Criminal Carma

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

We waited in the shadow of a palm tree at the front corner of Hildebrand’s building until there was no traffic on Santa Monica, then started across the wide, well-lit boulevard, heavy packs bouncing on our shoulders.

“How much is the gold worth?” Reggie asked, hurrying beside me.

“Depends on the number of coins,” I said, swiveling my head back and forth, looking in all directions. “Gold’s somewhere between three and four hundred an ounce. Each Krugerrand is an ounce. If there are fifty coins that would be fifteen or twenty thousand dollars.”

“That’s good money,” Reggie panted.

“Icing on the cake.”

“Can we fence the bonds?”

“Yes.”

“What’ll they bring?”

“Depends on the maturity dates. We’ll check it out when we get home.”

There were ten or twelve cars but no people in Norm’s parking lot as we headed to the rental. We put everything in the trunk except for the Tomcat, which stayed in my belt. I slid in behind the wheel while Reggie took shotgun.

“Good job, Robby,” he said in his serious mentor voice.

“You, too, brother.”

The pistol was digging into my side so I pulled it out of my belt and put it in the glove compartment. I had started the engine but not put the car in gear when a black-and-white swooped in out of nowhere and pulled up beside us, rubber barking as it jolted to a halt. It was such a shock that if I had been in the Seville I might have peeled out as a reflex. The Cadillac was faster than the cop car and I knew the terrain and we might have been able to get away. But I didn’t trust the rental car’s power and I wasn’t used to driving it around corners on two wheels, so I turned off the engine and put my hands on the steering wheel.

They popped out of their cruiser like they were spring-loaded, the driver circling behind us to check our license plate and get an overview, the ride-along tapping on my window with his club-light. They didn’t have their guns out, which meant they hadn’t made us for the burglary, at least not yet.

“Let me do the talking,” I murmured to Reggie, then rolled my window down six inches and looked at the cop. “Good evening, Officer. What’s up?”

“Aw, not too much. What are you guys up to?” He was an old-school lurch, six-four, a good two-twenty, the kind of cop that predominated on big-city police forces before rookies started rolling with junior college degrees and mouths full of legal jargon. He looked like he was about sixty years old, poised to prove that he could still cut the mustard if some punk gave him half an excuse. The other cop-black, in his thirties-was of average height and build.

“Just getting something to eat,” I said.

“Here?” He had a foxy look on his face.

“Yeah.”

“What time was that?”

“Earlier this evening.”

“Where you guys coming from just now?” He must have seen us walking into the parking lot.

“Just taking a stroll around the city, soaking up some Santa Monica scenery.”

He looked at his watch. “At one-thirty in the morning?”

“Yeah, we’re only in town a couple of days. Trying to make the most of it.”

“Where you from?”

“Sacramento.”

“What are you doing down here?”

Cops like to ask a lot of questions. It gives them a chance to read you, to see if you are nervous or evasive. They like to ask about times, locations, reasons, trying to pin you down, catch you in a contradiction.

“Vacation.”

“Where you staying?”

“The Georgian, down by the beach.” I could see the name of the hotel impact his thinking. Standard rooms at the Georgian were three hundred a night. The fact that we were staying there moved us up from transients to well-heeled travelers, whether he liked it or not.

“You got some ID?”

“Sure.” I handed him my Stephen Michaelson driver’s license. He looked at it for a few moments, then half-turned, keeping one eye on us, and handed it through the window of the squad car to the other cop, who was on the radio running our plate.

“How ‘bout your friend?” He leaned down to look at Reggie. “Got some ID, sir?”

Reggie dug in his back pocket and came up with his fake license, which also had a Sacramento address. I handed it to the cop, who looked at it and passed it to his partner.

“What did you guys put in the trunk?”

This was what he had been leading up to.

“Our backpacks,” I said.

“What do you have in them?”

“Water, a guidebook, a jacket, my camera-that kind of stuff.”

“You sure that’s all? They looked pretty heavy.”

“Why all the questions, Officer?”

“I get curious when I see people putting bulky backpacks in the trunk of a car in the middle of the night. Makes me think they might be burglars.”

“Not us,” I said and laughed. “We’re just tourists.”

“Would you mind stepping out of the car?”

“Why, Officer? Are you detaining us?”

“Just get out of the car,” he said, filling his voice with that cop threat they get so good at. “You, too.” He leaned down to look over at Reggie again.

I rolled the window up and opened the door. As Reggie and I got out of the car, I pushed the button that snapped the locks down and then slammed my door.

“Why did you lock your car?” the cop said.

“Just habit. I don’t want anyone to steal it.”

“Can I see your car keys, please?”

“Why?”

“I need to do a routine check to make sure you don’t have anything illegal in the vehicle. There’s been a lot of burglaries around here lately, and your friend looks like a guy I arrested last year. You don’t have anything to hide, do you?”

“No, Officer, I don’t have anything to hide. But I don’t consent to any searches.” I paused, looking him in the eye. “Are we free to go now?”

Cops are so used to riding roughshod over people on the street that it confuses them if you assert your rights calmly and politely. After a moment’s indecision, the lurch fell back to a default tactic honed during countless late-night encounters with scared petty crooks, drunk kids, and timid citizens. Stepping up nose to nose, looming over me with his extra two inches of height, he breathed salami fumes in my face.

“All right, smart guy,” he said. “There are two ways we can go here. I think you got something in the trunk you shouldn’t have and I’m gonna find out what it is one way or the other. If you cooperate, I’ll make things easy for you. But if you give me a hard time I’ll nail your hide to the wall. Do you understand that?”

He glared at me, waiting for an answer.

I didn’t answer, just looked him in the eyes.

“We got a special cell down at the station for guys who don’t play along with us,” he said. “Guys walk into that room cocky but they crawl back out ready to kiss the ass of any cop who bends over. We make tough guys into sacred little schoolgirls in that room. Now, what’s it going to be? You gonna be smart or stupid?”

Alert to conflict, the other cop had come up behind his partner. He held our licenses in one hand. His other hand was on the butt of his gun. I glanced at Reggie. He was leaning against the rental car, a couple of feet from the doughnut eaters, his face as impassive as a cigar-store Indian’s.

“Why don’t you let us take a look in the backpacks, sir?” the black cop said. “If there’s nothing in them, you can be on your way. Save a lot of trouble.”

“I don’t want any trouble, Officer,” I said, addressing the black cop. “I know you guys are just doing your job. But I believe it is my obligation as a good citizen to protect my constitutional rights and I do not consent to any searches of my vehicle or my person. My friend and I aren’t doing anything wrong. If you think the fact that we put our backpacks in the trunk of our rental car gives you probable cause, then I guess you will search the car. But you don’t have my permission.”

The big cop was seething. He glanced around the parking lot to see if there were any witnesses. If he assaulted me and I fought back, he could arrest me for resisting, then search the car to his heart’s content. Bad luck for him, an elderly gentleman wearing cowboy boots and a straw cowboy hat had just come out of Norm’s and was walking across the parking lot toward us.

The black cop pulled the lurch back a couple of paces. Standing by the rear bumper of the squad car, they held a whispered conference.

“There are no warrants for either of them and the car is clean,” I heard the black cop say, warning in his voice. “There haven’t been any prowler calls or alarm trips within a mile of here tonight.”

“I know they are up to something, goddamn it!”

“Then we’ll get them next time.”

The black cop walked back over.

“Are we free to go, Officer?” I said politely, keeping the pressure on them.

“Can you establish your local address so we know where to find you if we need to?”

“Why would you need to find us, Officer?”

“Don’t push it,” he said. “You have a key or receipt or something that shows you’re staying at the Georgian?”

“Yes.” I took out the key card I’d kept since our stay there six weeks before and handed it to him.

“If I call over there, are they going to tell me you’re registered?”

“Absolutely. We have a suite on the top floor.” Suites at the Georgian went for $500 and up. We were getting more respectable by the minute. The cop looked at the front and the back of the card, flexed it, then shrugged and handed it back along with our licenses.

“I wouldn’t advise wandering around the city this time of night in the future,” he said, trying to come out on top psychologically.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “It’s probably a bad idea. Are we free to go?”

“Yeah, get out of here.”

“If you’re smart, you’ll keep right on going until you get back to Sacramento,” the lurch said in his menacing tone.

“Why’s that?”

“Just let me see you around here again in the middle of the night and you’ll find out why.”