Street Rules

by Baxter Clare

  “Right in front of that pickup,” he’d said pointing. And the car had a rounded back, not a square one. “Like a T-bird,” he’d added.

  Frank stood on the dark street listening to a helicopter whock-whock overhead, it’s Night Sun cutting a path through the sky. Frank watched it fly out of her jurisdiction. Bobby stretched, cracking his back, and Nookey complained, “I didn’t even get a chance to have dinner.”

  He gallantly volunteered to go back to the office and start the odious paper work. Frank knew his ulterior motives were to get a little nap and avoid doing the next of kin. She told him to go get some dinner, and then he and Bobby could round up the homies. Frank said she’d do the notification and Nook looked at her curiously.

  “Why are you gonna do it?”

  “My turn,” Frank said simply, not wanting to explain her long ties to Placa’s mother. She’d wanted to tell Claudia Estrella about her brother Luis’ death but Foubarelle and the Deputy Chief had claimed her time that afternoon.

  Frank drove slowly north-east, finally parking in front of a house that wasn’t quite as tidy as the rest on the block. She couldn’t think how many times she’d rolled to a stop here in a black-and-white. A Spanish TV show blared through the open windows and a yellow mosquito bulb dangled from a socket over the front door. She knocked loudly, and when the door opened, the face in the crack betrayed recognition and a weary animosity.

  “Hey, Claudia. I need to talk to you.”

  Claudia Estrella stepped back into the disheveled living room and the lieutenant followed. Frank took in a dark-eyed girl on the plastic-covered couch, distracted between the stranger and the television. A toddler crawled on the floor with a sagging diaper, and Placa’s older sister stared at Frank from the kitchen. Drying her hands on a towel, she asked disgustedly, “What you want now?”

  Frank didn’t answer, facing Claudia instead. She noted the gray roots under the black dye, the hard set of her face and deep lines.

  “When was the last time you saw Carmen?” she asked, calling Placa by her proper name.

  “Two, three o’clock.”

  “Where’d you see her?”

  “Here.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was she eating, or watching TY hangin’ out? What was she doing?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw her going out.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was Gloria here too?”

  Claudia bit some skin around the edge of her thumb and stared at Frank with a sharp, wary expression.

  “Yeah.”

  “Gloria,” Frank called. “Come out here. I need to talk to you.”

  They heard swearing in the kitchen and a drawer banging.

  “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you,” Claudia’s eldest daughter said from the doorway.

  “When was the last time you saw your sister?”

  She shrugged, just like her mother.

  “Earlier, like she tol’ you.”

  “Not since?”

  The young woman shook her long hair. When she’d been a banger she’d worn it in a teased pile, now it just hung limply. Permanent bags under the big eyes replaced the black circles from makeup, and like her mother, her hips had spread with each child. Babies had ended their days of hanging with their girlfriends and fighting over boyfriends. They had handed their legacy down to Placa and this was were it ended, in a stuffy house smelling of old diapers and grease, with the TV on too loud and Del Taco bags covering a chipped coffee table.

  “What was she doing?”

  “Nothin’. She wasn’t even here most of the day. Probably being a lazy-ass and kickin’ it in the park, I don’t know.”

  “Did you talk to her before she left?”

  “No.”

  “She didn’t say anything to you?”

  Gloria shook her head.

  “She talk to the kids, anybody else?”

  “I don’ know,” she answered, her irritation growing. “What, you think I had some tape recorder goin’ on or somethin’?”

  “Did she look like she was upset when she left? Happy? Anything?”

  “Normal,” she said in Spanish, flipping a shoulder.

  Frank asked Claudia, “She get any phone calls before she left?”

  Gloria aborted a glance at her mother, but not fast enough to escape Frank’s notice. Claudia’s son, Tonio, emerged sleepily from a bedroom. Skinny and gangly, only fourteen, he scratched his hairless chest and asked in Spanish what was going on.

  “Estan preguntando de Carmen. No les diga nada.”

  Frank wouldn’t say she was fluent in Spanish, but after years of listening to it everyday, she could understand a fair bit.

  “Don’t say anything to me about what?” she asked Gloria, who stamped her foot and said, “Nothin’. Why you police comin’ aroun’ askin’ all these questions when we tell you we don’ know nothin’, eh?”

  Ignoring her, Frank faced Claudia instead. She’d struck this pose so many times. It was never pleasant, but at least it was easier with a stranger. Nonetheless Frank did her job perfectly, speaking levelly and gauging Claudia’s reaction, as she said, “Somebody shot Placa.”

  Claudia’s mask slipped for a second and Frank was aware of Gloria careening into the room, screaming, “That fucker! I’ll kill him! That fucking pendejo, I’ll kill him!”

  The old adversaries stared at each other, even as the little girl on the couch and the toddler picked up their mother’s wailing, even as Gloria fell to the floor and her brother rushed to Frank demanding to know where Placa was and how she was. Both women had done this too many times. Stoically they shared the silence of bad news delivered and bad news received.

  As if in confirmation, Claudia said, “She’s dead.”

  Frank nodded. Seemingly without effort, Claudia rearranged her face into a quiescent tableau, a still brown desert that revealed nothing across its landscape but the inevitable play of time and gravity.

  Taking a knee next to Gloria, Frank asked, “What pendejo are you talking about, Gloria? Who did this?”

  Rocking and sobbing, she moaned her sister’s name. Frank repeated her question, with no effect. Finally she asked, “Is it the same pendejo that shot Julio and his family? Is that who you’re talking about?”

  Gloria halted her hysteria, staring at Frank through her tears. Then she laughed, crying, “You don’t know nothin’! You fuckin’ jura don’t know nothin’ ‘bout what’s goin’ on. Get out of here! Get out of my house! Leave my family alone!”

  She resumed her moaning and Frank stood. Claudia opened the door, staring implacably at Frank. Frank hovered over her.

  “She called me. She wanted to meet me tomorrow morning at Saint Michael’s. Said she had something to tell me. What was it, Claudia? What was she going to tell me?”

  Claudia’s only response was to close her eyes.

  Quietly, tenderly, Frank said, “Claudia. You and me, we go back a long way. And Placa, too. What do you know about all this?”

  Claudia said nothing, just gnawed on her thumbnail. She looked old. Older than she should have.

  “Look at me,” Frank said, so low only Claudia could hear. “Look at me.”

  The woman’s dusty eyes flickered across Frank’s but she couldn’t maintain the gaze.

  “What’s going on?” Frank whispered. “Tell me.”

  Like a lover denied, Frank implored, “Give it up, Claudia. Talk to me.”

  She waited, but she may as well have been talking to the table. Frank nodded, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Okay,” she said gently. “I’m leaving now, but I’ll be back. You know something. And until I find out what that is, I’m gonna be here every day. Claro?”

  Placa’s mother stared tightly and Frank opened the door. On her way out, she paused.

  “Take your time. I’m in no hurry on this. I got eight more years before I retire, entonces,�
� she shrugged, “if I have to be here everyday that’ll just be another part of the job.”

  Chapter Nine

  The night had cooled and felt good on Frank’s tired face. She lifted her head to search for a sign of stars or the moon, but the LA sky reflected only a dull red pall. It was as if heaven had turned its back on the City of Angels, leaving it in a fiery, Stygian gloom. It was reminiscent of the night Kennedy had dragged her to the beach and they’d lain on their backs, trying to catch sight of the elusive gems in the sky. For a moment she missed Kennedy. No, that’s not true she told herself, you miss being in bed with her. That was true. It would have been nice to find Kennedy and hold her tightly enough to forget everything for a while.

  Frank pulled in a lungful of the tainted sky. She was beat. She should go home and grab some sleep, but she knew that history would overtake her the minute she stopped moving. She wasn’t ready to face all its ghosts. She would, she promised herself, just not yet.

  Firing up the Honda, Frank caught the freeway, merging smoothly with the cars and trucks that flowed at all hours. She drove and listened to the talk on KFI, Tammy Bruce sparring with a homophobe. Frank tried to listen to the banter, but kept seeing Placa on the sidewalk, and Claudia’s calm, prescient acceptance of her youngest daughter’s fate. She drove faster, making the Honda shimmy, relieved to finally see the warm glow of the Alibi’s front window, iron grate and all.

  Inside, Frank returned a nod from a couple Vice detectives out of Parker. It was almost closing time and she took a seat at the empty bar, surprised to see Nancy.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  The waitress slipped onto a stool next to Frank and purred, “Filling in for Dee. Now, what are you doing here?”

  “Working.”

  Nancy wagged her head, “It’s Saturday.”

  “I’ll make sure to tell the bad guys that.”

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “Nope. Kitchen still open?”

  “He’s closing down, but I can get you something. What do you want?”

  “How about a ham and Swiss on rye? That shouldn’t be much trouble.”

  “You got it.” Slipping off the stool, Nancy asked, “Stout?”

  “No. Scotch. Double.”

  Frank watched Nancy squeeze back behind the bar and pour her drink. Frank kept her eyes on the waitress as she talked to the cook. Nance had put on some pounds but she still filled a skirt nicely. Nancy reclaimed her stool and while she tallied receipts, Frank asked how her son was doing. Nancy and the liquor loosened the evening’s death grip on Frank. She kept drinking, paying attention to Nancy as she scarfed the sandwich the cook brought out.

  “When are you gonna get someone to take care of you?” Nancy clucked.

  Frank was grateful for the familiar banter, answering, “You mean a secretary?”

  “You know what I mean,” Nancy chided, then in a lower voice she added, “I mean a real live woman.”

  Been there, done that, Frank thought.

  She said around a mouthful, “You applying for the job?”

  “Shit,” Nancy retorted, “I’ve had my application in for years. I’m still waiting to hear about it.”

  “Takes a long time to get to these things,” Frank assured her.

  “Well, I guess some things are just worth waiting for.”

  “Things okay with you and Kennedy?”

  Nancy sighed and said, “Yeah. You were right, though. She’s not real long-term, is she?”

  Kennedy had alluded to Nancy that there was nothing serious between her and Frank, and Nancy had believed it, had needed to. She’d even checked with Frank, who by then agreed that, no, there was nothing between her and Kennedy. But Frank had warned Nancy to be careful. She glanced at Nancy, who said, “I know, I know, you told me. But still, even if it doesn’t work out…”

  “It won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Nancy pouted.

  “She’s a player, Nance. It’s in her blood. She’s not going to change just ‘cause you get hooked on her.”

  “I’m not hooked,” the waitress defended.

  “Good. Don’t get that way. She’s fun, and that’s all.”

  “I know,” she groaned.

  Nancy changed the subject, chatting while Frank savaged her dinner and worked on another double. The cook said goodnight, and Frank thought she should go home and let Nance close up. Thing was, she didn’t want to go yet. Frank appraised the handsome woman beside her, wondering as she often had, what it would be like to take her up on her offer. The welcome mat had been out for a long time, but as tempting as it was, Frank liked Nancy too much to use her like that.

  Frank drained her scotch and left a hefty tip. It had been a while since she’d spent the night on the couch in her office, but that was where she reluctantly headed. Crashing on the chrome and vinyl relic, she hoped that sleep would take her instantly. No such luck. The old faces came, as she’d feared they would, swirling around her like a windy fog. She bent an arm across her eyes as if that would fend them off.

  She and Claudia and Placa had traveled a far stretch of time together, their histories sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly linked. They’d grown up and grown older together. Made right choices and wrong ones. Lost people they’d loved. One was an ex-junkie, one a notorious banger, and another a commanding peace officer. Still they had more in common than not. And they’d all been young once, with more promise than not. But that had been before the junk got Claudia, before the streets got Placa, before Frank…

  She flipped uneasily on to her side, quite aware of the familiar dread trying to get a claw into her. J should just let it take me wherever it wants to go, she thought, have its little ride, then be done. She threw off the thin blanket she kept in her locker for nights like this and stabbed at the light switch. Her desk was irritatingly clean. She picked through a cold case, hoping to ease her discomfort. But she knew by now that work just postponed it. Nothing eased it.

  She closed the binder and sank into her old wooden chair. Rubbing one of the scarred, skin-polished arms, Frank thought, been a long way with you too. They kept trying to give her a new chair, one with wheels and springs and a dozen different positions, but she refused to give this one up. She wondered if maybe she should cave; how could she bring her head into the present if her ass was still firmly planted in the past? So much of her was in the past and she was bone weary of that.

  She tried to convince herself to think of everyone, even Maggie, then let them all go. She could do that. She was stronger now, thanks to Clay. And Kennedy had helped, too. Propping bare feet on the desk, Frank tilted the chair back, hovering on the narrow cusp between forward and backward motion. Picturing Claudia young and not yet beaten, and Placa, giggling in diapers, Frank was grateful for all of Clay’s instruction. Not only was he teaching her how to salvage the good memories, the best ones, but he was also showing her how to move on from the bad ones. She sat a while doing just that.

  Chapter Ten

  Noah put down a box of doughnuts and gave Frank the once over. Spraying powdered sugar on his too short suit, he mumbled, “What were you doin’ here all night?”

  Her hair had given her away. It was still slick, dripping onto her shirt collar from the shower she’d taken in the locker room. Frank didn’t look up from the paper in her hand.

  “Pretty much camped here all weekend. Somebody capped Placa Saturday night.”

  The doughnut fell away from Noah’s mouth.

  “Oh, man. Who?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Noah shook his head and said, “Goddamnit.”

  “Hardly a surprise,” Frank responded curtly.

  Noah’s mouth dropped open. No one else was in the squad room yet and he said, “Jesus Christ, Frank! I swear I just wanna hurl this doughnut at you! I been workin’ with you nearly twelve years and I swear to Christ sometimes it’s like bein’ with a stranger.”

  Frank glanced up from the warrant in h
er hand, seemingly unmoved by Noah’s outburst.

  “Something bugging you?”

  “Yeah,” Noah said angrily, “You! How can you be so fucking blase about a girl half this squad raised?”

  Facing him squarely, Frank made Noah wait for his answer. The overheads accentuated the purple shadows under her eyes and she absently rubbed the back of her neck. Frank rarely verbalized a feeling, but for someone who’d had as much practice reading her as Noah had, words weren’t necessary. A sudden frosting and narrowing of the dark blue eyes indicated she was plenty pissed. If this was accompanied by bouncing jaw muscles it was likely someone or something was about to get broken. When she was engrossed in thought she often stroked the spot on her ring finger where a band used to be and squeezing the back of her neck was a dead giveaway that something was eating her. She tried to control her mannerisms but sometimes, like now, she simply forgot.

  Dropping his doughnut back into the box, Noah’s temper sputtered as quickly as it had flared.

  “Never mind,” he said, as Bobby and Ike came in together. Frank asked, “You want to talk in my office?”

  “No. Sorry. Just lost it for a sec.”

  Frank’s phone rang and she went to get it. Johnnie was calling in, said he had a migraine and he’d be in around ten.

  “You know you’re out of sick time,” Frank responded.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he wheezed on the other end. “What am I supposed to do, huh?”

  “That’s a good question. Might want to think about it while you’re nursing that hangover.”

  He started to protest and Frank hung up, making a mental note to talk to Noah. When all her detectives arrived, they had their morning meeting. Even-keeled and calm, Frank sat with her feet crossed on Gough’s old desk. Ike was sporting a bruise on his cheekbone. From rough trade, he claimed. While the boys razzed him, Frank’s hand strayed to the back of her neck. This time she caught herself and stopped kneading the tense muscles, but Noah had already seen her. She thought about how long they’d been friends, how there was a time when he would have died to rub Frank’s neck for her. Popping the rest of a doughnut in his mouth, he stared at her, as if reading her thoughts. She swore he could sometimes, and she looked back down at her notes.