Hollywood Station (2006)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 01

  Cosmo felt the dampness under his arms, and his palms were wet when he pointed his uninjured hand at the Georgian and said, "He gave us a no-good car. The car die when we leave ATM!"

  The Georgian said something quickly in Russian to Dmitri that Cosmo couldn't understand, then turned a scowl toward Cosmo and said, "You lie! The car is good car. I drove car. You lie."

  Now Cosmo felt his stomach gurgle and his bowels rumble and he said, "No, Dmitri. This Georgian, he lie! We have to drive the car away from ATM and park at the house of guy I know. We almost get caught by police!"

  "You lie!" the Georgian said, taking a menacing step toward Cosmo until Dmitri held up his hand and stopped him.

  "Enough," Dmitri said to both men.

  "I tell you truth, brother," Cosmo said. "I swear."

  "Now, Cosmo, where is money from ATM?" Dmitri asked.

  "The man where we must take no-good car, his woman steal our money and run away from her man. But not to worry. We shall find her. We get money."

  "This man," Dmitri said calmly, "he does not know noth-ink of me? Noth-ink of the Gulag?"

  "No, brother!" Cosmo said. "Never!"

  "And what of this man? What is his name?"

  "Farley Ramsdale," Cosmo said. "He is addict."

  Dmitri looked in disbelief at Cosmo, then at the Georgian and back to Cosmo, and said, "You leave my money with addict?"

  "No choice, brother!" Cosmo said. "This Georgian give us car that don't run. And Farley not at home so we got to hide car in his garage and hide money under his house. But goddamn addict woman, she find it and run away!"

  Cosmo's mouth was dry as sand now and it made a popping sound each time his lips opened. The Georgian was glaring at him dangerously but Cosmo could hardly take his eyes from the thirty-five thousand dollars. It was a bigger pile of money than he'd imagined.

  "Go get Ilya," Dmitri said. "Brink her up and I buy you drinks and we complete diamond deal and you tell me how you catch addict woman and tell me when you goink to get me my money from ATM."

  This was the moment he dreaded. This is what Ilya said he must do regardless of the outcome. Cosmo swallowed twice and said, "No, brother. I take money now and your Georgian come with me down to the bar and Ilya go to bathroom and get diamonds from safe place and give to this Georgian. Lot of peoples down there. Safe for everybody."

  Dmitri laughed out loud at that and said, "Cosmo, is information on TV and in newspaper correct? How much you find in the box?"

  "Ninety-three thousands," Cosmo said.

  "TV lady say hundred thousand," Dmitri said, "but never mind, I believe you. So this mean you owe to me forty-six thousand and five hundred dollars and I owe to you thirty-five thousand dollars. So we do mathematics and we discover eleven thousand, five hundred dollars you owe to me. And the diamonds, too. Is very simple, no?"

  Cosmo was dripping sweat now. His shirt was soaked and he kept wiping his palms on his trousers, standing there like a child, looking down at this Russian pervert and up at the Georgian thug standing beside him. And he wanted badly just to touch the Beretta, cold against the sweat on his back.

  Cosmo said, "Please to give me three minute to explain how the car this Georgian steal for us is reason for every problem!"

  The Oracle was very surprised to see the detective car parked in the red zone on the east side of the nightclub, where he too was forced to park, the packed parking lot being an impossibility. He wondered which detective was in there and why. As he was walking toward the door, a black-and-white slowed and stopped and Fausto gave a short toot to get his attention. The Oracle walked over to the curb, bent down, and said, "I won't be long, Fausto."

  "Want some company?" Budgie said. "I've never been inside one of these Russian glam palaces."

  "Okay, but we'll scare the crap outta them," the Oracle said. "There's already a detective team in there."

  "For what?" Fausto said.

  "Maybe the murder the other night," the Oracle said. "Five cops? They'll think they're back in the USSR."

  When the Oracle entered, followed by Fausto and Budgie, he spotted Andi and Brant standing back by the restrooms talking to a guy in a tuxedo who the Oracle figured might be the manager Andrei.

  The decibel level was astounding and multicolored lights and strobes were playing all over the dance-floor pit, where couples, mostly young, were "get-tink down," as Dmitri called it. From her seat at the end of the bar, Ilya couldn't see the three uniformed cops who entered and headed toward a narrow corridor by the kitchen. The Oracle, Fausto, and Budgie attracted some attention but not much, and they surprised the detectives.

  Andi had to shout over the music. "What're you doing here? Don't tell me there's another murder on the patio I haven't heard about?"

  The Oracle said to the unhappy-looking guy in the tuxedo, "Are you Andrei?"

  "Yes," the manager said.

  "We'll give you cuts in line with this one," Andi said to the Oracle. "We're waiting to see Dmitri, the proprietor."

  The Oracle said to Andrei, "I need to have a chat with you and get your name and address. I'll explain when we get to a quiet place, if such a thing exists around here." Then, with a wink at Andi, he indicated Fausto and Budgie and said to Andrei, "These two're my bodyguards. I take them with me wherever I go."

  Andrei had a what-else-can-go-wrong look on his face then. Just as something else was about to go very wrong.

  Dmitri's eyes were half closed as Cosmo glossed over the aftermath of the ATM robbery, leaving out his confrontation tonight with Farley Ramsdale.

  And when Cosmo was through, Dmitri said, "You had to shoot the guard?"

  "Yes, Dmitri," Cosmo said. "He did not give up money like you say."

  Dmitri shrugged and said, "Sometimes information on enemy is not correct. Ask President Bush."

  Cosmo was getting his hopes built until Dmitri turned to the Georgian and said, "Okay, maybe is a little piece of truth about the car. Maybe the car is not so good as you think."

  "Dmitri!" the Georgian said, but he saw the look in Dmitri's eye and stopped his protest.

  "So, Cosmo," Dmitri said, "you are going to get ATM money tomorrow when you catch addict woman, no?"

  "That is exactly correct," Cosmo said.

  "Okay, here is what I do for you, Cosmo," said Dmitri. "You owe me eleven thousand, five hundred plus diamonds. I am go-ink to cancel the money what you owe me! You get Ilya up here and give me all diamonds and we are even. Tomorrow when you catch addict woman, you keep all ninety-three thousand dollars. Your share, my share. I could not be more generous with my own brother, Cosmo."

  Then Dmitri looked up at the Georgian for validation and got a nod of agreement that said Dmitri was a very reasonable and very generous man.

  It was hopeless. Cosmo was the image of despair. As Cosmo was staring at the money on Dmitri's desk, the Russian opened the top drawer and put the first stack back inside. When he reached for the second stack, Cosmo felt that he was outside his body and watching himself pull his coat back and reach behind him for the Beretta.

  "Dmitri!" the Georgian yelled, coming up with a small pistol, from where, Cosmo didn't see.

  And Dmitri shouted in Russian and opened a second drawer and reached inside for a gun of his own.

  Andi said to the other cops and to Andrei the manager, "We've waited long enough. I'm going to knock on Dmitri's door."

  She was interrupted by one shot followed by two more followed by five! And the two detectives and three uniformed cops ran upstairs. Andi was getting her pistol out of her purse when Fausto and Budgie passed her and both crouched down on one knee, guns extended in two hands aimed at the door of Dmitri's office. The Oracle ran to the other side of the door, and with his old six-inch revolver extended, he backed up, so that all guns, high and low, were deployed diagonally, pointed at the door.

  Inside the office, Cosmo Betrossian had pain in his left arm that far exceeded anything he'd suffered this night either from Farley Ramsdale or the killer
dog. Cosmo had a through-and-through wound in the biceps that had chipped the bone before exiting, and it burned like liquid fire.

  The Georgian was sprawled across Dmitri's desk, spurting blood from an arterial penetration in the neck. But his chest wounds were even more devastating.

  Dmitri was sitting back in his chair with a hole in his forehead that was actually a coup de grfce delivered by Cosmo as Dmitri lay dying, having fired the round that wounded Cosmo.

  The thundering sounds from the pit below Dmitri's office had actually muffled the sound from the patrons' area, and everyone rocked on. From time to time Ilya gazed across the dance floor, wondering why Cosmo had not returned.

  Cosmo hoped he didn't faint before he got down to Ilya with the stacks of money inside his shirt against his skin. The money felt good. He was about to put his gun back into his waistband, but thinking that an employee from the kitchen might have heard the shots, he held the gun in front of him with his one good hand and opened the door.

  In such confined space it sounded to Fausto like automatic weapon fire that he'd heard in Nam. Budgie later said that it sounded to her like one huge explosion. She couldn't differentiate the separate weapons firing.

  Cosmo Betrossian got off exactly one shot, which hit the wall above their heads. He in turn was shot eighteen times with nine rounds missing him, probably as he was twisting and falling. All five cops shot him at least twice, with Fausto and Budgie scoring the most hits.

  This being her first shooting, Andi McCrea later said during the FID investigation that it truly was like a slow-motion sequence. She could see, or thought she could see, hot shell casings ejecting into the air from various pistols and slapping against her face.

  The Oracle said that in forty-six years, this was the first time he'd ever fired his weapon outside of the police pistol range.

  Budgie had the most interesting commentary. She said that in such close confines, all the muzzle blasts and gun smoke had created a condition that, with her mouth wide open and sucking air, got her chewing gum full of grit.

  The pandemonium that followed was worse than what occurred on the night of the patio stabbing. The customers did hear the roar of the multiple gunshots from the upstairs hallway. Budgie and Fausto ran down the stairs to grab the manager and anybody else who looked like he might know what the hell had happened upstairs to cause the original gunfire. The Oracle made urgent calls on his rover.

  By the time Viktor Chernenko pulled up in front, people were pouring from the front door and running for their cars. The parking lot was in such chaos that the cars in the back of the lot could not move. Headlights were flashing and horns were honking. Viktor bulled his way through emerging hysterical customers and took the stairs two at a time.

  When he got to the scene of carnage, he said to the Oracle, "One of these Russians may be the one I am looking for! Maybe the one who shot Farley Ramsdale!"

  The Oracle, who was pale and had the worst heartburn of his life, said, "A busboy told us the one in the chair is the owner. The one lying across the desk is a bartender. The one we shot . . ."-and he pointed to the ragged, bloody heap lying in the corner just beyond the door-"I don't know who he is. He killed the other two."

  Viktor said, "You have latex gloves?" and when the Oracle shook his head, Viktor said, "Hell with it!" and pulled Cosmo's wallet from his back pocket and ran back down the stairs, his hands stained by Cosmo's blood.

  When he got to the sidewalk in front he could hear sirens wailing as patrol units were arriving from all directions.

  "Come with me!" Viktor yelled to Wesley Drubb, who had just leaped from their car as Nate was double-parking it.

  Wesley followed Viktor to the parking lot, where Viktor looked inside each and every car with his flashlight as the cars took turns trying to funnel out of the narrow driveway. Most cars had couples in them or single men. Less than ten percent of the cars were driven by single women, but for every one that was, Viktor's flashlight beamed squarely into the driver's face.

  He was starting to think that he'd been wrong when he got to the last row of cars, but then he saw a big blond woman with huge breasts behind the wheel of an older Cadillac. Viktor turned to Wesley, his flashlight on Cosmo's driver's license, showing Wesley the name. Then he shined his light on the Cadillac and said, "Please get a DMV on this license plate! Very fast!"

  Viktor hung his badge on his coat pocket, walked up to the driver's door, and tapped on the window with his flashlight, his pistol in hand concealed just below the window ledge. And he smiled.

  The woman rolled down the window, smiled back at him, and said, "Yes, Officer?"

  "Your name, please," Viktor said.

  "Ilya Roskova," she said. "There is a problem?" Then she looked to see if the queue of cars was moving, but it was not.

  "Maybe," Viktor said. "And is this your car?"

  "No, I borrow this car from a friend. She is a neighbor. I am so stupid I do not even know her family name."

  "May I see the registration?"

  Ilya said, "Shall I look in glove box?"

  "By every means," Viktor said, shining his light on her right hand as well as the glove compartment. His gun coming up a bit higher.

  "No," she said. "No papers in there."

  "This car belongs to a woman, then?"

  "Yes," Ilya said. "But not to this woman who sits before you in traffic." Her smile broke wider, a bit coquettish.

  Hollywood Nate and Wesley came running back, and Wesley whispered, "Cosmo Betrossian. Same as on that driver's license."

  "So you know the owner of the car, then?" Viktor said to Ilya.

  "Yes," Ilya said cautiously. "Her name is Nadia."

  "Do you know Cosmo Betrossian?"

  "No, I do not think so," Ilya said.

  Viktor raised his pistol to her face and said in Russian, "You will please step from the car with your hands where we can see them at all times, Madame Roskova."

  As Wesley handcuffed Ilya's hands behind her back, she said, "I shall be calling my lawyer immediately. I am completely full of outrage!"

  When they were transporting her to Hollywood Station, Nate said to his partner, "Well, Wesley, what do you think of your misdemeanor division now?"

  Chapter TWENTY

  AT 3 A. M. Ilya Roskova was sitting in the detective squad room, which was more crowded with people than it ever was during daylight hours. There were Force Investigation Division people, there was the area captain, there was the Detective Division commander-everyone had left their beds for this one. And the Gulag had more LAPD cars and personnel swarming around than they ever had customers during happy hour.

  What was known so far was that the diamonds found on the desk at the Gulag under the body of the Georgian bartender matched descriptions given by Sammy Tanampai of his jewelry store inventory. The serial number on the Beretta 9-millimeter pistol used by Cosmo Betrossian to kill Dmitri and the Georgian proved to belong to the weapon taken from the surviving security guard during the ATM robbery.

  Viktor Chernenko, the man who had been instinctively correct from the beginning, was told that, along with the captain, he should be prepared to speak to the media in the late morning after he got some much-needed sleep. Viktor predicted that ballistics would show that the bullet that killed Farley Ramsdale came from the same Beretta, and that Farley Ramsdale must have been an accomplice to the robbery and had a falling-out with Cosmo Betrossian.

  There was a person in the squad room, being guarded by Budgie Polk, who knew if Viktor was correct in both theories, but she wasn't talking. Ilya's wrist was handcuffed to a chair and she'd said nyet to every question asked, including whether she understood her constitutional rights. Everyone was waiting for Viktor to find time to try an interview in her language.

  Andi McCrea along with the others who had participated in the officer-involved shooting were being separately interviewed by FID and were scattered among several of the station's offices. Andi was the third one finished, and when she came
back into the busy squad room, she played the videotape that had been seized along with the other evidence from the desk of Dmitri.

  When she watched the video with Brant Hinkle looking over her shoulder, they nodded, satisfied. The stabbing of the student was caught vividly. The identity of the assailant was unmistakable.

  "He'll cop a plea when his lawyer sees this," Andi said.

  After packaging the videotape for booking, she looked at Ilya Roskova, sitting in the chair glaring at her stoic guard, Budgie Polk, who had been interviewed for one hour by FID.

  Andi pulled Viktor aside and said, "Have you gotten any information out of her?"

  "Nothing, Andrea," Viktor said. "She will not speak at all except to ask for cigarettes. And she keeps wanting to go to the bathroom. I was just going to ask Officer Polk to take her."

  Andi kept eyeing Ilya, looking particularly at her lower body squeezed into that low-rise red skirt, as tight as Lycra. She said, "Let me take her. Where's her purse?"

  He pointed and said, "Over there on the desk."

  "Does she have cigarettes in there?"

  "Yes."

  Andi went to the desk and picked up the purse, then walked over to Ilya Roskova and said, "Would you like us to take you to the bathroom?"

  "Yes," Ilya said.

  "And after that maybe a cigarette?" Andi said.

  "Yes."

  "Take the cuff off her, Budgie," Andi said.

  Budgie unlocked the handcuff and the prisoner stood, massaging her wrist for a second, prepared to accompany the cops.

  As they started to walk, Andi opened the purse and said to Ilya, "Yes, I see you have cigarettes in -" Then the purse dropped from Andi's hand onto the floor.

  Ilya looked at Andi, who just smiled and said "I'm sorry" but made no effort to pick up the purse.

  Ilya angrily bent over to pick it up, and Andi stepped forward, put her hand on Ilya's shoulder, and forced her down into a full squat with one hand, reaching down toward the purse with her other, saying, "Here, let me help you, Ms. Roskova."

  And when Ilya was held in the squatting position for a few seconds, making a fish mouth, a diamond hit the floor. Then another. Then a ring with a four-carat stone plinked against the floor and rolled across the squad room, stopping when it hit Viktor's shoe. Diamonds were shooting from that "safe place" where she'd promised Cosmo to hide them.