Lucky felt the stretcher lock into position. He swiveled to the right and exited through the side door without so much as a hello or goodbye or apology for the mess he’d left behind. Better that way, he thought. They had jobs to do. As did he.
His head throbbed. Another damned side effect of the epinephrine injection, he remembered. The metallic taste was receding yet still present. And with every step, his balance returned. Snagging a petite female deputy in uniform, Lucky convinced her to brief him on what he’d missed. The deceased crime scene technician had been fishing for an expended slug which had pierced an exposed eighty-year-old piece of clay pipe, a long-ago conduit for an electricity transmission line. The DWP backhoe operator had warned her of the hazards involved in her search, but none included the danger of electrocution. Why? The DWP no longer buried power transmission lines underground for a variety of convenience and safety reasons. In the backhoe operator’s opinion, the techs would be safe to explore for a bullet, an underground spring, or even buried treasure.
The backhoe operator was wrong.
Once the crime scene tech’s aluminum probe had made contact with the assumed to be dead power cable, she would have been better served if struck by lightning. Witnesses claimed to have seen an arcing light paired with an enormous, low frequency murmur. For a moment, the crime scene tech had stood her ground, frozen in time until her knees buckled and she tumbled into the muddy water.
Swell, thought Lucky. In a matter of thirty hours, that fucking hole had claimed two human lives and a spanking new Ford Interceptor.
Lucky nosed the site for those two homicide detectives, quickly discovering they’d excused themselves once the coroner team had officially claimed Mush Man’s body. From what he could tell, the un-dynamic duo had knocked on zero doors and interviewed just as many witnesses. There were other cases to solve with thicker files and victims with families demanding justice—far more prominent than a schizoid, street-sledding vagrant who stood no taller than your average fifth grader.
Mush Man didn’t take up enough space to matter. That and the deceased vagrant had most likely already been demoted from solvable homicide to rarely answered ghettocide.
A Goddamned no account ghettocide.
25
Until 1960, the miles of Los Angeles County-owned property that lay beneath the endless stretches of high voltage power lines were considered near worthless. Then an entrepreneurial tree farmer made Southern California Edison a lease offer for a few unused acres. More than fifty years later, almost every square foot of real estate below the massive SoCal Edison and DWP transmission towers was greened with trees and shrubbery. It became a perfect marriage between the utility monopolies and needy urban and suburban nurseries.
Compton’s power line greenbelt ran east to west along the city’s southern boundary, flanking aptly named Greenleaf Street. Over the course of the previous half-decade, many of the nursery owners who had leased property below the crackling, high voltage towers had been unceremoniously bought out by Pizza Wing Enterprises.
On July Fourth, Frosty took a few moments to stretch out his arms as he walked, his fingertips tracing the leaves of young Indian Laurels, Ficus benjaminas, Acacia salinas, and African Sumacs. Looking down as he traipsed through the aisle, he relished the one thing that was worth dirtying his Jordans over: rich, freshly-turned earth. If Frosty hadn’t been there for business, he’d have been tempted to discard his shoes and run barefoot through the man-grown jungle.
“Stop kickin’ dirt!” bitched Tuba. The trio was marching single file: Lil Rod at point; Frosty bringing up the rear; Tuba in the middle. “That dust you makin’ is up my nose already.”
“Niggas? Both you better learn to like this dirt,” said Frosty. “Cuz ain’t no more Pizza Wing for you.”
“Pizza Wang,” corrected Lil Rod, trying to lighten the mood.
Due to the holiday, the nursery was abandoned. They had parked in the dusty lot and Frosty had walked the pair of idiot gangsters for a solid five minutes, ushering them a quarter-mile deep into the tree farm.
“Why all these big mothers in boxes ’stead a the groun’?” asked Tuba, remarking that every tree had its roots individually crated by size.
“Tha’s some of the shit you’ll learn workin’ this farm,” answered Frosty.
“Shiz. I really liked makin’ pizza,” said Tuba.
“About the discipline,” said Frosty. “Gotta ask yourselves. Are you slippin’? Or are you do or die?”
“Fuck you,” forced Lil Rod. “I’m all do and all die.”
The pathway emptied into a small clearing with a half-dozen sawhorses, stacks of pre-cut redwood, and blocks of concrete set in the dirt, each with heavy gauge rebar protruding at expanding angles like unfinished sculptures.
And there was Julius. The boss man sat atop a sun-warped picnic table. He held a framing hammer, expertly tossing it, letting it flip double-gainers before catching it by the rubberized grip.
“Here’s where we make the tree boxes,” began Julius. “These concrete squares here with the rebar stickin’ out? These are the molds. That’s so I can hire a coupla los stupidos like you all to assemble tree boxes without any worry they gonna fuck my shit up.”
“Yo, J,” burst Lil Rod. “I can ’splain that shit las’ night—”
“You like your guns, dontcha?” interrupted Julius. “Make ya feel you all powerful? Shit. When I was twelve I could clear the block with pop pop pop. Windows close. Doors. Car alarms go off. Now I thought that was power.”
“Wasn’t like that, J,” argued Lil Rod.
“Hold your gums and open your dumb fuckin’ ears,” angered Julius. “No more flippin’ pizzas for you. You’re gonna learn to work shit the way Frosty ’n’ Big O learned. Hard ass labor. Discipline. Now there’s where the real power come from.”
“Yessuh,” nodded Tuba. “Sling hammers steada pizzas. I’m good for whatever you says.”
Big Otis emerged from behind a stack of boxes, wiping his hands on his baggy jeans.
“We at hammer time yet?” asked Big Otis.
“Soon ’nuff,” said Julius. “First I wanna knows what happened at my hole.”
“Shit, yeah, that,” blurted Lil Rod. “We was—”
“Shut up!” interrupted Tuba, revealing the bubbling menace just beneath his skin. “I’ll tell it.”
“See my ears, Fat T?” said Julius. “They open.”
“We was at your hole,” explained Tuba. “Right after we finished up at The Wing. We got us some Mountain Dews ’n’ went on over like you said to.”
Tuba disregarded the sideways glare Lil Rod delivered before taking an extra half-step near Tuba, who hardly shrunk.
“When we got to the hole, there was this homeless dude in it. With a blinkin’ light he stole. Lookin’ for some kinda shit. We told ’im it wasn’t his hole to be messin’ in. And in a weird way he started givin’ lip. Cursin’ us ’n’ all kinda shit. That’s when Lil Rod got into it—you know—like he started bangin’.”
“Hey motherfucker!” spat Lil Rod. “You was bangin’ jus’ like me!”
“Fuck yeah, I was bangin’!” defended Tuba. “I thought he was shootin’ back so I shot too.”
“But Lil Rooster here was first on the trigger?” confirmed Julius.
“He was,” confirmed Tuba.
“An’ I’m sayin’ it wasn’t all me!!!” defended Lil Rod.
“No,” agreed Julius. “You both shot the shit outta that nigga. Lil nigga I really liked. You know he had sled dogs he named after his favorite homies from Black History Month?”
“Didn’t know, J,” said Tuba. His eyes downcast as if Mush Man’s death was his fault.
“See that right there?” pointed Julius with the hammer. “Tuba feels sorry for the shit he done. He got remorse.”
“Yeah? I got me remorse,” insisted Lil Rod. “Got all the sorry you need, J.”
“Bullshit,” groaned Big Otis.
“He right,” agreed Juliu
s. “Lil Rod? You ain’t got no remorse in you.”
“You want me to feel bad?” asked Lil Rod. “Then I’ll feel bad if you say I gotta.”
“Not at all,” said Julius. “You don’t need to feel bad. That’s cuz Tuba there? Lookit him. He’s got enough feel bad for ten Lil Rods. Ain’t that right, Tuba?”
“Sorry boss,” upped Tuba. “My bad… My really bad.”
With their focus on the boss, both Tuba and Lil Rod forgot Frosty was standing behind them. Neither saw Frosty quietly retrieve the rusty claw hammer from atop a nearby sawhorse. Nor did they witness Frosty cock it, left elbow pointed at his target like a baseball pitcher prepped to unleash a fastball. Frosty delivered the hammer from an angle of two o’clock to eight o’clock, the claw penetrating deep into Tuba’s skull a half inch in front of his left ear. There was the muffled crack as the skull split. Tuba’s knees gave way. As his body dropped and Frosty extracted the hammer, Tuba’s ear came with it and frisbeed. The disconnected and bloodied ear slapped Lil Rod’s cheek, lodging between his skin and shirt collar.
Lil Rod, his skeletal face a freeze-frame of shock and fright, defensively lifted his arms as if he expected the next blow to land somewhere on his skull. He heard Julius and Otis laughing behind him.
“Lookit that dead nigga twitch,” ordered Julius. “That’s what bein’ a sorry-assed fuckup gets you. You hear me Lil Dick? I got no needs for remorseful motherfuckers. Jus’ niggas that own their shit. Ya feel me?”
“Yessuh Mr. J,” shook Lil Rod, his eyes unable to avert from Tuba’s convulsing carcass.
“Now before Frosty there learns you how to make tree boxes,” explained Julius. “He gonna show you how dead niggas get buried in Compton.”
Frosty pushed over a shovel. The wooden handle landed at Lil Rod’s feet.
“He gonna tell you where to dig, how deep and all that shit,” continued Julius. “You do it right, listen hard, and you won’t have to join Mr. Sorry-Ass Tuba.”
Stiff to the point of cramping, Lil Rod mustered a nod.
“Now you need to ask me why you still alive.”
“Why…why ’m I alive?” stammered Lil Rod.
“Cuz your brain ain’t finished growin’ yet,” said Julius. “Room left in there to learn some shit. Not jus’ how to work hard. But work right.”
Julius let go of the framing hammer he’d been flipping non-stop. Before the tool thumped to the dirt he was retreating with Big Otis trailing behind.
“Pick it up,” ordered Frosty, referring to the shovel.
Lil Rod retrieved the four-foot garden spade, lifting it as if it was an alien tool. He trudged after Frosty. With each step, though, his nerve began to return. A brief idea flashed. With one swing of the shovel, Lil Rod could easily drop Frosty and take off running. But how far could a baby gangster get before one of Julius’s unlimited gang tentacles snagged him by the ankles and dragged him under? Permanently.
Some thirty yards beyond where Tuba lay dead, Frosty used the murder weapon to mark out a rough, six-by-three-foot rectangle. From his back pocket he extracted a pair of oil-stained work gloves and tossed them at Lil Rod.
“Lesson one,” said Frosty. “Gloves keeps your baby skin from getting all blisters.”
Lil Rod dug, learning to use his foot and his ever-so-slight one-hundred-and-forty-pounds as leverage to sink the shovel into the dirt. After retrieving Tuba’s body with a wheelbarrow, Frosty sat in silence, watching Lil Rod sweat and plow that spade into the ground until his reedy muscles shook. Once the hole was no less than four feet deep, Tuba’s body was deposited and Lil Rod was assigned to fill in the hole. The final act was up to Frosty, who employed a gas-operated pneumatic forklift to move a four-year-old California walnut tree in a thirty-six-inch container. Frosty expertly lowered the tree box squarely atop the grave, returned the lift to its shed and cut the engine. As he climbed out, he discovered Lil Rod had chased him all the way from the scene of the crime.
“How many?” asked Lil Rod, drenched, out of breath, yet piqued with excitement. “You know. Niggas buried here at the nursery?”
“Not for you to know,” said Frosty. “All you need to worry over is doin’ what you’re told and keepin’ your skinny shit above ground.”
26
Covina, California. 11:12 A.M.
Tim Gilligan’s July Fourth began as a disappointment. His first divorced family—or “family number one” as his soon-to-be-ex-wife-number-two called them—had plans to spend the holiday on a powerboat on Nevada’s Lake Meade. The compromise Tim negotiated was to treat his twin fourteen-year-old boys with a holiday breakfast before they hit the highway with their mother and step-daddy. After stuffing themselves to the gills on an all-you-can-eat pancake special at the Fontana Courtyard Marriot, Tim bid his boys so long and was back on the road, pointing his DWP-owned Hyundai back toward the San Fernando Valley. Because family number two had evening plans with their Santa Clarita cousins, Tim’s daddy time with his five- and three-year-old daughters had been relegated to a four-hour afternoon window at Burbank’s Chucky Cheese.
In Tim’s hung-over opinion, he’d drawn two shitty July Fourth hands. Then, as if the stomach acid in his mouth wasn’t foul enough, he found himself on the receiving end of a group text from the DWP’s Office of Emergency Management while re-fueling his company car.
Another flippin’ blowout.
Or so Tim had incorrectly guessed. With one hand operating the pump and the other holding his smartphone, he was reading a missive about an accidental electrocution involving a Sheriff’s Department crime scene tech when the text dissolved to an officious DWP publicity photo of Catalina Rincon. He could chose to reject or accept her mobile phone call.
“I was just reading about it,” Tim answered.
“Reading about what?” wondered Cat after a half-second pause.
“Some kind of accident,” said Tim. “Compton blowout. You didn’t get the emergency text?”
“I’m driving,” said Cat. “Where are you?”
“Kinda halfway between Fontucky and Burbank.”
“Fontucky?”
“It’s what some people call Fontana—cuzza the racetrack and all the rednecks out this way.”
“And why the hell you out there?”
“What do you need, Cat?” shifted Tim.
“Need to talk.”
“It’s a holiday. And I didn’t read enough of that text to know if I’m gonna have to deal with somethin’ more with the Compton hole.”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
“Thought you said you didn’t read the text.”
“I don’t know shit about a text!” Cat’s voice pierced through the tiny speaker. “Now where can we meet? Like right now!”
“Where are you?” asked Tim.
“Almost downtown. But the freeways are clear so I can pretty much go anywhere.”
“Head east on the ten,” instructed Tim. “There’s a Chili’s in Covina. Right off the freeway. North side.”
“Twenty minutes,” finished Cat before abruptly hanging up.
The Covina Chili’s was spitting distance from the Interstate, set cozily amongst a cornucopia of franchise restaurants, chain retail stores, replanted palm trees and sprouting evergreen shrubbery to soften the acres of concrete, stucco, and stacked faux stone trim. Tim secured himself in a comfortable booth and returned to that emergency text.
…fatal electrocution…
…crime scene technician…
…lasd homicide detectives…
Tim scrubbed his fingertips over his wispy scalp, instantly feeling the cold transfer from his beer mug. He thought about whom to call. Carefully. Because of the holiday, those in the know would all be on-site. Tim guessed it would be the emergency engineer with the least seniority. Tim dialed and, sure enough, he connected with Adesh Singh.
Don’t ask Tim. Just listen and don’t give yourself away.
So listen he did, making certain whatever questions he
asked sounded innocent or tinged with surprise. He made mental notes only, forgoing his usual scrawl on cocktail napkins. Then he waited for Cat to crawl in.
“What the hell are you wearing?” Tim asked before Cat could so much as slide into the booth.
The DWP board member, known for her crisp fashion, was in a pink t-shirt with a silk-screened Barbie logo that traveled armpit to armpit, teal foam-rubber flip flops, and black yoga pants with the price tag still attached to a front pocket. It wasn’t until Cat removed her oversized sunglasses that he noticed the bruise underneath her left eye.
“Couldn’t go back to my house. It’s the Goddamn Fourth of July. Quickest place I could get a change of clothes was Walmart.”
“Who were you with?”
“Who was I…” stammered Cat. “A man didn’t do this… At least not directly. I was out for a run.”
Tim wondered if the beer had already gone to his head. Or if last night’s abuse had left so much residual ethanol in his veins that half a draft of suds had left him missing beats.
“Sorry,” said Tim, “you’ve lost me.”
“I went for a run in the arroyo,” said Cat, leaning in across the table. “It was early. Like zero dark early. And I was being followed.”
“By who?”
“Not sure. To get away I had to squeeze under the golf course fence. That’s how this had to happen.” Cat mimed a circle on her face, then splayed her fingers to show off her scratched mitts. “And don’t say it was a stalker. Never seen the guy or the car before.”
“Guy in a car?”
“Black guy in a car. And the way he was looking at me? Those eyes? I knew right then and there.”
“I’m sorry,” said Tim, even more confused. “But what does that have to do with the blowout in Compton?”
“It has to do with Hal Solomon!”
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 76