Street Rules

by Baxter Clare

  The cops felt like they were getting part of the picture but not the whole screen. Frank considered asking Nook’s opinion on the shakedown theory, but kept quiet, still wanting to flesh it out more. It was a serious charge, and not one that Nook or anyone else in the department would take lightly.

  When she asked if they thought Placa could have been hooking, Bobby stared at her deadpan. His partner snickered, “That girl had her hustle on, but not like that.”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said, stretching her arms over her head, “I think it might be worth nailing down.”

  “Yeah, well, Les and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment at 3:30 …”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Frank said. “It’s a silly idea, but if I can find Lydia I’ll run it by her. See if I can’t pin her down some more about the dope.”

  “I’d go with you,” Nook said, “but I’ve got an appointment too.”

  “Yeah, with your Lazy-boy.”

  “I’m not young like you two,” he balked. “Time for the old dogs to move over and let you pups have a try.”

  Frank baited, “Don’t tell me you’re retiring, Nook.”

  He hissed at the “r” word, mumbling retirement was for losers. His old partner had retired in January and that was when Nook had put in for transfer. He was right. Homicide at Figueroa wasn’t for old dogs. Frank usually worked at least a twelve-hour day. When they rolled on a fresh case, 24, 36, even 48-hour days weren’t uncommon. The job was physically, emotionally, and intellectually demanding. Joe Girardi had called homicide the decathlon of police work, and Figueroa the Olympic arena.

  After they left, Frank reveled in the silence that enabled her best work. She stopped for a moment when she heard footsteps shuffle and click in the squad room. Ike was the determined click and Diego was the Vibram-soled shuffle. Frank went out to tell Ike that McQueen wouldn’t budge on her charges.

  “Whatever. I did my part.”

  “That’s all you can do you,” Frank commiserated. It was hard enough finding the bad guys, but then when the district attorney’s office let them go with a slap on the hand it felt like fighting a losing battle.

  “How’s it going?” she asked Diego.

  “Okay,” he answered, filling Frank in on their day. When he was done, she said to Ike, “Aren’t you late for the track?”

  “That’s were I’m headed.”

  Every afternoon he could be found at Hollywood Park, putting money on the last races of the day.

  “Damn, Pinkie, I don’t know. Peep you, dipped like a bailer, got your bling on … those ponies must be ridin’ bank to you.”

  Ike’s mouth turned down. He was no Rhodes scholar but he hated street slang. All you had to do to send him into a fit was say “ebonies.”

  “Yeah,” Diego grinned, slipping Frank some skin, “Gi’ my dawg mad props. He be da illest one-time hoedin’ it down fo’ da Nine-Tray.”

  “Assholes,” Ike grumbled, straightening his tie. He was the only detective Frank knew who tightened his tie after work.

  “Gang-stuh,” Diego kidded, watching his partner preen. Frank unperched from the desk, saying goodnight. She was tired of being inside all day and figured she’d try to find Lydia or Tonio. Driving north from the station, she absorbed the surrounding graffiti and street action. The ratty section of Hoover Street that she was on was probably how most people envisioned south-central. Neglected houses pocked with bullet holes and defaced by taggers served as shooting galleries and rock houses. Empty windows yawned behind the black teeth of iron bars. Dirt yards fronting the street were strewn with garbage, rusted engine parts and busted furniture. Banana trees and bougainvillea struggled in the impacted soil, creating the look of an impoverished banana republic plunked down in the middle of one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

  The Estrella’s street was neater and cleaner. Frank noticed their tired Buick wasn’t in the driveway and was pleased when Tonio opened the door.

  “Hey. Quivo!”

  “My mom’s not here,” he answered through the steel mesh.

  “That’s okay,” Frank answered easily, “How ‘bout your sister?”

  “She ain’t here either.”

  Frank asked where they were. Tonio said he didn’t know, they’d been gone when he got home.”

  “Where you been today?”

  “You know. School.”

  “This the one day a week you go?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothin’,” Frank grinned, picking up the stink of stale malt liquor. “You look like you been hangin’ out. Smokin’ some Phillies, crackin’ some Eights.”

  “I wun doin’ that.”

  “Hey. I ain’t your PO. I don’t care if you’re flying all day long. Looks like I woke you up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What you so tired from?”

  Tonio pitched a thin shoulder. A crude Virgin of Guadalupe was tattooed on his bicep. On his left arm he wore the same gang insignia his sisters had, and on the right he had KV2. He was wearing boxer shorts and a dingy tank-T. Frank noticed a faint blue mist on the shirt. She glanced at his index fingers, finding more of the tell-tale blue, the King’s favorite color.

  “Been out strikin’?”

  He flicked his shoulder again.

  “You do that one at the PikRite? It’s pretty good.”

  “Nah, that was Tiny. He’s way better’n me.”

  “I don’t know. There’s some pretty nice tags out there for your sister. I know you done some of ‘em. You do that one on Denker? That big one? It’s pretty good.”

  The boy sheepishly scratched his belly, confiding that Placa had done most of the mural.

  “You should be in art school or something, I mean, I can’t even sketch a crime scene. Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “Don’t know,” he answered, bashful all of a sudden.

  “Placa teach you how to make those curvy letters?”

  “Yeah, she taught me some.”

  “She was pretty good, huh?”

  He agreed and Frank said, “Tell me, how you get them so high? You carry a ladder around or something?”

  The boy guffawed and Frank grinned, “Is that how you do it?”

  Frank was trying to build Tonio’s confidence, his trust.

  “No way,” he snorted. “You gotta make somethin’ to step on, you know. You stick screwdrivers into the cracks. Or branches off trees. You can step on ‘em.”

  “Man, that’s dangerous.”

  The kid shrugged dismissively, “You gotta be careful. But I don’t weigh so much. Some of these guys, they can’t do it, you know? They’re too big.”

  “Do you ever fall?” Frank asked, seemingly in awe.

  Twisting his back, he pointed proudly to a large, bruised scrape.

  “I did that last week, doin’ the one on 58th Street.”

  Bingo, Frank thought. Tonio had done the hard part for her.

  “Oh yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. That’s a good one too. But why you’d strike out the LAPD?”

  Tonio’s enthusiasm was quickly replaced with sullen wariness. He just stared at the porch floor.

  “Is it me? ‘Cause I’m hanging around so much? Is that it?”

  When he didn’t respond, Frank sighed loudly, and hung her head too.

  “I’m just trying to figure out who did this to your sister. I want the maricon did this caught and put in the ‘Dad for a long time. And I hope he’s real pretty and that all the guys like him. A lot.”

  Frank dropped her voice, appealing to Tonio’s Latino pride.

  “I know you know who did it. I can’t blame your mom and Gloria for not talking. They’re women. They’re scared. I understand that. But you’re different. You’re a man. You’re not a coward. You’re not a little boy anymore either, even though your mama tries to protect you. I respect you, Tonio. And I respected your sister. She had a heart like a man.”

  In the barrio, where masculinity and strength were admired abo
ve all else, that was high praise. Tonio was still staring down. His features were fine and sharp, offering no hiding place for his distress.

  “She called me a couple days before she died, wanted to meet with me. Said she had something to tell me. It must have been hard for her to call. I could tell from her voice that she was scared. But she did it anyway. She didn’t give in to her fear, she didn’t let it beat her. Whatever Placa was afraid of, she was facing it like a man. Are you? Would she be proud of you, Tonio? Are you respecting her memory?”

  She gave him time to consider, then gently slipped her card into the door frame.

  “Keep that. You’re Placa’s baby brother, but I think you’re just as brave. Tell your mom and Gloria I said hello.”

  Next, she cruised southeast, into 51st Playboy territory, keeping an eye out for Lydia. The girl didn’t have a phone so Frank couldn’t call her, but wouldn’t have anyway; announcing her visits gave people time to think of answers or disappear. There was no reply when Frank knocked on Lydia’s door. A thick, older woman taking out garbage, eyed Frank suspiciously, then said, “The tramp ain’t home. I seen her go out about lunchtime.”

  She wheezed on a cigarette and Frank asked if Lydia had left alone.

  The woman hacked up a lung, adding, “She was with those hoodlum friends of hers. They’re none of ‘em no good. Robbin’ old ladies and children.”

  She spit in the hallway, narrowly missing Frank’s expensive loafers.

  “I seen you here before,” she said, taking in the ID clip and badge on Frank’s belt. “What did she do?”

  “Afraid I can’t tell you that,” Frank played up, “But let’s just say it ain’t good.”

  The old lady nodded, snorting, “That don’t surprise me.”

  Frank returned the nod, adding, “Yeah. And I’ll bet you’ve seen a lot.”

  “Oh!” the old lady coughed, flourishing a chubby hand, “I could write a book.”

  “You ever see her with a real tough looking girl? Got her gang tattooed on her forehead, a devil on her arm?”

  The old lady was nodding before Frank even finished.

  “You ever see them go out together?”

  “No, I only seen that other one going into her apartment. That girl was trouble.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, just look at her!” she sputtered. “That girl couldn’a been up to no good. Uh-uh.”

  Then she went into the diatribe Frank knew by heart. How this used to be a nice place to live until the gangs started taking over and why didn’t the police do anything about them? Always disposed to recruiting snoopy neighbors, Frank sympathized for about two minutes before taking a firm but graceful exit. She tried a few more places where she thought she might find Lydia, then tried the apartment again. Frank’s luck was good because Lydia was just slipping the key into her lock.

  “Hey.”

  Lydia jumped. She relaxed slightly when she saw it was just Frank, but didn’t finish opening her door.

  “Got a couple questions for you. Want me to ask out here or some place private?”

  Lydia grumpily clicked the lock, allowing Frank into a dime-sized but tidy apartment.

  “How you afford this?”

  “Ocho pays for it.”

  “Damn. He pays for the place where you’re knockin’ boots with an off-brand. You got some nerve,” Frank praised. “Let me ask you something personal. Did you and Placa ever do business together?”

  “What do you mean,” Lydia asked, her dark eyes narrowing to slits.

  “You know, like hustlin’, going somewhere to do business outside the ‘hood?”

  Lydia cracked her gum, eyeing Frank with obvious disdain. She made a grunting sound, “You mean like those low-class putas that hang out on the corner?”

  “No, not like those skanks. I mean real nice, high-class work. None of that strawberry shit.”

  “We don’t gotta do that,” she said, her disgust becoming disbelief. “Why you askin’ that for?”

  “It’s just something I heard. I just-“

  “Who you heard that from?” Lydia cried. “I’ll lay that fuckin’ chingona out on the sidewalk. Who tolt you that? Don’t nobody know nothin’ about me and Placa.”

  Lydia’s indignation was real, and Frank calmed her, lying, “Hey, it’s no big, just some trash I heard from a kid in lockup. Did you ever meet her anywhere outside of here? You know, where no one would see you together?”

  “People can see you anywhere,” Lydia said angrily. “I tolt you, we hooked up here.”

  “Nowhere else?”

  “No.”

  “What happened when you two saw each other on the street?”

  “We’d flash each other. We’d dis each other, but not too much. We didn’t want to start no trouble.”

  Frank nodded, “Tell me again about the drugs. Did she ever tell you who she sold to, or where? Anything like that?”

  “I already tolt you that too,” Lydia explained.

  “I know. I’m stupid. Tell me again,” and she did so, exaggeratedly patient, like Frank was a slow child. Frank again asked where Placa was going when she left her that last day. Lydia again said she didn’t know.

  “She did that sometimes. Just said she had to go somewhere. She’d get real sad and mad like. I asked her once or twice but she never tolt me. Said she couldn’t, so stop askin’.

  Lydia was wistful when she added, “She was different like that. Cholos always be talkin’ about what they done and what bad-asses they are, but me and Placa, we din’ talk about where we been or where we are. We liked talking about where we wanted to be.”

  “You knew she wanted to go to college, right?”

  Lydia’s animosity softened, “Yeah, that was her dream. She used to say she had to get out of here. She said she’d take me with her when she left and that we’d leave this vida loca foolishness. One time,” Lydia smiled behind her hand, “she said she wanted to be a cop and come back and arrest all the P51s.”

  “What was your dream?” Frank asked.

  “To go with her,” Lydia whispered.

  “All right,” Frank said, feeling a pang of tenderness. “You be careful out there. Don’t make me have to be asking questions about you someday.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Lydia huffed.

  “Yeah, I know. That’s what Placa used to say.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Frank had been determined to get to the Estrella’s, but the 93rd pulled a new case before briefing was even over — a Korean store owner beat to death at dawn while rolling up his metal storm door. Tensions between black and Korean communities ran high in south-central. The blacks accused the Koreans of sabotaging their neighborhoods by operating liquor stores on every corner. The Koreans said they had every right to run a business where there was opportunity. Frank had called Fubar before they even rolled and he arrived as the coroner techs were loading the vies body.

  The brass knew crime scenes were off-limits even to them, yet they consistently ignored the yellow police tape.

  Foubarelle stepped under it and Frank was grateful he hadn’t arrived earlier to fuck up the evidence collection.

  “What have you got?” he asked, his chest puffed like a fighting cock.

  Frank indicated three separate people talking to detectives. Smoothly guiding her supervisor back under the tape, she said, “We actually have wits to this one. The old man was walking up the street. Saw a tall, muscular, black male, shaved head. He was arguing with the owner. He thinks the suspect’s name is Luther Moore. Everybody calls him Mr. Em. Styles himself a Muslim but the old man says he’s a bum. He got a little closer and he heard this Em saying he just wanted a pack of cigarettes. The vic, name’s Ruk, he owned the store, but he wouldn’t open up. Old man says Em kept arguing. Says Ruk seemed frightened and was trying to get into the store but Em was in his face. Em grabbed the vie by the arm and slammed him against the building. Then he picked up a garbage can,” Foubarelle frown
ed at the garbage still coating the sidewalk, “and threw it at Ruk. Ruk went down, then Em picks up the can again and starts beating the vie with it. That’s what the other two described too.”

  “Shit,” Foubarelle said. “It had to be an African-American.”

  Frank smiled, knowing he was worried about the reporters pacing the area, catcalling questions at him.

  “Have fun,” she offered, but he grabbed her sleeve.

  “Do we have any idea where this Mr. Em is?”

  “Nope. Old man thinks he lives a couple blocks south. Might be an Eleven-Deuce Crip.”

  That was LASD jurisdiction and Frank confirmed their notification. Inglewood and Watts PD, along with Southeast Division, had an APB too. Noah walked by, clucking, “And they say smoking’s not addictive.”

  Frank put her whole squad on Ruk. They spent the next twenty-four hours searching for Luther Moore, amid howlings of the media, black and Korean business and community directors, deputy chiefs, the Chief, even the mayor. Frank could see them all churning this into another riot and pressed her crew mercilessly.

  At approximately two o’clock the following afternoon, Southeast got a complaint from a woman who said there was a man sleeping in her garage. The responding officers found Luther Moore curled up in an Impala on blocks, snoring loud enough to scare Christ away.

  Frank called Gail from the Alibi’s payphone, exhausted, but exhilarated that their suspect was in lock-up.

  “Been a long week,” Frank said. “I’m glad it’s Friday. We gonna see you tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve had a long week too.”

  “Look,” Frank yelled, a finger in her other ear. “I’ve got an idea, if you’re not busy tomorrow.”