He parked at the far end of the little strip mall and said, “I ain’t scared of five-oh. I can smooth-talk any of them. Anyways, I ain’t got time to drop you. I want those green beans now, and you do, too.”
“I’m not smoking ox with you anymore, Jonas,” she said. “Or anything else.”
“Hah!” he said. “Let’s see what you do when that beautiful snowbird starts to cook.”
“All right, get me some perks or norcos,” she said. “Anything to get me past the joneses. But I’m not smoking ox with you.”
“We’ll see,” he said with a smirk, and left her sitting in the car. He walked ten yards, stopped, and came back. He reached through the open window and took the keys from the ignition, saying with a wicked little grin, “Can’t leave you here with my keys and my bank. The temptation might be too much for you.”
He got out but left his cell phone in the ashtray, where he always kept it while driving.
He was gone only for a moment when she saw the black-and-white wheeling into the parking lot.
Six-X-Seventy-six had just cleared from roll call, and Viv Daley and Georgie Adams thought it was time for a cruise through the strip mall on a routine check for tweakers and other drug users who did business at the taco shop.
Megan Burke grabbed Jonas’s cell phone, opened the door of the VW bug, got out, and walked east on Santa Monica Boulevard as fast as she could. When she was a safe distance away, she stopped and watched the parking lot to see what was going to happen.
Jonas Claymore had to use his hand to shield his eyes from the late rays of the sun. The dying fireball was giving Hollywood a last blast of its power before settling into the Pacific. Jonas peered into an old Mazda and found a dude he’d done business with on a few occasions. What was his name? Earl, that was it.
He was a scrawny little rat-faced tweaker with what everyone said looked like terminal acne. His face was a flaming pus ball, and it was sickening to score from him, but he had pharmacy connections and was usually good for norcos and perks and sometimes OCs.
The Mazda’s windows were open and Earl was eating one of Pablo’s lard-fried tacos filled with what Jonas thought was probably horsemeat.
“Earl, whazzup?” Jonas said.
Earl looked at Jonas, recognized him, and said, “I’m living the dream, dude.”
“I need ox,” Jonas said. “I’ll take four if you got ’em. And I need a few norcos or perks for my bitch. I’ll give you two Franklins.”
“Bite it,” Earl said, ferociously chewing the taco, grease the color of dishwater running down his chin and dripping onto his cutoff sweatshirt.
“Okay, dawg, I ain’t got time to fuck around,” Jonas said. “I’ll give you three Franklins for the four OCs and maybe a dozen norcos or perks.”
Earl held up four fingers and took another bite from the taco.
“Aw, fuck it!” Jonas said, tossing four hundred-dollar bills onto the Mazda seat, which Earl snatched up so fast, Jonas hardly saw his little hand move.
“Go get a Coke,” Earl said. “I’ll see you inside.”
Jonas did as he was told, wondering vaguely where Earl’s drugs were stashed. They could be concealed inside the car’s headliner, or taped under the dash, or hidden under the spare tire, or even up Earl’s ass. He hated to think about that, but he was so desperate, he pushed all questions from his mind and ordered a soda at the counter.
He sat at a table near a Mexican family with a bawling baby and waited. Earl entered after a few minutes and went to the counter, where he removed several paper napkins from the dispenser. He wiped his greasy face with the napkins and when he got to his mouth he spit a tied-off condom into the napkins, dropping the crumpled mess onto Jonas’s table before exiting.
Jonas stuffed the wad of napkins into his pocket, put the soda cup in the trash container, and sauntered out, trying to walk casually to his car.
Georgie Adams was driving the black-and-white, and he said to Viv, “Hey, sis, isn’t that the guy we stopped a few days ago? The one who said he was heading for a job in the Hills with his crying wife?”
Viv Daley looked at him and said, “Yeah, the one with the sick baby.”
“Told you they looked like tweakers,” Georgie said.
“Let’s jam him,” Viv said.
Jonas had reached his VW bug and was looking around, wondering where the hell Megan went, when the black-and-white stopped, blocking his exit, and he saw two cops get out. He recognized the tall woman cop as the one he’d talked out of a ticket, and he said to himself, Do not panic. You did it before and you can do it again. But he didn’t like the dark, sinister look of the shorter cop with her.
Viv said to Georgie, “There it is. The over-the-shoulder look.”
“Hi, Officer!” Jonas said to Viv. “I remember you from the other day.”
“And I remember you,” Viv said. “How’s your sick baby?”
“Getting better every day,” Jonas said. “Thanks for asking.”
“Where’s your wife?” Georgie asked.
“I was just looking for her. She musta went across the street to buy a doughnut. I’ll tell her I saw you.”
He started to step to his car, but Viv said, “What’s that bulge in your pocket?”
“Bulge?” he said. “Nothing.”
“It could be a weapon. It could be drugs,” Georgie said. “Did you know tweakers hang out here and do deals?”
“No, I didn’t know,” Jonas said, aware that his jaw was trembling but unable to stop it. Then he said, “Oh. I almost forgot. It’s a bunch of napkins in my pocket. I ate a taco in there.”
“How much did the taco cost you?” Viv said.
“I didn’t pay much attention,” Jonas said.
Georgie said to Viv, “This dude’s like a dog. Eye contact makes him jumpy.”
“Why didn’t you throw your napkins in the trash can?” Viv asked.
Jonas said, “I… I brought them to wipe off the windshield. I got a big bug splatter on the glass.”
“Go ahead,” Viv said. “Wipe your windshield.”
“Later,” Jonas said. “I don’t wanna waste your time.”
“No problem,” Georgie said. “Wipe your windshield. You gotta have good visibility when you drive on these busy Hollywood streets.”
“Maybe I’ll wipe it later,” Jonas said. “It’s my windshield, ain’t it?”
Georgie looked at Viv and said, “More contempt of cop from the baseball-cap-turned-backward set.”
Jonas said, “All I meant is, what’s wrong with a couple dead bugs on the glass?”
Georgie said, “Don’t make me use my uppercase voice, dude. You’re wasting my minutes.”
Jonas reached into his pocket and both cops looked like they might shoot him if he moved too fast. In fact, he heard the male cop say, “Take your napkins out real slow. We’re the nervous type.”
Jonas removed the big wad of greasy paper napkins with the condom in the middle of it and started rubbing the crumpled napkins across his windshield.
“Wouldn’t it work better if you unfolded that wad?” Viv said.
Jonas turned to answer her and the greasy condom fell out of the wad of napkins and landed on the hood of the VW bug, then slid down onto the asphalt by the zip-up black boot of Georgie Adams, who said, “Uh-oh. What are they serving in their tacos these days?”
Viv said, “Turn around.” And when Jonas did, she handcuffed his hands behind his back.
“You searched me without my permission,” he said.
“We didn’t search you at all,” Viv said.
“This ain’t fair!” Jonas wailed.
Viv said, “Dude, your GPS is off. A fair is where you eat candy apples and get your pocket picked. This is a different place.”
“Can’t you just warn me again?” Jonas whined.
“Yeah,” Georgie said. “I’m warning you that those OCs will turn your brain to meat loaf. Now shut the fuck up while I read you your rights.”
After seeing Jonas Claymore being handcuffed, Megan Burke entered a 7-Eleven store and bought cat food and vegetable juice in order to break one of the hundred-dollar bills. The Pakistani proprietor asked if she had a smaller denomination and she apologized but said that she did not. Instead of using Jonas’s cell to call a taxi, she asked the Pakistani to do it and tipped him $5 for his trouble. It was the first time in months that she’d had enough money to tip anyone and it was a good feeling.