Isn't everybody? Kenny said. Be right back with your drinks.
When the waiter was gone, Dana said to Nate, How long have you been knocking at the door of stardom?
I've had my SAG card more than a year. I've done TV movies.
Speaking parts?
Yeah, sort of. In a couple of them I had a line or two. But I've done lots of extra work.
You enjoy it?
Clearly uncomfortable discussing his show-business struggles with a woman he was not trying to seduce, Nate said, Sure. It's, you know, better than mostf_U hobbies.
Is that what it is? she asked in that penetrating way of hers that made him feel like a kid.
Yeah, and maybe if it turns into somethingf_U well, you never know.
Dana nodded and said, Hollywood is more than several square miles in the middle of L. A. Hollywood is a state of mind, isn't it?
When Kenny returned with the drinks, he said, I didn't mean to sound pessimistic about that fat producer, Nate. I just don't trust guys that stiff restaurant people.
By now, Hollywood Nate was getting depressed talking about it and said, Maybe I'm kidding myself. Hell, I'm thirty-seven years old, with sixteen years on the Job. I might end up like the Oracle and die on the Walk with my boots on.
Who's the Oracle? Kenny asked.
The late legendary sergeant of the midwatch, Dana Vaughn said. I never worked for him, but his picture's hanging in the roll call room. Forty-six years on the LAPD and died of a massive heart attack on the police Walk of Fame, right in front of Hollywood Station.
Yeah, you guys have your own stars in the marble, don't you?' Kenny said. Just like on Hollywood Boulevard. Once I went to Hollywood Station when somebody stole my bike, and I saw those stars. For the officers from the station that were killed on duty, right?
A heart attack after forty-six years of this? Nate said. That's being killed on duty in my book.
Kenny studied Hollywood Nate for a moment, and seeing how dejected he seemed now, the waiter said, Don't give up your hopes and dreams, Nate. Gloria Stuart was an eighty-seven-year-old actress when Titanic was released, and she got a lotta good gigs out of it. You gotta be patient.
What a silly goose I've been, said Hollywood Nate. Here I am, studying the trades and paying parking tickets for casting agents who think I can fix them, when all I gotta do for success is wait fifty years. Cue the Rocky theme! Then he pushed his plate away and added ruefully, My appetite's gone.
I'll eat your salad, honey, Dana said cheerily. I need plenty of roughage if I'm gonna keep my ballerina body for your first red carpet appearance.
Chapter SIX
AWARNING POSTED on the board said, Don't go to Taco Bell! That was because a cook who worked there had gotten booked by vice cops the previous night for snogging a hooker in his car. The cook had been an extremely resentful arrestee, since many of the cops ate at Taco Bell regularly and he'd figured that gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card. The midwatch feared he'd take his revenge in their tacos.
Sergeant Lee Murillo was conducting the midwatch roll call without any other supervisors present, so the troops were really airing it out. The bitching started this time because an officer on Watch 2 was being disciplined for choking out a combative suspect. The carotid restraint, or choke hold, had been the salvation of cops since the forming of the LAPD, but in the era of the federal consent decree, it was considered a use of lethal force. It would trigger the same sort of exhaustive investigation as an officer-involved shooting. This resulted in cops believing that if things came down to one or the other, they'd be better off using guns. Or, as the troops put it, If you can choke 'em, you can smoke 'em.
After the kvetching had drained off most of the bile, Sergeant Lee Murillo read the crimes and talked about the sexual assault on Sharon Gillespie in the parking garage the prior evening. He read the description of the assailant and said, The victim believes the suspect was of Middle Eastern descent, so you might keep that in mind.
That only takes in half the employees of every liquor store, gas station, and taxi company in Hollywood, Sarge, Flotsam said.
Jetsam said, Not to mention the wealthier nightclub patrons from countries where donkeys and camels are beasts of burden and occasional lovers. They park their Beemers and Benzes in every freaking no-parking zone within two blocks of the boulevards.
No ethnic wisecracks, Sergeant Murillo said. All I need is another complaint to investigate.
Rather than sounding off like the surfer cops, Dana Vaughn raised her hand, and when Sergeant Murillo nodded at her, she said, I'm not sure about the Middle Eastern part of it. The young guy had dark, curly hair, a dark complexion, and dark eyes, but he had no accent of any kind.
R. T. Dibney chimed in and said, That description fits Sanchez, Sarge. Then he pointed to the former rookie partner of P3 Johnny Lanier and said to the black cop, Sorry to racially profile your boy, but where was he last night at f_"
Okay, Dibney, Sergeant Murillo said, while several of the troops sniggered, save your humorous asides for the next retirement party.
While Dana Vaughn dead-stared R. T. Dibney for interrupting her, Sergeant Murillo said, What was the point you wanted to make, Vaughn?
Actually, Dibney just made it, she said. The description does fit lots of Hispanics as well. My opinion is that the box cutter influenced her. She mentioned the nine-eleven hijackers more than once. So the suspect could be a young guy of Middle Eastern descent or maybe of Hispanic descent, or maybe something else.
Sergeant Murillo said, Okay, one thing is certain. Guys like that don't stop on their own, so give a little extra patrol in the early evening to streets with likely apartment buildings, especially around that area. The citizens in those reporting districts get a little jumpy about people roaming around with cutting instruments.
When he saw some quizzical looks, he added, For you people who weren't around here a few years ago, the location is close to where we had a pair of real bogeyman murders. A former dancer and personal trainer entered the house of a ninety-one-year-old retired screenwriter, someone he'd never seen before, and cut the guy's head off with a meat cleaver he found in the kitchen.
Hollywood Nate, ever the cinematic authority, added, That old man was one of the first screenwriters to be blacklisted during the McCarthy eraf_"not that you dummies know anything about movie history. He stirred some interest when he added, He also cowrote Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
Yeah? R. T. Dibney said. I saw that on TV a hundred times when I was kid. What a great movie. The Wolf Man, Dracula, Frankenstein, they were all in it.
Sergeant Murillo continued, Then he carried the old screenwriter's head and some of his organs over a back fence onto the next street, entered another house, and slashed a sixty-nine-year-old doctor to death. The doctor was making airline reservations at the time, and after he was killed, the nut job picked up the phone and said to the airline employee, Everything's fine now.' Then he went to Paramount Studios and tried to get in.
He musta been, like, writing a way weird movie in his head and figured Paramount would give him a job, Flotsam observed.
Back when the poor old guy wrote about movie monsters, I bet he never thought he'd meet a real one, Sergeant Murillo said. It's something to always keep in mind. There're real monsters out there. Then he noticed R. T. Dibney turned sideways in his chair, whispering on his cell phone, no doubt to this week's bimbo of choice, and he said, Dibney, the city is paying for both of your ears. Now, let's go to work.
The dozen cops that made up the shorthanded midwatch gathered their war bags and headed for the door. And every one of them, even those who'd never known the man, stopped to touch for luck the framed photograph of the late sergeant they called the Oracle, whose frame bore a brass plate that said
THE ORACLE
APPOINTED: FEB 1960
END-OF-WATCH: AUG 2006
SEMPER COP
*AyAyAy*AyAyAy*
Many things had changed at LAPD sin
ce back in the day when the Oracle was doing street police work. The shooting of a black teenager in a stolen car that nearly ran over an officer introduced a policy of not shooting at moving vehicles. The striking of a combative black suspect with a five-cell flashlight by a Latino officer resulted in the firing of the cop and a massive purchase of little ten-ounce flashlights for the entire Department.
All of this was designed to alter what the L. A. Times had long called the warrior cop ethos of the LAPD. Much hand-wringing at City Hall resulted in wholesale policy changes by the police commission, whose African-American president had spent a good deal of his prior life as head of the Urban League, denouncing the LAPD's proactive policies. This was one reason that the LAPD cops referred to him, and the rest of the Mexican-American mayor's police commission appointees, as the anti-police commission.
Despite all this, some of the cops, especially those of a frisky disposition, which is how R. T. Dibney described himself, kept their old five-cell flashlights in their nylon war bags and still used them when there wasn't a supervisor around. The zipper compartment of the war bag also contained a ticket book, notebook, and a street guide. In the other compartment was a helmet and chemical face mask. The surfer cops had observed R. T. Dibney on several occasions searching alleys and yards, walking behind the beam of the old five-cell flashlight.
The midwatch units, including Mindy Ling and R. T. Dibney, were busy loading up their cars with rover radios as well as PODDs, the handheld devices in which they could enter all sorts of useless data, some of it fictitious, for the auditors and overseers. The kit room also provided them with Tasers, Remington 870 shotguns, and beanbag shotguns. Mindy's war bag was actually a huge carrier on wheels, like a flight attendant's.
While all of this was going on, Jetsam was outside the parking lot, scurrying around a growth of curbside planting where he'd observed something interesting.
When he came back inside the lot to his waiting partner, he said, Got it! Sweeeeet!
You are easily amused, dude, Flotsam said.
Wanna see it? Or are you scared of these too?
Fucking donk, Flotsam said.
You are seriously aggro, bro. Chill and enjoy. It's showtime.
Jetsam ran over to the black-and-white belonging to 6-X-46 and said, My partner thinks he might have an idea who the rapist with the box cutter is. He'd like to talk to you.
Mindy Ling said, Yeah? and immediately walked toward Flotsam, who was standing outside his car.
He said he'd like to share it with both of you, Jetsam said, so R. T. Dibney shrugged, and followed his partner to the surfers' black-and-white.
When they were gone, Jetsam quickly opened the door on the passenger side and, reaching under the seat, found R. T. Dibney's five-cell flashlight tucked away there. He removed the D-cell batteries from the big flashlight, replaced them with what he'd recovered from the planted area, dropped the batteries into the still-open trunk, and then strolled back over to Flotsam, who was just finishing up with his clue.
So anyways, Flotsam was saying, I saw this dude hanging beside the parking gate of that other building half a block north of where the deal went down last night. He could be the same guy.
Mindy Ling said, You say that was last Tuesday when you saw him?
Yeah, Flotsam said. Right, partner?
Jetsam, who had just arrived on cue, said, Tuesday, yeah.
Did you talk to the sex crime detectives at West Bureau?
Not yet, Flotsam said. Coulda just been a guy trimming the bushes. I'm not sure. Maybe it's nothing, but he was right on. Light blue T-shirt and all.
Okay, Mindy Ling said, we'll be cruising that RD for the next few nights.
When they were walking back to their shop, R. T. Dibney said, Some clue. The description fits half the gardeners from here to Malibu. Which is where those two belong, hanging ten and chasing surf bunnies instead of trying to do real police work.
R. T. Dibney acted highly critical of slackers and pranksters now that he was working with super serious Mindy Ling. But she wasn't impressed by much of anything that R. T. Dibney did or said. She was determined that she'd work another car for the next deployment period.
The first part of their watch was routine. They got a few calls on their MDC and dealt with them. One was a family dispute in southeast Hollywood involving a Latina with eight children, all of them boys. The woman was being driven to near violence by her two oldest, high school dropouts who were not working and didn't care to try. The yelling in that house had alarmed the neighbors. Their second call involved perennial parking problems everywhere near Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards.
After writing a speeder on Highland Avenue just before sunset, they got their first hotshot call. The RTO's voice said, All units in the vicinity and Six-X-Forty-six, see the woman. Prowler there nowf_U
The address given was close to the area of the previous night's violent sexual assault, and as with most hotshot calls these days, the designation was code 3. The current chief had initiated this code 3 policy in order to keep other speeding responders, who were not using sirens, from crashing into one other. The cops enjoyed code 3 rides.
Let's hit it, R. T. Dibney said, and Mindy Ling turned on the light bar and, with her usual caution, drove only as fast as she ever did, cutting off the siren when they got close to the address in order to arrive quietly.
When they parked, it was dark enough that lights were on in most of the apartments on the street, and the passing traffic was using headlights.
As Mindy Ling was removing the key, R. T. Dibney said, I want some real light for this one.
He reached under the seat for his five-cell flashlight and said, Hey, this feels lightweight. Where's the batteries?
He clicked the switch, then unscrewed the battery cover, and out jumped a very pissed-off lizard. It landed in the lap of Mindy Ling, who screamed and leaped from the car with the lizard right behind her, the reptile hightailing it into the nearest vegetation.
This happened just as the surfer cops were pulling up in front of the apartment building, and Jetsam said, Maybe this wasn't a good time for it.
I warned you, dude, Flotsam said. What if it happened when she was driving?
Jolly up, bro, Jetsam said. The Oracle always said that doing police work was the most fun we'd ever have in our whole lives.
Correction, dude, said Flotsam. The Oracle said good police work. This don't exactly qualify.
It turned out that whoever had been roaming through the darkened parking area behind the building was long gone, but three cops from the midwatch and four more from Watch 3 had the opportunity of seeing Mindy Ling shaking and sputtering, trying to pull herself together.
R. T. Dibney looked with suspicion at the surfer cops and said, Somebody put a lizard in my flashlight.
Heavens! said Flotsam.
Gracious! said Jetsam.
Goddamn son of a bitch! I want the name of the asshole that did this! Mindy Ling said to R. T. Dibney, who'd never heard her swear like this.
Don't look at me! he said. I didn't do it to my own flashlight!
She shivered and looked a bit nauseous as she turned abruptly and headed to the apartment of the person reporting.
R. T. Dibney hung back for a moment and said to the surfer cops, Whoever did it better not brag about it. Mindy'll hunt them down and they will die a slow death by chopstick torture. After working with that babe, I am sure that China will eventually rule the world.
I think it was a way juvenile prank, Flotsam said.
Childish to the max, Jetsam said.
I ain't mad at whoever did it, R. T. Dibney said. This incident taught me something important. Mindy Ling is a girl. She's a real girl, after all. Now I might even start to like her a little bit.
After a few minutes, Mindy Ling returned, and when all officers were heading for their cars, she said to R. T. Dibney, You ready to go, or do you wanna stay here and look for your lizard?
Hey, it wasn't my lizard! R.
T. Dibney said, his mustache twitching. I was the intended victim of this here outrage.
Jetsam said, Mindy, don't, like, go all bleak about your lizard phobia. I know a copper that's scared of clowns.
Dude! Flotsam said, reddening.
Get outta my face, you surf rats, Mindy Ling blurted, storming to her car.
After 6-X-46 had driven away, Jetsam walked to the lushly planted area in front of the apartment building, shined his flashlight beam under a camellia bush, and said, Bro, you are one lucky reptile. Your travel accommodations sucked, but this is a way cooler 'hood than the one you left behind.
Business was good at Pablo's Tacos early that evening. Parking was scarce in the little strip mall on Santa Monica Boulevard, and Malcolm Rojas, who had recently gotten off work at the home improvement center, had to park two blocks away on a residential side street. He knew from his prior visits to the taco stand that cops cruised by regularly and hassled any tweakers who looked like they might be holding or scoring crystal meth or other drugs. Malcolm had never eaten the lard-fried tacos from Pablo's and seldom ate Mexican fare at all, intent on leaving the Latino part of him back in Boyle Heights.
Still, Malcolm decided maybe he should try smoking a blunt when the anger grew too fierce. Before he got out of his Mustang, he took the box cutter from his pocket and put it under the front seat in case the cops stopped by and started jacking up people. He'd buy a little bit of weed and get out of there fast.
He'd gotten paid today, so he had plenty of money, no thanks to his mother. She was always yammering about him paying room and board now that he was almost twenty years old, as if their apartment was a damn boardinghouse or something. She still had settlement money left from his father's accidental death, and she was making good tips working part-time at Du-par's coffee shop in Farmers Market, so he couldn't understand why he should have to pay her.
It was just like his mother. Everything was all about her. He told her if she'd quit drinking a quart of Jim Beam every other day, she'd have more money, and she told him he was being cruel. Malcolm longed for the day when he could leave her, cut all ties, be his own man. That day would come.
Hollywood Moon (2009) Page 9