Hollywood Station (2006)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 01

  "I'm plenty old enough," she said, hoping she hadn't blushed. Next thing, she'd be batting her lashes if she didn't get hold of herself.

  "I think Afghanistan's fairly quiet these days," he said.

  "Last year he was in Iraq," she said. "I don't like to think about how I felt during those months."

  Brant was quiet then, feeling very lucky to have daughters living safe lives. He couldn't imagine how it must feel to have your only child over there in hell. Especially for coppers, whose assertive, in-your-face personality is of absolutely no use in such a situation. To just feel helpless and frightened all the time? He believed it must be extra hard for the parents who are police officers.

  Viktor lowered the binoculars, picked up a mug shot from his lap, and said, "It is Lidorov. He is wearing a black shirt and jeans. He has what looks like hair made of patent leather and has a gray mustache and is of medium size. He is walking toward the big mall half a block from the auto parts store."

  Andi was dropped on the east side of the mall and walked inside a minute after Lidorov entered. At first she thought she'd lost him, but heading toward the food court she spotted him.

  Lidorov paused before the Greek deli, where two Latino men were making gyros, then moved on to an Italian takeout, where another young Latino was expertly tossing a pizza. Then he settled on Chinese fast food and ordered something in a carton along with a soft drink in a takeout cup. From another Latino.

  Andi watched from the Italian side and wondered if chopsticks would be better or worse than forks for the collecting of DNA evidence. But Lidorov shook his head when offered chopsticks and took a plastic fork instead. He sat down at one of three small tables in front of the counter and ate from the carton and sipped his drink and ogled any young women who happened to pass by.

  When he got up, she was ready to bus his table for him and scoop up the fork and the drinking straw. But she never got the chance. He took the unfinished carton of food with him along with the cup and strolled back toward the entrance, drinking from the straw. She assumed the fork was in the carton, so now what?

  Lidorov went out the door into the sunlight, stretched a little, and strolled right past two perfectly good trash receptacles where he could have dropped the carton and the cup.

  Litter, you bastard! Andi thought, following as far as she dared. But since there were few pedestrians on the sidewalk, she crossed over to the other side of the street and waited to be picked up.

  When Viktor drove alongside, she got in and said, "Sorry, Viktor. He's taking his lunch back to the store."

  "Is okay, Andrea," Viktor said.

  "Whoops!" Brant said, looking through the binoculars. "He's not a litterbug."

  Two minutes later they were parked just east of the little strip mall that housed the auto parts store. Next to the wall in the parking lot was a very tall trash dumpster sitting on a thick concrete slab. All three detectives were standing in front of it with the lid raised.

  Viktor and Brant, who were both more than six feet tall, pulled themselves up, their feet off the asphalt, and peered down inside the dumpster.

  After getting back down, Viktor said to Andi, "Do you want the news that is good or the news that is not so good?"

  "Good," Andi said.

  Brant said, "Looks like they dumped the trash this morning. There's hardly anything in there. We can see the Chinese takeout carton and the drinking cup and straw."

  "Bad news?"

  "We can't reach it without somebody climbing inside," Brant said.

  "Well, I guess one of you fashion plates is going to get your suit dirty," Andi said.

  "Andrea," said Viktor, "I am so outside of good shape that I truly do not think I can do it. I am thinking that if I spread my coat over the top here so that you do not mess up the beautiful sweater from Bananas, you could lie down over the top here and reach down and get the fork and the straw?"

  "And how do I keep from falling in right on my head?"

  "We would each hold you by a leg," Brant said.

  "Oh, you think it's a good idea too?"

  "I swear to you, Andi," Brant said. "I don't think I could do it without a ladder. And if we mess around here much longer, somebody's gonna see us and the element of surprise will be lost. Even if we do get a match, he'll be long gone, maybe clear back to Russia."

  "My heroes," Andi said, slipping off her pumps. "Good thing I'm wearing long pants."

  With each man holding a bare foot, Andi was boosted up to the edge of the dumpster, lying across Viktor's suit coat, and very reluctantly she allowed herself to be lowered upside down until she got hold of the carton and the cup.

  "Get me outta here. It stinks," she said.

  When they were back in the car, the fork and drinking straw in a large evidence envelope, Viktor said, "My coat must go to the cleaners. How is your sweater, Andrea?"

  "Other than busting a bra strap and bruising my belly and thighs, I'm okay. This lunch better be good, Viktor."

  It was. Viktor took them to a whimsically designed Russian restaurant on Melrose, where they had borscht and black bread and blinis and hot tea in a glass. And even got to hear dreamy Russian violins coming from the sound system, with Viktor acting every inch the host.

  "Sometimes they make Ukrainian dishes here," he told them, as they drank their tea.

  "I don't think I'll do Pilates tonight," Andi said. "You guys stretched every muscle in my body."

  "Speaking of muscles, yours are way better developed than mine," Brant said. "Your legs are buff. I mean, they felt strong when I was holding them."

  That look again. Andi was sure he'd make a move after today's little exercise. Maybe after they got back to the station and Viktor was otherwise occupied.

  "I try to stay in shape in case I'm called on for dumpster diving," she said. "They should make it an event in the police Olympics."

  When Viktor went to the restroom, Brant said, "Andi, I was wondering if maybe sometime you might like to join me for dinner at a new trendier-than-trendy-ever-gets restaurant called Jade that I've been reading about."

  Thinking, At last! she said, "I'd like to have dinner with you, but that's pretty pricey. I read a review."

  He said, "My daughters're long past child support and my ex remarried ten years ago, so I'm independently comfortable. But on second thought, maybe I'm too old for a place like Jade."

  "You look younger than I do," she said.

  "Bless you, my child," Brant said. "So is it a date?"

  "Yeah, let's try it on Thursday to avoid the weekend rush. Wonder how I should dress."

  "Anything you wear would look great," he said, and dropped his eyes in a shy way after he said it.

  Andi thought, Those green eyes! This one's going to take me to heaven or bust me down to the ground. Her heart was pounding when Viktor returned to the table.

  "There is one thing for sure," Viktor said to them when he gave his credit card to the waiter, "even if Lidorov is not our robber, it will be good to have his DNA profile. He is a violent thief. And a leopard cannot change its freckles."

  It was a different thief, newly seduced by the heady excitement of power and control, who that very afternoon was in the process of committing the second armed robbery of his life. But his chain-smoking companion was not the least bit seduced as they sat in a stolen car in a crowded parking lot, waiting. She wished that his Russian wasn't hopeless, and that she didn't have to convey her fears in English.

  "I warn you, Cosmo," Ilya said, looking like a clown to Cosmo in her red wig, wearing big sunglasses. "This is a foolish thing that we do."

  "Dmitri told me is okay."

  "Fuck Dmitri!" Ilya snapped, and Cosmo impulsively backhanded her across the face, regretting it at once.

  He said, "Dmitri say that this is what he plan for long time. He say he is looking for someone like me and you to do it. We are lucky, Ilya. Lucky!"

  "We get killed!" she said, wiping her eyes with tissue and touching up her mascara.


  "We get rich," he said. "You seen how the man in the jewelry store do when he seen my gun? He piss on his pants. You seen him cry, no? The guards with money do not wish to die. Dmitri say the money is paid back by insurance company. The guards shall see the gun and they shall give the money to me. You going to see."

  Cosmo, now wearing a Dodgers cap and sunglasses, had received the call from Dmitri the afternoon prior. Cosmo had thought it was about the diamonds, and when he showed up at the Gulag just before happy hour, he was sent upstairs to the private office.

  Cosmo had not been surprised to see Dmitri sitting feet up, much as he'd seen him last time, again watching porn on his computer screen. But this time it was kiddie porn. When Cosmo entered, Dmitri turned down the sound on the speakers but left the screen on, glancing at it from time to time.

  "Did you wish to talk about diamonds?" Cosmo said in English, as always.

  "No," Dmitri said. "But I been giving much thinking about the happen-ink guy Cosmo, who is my friend. I think about how you get the diamonds and how we going to do the deal for the diamonds very soon. I think maybe you ready for bigger job."

  "Yes?" Cosmo said, and Dmitri knew the look. He had him.

  "It feels how? Strong? Sexy? Like fuck-ink when you point the gun in the face of a man. Am I correct, Cosmo?"

  "Feels okay," Cosmo said. "Yes, I don't mind."

  "So, I have a job where you can get big money. Cash. At least one hundred thousand, maybe lot more."

  "Yes?"

  "You know the kiosk in the big mall parking lots? The ATM machine kiosk? I know about one. I know exactly when money will come. Exactly."

  "Big armor car?" Cosmo said. "I cannot rob the armor car, Dmitri."

  "No, Cosmo," Dmitri said. "Only a van. Two guys. They bring money inside a big, how you say, canister? Like soldier in Russia use for ammunition? One man must go behind kiosk, open door with key. Lock self in. Reload machine with nice green bullets from ammunition can."

  "Please, Dmitri, how you know about this?"

  "Everyone drink at the Gulag sometime," Dmitri said, chuckling in that way of his that scared Cosmo. He could imagine Dmitri chuckling like that if he was slitting your eyes.

  "These men have guns, Dmitri."

  "Yes, but they be only regular security guard. They are contract out for these deliveries. I know about the two men. They will not die to save money. Insurance will pay anyways. Everybody know that. Nobody lose noth-ink except insurance company. No problem."

  "Two guys, two guns, two keys?"

  "Yes, two keys for, how you say, internal security. You must take money before first guy get to kiosk. That is why I think of you. You prove at jewelry store you got lot of guts. And you got woman with big tits."

  "Ilya?"

  "Yes. I give you exact day and time. Ilya is there to do business at ATM machine. Ilya know how to distract man who walks from van with money can. Other guy have a habit. Always the same. He wait until partner get to kiosk. Then he get out and come with his key." Dmitri grinned and said, "One minute all you need, you happen-ink guy. You rock, Cosmo!"

  And now here they were, sitting in a busy Hollywood parking lot, waiting in the fifteen-year-old red Mazda that Dmitri's Georgian bartender had stolen for them with instructions to wipe it clean and abandon it somewhere east of Hollywood.

  Ilya had gathered herself now, but every time she turned toward him he saw a hateful glare. He had slapped her around before, but this time it was different. He could smell his stale sweat and the fear on her. He thought she might leave him after this. But if Dmitri was right about how much would be in the can, he would just pay her off and let her go.

  He had a passing thought about trying to reduce Dmitri's fifty percent by saying that the amount of money in the can was far less than advertised. It gave him a thrill to think about that, but it was tempered when he thought of Dmitri's sinister chuckle. And for all he knew, one of the security guards might be Dmitri's informer. And might know exactly how much money he was delivering.

  Cosmo looked at his Rolex knockoff and said, "Ilya, go to kiosk now."

  The blue Chevy van looked like anything but an armored car, much to Cosmo's relief. And it sat there a few minutes, just as Dmitri said it would, while the guards looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just shoppers coming and going to the mall stores. Only one woman, a bosomy redhead, was at the ATM machine, looking very frustrated.

  Her black purse was beside her on the tray and she took out her cell phone and appeared to be making a call. Then she threw her cell phone into the purse disgustedly and looked around as though she needed . . . what? She appeared to be trying her ATM card again but failed to make it work and just walked a short distance away, looking toward the electronics store across the parking lot. Maybe for her husband?

  One of the guards glanced at the other. This was their last stop of the day and they couldn't sit there all evening because of one goofy woman. The passenger got out, slid open the door of the van, grabbed the only canister remaining, and slid the door closed. Then he walked from the van to the kiosk, and when he got to the front of it he saw that the red-haired woman was crying.

  The six o'clock news would give the security guard's age as twenty-five. He was an "actor" who had been in Hollywood from Illinois for three years, looking for work and trying to get a SAG card. He had been with the security service for eighteen months. His name was Ethan Munger.

  "Are you okay?" Ethan Munger said to Ilya, only pausing for a moment.

  She was wiping her cheeks with the tissue and said, "I cannot make the card work." And when she put the tissue back inside her purse, she pulled out the Raven .25 caliber pistol, one of the cheap street guns that Cosmo had been given by the bartender. Ilya pointed it at the astonished young guard.

  The driver of the van keyed his mike, announced the robbery, and jumped out of the van, his pistol drawn. He ran around the back of the van, where Cosmo Betrossian, crouched below a parked car, said, "Drop the gun or die!"

  The driver dropped the gun and put his hands in the air, lying facedown when ordered to do so. It was just as Dmitri had promised, no problem.

  But Ethan Munger was a problem. The young guard began backing toward the van, unaware that his partner had been disarmed. Ethan Munger had his free hand in the air, the other holding the metal container. And he said, "Lady, you don't want to do this. Please put that little gun away. It will probably blow up in your face. Just put it away."

  "Drop the can!" Ilya screamed it. And it was all she could do not to burst into tears, she was so scared.

  "Just don't get excited, lady," the young guard said, still backing up with Ilya coming toward him.

  It seemed to Ilya like minutes had passed, but it was only seconds, and she expected to hear sirens because several passing shoppers were looking and a woman was yelling, "Help! Somebody call the police!" Another woman was shouting into her cell phone.

  Then Cosmo came running up behind the young security guard with a pistol in each hand. Ethan Munger turned, saw Cosmo, and perhaps from having seen too many Hollywood films or played too many action videos tried to draw his pistol. Cosmo shot the young guard with the other guard's pistol. Three times in the chest.

  Ilya didn't grab the can. She just put her pistol in her purse and ran screaming back toward the stolen car, the gunfire ringing in her ears. Within a minute, which seemed like ten, Cosmo jerked open the back door of the car and threw the can and two guns inside. And for one terrible moment couldn't get the old Mazda to start. Cosmo turned the key off, then on again three times, and it started and they sped from the parking lot.

  Watch 5 was just loading up their war bags and other equipment when the code 3 hotshot call was given to 6-A-65 of Watch 2. And of course all the midwatch officers started throwing gear into their shops, jumping in, and squealing out of the station parking lot. They headed in the general direction of the robbery but really hoped they'd spot the red Mazda containing a dark-haired man wearing a bas
eball cap and a red-haired woman on the way. It wasn't often that there was a robbery and shooting of a security guard to start off their evening.

  Benny Brewster and B. M. Driscoll of 6-X-66 were the last midwatch car out of the parking lot, which didn't surprise Benny. B. M. Driscoll had to run into the station at the last minute to get a bottle of antihistamine tablets from his locker because the early summer Santa Anas were killing him. Benny Brewster just sat and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and thought about how miserably unlucky he had been in losing a heroic cop like Mag Takara and inheriting a hypochondriac whom nobody wanted.

  Benny had visited Mag three times in the hospital and called her every day since she'd been home with her parents. He wasn't sure if her misshapen left cheekbone would ever be rebuilt to look exactly the way it was supposed to look. Mag said that the vision in her left eye was only about sixty percent of what it had been but that it was expected to improve. Mag promised Benny that she was coming back on duty, and he told her sincerely that he longed for the day.

  There was still no court date set for the pimp who had assaulted her. Mag had suggested to Benny that with the huge lawsuit filed against the city for internal injuries suffered from the kicks by Officer Turner, maybe some sort of deal was coming down. A deal where the pimp would plea-bargain to county jail time instead of prison hard time, and a settlement would be made with the financially strapped city. Mag said she was very sorry for Turner, who had resigned in lieu of being fired and was awaiting word about whether he would be prosecuted.

  "I jist wish I coulda been there, Mag," Benny said when last they'd talked about it.

  Mag had looked at her tall black partner and said, "I'm glad you weren't, Benny. You've got a good career ahead of you. I predicted that to the Oracle first time you worked with me."

  Benny Brewster was still thinking about all of that when B. M. Driscoll finally got in the car and said, "Let's not roll down the windows unless we have to." Then he sniffed and blew his nose, taking another tissue from the box that he put on the floor beside the shotgun rack.

  Benny started the car and drove slowly from the parking lot, saying disgustedly, "Fucking two-eleven suspects that shot the guard're probably outta the county by now."