Then Flotsam said to his partner, “Keep your mind in the game, dude, and pay attention here. We got a Hollywood moon coming up tonight, so maybe she caught an early lunar vibe and this ain’t all her fault. Think of a graceful way outta this so we don’t gotta move her from that chair.”
Hollywood Nate said, “Just book the gun. The kid probably went to the ER at Hollywood Pres. By now he’s chill. I bet he’ll sign off that the old lady capped him by accident, or maybe you can suggest that he did it himself while practicing his quick draw. And you might remind him to stop using the phone when Granny Oakley’s watching her soap operas.”
Just then, Compassionate Charlie Gilford sauntered into the crowded little bedroom, and said, “What’s taking you guys so long?” When he saw Irma Beltrán, he froze and said, “What the fuck’s Norman Bates’s momma doing here?”
“She’s the shooter,” Flotsam said. “It was an accident, though. She thought the gun was the TV remote. It could happen to anyone.”
“Put her back in the fruit cellar!” Compassionate Charlie said with a shiver of distaste.
“We think the victim’s at Hollywood Pres,” Flotsam said to the detective. “He’s her great-grandson. Butt shot is all. No biggie.”
They were interrupted when a copper from Watch 3 came into the crowded room and said, “Breaking news. The oldest of the kids just told us his great-grandma’s a hundred and three years old.”
Hollywood Nate said to the detective, “This might win the Hollywood moon award, Charlie. This has got to be the longevity record for local female shooters. A hundred and three!”
Compassionate Charlie sucked his teeth for a few seconds, then shrugged and said, “So what? Something weirder will happen around here tonight.” And then he added the mantra heard so frequently in that geographic police division: “This is fucking Hollywood.”
The detective took a notebook from his pocket to find the number for Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, but when he walked to the table and reached for the telephone, both Flotsam and Jetsam scared the crap out of him when they yelled in unison, “Don’t touch the phone!”
Jonas Claymore wasn’t affected by the full moon over Hollywood. He was in bed with a heating pad on his lower back, bitching even when Megan Burke came in with a watson for him that she’d scored along with two OCs in trade for the stolen TV set.
“Is the pain as bad as yesterday?” she asked.
“What the fuck do you think?” Jonas grumbled. “Christ, the heat ain’t helping at all. Rub me down again with that hot gel, will ya? Oh, my fucking back. I’d like to go back there and toss that mutt a hamburger loaded with rat poison.”
“You should watch TV or something,” Megan said, sick of his whining. “If you could just get yourself out of bed, you’d feel better.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jonas said. “Make me something to eat, will ya?”
“What do you want, Jonas?”
“Oh, maybe prime rib with garlic mashed potatoes. Or a filet mignon with grilled onions. Whadda you mean, for chrissake?”
Megan sighed and said, “I’ll see if there’s a can of tomato soup left. If there is, do you want crackers with it?”
“Surprise me with your culinary art,” Jonas said.
“Maybe it was an omen,” Megan said. “Being attacked by an animal on our first crime. Maybe we should stop while we can.”
Jonas said, “Didn’t you kinda get a rush from snatching that TV from that house? I was hoping that maybe for a little while you could get into grabbing small stuff to trade for ox. I mean, just till we get on our feet. Then I was hoping you might be ready to try going into one of those big houses up in the Hollywood Hills.”
“I still think it’s scary.”
“I told you from the jump, we won’t do anything that ain’t safe.”
She thought about it and said, “Okay, I guess maybe I’m in. Temporarily. Just till we’re on our feet.”
“I’ll be good to go in a couple of days,” Jonas said. “Now, how about that food?”
She was gone for fifteen minutes, and when she came back, she had a bowl of tomato soup and a few saltine crackers on a paper plate. Jonas picked up a cracker and it was so soggy it bent in his fingers.
“Is it okay?” Megan asked when he tasted a spoonful.
“Savory,” Jonas said. “One of your better dinners, I’d have to say.”
TWELVE
Viv Daley and Georgie Adams had been removed from the field after the shooting of Louis Dryden and would not be returned to field duty until a BSS shrink and the chief gave an okay, per LAPD policy. That left only two women working the midwatch on that night of the Hollywood moon. P3 Della Ravelle, a twenty-two-year cop, was the Field Training Officer for P1 Britney Small, who was born a year after her FTO had been appointed to the LAPD. They were working 6-X-46, and Della Ravelle was driving, with young Britney Small doing the report writing.
Britney Small, who was in the last phase of her probation, was one of the most reticent and shy women that Della Ravelle had ever encountered in law enforcement. But her former FTO, a highly disciplined Korean American cop named Rupert Tong, had always given her glowing evaluations, so Della figured the probationer must’ve been assertive enough when she needed to be. Tong had transferred to a long-awaited detective assignment at Robbery-Homicide Division, and Della Ravelle was taking over Britney Small until the end of her eighteen-month probationary period, two months hence.
Since Britney Small was so near the end of her probation and Della Ravelle was so laid-back, Della insisted that the boot not keep calling her ma’am. Britney had never stopped calling Rupert Tong sir until their last night together, when the former Navy SEAL said to her, “Be sure and let me know if you need anything or have any questions about something you’ve learned from me. You’ve got my cell number.”
It was only after Britney had said, “Thank you, sir, and good luck to you,” that he’d smiled broadly and given her a farewell hug, saying, “You’re a real copper already, Brit. You can call me Rupert anytime.”
Britney Small was so willowy that Della Ravelle called her “my bluesuit ballerina.” The creamy-faced rookie loved working with this female FTO, telling her on their first night together that it was great to work with someone even older than her mom, for the wisdom it would bring.
“Thanks for that,” Della said, thinking what everyone past forty would think at such a moment-Older than her mom? Where did it all go? How the hell did this happen to me?
Della Ravelle was forty-four years old, with smart hazel eyes and a friendly grin for everyone. She had to go to a hairdresser more often than she liked these days in order to keep her hair brown. “I’ll dye till I die” was her motto. She was always struggling to lose ten pounds despite frequent workouts in the Hollywood Station weight room, where Hollywood Nate pumped iron almost daily.
She was twice married and twice divorced, with two sons aged nineteen and seventeen, who lived with her in her South Pasadena house. Zach and Jonathan were students, one at Pasadena City College and the other at South Pasadena High School. Della always thought it was nothing more than sheer luck that she had married slightly better the first time, back at a time when she’d wanted children. That marriage was to an IRS auditor who was diligent with his child support payments throughout the years, even though during their marriage he was so nitpicking and clueless that he almost drove her crazy. To him, police work was something that could be analyzed like the tax returns of the deadbeats he delighted in tormenting. He could never understand the emotional hazards of the Job, and the powerful bonds that developed among the blue brethren in Della’s strange fraternity of the badge.
The second husband was a worse mistake because he, too, was a cop, an alpha male, LAPD macho copper, mustache and all. They had battled from their honeymoon on, but thankfully the marriage was brief with no children. So now, with the days and nights of hiring babysitters behind her, Della Ravelle hoped to enjoy the six years she planned to remain on the Job before retiring at age fifty to a peaceful future where the size of the moon over Hollywood did not matter a whit.