But of immediate concern to him was Farley Ramsdale and Olive. And Cosmo was very worried about Ilya as a partner in homicide. Could she do what it took, he wondered. He hadn’t spoken with her about the two addicts, not since they had come to the apartment with their blackmail threat. Cosmo sensed that Ilya knew what had to be done but wanted him to deal with it alone. Well, it was not going to work that way. He couldn’t do it alone. They wouldn’t trust him. Ilya was a very smart Russian, and he needed a plan with her involved.
Hollywood Nate Weiss and Wesley Drubb were having another one of those Hollywood nights, that is, a night of very strange calls. It always happened when there was a full moon over the boulevard and environs.
Actually, the Oracle, who’d read a book or two in his long life, forewarned them all at roll call, saying, “Full moon. A Hollywood moon. This is a night when our citizens act out their lives of quiet desperation. Share your stories tomorrow night at roll call and we’ll give the Quiet Desperation Award to the team with the most memorable story.” Then he added, “Beware, beware! Their flashing eyes, their floating hair!”
Nate’s facial bruises from the fight with the veteran who wanted a ride were healing up well, and though he would never admit it to anyone, he was secretly wishing they’d given the psycho the goddamn ride he’d wanted. His black eye had actually cost him a job as an extra on a low-budget movie being shot in Westwood.
Wesley was driving again, and with the Oracle going to bat for him, he hoped that there wouldn’t be disciplinary action for letting their shop get stolen and trashed by the little homie who hadn’t been arrested yet but whom detectives had identified. The Oracle had written in his report that Wesley’s failure to shut off the engine and take the keys when he’d jumped out of the car was understandable given the extreme urgency of helping his partner subdue the very violent suspect.
Hollywood Nate said that since Wesley had just finished his probation it wouldn’t cost him his job, but Nate figured he’d be getting a few unpaid days off. “Forgiveness is given in church, in temple, and by the Oracle, but it ain’t written into the federal consent decree or the philosophy of Internal Affairs,” Nate warned young Wesley Drubb.
Their first very strange call occurred early in the evening on Sycamore several blocks from the traffic on Melrose. It came from a ninety-five-year-old woman in a faded cotton dress, sitting in a rocker on her front porch, stroking a calico cat. She pointed out that the man who lived across the street in a white stucco cottage “hadn’t been around for a few weeks.”
She was so old and shriveled that her parchment skin was nearly transparent and her colorless hair was thinned to wisps. Her frail legs were wrapped in elastic bandages, and though she was obviously a bit addled she could still stand erect, and she walked out onto the sidewalk unaided.
She said, “He used to have a cup of tea and cookies with me. And now he doesn’t come, but his cat does and I feed her every day.”
Hollywood Nate winked at Wesley and patted the old woman on the shoulder and said, “Well, don’t you worry. We’ll check it out and make sure he’s okay and tell him to drop by and have some tea with you and give you his thanks for feeding his cat the past few weeks.”
“Thank you, Officer,” she said and returned to her rocker.
Hollywood Nate and Wesley strolled across the street and up onto the porch. The few feet of dirt between the house and sidewalk hadn’t been tended in a long time but was too patchy and water-starved to have done more than spread a web of crabgrass across its length. There seemed to be several seedy and untended small houses along this block, so there was nothing unusual about this one.
Hollywood Nate tapped on the door and when they received no answer said, “The guy might have gone out of town for the weekend. The old lady doesn’t know a few weeks from a few days.”
Or a few years, as it turned out.
When Wesley Drubb opened the letter slot to take a look, he said, “Better have a look at this, partner.”
Nate looked inside and saw mail piled up nearly to the mail slot itself. It looked to be mostly junk mail, and it completely covered the small hallway inside.
“Let’s try the back door,” Nate said.
It was unlocked. Nate figured to find the guy dead, but there was no telltale stench, none at all. They walked through a tiny kitchen and into the living room, and there he was, sitting in his recliner in an Aloha shirt and khaki pants.
He was twice as shriveled as his former friend across the street. His eyes, or what was left of them, were open. He’d obviously been a bearded man, but the beard had fallen out onto his chest along with most of the hair on his head, and the rest clung in dried patches. Beside his chair was a folding TV tray, and on it was his remote control, a TV Guide, and two vials of heart medication.
Wesley checked the jets on the kitchen range and tried light switches and the kitchen faucet, but all utilities had been turned off. On the kitchen table was an unused ticket to Hawaii, explaining the Aloha shirt. He’d been practicing.
Nate bent over the TV Guide and checked the date. It was two years and three months old.
Wesley asked Hollywood Nate if this could possibly be a crime scene because the dead man’s left leg wasn’t there.
Nate looked in the corner behind the small sofa and there it was, lying right near the pet door where his cat could come and go at will. There was almost no dried flesh left on the foot, just tatters from his red sock hanging on bone. The leg had apparently fallen off.
“Good thing he didn’t have a dog,” Nate said. “If grandma across the street had found this on her front porch, she might’ve had a heart attack of her own.”
“Should we call paramedics?” Wesley said.
“No, just the coroner’s crew. I’m pretty sure this man’s dead,” said Hollywood Nate.
When they got back to the station at end-of-watch and everyone was comparing full-moon stories, they had to agree that the Quiet Desperation Award went to Mag Takara and Benny Brewster, hands down.
It began when a homeowner living just west of Los Feliz Boulevard picked up the phone, dialed 911, gave her address, and said, “The woman next door is yelling for help! Her door is locked! Hurry!”
Mag and Benny acknowledged the code 3 call, turned on the light bar and siren, and were on their way. When they got to the spooky old two-story house, they could hear her from the street yelling, “Help me! Help me! Please help me!”
They ran to the front door and found it locked. Mag stepped out of the way and Benny Brewster kicked the door in, splintering the frame and sending the door crashing against the wall.
Once inside the house they heard the cries for help increase in intensity: “For god’s sake, help me! Help me! Help me!”
Mag and Benny ascended the stairs quickly, hearing car doors slam outside as Fausto and Budgie and two other teams arrived. The bedroom door was slightly ajar and Mag stood on one side of it, Benny on the other, and being cops, they instinctively put their hands on their pistol grips.
Mag nudged the door open with her toe. There was silence for a long moment and they could hear the loud tick of a grandfather clock as the pendulum swept back and forth, back and forth.
Then, in the far corner of the large bedroom suite, the voice: “Help me! Help me! Help me!”
Mag and Benny automatically entered in a combat crouch and found her. She was a fifty-five-year-old invalid, terribly crippled by arthritis, left alone that night by her bachelor son. She was sitting in a wheelchair by a small round table near the window, where she no doubt spent long hours gazing at the street below.
She was holding a.32 semiautomatic in one twisted claw and an empty magazine in the other. The.32 caliber rounds were scattered on the floor where she’d dropped them.