Harbor Nocturne

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  “Thanks, Sarge,” Jetsam said. “How about IHOP?”

  Hollywood Nate Weiss had been working with Britney Small for three deployment periods and figured he knew the young woman pretty well. She was reticent by nature and he always kept his show business conversations to films or TV shows that she was likely to have seen, but with she being twenty-four years old and he being thirty-nine, that wasn’t so easy. He was caught off guard that evening when, unbidden, she brought up a troubling issue right after he’d finished discussing an Oscar-nominated movie where at least a hundred people got shot or killed in a dream sequence.

  Britney said, “Nate, I’ve got a personal question I’d like to ask.”

  “You’re my partner,” he said.

  “It’s about when you shot the guy that killed your partner.”

  Nate grew solemn. “Dana Vaughn was her name.”

  “Yes, Dana,” Britney said. “I wish I’d known her.”

  “She was a good cop,” Nate said. “Way better than me.”

  “Well,” Britney said, “when you shot the guy, did you hear the rounds you fired and the rounds he fired?”

  Hollywood Nate looked over at her. After a moment he said, “I’m not sure. I think I heard his, but I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I dream about the young guy I killed last year,” Britney said. “They’re recurring dreams, and in the dreams the rounds I fired at him echo like cannon fire.”

  “Yes?” Nate said. “What do you take from that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “because it wasn’t like that when it happened. I’d never believed in auditory exclusion until then, but, well, I never heard a single round I fired. I saw my muzzle flashes, but I didn’t hear the gunfire. And I didn’t hear other coppers yelling, and I didn’t hear the guy scream out when I was killing him. He was only my age, you know.”

  Hollywood Nate looked over again at his young partner. Slowing the black-and-white, he said, “The guy had a gun and was trying to shoot you, Britney.”

  “I know,” she said. “That part doesn’t bother me the way it used to, when all the OGs started treating me with respect for the first time, instead of like a little-girl probationer they used to laugh at. I killed a guy, so I was a gunfighter to them, and I got their respect, but that isn’t how I wanted to earn it, and I didn’t like it.”

  “Did you ever go talk to a BSS shrink about this?” Nate asked.

  “Only when I was ordered to,” she said. “Right after the shooting went down. But I didn’t tell her about the dreams, because they hadn’t started yet.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt to make an appointment and talk to one of the psychologists,” Nate said. “It’s confidential, you know.”

  “Did you talk to one after you killed the guy who killed Dana?”

  “I did because I was ordered to,” Nate said. “I wouldn’t admit it at the time, but it might’ve helped me to stop feeling like I’d let Dana down somehow.”

  “I hope you don’t get mad at me for asking, but do you dream about that night?”

  “Not the way you do,” Nate said. “But I dream about her all the time. She had a chuckle that sounded like wind chimes.”

  “I hope it’s okay that I asked these questions,” Britney said.

  “I’m your partner, Britney,” Nate said. “I’ve got your back in every way you might need me. And by the way, you and me might be the only two on Watch Five that’ve been in officer-involved fatal shootings. So who else would you talk to about things like this?”

  They were interrupted by a message on the MDC computer. It was assigned as an “unknown trouble” call, but the PSR had partly figured it out and added, “possible DB,” meaning there might be a dead body at the scene.

  The condo was on Stanley Avenue north of Fountain, in a very well tended and moderately pricey two-story building. The old woman who answered the door was petite and immaculately groomed. Her silver hair had recently been permed, and she wore a straight linen dress with a floral pattern and black shoes with a low heel.

  “Come in, Officers,” she said, with what Britney thought was the sweetest smile she’d seen lately.

  They smelled the food the moment they entered, and Nate guessed it was a robust stew, like the kind his mother had made at least once a week when he was a child. The condo was nicely decorated in prints and pale shades, but the decor was dated. It looked as though the occupants had been living there for many years.

  She said, “I’m Sybil Greene. My husband is Howard Greene, and he’s lying in bed and won’t get up. I’m afraid he’s sick or maybe he’s hurt. He’s fallen down several times lately, so I’m worried.”

  “Where’s the bedroom, ma’am?” Britney asked.

  The old woman led them to a tidy bedroom, where a hairless old man lay on his back, eyes open slightly, mouth agape, covers pulled to his throat. Rigor had already begun.

  “I’ve called him ever so many times,” she said. “And I’m making one of his favorite dinners, but he won’t get up.”

  “Let’s go in the living room and sit down,” Nate said.

  When he was sitting beside her on the living room sofa, he said, “I’m afraid your husband has passed away, Mrs. Greene.”

  She looked at Nate in astonishment and then at Britney, waiting for her to refute him. Then she said, “Oh, no. He’ll get up soon. He always takes an afternoon nap. It’s just a longer nap this time.”

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Nate said, taking her hand in his. “Mr. Greene is dead.”

  The back of the old woman’s hands looked like a network of sparrow bones clearly visible under the papery skin. Britney kept her eyes on those hands and not on the old woman’s face.

  Then Britney spoke for the first time: “Do you have someone we can call for you? Do you have children or grandchildren we can call?”

  The old woman looked up at Britney and said, “Our daughter, Margie, died in nineteen ninety-nine from breast cancer. We have three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.”

  “How old are you, Mrs. Greene?” Britney asked.

  “I’m ninety-one,” she said, “and my husband’s ninety-three. You’ll like Howard. He’s very funny. We should wake him now.”

  Britney said, “Do you have a phone file somewhere? With important personal phone numbers and names in it?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Greene said. “It’s in the kitchen drawer. I have to write down everything that my husband tells me to write down because my memory isn’t so good anymore.”

  Britney went into the kitchen, where she could hear Mrs. Greene say to Nate, “My husband and I have to go to the market tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday, isn’t it?”

  Britney tried the name and local phone number at the top of the list, written in a shaky scrawl. It was answered by a woman, and Britney said to her, “This is Officer Small of the Los Angeles Police Department. I’m at the home of Mrs. Sybil Greene and I’m sorry to inform you . . .”

  In the meantime, Nate was being shown a photo album, and Mrs. Greene was pointing out vacation photos she and her husband had taken at the Grand Canyon decades earlier.

  She said, “Of course we’re too old for that kind of vacation now, but we haven’t ruled out another trip to San Francisco. We loved riding the cable cars.”

  Britney walked back into the living room and nodded at Nate, saying, “Her granddaughter is on the way from Pacific Palisades.”

  “Why is my granddaughter coming?” the old woman asked Britney.

  “To take care of you, Mrs. Greene,” Nate said.

  “But Howard takes care of me,” she said.

  “He’s dead, Mrs. Greene,” Nate said, “and we’re so very sorry.”

  “I think you must be wrong,” she said. “May I see him?”

  Nate nodded to Britney, who took the old woman’s arm and led her to the bedroom, where she stood looking down at the lifeless face of her husband. She touched his cheek for a moment and then turned away, and Britney led her back to
the living room, where she sat down on a wingback chair.

  “But who’s going to take me to the market tomorrow?” she asked. “And who’ll pick out the best produce? I’m not very good at that.” And then she broke down and started to weep.

  The old woman’s granddaughter and her husband arrived promptly and said they had already placed a call to the Greenes’ primary care physician, who would sign the death certificate, and had contacted the local mortuary, which was sending someone. The officers of 6-X-66 were thanked for being thoughtful and kind.

  When they were walking to their car, Nate said to Britney, “I’m always relieved when there’s a doctor involved and we don’t have to call in the body snatchers. That’s too much like calling Animal Control to haul away a dead dog. You know, this story might win the Quiet Desperation Award, but somehow I don’t feel like sharing it with anybody.”

  Britney didn’t respond, and when they were back sitting in their shop, she turned on her flashlight to make the log notations before Nate started up the car.

  He said to her, “As you get older, you’ll find that it gets hard to deal with stuff like that. It’s because you’ve started to face your own mortality.”

  Britney still didn’t reply, and Nate looked over to see two wet droplets on the log sheet, and in the moonlight streaming through the windshield shiny rivulets were running down both her cheeks.

  “It’s not any too easy when you’re young, either,” she said, hastily wiping her cheeks with the heel of one hand. “I suppose you’re gonna tell me that big girls don’t cry and I should man up and leave this stuff back there. Right?”

  Hollywood Nate said, “No, I was only gonna tell you that even gunfighters have to cry sometimes.”

  After a quiet moment, Britney Small managed a sheepish smile and said, “Nate, if I put myself up for adoption, will you please become my mom and dad?”

  Brigita Babich had been at bingo for less than an hour when Lita and Dinko finished tidying up the supper dishes. It hadn’t been easy to convince Brigita that their guest should be allowed to do a little bit of work around the house. As for Dinko, Brigita had told Lita in Dinko’s presence that he hadn’t washed a dish or even tidied up his room in his entire life. That is, before Lita had arrived as their houseguest.

  “I guess Lita’s a good influence on me,” he’d said to his mother.

  That made Brigita study Lita for a moment and then say to her son, “I suppose she might be, at that.” Then she was off to bingo night at Croatian Hall.

  When they were alone, sitting on the sofa and watching the local news, Dinko said, “Would you like me to take you to a movie or something?”

  “How do they play the bingo game?” Lita asked.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked. “To go play bingo?”

  “No,” she said. “I am just thinking if bingo is a very hard game.”

  “It’s an easy game,” he said. “Next week we can go to bingo with my mom. It’ll be fun, even though I can hardly believe I’m saying this. Me, playing bingo?”

  Lita looked wistfully at Ollie, who was sleeping on the sofa, and then ran her gaze around the Babich house and said, “I cannot be going to play the games with you and your mother. I must leave this place and go to work. I shall call tomorrow to Violet. If Daisy is not with her, I am going to where you first see me dance. The pay is not too good but is enough until I maybe get another job in Hollywood.”

  “You can’t!” Dinko said. “You can’t go back there, and you can’t go anywhere near Hollywood or those thugs might find you. I won’t permit it. You’re staying here, Lita, where you’re safe.”

  “You are doing crazy talk again,” Lita said.

  “It’s not crazy!” Dinko said. “Look at this big house. Since my father died the two of us rattle around in here.”

  Lita tried to tone down his intensity by saying, with a smile, “Three of you. There is Ollie.”

  “We have plenty of room for you,” he said. “How about my idea of you finding a decent job and living here for a while? Just to see if you like it?”

  “I cannot pay the rent in such a grand—”

  “Stop it, Lita,” Dinko said. “We’re not rich, but we’re very comfortable. My dad had an insurance policy and my mom’s gonna be collecting Social Security, and like I said, I’m gonna start stacking up the hours. You wouldn’t believe how much money a longshoreman can make, even during this recession. You won’t have to pay anything. Just be our guest for a few months, okay? Let’s see how it goes.”

  “That would bring shame,” she said. “I am not someone for . . . I cannot think of the word for poor peoples who must accept money for nothing.”

  “Charity,” he said. “You’re too proud to accept charity. But I’m not offering charity. I’m offering . . . I’m offering . . . Christ! I think I’m offering a . . . a lifetime commitment!”

  “I do not understand what is that,” she said.

  He said, “I told you I could lend you some money to send to your family, but you don’t want that. Well, what if it was your money? What if half of everything I got is yours? I can’t think of you leaving here and going back to hell on earth. I just can’t!” He paused and suddenly said, “What if I married you?”

  That stopped everything. She sat quietly for a moment, then stood up and walked into the spare bedroom and closed the door softly. When she opened it a moment later, she called out, “Please come, Dinko.”

  He got up and walked slowly to the bedroom. When he got inside, he saw her standing beside the bed, naked. Now the hammering of his heart actually startled him. Finally, he said, “You’re breathtaking.”

  “This,” she said, “this is all I got. This is all men want from me. Take it. You do not have to lend to me nothing. Take it. Is yours for free. Then you shall see me with eyes more clear.”

  “Please, Lita,” Dinko said weakly, but she rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. It was tongue and teeth and velvety lips, and he wanted to resist and show her she was wrong about him, that he was not like those other men, but her long fingers were on him, sliding over his body. And with a shudder that started in his throat and ran to his loins, he kept thinking that this was not merely lust. This was something more.

  The lovemaking was the same and not the same. It was familiar and not familiar. Afterward, misty and spent, he didn’t know if he’d been lying supine for ten minutes or sixty. Time had become irrelevant. Vaguely, he realized that his mother would be home soon if her favorite cronies didn’t happen to be at bingo night, but he didn’t even care about that. He didn’t care about anything in the world, except convincing this girl not to leave him. But at that moment he couldn’t even speak of it. She spoke first.

  “Now, Dinko,” she said, “you got all. There is no more. Now do you see me with eyes more clear?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m seeing you with eyes more clear. And there is so much more. I see you in here.” He touched her temple. “I see you in here.” And he touched her chest. You are very clear to me. And I’m asking you . . . no, I’m begging you. Please stay with me, Lita. Please become my wife.”

  She instantly sat up and said, “You wish to marry with me? Foolish talk! We shall see tomorrow how you are thinking. Now we must get dressed before your mamá is returning. And we must not talk to her about this.”

  “I’ve gotta do whatever it takes to keep you,” he said. “I’m so crazy for you I might jump off the freaking Point Fermin cliffs if you leave me.”

  “This kind of talk is not for joking,” she said. “If anyone do that thing, they burn in hell for all time.”

  “Then I’ll burn in hell. Better than thinking of you back in that slime pit. Better than stumbling through life like I always have, screwing up every chance I get. Never loving somebody till now.”

  With that, she put her hand to his face, saying, “You are really loving me, Dinko? Are you for sure? You are loving me?”

  “You are loved,”
he said. “Believe me, you are loved.”

  ELEVEN

  “Are you nervous, dude?” Flotsam said nervously.

  “No, I ain’t nervous,” Jetsam said. Then, to their driver, Sergeant Hawthorne, who was wearing the same UCLA sweatshirt as when they’d first met with him, minus the ketchup stains: “But I gotta warn you, Sarge, if the dude gets a man crush and tries playing hump the stump, I might get all goosey and cry like a molested girl. Right before I go all street and tear his fucking head off and throw it in the punch bowl or whatever they’re serving at this ghoul gathering!”

  “Don’t think like that,” Sergeant Hawthorne said soothingly. “The worst you’ll have to do is look at his photo album and humor him about your supposed shared fascination, and tell him about the great time you had in T.J. at the hands of Dr. Maurice.”

  “Whatever can go wrong . . .” Flotsam said.

  “Will you please stop saying that!” Sergeant Hawthorne said. “You’re starting to make me jumpy. We’re just trying to shut down a prostitution ring. These aren’t serial killers, for God’s sake.”

  During the vice unit’s ride north to Encino there was another drive taking place that also involved Hector Cozzo, but this one came south, to Los Angeles Harbor. A black Mercedes four-door S-Class with chrome wheels, purchased from the same dealer who had leased Hector’s car to him, arrived in Wilmington and parked half a block from the strip joint where Lita Medina had worked. The driver got out and entered, ignoring the smile he got from the overweight dancer writhing on the stage.

  “Where is the boss?” the Korean said to the Latino bartender.

  “He comes in at about nine-thirty.”

  “I will wait.”

  The Korean threw a ten-dollar bill on the bar and said, “Tomato juice.”

  He stood at the bar, ignoring the empty stool next to him, and didn’t touch the juice. The bartender flicked a glance at the big Korean a few times, but turned away when those cold black eyes looked back at him. The bartender was relieved when the boss arrived early.