Deadly Lullaby

by Robert McClure

  I mull this over. “All we need is three minutes to load the van in back. Just—”

  “Wait! An SUV just pulled to the curb and the driver leaned out to talk to Pablo.” A pause, then Carmelita shrieks.

  “What is wrong now?”

  “The cholo in the SUV is a friend of Pablo’s. He is driving into the alley now!”

  “How many men in the SUV?”

  “One.”

  A total of two men now.

  I massage my neck in earnest. “All right, please get out of your car and approach Pablo. Tell him Errol will be back any minute, unlock the front door for him, and ask him to have a seat. Then, after you leave, me and my friend will take care of Pablo first, then the guy in the SUV out back.”

  “Both of them? What if you fail? Then they will come after me, will kill me. No, I am leaving town now. You are on your own.”

  “You are panicking. Think straight, will you? They do not know that you and me are—”

  Click.

  Fuck.

  I call her again and she does not answer.

  “Errol, maaan, whatchu doin’ in there, givin’ it to Carmelita on the desk, uh?” The voice from the front door again, followed by a laugh and a, “Car-me-li-taaaa, ho ho…”

  Chief sticks his big head out of the office door. You would have to describe his expression as freaked. “I almost get fuckin’ Ovando ready to go and look out the fuckin’ back window and see a fuckin’ Cherokee parked behind our fuckin’ van.”

  There is pounding at the back door.

  Ovando’s cellphone begins to chirp and vibrate on his desk.

  To Chief, I say, “Enough with the fuckin’ this and the fuckin’ that already. We can handle the situation, Chief. All we need to do is stay calm.”

  “A walk in the fuckin’ park, huh? Like shootin’ ducks in a fuckin’ barrel, huh?”

  “You,” I say, pointing my finger at him for emphasis, “you are very close to losing your job,” and step out into the lobby to call Alvarez, to convince him that he has to convince Carmelita to come back here to coax these guys inside.

  Alvarez’s phone no sooner starts to ring when a stark realization freckles sweat on my brow: Barack Obama will snort coke in a televised press conference before Alvarez will answer my call. Why should he help me? He already has almost all his money, and the only thing left for us to split is the cash Ovando stashed in the carrying case in the vault—a hundred grand or so, and Alvarez can leave fifty grand on the table as easily as he can leave an unfinished drink at a bar. And what can I do to him for stranding me? I have no idea where he lives. Hell, for all I know Alvarez may not even be his real name.

  No answer, no voicemail.

  No surprise.

  Options?

  “Chief?” I say.

  “Come here,” he says, his voice practically at my back.

  Chief sits at the reception desk outside Ovando’s office, Carmelita’s desk, fiddling with the controls of the CCTV next to the desktop computer. “The guy out front’s gone,” he says, pointing at the screen, which now shows the front bank entrance.

  “You sure?”

  He shakes his head, irritated, then nods it at the screen. “Do you fuckin’ see him?”

  “Switch to the back door view to see if the guy in the SUV’s still there.”

  “Yeah, if he’s gone, we split.”

  “Even if he is still there, we go ahead and let him through the back door, clip him, load up the bodies, then drive out the other end of the alley.”

  His face gets that distinct Oh, shit cast to it. “Uhhh…”

  “What?”

  “We, uh, can’t drive out the other end. It’s blocked.”

  “Blocked by what?”

  He gulps. “I looked around the corner before I came in the back door, you know, lookin’ for other cameras like you said to? There ain’t no cameras out there other than the bank’s, but there’s a public works truck there at the other end of the alley and the ground’s all dug up. Sewer’s on the blink or somethin’, I dunno, I didn’t—”

  “And you are just telling me this now because…?”

  “You said to tell you if there was other cameras out there! You didn’t say nothin’ about—”

  “I did not tell you to take a shit this morning, either, did I? Or to—”

  I pause to take measured breaths—a hyperventilation-prevention measure—finally saying, “Flip the screen to the alley.”

  He toggles the View button once, twice, and a black-and-white view of the alley appears.

  “Shit,” Chief says.

  “Shit is right.” The guy out back is gone, but, naturally, the Cherokee is still there. “Switch cameras, see if there is a view of the parking lot. Maybe they left in one car.”

  He toggles the View toggle once and the walkway to the left of the bank appears.

  Nothing.

  Clicks it again and a view of the parking lot appears.

  Pablo and his buddy, both Latinos, are standing next to the driver’s door of a moving van, talking with their hands and smoking. Pablo is short and trim with an ’80s shag haircut and Pancho Villa mustache, jeans and jean jacket. The one whose name I do not know is fortyish, about my height and build, with hair combed back like mine, jeans and sport coat not unlike mine. Both wear shades. Both are animated. Not quite arguing, but discussing something urgently.

  Chief repeats himself by saying “Shit,” except this time he pounds the desktop with his fist, leans back, and crosses his arms in a huff.

  Still looking at the screen, focusing on the moving van, I say, “Ovando, the cheap sonofabitch, must have planned to move all this ratty furniture out and sell it.”

  The guy who resembles me drops his smoke to the pavement, nodding as he toes it out, stands by the passenger door as he fires up another one.

  Senor Mustache opens the driver’s door and climbs in.

  “Leave, motherfuckers,” Chief says. “Just drive away.”

  “Yeah, if they leave, I will hot-wire the Cherokee and move it out of your way.”

  “Hey, do it now, Babe, while they’re out front.”

  I study the screen and realize my worst fears. “They are parked at the end, where they can see the Cherokee back out. And the guy with the sport coat is keeping an eye on the bank. They see us and we will have a shoot-out on our hands.”

  Back to the screen.

  Senor Mustache is in the driver’s seat of the van, a cellphone to his ear.

  Ovando’s cellphone chirps and vibrates on his desk again.

  “Hey, Errol,” Chief says to the rolled and duct-taped Persian carpet on the floor, “answer your phone, dumbass. Tell your buddies to join you across town for a beer.”

  It rings two more times and stops.

  “Maybe they will leave now.”

  “Yeah, the pricks didn’t climb back in the van for nothin’.”

  The parking lights on the side of the truck light up, indicating Senor Mustache just ignitioned the motor. He looks down at the cellphone in the palm of his hand, punches in a number, and puts the phone back to his ear.

  “Who the fuck’s he callin’ now?”

  Senor Mustache is talking urgently on his cellphone.

  He clicks off the phone and the truck remains parked.

  We look at each other.

  “He’s calling reinforcements,” Chief says. “Either the cops or more spics.”

  “I hope he is calling spics. Spics we can handle, cops…”

  “We better call somebody, too. Call Tarasov, Joe, whatever…”

  I say, “No, the spics will resist them when they get here and this shopping center will be like a nuclear bomb hit it. Then cops will show and—”

  I interrupt myself to think.

  Cops, I am thinking…cops…or, more accurately, cop.

  “Babe? What are you thinking?”

  “I am thinking, Chief, that before we exercise the nuclear option, there is another idea we should explore
first.”

  Babe and Leo

  “Yeah?”

  “How are you doing, my son?”

  “Knee deep in an investigation.”

  “Hey, great, good, uhh, tell me, where exactly are you?”

  “On the 10 approaching the La Cienega exit, why do—”

  “Great! You are close by. Say, how would you like to make some extra pocket money this afternoon?”

  “…”

  “Leo, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I was just rendered momentarily speechless by what’s goin’ on in your voice. What’s wrong? And don’t give me a single fucking syllable of bullshit.”

  “Well, uh, see, to be honest, you know, completely forthright and all, I—”

  “All right, now I know something’s wrong. I was a kid the last time you beat around the bush like that, the time you ended up telling me to find Lorraine because you were in jail.”

  “Yeah? Which time was that?”

  “What the fuck is wrong?”

  “Okay, all right, Jesus…Listen, I am in a bit of a situation here and need your help.”

  “What kind of situation?”

  “Me and Chief are in a, uh, place of business in the strip mall at La Brea and Beverly, and there are two men who will most certainly attempt to inflict great harm upon us if we come out. What I—”

  “Wait a second….Place of business, huh? In the strip mall at La Brea and Beverly, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, I patrolled that strip mall when I was in Central Division. Back then I remember a HoneyBaked Ham was on one corner, because I ate there a lot. And I know it had a dry cleaner, too, and, I think, maybe, a dentist’s office. But what I definitely remember is there was a bank on the other corner. You wouldn’t just happen to be inside that bank, would you?”

  “You, uh, really want the truth?”

  “No.”

  “I did not think you would, so—”

  “What I meant was, no, I’m not going to help you.”

  “Leo.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Hey, you want me to go back to prison?!”

  “You really want the truth?”

  “That is not funny.”

  “I didn’t intend it to be. You told me you were done with the Life, that you were retiring. And here you are robbin’ a goddamn bank! Old man, you deserve to go back to prison, one with a padded cell.”

  “We did not rob this bank!”

  “If you were soliciting donations for Jerry’s Kids, something tells me you wouldn’t need my help.”

  “All right, all right, whether we robbed it or not is in the eye of the beholder. We—”

  “Ah, holy—”

  “Listen, damn it! We roughed up one of these punks’ friends in here, the bank owner, a money launderer who skimmed a ton of dough from my client. They appeared out of the blue, and they are hoods, fucking cholos, man, real badasses. One just made a call from his cell, and for all I know a fucking gang is going to be here any minute. If someone does not clear that lot peacefully, we will have no choice but to shoot it out with them out there. People are going to die, maybe even some innocent people. You want that on your conscience?”

  “Don’t even try to run that hypocritical game on me.”

  “The only point I am trying to get across to you is, hey, where is a cop when you really need one?”

  “Call Tarasov.”

  “And have him send his animals over here? They will show up with assault weapons and flamethrowers and—”

  “Flamethrowers?”

  “Oh, uh, forget I said that….Look, all I am saying is Tarasov’s guys will light up the whole neighborhood, then your SWAT Nazis will respond and my ass will be meat. We need a soft touch here, son, not a sledgehammer. We need a badge to show up and move these assholes along without a fight. Just hold them for three minutes and then I am—”

  “And what if they start shooting? I told you before to never ask for my help again. I can’t keep pulling your ass out of the fire. And to top it all off, you lied to me today. You canceled our lunch because you said your girlfriend was sick.”

  “Leo, c’mon, you expect me to tell you—”

  Click.

  Babe

  “Babe,” Chief says from the CCTV monitor, “the spic must’ve been calling a locksmith, ’cause—”

  “Locksmith,” I say, numb from the conversation with my son, unable to pull my eyes away from the cellphone in my hand.

  “Yeah, locksmith. A locksmith just pulled up in a van.”

  “Now I am thinking we would be better off if they called cops….Shit, you can never find a cop when—”

  “Babe, goddammit.” Chief jumps from his chair, strides toward me. “Pull yourself together.” He stops within two feet of me, puts his hands on his hips. “The fuckin’ locksmith is talkin’ to the fuckin’ guy with the mustache, who’s pointing to the fuckin’ alley. They’re gonna open one a the doors any minute, prob’ly the back one. It would be good to come up with some sort’a plan before they break in. You know, Babe, a plan? Hopefully one that don’t end up with us gettin’ our asses killed?”

  I look at him. “Got any ideas?”

  “Do I—” He glares at the carpet, massages his neck, strides back to the monitor, leans in to it, his palms flat on the desk. “All right,” he says, looking up at me again, his eyes no longer stressed; they are determined now, calm. “It’s game time, man. Mustache is comin’ to the front door and the guy wearin’ the sport coat and the locksmith’s walkin’ ’round back.”

  This statement yanks me back to the here and now. A plan percolates from the back of my brain to the frontal lobe. Taking a deep breath, I withdraw the .22 revolver from my belt, study it, look into Ovando’s office at his rolled-up corpse. Thinking, Yeah, this might work, I say to Chief, “Unroll Errol’s corpse from the carpet and drag it out here in the lobby.” I pull out my Colt .45 1911 semiautomatic, a model with a chrome finish, and rack the slide. “You take the front, I take the back. Just before my guys walk in the back door, I will signal you to let your guy in the front.” I backhand sweat from my brow. “Chief, listen, man: If you shoot before I do, the noise will alert my two targets. And our goal is to shoot all three with the same weapon.” I show him my Colt. “This one.”

  He squints, shakes his head. “Why?”

  “Ballistics. We want to make it appear that Ovando killed these three guys.”

  “Ahh,” he says.

  “So disable your guy somehow, wrestle him to the floor, whatever, before I pop my guys at the backdoor. Then I will walk up here to take care of yours. If our timing is off much at all, we are fucked.”

  Leo

  Police dispatch traffic bombards my thoughts through the headphone jacked into my right ear:

  A female dispatcher with a soothing African voice: “7 Adam 18, what’s your 20? Over.”

  A male voice, low and gravelly, bored: “18 here. Venice and Cloverdale. We’re just 10-8 from lunch. Over.”

  “Roger the 10-8. We have a 311 reported at the corner of Venice and Lomita. Suspect fled east on foot on Venice in a khaki raincoat and white boxer shorts with pink hearts on them. Over.”

  Indecent exposure, Christ, a fucking wienie-wagger…

  Laughs from Unit 18: “10-11 this for us: Pink…hearts…on…white…boxers?”

  A laugh from dispatch: “10-4: Pink hearts on white boxers, you received loud and clear. Intercept the suspect, then meet the complainant on the corner, the woman in the white sundress, Code 2. Over.”

  No action reported at the bank at La Brea and Beverly…yet.

  My handheld radio rests next to the almost empty tumbler of tequila on the bar top before me. Said bar top is located inside the Karma Lounge on Beverly Boulevard, barely three minutes from the bank. The Karma’s a former neighborhood joint trying hard to be high-end—nothing but premium booze behind the glammed-up bar, the glass-and-chrome liquor racks lit up with recessed blue l
ights, framed poster-sized photos of runway models on the walls….The bartender almost stroked out when I crashed through the door in abject rage four minutes ago, throwing up his hands in surrender, his eyes wide, probably making me for a piped-up stickup artist. He slumped against the bar and patted his chest in relief when I badged him, apologizing to me for freaking out so much, saying the place was empty, that he was off guard…Turned out the barkeep’s name is Igor Fedenkov, a handsome guy about my age, dark, slicked-back hair, trim beard, gentle eyes. Igor waved me to a seat at the empty bar. “We’re cop-friendly, dude. Cops eat and drink on the house.”

  Now Igor’s nowhere in sight.

  He poured me my drink—a tumbler of tequila, neat, no salt—took a stab at small talk, then disappeared, apparently deciding it was best to leave me the fuck alone. Perceptive people, bartenders: Before you finish your first drink the best ones have read your mood more accurately than your most intimate lover.

  “7 Adam 20, come in.”

  “20 here, bring it on.”

  “There’s a 390 at the Taco Bell at Venice and La Brea. The manager’s waitin’ outside. Over.”

  “Roger, 10-97 in three minutes. Over.”

  A drunk in a restaurant causing a disturbance…

  When will shit hit the fan at the bank?

  Could be any second. Might take an hour or two.

  I drain my glass. “Igor?! Get me another tequila, man.”

  Igor pops through the curtain, smiling. He pours the tequila. “How ’bout a glass of water?”

  I shake my head. “Corona.”

  He nods, pulls the bottle from the cooler, pops the top, says, “Glass?” and gives me a quick bow of the head when I decline the offer.

  Poof, he’s gone again.

  More radio traffic streams through my ear: a 480, a hit-and-run, on Duncan…a 30-ringer, an activated burglar alarm, in Wilshire Center…

  When will shit hit the fan at the bank?

  Quit worrying about it.

  It’ll happen when it happens.

  There are so many unquantifiable variables to factor into a crime in progress that it’s impossible to predict within a degree of statistical reliability when law enforcement will detect it.