Undead L.A. 1

by Sagliani, Devan

  Mehaul O’Leary, the owner of Joxer Daly's and former mayor of Culver City, had poured him a free shot of Powers Irish whiskey when he learned Gary was a cop. After that it had become his home away from home. The bar had images of NYC, both before and after 9/11, with tributes to fallen heroes. They did a raffle every Tuesday night as well. It wasn't like the other trendy bars in the area. It was run by real folk and real folk drank there. There usually had several screens going at once playing different games – or if you weren't interested in those, one of the cute bartenders was always good for a little harmless flirting.

  The apartment was old and run down and cost way too much, but he'd grown to love it. It didn't hurt either that he was less than ten minutes from the beach on a good day. One thing he could live without was the long commute. He knew that originally the 10 Freeway had been built as a means for people living and working in downtown Los Angeles to get out to the beach and back at lunchtime. The whole drive was supposed to take less than thirty minutes. On a good day it took about an hour to go one way or the other. All bets were off if it rained.

  Even though he was still lucky to have a job, Gary didn't feel like any kind of winner. Three years had passed since he'd assaulted Randall Whitmore in an interview room in Hollywood, nearly ending his career. Gary had pleaded with Avery, his lieutenant at the time, to book Randy on what they had and let him fill in the puzzle pieces. He'd done everything short of getting down on his knees and offering to blow his LT.

  Then he'd sent his partner, Arnold Burns, to a sympathetic judge with the warrant, but he knew he couldn't wait with another young girl's life on the line. That's when he'd talked Randy's landlord into letting him into the apartment. To his surprise the search turned up nothing. Gary had been so concerned that Randy might have a victim tied up in his apartment that he'd jumped the warrant, tainting any evidence he might have discovered. Later, after being coached by Greeley, the landlord claimed Gary had forced her to open the apartment door by claiming it was official police business, despite her protests about invading his tenants privacy.

  Wonder how much of my money they ended up giving that Armenian bitch to lie under oath, Gary questioned. Not that it mattered all that much anymore. It was like a scar from an old wound that he had grown fond of running his fingers over again and again.

  The missing young girl, Elena Padilla, had turned up later that night, having spent the day at Disneyland with her best friend's family. She testified under oath that she had told Randy about her plans to sneak off, but that she begged him not to betray her trust. It had been her final music lesson with him because her condition, cystic fibrosis, left her too weak to play her favorite instrument, the flute. Her ‘best friend’ admitted to lying about Elena having permission to go to the amusement park so they could jump the long lines since Elena always had an oxygen tank with her.

  That's what Randy meant when he said, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” – or at least that's what Greeley had said in court to counter Gary's testimony. It was like fighting off a great white shark underwater while wearing heavy winter clothing. The more Gary had attempted to defend himself, the further down he sank while the predators endlessly circled him, never showing the slightest signs of growing tired.

  He played me good, Gary bitterly admitted. The whole time I thought I had him he was actually manipulating me into making one mistake after another.

  Greeley had all the charges dropped against his client after threatening to sue the City of Los Angeles and the police department. He filed a civil suit against Gary, alleging that he was obsessed with Randy and that he had targeted him with malicious intent. Gary's old partner, Arnold Burns, even testified against him in court, in exchange for not having his name added to the lawsuit. The jury, having spent years hearing about police corruption and abuse, sided with Randy almost immediately, awarding him a judgment that forced Gary to sell his house and wiped out his entire life’s savings. Internal Affairs had investigated him over the incident, portraying him as a ‘rogue cop gone bad’ to the newspapers. His defense attorney argued that work-related stress had brought on the incident, and that his history with the department outweighed one incident of bad judgment. In the end Gary was suspended without pay for one month, ordered to do a full psych evaluation along with therapy and anger management, then was quietly transferred downtown where he worked cold cases for a year before being put back on normal rotation. The murders of those young girls were never solved. Not a day went by that he didn't think about Randy, or the young women that were tortured and killed. Their faces haunted his sleepless nights.

  “Where are you, Wendell?”

  It was typical for his lieutenant to bark at him without bothering to announce himself. Gary had been up late working a case that had resulted in a confession of a triple homicide.

  “I'm just pulling off the freeway,” Gary lied as he got back to his lieutenant’s question, looking up to see that he was just now crawling past La Brea and still had a long way to go. “I should be to New Parker in less than fifteen minutes.”

  “Bullshit,” Peterson barked, calling his bluff. “Never bullshit a bullshitter, Wendell.”

  “Sorry sir,” Gary replied, a sour expression crossing his face. “I've got traffic issues this morning. Got a late jump because we closed the case on Darnell last night.”

  If there was one thing that his lieutenant loved it was positive numbers to show to the guys upstairs. He was an administrator at heart, not a cop, and everybody that worked for him knew it. Gary was sure that Jack had to have seen the report left on his desk by now. It would be the first thing he did when he got to his office: going over the previous night's returns. Gary guessed that by this point he had already called up the Chief of Police to brag about closing it, taking all the credit. It was the combination of riding the detectives over every little thing and taking credit for work he didn't do that had earned him his unfavorable nickname – Jack Shit – as in “he sits on his fat ass doing Jack Shit while we bust our asses, but the minute a case breaks he's all about team work.”

  “I was just talking to the Chief about that,” Peterson shot back, “we've got to be careful how we handle it. I don't want you talking to any of your reporter friends about him. Is that clear? All questions are to be routed to Media Relations.”

  Gary had gone to Cindy Lopez, a crime beat reporter at the LA Times, during his civil trial in an attempt to get his side of the story out. The results had been disastrous, with Lopez lambasting his arrogance in the press. On top of everything, Greeley used the story as proof that Wendell was desperate to pin the heinous series of sexually motivated killings on Whitmore because he was obsessed with him. It was a low blow for Jack Shit to even bring it up, and Gary had to bite his tongue to keep from saying something that might get him written up or moved out to the Valley once and for all.

  “Listen, Lieutenant, with all due respect, I don't have reporter friends. I only spoke to that lady at the Los Angeles Times once, and I still regret it to this day. Considering how things turned out I wish you wouldn't keep rubbing it in my face, sir.”

  There was a pause that made Gary think maybe he'd gone too far this time. It was an invisible line with the lieutenant so it was easy enough to cross. Maybe it was the traffic or the late night or even the lack of coffee, but at that moment he was feeling stretched and was tired of being pushed around by the one guy who was supposed to be on his side.

  Gary could feel his blood pressure rising. A dull black 2005 Honda Civic cut him off without warning and he laid on his horn in anger, screeching to a halt to avoid ramming the guy. The driver flipped him off, holding his unfriendly hand gesture as high as he could out the window so Gary wouldn't miss it.

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yeah I guess,” Gary sighed, bracing for a strong reprimand.

  “With all due respect, Detective, I guess you hadn't heard,” Peterson said at last. “Darnell committed suicide shortly after you left. They f
ound him hanging in his cell.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Gary's eyes darted back and forth as he tried to remember the number to give to his representative over at the Police Protective League's Defense Assistance Office, but he'd only called them once in all the years he'd been on the job and that was back when the shit had hit the fan over Randall.

  “We just want to make sure this is contained and put through the proper channels. Everyone steps out together on this one and we don't lose face. That means if a reporter calls to ask you what happened, you say ‘no comment’ and hang up. Do I have your word on that?”

  It was one of Peterson's favorite phrases.

  “You have my word,” Gary repeated, knowing the drill by heart.

  “Good. It's a mad house down here today but I've got good news since I know you are nowhere near here yet. I've got a fresh body in West Hollywood over at the adult theater on Santa Monica. I want you to take this one.”

  “That's in Hollywood,” Gary argued. “Shouldn't they take it?”

  “They're backed up with their cases, just like the rest of us,” Peterson snapped. “Murder rate in the city is at an all time high and getting worse by the minute. So we're picking up the overflow. Chief announced it this morning on television. Part of a citywide effort to stomp out crime. Call your partner and have her meet you there. It will keep both of you away from the media for at least a few hours.”

  “She doesn't need to come down, sir,” he argued. “I was hoping she could finish with the murder book on Darnell.”

  “He's not going anywhere now,” Jack said dryly. “Stop fighting this, Wendell. It's already done. Call me if you get anything.”

  He had hung up before Gary had a chance to answer. Gary moaned as he pulled to the far right lane of the freeway to exit, nearly sideswiping a white Denali. Blocking the shoulder was an old white guy driving an antique-looking Cadillac with a bumper sticker that read: TED KENNEDY'S CAR HAS KILLED MORE PEOPLE THAN MY GUN. Gary spotted an opening to his left and gunned his car into the tiny space. He muscled his way in front of the slower exit lane traffic, then pulled back in only to be stuck behind an old Ford truck with a lawnmower and some gardening supplies in the back. Gary didn't hesitate this time. He pulled onto the shoulder and drove around, earning hard stares from the two Mexicans wearing straw cowboy hats driving the truck.

  Only in Los Angeles can you throw a lawnmower in the back of a truck and call yourself a landscaper, Gary thought.

  He didn't mind people coming to this country and working hard. What bothered him was how many of them slid beneath the radar, operating fly-by-night businesses and not paying a dime of tax, but enjoying all the benefits of being in the United States. There was a work number on the side of the truck and he wrote it down, but guessed it was either a cellphone or disconnected. They usually were. Most of these guys didn't have driver's licenses, much less business licenses.

  He exited and turned left, taking Venice to Highland and heading up through the heart of the city. By the time he reached Santa Monica Boulevard and was turning left he had contacted his new partner and given her all the details.

  Sandra Wong was from a different school. Her father was a City Councilman and she'd used his influence with the Chief of Police to skyrocket her way through the department, landing herself the promotion to detective in record time. She wasn't above using her father's name, her race, or the fact that she was a woman to get ahead. She took every advantage she could get. On top of all that she also had an overbearing personality and almost no social graces. Pretty much everyone she'd ever come in contact with universally despised her. Gary had a bad feeling when his old partner, Larry White, had announced he had plans to retire the year before.

  “You're not really going to pull the pin now, are you Larry?”

  “You bet your sweet ass I am, Wendell,” Larry shot back. “I'm tired of working my fingers to the bone and getting nothing back in return. I got a line on a sweet gig over on Oahu doing private security for one of the high-end resorts. Between that and my pension, I'm totally covered. I'm going to spend the rest of my days in paradise enjoying every second I can because I fucking deserve it. If I never see another dead fucking body again it will be too soon.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Gary grumbled, still looking for an edge to talk him out of his perfect plan. “There are no good steak houses over there. You know that, right? It's nothing but raw fish and spam and coconuts to eat.”

  “The place I'm going has Kobe beef imported from Japan,” White said, a smile blossoming on his face like he'd just declared checkmate. “They feed those cows warm beer and massage them right up until the moment they slit their throats. They say the meat is so tender it practically melts in your mouth like warm butter.”

  Gary gave up after that. It was pointless. He didn't blame White for wanting a way out. After twenty years on the job most cops either retired and moved away for good, or ate their gun. He still wasn't sure what his final decision was going to be when his time came.

  Less than three days later, Sandra was transferred from auto theft over to robbery homicide. Her father was a friend of the department and everyone knew it – he could easily make things hard for every single person in law enforcement if he went after budget cuts and stole their overtime. He was beloved by the community for his hard stance on crime and gangs and the revitalization of Downtown. No one told him no, not ever, including the Chief. Gary had been working with her for nearly three months, and hated it. The other detectives in the unit never let up on his bad luck at being stuck with her. They called her ‘TwoWongs’ behind her back – as in two Wongs don't make a White. The other nicknames they had for her were too despicable to even think about. They generally revolved around her race and the fact that she was a woman.

  Gary pulled up in front of the Studs Theater in West Hollywood and parked out in front. A line of yellow police tape was pulled across the entrance blocking it off. He turned and looked across the street at The Pleasure Chest where a small cluster of gawkers had formed around a news van, rubber necking his crime scene. They were mostly young Russian kids who lived in the neighborhood along with some locals, but Gary suspected that a number of the early morning visitors to the adult theater were probably still watching to see what had happened. He scanned the crowd for faces, hoping to find one that stood out.

  Never know when a killer might be looking on, savoring the chaos his unholy work had brought, Gary thought. It happens all the time, just like it did with Randy.

  “Hey mister. What's going on in there? Somebody choke to death?”

  He turned toward the snickering, scrawny, pimple-faced kid who'd said it. The kid was standing next to a larger kid sporting a grim look on his face. The two looked no older than fifteen.

  “What's your name, kid?”

  “Call me Jimmy.”

  “You been here long, Jimmy?”

  “Just passing through Officer, on our way back from the store, when we saw all the yellow tape. It's a murder, isn't it?”

  There was an eager gleam in the kid’s eyes that made Gary feel a bit queasy, but he did his best to ignore it. The truth was, he didn't understand kids at all. He wanted to like them, but they usually just got on his nerves. In fact, it had gotten so bad that he'd stopped dating single women who had kids – especially if they had male teenagers. That last little tidbit of wisdom had come at a hard price. After an evening of drinks with a new love interest at the Brigg in Venice, he'd followed her back home only to be jumped by her teenage son and sucker punched. The only reason he hadn't taken the brat in was that he didn't think he could live with the embarrassment of having everyone else know about it.

  “Yes, son; this is a murder investigation. I'm a homicide detective.”

  “Cool!”

  “What's your name?” he asked the second teen.

  The stockier kid just silently glared at him.

  “That's my buddy, Gary. He doesn't talk much.”
<
br />   “Gary, huh? That's a good name.” Gary said, thinking of his own moniker.

  “He's super fucking smart though,” Jimmy said, not concerned in the least that he was using profanity in front of an authority figure. “He can do math in his head, and shit like that. Ask him anything. Go on.”

  “What's the square root of 484?”

  “22.”

  “Is he right?”

  “How the fuck should I know, man? It was your fucking question.”

  Gary took another long look around while he listened to Jimmy spout the F word.

  Most of the people watching the police action only looked vaguely interested. None had the burning look of a sociopath that Gary was hoping to find. He decided to move on.

  “Sorry kids, but I gotta get back to work.”

  “Yeah right,” Jimmy said. “What's the rush? It's not like the fucker is going anywhere.”

  Jimmy laughed, but Gary just stared at him. He turned and walked across the street without replying. He thought about what would have happened to him growing up if he spoke to an adult like that, much less to a cop. It was a Brave New World that kids were growing up in these days – and not really a better one.

  He let himself in under the yellow tape and entered the theater. An officer, Jay Wright, met him immediately and led him through the lobby, past two double doors. There were two small screening rooms with fewer seats and a large sofa, as well as a large room with nothing in it at all. Gary assumed by the used rubber left in the corner that it was a blackout room used for quick sex encounters by regulars. Beyond that was the large, cavernous movie theater. The lights were on, but the walls were painted black to give the place a more private and intimate feeling. Officer Wright explained that the theater ran straight pornographic movies in the small rooms up front, and gay films in the main area. It had been operating for decades as a gay cruising zone, a place to hook up with anonymous partners under the protection of near darkness.