by David Putnam
Good started the patrol unit, stuck it in drive, and pulled out of the parking lot onto Bullis Road. “And in that uniform, you look like a sack of taters, not that you’d have a chance anyway. I’m guessin’ it’s gonna be an all-white team, ’cause of who they’ll be huntin’ the most. If you know what I mean.” He bumped his eyebrows up and down.
“You think I care about something like that right now? Well, I don’t. I have more important problems to deal with.”
“Yeah, I know. I’d say a little bit of that animal love is messin’ with your mind. What’s it like to bury that radiator hose of yours in—”
I shoved his face all the way over to the doorpost and kept pushing. He slammed on the brakes. We stopped right in the middle of the intersection of Bullis Road and Century. Horns honked.
“Take your hands off of me, nigger.” His words were muffled by my hand mashing his face.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “You don’t say another word about me and Sonja, and tonight I’ll do my best to make you look good in front of this lieutenant. But if you continue to screw with me, we are going to do battle. You understand?”
I eased off a little at first, then sat back in my seat. He came right back and shoved me. “Keep your dick beaters off me or I swear to God I’ll cap your black ass.”
“That right?”
“You bet your ass I will. I’ll do it. I swear to God I’ll do it.”
“That’s exactly what Lieutenant Rodriquez wants to happen. He’d like nothing better than to launch both of us back to the jail.”
He took a moment and calmed down a little. Took a couple of deep breaths. “Yeah, I know about Rodriquez gunnin’ for me. I’ve been tryin’ to stay off his radar, but the man’s some kinda asshole. He’s always watchin’, always tryin’ to rack me up for the least little thing.”
“Then let’s try and work together tonight, huh? Let’s just get through this. Then you can go your way and I’ll go mine.”
He didn’t answer, and instead, put his foot back on the accelerator. We drove west, headed through Lynwood to our patrol area in Willowbrook.
After several minutes Good asked, “Where you goin’?”
“What?”
“You said you’d go your own way. What’d you mean by that? Where you goin’?”
We drove on as I thought about what he said. I hadn’t meant anything by it, but maybe I had. “When we get back to the station tonight, I’m putting in for a transfer.”
“Hallelujah, finally. Please do, get the hell outta my station.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WE CLEANED UP the reports hanging over from day shift. I caught two residential burglaries: a door kick and a window smash. Then a missing person. I kept my head down in the car log and on the face pages of the first reports, only looking up to catch a landmark as the sun settled and cast a faded yellow that turned everything to a reddish-orange. I followed the calls Two-Fifty-Five, the unit with Sonja. They, too, had a slow night, taking a purse snatch, an attempted rape, and a strong-arm robbery that sounded more like a civil problem.
“What do you say we grease?” Good asked.
“I’m not gonna eat, but go ahead.”
“What, I’m not good enough to eat with you?”
“Stop it. I’ll have a little something, I’m just not hungry.”
“Where you wanna go? Stops, Lucy’s. What?”
I couldn’t believe he just didn’t go where he wanted and actually asked me. “Doesn’t matter.”
He headed north on Wilmington. Stops was up off Wilmington and Imperial Highway across from the Nickerson Gardens projects. He slowed in front of MLK—Martin Luther King hospital.
“Hey,” he said, “look at that.”
I looked up from the car log. “What?” I didn’t see any sort of violation.
“That, right there.” He pointed. “You’re actin’ like a boot with your head up your ass.”
“What?”
“That van’s parked in the red.”
“You got to be kidding me, a parker?”
“Yeah, a parker. Get your ass out there and cite it.”
Now he just wanted to wield his power as the driver over the bookman. I didn’t care. Whatever it took to get through the night with this guy.
He edged the patrol car up closer to the van, double parked, and turned on the amber overhead light so no one would hit us as dusk continued to descend. I got out and walked up to the van, which was painted a rust primer with a large spot of gray at the back. I peered in and was startled to find a driver, an old black man. “Roll down your window.” He complied. An old and pungent odor of marijuana wafted out.
He looked to be in his seventies, his brown eyes going a little milky with cataracts.
“License and registration please?”
“Oh sure, sure. What’d I do, Officer?”
“You’re parked in the red, sir.”
“Oh, my, I am sorry. Can’t you give me a break today? I’m waitin’ on my wife. She’s inside gettin’ some work done. She’s got the cancer.” He handed over his license and registration.
“It’s only a parking ticket. It doesn’t mean nothin’, so don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back.”
“Thank you, Officer.”
I moved back toward the patrol unit. Good stood outside his open door, ignoring the traffic that zipped by too close for safety’s sake. “You gonna cite him or not?”
I ignored him, stopped between the patrol unit and the van. I looked at the registration and then back at the plate. The plate numbers matched, but something niggled at the back of my brain. Something wasn’t right. Good had a chance to move up close and look at the registration in my hand and then at the plate. “What’s the matter with you? It matches, cite the motherfucker, and let’s get this show on the road. I’m hungry.”
I let my mind relax and tried to think about something else to let the problem in my subconscious bubble to the surface. And bingo. “Look at the taillight pattern.”
“What kinda shit you talkin’ now?”
I held the registration up for him to see. “The taillight pattern is two years older than the year listed on the reg.”
“You’ve gone off your nut. Cite the bastard and let’s get goin’.”
I went back up to the side of the van. “Mr. Freeman, please step back here and talk with me.”
He opened the van door and stepped out. “What’s the problem, Officer?”
“Just step back here, please.”
“Okay, Officer, take it easy. Take it easy, I’m doin’ it.”
When he got up to me, I put his hands on the van and patted him down. I escorted him around the back and set him down on the curb.
“This is bullshit, Johnson,” Good said. “I’m hungry. Quit your messin’ around and let’s go.”
“Watch him, this is a G-ride.”
“What? The hell you say?” He pulled his gun and stood behind the old man.
“You don’t need your gun.”
“You work your way, I’ll work mine. Just confirm it.”
I shook my head and hesitated. I didn’t want to leave the old man alone with Good, not when Good had his gun out. Nothing I could do about it. I went back up to the driver’s side of the car. A dash carpet covered the VIN, the vehicle identification number. I pulled it back and checked the number on the dash and compared it to the number on the reg. They didn’t match, not even close. The van had been cold-plated. I wrote the number down and walked back.
Good holstered his gun and pointed at the notebook in my hand. “That the VIN?”
“Yeah.”
“Here, give it to me.” He snatched my notebook from my hand before I could move away. I started after him but checked the move. I just needed to get through the shift and that was all.
Good took up the mic hanging off the outside spotlight and ran the VIN. When it came back Ten-Twenty-Nine-Victor, like I knew it would, he wanted his name associated with ta
king down a rolling stolen.
Big deal, let him have it.
Seconds later, the dispatcher said, “Two-Fifty-Three, Ten-Thirty-Five,” Ten-thirty-five being the code section for “stand by for confidential traffic.”
Good smiled that shit-eating grin. “Go ahead with the Ten-Thirty-Five.”
“That VIN is Ten-Twenty-Nine-Victor.”
“Ten-four,” Good said, “I’m Ten-Fifteen with one and start a tow to our location.” He pointed to Mr. Freeman. “Hook him up, he’s going to the can, and then get the One-Eighty started on the van.”
I didn’t care that he told me what to do. I’d have done it anyway. If it somehow made him feel better, more power to him. Regular partners didn’t work that way. One would fill out the tow sheet while the other started the booking form. We weren’t regular partners and never would be.
CHAPTER TWENTY
IN THE PATROL car on the way to Lynwood Station jail, I worked under the map light attached to the dash, filling out the booking application. “Sorry about your wife, Mr. Freeman,” I said.
He’d moved his face up to the black metal screen that separated the back from the front, the whites of his eyes stark against the dark background. “Dat’s okay, Deputy. I wasn’t waitin’ on my wife. I’m not married. I jus’ said that ta try and catch a little rhythm from ya all. I bought that van offn a dude two years back. I knowed it had somethin’ wrong wit it, especially at that price.”
“Mr. Freeman, do you have anything medically wrong with you?” I asked.
“I got the trumberkulosis.”
Good hit the steering wheel with his hand. “Aw, shit.”
Now we couldn’t book Freeman at Lynwood Station, not when he had tuberculosis. We had to divert and transport him all the way downtown to LCMC, the same place where Sonja and I had spent most of the entire last shift booking Doug Howard, the guy with the depressed skull fracture.
I picked up the mic and advised dispatch of our detour.
“Now I’m never gonna get ta eat,” Good said.
From the back, Mr. Freeman said, “I could eat.”
The signal changed, and Good stuck his foot on the accelerator. “Shut the fuck up.” To me he said, “I’m gonna stop at Taco Quicky on the way and I don’t wanna hear any shit outta ya.”
I said nothing and worked on the booking app. When transporting a prisoner, policy dictates that you don’t make any stops, no exceptions. We were responsible for the safety of the suspect in the back of the cop car.
Good turned left on Atlantic from Century and then immediately turned right into the parking lot of Taco Quicky, a place that popped full price for anyone in uniform. Good pulled around into the drive-thru and ordered three tacos and a cup of coffee. He didn’t ask if I wanted anything.
I turned in my seat to talk to Freeman. “What would you like?”
“We’re not gettin’ that asshole shit. He’s a felony suspect.”
“Mr. Freeman?”
“I doon usually eat the Mex, but I’ll have whatever you’re havin’, Deputy.”
“Fine.” I leaned over into Good’s personal space and yelled into the restaurant drive-thru mic, “Two bean-and-cheese burritos with extra cheese and two more coffees, please.”
“How’s he gonna eat?” Good asked. “The asshole’s handcuffed.”
I didn’t answer him and went back to my booking app.
Good pulled up in line. We had one car in front of us.
The other patrol cars started to get busy; the radio traffic increased. Those other units would now have to cover our area probably for the rest of the shift.
Mike Ciotti, a Lynwood city unit, came over the radio and asked for Two-Fifty-Three to go to Charlie, the secondary talk-around channel. I switched our radio to listen as Good pulled up to the window, accepted a cardboard box with his three tacos, and set them on the seat between us.
Ciotti asked, “Hey, what was the description of that two-eleven, two-oh-seven vehicle broadcast earlier?” He wanted the information on a kidnap and robbery suspect vehicle.
Two-Fifty-Three said, “It was a silver AMC Hornet four-door with four male blacks, all armed with sawed-off shotguns.”
Ciotti came back, his voice anxious. “Go back to primary, I have the vehicle.”
I switched our radio back to channel 22. Good muttered, “Son of a bitch. We got this dickhead and can’t jump into it. We’re gonna miss all the action.”
The woman at the drive-thru window handed Good a cardboard tray with three coffees.
Ciotti came up on channel 22. “Ten-thirty-three.”
Dispatch said, “Ten-thirty-three go.”
“Two-Fifty-One, I have a ten-twenty-nine Frank David, eastbound Century at Atlantic. A silver AMC Hornet wagon occupied four times.”
“What the fuck?” Good said. He leaned forward closer into the windshield to look around the corner of the drive-thru, to see the intersection at Century and Atlantic not more than two hundred feet from us.
The Hornet sat at the limit line waiting for the light to change with Two-Fifty-One right behind him in the black-and-white patrol unit. Good shoved the cardboard coffee tray out the window. The cups spilled out onto the ground. “Put it out, we’ll back him,” he said to me.
“No, we can’t, we’re ten-fifteen.” I hooked my thumb, indicating Freeman in our backseat.
He eased the car forward. The intersection now came into full view. He grabbed the mic. “Then I’ll do it.” He keyed the mic and said, “Two-Fifty-Three-Adam, at Atlantic and Century, we’ll take the back.”
I said, “This is not a good idea.”
Good ignored me.
Freeman, in the backseat, said, “I don’t want any parta this. Come on, leave me off right here. Right here’s good, Deputy Johnson. Let me out.” He’d grown up on the street and saw the disaster in the offing.
The signal changed, and the Hornet continued east with Ciotti right on his tail, riding him too close, a rookie move. Good pulled out, went onto Atlantic in opposing traffic lanes, and got behind Ciotti as he went by.
The crooks had been playing it cool with one cop car behind them, not knowing if the cop had tumbled to them, but now with two behind them they knew the jig was up. The driver made the first right, which was Platt Avenue. We followed along behind Ciotti.
Good said, “We’ll back him until the other units get here. We can’t leave Two-Fifty-One alone.”
His way of justifying his out-of-policy decision.
Sonja, in Two-Fifty-Five, came up on the radio. “Two-Five-Five is two minutes out.”
My heart gave a little skip with the sound of her voice.
Ciotti had just gotten off training, a brand-new rookie with six months total time. He really didn’t know what the streets were all about, not yet. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea backing him until the closest unit arrived on scene.
I said to Good, “Okay, we back him until he’s Code-Four and another unit shows up.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Good waved his hand. Then he said, “He’s made us. He’s gonna rabbit.”
“Good, we can not, repeat, can not get in a pursuit with this guy in our car.”
“Sit back and take a pill, bookman, cool your jets. I’m the driver.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE HORNET SPED up in the first two blocks, getting up to sixty-five in a residential twenty-five. The first stop sign came up fast. The driver in the Hornet braked hard and the front of the car surged down. Their speed bled off to about thirty. The right rear passenger took the slower speed as an opportunity and bailed out. He hit the asphalt hard and spun like a top. He got up and ran, looking over his shoulder, sure a bullet from a deputy’s gun would take him in the back. Los Angeles County Sheriffs didn’t work anything like LAPD. They still shot fleeing suspects who presented a danger and a threat to public safety.
Ciotti pulled his car to the right, his driver’s door held open with his foot as his car came to a stop. He intended to chase the guy.
I opened my door, held it with my foot, and drew my revolver, ready to jump as soon as Good stopped our car.
The Hornet let off the brake and hit the gas.
Good said, “Fuck that guy, we’re gonna take the car.” He hit the gas, too.
I let the sudden momentum close my door. “Hey, hey, we need to back Ciotti. He’s by himself with an armed suspect.”
He ignored me and spoke into the radio. “Two-Fifty-Three-Adam, we are now primary in the pursuit, still southbound on Platt Avenue. Two-Fifty-One is in foot pursuit.”
I’d not taken my eyes off the suspect or Ciotti, now out of his patrol car and running, trying to catch up. The suspect, still looking over his shoulder, couldn’t see what came in front of him. He ran head-on into a block wall and fell to the ground just as we drove on by.
We entered the Freeway Corridor off Fernwood. The State of California had bought or condemned all the houses for the new 105 Freeway, which when finished would run east and west and transect all the north–south freeways, connecting them all to the Los Angeles Airport. The project had been in the works for the last twenty years. All the houses had been razed. The area now looked like one long, giant park with trees and shrubs, concrete foundations and curbs and gutters.
The area turned darker, more ominous without houses. If the suspects bailed out here, they could melt into the background and we’d never find them. Maybe these guys knew the area and that’s what they intended.
The Hornet turned east from Platt onto Fernwood, went two quick blocks, and turned north again right into the heart of the Freeway Corridor.
One block north, the driver braked hard. This time the driver bailed out of the Hornet, which was still moving at thirty miles an hour. Driverless, the car now contained two suspects, one in the right front and one in the back left, two crooks now just along for the ride in a ghost car.
