Georgie said, "At least the Armenian cruisers respect education. All their graffiti is spelled right."
At 9:15 P. M. on that moonless night, when the smog and overcast blowing in from the ocean hung low over the Los Angeles basin, there was a ruckus on Hollywood Boulevard that brought four of the midwatch units responding. Catwoman, who had tried in vain to look like Halle Berry, head-butted Superman for muscling in on her tourist tips and knocked him right on his ass in Grauman's forecourt. The boozy superhero ended up dazed on John Wayne's boot prints and yelled to everyone that he was going to murder Catwoman.
This Superman was not one of the younger Street Characters and didn't much resemble the movie version's. He had a nose full of broken veins, and a double chin, and was starting to get a middle-aged paunch that his costume with all the built-in muscles couldn't hide. When he got to his feet, he lurched at the plucky Catwoman, who held her ground with claws extended. But then Marilyn Monroe, who was actually a forty-year-old transvestite named Melvin Pickett, came to Catwoman's aid.
Superman grabbed Catwoman, who fought back and tried to kick him in the groin. When Superman drew back a fist, Marilyn Monroe stepped in and belted Superman across the mouth with her leather purse, which was heavy with rolls of quarters she'd collected for the Sunset Strip Beautification Project. There was a major donnybrook going on by the time the first black-and-whites arrived.
Six-A-Fifteen from Watch 3 showed up before any of the mid-watch units, and that turned out to be unfortunate for Superman. The cop driving 6-A-15 was Preston Lilly, who'd served thirty-five years with the LAPD, twenty-two of them at Hollywood Station. He was a large, square-shouldered man with a massive shaved skull the color of old ivory. His eyes were gray and spaced too far apart, making them seem out of sync when aimed in your direction. Some people said that looking into the face of Preston Lilly was like looking at an enormous pale eel. He had already decided to retire before the end of the year, and he was sick of working 6-A-15 because he was always getting bullshit calls to the rich whiners in the Hollywood Hills.
"You can never make them Hills dwellers happy," Preston Lilly complained to his partner, a Cuban immigrant named Mario Delgado. "A bunch of guys with too much money and a bunch of trophy wives with too much time on their hands. They like to bitch just for the sake of bitching."
The phlegmatic Cuban just shrugged and said, "Better than working down in Watts, 'mano." He had recently transferred to Hollywood Division from Southeast Division. Then he added, "We got to take some shit from the jotos in the Hills. They might be friends of the chief. Or maybe the mayor. That's the way life is."
"I own my own pink slip," Preston Lilly said. "My pension's vested. I could commit murder and they'd still have to send my pension checks to me at San Quentin. And I already filed my retirement papers, so nobody better fuck with me, in the Hills or in the flats. I got nothing to lose, cornpadre."
Superman found that out when Preston Lilly stepped in to break up the tussle. Because Marilyn Monroe was sober, she'd been able to get a good choke hold on the larger Street Character, and Superman was sitting on Grauman's forecourt with his back to Marilyn, who had him in not only a choke hold but also a scissors grip, with her shaved legs around his waist. The Incredible Hulk, a gentle soul who hated violence of any kind, had picked up Marilyn Monroe's purse and was guarding it and pleading in vain for the combatants to stop fighting.
Marilyn Monroe's platinum blond wig got twisted askew at the start of the fight and the hair was hanging in her face like a sheep-dog's. Her white dress was ripped open all the way down the side and had been torn off one shoulder. A large falsie had popped up out of her bra and was resting on Superman's shoulder like an inverted cereal bowl. The panty hose on both of Marilyn's legs was shredded, and her open-toed three-inch spikes were now without heels. And while Superman sat helpless, Catwoman pounded his face with relatively ineffectual blows that nevertheless made him howl in drunken rage.
"You're dead!" he screamed. "When I get up, I'm killing you, you nigger cunt!"
"You gotta get up first, peckerwood!" she yelled back, and socked him in the eye with her little fist.
The first thing that Officer Preston Lilly did was grab Cat-woman by the arm and flick her away from the brawlers. Then he said, "Cease and desist, Ms. Monroe! And you, too, Man of Steel!"
Meanwhile, there were hundreds of tourists watching, whistling, howling like coyotes, and it seemed like every single one of them was snapping photos.
Marilyn Monroe released her scissors hold as well as the choke hold and she stumbled to her feet with one shoe missing now. When Preston Lilly took Superman by the arm to drag him to his feet, the still boozy Street Character said, "Take your hands off me, you bald-headed pig fucker!"
"I don't like your mouth," Preston Lilly said. "You better lock it up."
Superman answered that by spitting on Preston Lilly.
The big cop looked down and saw the spittle dripping from his LAPD badge onto the blue uniform shirt pocket and running down to the pewter pocket button.
Mario Delgado saw Preston Lilly instinctively ball his huge right fist, but the little Cuban stepped in fast and said, "Whoa, partner! You're being watched by three hundred witnesses and about a hundred of them might be hostile."
That made the Cuban cop take charge of things and grab one of Superman's arms, and then both cops got Superman's hands cuffed behind his back.
Marilyn Monroe held up a heel-less shoe and yelled to Superman in her natural baritone voice, "I paid three hundred bucks for my Louis Vuitton's and that was a sale price, you sleazy turd! I'm suing your sorry ass!"
The arriving midwatch units got things under control, and after making the milling throngs move along, they began interviewing the other Street Characters who had witnessed the fracas. Preston Lilly walked Superman to their shop and strapped him in the back-seat, then got behind the wheel to await his partner.
Mario Delgado was busy talking to Flotsam and Jetsam, who were trying to help Marilyn Monroe get what was left of her white dress pinned up enough to cover her pantie girdle. It was then that Superman, bitching that he was the real victim and that Preston Lilly was a fascist swine, hacked up a big loogie and spit it through the caged partition of the police car right onto the shaved skull of Officer Preston Lilly.
Mario Delgado was shocked when he turned and saw Preston Lilly suddenly start up the engine of the black-and-white and heard him yell, "Catch a ride back to the station, partner! I gotta get Superman outta here!"
The black-and-white squealed away from the curb and was gone. Just like that.
"What the hell?" the baffled Cuban cop said to Flotsam, who replied, "Dude, I think Preston don't want any witnesses."
Nearly forty minutes later, Mario Delgado paced anxiously in the parking lot of Hollywood Station, but still his partner and Superman had not appeared. He went inside and up to the lunchroom, where he bought a soda from the machine and then joined Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo in the report room.
The Cuban cop was not finished with his soda when they all heard yammering coming from the passageway leading from the parking lot door. Mario Delgado and Nate and Snuffy all ran out of the report room and found Preston Lilly walking the handcuffed superhero to the holding tank, where he put him inside, removed the handcuffs, and pushed him down onto the bench. He closed the door, but everyone could still see Superman through the shatterproof window, and he kept hollering. They could also see that there wasn't a mark on his very flushed face other than the small abrasions he'd received in the fight.
Sergeant Murillo left the sergeants' room to come and see what the yelling was all about, and when Superman saw the chevrons on his sleeves, he hollered, "Sergeant, I demand to make a citizen's complaint! I've been tortured! It was worse than waterboarding!"
Preston Lilly looked at Sergeant Murillo and said, "That's preposterous."
Superman jumped up from the bench and ran to the glass window, yelling, "That skinhead Nazi
took me to the Hollywood Freeway on-ramp and got out and grabbed my hair and pulled my head through the open window. And he rolled it up until I was trapped by the neck. There I was with my hands cuffed behind my back and my head hanging out, and he drove a hundred goddamn miles an hour for I don't know how long and I was screaming the whole time for him to stop! It woulda been better if he'd just tied me to the hood like a fucking road-killed deer!"
Sergeant Murillo looked at Preston Lilly, who said, "Go ahead and cut paper, Sarge. I'm at the end of my career, where I can take the safety off and tell the captain what I think. Or the bureau commander. Or the fucking chief of police, for that matter. I'm bulletproof now. But as far as what Superman says? It's preposterous."
Superman said, "Sergeant, I swear to you. When I begged for mercy, all he did was drive faster. I could hardly breathe. And do you know what he said? He floored it all the way and he yells to me, 'Nobody's whupping on you, Superman. I'm just letting your own lips beat you to death.' That's what he said."
Preston Lilly looked at Superman and at Sergeant Murillo and said, "That's preposterous."
Sergeant Murillo said to the big cop, "Preston, do what you can to move up your retirement date. And until you go, please leave the safety on."
Chapter Eight.
JUST AFTER MIDNIGHT Cindy Kroll heard a scraping sound on the roof. Her first thought was that some crows were up there pecking at the composite material that was designed to look like wood. She had fed her baby daughter some applesauce and bottle-fed her infant son before lying down on the bed in her T-shirt and underpants. It was so hot, she was just trying to catch some breeze from the open windows, and she had not intended to go to sleep yet, but she had dozed. The wine she'd had earlier while watching TV had done it.
She reminded herself that she had to cut down on the wine and she was dying to smoke some crystal, but she knew she had to kick it. Then she remembered that her daughter had fallen asleep in the playpen and that she had to get up and put her in her crib. Her son was lying beside her asleep, and she looked at him. She thought he resembled his father, Louis Dryden. She didn't mind that. Louis was a good-looking man even if he--
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard more scraping on the roof above her apartment. And then a cup fell from the sink in her kitchen and broke on the floor. And then all the dishes from the drainboard crashed to the floor, and her first thought was, Earthquake! Then she heard footsteps coming toward her bedroom.
The code 3 call came after the three warning beeps over the police radio. Then the RTO at Communications Division said, "All units in the vicinity and Six-A-Forty-nine, a woman screaming."
When they heard the address of the call that was given to a Watch 3 unit, Viv Daley said, "That's the Kroll address!"
Six-X-Seventy-six was very close to the location and jumped the call, arriving in less than three minutes. Georgie was out before Viv even brought the Crown Vic to a stop, and they both ran to the front door, standing in a wash of illumination from the security lights overhead.
The front entrance was well secured by a set of heavy wooden doors that opened out, and there was a small panel of double-glazed window in each door. The lobby inside was lit but there was no sign of the watchman that they were told would be there. They could see a door inside the lobby with a sign that said "Manager," but it was closed.
And then they saw Cindy Kroll. She was staggering down the staircase toward the lobby, wearing only the T-shirt and cotton underwear. The T-shirt was blood-drenched and ripped open, and her chest bones glistened in the light. She reached the lobby floor, lurched from side to side, and dropped to her knees. A man wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt and black jeans ran down the stairs, a knife raised high over his head, yelling something unintelligible at the fallen woman as he tried to stab her again.
He may never have seen the orange fireballs coming at him or heard the explosions, but Viv Daley and Georgie Adams fired a total of thirteen rounds from their .40 caliber Glocks through the glass panels in the doors. Two of Georgie's rounds hit Louis Dryden, one in the hip and one under the left eye. Three of Viv's rounds got him in the shoulder and chest.
Lights went on all over the apartment building and in the building next door, as well as in a private residence across the street.
Viv Daley yelled through the broken glass, "Open this door! Somebody come open this door!"
"Police!" Georgie Adams yelled, kicking the double doors twice. Open it!"
Then through the broken window panels they saw an elderly man emerge in terror from the manager's office. He stepped over the body of Cindy Kroll and yelled to the police, "Don't shoot! I'm the watchman!"
He opened the door and began babbling. When he became intelligible, he said, "I heard her scream once and I called you right away! But you got here so fast, somebody on the third floor must've called first! And a few minutes later I heard her screaming again but this time it sounded like she was coming down the stairs and a man was also screaming curses and he was coming down and I got scared and locked my door!"
Georgie Adams shined his streamlight onto Louis Dryden's face and saw the entry wound clearly. He holstered his pistol and grabbed his rover, calling for a rescue ambulance for Cindy Kroll. He also reported the officer-involved shooting that would bring dozens of people to the apartment building before the night ended.
Viv Daley turned Cindy Kroll onto her back in case CPR was possible. But the young woman's chest was slashed wide open, exposing her breastbone. When Viv saw that Cindy Kroll's eyes were open and her mouth was twisted into a rictus of violent death, she didn't bother to feel for a pulse.
Viv looked at her partner, who averted his eyes from hers, and he said to her, "You better check on the babies. I'll secure the scene here."
Viv's heart was hammering when she got to the landing of the third floor. She felt dry-mouthed and light-headed, and she could hardly believe that she had just fired her weapon outside the police pistol range. Though it was her first time, it had happened so fast and there had been such an adrenaline surge that she hadn't had time to feel much fright. But she was feeling it now.
She held up her hand, and in the light from the third-floor hallway the hand looked palsied. She had a streamlight in her other hand, and when she got to the door, she found it wide open. There was no sound from within and she was suddenly more afraid than she'd ever been in her life.
Viv put her hand on her pistol grip, but it wasn't for personal safety. The hand was acting reflexively, doing what a cop's hand does in moments of fear. Any personal threat to her was past, yet she was weak and feeling nausea from the overwhelming fright sweeping over her, from dread of what she might find in there.
Viv Daley crept into the apartment. She stepped gingerly into the cluttered living room and was so instantly relieved that her legs almost buckled. The thirteen-month-old was safe in her playpen, her face tear-streaked but she wasn't crying now. She wore a white jersey with a pink duck on the front, and a diaper, and she was sitting and staring at a brown teddy bear on the floor of the playpen as though in a daze.
"Hello, sweetie," Viv said to the little girl, who turned and looked at her in confusion.
Then Viv rushed hopefully into the bedroom and found the baby boy. He was wearing only a diaper and was dangling from the upper rail of the crib from a cord to a cell phone charger that had been tied around his neck. His face was purple and his eyes were shut tight.
"No!" Viv shouted, not even aware that she'd spoken.
She jerked the cord from the crib and her fingers slipped twice before she untied it from where it was digging into the soft flesh of the infant's neck, and she said, "I knew it! I knew it!"
And then she thought, This baby's dead. What am I doing? This is a crime scene and this baby's dead!
Still, she lifted the infant, thinking, He's so light. He's so small. She put the baby into the crib, and for no reason she could later fathom, she covered him to his wounded neck with his cotton blanket.
Viv stared at the dead baby and thought, All evening I imagined this. I knew Dryden could get in from the roof. I knew it. Why didn't I act on it? Why didn't I push the boss for a stakeout? What kind of cop am I?
The baby girl in the next room started crying then and was standing, holding on to the playpen rail. Viv went to her and picked her up, and she looked at Viv in shock and confusion and said, "Mommy."
The toddler wrapped her arms around Viv's neck, and Viv felt the silky blond hair against her cheek, and the child said it again: "Mommy."
Viv said, "Hush, baby, hush." And she began rocking her back and forth and didn't hear Sergeant Murillo, who appeared behind her along with Snuffy Salcedo and Hollywood Nate, who remained in the hallway, looking in through the open door.
Viv was a lot calmer now and she said in a monotone to her sergeant, "In there. I found the baby hanging by the neck from the crib rail. I hoped he might still be alive so I took him down. But of course he wasn't. I put him to bed."
Sergeant Murillo looked at her and entered the bedroom for only a moment before he returned.
He said quietly to Viv, "Don't touch anything else. A homicide team and SID will be here very soon to process the scene, and FID's also on the way. They'll separate you and Adams and it'll be a very long night of questions, from FID especially, but this is obviously an in-policy shooting, so I don't want you to stress over it. Just tell them exactly how it went down."
"I knew this might happen," Viv said quietly to Sergeant Murillo. "It's almost like I could see him coming in from the roof."
After hesitating, Sergeant Murillo looked at his officer and said in an even quieter voice, "Adams told me all about that, and yes, the ladder's still in place on the carport roof where the dead man left it. But you didn't know this would happen. It was just what-if speculation on your part. The place looked perfectly secure. You don't have a crystal ball. Nobody could've anticipated this, Viv. You can't blame yourself. The dead guy's to blame. Nobody else."
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