12
THE NEXT MORNING, MUNCH TOOK HER NOW-CUSTOMARY stool at the Denny's counter. It was Friday payday Ruby poured her a cup of coffee.
"I went to that meeting last night," Munch said.
"Did you like it?"
"What makes you think any of that stuff has to do with me? You've never seen me stoned, have you?"
Ruby snuck a quick glance up the counter, then pushed up the sleeve of her sweater. Munch could make out the faded blue scars running along the veins of her arm. "I know the signs. I've been there. I knew it the first second I saw you."
"So how do you get a sponsor?"
"Are you asking me?"
"That depends. What does a sponsor do exactly?"
"I'd be happy to." Ruby pulled her sleeve back down and reached across the Formica counter to pat Munch's hand. "Here's how it works. I share my experience, strength, and hope with you. It keeps me clean and sober, too. We keep what we have by giving it away All I ask is that you be honest with me. Can you do that?"
Munch looked away There was always a catch.
"Listen," Ruby said, "don't tell me anything you're uncomfortable with. Trust takes time. It won't do you any good if you don't feel like you can trust me. We'll take it slow." She poured a second cup of coffee for herself. "There's another meeting at St. Anthony's tonight, do you want to go?"
"I'll meet you there." She didn't want to be anywhere without her own set of wheels.
"I have to warn you, it's an AA meeting. If you identify yourself, say that you're an alcoholic, not an addict."
"Does your God care? There was a lot of God stuff in all the literature."
"Don't let the ‘God stuff throw you. Call it a Higher Power, if that will help. Usually, an addict's God needs the meeting more than the addict does."
"How can that be?"
"It's a Higher Power as you understand Him. In a sense, you create Him to fit your needs."
"That doesn't make any sense. He is or he isn't. How helpful can he be if I'm supposed to make him up?"
"Oh, He's very real. You just have to reinvent your relationship with Him. I have to warn you, He has a sense of humor. He likes to throw the most unlikely angels at you."
"That I can believe. So how come I gotta say I'm not an addict? Do you want me to lie?"
"Nooo." She drew the word out slowly "It's just that druggies have such a poor success rate, people don't like to work with them. They break your heart. How many addicts were at the meeting you went to the other night?"
Munch did a quick calculation. "About thirty-five, I guess."
"The odds are that only two of the addicts in that room will stay clean."
Munch stirred her coffee and wondered who the other one was going to be.
"They say your emotional development is arrested when you start using," Ruby said. "It begins again when you get clean."
Munch reached for another slice of toast. If that were true, she'd be ten.
"I was reading about all the steps. The fourth one says something about making a complete moral inventory Does it have to be written? I hate to put I anything in writing, you know? Then I read the next step. It says I'm supposed to share it all with another human being. I don't know if I could do that."
"Whoa. You're getting kind of ahead of yourself. What about the first three steps? Admitting that you're powerless over drugs, that you need help from a power greater than yourself, and turning your will and life over to the care of that Higher Power?"
"I've done that."
"Oh." Ruby looked at her in surprise. "That's good." She looked at Munch again as if not sure
what to say. "The last time I was in jail."
"Jails a good place for spiritual revelations," Ruby said.
"I was in Van Nuys for five days. It was Veterans Day weekend and I had a felony seventy-two-hour hold so I ended up spending a long time there waiting to be transferred to Sybil Brand. After the second day I asked them to transfer me to a solitary cell. I was tired of listening to all the broads bragging about what good whores they were. I mean, what does that mean? I know their bail had to be five hundred dollars. Where were their great pimps? I guess the ten percent bondsman fee of fifty bucks was too steep for their mans budget. Such bullshit, you know?"
Ruby nodded.
"So anyhow, I'm there and I'm thinking I need help. I'm about to turn twenty-one. I counted, this was my thirteenth arrest, only six of which they knew about. According to the public defender assigned to me, that six was plenty I mean, I had already tried a lot of different stuff to straighten out my life. My best thinking seemed to always get me back to square one. I tried using only pills, uppers and downers. I tried to just drink, but that just made me sloppy and I got in just as much trouble. Arrests number two and three were for drunk driving.
"I tried hanging out with the Satan's Pride, that was plan D. D for dumb, dangerous, and degrading. Bikers don't like junkies; no one does, really I thought that that would force me to stay clean, being around guys who would kick my ass for shooting up. They just ended up giving me that many more reasons to get oblivious. All my experimentation always led back to dope. So I figured I needed help from a source greater than myself. I even used those words in my head. The monster was too much to fight alone. Maybe, I figured, it was time to investigate this God thing, maybe there was some source of power out there that I could tap into, to help me like."
Ruby listened carefully wiping the same spot on the counter.
"They feed you twice a day in Van Nuys. Breakfast is at six A.M.: French toast with some sort of reconstituted scrambled eggs served on an aluminum tray The jailers don't return again till six in the evening with Salisbury steak, lima beans, and bitter black coffee if you want it. The only guard I saw other than the one who brought my meals was the female deputy who walked to the end of the corridor outside of my cell. Her job was to make notations on a clipboard every four hours after she checked to see that I was still breathing. Her timing seemed to coincide with whenever I managed to drift off to sleep. The cop would shout, 'Hey!' at me until I answered, then she would make a check mark on her chart and leave again.
"The next time the guard passed my cell, I spoke out. ‘Got a minute? I asked her. She said no, and I didn't blame her. You know Van Nuys is only supposed to be a temporary holding facility The criminals who come through there are usually drunk or loaded. They swear at the guards, get in fights, and by the next morning they're usually gone. So I was really surprised when she turned around and came back. She asked me what was up and I told her.
"She listened to me and then told me to wait there, she'd be right back. Like I could go anywhere. She brought back the desk sergeant and he was some kind of Holy Roller. He had me put my hands on the bars and pray with him. I mean his eyes rolled back in his head and his voice got all sing-songy It was kind of embarrassing but I went along with it because I knew they were just trying to be nice."
"So you felt different afterward?" Ruby asked.
"Well, it wasn't really what I had in mind. I thanked them both and after they left I just looked up and said, 'This is the way I see it. I've been bad and I need to pay I'll do ninety days on the marks beef and that's only fair. When I get out, I'll stay clean. Just a few beers now and then. Is weed all right?' Then I remembered where I was so I added, 'Lord, no weed, either.' That was the deal. Two hours later, the bus came to take me to Sybil Brand."
Munch stirred her cold coffee and looked down. "Keeping up my end of the bargain was
harder than I thought it would be."
Ruby grabbed Munch's hand and said, "I'll help you with your fourth step. Don't worry you haven't done anything that anyone else hasn't done. The purpose of all this is to feel good about yourself, wipe the slate clean."
"I don't know. I've done some pretty bad shit."
"Everybody says that. Addiction does terrible things to people. It turns men into thieves, women into whores. One time, I—"
"I was never a whore,"
Munch said hotly slapping her palm down suddenly on the counter.
"Whores do it for nothing."
Ruby blushed. "Just keep going to meetings. You'll listen to everyones story and discover that
you haven't done anything or thought anything that's so unique."
Munch shrugged and got busy with the cream and sugar.
"Later, you'll make a list of all the persons you have harmed."
Here we go with the lists again, Munch thought. Everybody wants lists.
Ruby touched her cheek. "Be sure you put your name first on that list."
13
Ar 10:00 A.M., LIEUTENANT MARK LADOOR stopped St. John in the hallway "It's my birthday" he said.
"Happy Birthday I didn't know. "
"Don't worry about it. I'm just telling you because I want you to have lunch with me today."
Mace was flattered. He liked Mark Ladoor. Over the years they had developed an excellent relationship based on a mutual approval of each others abilities to do their jobs. Mark Ladoor had come up through the ranks, distinguishing himself in the field. He had been shot in '72 while responding to a bank robbery Mace would never forget the watch commanders emotional briefing following the shooting. An officer had been wounded, he said, and that was one too many. The bank robbers were tracked to a home in Culver City near the projects on Bradford. They were given one chance to surrender, then the order was given to fire into the residence until the walls fell down. Neither suspect had survived and no other officer had been wounded.
Mark Ladoor returned to active duty six months later with a zipper-like scar that ran from his navel to his sternum and a promotion to sergeant. By '74 he had made lieutenant in the Robbery/Homicide bureau. He was liked as well as respected, due in large part to his policy of giving the detectives under him plenty of operating room, especially Mace, who had proven his judgment to be sound.
They agreed to meet at noon and Mace returned to the task at hand. He had pulled the boxes of Field Identification Cards gathered in the last six months having to do with local bikers. He sorted through the large stack till he found what he was looking for. The files were cross-referenced by monikers. In recent years the police had begun taking pictures to augment their files. He thought it was very cooperative of the bikers to give themselves such accurate identifying marks. The picture of the prospect in the bar revealed that the man had a distinctive tattoo on his right arm, a bushy black and white tail of a skunk that ran down his forearm. St. John flipped through his collection of Polaroids till he found a match. The biker's name was Jeffrey Roland Johnson, aka "Stinky". According to their information, he had passed initiation and become a full-fledged member of the Satan's Pride sometime in early February. Mace wrote this fact in his notebook.
He then put in a call to his old friend Bob Marshall at the DEA. They had gone through the academy together in '68 when Mace got out of the service. Bob was the Lieutenant in charge of deep cover operations at the DEA. They'd stayed in touch. Held each others chins up through their respective divorces. When Bob came to the phone he sounded like his old self.
"How you doing, you old rattlesnake?" he asked, and then launched into his first priority "Getting laid?"
"Have to beat them off with a stick. How are the kids?"
"I see them on weekends. How's your dad?"
"He's hanging in there; you should come by the house. He'd love to see you, tell you some of his old lies. We've got a poker game on Friday nights."
"I don't know. Digger seems to always come up with four-of-a-kinds and I've never been able to bluff you yet." Bob chuckled, then asked, "What's up?"
"I'm investigating a homicide. The Satan's Pride Motorcycle Club is involved. Do you have anybody on the inside?"
Bob whistled. "Those are some bad boys. Real close-mouthed bunch. The charter members all served together in Nam, in the H-twenty-seven. Remember that?"
"Not really I think I was in-country when some kind of scandal broke. Some charges about unsanctioned executions, right? I never really heard the whole story"
"Nobody did. The lieutenant of the platoon was one Michael Lewis Sinclair, aka Crazy Mike, current president of the Satan's Pride. The H-twenty-seven specialized in interrogation and special psych ops: they ran clandestine missions, demoralizing the enemy by assassinating key figures in the Cong villages. Very black, covert stuff, a lot of deep in-country work with no support. The word is, it got out of hand. Your boy Sinclair got too good at what he did, went too far. Some of his methods offended Western sensitivities."
"We were out of our element there," St. john conceded. "The ROK Marines had a much better handle on the situation. We were still trying to win the natives over with nylons and chocolate bars. They'd play Korean roulette till someone felt like talking."
"Korean roulette?"
"A bullet in every chamber."
"Well, apparently Lieutenant Sinclair learned to adapt to the Indochinese mindset and then some. According to our records, Michael Lewis Sinclair enlisted with his brother Joseph Mark Sinclair. Joseph Mark didn't make it back."
"Killed in action?"
"Yeah, but not the kind of action you're thinking of. He got VD, some strain of incurable syphilis. The army had a standing policy of never sending a soldier home who contracted something we couldn't cure back home. In the sixties, they sure didn't want an epidemic of an incurable sexually transmitted disease to hit stateside. So instead, they transferred the poor son of a bitch from unit to unit till he died, then they burned his body and sent home his tags."
"I heard about that black syphilis. My ex works for the health department, social services."
"Then she can tell you how fast that kind of shit can spread. Anyhow, after Joseph died, Mike Sinclair went off. He took his unit into a hamlet and rounded up the women. I heard he played 'she loves me, she loves me not' with their fingers and toes. That was just a rumor, of course. Non-corroborated. None of the boys in his unit ever broke down under questioning."
"If I remember right," Mace said, "the whole unit was discharged on a Section Eight"
"That's right," Bob said. "What you didn't know was that when they returned to the States, they formed a bike club."
Mace felt a chill spread through his bones. "I need to get close to this asshole, Bob. Are you running any kind of operation against him?"
"I am, but I don't want it getting fucked up. Your Crazy Mike is a slippery son of a bitch. Have you run a rap sheet on him?"
"N ot yet."
"Don't bother. He's clean. I don't mean just no convictions. I mean no charges, no arrests, nothing. All we got on him is what the army supplied and there's not much of that. Born and raised in Michigan, no surviving relatives, moved to California after he left the army in seventy-one. No visible means of support other than his disability checks. I know he's dirty as hell, we've just never been able to get anything on him. He's crazy like a fox.
"I've got a man in deep cover. He's spent the last five years just being a biker, living the life. To be honest with you, I don't give a shit about your homicide. The Pride has a methamphetamine operation we've been trying to crack for three years. Crazy Mike's no fool. He plays it real careful before he lets anyone get near him. He doesn't use drugs, doesn't even drink. He sleeps with an M-sixteen, never a woman. But what the hay, maybe we can help each other out."
"I'm going to bring in a member of the Pride, a guy named Stinky for questioning."
"Wasn't he one of the seven dwarfs?"
"I'll be sure to ask him that." Mace lowered his voice. "Can you arrange to have your agent in custody by this afternoon?"
"I think so. I'll give you a call later."
"Bob? If anyone asks . . . "
"I'll say it's a social call."
"Thanks." Mace hung up and saw that his phone was blinking with another call on line two. It was the captain, Donald S. Divine. Behind his back they called him the Duck; he tended to quack under pressure. Now he was squeaking in one of his typical apoca
lyptic rages.
"St. John, I just got a copy of the ballistics report from your Mancini homicide. Why didn't you pass it along to Parker Center? I don't want to hear about you withholding any pertinent information to Major Crimes' investigation. It's their case now, are we clear on that?"
"Yes, sir. I'm just a little behind on my paperwork right now"
"I understand you're still pursuing the Mancini homicide. Don't waste a lot of time on that. Your board is filling up." He was referring to the five-by-seven chalkboard that he had installed in the squad room as an incentive to the detectives. It was a tally of homicides that had occurred in Venice since the first of the year. The murders were listed chronologically using the victim's last name and broken into columns under the names of the investigating detectives. Unsolved murders were written in red chalk; a suspect in custody changed the color to green; only a conviction erased the name. A conviction or a change in venue. The Glassen murder had been a red question mark while the corpse remained unnamed. He could still make out the faint outlines on the board. There were a lot of things the board didn't take into account, but the board was all that the Duck was interested in.
"You're the boss," Mace told him.
"I'11 take that as an affirmative."
Take it any way you want, Mace thought as he hung up the phone.
When he arrived at the restaurant, Lieutenant Ladoor was already seated. Mace was surprised to see that the man had ordered a drink. He motioned for Mace to join him.
"How much time you got in?" the lieutenant asked without preamble.
"Eight, almost nine years. Why do you ask?"
"Are you doing the job you thought you would be doing?"
No Human Involved - Barbara Seranella Page 11
