Hollywood Hills

by Joseph Wambaugh

  "If the guy that owns that Malibu ain't boning his old lady, he's gonna run to his ride, to see if it's in pieces all over the street," Jetsam explained.

  "Even if he is boning his old lady, he's gonna pull right outta her and run to his ride," Flotsam said. "He can find a bitch anywheres, but where's he gonna find a mint Malibu like that one?"

  Snuffy looked at Nate again and said, "Know what? On a night this hot, everybody in a no-A/C neighborhood's got their windows open. Maybe it's me being back in Hollywood where anything can happen, but this is so loopy I think it might work."

  Ten minutes later, Snuffy Salcedo was parked at the north end of the block, revving the engine of the Crown Vic. When he received a flashlight signal from the other end of the block, he floored it, and the black-and-white roared south until he was twenty yards from where the Malibu was parked and then he stood on the brakes.

  The wheels locked up and the car's rear end started sliding until Snuffy got off the brakes and sped past the Malibu and the waiting surfer cops, each of whom was holding overhead a metal trash can full of junk. Snuffy could hear the explosive crash of cans and other metal before he drove into the alley to conceal the radio car.

  Flotsam, Jetsam, and Nate hid between houses and behind cars, and within a minute, people were running out of their houses to see which car had been smashed in the collision. Several car owners scurried to see if they still had fenders intact, but only one man, shirtless and barefoot, ran straight to the Malibu.

  He was checking the driver's side of the car when he was lit by flashlight beams and a tall blond cop said to him, "Dude, I don't know if you speak English, but if you even fart too loud, I'm gonna blow the eye right outta that rattlesnake."

  A shorter blond cop said to him, "No, go ahead and rabbit. I love the smell of gunsmoke in the evening."

  Snuffy Salcedo came running back from the alley with tobacco juice dripping down his chin as the fugitive was being handcuffed.

  Jetsam said, "Read him his rights in Spanish, bro."

  Snuffy Salcedo told Jaime Soto Aguilar in Spanish of his Miranda rights, and when he was finished, the fugitive made one brief comment to Snuffy in Spanish.

  "What'd he say?" Flotsam asked.

  Snuffy replied, "He said he thinks he's gonna have a heart attack."

  "Bitchin'!" Flotsam said. "Tell him we never made a cardiac arrest."

  "Do they rehearse this shit?" Snuffy Salcedo asked Hollywood Nate.

  "They don't have to," said Nate. "They're in lockstep. I think they were Siamese twins separated at birth and raised apart. Probably by jackals."

  During the ride to Hollywood Station with the fugitive handcuffed in the backseat of their shop, Jetsam said to his partner, "Bro, do you think this is, like, unusual enough to qualify for a pizza from Sergeant Murillo? Or does it have to be more like Hollywood weird? Like, more in the freak-show mold?"

  While the surfer cops were locking up first prize for the Hollywood moon award, 6-X-46 was down from the Hollywood Hills, and Della Ravelle was still lecturing her probationer in the ways of women in police work.

  As she drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard, Della said, "I can talk a lot about common sense, Britney. It's a good copper's most valuable trait. Things're gonna be a whole lot better for you on this Job than they were for women like me back in the day. When I was a boot, the old guys never got tired of playing little tricks on us. Like when I worked Central, I can remember a time when a couple of OGs had me do a pat-down search on a basehead down on skid row who was wearing spandex. After I patted her down and told them she's clean, my P3 said, 'Good job. I'm gonna write a comment card on you.' Then when I wasn't looking one of the other OGs, a former SWAT guy who thought he was Mr. Tactical and smoked cigarettes in his teeth instead of his lips, puts his hideout gun on the ground and says, 'You missed this, rookie. She had it tucked under her crotch.'"

  Britney said, "What'd you do then?"

  "For a few seconds I almost panicked, but then my common sense kicked in and I said, 'No, sir. She was wearing spandex and there were no bulges on her except the ones nature gave her.' The OGs had a laugh and I was a step closer to acceptance."

  "I try to never forget that it's still a man's world out here," Britney said.

  "Yes, but it's lots better now," Della said. "I won't even try to tell you about the sexual harassment we used to put up with. And there were always the goddamn tricks. After a woman boot would search under the seats in her shop before she hit the streets, an OG would invariably drop a bag of rocks or some other kind of dope under the backseat and say, 'What the fuck's wrong with you, baby girl? You missed this.' It got so lame after a while that even they got tired of it. But we had to live with it till they did."

  "How'd you finally win the OGs over?"

  "By trying to be a better cop than they were without them noticing. And by always staying a woman and making them respect that. I've seen women on this Job trying to become one of the boys, but that never works out. And women have to deal with the impostor syndrome. That's where the woman copper starts to fear that the boss is gonna find out how unqualified she truly is. She starts to believe that she's only faking competence, because every second she's being scrutinized, way more than the men are, and it starts working on her self-esteem. It's like the actor's syndrome, but it's all internal bullshit. You are competent and you don't have to fear anything except the people out here who can hurt you. And that's a healthy fear to have."

  "You were right, Della," Britney Small said. "I never learned this kind of stuff from Rupert Tong."

  Della said, "I'm sure you've already learned on your own that when you meet men away from the Job and they find out you're a cop, they all get a doofus grin and say, 'Can you handcuff me ?' I hate that shit. I just tell them, 'Get outta my face, asshole.'"

  "You're right!" Britney said. "That already happened to me when I went out to a club with a couple of civilian girlfriends. Lame, isn't it?"

  "You're way lucky to be here in Hollywood for your probation," Della said. "I remember the first time I found a gun after transferring here. Of course, guns recovered on radio calls don't count, only observation guns. So one night on Hollywood Boulevard when the beat officers and a midwatch unit were jamming some Rolling Sixties gangsters who came up from Watts, I spotted this brother bopping along the Walk of Fame, pretending to be a tourist watching Tickle Me Elmo posing for pictures. But I saw that when he sauntered past one of the Rolling Sixties, he tried to take a little two-inch wheel gun from one of the bangers who hadn't been patted down yet. I drew down on him and yelled for him to freeze and get down on his belly, and when everything settled and they were all proned out, I recovered my first obs gun here in Hollywood Division. And the sergeant we called the Oracle showed me off around the station and told everyone how I'd caught a gangster dumping a strap, and the watch commander wrote me an attagirl, and it was pretty cool. Of course it wasn't a big burner, but size does not matter when it comes to guns."

  Britney said, "I've got a couple of classmates who're doing their probation in Central Division. After hearing you describe it, I'm real glad I caught Hollywood, believe me."

  Della was silent for a moment, remembering how it had been back then, remembering the smell of skid row, the fluffy acrid miasma. And then she said, "I truly hated being a boot down there.

  The smell of shit and piss and rotting flesh and general decay was everywhere in those days. It got into the fabric of our uniforms. People had lots of scabies. You could grab someone and your hands would slip right off their wrists. I got scabies twice from searching skid row hookers. They were like itchy fleabites. They get on your arms, your thighs, and your stomach. Good thing I never got them on my gizmo."

  "Gross!" Britney said.

  "And the guys enjoyed it when I had to search the obese ones who liked to hide crack under their humungous breasts. Their tits would be sticky. The guys would say, 'Sticky boobs hide crack.' Once I was searching this monstrous woman in a muumuu
who was so fat they claimed she'd flipped a bus bench. And I thought I found a stash in the rolls of fat around her middle. But when I dug it out, it turned out to be an Oreo cookie and some Doritos she was keeping there to snack on. The guys really enjoyed watching me running like mad to a faucet to clean up."

  "Disgusting!" Britney said.

  Still reminiscing, Della said, "That wasn't even the real bad stuff. Once we found a dead baby in a backpack. It had blue eyes."

  Della stopped talking then and they rode in silence. Della broke the silence when she said, "So whadda you think we should do about code seven tonight? My dad sent me three hundred bucks for my birthday, so I'll treat. We can do sushi on Melrose or a spicy chicken salad in Thai Town or maybe some rice and lamb in Little Armenia. No noshing on manly burritos and burgers for the girls of Six-X-Forty-six. Sound good, partner?"

  "Can we wait awhile?" Britney said. "For some reason, I don't seem to have an appetite right now."

  A trap that had been set by the narks two weeks earlier prompted a radio call on that night of the Hollywood moon that made Britne Small the talk of the station for days to come. A tip from a citizen had led narcotics detectives to the backyard of a vacant house that had been in foreclosure for a number of months. A local Re. Altor happened to be checking out the property one afternoon and he recognized a large number of cannabis plants on one neat little patch of ground in that overgrown backyard. The Realtor phoned the office of the narcotics detectives, who were housed a block from the main police station, and had a chat with a detective there.

  The resourceful detectives not only confiscated the marijuana but they left a note pinned to an olive tree in that yard. The note said, "Sorry about your grow. Call if you'd care to negotiate." They left a cell number used for situations like this and were happily surprised when a call came in the very next day. The caller offered $500, no questions asked, for the return of the plants. A female undercover cop met the pot grower by the parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl, and after the grower made his offer in person, he was arrested by other narks watching the action through binoculars.

  The marijuana cultivator was a two-striker who wanted to deal and was eager to give up associates and fellow dealers. He offered the narks information about a male nurse of an anesthesiologist in Venice who had a shaky medical license. The nurse resided in an apartment building in the Las Palmas neighborhood, where he provided his client list--consisting of many drag queens and transsexuals--with forged prescriptions supposedly written from a medical office in Culver City.

  One of the things that the two-striker had said, resulting in a search warrant, was, "The quack's nurse writes enough scrips in there to smoke out every dragon and trannie in Hollywood." And hoping to curry favor he added, "But he's bipolar and mega-goony most of the time, so watch out. I've been told he might have a gun in there."

  Two teams of narks and their D3 had intended to serve the warrant on the night of the full moon. The nurse was supposed to be at home with his lover, a post-op transsexual called Molly Black, who had been Marvin Black in another life and whose last surgery had completed the gender transformation. At the last minute, one of the teams of narks was pulled away for the arrest of another prescription drug dealer whom they'd been trying to get for months. The three remaining detectives needed a backup team, so they put in the call for a patrol unit to meet them on Las Palmas Avenue. The call was given to 6-X-46 of the midwatch.

  Britney Small was excited about this one and wondered if the full moon was going to produce something weird enough for them to win the pizza prize. Also, she'd never been on a forced-entry raid of any kind, and she was stoked when the detectives asked her and Della to accompany them to the third-floor apartment. Their D3 decided to watch the outside window in case evidence came flying out. The entry team wanted women officers with them because of the post-op tranny in there. She was now officially a woman and would have to be searched by a woman.

  After they were quickly briefed near Las Palmas Avenue under the white glow of the full moon, they were ready. The two narks who were making entry wore LAPD raid jackets, and the younger one carried a metal ram, the first one that Britney had ever seen.

  The older nark said, "No more kicking doors for me. I kicked clear through a plywood panel last year and tore my Achilles tendon."

  The younger of the narks, who Britney thought was pretty cute, kept smiling at her, and Della whispered, "Watch out for him. He's got a rep. A real vampire, and he likes fresh, young blood."

  After they entered the building and ran up the staircase, Britney was pleased to see that she was not as winded as the narks, and certainly not as winded as Della Ravelle, who was toting the shotgun just in case the rumor was true about the nurse being strapped. They hurried along the darkened corridor to the apartment, and the two narks stood in front of the door with the ram at the ready.

  Della angled on the left side of the door and Britney on the right. On the preplanned signal, which was a simple nod to Britney, she was to bang on the door with her baton and give the command. She was surprised how hard her heart was pounding.

  Della shone her light onto the door so that the younger nark could accurately slam the ram right next to the dead-bolt lock. Della held the shotgun muzzle up, and Britney had her pistol drawn and muzzle down against her right thigh, with her adrenaline peaking.

  The older detective on the left of the ram nodded to Britney, who yelled, "Police! Open the door!"

  They heard what sounded like a feminine scream from inside and high-pitched voices yelling to each other and footsteps scurrying. The detective didn't hesitate and slammed the ram once against the heavy door, but it didn't budge. And then the moment occurred that made both detectives actually burst out in roars of laughter before the young one rammed the door a second time.

  The door crashed open and the nurse and his tranny lover were caught throwing bags of prescription drugs out the window, where the D3 ran around catching them like a Dodgers center fielder. Lots more detective snickering continued all during the arrest, and even Della Ravelle tried in vain to control her own giggles. It had all been triggered by a moment that won for Britney Small a consolation-prize burrito from Sergeant Murillo for an unforgettable moment on the night of the Hollywood moon. All of Hollywood Station talked about it for days.

  When Della Ravelle saw that the battering ram hit six inches higher than the dead-bolt lock on the first attempt at forced entry, she had shouted to the detective, "Lower! Lower!"

  But it was Britney Small, in a fever of high-pitched excitement, who had instantly obeyed that command from her FTO. She dropped her voice a few octaves, gamely trying for baritone, and repeated, "Police! Open the door!"

  Chapter Thirteen.

  THE CALL FROM Nigel Wickland came at 8 A. M. on Monday. Raleigh had just finished cleaning up the dishes after taking a tray of Cream of Wheat and stewed prunes to Marty Brueger. The old coot was watching something on E! that he'd recorded the night before. Raleigh thought how interesting it was that the young bubbleheads and the old bubbleheads enjoyed the same shows. He figured there must be some demographic dynamic at work here that he didn't understand.

  The caller ID showed "Wickland Gallery" on the display. He picked up the phone and said, "Yes, Nigel?"

  "We should practice not mentioning each other's names when we speak," Nigel said with that superior tone of his.

  Raleigh suppressed his annoyance and said, "Okay, double-ohsixty-nine, what's on your mind this morning?"

  A silence while Nigel suppressed his own annoyance. Then he said, "This is it. I'm coming today."

  That got Raleigh's attention. He felt a cold rush of fear in his belly, and he said, "What time today?"

  "What time do you prepare lunch for ..." Nigel paused, trying to keep from mentioning Marty Brueger's name.

  "The geezer," Raleigh said. "About twelve thirty. Then it's nap time from about one until three."

  "I'll see you at one," Nigel said. "Precisely."

/>   Raleigh scowled at the receiver when he put it back on the cradle. "Precisely." That was so like the boarding school assholes who frequented the London bistro and left him nothing but their pitiful Brit gratuities. They'd tipped on average less than car-wash employees in Los Angeles might tip for food and service. Well, he'd be ready precisely at 1 P. M., and then he'd see if that teabag was the mastermind he purported to be. Raleigh tried to concentrate on his daily chores, making sure that he had the household schedule and Leona Brueger's instructions carefully notated.

  The swimming pool cleaner came on Tuesday mornings unless Raleigh called to change the time. Ditto for the gardening crew, who came on Thursdays at about noon. Leona Brueger had offered to hire Raleigh a housekeeper for a biweekly visit or give him an extra $1,200 a month and let him hire his own help. He opted for the money, figuring he could find some Mexican housekeeper in the neighborhood who would drop in once a week to dust, vacuum, and clean his bathroom, and do whatever needed doing in Marty Brueger's cottage. That would cost him less than $400 a month and he could pocket the rest. So far, he'd been doing the light housekeeping himself and hadn't needed to hire anybody.

  He decided to drive to the supermarket and pick up the week's groceries just to have something to occupy his mind for the next few hours. Marty Brueger would need more of that pricey Irish whiskey he liked, and Raleigh could pick up a bottle of Jack Daniel's for himself. Working in the catering business had taught him that bars on the west side of Los Angeles could get by if the only booze left on earth was Jack Daniel's and just about any premium vodka. But of course the codger in the cottage insisted on whiskey that required an extra stop at a liquor store on Hollywood Boulevard.

  Raleigh went to his bedroom for his wallet and car keys and studied himself in the mirror. He imagined what he would look like with a little bit of help, like maybe that chin tuck he'd been thinking about. And a slight eye lift would help, as well as a hair transplant. He knew he'd need serious liposuction to unload the depressing blubber that encased his torso like a truck tire. Well, now he'd be able to afford all of that and more. Lots more. It certainly was not too late to meet an older woman of means, maybe one who lived in the Hollywood Hills, maybe in a house like Casa Brueger.