Street Rules

by Baxter Clare

  “Just another banger,” she agreed bloodlessly. “And Ruiz is just another felon that I’m trying to get off the street, Dimmler. Just doing my job. And the more felons we put away the sooner you can get back into the gym to work on those pretty pecs of yours.”

  Lewis wolf-whistled and someone threw a wadded paper. Dimmler blushed. Frank raised her voice above the catcalls, deliberately keeping it in a low register.

  “Ruiz runs with the 51st Street Playboys. He has a tattoo of an octopus on his back that extends around to his chest. Got a big M tattooed under his collarbone. On his right shoulder he’s got BPBOYS, under that, 51, and under that, an upside down exclamation point, R, and another exclamation point.”

  Hunt mumbled, “Gee. How will we know if it’s him?”

  “He’s got a scar running up the right side of his neck, stands 5‘11”, weighs a buck eighty-five. If you spot him, approach with caution. Call me at my pager number, it’s on the flyer or have desk notify me immediately. Questions?”

  Sitting in back, Heisdaeck asked when was the last time anyone had seen Ruiz.

  “Day of the shooting.”

  The old cop just shook his head and said, “Ain’t gonna see him for a spell.”

  “Not if he’s smart,” Hunt added.

  “He’s a banger,” Dimmler quipped. “How bright can he be?”

  From the back of the room Munoz threw another piece of paper at Dimmler and laughed, “You got a lot to learn, Pretty-Boy.”

  The beefy blonde waved irritatedly at the missiles, growling, “Cut it out.”

  Frank thanked the sergeant and returned upstairs. She ran into Foubarelle on the way.

  “Frank! I was looking for you.”

  “What’s up?”

  The captain sighed, deeply wounded. Holding up a two-page memo, he said, “You want me to pull a unit when we’re already understaffed to do survey on a banger’s house? For a drive-by? What am I not seeing here?”

  Fubar was a station queen; he worked inside, not on the street. She wanted to say that by the time she told Fubar all he wasn’t seeing she’d be a week shy of retirement. He’d never been on the street in Figueroa and the little time he had spent on patrol had been at the Venice Division handing out public nuisance tickets.

  “This guy’s got a rap sheet longer than your arm, he’s got three separate felony warrants on him, and he’s the prime suspect in a murder case. He’s an old timer with the 51st Street Playboys and he’s been a bad boy for a long time. He’s past three strikes now and if we can find him we have a good chance to keep him out of action until he’s walking with a cane.”

  Frank shrugged.

  “You don’t want to catch him, it’s no skin off my nose.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that, Frank. Of course I want to catch him. We just don’t have the resources to pull a car out of action.”

  “Whatever. Just thought I’d ask. Look, I’m on my way to the coroner’s office. Anything else?”

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Autopsy on the drive-by of-the-week.”

  “And why do you need to be there?”

  Frank’s eyes narrowed and dilated. She clamped her teeth together. Any of her men would have known to back off, but Foubarelle kept at her.

  “It seems to me that your stats have taken a tumble and that you’re spending almost as much time out there as a foot cop. Except for the one you closed last week —”

  “— Two.”

  “What?”

  “We closed two last week.”

  “Well, until those I hadn’t seen a close-out or 60-day on my desk in weeks. What’s going on, Frank?”

  “You want to know?” she asked, nailing Fubar to the wall with twin steel-blue lasers. “I’ll tell you. I’m working over one hundred cases a year. We get so many homicides here we’re thinking of making it a misdemeanor. That’s what’s going on. A new case almost every third day. And when those new cases come in we’re supposed to drop everything and give them highest priority. Even you know our best chance of closure’s within 48 hours. I’m supposed to have a squad of ten and I’ve got six. That’s almost half-staff, John. My supervisor keeps telling me I’ll get replacements. I haven’t seen a new body in this room in four years.

  “And in case you haven’t been out there in a while, this isn’t a beach strip. I’ve got witnesses who won’t talk because they’ll get killed if they do. I’ve got kids out there who’ve done so many drive-bys they could teach John Gotti new tricks. I’ve got CIs that are hope-to-die users and as soon as we turn them into good sources they OD on us. I’ve got projects we can’t get into to question a suspect without half a SWAT team backing us.

  “If I’m spending time on the street it’s so I can help my men do the work they’re supposed to be doing. You want me in my office every day? Fine. You get me some extra legs out there. The stats don’t just walk up to the front door and wait to get picked up like a morning paper. Somebody’s got to go out there and dig them up.”

  Slightly shorter than his lieutenant, Foubarelle just stared silently up at her. Frank held the little man’s gaze then shook her head disgustedly and started walking away. But she stopped and said, “Why don’t you do a ride along for a couple days, John. See where your man-hours are being spent. Come with me to the autopsy. You can start there.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” the captain demurred.

  “No, really,” Frank insisted. “I think it’ll clear up a lot of misunderstandings. Why don’t you come along?”

  There are thousands of written rules and regulations within a police organization, but the most critical ones, the ones that make or break a cop, will never be found in any book or memorandum. The rules that cops create themselves are brutal and rigorous and can only be tested through trial by fire. During that trial, a cop has to display two criteria. The first is courage. Will he go into a burning building or make excuses? Will she back her partner or run for cover? Will he go down the alley with the mythic 250-lb man or look the other way and keep walking down the sidewalk? The second criterion is loyalty. Will she turn her partner in for knocking off a piece on the clock? Will he snitch about the free booze and cigarettes from the Handi-Mart? Will he or she balance on that thin line and cover for more serious things?

  If she passes, she earns an invisible badge of respect. She’ll have to work every day to keep it, but with it, she is allowed entry into the inner sanctum of police work. If she fails, every cop will know it. They might tolerate her, but they will never trust her or treat her as an equal. Respect cannot be legislated or mandated. It can only be earned. Frank made the offer to Foubarelle knowing full well that he’d refuse. He was afraid of the street and his loyalty was to the department, not his men. Frank waited for his answer, giving him plenty of time to make his rope long. Then he hung himself.

  “I appreciate the offer, and it’s a good idea, I just don’t have the time now. Maybe later.”

  Frank nodded gently, finding him not even worthy of scorn.

  Frank had specifically asked Gail to perform Placa’s autopsy but she’d been held up by the unexpected suicide of a sitcom star. The mood in Autopsy Room A was quiet as the new tech photographed Placa’s clothed body. Frank and Bobby watched silently while Gail sharpened her knives. Frank doubted there was much the autopsy could tell them, still she wanted to see it all, no matter how routine or seemingly irrelevant it might be. They started the external exam by removing and bagging Placa’s blood-encrusted clothing — baggy shorts, T-shirt, sports bra, men’s boxers, the Dodger’s cap. After photographing and x-raying the body, Gail noted all identifying features, including a homemade tat high inside her left thigh.

  It had been crudely dabbed, probably with a sewing needle and pen ink, in the Old English style favored by Latino gangs. Frank and Bobby peered at it, and the big cop slowly read, “La Re-i-na,” then whistled.

  “What?” Frank asked.

  “La Reina, man. I don’t know if it
’s a coincidence or what, but that’s what they call Ocho’s girlfriend.”

  Flicking a curious eyebrow, Frank crossed her paper-gowned arms across her chest. That certainly lent a new complexion to the homicide. Poking at an old scab, Gail asked what Placa meant.

  “It’s a tagger’s graffiti,” Bobby answered. “Which is usually the name of his gang and set, and something like ‘we rule’ or ‘Number 1’. She started tagging when she was what, eight or nine?”

  He looked to Frank.

  “Somewhere around there.”

  “Yeah, right around the time she stopped wearing the badge.”

  “What badge?” Gail asked.

  “That’s another reason they called her Placa. It means badge or shield in Spanish. She had this thing for cop’s badges, ” Bobby chuckled. “When she was just a toddler we’d find her in the middle of the street and we’d stop and pick her up, put her back in the house with someone. And she always wanted your badge. When you picked her up she’d finger your shield and stare at it, try to pull it off your shirt. That was back when Frank was my FTO. Remember when you gave her that plastic badge?”

  Frank offered the outline of a smile and Gail glanced at the two cops.

  “So what happened?”

  “You tell her,” Bobby said.

  Frank shrugged. “She must have been about five then. She was walking down the sidewalk one evening, it was getting dark, she was all alone. Me and Bobby stopped and she came running over. She loved riding in the squad car.”

  “Yeah,” Bobby interrupted. “We should’ve known then she was going to be an OG. Remember how she was always wanting to play with the shotgun?”

  Frank continued, “We pulled up to her house, but before I took her in, I told her I had something for her. I grabbed a bag out of the backseat and gave it to her. She reached in, pulled out a plastic police badge, you know, a toy like you get at the five and dime. She looked at it, turned it over, had this really serious expression. Then she shoved it in my hand and shook her head. Told me it was plastica and jumped out of the car. She turned around and stood up on her toes, jabbed at my badge. T want that one,’ she said and marched up the driveway.”

  Gail smiled, and Bobby took up the rest of the story.

  “Frank, being the softie that she is —”

  “— hey. That’s an ugly rumor.”

  “Frank has us looking all over town for metal badges. I know Noah brought some in and Haystack found one, but no, they weren’t good enough. It had to look like an LAPD badge. So we’re looking all over town for a realistic badge and one of the Pi’s from — where was it? Newton?”

  Frank nodded.

  “His brother runs a machine shop, so he makes one up. It’s perfect. It’s got the gold and blue and the insignia, probably illegal as hell —”

  “— he spelled LAPO instead of LAPD,” Frank corrected.

  “Okay. Other than that, it was perfect. And she wore that badge every day, didn’t she?”

  “Yep.”

  “She was a wild child,” Bobby mused. “There aren’t too many girls allowed into gangs. I mean they’ve got their own, but usually females aren’t allowed to run with male gangs.”

  Addressing a puckered old bullet wound, Gail asked why Placa was allowed.

  “Oh, she earned it,” Bobby answered. “And it helped that she had an older brother in the gang. In fact he jumped her in, whipped her for fifty-two seconds. When her time was up she was still swinging. The other guys backed off quick but Chuey kept at her, laughing the whole time. He finally knocked her out.”

  “His own sister?”

  “Yep. No room for softies in the ‘hood. If you’re going to make it you’ve got to be hard. Chuey wanted to make sure his sister was down, that she’d be there for her clique.”

  Bobby grinned at Frank, who couldn’t help noticing the similarities between street gangs and cops.

  “Remember that time she took the .22 in her head and everyone thought she was dead?”

  “What happened to her?”

  “We took her to the hospital and an hour later she’s asking us to buy her a soda. That bullet went in behind her ear and just curved around her skull. It came out the other side. You’ll see where when you open her up. She was getting quite the rep then and don’t you know that only added to it. Then she started doing that hex thing, like Claudia and Gloria used to do. Started leaving dead chickens and rats everywhere. You know that freaked some of the hermanos. Dead homies are one thing but start messin’ with that Santeria stuff…”

  “What is it?” Frank asked. Gail was squinting at the girl’s wrists, and answered, “Bruising. It’s real faint, but it’s there on both forearms. See? Like someone was pinning her down.”

  Both detectives leaned over and saw the faint purpling. Gail carefully continued searching the body. There were older cuts and bruises, but the only other thing noteworthy was what looked like dried sperm on Placa’s right thigh.

  “Let’s see what the PERK comes up with,” she said straightening up, arching the muscles in her back.

  “Rape?” Bobby asked his boss.

  “Be my first thought.”

  Gail frowned, “How did you jump to that?”

  Bobby glanced at Frank but she just kept her mouth shut behind her fist.

  “Placa didn’t go for boys,” he explained awkwardly.

  “She was a lesbian?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gail offered no reaction and Frank asked Bobby, “You talked to this Reina?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she look beat up at all?”

  “No. She’s missing a tooth but that’s old.”

  “She seem afraid?”

  “No.”

  “She say anything about her and Placa?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Bobby said. “But Nook found out Placa had dumped Itsy a couple weeks ago. Guess she’s hitting the pipes pretty hard and Placa didn’t want her around. She ordered the Queens to jump her out.”

  Frank studied the placement of the shots in Placa’s torso. Three in the ten ring, as they taught in the academy, an accurate pattern for stopping someone. Forever. Was the shooter that accurate on a moving target or just lucky? Frank cautioned herself on the pronoun, considering Itsy and La Reina potential suspects.

  Halfway through the internal exam, Noah and Johnnie came in. Johnnie hung back by the door but Noah gowned up.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, pulling on the cap.

  “Interesting,” Frank answered as he joined them at the table. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged, “We’re off the clock and were over at the Heights anyway. I just wanted to come by and see what was going on.”

  “Yeah, we’re off the clock,” Johnnie grumbled, “and we gotta stop and look at a fuckin’ post that’s not even ours.”

  “What’s interesting?” Noah asked, ignoring his partner sulking against the wall.

  “Looks like maybe she was raped.”

  “Wow. I’d like to see if that guy’s still walkin’.”

  Johnnie whined from the back of the room, “Jesus, No, how long you gonna stay here, huh?”

  Frank continued, “That’s not the interesting part.”

  She explained the tattoo and Noah answered, “Son of a bitch.”

  Maybe he was thirsty and long past due for his first drink of the day, but for whatever reason, Johnnie lost it. He stomped to the autopsy table, demanding, “Give me the goddamn keys. Get a ride back to the station with Frank. I’m not standin’ around off the clock to watch an autopsy on some fuckin’ beaner that’s not e-“

  That was as far he got. Calling Johnnie an ignorant fuck, Noah whirled and slammed a fist into the big man’s cheek. The shock of his own partner hitting him rendered Johnnie momentarily defenseless and Noah swung again. He was still swinging and cursing when Frank and Bobby stepped between them. Frank grabbed Noah’s lapels, shaking him, yelling in a deep voice, “Hey! Look at me!
”

  Bobby stood next to Johnnie who, Frank was grateful to see, was still stunned or he could have made pulp out of Noah. The skinny detective was still mad-dogging his partner but she marched him back a few feet, holding on to him until he looked away.

  “Give me the car keys, No.”

  He fished around in his pocket and slapped them in her hand.

  “Johnnie,” she called over her shoulder, tossing the keys at him, “Go on home.”

  Bending over to swipe up the keys, he told Noah, “You’re fuckin’ psycho.”

  “Fuck you, you drunken asshole,” Noah spit back.

  Frank patted his face roughly, “Hey. Knock it off. Johnnie, go home. Bobby, get back to the table.”

  Johnnie left, rubbing his jaw, swearing. Frank pulled Noah toward the door.

  “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “You don’t have to drive around with him all day, Frank. He’s a goddamn moron.”

  “He’s been a moron for years. Why’d you decide to punch him now?”

  Noah glanced at Placa, splay-chested on the table.

  “He had no right to call her that. I mean look at her. She’s defenseless. If she’d been here she’d have wailed on his ass.”

  “She’d a put a curse on him to make his dick fall off,” Frank said softly.

  “Yeah,” Noah smiled, but he ducked his head against the tears welling up. Frank hurt for her friend. She rested a hand on his shoulder and he looked back at Placa.

  “It’s just, you know, some of these kids. You watch ‘em comin’ up and they’re bright and they got so much potential and you just wanna see ‘em make it out of this fuckin’ cesspool. And she just had so much goin’ for her. I mean if anybody coulda made it out, it’d been her, but no, she had to die cause she was wearing her barrio on her arm. I mean where’s the fuckin’ sense in it?”