“All right, whatever, let’s do it.”
Ballard walked over to the group first to ask Moore for the car keys. Moore said they were in the car. She then led Gabriel out to the ambulance bays. Here she pulled a notebook out of her back pocket. After writing down the cell number for Gabriel’s girl, she jotted down his description of the man in the hoodie. She then opened her car’s trunk. She took out a packet of wipe pads for gunshot-residue testing, used separate pads to wipe both Gabriel’s hands, then sealed them in plastic bags to be submitted to the lab.
“See, no gunpowder, right?” Gabriel said.
“The lab will confirm that,” Ballard said. “But I already believe you, Gabriel.”
“So, what do I do now?”
“You go in and be with your mother and your sisters. They’re going to need you to be strong for them.”
Gabriel nodded and his face contorted. It was as though telling him to be strong had kicked his strength out from beneath him.
“You okay?” Ballard asked.
She touched his shoulder.
“You’re going to catch this guy, right?” he said.
“Yeah,” Ballard said. “We’re going to catch him.”
6
Ballard didn’t get back to the station until almost 3 a.m. She went up the stairs off the back hallway and into the room shared by the Gang and Vice units. It was long and rectangular and usually empty because both units worked the streets. But now the room was crowded. Officers from both squads, in uniform like Ballard, sat behind desks and at worktables going down the length of the room. Most of them were not wearing masks. The large crowd could be explained in a number of ways. First, it was difficult to work vice and gangs in full uniform, as dictated by the department’s tactical alert. This meant the alert, which was supposed to put as many officers on the street as possible during the New Year’s celebration, was having the opposite effect. It could also mean that, because it was beyond the witching hours of midnight to 2 a.m., everyone had returned to the house on break. But Ballard knew that it could also be that this was the new LAPD — officers stripped of the mandate of proactive enforcement and waiting to be reactive, to hit the streets only when it was requested and required, and only then doing the minimum so as not to engender a complaint or controversy.
To Ballard, much of the department had fallen into the pose of a citizen caught in the middle of a bank robbery. Head down, eyes averted, adhering to the warning: nobody move, and nobody gets hurt.
She spotted Sergeant Rick Davenport at the end of one of the worktables and headed toward him. He looked up from a cell phone to see her coming, and a maskless smile of recognition creased his face. He was mid-forties and had been working gangs in the division for over a decade.
“Ballard,” he said. “I hear El Chopo got it tonight.”
Ballard stopped at the table.
“El Chopo?” she asked.
“That’s what we called Javier back in the day,” Davenport said. “When he was a gangster and using his padre’s place as a chop shop.”
“But not anymore?”
“He supposedly went straight after his wife started dropping kids.”
“I was surprised I didn’t see you out at the scene tonight. That why?”
“That and other things. Just doin’ what the people want.”
“Which is staying off the street?”
“It’s pretty clear if they can’t defund us, they want to de-see us, right, Cordo?”
Davenport looked for affirmation to a gang cop named Cordero.
“Right, Sergeant,” Cordero said.
Ballard pulled out the empty chair on Davenport’s right side and sat down. She decided to get to the point.
“So, what can you tell me about Javier?” she asked. “Do you believe he went straight? Would Las Palmas even allow that?”
“The word is that twelve or fifteen years ago, he bought his way out,” Davenport said. “And as far as we know, he’s been clean and legit ever since.”
“Or too smart for you?”
Davenport laughed.
“There’s always that possibility.”
“Well, do you still have a file on the guy? Shake cards, anything?”
“Oh, we’ve got a file. It’s probably a little dusty. Cordo, pull the file on Javier Raffa and bring it to Detective Ballard.”
Cordero got up and walked to the line of four-drawer file cabinets that ran the length of one side of the room.
“That’s how far this guy goes back,” Davenport said. “He’s in the paper files.”
“So definitely not active?” Ballard pressed.
“Nope. And we would have known if he was. We follow some of the OGs. If they were meeting, we would have seen it.”
“How far up was Raffa before he dropped out?”
“Not far. He was a soldier. We never made a case on the guy but we knew he was chopping stolen cars for the team.”
“How did you hear he bought his way out?”
Davenport shook his head like he couldn’t remember.
“Just the grapevine,” he said. “I can’t name you the snitch offhand — it was a long time ago. But that was what was said, and as far as we could tell, it was accurate.”
“How much does something like that cost?” Ballard asked.
“Can’t remember. It might be in the file.”
Cordero returned from the cabinets and handed a file to Davenport instead of Ballard. He in turned handed it to Ballard.
“Knock yourself out,” he said.
“Can I take this?” Ballard asked.
“As long as you bring it back.”
“Roger that.”
Ballard took the file, got up, and walked out. She had the feeling that several of the men were watching as she left the room. She was not popular in the office after a year of cajoling and then demanding intel and help in her investigations from people bent on doing as little as possible.
She went down the stairs and into the detective bureau, where she saw Lisa Moore at her desk. She was typing on her computer.
“You’re back,” Ballard said.
“No thanks to you,” Moore said. “You left me with those people and that kid cop.”
“Rodriguez? He probably has five years on the job. He worked Rampart before coming here.”
“Doesn’t matter. He looks like a kid.”
“Did you get anything good from the wife and daughters?”
“No, but I’m writing it up. Where is this going anyway?”
“I’m going to keep it for a bit. Send whatever you’ve got to me.”
“Not to West Bureau?”
“They’re running all teams on a double murder. So I’ll work this until they’re ready to take it.”
“And Dash is okay with that?”
“I talked to him. It’s not a problem.”
“What do you have there?”
She pointed to the file Ballard was carrying.
“And old Gang file on Raffa,” Ballard said. “Davenport said he hasn’t been active in years, that he bought his way out when he started a family.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” Moore said.
The sarcasm was clear in her voice. Ballard had long realized that Moore had lost her empathy. Working sex cases full-time probably did that. Losing empathy for victims was a self-protective measure, but Ballard hoped it never happened to her. Police work could easily hollow you out. But she believed that losing one’s empathy was losing one’s soul.
“Send me your reports when you’re ready to file,” Ballard said.
“Will do,” Moore said.
“And nothing on the Midnight Men, right?”
“Not yet. Maybe they’re lying low tonight.”
“It’s still early. On Thanksgiving we didn’t get the callout till dawn.”