by Bill Bernico
When they called my number I held my placard up, stood and waited for the barrage of questions. Exactly three minutes later I was in my van and on my way back to the office. Gloria was on the phone when I came in, but concluded her conversation right away, promising to call back later. She hung up and looked at me.
“Well,” she said, somewhat anxious. “Did they select you?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Not this time,” I said. “Looks like we’re going to Big Bear Lake after all.”
“What happened?” Gloria said. “Which side rejected you?”
“The defense lawyer,” I told her. “When they asked what I did for a living, I told them I was a private detective who helped put crooks behind bars. There was no second question.”
“Brilliant,” Gloria said, clasping her hands together and shaking them over her head.
“And I wasn’t lying, either,” I said. “I, that is, we have both been responsible for putting quite a few felons in prison. I can’t help it if that’s my occupation, but the defense lawyer was a shifty little weasel by the name of Bart Conway and he wanted no part of me.”
“What about the prosecution? They must have wanted you.”
“They never got the chance to question me,” I explained. “I was juror number thirteen. Once Conway rejected me, I was excused and they moved on to juror number fourteen.” I loosened my tie, undid the knot and slid it off my neck. I bunched it up and stuffed it into my jacket pocket. Gloria immediately rose from her chair, came over to where I stood and fished the tie out of my pocket, straightening it out and hanging it on the coat rack.
“Well,” Gloria said, “looks like our deposit is safe.”
My phone rang at that moment and I held my index finger up to Gloria. “Hold that thought.” I turned and picked up my phone and heard a familiar voice. It was Lieutenant Anderson. “Eric, what’s up this fine morning?”
“What’s got you in such a good mood, Elliott?”
“Just the satisfaction of knowing I did my civic duty and reported for jury selection this morning. We all have to do our part, you know.”
“Let me guess,” Eric said. “They rejected you.”
“Darn, huh? I was willing, but I guess they just didn’t want me. Oh well. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”
“Just thought I check and see if you were available for a little work,” Eric explained.
“Depends,” I said. “If you want me to walk your dog or pick up your dry cleaning, then, no.”
“Nothing like that,” Eric said. “I need you to find a couple of guys for me, that’s all. You interested?”
“Hold on,” I said and turned to Gloria. “What’s our schedule look like? Am I free?”
Gloria opened her daily planner and found this week’s schedule. She looked at me and shook her head. “You’re going to be tied up most of the week with the Cummings case.”
I took my hand off the phone’s mouthpiece and said, “Sorry, Eric. My week’s full. Can this wait?”
“I’m afraid not, Elliott. We need to coordinate your efforts with a couple of my patrolmen and they’re already out there doing their parts. Looks like I’ll have to call someone else.”
“Wait a minute, Eric. Gloria’s waving a hand at me.” I turned to Gloria.
“What about me?” she said. “I’m available all week.”
“Gloria’s available all week,” I told Eric. “Would that work for what you need?”
“Come to think of it,” Eric said, “she might even work out better than you would have.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I said indignantly.
“Don’t get me wrong, Elliott. It’s just that now that you mentioned her, she might be able to get information that you might not have. You know, feminine persuasion and all that.”
I looked back at Gloria, who was nodding and smiling and pointing both her index fingers at her face. “She’s all yours, Eric,” I said. “When do you need her and who is it you need found?” I paused for a moment and then added, “Better yet, let me put her on the phone with you and you can cut out the middle man with your explanation.” I put Eric on hold and gestured to Gloria. “Line one.”
Gloria spent two minutes with Eric before she hung up and wrote something in her day planner. She turned back to me. “Looks like I’ll see you later,” she said, rising from her desk. “I’m meeting with Eric at the twelfth precinct.”
“Watch yourself,” I said. “Don’t take any unnecessary chances and...”
“Okay, Ma,” Gloria said. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She came over and gave me a quick kiss before leaving the office.
*****
The two cops took in the mural on the side of the building. “Ya gotta admit,” Brent said, “take away the fact that this is technically vandalism and you’re left with some pretty good artwork. Imagine what someone would have to pay to have something like this commissioned.”
“I know,” Nunley replied. “If those two had any brains, they’d approach the owners of their target buildings and work something out payment-wise. You know, even if we catch those two one of these days, the owners of the defaced buildings probably won’t press charges.”
“I think you’re onto something there, Brent,” Nunley said, pulling out a portable digital camera and snapping a few photos of the artwork. He already had several shots of other buildings that had been defaced by the less than professional gangs who thought gang signs constituted art. To Nunley, it just looked like garbage.
“Huh?”
“Think about it. What if we could get the property owners together in a meeting with the spray can artists? Maybe they’d come to some kind of mutual agreement regarding all this graffiti, er, I mean urban artwork. Think of how that would lighten our workload as well.”
“Yeah,” Brent agreed. “How about you and me take this idea to the captain and see what he thinks of it? All he can do is throw us out of his office.”
“Or he might agree,” Nunley said. “Come on, let’s give it a try.”
The two policemen walked back to the precinct, which was a mere four blocks from the alley where they had chased the two urban artists. Captain Turner was in his office and saw the two patrolmen as they walked past his window. He motioned them in with a wave of his arm.
“Captain,” Nunley said, “we’d like to run an idea past you and see what you think of it.” Nunley and Brent sat across from Captain Turner and laid out their plan for him, finishing with a timeline for when they thought they could implement their plan. Nunley pulled out his camera and turned the screen toward the captain. “You have to admit, they do good work.”
Turner listened intently, thought about it for a moment and said, “It’s worth a try. How would you two like to take charge of that assignment? I’ll leave it up to you to contact the business owners and run your idea past them. If they agree with it, we’ll present it to the artists and try to get them to come to an agreement.”
Nunley smiled and stood. Brent did the same. “We won’t let you down, Captain,” Brent said before the two cops left the office. They headed back outside, stopping in front of the police station. Brent turned to his partner. “Where do you want to start?”
Nunley looked both ways up and down the street and then pointed to his left. “This way,” he said. “Let’s talk to Old Man Withers at the grocery store. He’s got a big, clear wall on the south side of his building. It’s just a matter of time before someone comes along with a spray can and an idea. Better if that guy turns out to be an urban artist and not just some gang member marking his territory.”
The two cops walked up the street to the grocery store, stopping to give the blank wall another look before going inside to talk to the owner, an old man named Kowalski. The bell over the door tinkled as they entered and a rotund man in a white apron came out from a back room. He looked alarmed when he saw the two policemen. “What’s the trouble, officers?” Adolph Kowalski said.
&nbs
p; Nunley and Brent removed their visored caps. Nunley spoke up. “No trouble that we know of. We’re just out talking to businessmen in the neighborhood. Can you spare a few minutes for us, Mr. Kowalski?”
There were no customers in the store at this hour and Kowalski nodded. “How can I help you today?”
Nunley and Brent laid out their plan for the store owner, explaining that rather than risk having the side of his store defaced by some amateur graffiti gangs, that it might be wiser to agree to let the Marks Brothers have a free hand at it. He might even be able to have some input as to what kind of mural they painted. Kowalski was still not convinced until Nunley showed him the photos of the other businesses whose buildings had fallen prey to the gang sign graffiti. He looked up from the camera and agreed to let The Marks Brothers decorate his wall.
“When would they be doing this?” Kowalski said.
“We don’t know yet,” Brent said. “We’re not even sure who they are or where they live. We have to find them first. Could be a couple of weeks before we get things coordinated. We’ll be in touch once we do find them. Thank you, Mr. Kowalski.”
The policeman and his partner left the grocery store, put a check mark next to its entry in Brent’s notebook and moved on to the rest of the neighborhood businesses.
*****
“Thanks for coming in this morning, Gloria,” Lieutenant Anderson said, offering her a chair. “What we’re doing doesn’t exactly follow our regular logic in these cases. Usually we’d arrest guys like this and make them clean up their messes. But we thought we’d try something different this time since the old way doesn’t seem to work.”
“You say these guys are graffiti vandals?” Gloria said. “I don’t understand. If they’re breaking the law, why would you want to encourage them?”
“Maybe it would be clearer to you if I took you around the neighborhood to see for yourself what it is these guys do,” Eric said. “Come on, Gloria. Let’s take a ride.”
Eric and Gloria got into Eric’s cruiser and headed south, to the first building that came to Eric’s mind. He pulled up to the curb near the alley and the two of them got out to inspect the side of a shoe store. Spray painted in black were several gang symbols and signs, apparently put there to mark a particular gang’s territory. It looked like hell and probably kept several customers away from this area.
Gloria examined the graffiti and then turned to Eric. “And these are the guys you want to encourage to do more?”
“Not quite,” Eric explained. “I wanted to show you an example of the garbage first so you could have something to compare to. Come on, let’s take another ride.” Eric drove several blocks west until he saw the front of the hardware store. He led Gloria around to the side of the building and let her take in the panorama of the latest mural credited to The Marks Brothers.
Gloria looked puzzled. “What does this artwork have to do with that garbage I just saw?”
“They’re technically both considered graffiti,” Eric explained. “Only these two guys take a lot more pride in their creations. They even sign their work. Look. He pointed to the lower right corner.
“TMB?” Gloria said.
“The Marks Brothers,” Eric said. “It’s not a name they picked for themselves. The neighborhood merchants tagged them with that after they witnessed the two brothers marking up the side of a building with their spray cans. Word got back to the two brothers, whose names we still don’t know, and they liked it so much that now they sign their work with those three initials.”
“You think they get the joke?” Gloria said. “I mean they can’t possibly be old enough to remember The Marx Brothers, unless they stay awake for the Late Show on TV.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Eric said. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you. This won’t be an easy task finding them if they don’t want to be found.”
“If Harpo and Groucho are out there, I’ll find ‘em,” Gloria said confidently.
“Harpo and Groucho?”
“Thought I’d see if I could get those two nicknames to stick,” Gloria explained. “I don’t suppose you have any information I can use to find them. Any chance someone may have taken a picture of these guys?”
“I don’t think so,” Eric said.
“That description you gave me earlier could fit an hundred guys, and from what you tell me, it sounds like these two may be Mexicans. And they all have black hair and brown eyes, so narrowing it down could be a bit more difficult. Do you know if there’s anyone who might have more information for me to go on?”
“No one I know of,” Eric said. “I originally told Elliott that this job could last a week or so because it could involve staking out a clear wall somewhere in the neighborhood with the hopes that these two would show up. Chances are it won’t be in broad daylight but you play this any way you want. You want to ride back to the precinct with me and see if anything pops out at us through the records department?”
“You go on,” Gloria said. “I’m going to walk this neighborhood and scout out possible targets, maybe talk to some people on the street or maybe see if some of the store owners know anything. I can always walk back to the precinct. It’s just a few blocks from here. I’ll see you later, Eric.”
“Good luck,” Eric said, walking back to his cruiser and driving away.
*****
Jose Gomez dressed in his baggy shorts with the kangaroo pockets, that held four cans of spray paint in different colors. His brother, Jorge wore similar pants and between the two of them were able to carry every color of the rainbow as well as a can of black and a can of white spray paint. They also wore surgical gloves during their artistic escapades. Not only did it keep their fingertips from getting paint on them, they also prevented any fingerprints from being left on the cans, which wouldn’t be coming with them when they left. Besides, it was a bit more difficult to run with four empty cans in each of their pockets.
The two brothers had previously cased their neighborhood and knew exactly which building they were going to use for their next art project. It was the west wall of a privately owned garage on Fountain Avenue. This wall was perfect. It had no windows and had been painted a light gray, as was the rest of the building. It would make the ideal canvas for the brothers’ work.
The garage closed for the day at nine o’clock but Jose and Jorge waited another two hours before approaching it with their spray cans. The main entrance of the garage faced east so they’d be well out of sight of traffic and the occasional pedestrian who might happen to wander by. Shortly after eleven the two brothers took up their positions behind the garage, set their eight cans of spray paint down on the surface of the alley and stared at the wall, sizing it up and deciding where to start their project.
Each brother knew his part in this ritual, having etched it out on paper at home. They had both studied that paper until they knew from memory which color went where and who was doing what. They’d done this so many times in the past they the two artists moved almost as one once the project got under way. Jose began with the upper left corner while Jorge started in the upper right corner. They would pause occasionally to peek around the building and see if anyone was coming. They were alone. In less than an hour they had finished the entire mural and had dumped the empty spray cans and surgical gloves into a green garbage bag and stood back to take one more look at their latest creation.
Jose took his can of black, shook it up and then sprayed TMB in the lower right corner. Now they could leave, but not before Jorge withdrew a small digital camera and took several photos of their latest masterpiece. He stuffed the camera back into his pocket and walked away with his brother. Half a block down the alley they found an open dumpster and dropped the garbage bag of empty cans and gloves into it. They were back in their own neighborhood even before the paint on the garage had time to dry.
*****
Gloria flipped open her cell phone and called Elliott at home. “Just me,” she said when Elliott answered. “I’m going to
give it another hour or two before I call it a night. I just want to check a few locations I’d scouted out earlier.”
“You be careful out there,” I said. “Those neighborhoods aren’t the safest even during daylight hours. Don’t take any chances.”
“I won’t,” Gloria said.
“Are you carrying?”
“Yes. I have my .38 clipped to my belt under my jacket. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you around one or so. You want me to wake you up when I get home?”
“If you’re looking for a little action,” I said, chuckling.
“Bye, Elliott,” Gloria said, flipping her phone closed again.
She walked past the Fountain Avenue Garage and wondered what the other three walls looked like. She hadn’t noticed this place earlier when she went by here. She walked into the driveway area and looked into the windows of the overhead garage door. There was one lone light bulb burning on the far wall. Gloria walked around to the side of the building and saw two small windows next to two doors marked ‘Men’ and ‘Women.’ Those windows were dark so she continued around to the back of the building and was pleasantly surprised when she saw the back wall.
It was decorated with a cornflower blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The terrain looked like the old west with cactus and tumbleweeds. The main theme of this mural was an old west stagecoach being pulled by four brown horses. The stagecoach kicked up dust from its wheels and perched on the seat was a grisly-looking old man, his fingers intertwined in the reigns. His mouth was open and he appeared to be yelling at the horses. Another old man sat beside him, a shotgun draped across his lap. Behind the stagecoach were two dozen Indians in full war paint waving and whooping and shooting at the intruder to their territory.
