The problems began almost immediately for the Hollywood Division CRO because, according to unofficial reports to the office of the chief of police, Hollywood was not like anywhere else. In fact, the unofficial report referred to Hollywood as “America’s kook capital.” Because it was a community meeting, residents of Hollywood could not be segregated or excluded due to irrational behavior, unless the behavior turned dangerous. Many of the same people showed up regularly at the meetings for free coffee and donuts. And, more often than not, havoc ensued.
Special arrangements had to be made to accommodate the Hollywood Division CPAB meetings, and it was decided that a second meeting would be held the day after the official CPAB meeting. The names and addresses of the more peculiar and troublesome residents were culled from sign-in sheets at the CPAB meetings, and letters were sent telling them that their meetings would now be held on the last Wednesday of the month. The Wednesday gathering was officially renamed the “Hollywood Community Meeting.” But the cops unofficially referred to it as the “Cuckoo’s Nest.”
Crows would say to one another, “Are you going to CPAB or Cuckoo’s Nest?”
The Cuckoo’s Nest meeting was not run by the captain or any member of the command staff. Sometimes even the CRO sergeant wasn’t in charge, preferring to leave it to one of the senior lead officers. The Crow would try to arrange for interesting guest speakers, such as a narcotics detective or a gang officer or a vice cop. In order to entice speakers, the Crow told them that this was a very low-key community meeting that the speakers would find enjoyable. Once the speakers discovered the truth, they never came back.
Ronnie Sinclair was tasked to assist at her first Cuckoo’s Nest meeting the day after Jetsam became convinced that he might have stumbled onto an al Qaeda cell operating in Hollywood. Jetsam had phoned the auto theft team the moment he woke up that morning, but they were in court or otherwise occupied and away from the station. When one of them finally returned his call, the detective, whom Jetsam didn’t know personally, was less than enthusiastic.
After hearing Jetsam’s terrorist theory based upon spotting one Arabic newspaper at a body shop that worked on expensive SUVs, the detective said to him, “Do you know Arabic from Farsi?”
“Well, no,” Jetsam had to admit.
“The newspaper could have been left there by an Iranian,” the detective suggested.
“All the more reason to check it out,” Jetsam said. “Remember the case last year where LAPD and the FBI popped those Chechens who had a racket where they got people to report expensive cars stolen and collect insurance payoffs? And then the cars were smuggled in big shipping containers to their country to help Muslim terrorists? Remember that one? Well, these SUVs were too newish and expensive to be worked on in a repair joint in East Hollywood.”
The detective was silent for a moment and then said, “Are you saying you think these people are Chechen terrorists?”
“No, but maybe they’re copycats pulling the same scam, and they’re gonna smuggle hot SUVs to places like…”
“Baghdad?”
“Or like…”
“Tehran?”
“Aw, shit,” Jetsam said.
“You have my blessing if you wanna check it out yourself,” the detective said. “But you catch ’em, you clean ’em. Right now I’m due in court, so I gotta run.”
After hanging up, Jetsam said to the phone, “And we thank you for your call. Fuck you very much.”
Detective indifference and condescension is what brought Jetsam and his reluctant partner to the Cuckoo’s Nest meeting on Wednesday night. Of course it was a bonus for Ronnie Sinclair to observe a meeting conducted by an experienced Crow. The sergeant told Ronnie that Tony Silva would be a good one to emulate because he was patient and had a calming effect on most of the regulars if things turned violent.
“Violent?” Ronnie said in astonishment, but her sergeant only shrugged and walked away. She thought he must be kidding.
Twenty minutes before the Cuckoo’s Nest was to start, Ronnie was surprised to see Jetsam enter the meeting room and wave her outside.
“What’s up?” she said, walking with him to the black-and-white, where Flotsam sat behind the wheel.
Flotsam looked out at her and said, “Don’t blame me for this, Ronnie. Watch five only has three cars in the field tonight and he’s got me beached. If Treakle finds out, he’ll have us castrated.”
“I got something for a Crow to check out, Ronnie,” Jetsam said, giving her a piece of notebook paper with the address of the auto body shop and the address and phone number of the Guatemalan woman who phoned about their cars blocking the alley.
“What’s all this?” she said.
“It’s a quality-of-life deal,” Jetsam said. “And it’s an opportunity for you to go to this body shop and maybe, just maybe, end up with something pretty big.”
“It’s Osama bin Laden,” Flotsam said. “My pard thinks he’s there, pounding out dents on Beemers and Benzes.”
“Dude, can you stop hacking on me for two minutes?” Jetsam said to his partner. “You’re spiking me like you spiked those barneys at Malibu this morning.”
Ronnie, who knew that Flotsam and Jetsam surfed almost every day before going on duty, said, “Spiking? Barneys?”
Flotsam said, “He thinks I shouldn’t do surfboard self-defense on four squids that flipped us off and stole my juicies when I was rippin’. They thought it was cooleo till one of them caught my log upside his head when I snaked him on the next wave.”
“What?” Ronnie said.
“All I said was,” Jetsam said to Flotsam, “you should cap the little surf Nazi if you wanna turn him into part of the food chain. Not torpedo him till he’s almost dead in the foamy.”
“There’s just too damn many languages spoken in this town,” Ronnie said rhetorically. “Did you bring me out here for today’s surfing highlights, or what? I got a meeting inside.”
“Take a few minutes tonight or tomorrow night,” Jetsam said quickly. “Phone the woman about the Arabs at the repair shop. They got the joint vacuum-packed with some slammin’ SUVs. I think they gotta be hot. You could warn them about blocking the alley and maybe take down some license and VIN numbers.”
“I’m not a detective,” Ronnie said. “Call the auto theft detail.”
“Been there,” Jetsam said. “They’re about as lazy as Compassionate Charlie Gilford. A blocked alley affects everybody in the apartment house. I need a quality-of-life cop to get this thing kick-started.”
“That’s not my area,” Ronnie said.
“You’re the only Crow I know real well,” Jetsam said, “except for Hollywood Nate. This is a job for a real cop. They couldn’t have morphed you into a teddy bear already. If you want, we could meet you tomorrow at the body shop as backup, say around sixteen hundred hours? Right before they close.”
“You can meet her,” Flotsam said to his partner. “I go on duty at seventeen-fifteen.”
“Dude…,” Jetsam said in exasperation to his partner.
“This one ain’t on my desktop,” Flotsam explained to Ronnie. “Him and me, we’re close, but we ain’t Velcro close. I ain’t down for this one.”
“Okay, okay!” Ronnie said, relenting. “I’ll give her a call later tonight and maybe I can stop by the body shop tomorrow afternoon. If I can, I’ll give you a call on your cell. Will you be hanging ten at Malibu or remaining on dry land?”