They left me in a long line of fish waiting to have their fingerprints put into the LiveScan system, thirty to thirty-five people in front of me, the line moving slow, but still too fast for me. Once my prints entered the system, the Alert would pop and confirm what Detective Harris already thought he knew. They should not have left me unescorted, not as a high-power inmate. But I had not officially been classified, so they could get away with the error in judgment if anything happened.
IRC had one large room in the center, like a hub with four slightly smaller adjoining rooms; the whole place opened like some kind of church. The room off to the right contained a hundred or so naked men who stood with their hands covering their eyes while a uniformed deputy hosed them down with a delousing chemical. The chemical reeked bad enough to overpower every other odor in the IRC. The reek overpowered body odor, the acidic and sour scent of barf, and the worst odor of all, that always present smell of despair.
The line behind filled up with fifteen or twenty more men waiting to be fingerprinted. No one spoke; the order of silence had been given by the deputy who patrolled the line.
Everyone wore different types of mostly raggedy street clothes. Some wore no shirt, their chests burnt brown from the sun, dirty, and up close, too close, they smelled of body odor. Hispanic and black gangsters all eyed each other. Bikers, with their heavy street boots, and a few guys new to this world, Joe-citizen types who’d made a big mistake like not paying a drunk-driver penalty and now would have to wait to get processed before afforded the opportunity to bail, their eyes wide in fear and wonderment at this horrible little glimpse of someone else’s reality.
IRC, with the new fish, had always been the most volatile place in the jail; the crooks fresh off the street, wild and anxious, sometimes went off if not properly supervised. Proper supervision meant keeping a thumb on them, constantly getting in their face, keeping their minds busy, keeping them worried that they were, at any moment, about to get their ass beat. That’s how so few deputies controlled the vast number of loose and unclassified inmates, all that fresh meat off the street.
The line edged up some more.
Over by the main entrance, a line of inmates came in escorted by trans deputies, called bus drivers by fellow jail deputies. The line comprised a mixture of gang members coming back from court, or in from other booking stations, all chained together. The trans deputies, one at each end of the long line, unhooked the inmates, eager to hand them off to the IRC deputies.
A large black gangster, a Crip by his tattoos, caught my eye. He stared at a short white dude with Aryan Brotherhood tattoos who stood at the back of our line, waiting for the LiveScan. I looked around to see if the deputies saw the same thing I saw. They didn’t.
“Deputy,” I said to the passing IRC deputy walking line security, “You’re about to have a problem.”
He didn’t know me, and rushed right up into my face. “What’s your problem, asshole? What were you told about talking in line?”
I lowered my voice and took a big chance admitting my past affiliation to his brotherhood. “I used to be a cop, and you’re about to have a problem over there. Look.”
The trans deputy had already taken off the black gangster’s leg irons and one wrist cuff on the waist chain. He’d started on the second one when the deputy I’d warned tumbled to my admonishment. “Hey!” he yelled, and moved quick, but not quick enough. The second cuff came off.
The black gangster shoved the bus driver out of the way and went after the Aryan in my line.
The deputy I’d warned yelled again and moved to block the black gangster’s path. The man, who was far larger than the deputy, bowled him over. The deputy caught the gangster’s leg and held on.
With the sudden call to action, everyone in our line moved away, scattered everywhere. Some went for a wall, trapped, unable to go any further. They tried to get next to it, tried to get small. Other deputies reacted but were too far away. The black gangster pulled back with his free leg and kicked the hell out of the deputy holding his leg. When he pulled back to kick the deputy again, I slugged him in the head. Gave him a long, sweeping roundhouse that connected solid to his jaw.
Unfazed, the gangster pivoted and came at me, dragging the deputy, who was still hanging on. The man dwarfed me. I couldn’t run, not with leg irons.
I didn’t want to. I needed someplace to vent my frustration. I went at him with both fists, hit him twice, quick, with a right-left combination. He moved slowly, his big size a hindrance. He only hit me once, with a fist that came in right out of the sky and landed on my cheek. The blow shook my world, made the walls and the lights quake and waver.
I stumbled backward, legs tangled in the leg irons, and fell on my ass. The deputies swarmed the big man, took him to the ground. More deputies came into the huge room, some jumping on. Others yelled at the inmates, “Get on a wall. Get on the wall, and stay there!”
Two deputies had seen my involvement and came at me to “council and advise,” regarding fighting in the jail. That’s how their reports would read tomorrow, a veiled attempt to cover what really happened, a beatdown. Mine.
A second before they reached me, a second before they started to put the boots to me, the deputy who’d been on the ground holding the gangster’s leg saw what was about to happen to me and yelled over the din, “No, no, he’s cool. Leave him be.”
The two stopped and redirected their attention to controlling the other fish who had just entered IRC. A dozen deputies, the total number in all of IRC, against three hundred unclassified crooks and court returns. Not good odds. Not even close.
The near riot started and ended in eighty or ninety seconds, averted by quick-to-action deputies.
I shook off the punch, my face swelling, my vision still a little wobbly. Someone said, “Hey.” I turned around.
My friend John Mack stood close, wearing his Class B uniform, minus his usual smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MY FACE THROBBED and continued to swell. John Mack worked at taking off the rest of my leg irons and waist chains. Deputies still yelled orders. Inmates moved in waves, groups small and large obeyed and started to calm as the IRC returned to normal.
John didn’t look at me as he worked at the chains. “You can’t ever stay outta trouble, can you?”
“I’m sorry about what happened,” I said. “I heard they suspended you.”
John stopped what he was doing and looked around to see if anyone stood close enough to hear. “Hey, can it, would ya? Wait until we get outside.”
“What? Are you kiddin’ me? John, you can’t help me escape. It won’t just be your job, it’ll be a criminal act. You’ll go to prison. I can’t hold with that. I won’t be a party to that.” The words came out of my mouth without the devotion they needed. I wanted, with all my soul, to be reunited with my girl, my wife Marie, and to be on our way back to Costa Rica and the kids.
“Bruno, do me a favor and shut the hell up for five minutes, would you? Can you do that much for me, huh?”
“I’m not going, John, I’m not doin’ it.”
He moved up close to my face. “What kind of ignoramus are you? I got to you before you were fingerprinted. You’re not officially here yet. You get it? If you’re not here, not booked in, you can’t escape, so just do me a favor and shut your trap until we get out of here, okay?”
I didn’t understand. “What about Detective Harris? He knows what time it is. He’s the kind of cop who’ll yell foul, blow the whistle on you.”
John took hold of my elbow and, at a fast pace, headed us back toward the old part of the jail, the way we had come.
Once away from everyone and moving down a long hall with long murals painted by inmates, he said, “I don’t know how you do it, but you always manage to find some kind of guardian angel. This guy I’m talkin’ about, this guardian angel, whispered in Harris’ ear, made it right with Harris.”
“What’re you talking about?”
He stopped and
faced me. “The captain of the facility heard about what went down in the hall with the Sons and with your brother. I’m sorry about your brother. It never should’ve happened, and if Stanford had been doing his job, it wouldn’t have.”
“How’s Noble doing? Is he okay?”
“He’s in surgery, Bruno. I don’t have any information other than that.”
“Where’d they take him?”
“LCMC. Come on, we gotta keep movin’.”
Los Angeles County Medical Center was the best hospital in the county for emergency surgery. It had to be, given the amount of experience their docs got with all the car crashes and shootings that entered that hospital.
I’d heard docs working LCMC compared to those docs who’d worked a MASH unit in Vietnam.
After the surgery, now that was a whole other matter. I felt better that Noble lived long enough to make it to LCMC and then into surgery. In my book, his odds had just increased exponentially.
We continued to walk, but I slowed our pace. “What captain?” I asked. “What’re you talking about?”
“The captain showed up on the facility after he’d already gone home for the day. He pulled me into his office. The L.T. had suspended me, took my badge and gun. A deputy found me in the locker room. I was cleaning out my locker. To tell you the truth, I was glad, relieved really. I hate working this hellhole. I thought if I could keep my head down, I could eventually work my way back onto the Violent Crimes Team. But after tonight, I realized I couldn’t wait it out, not here, not in this job. So those assholes, the Sons, did me a favor tonight. The captain calls me in, sits me down, and asks me what happened. I was mad, fed up like I said, so I told him. Really let him have it.”
“Not about me, not my real name, not the truth.”
He smiled, happy with himself. “Yeah, I did.”
“Ah, Jesus, Johnny.”
Mack socked me in the arm, hard. “No, listen to this, your guardian angel hears everything I had to say, sits still for every word. He didn’t ask any questions, not one. Well, maybe it was because I told him every detail and I didn’t give him a chance to. I told ya, I was pissed. The captain, he’s got his one leg up on the desk listening as he chews on this cigar. When I finish, he takes his leg down, reaches into his inbox, takes out a paper with a list on it. He hands it to me.”
“Who is this guy, this captain? What’s his name?”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what’s on the list?”
“All right, I’ll play along. What kind of list was it?”
“It’s a transfer list. And I’m on it. I’m going out to Century Station to work a two-man crime car. Bruno, it’s not the Violent Crimes Team, but it’s the hottest place in the county. It’s the old Devil’s Triangle. It’ll be a real kick in the ass to work there.”
“I don’t want to rain on your parade,” I said, “but I thought you said the L.T. suspended you.”
“He did. After the captain gave me a minute to figure out that my name appeared on the list he handed me, he reached in his drawer and handed me my gun and badge. Told me to personally go to IRC and escort you off the facility. Said I was then to forget I ever did it. Said that I had to hurry, that if I didn’t get to you before you were fingerprinted, it would be too late, all bets would be off, and to leave you there.”
I stopped walking. “What about Marie?”
“I’m not crazy, I got her out first. That’s what took so long. Sorry I cut it so close getting to you, but I thought you’d want her safe first.”
I let out a long breath. A huge pressure just eased up off my chest. I hugged him. “Thank you, man, I owe you big.”
We started walking again, faster this time. I wanted to get to my Marie, hold her in my arms. Not many minutes ago I had resigned myself to never being able to hold her again. My smile grew so large it hurt my face. “Hey,” I said, “you didn’t tell me the name of this guardian angel, the name of this captain?”
“I never heard of him before.” Mack said. “His name’s Robert Crews.”
I stopped dead.
“What’s the matter? You know this guy?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Who is he?”
“My first trainee.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LYNWOOD STATION, 1988
THE VETERAN DEPUTIES joked and grab assed in the locker room, waiting until the time got closer to when briefing started, not wanting to be associated with the trainees. The diligent and always punctual trainee Crews sat at the long briefing table, working on the previous evening’s reports, which were due at the end of watch. I always arrived early, left a time bumper of thirty minutes just in case something out of the ordinary happened to delay me, like a crash on the Long Beach Freeway. I didn’t mind breaking unwritten protocol about being with the trainees and sat diagonally across from Crews. I didn’t want to embarrass him too much by sitting close and looking over his shoulder. I’d get my chance to correct his reports later.
Veteran deputies always referred to the TOs, Training Officers, as the trainee’s daddy. “Trainee, you better ask your daddy if you wanna get out of the patrol car.” That sort of thing.
The second swing shift started at three in the afternoon. Right at three, the locker room started to empty out and the briefing room filled. The shift sergeant who gave briefing had yet to arrive. Crews kept his head down working on his “paper.” I worked him hard on his paper, told him his reports went out far ahead of him and stood as an example of his work product, not only to supervisors, district attorneys, and judges, but sometimes even the sheriff’s executive staff as well. I told him that to be a good street cop you had to have good paper.
Directly across from Crews, a new deputy, Atkinson, who’d only been off training six or seven months, sat with his chair tipped back slightly from the briefing table. Atkinson drew his gun and reholstered, drew and reholstered, practicing his fast draw. He’d bought into the ghetto-gunfighter image too heavily, and it would eventually get him in trouble. He violated policy drawing his gun without cause, especially indoors. Worse, he did it directly in the line of fire to my trainee. Atkinson, though new, now qualified as a regular deputy, and I couldn’t tell him what to do, tell him to stop. Not without stepping outside the unwritten code. “Crews,” I said.
Crews looked up from his report.
“Pick your shit up and move to the end of the table, over there.”
He looked around at the other deputies, not knowing what he’d done wrong. He gathered up his reports and did as instructed while Atkinson continued to draw and reholster, the movement turned into an action without conscious effort, and compounded the hazard in the already dangerous situation.
Deputy Ortega came in from the locker room and sat in Crews’ vacated spot just as Atkinson’s trigger guard on his gun caught on his holster. His gun discharged with a huge explosion in the enclosed confines. Everyone jumped, including Atkinson. Two veteran deputies drew their guns, ducked, and moved.
A cloud of blue smoke rose. Ortega hopped around, holding his leg. “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch, you shot me.”
Crews looked over at me and let a hint of a smile slip out.
The shift sergeant came in at a run. “What the hell happened?”
All the deputies laughed except Atkinson and Ortega. Ortega put his leg up on the table and pulled up his pant leg. The round had hit the floor between his feet and shattered the floor tile, which turned into shrapnel. The shrapnel peppered Ortega’s legs. Small specks of blood beaded on his brown skin.
The shift sergeant said to Atkinson, “My office before you hit the streets. None of you other children better ever play cowboys and Indians again, not in my station.” He turned to me. “Johnson, have your trainee dress down in street clothes, he’s TDY tonight to work 647b’s.”
TDY meant temporary duty assignment, 647b’s, working hookers. I didn’t want to have him out with someone else watching over him, not when he’d had so little time on the street
. “Sarge, if you can spare me tonight, I’d like to tag along.”
The sergeant checked his shift roster, drew a line through my name, and adjusted the lineup. “Okay, Daddy, you can go along and babysit your rookie.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, we were dressed down in our street clothes. The station detective sergeant running the operation gave the briefing to three teams of three working Long Beach Boulevard on hooker suppression, called a “John” program.
All the crooks on the Boulevard knew my ugly mug, and I couldn’t operate undercover in the area I’d patrolled for the last two years. That’s why the detective sergeant had asked for some fresh meat, the three trainees, who were not yet known to the “B” girls.
I would work as Crews’ cover team along with Detective Al Parks. Crews would cruise the Boulevard until he spotted a “B” girl or was flagged down by one. He’d pull over, get the solicitation, and then give his cover team the bust signal, flashing his brake lights by pumping the brake pedal.
I walked with Crews up to his small truck, a beat-up loaner, a trade-in from a local car dealer. His body hummed with excitement. “Play it back to me again,” I said.
“I got this, Deputy Johnson, no problem.”
“Listen to me. Are you paying attention?”
When I started a lecture this way, he knew to stop and pull his head out of his ass.
“Don’t think of this as a cakewalk,” I said. “You can’t look at these suspects as women, you understand?” He nodded.
“No, you don’t understand. I want you to think about them at all times as if they are armed and dangerous. As if each one is a street-smart gangster, armed with a handgun, and at any moment she’s gonna throw down on you and cap your sorry little rookie ass. That’s your level of alertness that I want. The trick is not showing it, while you act casual, like you’re some kinda ignorant college kid. Okay? You got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re not carrying a gun because they will pat you down looking for a badge or a gun. You’re not wearing body armor either, so when you get the solicitation, and you give the signal, you’re out of it. You understand? Listen to what I’m saying here, you don’t get involved. You let me and Al do the takedown. This is important. Stay out of it, stay away from the takedown.”
The Squandered Page 10