by Baxter Clare
“Bring Claudia and Gloria in for formal statements.” Then, “No, that’s okay. Just come back to the station. I need to talk to you. And Nook.”
Frank hung up, saying nothing.
“Let me guess,” Ike snickered. “That was Bobby conveniently calling to tell you poor Tonio threw another clot, only this one killed him. Am I right?”
Frank pushed the phone at him.
“Bingo.”
Ike doubled over, “There is no way I’m falling for that. Fuck, I’m insulted!” Smoothing his hand over his slick hair, he chuckled, “Thinking you can run a scam on me. Give me a break, Frank. I’m not some moron off the street.”
“No, you’re not. That’s why beating Tonio to death surprised me. What do you weigh? About 200? A two-hundred pound cop kicks the shit out of a 14-year old that weighs 120 if he’s wet. And you think a jury in LA.‘s gonna smile at that? You better hope Johnnie Cochran’s your lawyer, man.”
Smiling viciously, Ike punched a number into the phone.
“Give me intensive care.”
Neither cop took their eyes off the other.
“This is Captain Foubarelle, LAPD. Let me talk to Detective Nukisona.”
A pause that filled years, then, “Hey Nook. It’s Ike. What’s going on with that Estrella kid, man?”
Frank was sure Ike could hear her heart and she prayed, Come on, Nook! Come on!
“He did, huh? What of? Oh yeah. What time? Really? Nook, man, I hate to say this but it sounds like you’re bullshitting a bullshitter. What the hell’s going on over there?”
He stared at her, listening. An icy drop of sweat splashed onto her ribs and she had to remind herself to breathe.
“You levelin’ with me? ‘Cause it doesn’t sound like you are, man. Let me in. What’s going on?”
Ike’s face split nastily and he faked surprise when he said, “She told you to tell everyone that, huh?”
Frank depressed the phone button.
“Okay. You get round one. But your worst nightmare’s just starting.”
Ike cackled, slamming the handset down, “Oh baby. That was a good one! You actually thought you’d get me blabbing didn’t you, spilling my guts like some punk-ass bitch. Thought I wouldn’t notice I hadn’t been Mirandized. You’re incredible, baby, just incredible.”
Hanging over Frank’s desk, he went on, “Let me tell you, Frankie-girl, don’t waste your time. I am Mr. Teflon and you are not going to get anything to stick on me. You hear me? Nothing. Now, is there anything else before I go outside for a smoke?”
“Go ahead,” she said, “Go get your smoke. The condemned man having one last cigarette — I like it.”
“You’re the one that’s condemned. Your career?” He dove his hand toward the floor. “Crash and burn, le Freek. Film and pictures at eleven.”
He laughed all the way out of the squad room. Frank stared at the blank rectangle of her open door. She wondered idly if she was going to throw up or slam the wall again. Neither seemed like a good option. She’d had her shot and she’d blown it. Frank just stared at her phone for a while. Finally she reached for it. It was time for Nelson to set his dogs loose, muzzled as they were.
Chapter Thirty-one
Frank had put too many people in jail to appreciate an unexpected knock on her door. She put her beer on the counter, glancing at the 9mm holstered on the table.
“Who is it?” she bellowed over the stereo.
“It’s me. Gail.”
Checking through the peephole to make sure someone wasn’t holding a gun on the doc, Frank thought, I am becoming one paranoid asshole.
“Hey. Why aren’t you home in bed?”
“I wish I were,” Gail groaned. “I had a date with the mayor.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I wanted to call you but I didn’t want to wake you up in case you were sleeping. So I drove by and when I saw the lights on … do you mind if I come in for a minute?”
“You’re in, aren’t you?”
“I’m serious. Do you have a sec?”
“Sure,” she answered, nudging Gail toward the kitchen. “Can I buy you a beer? Something stronger?”
“No. Just an ear,” she said slumping onto a stool at the counter. “You were right. He wants me to bury her blood-alcohol.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” she groaned. She picked at a chip in the lively Mexican tile.
“He threatened to out me.”
She looked up at Frank, clearly agonized.
“And you too.”
“Amazing,” Frank blurted. She sought refuge from this additional betrayal in the cop’s time-honored use of crude humor. “You’re not even getting any and they’re twisting you. You’d think they’d at least have the decency to wait until you were getting properly laid before they blackmailed you.”
“It’s not funny, Frank. They’ve seen us around. One thing leads to another.”
Frank was leaning on the opposite side of the counter. Her hand found the back of her neck as she marveled, “We can’t send a man to jail for killing eight people — and a dog — but we can ruin one woman’s career because she has dinner with another woman. What a country, huh?”
“I don’t want to drag you into this,” Gail said and Frank gave a short, hard laugh.
“Drag away, doc. This is stupid. This is so fucked. All of it. If they kicked me out tomorrow I don’t know that that would be such a bad thing.”
“Maybe you’re ready to go but I just got here and I’ve worked damn hard to get here too. I don’t want to lose it all now.”
“Gail, you’re not going to lose it all just because the fucking mayor tells KABC you’re a lesbian. He’s a dick, you’re a dyke. Let public sentiment decide.”
“I wish it were that simple, but he’s a very powerful player. He said in so many words that he can make things very ugly. For both of us.”
“Whatever,” Frank said. She drained her beer and pulled another out of the fridge. Slapping the top off against a ceramic opener set into the wall, she asked, “Sure you don’t want one?”
“I’m sure. She was blind drunk, Frank. She killed three kids before their lives barely even got started. Talk about your public sentiment. That would bury him in a heartbeat. If I lie, I keep my job. Until the next ugly incident. But if I lie, I don’t know that I could get out of bed in the morning. I hate this.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been asked to do anything like this before.”
“Not this bad.”
Gail looked at Frank as if she had an answer and Frank nodded. Bending over the counter Frank confided, “You know, I was thinking about this the other day. I offered a deal to the kid we originally thought capped Placa. He and his home boys talk to me, give me their alibi, and except for smoking someone, I’d look the other way. It wasn’t right, but neither was losing a case against Ike. Sometimes it’s okay to look the other way and sometimes it’s not. There’s just a hairline between right and wrong and I only hope I don’t cross too far onto the wrong side.
“I’ve done things I’ll never tell anyone about. Some of them seemed like the best choices at the time. I figure by and large I’m a pretty good cop, and I can do more good on the street than off. I can’t help anyone if I’m not out there. I’ve made choices that kept me in the game, choices that I justified for the long run. Remember what they always told you when you were a kid? It’s not who wins or loses, but how you play the game? Might be true in games but it’s bullshit in politics.
It’s all about who wins and loses, and that’s all it’s about. Problem is, you and I, we’re still in it for the game.”
Frank swallowed some beer. She hated the anguish on Gail’s face. Wished she could wipe it away. Sonny Stitt blew Sweet and Lovely from the speakers and Frank thought, yes she is.
“You’ll do the right thing, Gay. Whatever that is for you.”
Gail nodded glumly.
“God! I hate this!” She ran he
r fingers through her hair, insisting, “I can’t do it. I’ll hate myself forever if I do. Goddamn it. But what about you?”
Frank lifted a shoulder.
“I’m not going any farther in my career than I already am. Surprised I made it this far, actually. If they busted me down to a DIII that wouldn’t be so bad either. I could live with that. If they busted me out of the department… long as I get my pension, I don’t know that I really care. At least not tonight.”
“I thought you were so gung-ho. Semper fi and all that malarkey.”
“I love my job. I never said I loved who I work for.”
“I thought you worked for the people.”
“That’s true,” Frank allowed. She studied the slim head on her beer and Gail said, “So I tell him no. There. The decision’s made.”
Gail snapped her fingers.
“Two brilliant careers over just like that.”
“Ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Frank smiled tiredly.
“Well however it turns out, thanks for listening. You’re a good sounding board, you know that?”
“It’s my job, ma’am.”
“Hey, did you get my message last night? About Don Giovanni?”
“Yeah. Sounds dope.”
“Dope?” Gail said wagging her head. “You’ve been on the streets far too long.”
“Yeah. I need me some cult-cha.”
“I’ll give you cult-cha. Can I have a sip of that?” she asked, jutting her chin at the Corona. Frank slid it to her.
“How was your day?”
“Don’t ask.”
“It couldn’t have been worse than mine,” Gail said smugly.
“Don’t count on it,” Frank said, and Gail gradually wheedled the past forty-hours out of Frank.
“You know,” Frank decided. “It’s not even Ike so much. Yeah, that hurts, that one of my own men did this. I hate it but on some level I can even understand it. He’s lost a few nuts. Something’s rattling around loose in his head when it should be bolted down tight. Maybe he didn’t come back from ‘Nam right, I don’t know. A lot of guys didn’t.
“But the thing that gets me, is the institution. You know, I wanted to be a cop because my uncle was. I heard all his stories and I believed in good guys triumphing over bad guys. I believed that shit. And then when — well, some other things happened and I really believed that I had to be a cop, that I had to go out there and make a difference like my Uncle Al did. So I joined the force, swallowed the pabulum they fed us in the academy, and for a while I believed that our mission truly was “To Protect and Serve”. Yeah, some bad things happened, but by and large I thought the LAPD was founded on good, solid values, that when push came to shove we’d do the right thing.
“Even today, until Nelson told me to let this go, I still believed they’d come through. I still believed they’d do the right thing. And that they didn’t is killing me. No one gives a flying fuck about the Estrellas. They’re just dopers out of the barrio. And I know it’s that way, I’m not stupid. You don’t spend seventeen years on the force and not know that it’s all about the department. But when it comes to something like this, something really big, you always hope that someone’ll do the right thing. That just this one time they’ll do the right thing.
“And of course they didn’t. Ike probably gets nothing worse than a boot off the force. My squad’s coming apart at the seams. My own men think I’m a cheese-eater, and eight people are dead. And the fucking dog. And you know what the worst thing about all this is? As bad as all this shit is, the worst was having to go to Claudia’s today and tell her there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even say how sorry I was, because she’d known all along what I couldn’t — or wouldn’t — believe.”
Frank waved her empty beer.
“I’m babbling, doc. Sorry.”
“No, don’t be,” Gail consoled. She reached for Frank’s hand. “It’s good for you. You need to talk this out. Keep talking.”
Frank studied the crow’s feet around Gail’s eyes, the high cheekbones, and the little ear peeking out behind the shiny, dark hair. There were some wisps of gray at her temples that Frank hadn’t noticed and she wondered if the doc touched them up.
“No,” Frank said. “I think what I need right now is for you to dance with me.”
She stepped around the counter and held her hand out to Gail.
“Would you do that?”
Gail took the offered hand, smiling, “You bet.”
Frank held her lightly, but close. She inhaled the familiar peach shampoo, and underneath it, a dim, sexy scent that was uniquely, arousingly Gail’s.
“I’m a horrible dancer,” Gail warned into Frank’s shoulder.
“Me too.”
The song ended, but Frank kept leading, until Dexter’s trumpet moaned into Round Midnight. Checking her watch, she joked, “They’re playing our song.”
“I didn’t know we had a song.”
“We do now.”
“Meaning what, copper?”
“Meaning this.”
Frank bent her lips to Gail’s, lingering over them. They kept dancing, their lips exploring the others, until Frank traced hers along Gail’s jaw, under the hollow beneath, on down the smooth and creamy silk of her throat. They moved together closely, dancing until they weren’t following the music anymore but rather the rhythm of their own longing. When their lips parted for a moment, Frank whispered, “Stay.”
Gail seemed reluctant, explaining, “This isn’t how I planned it.”
“How’d you plan it?” Frank teased gently. “Was I even in it?”
“Most definitely,” Gail shined.
“So tell me how this should go.”
Pressed together, ostensibly dancing, Gail said, “Well, first of all it was at my place. There’d be music — which we have — and lots of candles, and wine, and I wouldn’t have just been blackmailed by the mayor and coming home from work. I’d be clean and lovely and in some very sexy but unrevealing slinky thing from Victoria’s Secret.”
“Hm. Well, I have candles and I have wine. And I can’t do anything about the mayor, but I do have a shower and a clean T-shirt.”
Gail laughed and Frank murmured, “Could that possibly be close enough?”
The doc pressed into Frank and didn’t answer. They danced amid saxophones and tinkling pianos while Frank ached for Gail.
“I’m scared,” the doc finally admitted.
“Of what?” Frank asked, not loosening her arms. She felt Gail take in a full breath, heard her say, “Of what you’ll think. When you see me.”
“And what do you think that’ll be?” Frank said into the sweet hair, drowning in the scent of it.
“Probably nothing. But maybe you’ll be repulsed.”
“No,” Frank whispered. “That’s not going to happen. I promise. And it’s okay if you’re afraid. I don’t want to push you into something you’re not ready for, but you also need to know how much I want you, Gay. I want you so very much.”
“Are you sure?”
With a quick, soft laugh, Frank allowed, “That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”
She gathered Gail even more closely, telling her, “You’ve got to do what’s right for you, and if that means leaving, I’ll hate it, but I’ll understand.”
Gail stepped away from Frank. Bringing her arms up around her neck she said, “I don’t want to leave.”
“Then stay,” Frank pleaded. “Stay.”
Gail held the cobalt eyes for a long moment before asking, “So where’s that T-shirt?”
Epilogue
Frank sat in her work clothes, her shirt open to the sun. She was methodically killing a bottle of Glenfiddich and decided through her growing buzz that it was pretty hot. She should probably change into shorts before she melted, although melting into a puddle and disappearing didn’t seem like such a bad idea. It had a certain macabre appeal to it, Frank decided. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
Swirli
ng the whiskey in her glass, she silently implored, Come on. Do your stuff. She couldn’t get drunk fast enough. She tried pretending she didn’t hear the doorbell, but she wasn’t that drunk. Yet. She stood slowly and made her way through the house, glass in hand. She was hoping it would be a Jesus solicitor behind the door. She was up for a good theological sparring and was disconcerted to see Gail standing there instead.
“Hi. I tried calling but kept getting a busy signal. Noah said you’d gone home.”
“Here I am.”
Frank opened the door wider and Gail stepped into the coolness of the house. Frank watched the doc impassively appraise the drink in her hand and the shirt hanging out of her pants. She knew her eyes were slitting up too. They did that when she was well on her way to oblivion.
“You do the post?” she asked picking her syllables carefully.
“Yeah. I just came by to see how you were. Noah was worried about you.”
“He worries too much.”
“He cares about you.”
Touchy-feely stuff. Frank didn’t want to go anywhere near that. Might ruin the effect of all that good scotch.
“What did you find?”
Sober enough to see Gail’s confusion, she clarified, “When you cut.”
“Nothing. Somebody emptied a .25 into him. It was a clean hit.”
A clean hit.
Frank almost smiled, wondering if Gail knew she had just used police parlance for a justified shooting.
And justified it was, Frank told herself convincingly. Somebody had taken out Ike Zabbo last night. The sweeper driver at Hollywood Park had found him under his car in the back lot. Frank had handled her crew, letting them go home if they wanted to, but with strict orders not to bug Southeast or the Coroner’s Office for information. It wasn’t their case. In fact it had probably been kicked up from Southeast to Robbery-Homicide by now. Frank thought to ask Gail who was at the post, then decided she didn’t really want to know. She swallowed the last of the drink, relishing its pure, raw burn. Then she realized she was being an impolite hostess.
“Can I get you a Coke or something? Too early for a beer?”
