“And how about this latest case?” Hollywood Nate said. “Two cops again. We’re a police department of ninety-three hundred, for chrissake! A total of four thieving cops in ten years, and the judge thinks LAPD corruption is pervasive? I wonder how many corrupt lawyers are out there in our fair city?”
Jetsam said, “And who caught the bad Rampart cops? It was us. LAPD caught them!”
“It’s a catch-twenty-two,” Dana Vaughn said. “There’s no financial incentive for the auditing firm to ever say that LAPD’s taken all the steps required under the consent decree. We might be still using hundreds of coppers doing useless and redundant paperwork for another ten years. No wonder the midwatch can only field six cars on a weekend night!”
Sheila Montez said, “When LAPD was forced to break up the Rampart Crash unit, Mara Salvatrucha gangsters from L.A. to El Salvador were dancing in the streets.”
Hollywood Nate said, “Why can’t all those cop haters be satisfied? They broke our sword, why do they have to bury it up our ass?”
The acting watch commander was Sergeant Lee Murillo, a wiry, sharp-eyed, third-generation Mexican-American with prematurely gray wavy hair who had almost made an L.A. Dodgers farm team fifteen years prior, before his arm lost its elasticity and his fastball went from ninety-plus to a hanging balloon that his grandmother could’ve hit.
He’d been a cop for thirteen years and a sergeant for three, all of his supervisory years having been spent at Hollywood Division, now officially called Hollywood Area to sound less military. Of course, the troops said that anyone, including the brass, who would replace division with area was a pussy, and Sergeant Murillo always referred to their piece of Los Angeles geography as Hollywood Division.
The fact was, he agreed with everything they said, but being a supervisor, he wasn’t supposed to validate the bitching. He just sat in front of the room and gazed over the heads of the dozen seated troops at the one-sheet movie posters decorating the walls, posters that could be found in other parts of the building as well in case anyone didn’t know that this police station was in Hollywood, USA. In the roll call room were the posters for L.A. Confidential and Sunset Boulevard. Downstairs there was Hollywood Homicide.
Lee Murillo wondered when they’d start in on their latest complaint. That would be the brouhaha over the judge’s wanting “confidential financial disclosure” by all LAPD officers who worked gang enforcement details and narcotics field enforcement. The rant came from Johnny Lanier, the only black cop on Watch 5. Johnny was a compact, outspoken P3 with fourteen years on the Job. He was a veteran of the first Gulf War who liked to say, “This job has all the good things about the Army: a uniform, weapons, camaraderie, ball-busting fun, and I don’t have to go back to Iraq.” He was next up to work the Gang Impact Team, but he didn’t know if he wanted to work GIT now that there was the financial disclosure issue.
“Who’s the problem out there, gangbangers or us?” he said. “You think I want some gangster or his lawyer getting his hands on my bank account number? How does that keep me honest in the first place?”
“No other law enforcement agency has to reveal their assets or bank accounts,” Hollywood Nate said. “Do you think those few crooked LAPD cops put their loot in their bank accounts? The only ones that get their privacy violated here are the honest cops!”
Sergeant Lee Murillo looked at his watch then, and they took it as a cue. They ceased grumbling and settled down so he could call roll and read the crimes. But before he started, Sergeant Murillo earned a bit of applause when he said quietly, “I’d like to tell the federal judge that if I was a crooked cop, I would certainly never put the hot money in my bank account. I’d stuff it in my freezer, just like your average US congressman.”
Six-X-Seventy-six decided to write their first ticket of the watch at 6:30 P.M., shortly after clearing from roll call, when they saw a ten-year-old GMC pickup blow a stoplight on Melrose Avenue near Paramount Studios. There was still plenty of daylight on this hot summer evening, and the setting sun was certainly not in the eyes of the driver who was heading east.
Hollywood Nate was driving and said to Dana Vaughn, “You’re up.”
Dana grabbed her citation book, and after Nate tooted at the guy to pull over, he parked behind the pickup. She got out and approached the car while Nate crossed behind her and stepped up on the sidewalk to look in through the passenger window.
The driver was a wide-bodied working stiff in his late twenties dressed in a gray work uniform. His fingernails were grease-caked, and smudges showed on his ruddy cheeks, as though he’d been crawling under a car.
“Your license and registration, please,” Dana Vaughn said, and the guy fumbled with his wallet.
The smell of stale beer hit her, and when he handed over his driver’s license, she said, “How much have you had to drink today?”
The guy looked up with bloodshot, unfocused eyes, brushed his light brown hair off his forehead, and said, “The boss let me off early because my wife had twins yesterday. A boy and a girl. Two of the mechanics I work with bought me some beers to celebrate.”
“How many beers did you drink?”
“Seven,” he said. “Or eight. I’m not used to drinking.”
Dana looked over the bed of the truck at Hollywood Nate and said, “Whadda you know? A forthright man.” Then she opened the door of the pickup and said, “Step out, sir. Up onto the sidewalk.”
When the new father stepped onto the sidewalk, he stumbled, and Nate reached out, grabbing his elbow. “Whoa, cowboy,” Nate said.
“What’ve you been arrested for?” Dana asked.
“Nothing,” the young man said. “Never. You can check. And I only had one ticket for speeding in my whole life.”
“Your whole life is gonna be cut short if you keep drinking seven or eight beers and driving,” Dana said.
She looked at Nate, knowing that he hated booking drunk drivers, believing it was too much paperwork for a misdemeanor and that it probably meant court time. He was always looking for something that could get his name in the news. Something that could make a casting agent see it and remember him.
The mechanic stood on the sidewalk, facing the two cops and reeling slightly, taking out his cell phone. “I can call and have my brother come get me,” he said boozily. “I’m a father now. I can’t afford to go to jail. Besides, Officer, I’m not really drunk.”
“You’re not, huh,” Dana said. “Let’s see you count backward from seventy-five to fifty-five. If you can do it, we’ll let you lock up your truck and call your brother.”
The mechanic said, “Yes, Officer.” And turning around unsteadily until his back was to the astonished cops, he said slowly over his shoulder, “Can you please tell me again what number I should start with?”
Hollywood Nate stared dumbfounded, and when he’d recovered, he said to Dana, “Partner, there’s no way we can book this guy. I can dine out on this story.”
Dana Vaughn said to the new father, “Okay, honey, turn back around and call your brother to come get you.”
The trio standing on the sidewalk never noticed the nondescript gray Honda Civic motoring slowly past them on Melrose, where the mechanic had earned his freedom by unintentionally providing the officers of 6-X-76 with a locker-room tale. The man that Tristan and Jerzy knew as Jakob Kessler glanced their way but was not curious, checking his watch because he had to be at the restaurant before Suzie got off shift.
Suzie was waiting for Kessler when he got there. She was a recent college graduate who’d majored in art history and, like thousands before her, had gotten employment where she could, usually in Hollywood eateries. The young woman looked nervous and was fiddling with her auburn ponytail when Kessler walked into the chain eatery on Sunset Boulevard. The stools were all taken, as were most of the tables, and Jakob Kessler, wearing his usual dark suit and plain necktie, waited until a customer vacated one of the stools.