"You're thinking about manual section 319.5," Arredondo said.
"That's exactly what the fuck I am thinking about. The part where it says it's against regulations for an officer to fail to act when one has information that a crime is going to occur. If we go along with his plan, we're in violation of the manual."
Fordyce finished chewing a pretzel and washed it down with beer. "Personally, I believe Captain Harger will back us up. He's always kept his word to me."
Black picked up a fresh beer. "His word on what? About getting you transferred to the records bureau? About some computer bullshit? The question is whether the man will suck heavy heat if a shooting goes down. Whether he'll testify before a board of rights hearing that we were acting on his orders. Whether he'll be a man and not leave us hanging by the dick."
"If you don't think he'll back us up on the street, you should have told him that to his face," Fordyce said.
Black leaned forward on the table. "All officers are bullshitters. Take the Chief. He had a lamp installed in his office that beams directly on him. A spotlight. What kind of a guy would do that? Only a fucking glory hound."
Arredondo's cheeks were flushed from drink. He hiccupped. "Policewomen are the real glory hounds on this job. They want a badge so bad they are willing to wear a uniform designed for men."
"Badge carrying dykes!"
The crowd at the table erupted into laughter.
Fordyce wasn't laughing. He finished his beer and set the bottle down. "I know some women who are good cops."
"That has nothing to do with what we're talking about," Black said.
"Excuse me for living."
"Harger has a good reputation," Stepanovich said.
Black guzzled some beer and wiped his mouth. "We stake out the shooters and wait for them to get shot," Black said sarcastically. "It certainly makes sense. Hell, I like the idea on general principles."
Stepanovich took a drink from his bottle and felt the icy beer slide all the way into the beer pool in his stomach. "Harger's right. Either we make the first move or wait for the next gang shooting."
"The Mexicans have been killing each other since L.A. was a fucking pueblo," Arredondo said, slurring his words. "They'll never stop."
"I wonder why they do it?" Fordyce asked.
"Do what?"
"Kill each other. I mean that as a serious question. Why?"
Arredondo spun an empty beer bottle on the table, then stopped it. "Because that's the way it is," he said. "They do what their older brothers do."
"Mexicans have it in their blood," Black said. "They go on the warpath like Indians."
Arredondo glared. "I'm a Mexican. You talking about me, you hillbilly cocksucker?"
Black sipped his beer. "Don't get your shit hot over nothing. I'm just talking."
"People in the Mafia kill each other," Stepanovich said. "The blacks kill each other every minute of the day. Chinamen kill each other in Chinatown. Even Samoans have hit men. Everybody's killing everybody."
"I guess we wouldn't even hear about gang murders if we weren't cops," Fordyce said.
"You have to admire the gangs for sticking together," Black said. "They defend their clan. You kill one of mine, I kill one of yours."
"That's right," Arredondo said. "They make bad enemies, but damn good friends."
Black cleared his throat. "Last year there was a drive by shooting in El Sereno. A White Fence veterano got killed. The shooter was a homeboy who'd been released from San Quentin that very day. Now here's a guy who's been fucking his fist for nine years, and the first thing he does when he gets out of the joint is kill someone. We arrested him and he went back to prison without so much as getting himself a piece of ass. But the man had made a promise and kept it. You gotta respect him for that."
Arredondo finished his beer and set the bottle down.
"Fuck him. He's just another stupid chongo."
"Whatever you say about the man, he gave up everything rather than welsh on a promise. He's tried, tested, and proven. If he was the captain in charge of this unit, we wouldn't be wondering if he'd back us up."
"Harger will back us up if we get in a jam," Fordyce said, slurring his words like everyone else at the table. "I'd put money on him."
"I've never heard anything bad about him," Stepanovich said. He was in the stage of drunkenness when voices sounded slightly distant.
"We'll find out soon enough. If we stake out Eighteenth Street, it won't be long before something goes down," Arredondo said, coming to his feet. "I have to take a leak."
Nothing was said for a while. It occurred to Stepanovich that everyone at the table could be booked for drunkenness.
"My mom and dad never wanted me to be a cop," Fordyce said, changing the subject. "They think it's like on TV, with policemen getting shot every day."
The others looked at him. Black shook his head. Arredondo returned and related the graphic details of a motel sex orgy he'd engaged in with a mother and daughter pair he'd picked up at a bar in North Hollywood a few weeks earlier. Stepanovich only half listened. His thoughts all evening had been on Gloria Soliz. He was mellow drunk and at the stage of intoxication when he felt comfortable, warm, and safe.
A short while later Black left the table and walked to the middle of the bar, where Brenda Last Name-Unknown sat in front of a tall drink. He lifted her ponytail playfully and kissed her on the neck, then whispered something to her. She climbed off her bar stool and accompanied Black back to the table. The others made room for her to sit down.
Black put his arm around her. "I told Brenda I wanted her to meet the new gang task force."
"I know all these guys," she said in what Stepanovich called a smoker's voice. "And your boss Captain Harger, too."
Black smirked. "Brenda's good people. Right, Brenda?"
Arredondo put his arm around her. "What do you really think about cops?"
"I think you're all badge happy."
"We respect your opinion," Fordyce said in a feeble attempt to be one of the boys.
Brenda drew liquid from the clear plastic straw in her gin and tonic. She checked her wristwatch, an official LAPD timepiece the shape of a police badge - the kind sold only at the police gift shop. "It's nearly midnight and I have to go to work in the morning. So whoever wants it, let's don't waste a lot of time bullshitting."
There was a round of harsh laughter at the table.
"Brenda, if you were a man you'd have been promoted to chief by now," Arredondo said.
More strained laughter. Brenda took a swig of beer, washed it around in her mouth for a moment, and swallowed. "OK, who wants to be first?"
Black grabbed Brenda's hand and led her out the door.
Arredondo left the table and joined Brenda's friends, two women with beehive hairdos sitting in a nearby booth, and Fordyce joined Sullivan and a couple of motor cops who'd started a crap game on the floor by the jukebox.
Stepanovich felt cop fatigue, a tiredness that does not allow rest. For the life of him, he still couldn't get Gloria Soliz out of his mind. It wasn't that she reminded him of anyone, he told himself. There was something about her he couldn't put his finger on. He glanced at his wristwatch. It was shortly after midnight.
He carried his beer to the pay phone near the door, dialed information, and asked an operator for Gloria Soliz home telephone number. The operator gave him the number and he wrote it down on a cocktail napkin. Then he dropped change into the coin slot and dialed.
After three rings Gloria came on the line.
"Gloria, this is Joe Stepanovich."
"Hi, Joe."
"I know it's late, but I have this mental problem I thought you might be able to help me out with."
"Have you been drinking?"
"A little."
"I'm listening," she said.
"I have this overpowering desire for Chinese food. It's a compulsion."
"I see."
"And I can't stop myself from heading to Chinatown."
/> "So what's the big problem?"
"I can't stand to eat alone."
"It's midnight."
"I know a place that's open all night," he said.
"Thanks for giving me so much notice."
"Sorry, but I've been tied up with a case."
"It really is kind of late," she said.
"Tomorrow is your day off."
"I guess you're not going to take no for an answer."
"I'll pick you up in ten minutes."
Outside, Stepanovich crossed the street and climbed into his car. As he drove down the street he passed Black's car, parked near the corner directly under a streetlight. Grinning fiendishly while leaning against the driver's door with one leg over the front seat Black noticed him and waved as Brenda's ponytail bobbed between his legs.
There was little traffic as he made his way the short distance on the freeway to the City Terrace off ramp. He wound up a grade past homes perched precariously on hillsides, then down past some dying business establishments to a line of newly built apartment houses leading to Wabash Avenue. He checked curbside addresses until he reached a brown stucco apartment house across the street from a mini mall. The apartment house sign read: "TAHITIAN VILLAGE." Parking in front, he made his way past a cement block planter lit by the kind of wrought iron Hawaiian ceremonial torches sold in every hardware store in Southern California.
He climbed steps to the second floor and knocked on the apartment door. Gloria opened it immediately. She was wearing a curve hugging black knit dress and pearls. Stepanovich suddenly felt a sense of anticipation and excitement welling in his loins, a feeling he hadn't experienced in years.
"Nice outfit," he said as she retrieved her purse from a chair near the door.
"I wear it on all my midnight dates," she said, moving past him.
"Sorry about not giving you more notice."
"You're forgiven."
A jumble of neon lit pagodas and tiny Oriental gift shops nestled just below the Hill Street freeway off ramp, L.A.'s Chinatown had deteriorated in recent years. Stepanovich had childhood memories of Chinatown as a thriving tourist area, but like much of the rest of downtown, it had been choked by overdevelopment and lack of parking.
The Jade Tree Inn, a cavernous, newly refurbished restaurant, was open and packed, even though it was a weeknight. The owner, Charlie Fong, leapt up to meet them as they walked through the door. He was a tall, crew cut Chinese who'd served as a sergeant in the Taiwanese Marine Corps. He greeted Stepanovich warmly and Stepanovich introduced him to Gloria. Fong led them to a booth that provided a view of neon lit Hill Street.
"May I bring you a drink?" Fong asked. Gloria ordered white wine, and Stepanovich said he'd have the same. Fong bowed slightly and rushed toward the bar.
For an awkward moment they found themselves staring at each other.
"I apologize for pestering you into going to breakfast with me the other day," Stepanovich said.
"I'm not sorry I joined you."
"You probably think all cops are weird."
She hung her purse on the back of the chair. "Not weird. Just different."
"I guess the job changes people."
"People choose their professions."
"I guess that means you think all cops are different to start with. That the chicken came before the egg."
"Something like that."
Charlie Fong returned to the table with drinks, set them down, and moved away.
"The man you asked about at the hospital, Mr. Estrada, is doing better. He's going to live."
Stepanovich nodded, sipping his drink.
"I'm sure you'd be more interested if he were cooperating with your investigation," she said wryly.
During a dinner of steamed fish in a garlicky black bean sauce, beef with scallops, and sautéed shrimp, he learned that she'd been a member of the woman's volleyball team when attending UCLA, had graduated with a 3.8 average, and she lived alone.
"The Army and the police department, that's the story of my life."
"Where did you meet your wife?"
"Her car was burglarized when she was working downtown at the Design Center. I was the officer sent to take the report. I asked her out and things took off from there. She moved in three weeks later and after a couple of months we decided to get married. But it was a bad match from the beginning. Nothing in common. We were never friends."
"I don't think I would live with a man unless I was married. I mean, it's great for the man, but I'd want more."
"That's why men and women don't get along anymore. They want different things."
"They don't get along when they lie to each other. When they misjudge each other. That's when the problems start."
Charlie Fong came to the table with a small plate of almond cookies and set the plate between them.
"You've been letting me do all the talking," she said as Fong moved away. "I'd like to know something about you."
"I've told you - "
"I don't mean where you went to school. What are your goals, your dreams?"
"Goals? I'm in a new specialized anti gang unit that has a chance of hitting the gangs like they've never been hit before. I like the guys I'm working with. They're solid cops. I'm excited about the new job."
"Always back to police work."
"The gangs are running wild."
"They don't bother me," she said, closing the subject. "What do you do in your spare time?"
"Lift a few weights, some jogging - "
"To stay in shape for your job."
"I guess you could say that. What about you?"
"On Sundays I usually go to Raider games with the other nurses. I've tried my hand at writing a textbook on nursing supervision, but gave it up. I found out I'm not much of a writer. Do you have any hobbies?"
"I put in thirty hours a week in overtime. That doesn't leave much time."
"Unpaid overtime," she said, unimpressed.
"You don't like cops, do you?"
She bit into an almond cookie. "I was raised in the barrio. Policemen weren't exactly the local heroes."
"The gang members were the heroes."
"Chicanos don't like to see their own get arrested, if that's what you mean."
"That kind of sticking together is why the gangs are ruling East L.A. and children are getting killed at weddings. Sticking together for the wrong reasons."
"You'll never stop it by arresting people," she said.
"You have a better answer?"
"Better schools and more jobs so that people can maintain their dignity," she said, looking him straight in the eye.
He met her gaze. "I'll drink to that," he said rather than pursue an argument.
On the way out of the restaurant Stepanovich shook hands with the owner, and Fong patted him on the back. "Don't stay away so long."
"I notice you didn't pay the bill," Gloria said as they walked down the street toward his Chevrolet.
Stepanovich nodded toward a small group of young Asian men loitering across the street in front of a bar. All wore styled hair, baggy trousers, and three quarter-length silk jackets. "You can thank the Viet Ching Street gang over there," he said. "They were extorting three hundred a week from Charlie until my partner and I locked a few of them up. Now Charlie's off their collection list."
She laughed. "And on yours."
"It pays to support the local police," he said, opening the passenger door.
He drove Gloria to Monahan's bar in Pasadena, a crowded singles hangout with walls decorated with Irish kitsch and framed collages of Polaroid snapshots of the bar's yuppie habitués posing with arms around one another. They found a booth in the corner and ordered Irish coffees.
"Why haven't you ever married?" he asked.
"For a long time I was caught up in my nursing career and didn't care about anything else. And I have family responsibilities. My father passed away two years ago."
"You know, as I sit here talking to you, I feel there's a glass wa
ll between us."
"I guess we are, uh, different."
"Is it because I'm a cop?"
"Only a police officer would ask such a question," she said without rancor.
"I guess we cops are all a little paranoid."
"As a nurse I don't try to analyze everyone I meet. But you policemen do. Your job comes first and you see the whole world in a peculiar way. It's more than an occupation for you. It's a way of life, a refuge."
"It's a matter of survival. If you don't learn the street, then the street learns you."
"That's what I mean. You never let down. I bet you have a gun on right now."
"All cops carry guns off duty."
The waitress set their drinks on the table and moved away. Stepanovich picked one up.
"I wish things were different in the world," Gloria said as she reached for hers. "I wish East L.A. were a safe place to live."
"So do I."
"I'm glad we agree on something."
Back at her apartment, they walked arm in arm to the door. Gloria pulled a ring of keys from her purse and unlocked it.
"Look," Stepanovich said, feeling embarrassed. "I guess I haven't been the most scintillating conversationalist this evening. It's probably because I have a lot on my mind, and frankly, having been married and all, I think I've forgotten how to act on a date."
"I enjoyed myself. You didn't have to say that."
"I said it because I got the feeling that you and I just aren't ... cutting it. And I don't want that to happen. Because I think you're a nice person."
She took his hand. "I think you're a nice person, too, Joe. And I really did have a wonderful time. Thanks."
He took her in his arms and kissed her. As his tongue found hers, he could feel her delicate hands grasp the back of his neck and prayed she wouldn't let go.
Their mouths parted. "I'd better go in," she whispered. "And you said you have to be back on the job at five.
"I don't want to leave."
"I'm not ready to go to bed with you," she said softly without looking him in the eye.
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