Shaker: A Novel

by Scott Frank

  “I’m assuming you left a message?”

  “I did. Left your name and number.”

  “You don’t think he’s the model citizen he says he is?” Though she realized that, so far, Roy Cooper hadn’t said much of anything outside of his obsession with baseball.

  “I think the question is, what was a guy from College Point, Queens, doing in that particular neighborhood?”

  She was about to tell him about Rosa, the girl Roy had come to visit, when she lost him again.

  Kelly didn’t miss the phone. Not right now anyway. It was the phone that got her in trouble in the first place. Everybody and their fucking phones. Some guy sees that Frank Peres is about to get shot, he gets his phone and records it, more worried about missing the money shot than saving the man’s life. But even the everyday is now urgently passed around like it’s breaking news. Kelly couldn’t understand those assholes, for example, that have to take pictures of every fucking meal. Cannot wait to share every damn detail of their boring lives. Get some likes. Thumbs up. Followers. Whatever the fuck people think of as social currency these days.

  Kelly wouldn’t know. She was the opposite of social. She was an angry dog. Or so the department shrink had told her. What she had, goes way beyond anger issues. She’s “violent.” “Deadly.” Dr. Berg told her that she’d be a sociopath if she didn’t overempathize with everyone. He called her personality a “delicious irony” in that it was her empathy that caused her violent behavior. His report said, “Sergeant Maguire sees and experiences things that she can’t process, horrible things, feels bad for the victims, then goes and exacts revenge on their behalf.”

  Bullshit. Kelly knew that her violent behavior stemmed from the fact that she had lost all patience with her fellow man.

  Especially when she was behind the wheel.

  Like right now. Behind this plate-head in the Honda Civic who just now put on his left blinker, a second after the motherfucking light had turned green. He’s got, what, eight cars behind him now, including Kelly, all of them thinking that he was going to go straight, all of them making the now-in-hindsight bad choice to stay behind him instead of moving into the right lane, which was now breezing through the intersection while this selfish dickhead inched forward, waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear so that he could make his precious left turn. People were honking and he, of course, was ignoring them. Instead, the guy looked at Kelly in the rearview mirror, thinking it was she who was on the horn, and flipped her off.

  Kelly got out of her car.

  She unclipped her badge from her belt and banged on the window with it. When the guy looked up at her, Kelly could see that he was maybe fifty with a big mustache and a T-shirt with I do my own stunts stenciled across the front.

  He rolled down his window, confused.

  “Have I done something wrong, Officer?”

  “You sure as shit have,” she said, waving her badge at the cars behind her, all of them honking now. “You just flipped me off.”

  “That was you?”

  “That was me,” she said. “But that’s not why I’m standing here.” She smiled and patted the top of the roof. “You didn’t turn on your blinker.”

  He looked at his dash. “It’s on.”

  “It’s on now,” she said. “But it wasn’t on before you stopped. Before all of these people—go ahead, turn around and look—”

  He turned around and saw the angry line of cars.

  “Before all of these people,” she went on, “pulled up behind you thinking you were gonna go straight through. But instead, the light turns green, and then you turn on your fucking blinker. So now what’s everybody all lined up behind you supposed to do?”

  “Wait?”

  Jesus.

  She smacked the roof of his car. “A hundred feet.” The guy nearly jumping out of his seatbelt as she said it. “A hundred feet before the intersection. That’s what it says in the handbook. That’s the rule. Especially when there’s no left turn lane like right here. You fuck up the flow of traffic otherwise. Imagine if every asshole on the road was just like you.”

  He looked at her, still confused. “Am I getting a ticket?”

  “No. You’re not getting a ticket. But I am gonna write down your tag. And then I’m gonna put you in the computer. You ever get pulled over for anything—I’m talking a broken taillight, late registration, whatever—you’re gonna be double fucked, you understand?”

  “Thank you, Officer.”

  Kelly straightened up, saw that the light had turned red, glanced at the cars behind her, and said, “When the light turns green again, you go straight through.”

  “But I have to go left.”

  Kelly looked at the guy.

  “I’ll go straight.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  Kelly turned back up Las Palmas, the traffic still crawling, trying to navigate all the detours and the war zone that was Hollywood Boulevard. All this traffic giving her time to think about what might have happened to Councilman Frank Peres.

  The man jogged through his neighborhood every night. Making the point that his neighborhood was safe. And Kelly, knowing that area, would have thought it was. Relatively speaking. So what happened?

  Peres was an old-timer. He grew up in the same neighborhood. He ran his own auto parts business for thirty years. By the time he retired, he’d opened seven of them, one for each of his kids. All of them grown now.

  He became a councilman after he retired, so he was never a career politician. Kelly had met him once at some LAPD function and liked him immediately. For one thing, he was the only person there not drunk. But Kelly also found him tough, no bullshit. He even called her after “the incident,” as Steven liked to call it, but Kelly was hidden away by then at a borrowed cabin up in Big Bear and never spoke to him.

  While liked and respected by many, Peres also pissed off a lot of people. He certainly had been going after the current mayor with a level of commitment not seen in city politics since the forties; Peres all but accusing Miguel Santiago of being in bed with the Mexican cartels, of taking their money for his campaign, the drug trade in L.A. now being almost exclusively cartel-sourced. The Latin gangs were running everything while the black gangs were all focused on being the next Jay Z, rapping on YouTube and starting their own record labels. As far as Kelly could tell, a guy like Peres was no threat to them. He was, however, a threat to the Mexican gangs that ran most of North Hollywood.

  And what about Roy Cooper? The man having no Social Security number and being, according to Rudy, a nonperson in the system? That’s almost worse than actually being in the system. In Kelly’s experience, the only people who left no wake were people who were either hiding or doing something illegal. She now wondered if the whole innocent little kid vibe was just a bug act, something to make him seem slightly off, get her thinking what he wanted her to think.

  Whether Roy Cooper was faking it or not, he definitely didn’t shoot Peres. But Kelly was having trouble believing that a bunch of twelve-year-old tiny Gs whacked a mayoral candidate. Unless they got paid by the cartels to do it. And if that was the case, then things were about to go to a whole other level. What would happen next would be a lot worse than a little underground shaker.

  Maybe now was the perfect time to do what they wanted her to do and retire. Maybe the universe was telling her to get out now before things got any uglier, if that was even possible. But then…what? Go into the family business, grow avocados? Teach at the academy? Now that would be something. After what she said, no one would ever let her within a city block of a rookie cop. She could move to someplace rural, be one of those small-town cops she always saw on TV. Solve one murder a year up in Montana or someplace.

  She was thinking that at least she wouldn’t have to deal with the fucking traffic when Carmen Suarez crossed the street right in front of her.

  “I’ve seen that a million times already.”

  “Good, then you know it.”

  Kelly wa
s showing Carmen stills from Alonzo Zarate’s cell phone footage of “The Peres Execution,” as the media now referred to it. The faces were all difficult to recognize in the dark, but one or two were clear enough, though not all that distinctive, unlike Carmen with her shaved head and the clown tattoos on either side of her neck. The right side of her face was marked with a dozen angry red dots. Not acne, but tiny scars. A former member of the Fruit Town Brims, a mixed race gang turfed around USC, she was home watching TV with her boyfriend, his aunt and uncle and his nephew, when an aspiring member of Eleven Deuce Hoover, a gang they weren’t even beefing with, came through the door with a sawed-off shotgun and pasted everyone in the room.

  The house he wanted was two doors down. An honest mistake given they were painted the same color, but the other one was a crack house that directly competed with the Hoovers’ own little fruit stand two streets over.

  Carmen was the only one in the house who made it. The buckshot hit her on the neck and side of her face. She was blind for two months following, which gave her a lot of time to think. For most of her recovery, she stayed with Kelly and her husband, Steven, Carmen listening to Steven all day and at one point saying to Kelly, “That dude’s not what you think he is.”

  Out of the mouths of fucking babes.

  Carmen was still marked and full-on blue lit by the Hoovers as the trial of the shooter, Marcus “Tangle Eye” Shrieve, hadn’t yet happened. So six months back, Kelly got her settled in Hollywood where soldiers from Eleven Deuce were unlikely to show their faces.

  Carmen played with the little gold revolver she had on a chain around her neck and half-assed studied the photos. She put a finger on a face.

  “Fat dude right there’s named Shake.”

  “Shake? Like an earthquake?”

  “Like a Vanilla Shake on account of his light skin.”

  “You know him?”

  “I knew his brother.”

  “Knew?”

  “He got dead outside a Dodger game, was last year.”

  “That was him?” Kelly thinking about the Locos and the Vineland Boyz going at it a year or so ago after somebody spilled a soda on somebody an hour before the game started.

  Carmen pointed to another face. “That’s Truck.”

  “Truck?”

  “Looks like he got hit by one.”

  “They all Vineland Boyz?”

  “Yeah, but they all puppies, tiny Gs. Sons of sons.”

  “You think it’s possible that someone paid a bunch of little homies to whack this guy?”

  “They did, they pretty fuckin’ stupid.”

  “Because?”

  “Because they ain’t gonna keep their mouth shut.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping.”

  Carmen turned to Kelly and gave her a look that said, Fuck, here it comes.

  “You know everybody.”

  “Used to,” Carmen said. “Same as you.”

  Kelly waited.

  Carmen sighed, looked around at the wrecked boulevard. “Any of that buckshot in my brain moves the wrong way, I’m a retard, you know that, right?”

  “I’m not asking you to go anywhere or do anything at all strenuous, and for sure nothing that would get you in trouble.” Kelly looked at the image of young Shake. “But if I get one, I’ll probably get ’em all.”

  “Yeah?” Carmen looked down the block as a bulldozer knocked down the rest of the Chinese Theatre. “So you can eradicate their ass?”

  Kelly felt that hit, then said to Carmen’s back, “You got something you wanna say?”

  “You’re the one said some shit.”

  “I sure did.”

  “Did you mean it?”

  “I did then.”

  Carmen faced her and asked, “What about now?”

  “Probably. Some of it anyway.” She looked at Carmen. “That gonna be a problem for us?”

  “I’m still deciding.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “But while you’re doing that, tell me why you left Covenant House.”

  “My room got all jacked. From the quake.”

  “They got other rooms.”

  “Not now they don’t. They all full up.”

  “So where you staying at?”

  She shrugged and said, “I hear it was an eight.”

  “What was an eight?”

  “The earthquake.”

  “That sounds high to me.”

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “Well, if that’s what everybody says.”

  “Don’t they tell you what it is?”

  Kelly wanted to ask her again where she was staying, but her phone began vibrating, and she saw it was Rudy again. She raised a finger to Carmen and answered.

  Rudy said, “Before we get cut off, I need you to meet me on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Kittridge.”

  She said, “Kittridge? That’s what, three blocks from Peres?”

  “Two. We got a white male DB. Sixty-something. Shot in the head. Happened sometime last night.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “Depends on the traffic.”

  “Try not to kill anyone.”

  Kelly hung up, saw that Carmen was already backing away.

  “I’m almost done, then you can run away.”

  Carmen stopped, looked around like she was in a big hurry to be somewhere else.

  “You go see that guy I told you about?”

  “He hired me.”

  “Good.”

  “Didn’t work out, though.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m just not a waitress.”

  “No? What are you?”

  Carmen shrugged.

  “Okay. This has been awesome. Call me if you get raped or murdered, otherwise I’m gonna leave you the fuck alone.”

  “You broke his neck.”

  Kelly turned back.

  “That kid you smacked up.”

  “I know who you meant.”

  “They gonna sue your ass.”

  “What happened at the restaurant?”

  “I wouldn’t ever call Carrows a restaurant.”

  “What happened?”

  “That guy you knew? The manager? Your good friend?”

  “Joel Spaihts. He wasn’t a friend. He owed me.”

  “Well now he owes me.”

  “How many times you gonna make me ask?”

  “He wanted to take my picture.”

  “Your picture?”

  “In the kitchen. At three a.m. With my nice brown uniform unzipped.”

  “He touch you?”

  “Touch me? Gimme a break.”

  “You want me to go talk to him?”

  “I already talked to him.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Yeah, we had a real nice talk, me and Joel.”

  “Then what?”

  Another shrug. “I left him there.”

  Kelly shook her head and stepped out her smoke. “Go back to Covenant House. I’ll call them, get you a room to yourself.”

  “I’m a big girl.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Kelly walked back into the street, headed for her car, momentarily stopping to talk to a guy in cargo shorts and a Universal Studios T-shirt as he was getting into a Tercel, the driver’s door open wide into the lane.

  “You know, asshole, you get your door ripped off by a passing car, it’s your fault.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  She badged him and said, “Next time, how about looking behind you first, maybe not swinging the fucking door into traffic?”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  Kelly was beginning to wonder.

  Roy woke up to his cell phone buzzing on the table beside him. He sat up in a panic, not sure at first where he was, but then he felt the pull on his wrist from the IV, sharp stings in his side and shoulder from the stitches there, and came back. He had meant to walk out
of here an hour ago, but had instead fallen asleep.

  He reached for the phone.

  “We got a problem, sweetie.” Rita’s voice calm, which meant she was angry. “I’m of course referring to the unfortunate incident the other night with this Councilman Peres and the four little jigaboos who popped him with, I’m guessing, our gun?”

  For a split second, Roy wondered how she knew all the way back in Queens, but then realized he was all over the television. Rita and Harvey did little but watch TV most days.

  “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “No, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You just fucked up is what happened.”

  “I already talked to Harvey.”

  “He said you were pretty out of it. So now you’re talking to me.”

  “Please tell Harvey that I’m sorry.”

  “What do you know about this Kelly Maguire?”

  Roy said nothing.

  “She’s the cop, right? The one I saw on TV trying to sneak out of the hospital they got you parked at? I’ve been reading about her on the Google all morning. Turns out she’s got a rather colorful past. Might be looking for a way to dull it down some by catching some big-time button from the East.”

  The Google. Big-time button. Rita couldn’t decide whether she wanted to talk like some old person or a character in one of the old crime novels she loved to read.

  “I don’t know anything about her,” he heard himself saying, not wanting to keep Rita waiting too long on the other end, or else she’d think he was working something out.

  “But what does she know about you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’ve spoken to her?”

  “Once.”

  Roy sat up as a black nurse with straightened, dyed blond hair came into the room waving a blood pressure cuff.

  “Just need to check your vitals real quick, sweetie.” She had to be ten years younger than he was, but here she was calling him sweetie. Everyone calling him sweetie. Everyone his whole life calling him sweetie. Roy held out his arm, kept the phone tight to his ear as the nurse began wrapping the cuff around his biceps.

  “Where’s Little Mac?” Rita was now asking.

  Roy looked at the chair in the corner, the plastic bag containing his bloody clothing still there. But then he remembered the black kid, Science, had the gun in his hand the last time he saw it. But then what? Did he drop it?