The Tin Collectors

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “If it is, we’ve gotta either train these cockroaches or start killing them.” She looked puzzled, so he lifted the sugar shaker, and the eight-legged German roach took off like a shot.

  She let out an involuntary feminine squeal, then returned to form, slapping at it bare-handed and missing. The roach dodged, shooting across the table as Alexa slammed her palm down again—the only thing she hurt was her hand. The roach went off the end of the table, hit the floor, and was gone.

  “Sign him. Good broken-field run.” Shane smiled.

  She checked around the perimeter of the booth, looking for relatives, then glanced at Shane. “Strong survival instincts. We should take lessons.”

  He took out the Arrowhead pictures he’d had developed and slid them across the table to her. “Know any of these guys?”

  She went through them while he waited.

  “Yep. All of ’em. This one is Calvin Sheets.” She pushed a picture over and showed it to Shane. It was of the medium-built man with the ash-blond hair, setting a box down at the back door. Shane realized he’d been right, that Sheets had been the man standing with Tony Spivack at the limo.

  “This is Coy Love,” she said, sliding another photograph over to Shane, who could see why you wouldn’t want to “fuck with Love.” He was large, over six feet, with a huge, jutting jaw and a cruel, angular face. He had a thin, lipless mouth, straight as a ruler.

  “These other two guys were cops on Calvin’s Coliseum detail. They both got terminated with him on his bullshit time-sheet hustle.” She pushed those shots over. “Lon Sherwood and Carter something, I can’t remember his last name.”

  She looked up, and the waiter was back, hovering like a dragonfly over a lake, waiting for her order.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  “Chu makin’ my day.” He left, grumbling.

  “Cummins is president of the Long Beach City Council, and I found out Spivack Development Corporation owns Cal-VIP Homes.” Shane filled her in on the Long Beach City Council meeting; the dispute over the transfer of the naval yard to L.A. for water; the chase through Long Beach trying to catch Sheets, Spivack, and Cummins; and their eventual helicopter escape. She was holding her briefcase on her lap in both hands, ready to strike in case another cockroach took off on an end run around the Mexican condiments.

  “You had a busy day,” she said.

  “I won’t ask how your day went, for fear it’ll severely depress me.”

  “I hope DeMarco is staying busy, ’cause I’m getting good prima facie stuff,” she said, needling him.

  “Don’t worry about DeMarco. The Saint’s all over this. He says with what he has, we’ll probably want to to file a civil action.”

  “Good. ’Cause I’d heard he’d become an alcoholic—a blackout drunk—and that’s why he pulled the pin.”

  “Don’t worry about Dee. He’s kicking ass.”

  Blackout drunk? I’m fucked, Shane thought.

  She looked at her watch as the waiter set down her Coke and left. “I ran both Drucker and Kono through the Office of Administrative Services at the Personnel Group,” she said. “Drucker just got reassigned from Southwest to Hollenbeck. He’s working street patrol—day shift. Kono has a worrisome nickname. They call him Bongo. I’m hoping that’s because he’s of Hawaiian ancestry, and not because he beats people like a drum.”

  She picked up her Coke and drained it. “Thirsty,” she apologized. “Anyway, Kono’s still in South Bureau, but now he’s working day watch in University Division. That means we’re going to have to split up if we want to follow both guys.” She glanced at her Timex. “We better get moving. Day watch breaks in forty minutes. Which one a’ these raisin cakes do you want?”

  “Ladies first.”

  “Chivalry always knocks me out,” she said drolly. “Okay, since he’s closer, I’ll take Drucker.”

  He put some money down on the table for the two Cokes, and they both stood.

  “Let’s communicate on a tactical frequency,” she said. “One of the high ones nobody uses. Organized Crime is on tac ten, and that division doesn’t have much going now. Let’s use that.”

  “I don’t have a police radio; my car’s in Venice. I’m using a rental.”

  “You really bring it all to the table, don’t you, Scully,” she said sarcastically.

  He needed her help, so he let it go.

  “We can pick up a handset at IAD. I saw a whole bunch of them in a box in the IO’s section,” Shane suggested

  She nodded. “We better move it, or they’ll both be EOW before we get there.”

  The University Division station was an old concrete four-story building located on South Adams Boulevard, near USC. Shane left the Taurus in the only available spot he could find, half a block up the street. He fed the meter, moved away from it, and sat on a bus bench across from the station. From there he had an unobstructed view of the station parking lot. He had on an L.A. Dodgers cap, pulled low over his eyes, and a dull green-and-brown camouflage windbreaker he had picked up that afternoon at a surplus shop downtown for fifteen bucks.

  Shane felt invisible and ready for action: Mr. Brown-and-Green in his camo jacket and dirt-brown Taurus. He had the police handset in his lap and was watching as the day watch started streaming out in civilian clothes, on the way to their private vehicles. It was 5:45.

  “Six to Five. Target D is in motion.” He heard Alexa’s voice coming over the radio on tactical frequency 10. They had chosen their radio code numbers in the parking lot outside the Bradbury while doing a quick equipment check. He picked up his handset.

  “Copy, Six. I’m still parked and waiting.”

  “Roger that,” she said. “Target D just left Hollenbeck, heading up onto 91. He’s westbound.”

  “Roger. Standing by on tac ten.” He laid the radio on his lap and sat on the bus bench waiting for Kris “Bongo” Kono.

  Officer Kono was one of the last ones out the station side door. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and was carrying a duffel bag. He sprinted to his car, obviously late. He jumped into a blue ′76 Camaro with racing stripes and a primered left front fender, then pulled quickly out of the lot, burning rubber.

  Shane was caught leaning. He was half a block away from the Taurus and late getting back to it, fumbling to unlock the door as the Camaro made a sharp turn out of the parking lot. The 455-cubic-inch engine and blown mufflers on the muscle car roared angrily past and sped up the street.

  “Shit,” Shane said, finally piling into the Taurus and starting it up. He found a hole in traffic and pulled out, already dangerously behind. He watched, frustrated, as the Camaro went through the intersection up ahead on the yellow light. Shane tried to make up ground, spinning his wheels, chirping rubber, trying to get around slower traffic. When he got to the cross street, the light was against him, so he leaned on his horn and broke recklessly through the intersection against the red light, causing an eastbound truck on Atlantic to slam on its brakes. The angry traffic started screaming at him, blaring their horns and flipping him off.

  As Shane shot through the red light, he could see the blue Camaro one block ahead, speeding through another light on the yellow.

  “Slow the fuck down!” Shane yelled at the Camaro as he was forced to stop at the second light, trapped behind a row of cars, unable to get around them. He could see the Camaro a block ahead, turning right, heading up onto the 110.

  “Come on, come on, come on…” Shane begged the five-way light that was trapping him. Then it turned green, but an old woman in a rusting Subaru was making a cautious left, blocking traffic, afraid to go. “Come on, lady. You got the fuckin’ right-of-way!” he shouted at his windshield.

  “Six, I’m on 91, heading west, passing Olive,” Alexa’s voice announced. Static, then: “Six, do you copy?”

  Shane had his hands full as the woman finally completed her turn. He was flooring it, illegally passing a city bus on the right, shooting past the line of traffic, hanging a rig
ht, going up the on-ramp. His tires squealed on the sun-hot asphalt.

  He hit the 110 going way too fast for the flow of rush-hour traffic that loomed before him on the packed freeway. He had to hit his brakes to keep from plowing into the right side of a Ford Escort, startling the two hard hats inside.

  “Six, this is Five. Do you copy?” Alexa’s voice persisted. “Six, you are Code One. Copy, please.” Code One was a command to respond and was given only when a unit did not answer a radio call and was perceived to be in difficulty. It was imperative to respond to a Code One, if at all possible.

  Shane impatiently snapped the radio up off his lap. “I copy. I’ve got my hands full, for Chrissake. Gimme a minute.” He threw the radio back down on the seat and managed to get around the Ford Escort. He couldn’t see the blue Camaro anywhere. “Fuck!” he said, but kept heading west on the 110, going as fast as he could, dangerously passing cars, trying to make up lost distance, driving on the right shoulder, getting angry horn blasts from a whole line of drivers.

  “Six, Target D is transitioning to the 710. I’m making that freeway change now.” Alexa’s voice, pissing him off, was cool and in control. Fuck her.

  Shane was sweating. A river of perspiration ran down under his arm, slicking his shirt and rib cage. People around him were screaming through their car windows as he passed them on the shoulder illegally. He was running out of room, so he veered back into the right lane, forcing the Taurus between a sixteen-wheeler Vons Grocery truck and a green Chevy van. Both drivers yelled obscenities at him. The grocery truck blew its heavy six-tone air horn, scaring the shit out of Shane, but he forced his way in, now catching a glimpse of the blue Camaro in the far left lane. Kono was transitioning off the 110 to the 105.

  Shane was fucked. He slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel. He was fenced off by four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic and was pushed helplessly along by the slow flow, past the 105 transition, heading uselessly in the wrong direction. The tail was completely blown. He snapped up the radio.

  “Five, this is Six,” he said.

  “Roger,” she said.

  “I lost K. He was on the 110. I got trapped, missed the transition. He’s southbound on the 105, running clean.” Shane waited for Alexa to curse him out or belittle him for losing his man. But she didn’t do either.

  “Okay, I copy,” she said. “My guy just left the 710 at Ocean. We’re down by the water. I’ll talk you in.”

  “Roger that, coming your way,” he said, feeling like a complete rookie.

  For the next ten minutes she was silent, then: “I’m Code Six at 2300 Ocean Boulevard. Take the 710 to the end of the freeway and turn left. I’m in a gas-station parking lot.”

  “Copy that,” he said.

  It took him another ten minutes before he pulled up Ocean Boulevard and saw Alexa’s gray Crown Victoria parked in a Texaco station across the street from a vast piece of fenced property.

  Razor wire ran for miles in both directions. He could see two big gates, each with a private security guard. The sign over the drive-through arch had been torn down.

  Shane pulled into the darkened gas station, parked near the Crown Vic, got out, and slid into the front seat next to Alexa.

  “Sorry, I got totally jammed on the 110.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “All roads lead to Rome.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your boy just pulled through that gate five minutes ago. A blue Camaro with racing stripes and a bondoed front fender, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked through her windshield at the five-hundred-acre piece of land across Ocean Boulevard next to the bay. On the east side of the property, the buildings were still standing, but to the west there were piles of rubble where the structures had already been knocked down. It looked a little like pictures of Berlin after the bombings in ’45.

  “Is this place what I think it is?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said softly. “The Long Beach Naval Yard.”

  30

  Choir Practice

  The sun set slowly and magnificently over the Pacific Ocean. Scattered clouds that were strung across the horizon in steel-gray formations suddenly turned deep purple, riding above the dark blue sea like a colorful celestial armada until the sun was gone and night claimed its final victory.

  Shane retrieved his new camera from the trunk of the Taurus, grabbed the heavy lens and some film, then walked with Alexa along busy Ocean Boulevard, across the street from the old naval yard. They were both looking for a good place to climb the fence. With cars streaking by in both directions, they picked a hole in the traffic, sprinted across the busy four-lane street, then continued west, looking through the fence at the property beyond.

  There were security lights located inside the old naval yard every block or so, illuminating sections of the torn-down facility. This part of the huge yard had already been completely razed. Behind them, on the east end of the property, the surviving naval buildings loomed.

  Shane reasoned that they had a better chance of getting inside unobserved if they went west, where there were no structures left standing and, hence, nothing to steal and less need for security.

  “Where do you want to try?” she suddenly asked.

  He pointed to a place up ahead where the razor wire had come down, making it possible to get over the fence without ripping their hands and clothes.

  “With all this traffic on Ocean, we’ll be spotted; somebody’s gonna call it in,” she said. “Let’s try over there.” She pointed to the far end of the property, where the fence seemed to turn a corner and head south toward the bay.

  There was a huge lit structure looming down there that Shane didn’t like the looks of. “Except, what the hell is that?” he asked, pointing at it, but she didn’t answer.

  They kept walking and finally got close enough to see that it was an active Army Reserve post, with its own entrance located at the far end of the naval yard. A bunch of weekend warriors were standing around in the parking lot, milling in front of the post HQ.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re right. Let’s go back and try your place.”

  They returned to the spot Shane had seen, and then waited for the line of traffic to pass. Once the light down the street turned red, Shane touched her arm.

  “Now,” he said.

  He and Alexa hit the fence simultaneously. It was an eight-foot-high chain-link; Shane scrambled up and over fast, surprised to see that they hit the ground on the other side at about the same time.

  They sprinted away from Ocean Boulevard as the light down the street turned green and the headlights of the approaching cars came toward them. They crouched in the dark unobserved as the traffic streamed past on the far side of the fence.

  “When Drucker and Kono went in, you sure you couldn’t see which way they turned once they got inside?” Shane asked.

  “They were stopped by the plastic badge guarding the east gate, but once they drove through, I lost ’em. I was half a block away, across the street. I didn’t want to chance getting spotted.”

  “If they went in there, then they’re probably still on the east side of the property,” Shane reasoned.

  “Probably.”

  They took off along the paved road inside the fence, this time heading east, back the way they had just come. The two-lane base road they were on was identified by a sign as COFFMAN STREET.

  They were both struck by the vastness of the old shipyard. Shane had heard about the property ever since he was a kid growing up in L.A., but he’d never been down there before.

  “This place is huge,” he said, stating the obvious as they quickened their pace, doing a speed walk. “No wonder those people at the city council hearing were pissed. This place has gotta be worth billions of dollars. Prime waterfront, right on the border between L.A. and Long Beach; the Queen Mary is half a mile from here, Fisherman’s Village a stone’s throw away.”

  She nodded but said nothing.

&n
bsp; They were coming to a part of the yard that had not been demolished yet. They began passing huge covered docks, once used to refurbish naval vessels. Faded signs hung on every kind of structure, from wood-frame officers clubs and enlisted-personnel mess halls to poured-concrete warehouses and five-story-high covered sheds. They passed blast foundation plants; the compressor boiler plant loomed next to an air compressor building; then some hazardous-waste staging areas. There were mammoth towers leaning against a dark sky, marked COLLIMATION TOWER and PUMPING STATION TWO. Neither Shane nor Alexa had a clue what they were used for.

  They passed the old naval credit union building, the sheet metal shop, and the asbestos removal headquarters, which was part of the current demolition operation and consisted of a flock of portable trailers.

  The property was beyond anything that Shane had ever imagined. Now they were at the end of Coffman Street, where it turned into Avenue D.

  Up ahead they could see some bright light streaming out of a huge warehouse. They were moving slowly now, trying to hug the shadows created by the occasional streetlamps.

  They finally got close enough to see ten or twelve cars parked in front of a huge lit warehouse. Shane and Alexa could see the open loading door with a sign overhead that read:

  BUILDING 132

  MACHINE SHOP—PIPE AND COPPER

  They crept across Avenue D and found cover behind a two-story-high cylindrical tank. When they looked around the rusting tank, Shane and Alexa could see directly into the mouth of the warehouse through the raised loading door.

  A party with more than thirty people was going on inside. Some tables had been set up full of food and buckets of beer. Men and women were dancing on the cold concrete floor, which was lit by lights from two gray police plainwraps that had been pulled inside. Both Crown Vics had the doors open; stereo music was coming from the car radios tuned to the same FM station.

  Shane was looking through his telescopic lens at the partyers. “Most of these guys are cops…. I know some of the girls. I busted a few when I was in West Valley Vice.”