Hollywood Moon (2009)

by Wambaugh, Joseph - Hollywood Station 03

  There, she said. You're too thin to be missing meals.

  Malcolm said, If you could explain to me some of the ins and outs of the business, I'd really appreciate it. I want Mr. Graham to be happy with my work.

  How old are you, Clark? Eunice asked.

  Nineteen. But Mr. Graham said I could pass for twenty-one.

  That's astounding, Eunice said, smiling tenderly. I can't remember the last time I talked to someone who wanted to look older.

  Malcolm did not like the way she was staring at him. He didn't like the way the conversation was going. He suddenly experienced a wave of nausea and even fear, but he held it back, forcing himself to concentrate on the food.

  The burger is awesome, he said. Thanks a lot, Ethel.

  *AyAyAy*AyAyAy*

  You ever throw a rock at our car again and I'll kill you and everyone you know, Flotsam said to the Salvadoran kid who was sitting on the curb with three other Latino teenagers after 6-X-32 stopped and the surfer cops got out. They made all four boys kneel with their hands on their heads, and they kept flashlight beams on them while they patted them down.

  I didn't throw no rock, the kid said with a giggle.

  Flotsam was pretty sure the rock had come from him, the one with the goofy grin. They were in a graffiti-tagged residential neighborhood in east Hollywood. The boy was thirteen years old, an aspiring member of MS-13, the world's largest gang. But at this stage he was just a play gangster, just a wannabe.

  Jetsam motioned for them to get to their feet and put their hands down, and he said, Who threw it, then?

  I didn't see no rock throwed, the kid said.

  Maybe that was a hummingbird sailing over our car, Flotsam said.

  Maybe a bat, the kid said, giggling again. There's lotsa bats flying around here.

  The other kids chortled at that, and Flotsam said, You ever hit our car with a rock and I'll kill you, your momma, and your dog.

  Our dog is with my brother, Chuey, the kid said, giggling again, as a tricked-out lowrider squealed around the corner from the boulevard onto the residential street. The kid turned to look in the direction of the car and said, Yo, here comes Chuey now!

  Flotsam and Jetsam turned toward the green lowrider with gleaming spinner wheels, and when Chuey spotted the black-and-white, he floored it to the end of the street, where he made a screaming left turn.

  The surfer cops jumped in their shop, ripped a rubber-burning U-ee, and went after the lowrider. Chuey had second thoughts and stopped two blocks away rather than try to escape. It was another dark residential street like the first one, with modest homes interspersed among deteriorating apartment buildings. Somebody was destroying eardrums in the house nearest to them, playing hard rock that neither cop recognized. Salsa music was competing with it in the apartment building next to that house, with a Marc Anthony CD cranked up to decibel overload.

  Flotsam approached on the driver's side and Jetsam on the passenger side of the car, both moving cautiously, lighting up the interior with their flashlight beams. Neither of them saw Chuey's passenger, who was lying down on the backseat.

  When Flotsam got parallel with the backseat, Chuey rolled down his window and said to the tall cop, Be careful, man.

  Flotsam put his hand on his nine and said, Careful of what? and found out when a Rottweiler rose up and roared, lunging at the rear window that was open six inches for ventilation.

  Whoa! Flotsam yelped and drew his Beretta reflexively.

  Jetsam almost drew but relented when he saw that the dog could not get out. Then he said, Bro, that is a major canine. Hugangus, I would call it.

  Flotsam's hands were shaking when he holstered his pistol. Step outta the car, dude, he said to Chuey.

  I can't, Chuey said, eyes red and watery, clearly tanked, which explained his initial panic.

  He was no more than twenty years old and was inked up gangster-style. Of course, Flotsam directed his flashlight beam on Chuey's hands, and in this case he was looking for more than a weapon. He was looking for an MS-13 tattoo but he didn't see one.

  Whaddaya mean you can't? Flotsam said.

  If I do, my dog's gonna come over that seat before I can close the door, and he'll go for you.

  He does and I'll shoot him, Flotsam said.

  Then Chuey said, You can't shoot him! That dog's like my brother, man!

  That dog is smarter than your brother, Jetsam said. We just met him back there.

  You shoot my dog, I'll sue your ass! Chuey said.

  We're gonna give you a sobriety test, dog or no dog, Flotsam said.

  I'm warning you, man! Chuey said.

  No, I'm warning you, dude, Flotsam said. And for the last time, get the fuck outta that car.

  Flotsam's tone got the massive canine growling and his fangs bared.

  By the time that growl came from deep within the animal's chest to his throat and past his bone-crunching jaws, it was a lion's roar.

  Partner! Flotsam called. Come around here and cover me!

  Jetsam ran around the car, drawing his Glock, while Flotsam grabbed the door handle.

  You chickenshit motherfucker! Chuey said. You shoot my dog and there's gonna be payback! I'll find out where you live!

  Seeing that Jetsam had the man and dog covered with his pistol, Flotsam drew his side-handle baton from the ring on his Sam Browne. The batons were made of aircraft aluminum and were supposedly unbreakable under normal conditions. Flotsam figured this might turn out to be a real test of that claim.

  You on it, dude? he said to his partner.

  Good to go, bro, Jetsam said, directing his flashlight beam and his gun on whatever came out that door in a hurry.

  Flotsam jerked open the car door, and Chuey turned in his seat, trying but failing to stop the 140-pound animal. In fact, the surging Rottweiler shoved Chuey out onto the street flat on his face, a pint bottle of vodka he'd been concealing behind him spilling onto the asphalt. And then the dog paused for a few seconds on the front seat, snarling at the cops.

  Flotsam dropped his flashlight and, instinctively holding the baton high in the air to deliver a hammer blow, said, Here he comes!

  But suddenly the animal froze. The brute stopped growling. His huge mouth opened wide and his tongue lolled out. And he started barking, an excited bark, without menace.

  Flotsam said, What the fuck? and stepped back.

  The dog leaped onto the street while Jetsam aimed his pistol directly at the animal's massive skull. But the dog sat, looking at the taller cop and barking happily.

  Bro! Jetsam cried. The baton!

  He can have it! Flotsam cried. And then to the animal he said, Okay, doggy! Fetch! Fetch! And he hurled the baton with all his strength and heard it clattering to the pavement forty yards down the darkened street.

  The Rottweiler yapped with joy and raced after the baton as Flotsam picked up his flashlight, and Jetsam grabbed Chuey by the back of his collar. They quickly handcuffed the prisoner and dragged him to their shop, throwing him into the backseat. Then both cops leaped into the black-and-white and Flotsam made a faster U-turn than he had when Chuey had tried to get away from them.

  Thirty seconds later, the Rottweiler was running back to the car with the aluminum baton in his teeth. But when he saw the car had gone, he dropped the baton and chased the black-and-white, howling.

  Chuey's brother and his friends were surprised to see the police car speeding back toward them, and the kid thought he heard a dog barking furiously farther north on the street. The barking seemed to be getting closer. It sounded like a big dog. It sounded like their dog, and he was coming their way.

  Flotsam slowed and yelled, Grab your mutt when he gets here! Your brother's going to jail for DUI.

  Then Flotsam floored it again and circled the block until he was back to Chuey's lowrider. They stopped to lock the car and give Chuey his keys.

  I gotta find Excalibur! Flotsam said, jumping out of the car with a flashlight, searching for his baton.

 
Jetsam said, Make it fast, bro, before the dog figures out he's been gamed and comes looking for revenge!

  Flotsam yelled, Eureka! when he found the baton resting against the tire of a parked car. He picked it up and ran to their shop, giving the baton a kiss before putting it in the door rack. Suddenly, he was wiping his mouth on the shirtsleeve of his uniform.

  Gross! he said. I kissed dog slobber!

  When they were on their way to Hollywood Station, their silent prisoner made an observation, his first words spoken since being pushed out of his car by the Rottweiler.

  Chuey said, Fernando just wants to chase sticks, man. He can do it all day long.

  Jetsam, coming down from the waning adrenaline rush, said, Is Fernando the one with two legs or four?

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  OF COURSE, neither Tristan nor Jerzy needed to watch the apartment of Dewey Gleason during the night. After Jerzy had been dropped off at his car, he'd driven home to Frogtown to smoke some glass and listen to his woman bitch at her brats. There was so much yelling and turmoil in the little house that he'd grabbed a blanket and pillow and gone out to drink some gin and find some peace in his car. The crystal, along with the gin and backseat sleeping, made for a fitful night, and his back was stiff and his neck ached when he woke up at 8:15 A. M.

  Jerzy thought of the instructions from Creole to find a place in Frogtown where they could safely hold Bernie Graham's old lady for however long it might take to get the information. Jerzy didn't like the idea of keeping the woman in his own 'hood, but Creole convinced him that it should be in an area where people minded their own business, and this was as good as any place.

  Frogtown was a strange little chunk of northeast Los Angeles, south of the junction of the Golden State and Glendale Freeways. It was quiet during the day, but at night, Latino gang members often emerged onto the streets like the frogs had done decades earlier, when the amphibians were still able to thrive in the L. A. River bordering on the east. The river in the summer was sometimes little more than a dirty stream running through a monstrous graffiti-tagged concrete trough, and no one had seen a frog in years.

  After Jerzy did a gum rub with a few remaining granules of crank, he fixed himself a plate of scrambled eggs while his woman was gone on one of her constant trips to the middle school vice principal's office because of the latest fight one of her sons had started. Driving and canvassing the area, he spotted a For Rent sign in a window over of what had once been a panaderA-a. On the wall of that defunct bakery was a vivid mural of barrio life depicting tattooed gang members alongside the Virgin of Guadalupe, who stood beside a canary-yellow lowrider Chevrolet with chrome spinners. It was the only wall on that part of the street that hadn't been tagged, so apparently the mural was respected.

  What Jerzy liked about the building was that other than the little upstairs apartment, there were only commercial properties for two blocks, and the former bakery was a safe distance away from lofts occupied by the painters and sculptors who nowadays encouraged art walks and daytime visits from prospective clients. Jerzy figured that at night the closest commercial buildings would be empty of people and only occasionally visited by a private security service. There'd be little chance of anyone hearing something like a scream.

  And that made him think of Bernie Graham's woman. It could come to that, a woman screaming. Creole didn't think so and didn't even want to plan for it, but Jerzy knew better. If the whole fucking game went sideways, it might come down to forcing the information out of her. He knew that Bernie Graham had the stomach for it even if the little nigger didn't. He phoned the number on the For Rent sign and learned that the tiny upstairs apartment could be rented, first and last month and security deposit, for a total of $2,500. He figured they were in business.

  As bad as Jerzy Szarpowicz felt when he awoke that morning, he was in much better shape than Dewey Gleason, who'd slept perhaps two hours all night, in twenty-minute intervals. When he tentatively raised himself on an elbow and slid his legs over the side of the bed, he felt a sharp pain but ignored it and forced himself to stand. After that, he took a few hesitant steps to the bathroom, holding on to his midsection with both hands, as though something might drop onto the floor.

  It wasn't as bad as he'd anticipated, and he even managed to take a shower and dress himself unassisted in a suitable Bernie Graham wardrobe: oxford cotton, long-sleeve shirt, tan casual pants, and Gucci knockoffs. He put the glasses and mustache in his shirt pocket and decided it was too hot and he was too sore to be bothering with a Bernie Graham blazer. When he gingerly entered the kitchen, Eunice was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the L. A. Times with an ashtray full of butts in front of her.

  She glanced up and said, Well, well, look who's on his feet and breathing.

  Only breathing as much as I have to, he said. For chrissake, why don't you open a window and let some smoke outta here?

  The smoke eater's on the blink again. You gotta get it fixed.

  Just open a window, Eunice.

  Sure, she said, may as well, now that you brought Clark here. I guess security doesn't matter anymore.

  I'm gonna call Clark today and hook up with him, Dewey said. I'll make sure everything's cool with the kid.

  Dewey opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of tomato juice while Eunice read silently. Then he opened a box of wheat bran and poured it into a bowl with some skim milk. He took it into the computer room just to get a short distance away from her cigarette, and he sat staring at computer number one. There was a page of indecipherable numbers on the screen and a list of names that meant something only to the woman in the other room.

  He ate the wheat bran and fantasized about how, with a few movements and clicks of the mouse, someone with the right information could pull up the name of her bank and maybe transfer the funds to another bank anywhere in the world. If he could do that, his entire miserable life would be changed. Just like that.

  Eunice interrupted his thoughts with her chronic morning cough and said, Where you going today, Dewey?

  I haven't seen the Mexicans in almost a week. They should be onto something by now. I was gonna track them down and then I thought I'd go to the second list of foreclosed homes and do the rental gag again. Lying, he added, I got a new guy who can change the locks and make me some keys. This one's not a tweaker.

  When he finished his cereal, he entered the kitchen and started to put the bowl and glass in the sink but then realized it would just give her something else to bitch about, so he put them in the dishwasher, and then went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. By the time he came out, Eunice was sitting in front of computer number three, tapping away with uninterrupted clicks.

  See you later, he said and opened the door.

  Dewey, she said, taking the cigarette out of her mouth.

  He stopped in the doorway, expecting some more shit from her, and said, Yeah?

  In an amicable voice the likes of which he hadn't heard in months, she said, Did you say you were gonna see that kid today?

  Yeah, he said. Don't worry, I'll make sure everything's okay. I might give him some busywork and a couple hundred bucks to keep him happy.

  I was thinking, Eunice said. Since he knows something now that nobody else does, we're gonna have to handle Clark with extra-special care.

  Yeah? Dewey said. You got a suggestion?

  I was thinking that you better keep him close for a while.

  I don't think I'll have to adopt him, Dewey said.

  I'm just saying, maybe we shouldf_U get to know him, Eunice said.

  Like how?

  Oh, how about we invite him to a nice restaurant tonight or tomorrow night? You know, talk to the boy? See where his head is? I sure wouldn't wanna pack up and move to another location real quick just because of him.

  A look, a silence, and she returned to the computer keyboard, tapping the keys as though it had been a thought in passing.

  Maybe you're right, Dewey finally said. I'll ca
ll and see if he's good to go for something like that. Maybe we could take him to Musso's. I can't remember the last time we went to dinner together.

  Okay, she said too casually. Gimme a call and let me know if it's gonna happen.

  By the time Dewey got down the steps to the parking garage, he actually laughed aloud, then looked around to make sure nobody was down there who could hear him. Dewey Gleason's pain was forgotten. This was an unbelievable stroke of good fortune. He only had to figure out how to make it work. Dewey was giddy with excitement. Eunice was falling in love!

  It was payday, and Malcolm's boss did not look particularly happy when the young man asked to leave work two hours early for a dental appointment. He asked why Malcolm hadn't told him this before the day he was due at the dentist so that a suitable personnel adjustment could have been made. Malcolm apologized and said it would not happen again.

  The moment he left work, he speed-dialed Naomi Teller and was overjoyed when she answered.

  It's Clark, he said. Today's the day!

  The day for what? Naomi said.

  Where you at?

  I'm at my girlfriend's house. We're gonna go swimming in her pool.

  Forget swimming, Malcolm said. Lemme pick you up and we'll go to Mel's Drive-In on the Strip.

  Naomi hesitated and then said, Can I bring my girlfriend?

  No way, Naomi, Malcolm said. This is our special time, like I been promising. You're gonna like Mel's. It's not McDonald's, that's for sure.

  On the Sunset Strip? she said. I guess not.

  I can afford it, Malcolm said.

  Again there was silence on the line, and then the girl said, Okay, you wanna pick me up here?

  Where is it?

  On Hayworth, right near Fountain. Let me run and get the exact address. I'll have to think of some excuse.

  Tell her your cousin arrived from Boston and your mom wants you home right away.

  Who should I say is picking me up?

  Your cousin from Boston.

  I think I can come up with a better story, she said. Gimme a minute to get the house number for you.