OFFICER INVOLVED

by Lynch, Sean

  “When did you suddenly become Dr. Ruth Westheimer?”

  “I’m no relationship guru,” he said. “After two divorces, a guy picks up a thing or two.” He looked sideways at Kearns. “I know something else, too.”

  “What’s that?” Kearns said.

  “Today wasn’t a shitty day. Today was one of your best days.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You survived didn’t you?” Farrell said. “You’re still above dirt. That’s a victory in my book.”

  “I don’t feel particularly victorious.”

  “We don’t get to deal the cards, Kevin, all we get to do is play them. Today you played them well, and it’s not the first time. Don’t forget you survived Vernon Slocum. That’s no small thing. Most of the people who encountered him didn’t fare nearly as well.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” Kearns said, staring into his glass.

  “It’s the only way to look at it,” Farrell said, “because it’s the truth. You’re a survivor. You put Slocum in your rear-view mirror and kept on driving. You survived Raymond Cowell, too. Be grateful that you’ll live to see another sunrise. I learned in Vietnam to appreciate sunrises. None of us are guaranteed the next one.”

  “I’m not ungrateful that I survived,” Kearns said. “I’m just not looking forward to being on the business end of another police investigation. Been down that road before, and it’s never pleasant.”

  “It’s not meant to be. Don’t sweat the small stuff,” Farrell said. “For cops, there’re only two kinds of problems; problem A, and problem B.”

  “Problem A and problem B?” Kearns said, confused. “You lost me there.”

  “Problem A,” Farrell explained, “is surviving the incident. Getting through it. Staying alive and in one piece at the end of the day.”

  “What’s problem B?”

  “Problem B,” Farrell continued, “is everything in the aftermath of problem A. Getting arrested, getting fired, getting sued; things like that. If you don’t solve problem A,” he said, “problem B is moot.”

  “I think I know what you’re getting at,” Kearns said. “Instead of being glum at the prospect of going through more grief because of the shooting, you’re saying I should be happy I’m still alive to have problems at all. Is that right?”

  “Exactly,” Farrell said, emphasizing his point with his glass of bourbon. “You should be rejoicing, Kevin. Not dragging your chin. From what I learned of your shootout today, you’re damned lucky you’re not wearing a shroud.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Kearns said.

  “You do that,” Farrell said. “And while you’re doing that, try not to worry so much. You’ll put this O.I.S. investigation behind you.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” Farrell grinned. “Aren’t I always?”

  “Don’t get me started,” Kearns said.

  “Why don’t you admit what’s really bothering you?” Farrell said.

  “Huh?”

  “I can read you like a book,” Farrell said. “You’re starting to feel that between Slocum, Cowell, and now this officer-involved shooting, you’re marked, aren’t you? That there’s some flaw within you that draws trouble?”

  Kearns’ countenance proved Farrell had touched a nerve.

  “Cops are superstitious by nature,” Farrell said, “whether they’ll admit it or not. Some are what we used to call at my department, ‘shit magnets.’ Officers who for whatever reason seem prone to attracting danger and trouble. Some cops go their whole careers without drawing their gun, and others seem to go from shootout, to car chase, to fistfight like clockwork.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence?” Kearns said.

  “No good cop does,” Farrell said.

  “Then what are you trying to say?”

  “That in your case it isn’t coincidence, and it ain’t because you’re a lousy or crooked cop.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Because you can handle it,” Farrell said. He held his glass aloft and gave Kearns a wink.

  “I appreciate the compliment,” Kearns said, “but I don’t share your confidence.”

  “The facts speak for themselves. You’re a survivor.”

  “I guess you would know,” Kearns conceded. “Throughout all of the shit we’ve been through together, I’ve never seen you exhibit so much as a shadow of doubt.”

  “Can’t afford to have doubt in your rucksack,” Farrell said, draining his drink. “It only drags you down and distracts you from focusing on staying alive and getting the job done.”

  “I don’t know how you keep so cool,” Kearns said.

  “The bourbon helps,” Farrell said.

  Chapter 12

  Arturo Eduardo Cervantes took a deep drag on the menthol cigarette, working it down to the filter. He was sitting on the merry-go-round in the playground of Franklin Elementary School on Foothill Boulevard in Oakland. A paper bag containing a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor was nestled between his legs.

  It was nearly midnight, and Cervantes had been waiting impatiently for over an hour. He was clad in a long denim coat, baggy work pants, and heavy boots. Under the denim coat was a hooded sweatshirt, and he wore the hood up and over his head, concealing his dark features.

  An older Ford Ranchero slowly cruised down 9th Avenue and onto Foothill Boulevard, paralleling the playground. The Ranchero’s headlights were switched off. As it neared the entrance, it slowed to a halt and the engine died.

  Cervantes quickly ground out what was left of his smoke and slid from his seat on the merry-go-round to a prone position, making sure he didn’t topple the bottle. He was also careful to avoid making the merry-go-round move as he got off. He watched as a lone figure emerged from the driver’s side of the Ford and soundlessly closed the door.

  The distance was too great to make out the person’s features, but Cervantes could tell it was a man about his height wearing a baseball cap and quilted work shirt. The driver remained by his vehicle and appeared to be scanning the playground. Like most schools in Oakland, someone had vandalized a significant number of the overhead lights which were supposed to illuminate the playground at night. Ironically, the poor lighting was one of the reasons Cervantes had chosen the location in the first place.

  Cervantes removed the revolver from his waistband. The weapon was covered in surface rust, the grip panels were missing, and the previous owner had wrapped the handle with electrical tape as a substitute. He couldn’t tell if there was another occupant in the car, and strained to see through the darkness.

  Cervantes knew his current location wasn’t ideal. He’d foolishly selected the merry-go-round, which was in the middle of the playground, and he silently cursed himself for the tactical error. There was far too much open ground between the merry-go-round and the other features in the schoolyard. If he had to make a run for it, there was little cover and he could be easily spotted and cut down.

  Sneaking out of the playground unseen was out-of-the-question. Even if he wouldn’t have been seen creeping off, the thought of being shot while crawling away was unthinkable.

  The driver made no effort to move away from the Ranchero, confirming Cervantes’ suspicion there might be another man inside the vehicle. He slowly edged his hands out in front and steadied the revolver on both elbows.

  There was at least thirty yards between Cervantes and the car. It would be a difficult shot at best with a good-quality handgun under daytime conditions. The gun currently in his hands, however, was an old, poorly-maintained, short-barreled, Harrington & Richardson revolver chambered in the anemic .32 S&W Long caliber. It had been burglarized from an elderly woman’s Hayward home more than a year ago and passed through many other hands before being sold to Cervantes for forty dollars less than an hour ago. He deeply regretted having to discard his sixteen-shot Taurus 9mm, but didn’t want to risk being picked up while in possession of the weapon, particula
rly after today.

  He thumbed the hammer back, wincing at the audible click. Then he tried, as best he could in the dim light, to put the crude front sight on the center of the chest of the man standing by the parked Ranchero. He knew a head shot would be ideal, but realized at such a distance next to impossible. In Cervantes’ experience, head shots were best reserved for point blank encounters when your opponent was unwary. The man currently surveying the schoolyard was neither close nor unaware.

  Cervantes knew his best chance would be to down the driver and make a break for it, fleeing the schoolyard before the second assassin, if indeed there was another man in the car, could return fire. With his heart pounding in his chest, he exhaled slowly and began to squeeze the trigger.

  “Artie?” a man’s voice whispered. “Artie, where the fuck are you?”

  Cervantes heard his own name just in time to avert the trigger pull. He recognized the voice as belonging to his friend Israel ‘Izzy’ Mendoza. He carefully lowered the hammer and stood up.

  “You dumb fuck. I almost blew your shit away.”

  Mendoza was startled at the sound of Cervantes’ voice. He peered into the darkness, and finally saw Cervantes approach from the playground’s interior.

  “Take it easy,” Mendoza said, walking towards his friend.

  “Fuck you,” Cervantes snapped. “See if you could take it easy, your brother got smoked today.”

  “Sorry,” Mendoza said. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  “It’s okay,” Cervantes said, calming down. “Forget it.”

  “Ain’t no way you were gonna hit me from way over there with that,” Mendoza said, pointing at the antiquated revolver in Cervantes’ hand. His Hispanic accent, though noticeable, was less pronounced than Cervantes’ speech.

  “You want me to go back and give it a try?”

  “No thanks. I’ve seen you shoot before.”

  “Where’d you get the wheels?’ Cervantes asked.

  “Oakland airport long-term parking lot,” Mendoza said. “Owner probably don’t even know it’s gone yet.”

  “You bring the shit?”

  “Just like you said,” Mendoza said.

  “Let’s roll.”

  Mendoza returned to the driver’s seat of the Ranchero, and Cervantes got into the passenger seat. Mendoza fumbled with the ignition wires protruding from a gaping crack under the steering column and the engine started up. A moment later they were cruising down Foothill Boulevard away from the elementary school.

  Once they were under way, Mendoza reached for a battered package of Newports on the dashboard. He deferentially handed the pack to Cervantes before taking a cigarette for himself, and lit Cervantes’ smoke with the car’s cigarette lighter before igniting his own.

  “The shit’s on the floor,” Mendoza told him, “under the seat.”

  Cervantes reached below and found an oblong bundle wrapped in a wool blanket beneath the passenger seat. He wriggled it out onto the floorboard. He un-wrapped the parcel and found several firearms. The first one he grabbed was a Taurus nine millimeter pistol identical to the one he’d dumped earlier.

  The pistol was part of a shipment of twenty-four Taurus PT-92’s which had been intercepted and stolen several months prior by a member of Cervantes’s crew who worked at a United Parcel Service loading depot as a freight handler.

  Cervantes found two loaded magazines along with the pistol. He drew the slide to the rear and locked it back. Then he inserted one of the loaded magazines and thumbed down the slide release lever, chambering a live round and arming the pistol. He lowered the Taurus’s hammer, extracted the H & R revolver from his waistband, and casually tossed it out through the open window of the moving Ranchero onto Foothill Boulevard.

  “Littering is a crime,” Mendoza said.

  “Don’t worry,” Cervantes said. “Somebody around here will find a use for it.”

  “That’s for sure. Take a look at the shotgun,” Mendoza said. “It’s sweet.”

  Cervantes put the Taurus into his waistband and reached into the folded blanket again. This time he came up with 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun with a twenty-inch barrel and pistol grip instead of a full-length stock.

  “Nice,” he said around his cigarette.

  “Thought you’d like it,” Mendoza said. “Take a look at what’s written on the barrel.”

  Cervantes examined the shotgun, and even in the intermittent glow of the streetlights they passed could make out the word PERSUADER stamped on the weapon’s barrel.

  “I know a motherfucker I can persuade with this, all right,” he said. “Persuade him right into the fucking ground. Where’re the shells?”

  “On the floor somewhere,” Mendoza directed. Cervantes located a box of 00 buckshot under his seat and stuffed the extended tubular magazine full with eight rounds.

  “Did you get what I asked for?” Cervantes said.

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t cheap. Cost me two-hundred dollars, half-a-pound of weed and a quarter ounce of crank.”

  Cervantes again went into the folds of the blanket at his feet. He emerged with the only remaining firearm, a submachine gun. He gave Mendoza an approving glance.

  “You done good,” Cervantes said.

  “Like I told you, it wasn’t cheap.”

  “I don’t give a fuck how much it cost,” Cervantes said, inspecting the weapon. “It was worth it.”

  The gun was an Ingram Mac-10, chambered in nine-millimeter, a compact, hand-held, fully-automatic submachine pistol. Due to its over 1220 rounds-per-minute rate-of-fire, the Mac-10 was capable of emptying its entire 32-round magazine in approximately two seconds. As a result of this, and due to its rough trigger and high bore axis, the Mac-10 was difficult to shoot accurately, and required users with a high degree of training and skill.

  It was for precisely those reasons, however, the Mac-10, and it’s cousin the Uzi, were the preferred weapons of urban gangsters from New York to Los Angeles. Since the typical gangster was neither well-trained nor skilled in firearms usage, a weapon like the Mac-10, which put out an incredible volume of fire in a very short period of time, was the gun-of-choice for drive-by shootings in densely-populated areas. If your goal was to hose down an area with a lot of bullets in the shortest time possible, with little concern for accuracy or innocent bystanders, the Mac-10 was the gun to use.

  “I knew I could count on you,” Cervantes said, giving Mendoza a slap on the shoulder. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you again, too,” Mendoza said. “But you shouldn’t be here, man. I thought you was supposed to be on the way south. You’re hot as fuck right now.”

  “I could get hooked up by a cop in L.A. just as easy as here,” Cervantes said.

  “True,” Mendoza conceded.

  “Besides,” he threw his cigarette out the window, “I got business up here to take care of.”

  Chapter 13

  Sergeant Vincent Avery extinguished his cigarette and got out of his Granada. He closed the door without making any sound and walked more than a block along the deserted street to the apartment complex. He’d parked far enough away to avoid having anyone in the vicinity of the apartments observe his car. No one saw him. At this time of the morning there was no one around to see much of anything.

  It was at little after one o’clock on Thursday morning, the day after the shooting. Avery didn’t want to risk coming any later. Bar closing time was 2:00 A.M., and in an apartment complex as large as this one it was likely there would be at least a few residents arriving home he wanted to avoid.

  The complex was in San Leandro, not far off Davis Street. Avery had been there before. He easily jimmied the haphazard security door with his pocketknife. Once inside, he mounted the stairs to the second floor and soundlessly traversed the stained carpets to his destination, slipping on a pair of latex gloves as he went.

  When he reached apartment #216, he withdrew a roll of electrician’s tape from his pocket and placed a stri
p across the security peephole of the door to apartment #215, directly across the hall. Then he knelt down and took out his lock-picks.

  Avery had learned how to pick locks from one of the older members of his crew as a youth, and refined the skill while stationed in Saigon. There he’d met a retired British sailor who employed a team of highly-proficient Viet jewelers. Their job was to manufacture knock-off Rolex watches which were subsequently smuggled back to the U.K. and sold at ridiculous profit as originals. The old Brit had an opium habit, and Avery parlayed his drug debt into being taught a valuable skill.

  If there was one thing Avery learned as a youth, from his days as a member of a street-gang, was that you had to adapt. If you wanted to keep the money rolling in, and you wanted to keep your freedom, there were rules you had to follow. You had to be smart. You had to learn. You couldn’t simply follow the path of the vato ahead of you, which is what most of the gangsters he associated with did, and why most of them ended up locked down.

  Avery watched an endless succession of his contemporaries graduate from incarceration in juvenile hall, to county jail, to prison, simply because they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, grasp that basic truth. They kept pulling the same jobs, and doing the same crimes, in the same way, over and over. Getting themselves inked to advertise their gang status and affiliating with the same losers until they inevitably spent more of their lives behind bars than on the block.

  Avery had apartment #216 open in less than a minute. He parted the door and entered, closing it behind him without noise. Instead of turning on the lights, he switched on a penlight flash and stuck it between his teeth like a cigar.

  Detective Brian Mendenour’s apartment was exactly the way he remembered it from the last time he’d visited; a mess. Avery went quickly from room-to-room to ensure there was no one else inside, careful to keep the flashlight beam below the windows. As expected, the apartment was empty.

  The deputy clearly lived alone, and the residence was a monument to the slovenly divorced-cop’s lifestyle. The place was littered with empty beer cans, old pizza boxes, and dirty laundry. Despite the clutter, the apartment was expensively furnished. There was a fairly new, plush, L-shaped couch, a large-screen television with a VCR, and an elaborate Hi-Fi stereo encased in a simulated wood-grain cabinet. A lone lamp stood in one corner, and the walls were adorned with sports posters.