by John Knoerle
"Oh chit, oh chit, I gotta go!" shouted Bell and slammed down the receiver. He scooted back to the unit, giggling like a schoolgirl. Bell geared the LTD and peeled out, ambers on, no siren. Reese followed. The elderly women and the Asian schoolboy watched them go.
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Cherrywood Drive ran north-south in the far north corner of Wislow nearest the ocean. It was an older tract than Bell's development, bordered by fallow ag fields. The houses were wood, not stucco, and some featured a Danish touch, crosshatched flower boxes and scalloped eaves painted in bright blues and yellows. Weeping willow branches draped the sidewalk.
The house at 1702 Cherrywood was dark, save for a yellow bug light in a frosted glass fixture crisscrossed with strips of greenish brass. An engraved wooden shingle on a weathered white signpost read 'The Vernes'. Bell drove by at a crawl. From deep in the house he saw the pulsing blue nebula of a TV. Bell wrinkled his nose at the decor. No crystal meth cowboy of his acquaintance would be caught dead in this Hansel and Gretel house. And it wasn't isolated enough for cooking. It could be a supply depot hidden in a quiet out of the way neighborhood. If true, if Rodriguez had given them the right address, it meant they were dealing with a sophisticated operation. Which meant Ramon the drug dealer had point-kill weapons.
A GMC sport van sat parked in the driveway. Bell rolled to a stop in back of it. Reese parked behind him. It had taken less than four minutes to reach Cherrywood Lane. Bell figured that Ramon would take at least five minutes to gather up his goodies before he split.
The cops climbed out and conferred behind their LTD's. "See any sign of him?" asked Bell.
"Nothing."
"No."
"OK. Here's the deal. I saw a spiked fence in the back yard. So we can do up a three man perimeter if Reese takes the driveway, Lyedecker the right side of the house and I go knock on the door. Questions, questions?"
"Let's do it," said Reese, starting forward.
Bell and Lyedecker hustled to catch up. "And no flashlights," said Bell under his breath. "He's prolly got an autoload. And he may not be alone."
Wes snicked the leather strap off his holster. This didn't seem like a good time to voice his objections. He veered down the street as Reese and Lyedecker crossed the sidewalk. He placed his stiff black oxfords flat on the pavement to keep his heels from clicking. He felt like a gunslinger in High Noon.
Bell moved up the poured concrete walkway, ducking under a downcast willow. He didn't know why he was bothering with the front door. An informant's tip didn't qualify as one of the 'exigent circumstances' required for forcible entry without a warrant. Without a warrant he was permitted to enter a private residence only if he were invited in or if he witnessed a crime. Which is why he called in the first place, hoping to smoke Ramon out. The best he could hope for now was that Ramon would bolt out the side door, drugs in hand, when he, Bell, hammered on the front. Bell drew his .357. By the light of the bug lamp he saw an overstuffed sofa with croqueted arm protectors in the living room. If they really did live here The Vernes were in for a big surprise.
Cyril Reese crept up the driveway on the balls of his feet. He ignored Bell's command and swept the interior of the GMC van with his Kel light. He moved toward the side door to the house, his shit in his hand. He stopped, eased back into the moonshadow of a tall tree and waited for Bell's knock and notice.
Wes took up a position on the front lawn twenty feet to Bell's right and several feet behind. He faced a bottomless pit of dark to the right of the house where a ten foot hedge shadowed a narrow strip of grass. Wes willed his eyes to decipher a low square shape hard by the house. It looked like a coal bin but that was stupid. People didn't use coal out here. Maybe a storage bin for fireplace logs. He grasped the butt of his gun and recalled Academy statistics. Once an officer's gun was unholstered the odds were roughly two in ten that it would be fired, not always by the officer. Tactical Jack said that once it comes out 'you either use it or lose it.' Wes decided to keep his gun in his holster.
Bell hammered on the front door so hard that he cracked a piece of pebbled glass in its cross-hatched frame. "Police Officers! Open up!"
Wes slid his thumb down into his holster, groping for the safety.
Cyril Reese widened his stance, crouched, braced his left wrist with his right hand and pointed his chrome .45 at the side door.
Bell stood to the right of the front door, back flattened against the wall, the barrel of his .357 pointed south. The TV threw faint, strobing starbursts out a back bedroom, down the hall and into the darkened living room. Wes Lydecker listened with all his might but heard only the ocean wind soughing through willow branches.
"Police! Open the damn door!"
Bell waited several pulse-pounding seconds before he said, "OK men. Light your torches."
Wes emptied his lungs of air. Maybe he wasn't going to set a new Olympic record for the most rapid dismissal of a rookie officer. It looked like Esteban had given them a false lead.
"And watch yourself," called Bell. When no old fart in a bathrobe and nylon booties scuffled up to answer the door - late on a weekday, vehicle in the driveway, TV on - Bell knew Rodriguez had given them the correct address.
Bell larruped back to the sidewalk to triangulate the perimeter. Odds were that Ramon was already down the road. If he was inside the house he now knew that los puercos didn't have a warrant. If he laid low like a good felon there was nothing they could do.
Cyril Reese removed his right hand from his left wrist and pulled out his Kel light, his piece poised for action.
Wes Lyedecker retrieved his right hand from his holster and reached around for his Kel light. He clicked the button and shone it into the pitch black pit. Once, when he was young, no more than eight, his parents rented a summer cabin in the Green Mountains of Vermont. In exploring his environs Wes came across a brown metal box bolted to the back of the cabin. He pried it open with his pocket knife to find a twirling electric meter and a spitting brown wood rat the size of an alley cat. He clearly recalled the raw jolt of fear that had roared down his brain stem and welded his feet to the pine needles as his Kel beam revealed a male Hispanic - 5'6", 140 pounds, 25 to 30 - standing behind the storage bin, a pistol-grip MAC-10 machine gun in his hand.
Wes dropped his flashlight and shouted, "Man with a gun!"
The MAC-10 whined like a high-speed drill, spitting a dozen rounds in under a second, stitching up the yard to Wes Lyedecker's left. Wes juked to his right. His slick oxford slipped on the grass and he stumbled to one knee. This saved his life because the next burst pulverized weeping willow branches behind him, shoulder high.
Bell froze at the unfamiliar Brrrrtttt of automatic weapons fire. Crooks in Wislow favored cheap, small-caliber handguns and it took him a second to place the sound. Bell had maintained the triangle by shifting left toward Reese, who had moved deeper into the property. When Bell turned to watch the vaporizing willow branches Wes Lyedecker was a good ten yards away. He saw the rookie stumble and bellowed "Officer down!"
Cyril Reese twisted his torso and pivoted on his plant foot.
Wes made the decision without thinking. Instead of rolling right behind the hedge and into the next yard, he pulled his nine millimeter, stretched out his arm and fired two rounds in the general direction of the suspect. A high speed burst of bullets knocked him flat.
Bell halted his headlong charge toward his partner when he saw the kid flop backward. Even after three fusillades he knew the MAC-10 still had a lot to say. He reversed course and, arms pumping, long legs taking short, quick steps, flew across the lawn, across the sidewalk and wrapped himself around the narrow trunk of the weeping willow tree. Bell slid the corner of an eyeball around the scruffy bark, seeing only the pitch black pit at the side of the house. "Police officers. Drop your weapon!"
A hornet's nest of bullets exploded above Bell's head, shredding a willow branch into sawdust.
Wes raised his head off the lawn. Bell wanted to yell at him to stay down. Wher
e the fuck was Reese? Bell sneaked a peek but Reese had disappeared into the dim. Your Negro officers had a natural advantage under these circumstances.
To compensate for a human tendency to shoot up in darkness, 'Aim low at night' was the general rule. You could overdo it, however, as Bell had discovered when he shot a drugstore burglar in the balls. He shaded the barrel of his .357 an ant's ass lower and squeezed off all six.
Bell listened for the sounds of flailing, of stumbling, listened for the bowel-rumbling death throes of a mortally wounded opponent. All he heard was the rookie's nasal moan. He'd missed the motherfucker. "Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon and move forward, your hands…"
Wes Lyedecker lay on his back in the grass, the wind knocked out of him when rounds slammed into his kevlar vest above his left abdomen and his right pec. He knew the sensation from football. You're sure you are going to die for thirty to forty seconds and then you're fine. Wes had almost unclenched his insides enough to inhale when the small man with the big gun stormed out of the shadow at the side of the house, spraying his machine gun like a garden hose, drenching the evening with molten lead. Wes groped around for his weapon.
The man raced forward, gun blazing straight ahead. Wes reached up and grabbed at his ankle. Something heavy knocked his arm away. Wes heard bullets smacking wood, shattering car windows, drilling holes in steel doors.
Bell abandoned his tree trunk. He scuttled desperately for the cover of his Ford, hoping to grab the shotgun like he should have fucking done in the first fucking place, missing the eight extra rounds he would have had if he hadn't traded in his nine millimeter for a cocksucking wheel gun, his back exposed, taking forever to skirt around the front fender. He ducked his head, waiting for bullets.
The firing ceased.
Bell poked his small head above the roof of the squad car, looking, thought Wes, like a Dr. Seuss character. Wes turned to see Cyril Reese prostrate on the grass, smothering the suspect with his bulk. A fat leather satchel lay next to them.
Chapter 12
"Yer fascist pig top brass authority figures must wake up hungry," said Bell in the upstairs reception room of the office of the Chief of Police. It was 8:06 AM and the Chief's secretary had just disappeared into the Chief's office to tell him that Bell and Lyedecker had arrived, six minutes late. "Me, I don't like to eat till about noon but your leather chair jockeys like to sharpen up that carving knife and dig in at zero dark thirty when any normal person would be at a disadvantage."
Bell was bleary-eyed from laboring till the wee hours in the report writing room. The kid had been a little pushier this time. Like taking two bullets in the torso enitled him to his own opinion. But they got it ironed out. Bell glowered at the closed door. "Unfortunately for the Emperor, I am not a normal person."
"No argument there," said Wes, holding his upper body rigid as he levered his gluttimus maximus down to the steel tube chair. He sat with a sigh. As long as he took it slow and breathed shallowly the pain was tolerable. When the hospital X-rays proved negative the Pakistani doctor taped him up, gave him codeine and sent him home. Wes had refused to be admitted overnight. He hadn't even wanted the X-rays, wanting to show he could play hurt. But Bell issued a direct order and Wes complied.
After Bell and Lyedecker left the hospital they drove to the jail. They found Reese shaking his head, saying the suspect was completely unresponsive, wouldn't give his name, had no ID, didn't even want a lawyer.
Wes was disappointed when they straggled into the locker room. He had stirring visions of the low voiced bumping and slapping a player injured in a spectacular play could expect when he limped to the sidelines. But they were between shifts at 3 AM and the locker room was empty.
"If he asks me, I'm going to tell the truth," said Wes, keeping his voice low though the office door was closed.
Wes had been primed for battle when he sat down at the typewriter in the report writing room. Bell surprised him by dictating a Narrative Supplement that was substantially correct. The only sticking point was the phrase 'after lengthy questioning by Ofcs. Bell and Lyedecker, Esteban NMN Rodriguez provided the name of his drug supplier.' No mention that the name was provided under physical duress. But Bell finally convinced Wes that though Rodriguez thought he was being smothered by Bell's large mitt on his oxygen mask, in fact he could still breathe through the side air vents which transformed the 'physical' duress to 'psychological' duress and if police officers couldn't use psychological duress to extract information from miscreants they might as well surrender their guns and badges right fucking now and go hunker down in reinforced concrete pillbox in the Yukon. They submitted the case report to the watch commander as it stood.
"Who's asking ya not to?" groused Bell. He wore a tweed sports coat, oxford cloth shirt, no tie and wool slacks. Lyedecker was in uniform. When the Chief's secretary called at 06:30 Bell knew it wasn't to say, in the immortal words of Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, 'It looks like you boys may be in line for some important medals and ci-tations.' But he felt confident enough to leave his tie at home.
"Officers," said the secretary from the opened door. Bell and Lyedecker got up and filed into the office. They stood at the foot of the desk as the secretary closed the door behind them. Chief Sunomoka was nowhere to be seen. Wes scanned plaques on the wall, including a sheepskin from the FBI's Anti-Terrorism Program at Quantico and a Master's degree from UCLA. He had a hard time focusing, what with the codeine and lack of sleep. He heard a toilet flush, then the sound of running water. A door to the left swung wide and the Chief of Police emerged from his private bathroom.
He nodded at the men and said a perfunctory "Good morning", which the men repeated, Lyedecker adding 'sir'. The Chief sat on the edge of a dimpled black leather chair with cherrywood trim that matched his desk. He perused their case report while sipping coffee from a china cup. He didn't ask them to sit down.
As he continued reading Wes realized that the Chief resembled his father, at least from the eyebrows up. They shared the same high, well-tanned foreheads, thick brows and jet black hair, sprinkled with Vitalis and combed straight back.
The Chief set his cup down. The saucer tinkled musically. "That was quite an arrest you made last night."
"Yes, sir!" said Bell.
"And quite a cache of dope."
"Four kilos, sir. Street value 50 to 60K."
The Chief glanced at the arrest report. "So it seems," he said, "Pending lab test results."
Bell choked back a snort. Lab tests results. Like maybe Ramon was just a heavily-armed baking soda salesman. The Chief leaned his elbows on his desk blotter. "In the law enforcement business we have what is known as a 'hierarchical command structure'." The Chief looked up at Bell hopefully. "Are you familiar with that at all?"
Bell had to smile. "Yes, sir."
The Chief leaned forward. "In fact, we have an entire narcotics squad specially trained and ready for just this type of operation. Sometimes they even obtain search warrants."
"Yes, sir," said Bell. So far, the Chief had barely penetrated his rectal cavity. It was just like he figured. Shitamoko knew they had bagged more weight in the last two weeks than the fucking narcs had cleared all year. Even the Santa Barbara paper would cover last night's bust. The Chief wanted to bask in their reflected glory.
The Chief turned a page of the Narrative Supplement with some ceremony. He read for a while. "I would hate to see all your hard work dismissed on a charge of entrapment."
"Chief, sir. Everything I said on the phone to the drug dealer was true. Esteban did roll on him. The pigs were coming."
Sunomoka executed a perfect half-lidded Garfield the Cat take at Officer Bell. Wes didn't understand Bell's paranoia about the Chief. The guy was funny.
Sunomoka settled back in his chair. "Well, the court will tell us in due time." He brought two fingers to his mouth like a smoker and tapped them on his lower lip. "Forget all the legal and procedural technicalities," he said.
Bell rocked back. Had his
ears deceived him?
"My primary concern with this episode is far more serious."
Bell squared his feet below his soulders and clasped his hands over his crotch. The Emperor remained relaxed on his leather throne. He lowered his voice. "You fucked up, Officer. You, a training officer sworn to instruct and protect your student, put a very green Marine in harm's way without proper backup and almost got him killed."
Bell lowered his eyes. The Chief was right. When Bell sensed they were dealing with a heavy he should have called in the troops. He'd been 'caught up in the moment', showing off. Bell hated it when the Chief was right.
"I'm not going to discipline you this time. Though I probably should." The Chief seemed to reconsider this for a moment, decided to be Ming the Merciful and continued. "And I don't think a Shooting Review Board will be necessary."
No shit, thought Bell. Even the SRB couldn't object to an officer returning fire when ambushed by a machine gun. And they especially liked it when you didn't hit anyone.
The Chief rose to his feet. Wes wondered if this were really happening. It looked like he was going to shake their hands and let them walk. The Chief crossed to the side of his desk, moved toward the door. "But if either of you take any further action in this case without my prior knowledge and consent…" He whipped open the office door. "I'll fire you. Both of you."
Bell and Lyedecker just stood there. The Chief nodded to the open door. Bell marched out of the office without a word. Wes started to follow but the Chief of Police placed a restraining hand on his forearm. "Close the door," said the Chief. Wes watched Bell stop at the receptionist's desk and cock his head like a cocker spaniel. Wes turned to the Chief, who nodded impatiently. Wes closed the door on Bell.
"Sit down," said the Chief. "Please."
Wes lowered himself gently. An upholstered wingback chair swallowed him up up to his neck.
