The Tin Collectors

by Stephen J. Cannell

  “I must be getting really old,” Shane said. “That shit pisses me off.”

  “I like having the kids around. So what’re you gonna do?” He smiled, then reached into his ears and pulled out some cotton balls.

  Shane couldn’t help himself, he started laughing. “You’re tuning your speakers with cotton in your ears. No wonder your low end is vibrating.”

  Shane and DeMarco sat in the warm sand and ripped the tabs off. The beer cans chirped and hissed foam. They clinked aluminum, and both took long swallows.

  “I need help,” Shane said.

  “I know. Captain Halley already filled me in. He thinks you’re being schmucked.”

  Shane looked at DeMarco. Sixteen years ago, a much younger DeMarco had saved him at a BOR. He was praying the newly ponytailed defense rep could do it again.

  “Alexa Hamilton is back down there,” DeMarco continued. “I figured she’d’ve transferred to some cushy job in administration by now.”

  “She’s still there after sixteen years? I thought an average tour at Internal Affairs was only five years.”

  “She used to be their number one tin collector,” DeMarco said. “They brought her back just to get you.” A tin collector was an advocate who got convictions that resulted in an officer losing his badge. Sergeant Alexa Hamilton was the department prosecutor who tried him all those years ago, only she had failed to get his tin.

  “They’re all a bunch a’ ladder-climbing suck-ups,” DeMarco said, his hatred for the Dark Side spewing out of him unchecked. “Everybody in the fucking division is looking to get to the top floor of the Glass House. It sucks, the way it’s set up.”

  Shane had heard DeMarco’s complaints before and knew the old defense rep was talking about the fact that most of the captains and deputy chiefs on the ninth floor at Parker Center had also spent time as tin collectors in Internal Affairs. That made assignment as an IAD advocate a coveted post. It was a club. Lieutenants and below were selected by virtue of their test scores and oral boards, but to make captain, you had to be picked by the chief of police. The fact was, it was hard to be picked if you hadn’t spent some time on the Dark Side. This phenomenon had the effect of making Internal Affairs a catcher’s mitt for every hot dog and ladder-climbing politician in the department.

  “Why did you mention Alexa Hamilton? What’s she got to do with this?” Shane asked, thinking of the attractive but overly severe woman who sixteen years back had prosecuted him with such fanatical enthusiasm. She had quite a reputation, both personally and professionally, leaving a long trail of busted careers and broken hearts. More than one Parker Center Romeo had moved in with her, only to discover that her personal demands matched her professional compulsions. Shane wondered if her apartment was furnished in relationship failures as his was.

  He had grown to despise her in the few months that his case was going through the division. One of his best moments on the job was seconds after his not-guilty verdict had come in. He looked over and saw such distress on Alexa’s face that it gave him a moment of pure, soul-cleansing vengeance. When she caught him looking, he smiled and surreptitiously flipped her the bird.

  “I thought you knew,” DeMarco said, interrupting his thoughts. “She’s got your case. She put in for it.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Shane groaned.

  “Yeah. If at first you don’t succeed, and all that good shit.” DeMarco took another long pull on his beer and let out a deep belch. “Maybe you shouldn’t’ve flipped her off.”

  “Wouldn’t matter, she hates me anyway.”

  DeMarco went on. “It’s not good that they hopped over your Shooting Review Board and went straight to a BOR. It shows the department is going to war.”

  “Why? Barbara Molar is my witness. She’ll say what happened.”

  “I made a few calls down to my old crew at the Representation Section in Parker Center. The rumor down there is, this whole railroad train is coming right out of Mayor Crispin’s office. He wants your balls in his trophy case.”

  “Why?”

  “Lemme take a wild guess….” He drained his beer. “How ’bout ’cause you lit up his bodyguard. Blew his arithmetic all over that bedroom wall.”

  “You gotta help me, Dee. You gotta get me off.”

  “I’d like to, Shane. I really would. But frankly, I can’t get into that rat race again. Alexa Hamilton is one tough, nail-chewing piece of business. I faced her fifteen or twenty times. Lost more than I won. I don’t like it one bit that she’s volunteering for this case. That tells me there’s a big political payoff somewhere. Maybe lieutenant’s bars and a transfer to something sexy like Organized Crime or Special Investigations. Mayweather could set that up for her, no sweat.”

  “You’re telling me I’m cooked before we even get a hearing?”

  “Tell you what…you know Rags Whitman? He’s a good defense rep, smarter than me. I used to ram my dick up their asses and piss on their hearts. Ragland, he’s mellow, he plays the game—Mr. Wheel of Fortune. They like him at Parker Center. I was you, I’d get him to take your case. Ask him to plead you out, see what kinda deal he can get. My bet: maybe he gets you a six-month suspension without pay and no termination.”

  “For defending myself from that crazy bastard? What kinda deal is that?”

  “You shot Ray Molar. Not a good move, but you got an eyewitness who, we hope, backs you up. You got Ray’s bullet in the wall, proving he fired before you got him. You also got Molar’s record of spousal abuse. All this is good. On the bad side, you got the fuckin’ mayor of L.A. tail-gunning you. You got Chief Brewer with his ears back, and you got some tricky ‘undue use of force’ statutes that could go against you. Your best bet is to see if Rags can spin the big wheel and plead it down.”

  “You won’t help me? Come on, Dee, you’re off the department. They can’t threaten you; they can’t get to your pension. What’s the problem?”

  “I’d do it if I could, man. I just can’t. I’ve got no stomach for it anymore. I go down there, and my guts start churning. I’d choke. I hate those pricks worse than the National Anthem. You wanna know why I pulled the pin? It wasn’t ’cause I had my thirty in. It was ulcers. My stomach lining looks like a Mexican highway. I can’t put myself back in that mess. Go talk to Rags. Get him to negotiate a kick-down.”

  Shane stood up and handed DeMarco his half-empty beer. “Okay,” he finally said. “Sorry to take up your morning.” Then he turned and walked away, his shoes filling with warm sand as he went.

  “Hey, Scully,” DeMarco called, and Shane turned around. “Whatever you do, don’t volunteer to take a polygraph. I think the IA poly is rigged. They use it to get confessions. I’ve had more than one case where I think I got a bum test.”

  “Okay,” Shane answered. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Shane pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the Coast Highway. As he started toward the Santa Monica Freeway, his stomach was churning and he could taste bile in his throat. Then he heard a siren growl and saw a black-and-white behind him with its red lights on. Since he was in a black-and-white slickback, it surprised him that he was being flashed to the curb like a civilian. He pulled over and got out.

  A young uniformed cop with two stripes on his sleeve moved up to him.

  “What’s up, Officer?” Shane asked.

  “You Sergeant Scully?” the man asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Joe Church. I was ordered to accompany you to Parker Center forthwith. Apparently your mobile data terminal is turned off.”

  “They get the gallows up already?” Shane quipped.

  “I’m sorry, what, sir?” Officer Church said, deadpan, maybe with a tinge of cold anger.

  “Why?” Shane asked. “What do they want?”

  “Chief Brewer wants to see you immediately.” He sort of barked it at Shane.

  “Did I do something to piss you off?” Shane asked.

  “You wanna follow me?”

  “I can m
ake it. You afraid I’ll get lost?”

  “Why don’t you wait till I pull around. Since you haven’t got a bar light, I’ll put on the flashers and siren. It gets us there faster.”

  “You got a siren, how cool. I can hardly wait.”

  Shane got back into his unit and waited until the squad car pulled around in front of him. Joe Church growled his siren once, then raced out into the fast lane with Shane behind him.

  The two police cars shot up onto the Santa Monica Freeway, heading back to downtown L.A. and Parker Center, Code Three.

  7

  Super Chief

  Traffic was jammed up because some jackass had issued a motion-picture permit to an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that was now shooting on Wilshire at Spring Street. The film crew had moved in downtown, parking their honey wagons, dressing rooms, and sixteen-wheelers up and down the curb on Third, laying out barricades and blocking traffic for ten city blocks. Shane couldn’t believe that some dummy in city government had signed a film-location permit that would tie up all of downtown L.A. Twice, Patrolman Church had to get out of his car and talk to an off-duty policeman working for the movie company so they could get through.

  After struggling for over forty minutes, they finally drove into the parking structure next to Parker Center. They both found a spot on the top level. Shane got out of his car, and Joe Church immediately joined him.

  “Damn movie has this town tied up worse than my colon,” Church growled as they looked at a low-flying helicopter that was hovering half a block away. There was a cameraman hanging out of the side door in a harness. Suddenly the rotors changed pitch, and the silver-and-red Bell Jet Ranger took off after a car that was speeding down barricaded Main Street after a motorcycle, Arnold Schwarzenegger kicking ass on celluloid.

  “Let’s go,” Church said, getting back to business, taking Shane by the arm.

  “I can make it. Even go to the bathroom now without Mommy’s help.”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Scully. I’ve got orders.”

  Shane decided not to push it, but he pulled his arm free and followed Church into the building.

  For the second time in four hours, he found himself back on the ninth floor. They moved off the elevator, onto the thick, sea-foam green carpet, past the blond paneling and executive furniture, until he was finally standing in front of a massive woman who sat behind an oak desk the approximate size and shape of a Nimitz class carrier. She was parked directly outside Chief Burleigh Brewer’s office.

  Joe Church had shifted gears. No longer the stern centurion, he was now wearing an ingratiating, apple-polisher’s smile. “Patrolman Church,” he effused. “I was called specifically by Chief Brewer for this assignment. I’ve brought Sergeant Scully in. It was a ‘forthwith.’ ”

  “Thank you, Officer,” the linebacker-sized woman said. Her heavy body wasn’t helped by the shoulder pads in her tan suit coat. The name on her desk plate read CARLA MILLER. “You can sit down over there, Sergeant,” she said to Shane, pointing to a chair. Joe Church took a position of advantage, guarding the exit.

  “Jeez, Church,” Shane growled, “I’m not Clyde Barrow. I’m not gonna shoot my way outta here. Try giving it a rest.”

  Carla Miller nodded to Church. “We’ll be okay.”

  Church shuffled his feet, flashed a gee-whiz smile, and a few seconds later backed out of the office and was gone.

  Carla buzzed Chief Brewer and talked to him softly for a second, then hung up the phone.

  Shane waited in the chair for almost thirty minutes, watching the efficiency with which Carla Miller fended off appointments and people. She was a tough, competent goalie, crouching in the net, deflecting problems. She never looked at him once. Outside, he could hear the distant drone of the movie helicopter as it whirled and turned, its rotors whining above the streets of L.A.

  Suddenly the intercom buzzed. Carla picked up the phone, listened, then looked at Shane. “You can go in now.”

  He got up and moved into Chief Brewer’s office. The first thing that struck him was that the movie helicopter seemed to be almost inside the office. The chief had a huge expanse of glass. You could see all the way down Main Street to the Financial Center. The Bell Jet Ranger was hovering loudly only fifty feet from the chief’s plate-glass window. It was a startlingly eerie effect.

  Chief Brewer’s back was to him. He was looking out the window at the chopper and the movie company in the street below. The camera ship hovered, stirring air gusts against the window. The rotor sound inside the office was almost deafening. Shane could see the pilot’s features clearly. The cameraman hanging from straps inside the open side door was still hunched over the eyepiece. It occurred to Shane that while he had been outside, waiting with his heart in his throat, his police commander had been watching them shoot this fucking movie.

  Then Chief Brewer turned. Making it worse, he was holding a pair of field glasses. He set them down on his desk and motioned to Shane to come forward.

  “You wanted to see me, sir.” Shane’s voice was lost in the noise from the helicopter. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach he knew that what he was about to be told was not going to be good. Sergeants get summoned to the COP’s office for only two reasons, and Shane was pretty sure he wasn’t about to get another Meritorious Service commendation.

  Then the chopper turned and flew away abruptly, photographing some part of the movie in the street below. The silence that ensued was a blessing.

  “Sergeant Scully, you’ve had a busy morning,” the chief said. He was a stout forty-five-year-old red-haired man with cheeks that always seemed to have a ruby blush. He had his suits carefully tailored to hide a growing midsection. Recently he had added rimless glasses that blended a touch of severity into an otherwise unremarkable face.

  “Yes, sir. Busy morning, sir,” Shane said, trying to read where this was going.

  “Movies,” the chief said. “Boy, they use a fuck of a lot of equipment. They’ve got four whole blocks tied up down there. Three helicopters. That one there is the camera bird. God knows what the other two are for. We let ’em use one of the police choppers for a picture ship.”

  “That’s very generous, sir. I’m sure they’re grateful.”

  “It’s a Schwarzenegger flick called Silver and Lead. He plays a cop who breaks up an armored-car robbery. It’s a silver shipment, but it turns out the robbery is just a decoy to pull the cops away from a presidential assassination. Arnold signed a copy of the script for me,” Chief Brewer bragged.

  “Bet that’ll be worth a few bucks.” Shane felt like a moron, standing there with his asshole puckered, talking about the movie business.

  “People would feel a lot better about you, Sergeant, if you were more of a team player.”

  No segue. One moment it’s show biz, the next it’s team ball.

  “Oh?” Shane said. “I think I’m a good team player, sir. Check with my captain, my watch commanders.”

  “I’m not talking about your field performance, Scully. I’m sure you’re a good detective. That’s not what this is about. What I’m talking about is attitudinal.”

  “Attitudinal?” Shane was lost. He didn’t have a clue.

  “Sometimes a guy will find himself in a position where he thinks maybe he’s got an advantage. He thinks maybe he got lucky, stumbled into a piece of good fortune, but the fact is, he’s not lucky at all. Fact is, he’s stepped in a vat of shit and doesn’t even know it. Then he’s isolated—a marked man. That’s not a good thing. It’s better if you’re a part of the team.”

  “Exactly what is it we’re talking about, sir? I’m kinda lost.”

  “Are you? How come I knew that’s what you were going to say?” Chief Brewer stood there, looking at Shane as if he were a grease spot on one of his new silk suits. Then he let out some more line. “Sergeant, there are items missing from Lieutenant Molar’s case files. According to his duty logs, they were in his house before you shot him. They are no longer there. We questioned his wife
. We believe she knows nothing. That leaves you. You were in a position, after you killed him, to remove those items.”

  “And you think I have them?”

  “These items might appear to you to be some kind of windfall or perhaps something an ambitious person might think he could use to his advantage. They aren’t what they appear to be. Lieutenant Molar was involved in something very sensitive, and he had the full cooperation of this office. This material could easily be misinterpreted if it got into the wrong hands. It needs to be returned now!”

  “Sir, I don’t have anything of Ray’s. Nothing.”

  “I fully expected you to deny this because we both know it’s against departmental regs to remove another officer’s case material. You could be terminated if you admit you took it. However, Sergeant, there are things in this life that are worse than job termination. I expect that you’re going to continue to deny it until the full gravity of the situation becomes clear to you, but by then it may be too late. There may be nothing I can do to help you.”

  “What items?” Shane’s heart was pounding now. He was feeling as if he were trapped in a nightmare and couldn’t find a way to wake up. “I didn’t take anything,” he repeated.

  “In which case, you probably wouldn’t object to taking a polygraph test.”

  “A polygraph? I…I don’t even have a defense rep yet. I…I’m not sure I want to submit to a lie detector test without legal advice.”

  “Again, exactly what I thought you would say. Believe me, Scully, you’re making a horrible mistake.”

  “Sir, I’m not saying I won’t take a polygraph. It’s just…I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s going on. I shot a man who was trying to kill me. He’d been beating his wife with a nightstick. Since that happened, my shooting review was canceled. I understand my case is being directed to a full administrative hearing, and now you’re telling me I’m supposed to have stolen something from Lieutenant Molar’s house? I took nothing, sir. I’ll swear an affidavit to that fact.”