Blood Money

by Doug Richardson

  Like a Lotus Esprit with rotors.

  “Lydia… Gonzalez?”

  Lydia—called Gonzo since she was six years old—was parked at a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf café in South Pasadena. At a tiny table under a big window fronting the sidewalk, she sipped a large soy-sugar-free-caffeine-free-no-whip-ice-blended-mocha. Her former partner, Romeo, used to call the drink a No-Fun-Ice-Blended. He also told her it was so un-cop-like to be caught drinking something so wuss-worthy.

  Cuz I’m a chick, asshole.

  Gonzo liked reminding fellow cops that she was a “chick.” Especially when she was wearing her trademark leather jacket, jeans and boots, standing over six feet. She liked when her words didn’t fit the picture others had of her. Contradictions were sweet.

  “Are you Lydia?” asked Lucky loudly to a professional looking woman hunched over her notebook, ear buds stuffed deep into the canals of her ears.

  “I’m Detective Gonzalez,” said Gonzo, three yards behind Lucky. She didn’t stand. Just stretched her long arm toward him with an open hand. “Everybody calls me Gonzo.”

  “You’re her?”

  “I’m me. Yeah. And you’re Lucas Dey from Kern?”

  “Lucky.”

  He shook Gonzo’s hand, but didn’t sit.

  “Lucky,” she repeated. “Nice meeting you.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Lucky. “So let’s go, okay?”

  “Go where?”

  “Lennox,” said Lucky. “Detoured all the way over here to pick you up. So here I am. Let’s go.”

  “The Lennox Station? As in L.A. Sheriffs?”

  “I’m in a hurry. I got hook-ups down there that are waiting on me.”

  “Slow down. I’m LAPD. You asked us for assistance.”

  “I didn’t ask for shit. My cappy made the request. I made the concession. Here I am.” Lucky gestured toward the door. “So if you don’t mind, I’m parked in a red.”

  “You didn’t request LAPD?”

  “What I said. Is there gonna be a problem? Because if there’s a problem, I’m gone.”

  “You got a captain. I got a supervisor,” said Gonzo, flashing her mobile phone. “And he didn’t say nuts about working jointly with L.A. Sheriffs.”

  Lucky gave Gonzo none of the usual eye-rolls she had become accustomed to receiving from fellow cops when she dug in her feet over directives or protocol. Nor did he waste another breath arguing. He just shot toward the door and was on the sidewalk before Gonzo should so much as speed dial.

  “Really?” said Gonzo, quick to realize that the deputy from Kern County who she was ordered to assist was mere seconds from being vapor. “Wait!”

  Lucky already had the Charger in reverse when he heard Gonzo pounding on the passenger window.

  “Yo!” she shouted through the tinted glass.

  Lucky reached across, unhitching the door and giving it a shove toward her. Gonzo climbed in, her cell phone stuck to her ear. Lucky didn’t wait for her to buckle her seat belt before accelerating the car onto the crowded avenue. Gonzo cradled the phone with her shoulder while wrestling with the seat belt. The tensioners in the retractor mechanism didn’t want to release the belt.

  “Can you at least wait for me to put on my belt?”

  “LAPD wears seatbelts? Shit.”

  Gonzo clicked the tongue into the clasp just as someone at the downtown C.C.L. office finally answered the phone.

  “It’s Gonzalez. Can I talk to Mitch?”

  This is when she felt all eight cylinders kick. The Dodge surged. Ahead, the stop light turned crimson. Undeterred, Lucky maneuvered the car through the intersection before cross traffic could get off the line. Out of the corner of her eye, Gonzo caught the flash of the automated red light cam as it snapped digital evidence of the infraction.

  “Well please have Mitch call me ASAP regarding our guest from Kern. Thanks.” Gonzo clicked off, but didn’t pocket the phone.

  “Guest, huh?” said Lucky.

  “Would you prefer something else?”

  “Do you have anything for me?”

  “Anything as in?”

  “Look, sister. If LAPD wants to babysit me, whatever. I don’t care. You a detective?”

  “I am.”

  “So whaddayou detect?”

  “About your tractor-trailer rig?” Gonzo caught Lucky’s look as he waited for her to continue. “Other than what we got from you guys? Black semi with trailer. Refrigerated. No reports. No traffic cites. We copied your B.O.L.O. to Highway Patrol and other cities. L.A. Sheriffs, of course.”

  “That it?”

  “What I got. For now.”

  “Southbound fridge rig. Where’s it goin’? Markets?”

  “Truck that big? Woulda had markings, right? Like Ralph’s or Safeway. Chains do their own trucking. Deliver their own refrigerated goods.”

  Lucky continued glancing over to her. Was he testing her? She tried to suppress flashbacks from her training days.

  “Who says it’s got any goods at all?” Gonzo continued. “Could be stolen. Headed to Mexico.”

  “And you know Mexico, yeah? You got people down there?”

  Gonzo stared a brief hole through Lucky.

  “I’m from Alhambra, dickhead.”

  “Didn’t ask where you were from. Asked if you had people south of the border.”

  “Because I’m Hispanic?”

  “Because you brought it up. I didn’t bring it up. Heard myself when I was talking and I for sure didn’t bring it up.”

  “Right,” said Gonzo.

  Gonzo hoped Lucky was busting her balls. Only there wasn’t the slightest hint of humor creased anywhere on his face.

  “You crackin’ on me?” asked Gonzo. “Or you just a cracker from Kern?”

  Nothing. Not the slightest reaction echoed back Gonzo’s way.

  “Oooooooohkay,” continued Gonzo. “So this big rig? What’s the interest?”

  “Not the truck,” said Lucky. “The driver.”

  “And what’s Kern want with him?”

  “Not Kern,” said Lucky. “Me.”

  “This is official police business…?” wondered Gonzo aloud, sounding a hell of a lot more suspicious than she meant to. Though suspicious she was.

  “Gunned down a deputy,” answered Lucky. “’Bout eight hours ago.”

  “Oh, man,” said Gonzo. “Deputy survived, I hope.” Gonzo asked, but expected the worst. Whoever this Lucky guy was he revealed little. Nor could Gonzo see past the black, wraparound Oakleys which pinched his shaved head. Gangbanger style, thought Gonzo. Except, if Lucky had been a cholo, she would have been able to see tattoos unspooling up his neck from underneath his fitted polo.

  She briefly lowered her sunglasses, looking over the lenses to get a better peek at a small scallop behind Lucky’s right ear. A scar. Gonzo recognized all the indications of a healed bullet wound. Damn. Maybe that’s why they call him Lucky.

  “Gotta ask,” said Gonzo. “Were you and the injured deputy close?”

  “Deputy’s dead. And yeah. We’re pretty close,” said Lucky. His present tense usage of we’re didn’t go unnoticed.

  Lucky spun his wheel a hard right off of Fair Oaks, hard-circling the car onto the short freeway onramp to the southbound 110, Los Angeles’ oldest and original super highway. Gonzo mapped the route to Lennox in her head. Southbound 110 about eight miles, through downtown Los Angeles, west on the San Bernardino Freeway for eleven miles, then south on the 405 to Inglewood Boulevard. Only Gonzo was imagining the route as seen from the cockpit of an LAPD Air Support chopper. The city below, a complex grid of north and south running streets and boulevards, divided by subdivisions, some incorporated cities, low slung mountain ranges, oil fields, golf courses, parks, iconic real estate, concrete river washes…and money. But man oh man. It all looked so much better—and far more manageable—from one thousand feet up.

  Soon enough, Gonzo thought. Soon enough.

  8

  Time: 11:58 A.M.

  Out
side temperature: 101 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Cabin temperature: 72 degrees.

  Container temperature: 15 degrees and steady.

  Heart rate: 90 BPM.

  Damn.

  Beemer removed his index and middle finger from the pressure point just above his carotid artery. This was proof beyond the flop sweat which had broken out over every millimeter of his body…proof that Beemer’s galvanized emotional cage had been breached. Something subconscious had escaped and infected his central nervous system. His cool had officially vanished. Combine that with being seated at the controls of a rolling, refrigerated behemoth. Beemer was driving in circles, currently eastbound on the 105 freeway. All he had to do was jerk the wheel to his left and whichever compact, fuel-saving little vehicle was in his way would be crunched under his wheels. Certain havoc would ensue. Maybe even a traffic pileup. Potential fatalities. It would be news.

  Impulse control, Beems. Keep a lid on your shit.

  The blood stirred inside Beemer, making for what he called an aw, fuck cocktail. He knew nothing positive or profitable ever came from the concoction. Reason needed to trump his lizard-brain instincts before all his plans came crashing down around him.

  Ahead was the South Wilmington exit. Beemer wheeled the big rig down the sloping ramp. He quickly zeroed in on a nearby shopping center that included a Food 4 Less, a Rite-Aid, and a General Discount. There was generous parking with a wide loading lane that cut behind the businesses, shadowed by the elevated freeway. It wasn’t perfect but it would do for an hour or two. And once Beemer had parked the semi tight to the railing behind General Discount, he set the parking brake, but left the engine idling to power the refrigeration compressors.

  Beemer climbed down from the truck. Because he was soaked in perspiration, his skin couldn’t yet calculate the heat. All he was craving at that moment was for his boots to be touching the ground…

  …and a cigarette.

  Screw the damn nicotine patch, screamed Beemer at himself from inside his skull. He wanted a damn smoke. He could have easily circled around the front of the complex, entered the Rite-Aid, plunked down a double sawbuck in exchange for a pack of Marlboros and a disposable lighter. But that was too far to go when Beemer could see a pair of black men hanging around the loading dock. One man was stocky with half a head of salt and pepper hair and a cardinal red shirt, stained, with General Discount silk-screened across the back. The other man wore a similar shirt and was young enough to be the older man’s teenage boy. Both men wore OSHA approved back support belts.

  “Hey, dude,” said Beemer loudly, not caring which man responded. “Got any smokes?”

  But Beemer could barely hear himself, let alone the men on the dock. He was smack in the middle of an acoustic nightmare. Every time a big truck or semi rolled across the concrete span, the sound waves reflected off the flatly-squared stucco buildings, and got trapped again by the underside of the freeway.

  The elder man gave Beemer a quick once-over, then flicked his eyes beyond to the idling big rig. He cupped his right hand behind his ear in a gesture for Beemer to speak up.

  “Asked if you got some smokes?” Beemer gestured back to the elder man, manipulating his index and middle finger in a scissoring motion.

  “Got somethin’ on there for us?” the younger shouted back.

  “Hell no,” said Beemer, moving close enough so he wouldn’t have to shout. “I’m way over my hours. So ripped I missed my exit. No, I’m just cravin’, know what I mean?”

  As Beemer walked even closer and rolled up his sleeve to show his nicotine patch, his sweat-matted hair alerted the elder. Drugs, he reckoned. Speed pills. Or crank. Because the elder had once been an addict, he knew the signs and instantly felt sorry for Beemer. He reached into his pocket and offered the truck driver an unfiltered Carlton.

  “Yes,” smiled Beemer. “Thank you, Sirrrrrr.”

  The elder squatted on the loading dock, handed Beemer the cigarette and his lighter. It was Beemer’s first draw of sweet tobacco in six long months. The smoke expanded into his lungs and was released back into the atmosphere through his nostrils and mouth.

  “Man that’s good,” said Beemer.

  “Whatcha haulin’?” asked the younger man.

  Strangely, Beemer considered answering with the facts. He was carting frozen blood product headed to a Middle Eastern middle man in the U.A.E. Payment for which would be a flat million U.S. dollars wired to an offshore account in Belize that he’d easily set up on the Internet. Something inside Beemer laughed at the prospect of seeing the old man’s reaction to truth.

  “Frozen meat,” lied Beemer.

  “No shit? Like hamburgers an’ shit?”

  Beemer took another drag on the cigarette, exhaling as he nodded.

  “Makes me hungry,” said the younger man, who turned to the elder. “Whaddayou say, pops. We grabbin’ some burgers for lunch?”

  “Don’t you got somethin’ to do?” reminded the elder, without even looking directly at him. He shook the pack and offered another cigarette to Beemer. “One for the road, right?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Beemer, who slipped the extra smoke into his shirt pocket. Then he snapped a five dollar bill between his fingers. “For your troubles.”

  “Naw,” said the elder. “I used to long haul. Way back before they had all them rules about hours on, hours off.”

  “That right?” asked Beemer. “How’d you do it?”

  “How’d you think we did it? Find the guy at the truck stop who was sellin’ speed. Black Beauties. Man, that shit’d make you grind yer teeth down to yer gums then ask for more.”

  “Black Beauties? What’s that? Like Dexedrine?” the kid asked.

  “You got it,” grinned the elder.

  The loading dock was mostly shaded by the elevated freeway. A mild breeze kicked up, mixing the smoky air with the aroma of spent gasoline and diesel. For Beemer it was almost intoxicating as he sat on the dock, feet dangling, trading war stories with the elder who, as it turned out, had served in Gulf War I at the helm of a M1 Abrams tank. The elder claimed to have been haunted by not being able to take the fight all the way to Baghdad and Saddam Hussein. He expressed jealousy that Beemer had seen the Iraqi capitol, tasted it, and wrecked its palaces. The pair of men shared nearly all the elder’s cigarettes and even his brown bag lunch of twin peanut butter and banana sandwiches and pork rinds. Ever grateful for the food, company, and conversation, Beemer hoofed around to the front of the complex and the Rite-Aid. There he plunked down a hundred dollar bill for a carton of Carlton cigarettes and a six pack of orange Gatorade. All of it for the kind elder, who had happily promised to keep an eye on Beemer’s idling semi.

  Then Beemer got a lousy feeling. A pit in his stomach kind of rot that, seconds after, he would explain away to himself as indigestion from those greasy pork rinds. Still, he decided to shortcut his way back to his big rig by leaving through the back of the Rite-Aid. Before anybody in the storage room thought to stop him or ask why a customer was exiting out the rear, Beemer was out the back door, down the steps, and onto that blacktop strip that ran behind the complex.

  The big rig, still idling, was being looked over by four young black men. White T-shirts, black Dickies shorts sagging off their asses. Do-rags for headwear. Hoodlums, thought Beemer.

  Mothuh-effing gang bangers.

  It was the younger black man in the silk-screened General Discount shirt who alerted the crew to Beemer’s return. He stood atop the loading dock, skinny arm stretched toward the blacktop strip, two fingers splitting his mouth to let loose a shrill whistle. The piercing sound was instantly crushed by the din from the overpass as another eighteen wheeler engaged its engine brake making a belching sound akin to a .50 caliber machine gun.

  The Jake Brake, baby.

  That was what truckers called the compression release engine brake. Originally built by Jacobs Vehicle Systems, the Jacob Engine Brake is a device mounted on the valve train of a diesel engi
ne that mechanically actuates the combustion chamber exhaust valve. When the valve is forced open, the sudden release of compressed air creates the ear-blasting staccato sound.

  Oh, how Beemer loved that sound.

  Beemer stood stock still as fingers were pointed at him. He did this until he could feel his heart slowing. The key here was to make sure this was somebody else’s aw, fuck moment. And not his.

  “Your truck, motherfucker?” expressed the obvious leader of the crew. Beemer noticed the sneakers first. White basketballers, laces loosened. He instantly ranked the hoodlum as Motherfucker #1. He quickly shortened it to MF #1. Why? Because the more Beemer slowed his heart, the less effort he cared to expend on disposable humans.

  “I asked you a fuckin’ question!” shouted MF #1.

  “Yeah,” said Beemer. “My truck.”

  This is when Beemer saw the pistol coming out from underneath MF #1’s bleached T-shirt. Even at the one hundred and fifteen foot difference between him and the crew boss, Beemer recognized the make and model before the muzzle was level. Glock 27, .40 caliber. Small, standard nine cartridge capacity plus one in the pipe. Easily concealed, easier to shoot.

  “Well, we gots some hungry friends,” said MF #1.

  “Yeah,” said MF #2. “And they all likes the red meat!”

  Motherfucker #2 stood slightly taller than his number one compadre, thinner even at his elongated, alien-like neck. After laughing at his own line, he climbed back up on the bumper of the refrigerated trailer, yanking rhythmically on the locked handle as if to make a point.