Either we flex muscle or we believe him. What do you want to do?”

  “How long will it take to show up?” I asked Angus. “I really didn’t appreciate being shot at.”

  “By the end of the day.”

  “Can you put some speed on it?”

  “I could if you give me more incentive.”

  “I don’t have any more cash.”

  “I got an address.”

  “How much?” I asked him.

  “ ’Nother hundred.”

  It would have been worth ten times that much to streamline the investigation. Still, I knew I had to show grit. “Fifty,” I told him. “It’s coming out of my pocket.”

  “Big fuckin-A deal. You’ll make it up next time you bust a crack house.”

  “I’m not in Vice and I’m not on the take. I repeat: fifty bucks because it’s coming out of my pocket.”

  Angus gave the offer some thought. “Seventy-five and I’ll say before three o’clock.”

  Again I turned to the Loo. He turned to Angus. “Which police department and precinct are you going to phone?”