Hollywood Station (2006)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 01

  There was no pleasure to be had in the house of Farley Ramsdale. Three hours had passed since Cosmo and Ilya had pushed the car into the little garage, and still Farley and Olive had not come home. At one point Cosmo thought Ilya was asleep, lying there on the couch with her eyes closed.

  But when he got up to look out the window at the darkened street, she said, "Stay back from the window. Every police in Hollywood looks for a man in a blue shirt and a woman with the hair that they shall know is a wig. We cannot call a taxi here. A driver shall think of us when he hears about the robbery. Then police may come here and talk to Farley and he is going to know it was us and he shall tell them."

  "Shut up, Ilya. I must think!"

  "We cannot go to a bus. We may be seen by police. We cannot call any of your friends to come for us unless you wish to share money with them because they shall find out. We are in a trap."

  "Shut up!" Cosmo said. "We are not in the trap. We have the money. It is dark now."

  "How do we go home, Cosmo? How?"

  "Maybe the car will start now."

  "I shall not put myself in that car!" Ilya said. "Every cop looks for that car. Every cop in Hollywood! Every cop in all Los Angeles!"

  "The car must stay here," he agreed. "We put the money in shopping bags. There are paper bags in the kitchen."

  "I understand," Ilya said. "We walk away from this house because we do not dare to call the taxi to come here? And then we call from my cell phone and taxi is going to meet us out on the street someplace where we hide in shadows? And we get taxi to leave us a few streets from our apartment?"

  "Yes. That is exactly correct."

  "And then Farley and Olive come home to find a car in garage and pretty soon when they turn on TV they see about robbery and the death of the guard and how the killer looks like and you don't think they know who done it? And you think they do not call police and say, Is there reward for the name of killers? The car is here. You do not think this shall happen, Cosmo?"

  Cosmo sat down then and put his head in his hands. He had been thinking for three hours, and there was no alternative. He had planned to kill Farley and Olive at the junkyard just before getting the money for the diamonds, but now? He had to kill them when they walked in this house. Yet he could not risk gunfire.

  He went over to Ilya and knelt on the floor beside her and said, "Ilya, the two addicts must die when they come home. We got no choice. We got to kill them. Maybe with knife from the kitchen. You must help me, Ilya."

  She sat up and said, "I will not kill nobody else with you, Cosmo. Nobody."

  "But what must we do?" he pleaded.

  "Tell them what we done. Make them partner. Give them half of money. Make them help us to push that goddamn car away from here and leave it or set fire on it. Then they drive us home. And while all this happens, we just got to hope the cops do not see us. That is what we do, Cosmo. We do not kill nobody else."

  "Please, Ilya! Think!"

  "If you try to kill Farley and Olive, you shall have to kill me. You cannot stab us all, Cosmo. I shall shoot you if I can."

  And with that, she drew the pistol from her purse, got up, and walked across the room to the sagging TV viewing chair, where she sat down with the gun in her lap.

  "Please do not make fool talk," Cosmo said. "I must call Dmitri. But not now. Not today. I do not talk to Dmitri yet. We must see what is what before I call him."

  "We shall get caught," she said. "Or killed."

  "Ilya," he said, looking at her. "Let us make love, Ilya. You shall feel much better if we make love."

  "Do not come close to me or it shall end here with guns, and you cannot let guns shoot on this quiet street, Cosmo. Or maybe you also wish to stab every neighbor too?"

  Budgie and Fausto were back on patrol looking for something to do, when Budgie said, "Let's go by Pablo's Tacos and jam up a tweaker or two. Maybe we'll shake loose some crystal. We could use an observation arrest on our recap."

  "Okay," Fausto said, turning east on the boulevard. "But whatever you do, don't order a taco in that joint. You heard about the tweaker at Pablo's that shoved bindles of crystal up his bung and tried to say his partner made him do it? Well, sometimes he cooks there."

  Farley was absolutely livid by now, and Olive was getting an upset stomach from the stress. For the tenth time, he cried out, "Ain't there a goddamn teener or two left in this fucking town?"

  "Please, Farley," Olive said. "You'll make yourself sick."

  "I need some ice!" he said. "Goddamnit, Olive, we been fucking around for hours!"

  "Maybe we should try the doughnut shop again."

  "We tried it twice!" Farley said. "We tried every goddamn place I can think of. Can you think of a place we ain't tried?"

  "No, Farley," she said. "I can't."

  Farley raised himself up and looked to his right and saw 6-X-76 parking in the lot. A tall blond female cop got out, along with an old rhino who Farley figured must be a Mexican, or these days a Salvadoran, and that was even worse.

  Farley turned his face away and said, "Olive, tell me these two cops ain't gonna jack us up. Not twice in one night, for chrissake!"

  "They're looking at us," Olive said. Then Farley heard her say cheerfully, "Good evening, officers."

  Farley put both hands on the steering wheel so they wouldn't get goosey and blow his fucking head off, and the female cop said, "Evening. Waiting for someone?"

  Farley pointed to Olive and said, "Yeah, she's an actress. Waiting to get discovered."

  That did it. Fausto said, "Step outta the car."

  Since this had happened to Farley dozens of times in his life, he kept his hands in plain view when Fausto pulled open the driver's door. Farley got out, shaking his head and wondering why oh why did everything happen to him?

  Fausto patted him down and said, "Let's see some ID."

  When Olive got out, Budgie looked at Olive's scrawny torso covered only by a short T-shirt, revealing a sunken belly and bony hips. Her jeans were child size, and Budgie perfunctorily patted the pockets to see if she felt any bindles of crystal. Then Budgie shined her flashlight beam on Olive's inner forearms, but since Olive had seldom skin-popped, there weren't any tracks.

  Farley said, "Gimme a break, amigo. Some of your compadres already rousted us tonight. They ran a make on us and on the car and then gave me a fucking ticket. Can I reach in my glove box and prove it to you?"

  "No, stay here, amigo," Fausto said, painting it with sarcasm. To Budgie he said, "Partner, take a look in the glove compartment. See if there's a citation in there."

  She opened the glove compartment and retrieved the traffic ticket, saying, "B. M. Driscoll wrote it right after roll call. Near the cybercaf,."

  "I'll bet it never occurred to you, amigo," Fausto said, "that maybe the reason you get stopped by so many cops is because you hang out where tweakers score their crystal. Did that ever flash on your computer screen?"

  Farley thought he better lose the Spanish words because they didn't work with this fucking greaseball, so he tried a different tack. "Officer, please help yourself. You don't even have to ask. Search my car."

  And Budgie said, "Okay," and she did.

  While she was searching, Farley said, "Yes, I got a minor record for petty theft and possession of crystal meth. No, I don't have drugs on me. If you want, I'll take off my shoes. If we weren't standing out here, I'd take off my fucking pants. I'm too tired to reason with you guys anymore. Just do what you gotta do and let me go home."

  "We even told the other officers they could come home with us," Olive said helpfully. "We don't care if you search our house. You can do a fishing exposition, we don't care."

  "Olive," Farley said, "I'm begging you. Shut the fuck up."

  "Is that right?" Budgie said. "You're so clean you'd take us home right now and let us search your house, no problem?" To Fausto, "Whadda you think of that, partner?"

  "Is that what you'd do?" Fausto asked Farley, as he wrote a quick FI card. "Tak
e us to your crib? You're that clean?"

  "Man, at this point I'm just tempted to say yes. If you'd let me go lay in bed, you could turn the fucking place upside down, inside and out. And if you find any dope in that house, it would mean that Olive here must have a secret boyfriend who's supplying her. And if Olive could find a boyfriend, then there really are miracles and maybe I'll win the California lottery. And if I do, I'll move clear outta this fucking town and away from you people, because you're killing me, man, you're killing me!"

  Fausto looked at the anguished clammy face of Farley Ramsdale, handed him his driver's license, and said, "Dude, you better get into rehab ASAP. The trolley you're riding is at the last stop. Nothing left ahead but the end of the line."

  When Fausto and Budgie were back in their car, she said to Fausto, "I'm tempted to drive by the address on that FI a little later."

  "What for?"

  "That guy's gotta score some crystal. They'll be smoking ice and getting all spun out tonight or he'll be in a straitjacket. He's that close to losing it completely."

  Ilya was on her feet, pacing and smoking. Cosmo was the one on the couch now, exhausted from arguing with her.

  "How long we sit at this place?" he asked lethargically.

  "Almost six hours," she said. "We can't wait no more. We got to go."

  "Without our money, Ilya?"

  "Did you wipe all evidence from the car, Cosmo?"

  "I tell you yes, okay? Now please shut up."

  "Did you empty the cigarette tray in the car? That is evidence."

  "Yes."

  "Get can of money out from the car."

  "You got idea, Ilya? Wonderful. You don't like my ideas. Like we must kill the addicts."

  "Shut up, Cosmo. You will put can of money under this house. Find a little door that go under this house. Put can in there."

  She began emptying ashtrays into a paper bag from the kitchen, and he said, "Ilya, the car? It cannot travel! What are you thinking about?"

  "We are leaving it."

  "Here? Ilya, you are crazy person! Farley and Olive -"

  In charge now, she interrupted, "Did you take things out from garage?"

  "Yes, a bike and few boxes. Goddamn garage, full of junk. Almost no room for a goddamn car."

  "As I thought," she said. "Put all junk back in."

  "What are you thinking about, Ilya?"

  "They are addicts, Cosmo. Look at this house. Trash all around. Junk all around. They do not park car in garage. They do not go in garage almost never. The car must stay for few days. They shall not even know it."

  "And us?"

  "Take a shirt from Farley. Look inside bedroom. I am going to remove my wig and we shall walk few blocks from here to phone taxi. It is a little bit safe now. Then we go home."

  "All right, Ilya," he said. "But you sleep on top of this idea tonight: The addicts must die. We got no other road to travel. You must soon see that."

  "I must think," she said. "Now we go. Hurry."

  When Cosmo came back into the living room from the bedroom, he was wearing a dirty long-sleeved patterned shirt over his T-shirt. "Hope you happy now, Ilya," he said. "Before we get home I shall be bit a hundred times by tiny creatures that crawl inside Farley's clothes."

  After the cops left them in the Pablo's Tacos parking lot, Farley said, "Olive, I think we gotta go home and white-knuckle it. We ain't gonna score tonight."

  "There's almost a quart of vodka there," Olive said. "I'll mix it with some packets of punch and you can just drink as much as you can."

  "Okay," he said. "That'll get me through the night. It'll have to."

  "I just hope it won't make you throw up," Olive said. "You're so thin and tired-looking."

  "It won't," he said.

  "And I'll make you something delicious to eat."

  "That'll make me throw up," he said.

  When they arrived at Farley's house, he was almost too tired to climb the porch steps, and when he did and they were inside, Olive said, "Farley, it smells like smoke in here."

  He threw himself on the couch and grabbed the TV remote, saying, "Olive, it should. We smoke crystal in here in case you forgot. Every chance we get, which ain't often enough these days."

  "Yes, but it smells like old cigarette smoke. Don't you notice it?"

  "I'm so fucking tired, Olive," he said, "I wouldn't smell smoke if you set fire to yourself. Which wouldn't be a bad idea."

  "You'll feel better after a meal," said Olive. "How does a toasted cheese sandwich sound?"

  The PSR putting out the broadcast decided to have a bit of fun with 6-X-32's call to Grauman's Chinese Theater. She put it out as a hotshot.

  Flotsam and Jetsam listened incredulously when, after the electronic beep, she said, "All units in the vicinity and Six-X-ray-Thirty-two, see the woman on Hollywood Boulevard west of Highland. A battery in progress. Batman versus Spiderman. Batman last seen running into Kodak Center. Person reporting is Marilyn Monroe. Six-X-Thirty-two, handle code three."

  When they got to the scene, Marilyn Monroe was waving at them from the courtyard of Grauman's Chinese Theater and tourists were snapping photos like crazy. B. M. Driscoll and Benny Brewster rolled in right behind them.

  Jetsam, who was driving, said, "Which Marilyn is it, do you think? One of them is hot, bro. Know which one I mean?"

  "It ain't the hot one," Flotsam said.

  Their Marilyn was striking the famous over-the-air-vent pose, but there was no air blowing up her dress. She had the Monroe dress and her pricey wig was excellent. Even her coy but sensuous Monroe smile was right on the money. The problem was, she was six feet three inches tall and wasn't a woman.

  Flotsam got out first and saw Spiderman sitting on the curb holding his head and rubbing his jaw. Jetsam went over to him and got the details, which of course involved a turf fight between two tourist hustlers.

  While Flotsam was talking to Marilyn Monroe, a tourist begged them to move stage left so he could get Grauman's in the background. Marilyn did it gladly. After a moment's hesitation during which several tourists needled him for being a poor sport, Flotsam moved with her and put up with about a hundred photo flashes from every direction.

  Finally Marilyn said, "It was terrible, Officer! Batman struck Spiderman with a flashlight for no reason at all. He's a pig, Batman is. I have always found Spiderman to be a love. I hope you find that cape-wearing rat and toss his fat ass in jail!"

  There was quite a bit of applause then, and Marilyn Monroe flashed a smile that could only be called blinding in its whiteness.

  As Flotsam was trying to get information from Marilyn Monroe, he was surrounded by all three Elvises. They worked in tandem only on big Friday nights like this one, and seeing the commotion went for the chance at real publicity. And they weren't disappointed. The first TV news van to have heard the police broadcast was dropping a cameraman and reporter at the corner of Hollywood and Highland just as the Elvises gathered.

  The Presleys were all talking at once to Flotsam: Skinny Elvis, Fat Elvis, and even Smellvis, he of the yellow sweat stains under the arms of his ice-cream suit, which made tourists hold their breath during his cuddly photo shoots.

  "Batman will never eat lunch in this town again!" Skinny Elvis cried.

  "Spiderman rules!" Fat Elvis cried.

  "I am an eyewitness to the caped crusader's vicious attack!" Smellvis announced to the crowd, and he was so rank that Flotsam had to backpedal a few steps.

  Flotsam asked B. M. Driscoll to check out the Kodak Center, and when he asked, "What's the guy look like?" Flotsam said, "Just hook up any guy you see wearing a cape and hanging upside down somewheres. If it turns out to be Count Dracula, just apologize."

  The midwatch cops didn't know that there was an undercover team at work in the midst of the crowd, posing as tourists with backpacks and cameras. The UC team had Tickle Me Elmo under arrest for manhandling a female tourist after she'd snapped his picture and refused to pay his three-dollar tariff.

/>   Elmo had grabbed her by the arm and said, "Well you can kiss my ass, bitch!" and next thing he knew, the UC cops had him up against the wall of the Kodak Center and removed his head, inside of which they found more than two hundred dollar bills and a gram of cocaine.

  Now the tourists turned on Elmo for photos, but the TV camera crew was still concentrating on Marilyn Monroe, until Benny Brewster said to Flotsam, "Hey man, Elmo had dope in his head!"

  Upon hearing this, the news team swung their cameras toward Elmo, who was yelling that his head was dope-free when he'd put the costume on, implying a police frame-up.

  Jetsam decided to help search the Kodak Center, where after a few minutes Batman was spotted. It was a brief chase, since Batman's ample gut was hanging over his utility belt, and he was just slogging along in front of the Kodak Theatre when Jetsam jumped him from behind. For a minute or two Jetsam feared that the exhausted Batman was going into cardiac arrest after he was proned out and cuffed.

  Jetsam said to B. M. Driscoll, "How do you do CPR through a bat mask and breastplate?"

  When Jetsam finally got outside Grauman's forecourt with his handcuffed and forlorn prisoner, crowds gathered, cameras flashed, and the news bunny ran up to him, saying, "Officer, did you have trouble catching up with Batman? Was it an exciting chase?"

  The surfer cop struck a semi-heroic pose for the camera and said, "Weak sauce." Then he quickly walked Batman to the black-and-white, where he was put into the backseat.

  This particular news bunny was a relentless journalist and proud of it. She hurried after Jetsam and stood next to the police car, making a point of handing her mike to one of the guys in her crew so she could appear to confront the cop empty-handed.

  "`Weak . . . sauce'?" said the news bunny to Jetsam, with arching, perfectly penciled eyebrows, and a lip-licking smile that stopped the surfer cop in his tracks. "Can you translate that term for us? Off the record?"

  Jetsam gaped at her cleavage. And goddamn, she licked her lips again! He looked at her camera crew, who were back on the sidewalk and couldn't even see his face, and he leaned down with his mouth close to her ear and whispered, "It just means, without his Batmobile his shit is puny."