Hollywood Hills

TWELVE

Viv Daley and Georgie Adams had been removed from the field after the shooting of Louis Dryden and would not be returned to field duty until a BSS shrink and the chief gave an okay, per LAPD policy. That left only two women working the midwatch on that night of the Hollywood moon. P3 Della Ravelle, a twenty-two-year cop, was the Field Training Officer for P1 Britney Small, who was born a year after her FTO had been appointed to the LAPD. They were working 6-X-46, and Della Ravelle was driving, with young Britney Small doing the report writing.

Britney Small, who was in the last phase of her probation, was one of the most reticent and shy women that Della Ravelle had ever encountered in law enforcement. But her former FTO, a highly disciplined Korean American cop named Rupert Tong, had always given her glowing evaluations, so Della figured the probationer must’ve been assertive enough when she needed to be. Tong had transferred to a long-awaited detective assignment at Robbery-Homicide Division, and Della Ravelle was taking over Britney Small until the end of her eighteen-month probationary period, two months hence.

Since Britney Small was so near the end of her probation and Della Ravelle was so laid-back, Della insisted that the boot not keep calling her ma’am. Britney had never stopped calling Rupert Tong sir until their last night together, when the former Navy SEAL said to her, “Be sure and let me know if you need anything or have any questions about something you’ve learned from me. You’ve got my cell number.”

It was only after Britney had said, “Thank you, sir, and good luck to you,” that he’d smiled broadly and given her a farewell hug, saying, “You’re a real copper already, Brit. You can call me Rupert anytime.”

Britney Small was so willowy that Della Ravelle called her “my bluesuit ballerina.” The creamy-faced rookie loved working with this female FTO, telling her on their first night together that it was great to work with someone even older than her mom, for the wisdom it would bring.

“Thanks for that,” Della said, thinking what everyone past forty would think at such a moment-Older than her mom? Where did it all go? How the hell did this happen to me?

Della Ravelle was forty-four years old, with smart hazel eyes and a friendly grin for everyone. She had to go to a hairdresser more often than she liked these days in order to keep her hair brown. “I’ll dye till I die” was her motto. She was always struggling to lose ten pounds despite frequent workouts in the Hollywood Station weight room, where Hollywood Nate pumped iron almost daily.

She was twice married and twice divorced, with two sons aged nineteen and seventeen, who lived with her in her South Pasadena house. Zach and Jonathan were students, one at Pasadena City College and the other at South Pasadena High School. Della always thought it was nothing more than sheer luck that she had married slightly better the first time, back at a time when she’d wanted children. That marriage was to an IRS auditor who was diligent with his child support payments throughout the years, even though during their marriage he was so nitpicking and clueless that he almost drove her crazy. To him, police work was something that could be analyzed like the tax returns of the deadbeats he delighted in tormenting. He could never understand the emotional hazards of the Job, and the powerful bonds that developed among the blue brethren in Della’s strange fraternity of the badge.

The second husband was a worse mistake because he, too, was a cop, an alpha male, LAPD macho copper, mustache and all. They had battled from their honeymoon on, but thankfully the marriage was brief with no children. So now, with the days and nights of hiring babysitters behind her, Della Ravelle hoped to enjoy the six years she planned to remain on the Job before retiring at age fifty to a peaceful future where the size of the moon over Hollywood did not matter a whit.

At 9 P.M. that night, she looked up while driving and said to Britney Small, “Wonder when it’s gonna bring its wrath down on us.”

“What?” Britney asked.

“The Hollywood moon,” Della said. “We’re due.”

So far, their watch had been routine, but the full-moon motorists were already feeling the effects of it. There had been three traffic collisions on the boulevards, and both Della and Britney had written traffic citations for moving violations. On their third call, they caught a “415 family dispute” on their dashboard computer, indicating the penal code section for disturbance of the peace. Such routine calls often escalated, so on the way to the call, Della said to her probationer, “About these routine four-fifteen family disputes, I want you to always keep in mind that you and me don’t go hands-on with people until backup arrives. Don’t be shy about using your rover to call for assistance or help if you have to.”

“Right,” Britney said.

Della said, “A few years ago, two women officers here in Hollywood got into a knockdown street fight with a large, violent guy, and one of the women got badly hurt. A few firefighters on a lunch break were standing there watching the tussle and didn’t lift a finger to help the officers. The fire department later sent a battalion chief to all our roll calls to apologize and try to rationalize it, but every copper at Hollywood Station was extremely pissed off. A few of the mouthier ones told the battalion chief that the next time firefighters were being pelted with rocks or shot at by street thugs, we’d sit and watch just like they did. There were very hard feelings for a while. Moral of the story is, you can only depend on your brothers in blue to help in the rough-and-tumble altercations. Your last FTO was a very good copper, but he was a man. Don’t ever forget that you’re a woman. You’re never gonna impress some of the old guys, no matter what you do.”

“I’ve noticed that for sure,” Britney said. “The OGs aren’t very friendly with female boots.”

“I repeat, Britney,” Della said. “Don’t ever forget out here that you’re a woman.”

“Roger that,” Britney said. “I won’t.”

Della said, “We can be outstanding police officers but we can’t morph into men during the hands-on stuff. And by the way, female scrappy drunks can be worse than men when it comes to down-and-dirty street fights, so be wary in those situations. But we usually have better verbal skills than men, and sometimes we can talk things down just by being reasonable and by being women, where the men can’t. Sometimes our gender can de-escalate things. For these last few months of your probation I’m gonna give you a lotta cop-style girl talk that Rupert Tong couldn’t give you. You okay with that?”

“Of course, ma’am-I mean Della,” Britney said. “I’m really grateful to learn the woman stuff from another woman.”

“I’ll bet Rupert Tong never talked to you about underwear, did he?” Della said.

“Underwear? Lord, no!” Britney said.

“Well, it’s an important thing for women officers to know about. Never rush off to work with your underwear inside out. And don’t wear grandma underwear, although at your age I’m sure you never do. This is in case something bad happens. Would you want a bunch of guys in the ER to see you in funny underwear that’s inside out?”

“I see your point,” Britney said with a giggle.

“And for the same reason, don’t go to work without shaving your legs. How’d you like it if a gossipy ER nurse told some of the Watch Five coppers about your stubble? You just know they’d all start calling you ‘cactus legs.’ ”

“No cactus legs,” the rookie said. “Got it.”

“And don’t wear an underwire bra under your vest. I tried to take the vest off Millie Boyle after she got rear-ended in a TC at Hollywood and Vine, right before we put her into the RA. And her goddamn padded underwire bra popped off like it was spring-loaded. One of the midwatch coppers found it on the street and later taped a cell phone photo of the bra to the wall in the roll call room with a note that said, ‘Will the person who lost this piece of equipment at the scene of a TC at Hollywood and Vine please claim it with Harry the kit room king.’ It was all very embarrassing for Millie.”

“No underwire bra. Okay, boss,” Britney said cheerfully. “This is real good information to have.”

“Poor Millie,” Della said. “She married and divorced two lieutenants early in her career, so pretty soon every guy she worked with proposed. They’d say stuff like, ‘I know you don’t like me, but if I marry you I might get promoted to lieutenant, so how about it?’ ”

It was a two-story house on a residential street several blocks south of Paramount Studios. They heard the yelling from the street when they got out of their black-and-white. Both women grabbed their side-handle batons. The call came from next door, and a young woman in an orange leotard stood on her porch and pointed to the walkway between the houses. There a large-screen plasma TV was shattered to pieces below an open upstairs window. Della nodded to the woman in the leotard, who went back inside and closed the door quickly.

Britney knocked at the door, and after several seconds, one of the potential combatants, a dark-eyed, olive-skinned, beefy woman older than Della, with enough hairspray to be an ozone threat, opened the door. She was dressed in the work uniform she wore at Farmers Market, where she served coffee and pastries at one of the open-air shops. Her husband was her age and even more overweight, and appropriately enough, he wore a sweat-stained wifebeater. But neither side had yet inflicted any violence. His boozy face was blooming like a rose and he was scowling at his wife.

The cops stepped inside and Britney said, “One of your neighbors called. Is there a problem here?”

The man pointed at the woman and said, “My wife thinks she can cheat on me and I’m supposed to lay down and take it!”

“May we have your names, please?” Della said, trying for some simmer time.

“I’m John Gianopoulos,” the man said, “and this backstabbing adultress is my wife, I’m sorry to say.”

The woman turned to the older cop for empathy and said, “This fool thinks I’m bonking my hairdresser, Jackie, who happens to be gayer than a bouquet of daisies. In fact, Jackie’s shack bitch is a little guy who’s way prettier than me and a hell of a lot younger. And his shack bitch even has tits thanks to hormone therapy. Why would my hairdresser wanna fuck me, for chrissake?”

Britney’s look to Della said, Why would anyone want to?

In a quiet voice, Della Ravelle said, “Could we all keep it down? You’re scaring the neighbors.”

“She’s killing me,” her husband wailed. “Killing me!”

Then both cops took a closer look at him. There were bald patches all over his head. He had only a little patch of eyebrow over his left eye and none over his right eye. Even his arms looked peculiar. The left forearm was thick with black hair but there were large spots of bare skin showing, just as on his head. His right arm had almost no hair left on it. When Della took a closer look, she saw that though he was obviously meant to be a very hairy man, he had no eyelashes at all.

John Gianopoulos was obviously used to having people stare at him. He said to the cops, “She did this to me. I was a healthy man before she tricked me into marriage by saying her uncle would put me in his house-painting business.” He pointed to his head and said, “Look at what being with her does to me!”

Britney gaped and said, “Do you have a skin disease? Like mange or something?”

“I have trichotillomania,” he said. “Thanks to her evil ways.”

His wife shook her head and said, “They call it an impulse-control disorder. He pulls out his hair when he’s stressed, which is most of the time. Sometimes he wears a wig, and believe me, it’s no improvement.”

Della said, “Have you two considered breaking up?”

“I just needed a push,” Mrs. Gianopoulos said, “and maybe having you cops coming here is the push I need.”

Della said, “It would be a good thing if one of you could leave for a while until the two of you cool down. I think we have a potentially volatile situation here.”

“Let him leave,” she said. “He can just walk down to the corner saloon and get shit-faced, which is what he usually does anyway.”

“And you can leave permanently,” he said. “Take everything and go home to your dago mother. Just get out!”

“When I walk outta here,” she said to him, “I’ll take my clothes and my plasma TV, which I paid for, by the way, and that’s all I want from this sick marriage.” She looked at the cops and said, “He can keep the pots and pans and the dishes he’s never washed and the bills he’s never paid.”

“Did you just get home from work?” Della asked her.

Mrs. Gianopoulos said, “Ten minutes before you arrived. Why?”

“Did you happen to use the walkway on the west side of the house?” Della asked.

“No,” she said. “I parked in the alley and came in the back door. Why?”

“Uh-oh,” Britney said.

Della said quickly, “Mr. Gianopoulos, I think it would be wise and better for both of you if you would leave here for a couple of hours. Do it now, please. And we’ll have a brief chat with Mrs. Gianopoulos after you’re gone.”

He took the hint, put on a Members Only jacket that could never close over his huge belly, and walked out the front door, slamming it behind him. After the cops broke the news to Mrs. Gianopoulos about her plasma TV, and after she finished cursing loud enough to scare the goldfish in the living room, Della strongly encouraged her to load her car and head for her mother’s house, and no charge for the marriage counseling.

Della concluded with, “We don’t want you to kill him in his sleep tonight. You’d be charged with first-degree murder.”

“It might be worth it,” Mrs. Gianopoulos said with too much sincerity.

“You’ll both be way better off if you leave him,” Britney Small said. “Mr. Gianopoulos might even start growing eyelashes again.”

After 6-X-46 cleared from that call and was heading north on Van Ness Avenue, Della Ravelle said to her probie, “That was a pretty routine family beef, all things considered. But I can think of a dozen ways a he-said-she-said can go sideways. That one went okay because we were calm and we were businesslike and we’re women. Even though that dude mighta been crazy enough to toss a two-thousand-dollar TV out an upstairs window, you noticed he was obedient with us. Probably has mommy issues, but whatever, we use our gender to our advantage out here. Right, partner?”

“Roger that, partner,” Britney said, and earnestly began logging the call on their daily field activity report.

Della Ravelle watched Britney and smiled and wondered what it would’ve been like to have a daughter.

Their next stop resulted in a judgment call for young Britney Small. The Hollywood moon was rising higher in the heavens, and they got a call about an illegally parked car blocking the driveway of a residence up near Lake Hollywood. By the time they got there, the car was gone, but since they were there in the Hills, Della took a drive to a lovers’ lane where the cops used to catch teenagers smoking pot. She figured that nowadays kids would be doing meth or ox if they still parked up there. That part of the Hollywood Hills was full of stunted trees and brush that had to be controlled to prevent wildfires. Deer, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, and skunks lived there, feeding on the leavings of nearby human inhabitants.

Della said, “One time I got a call when a baby deer got hit by a car up here. The fawn was lying on the road, and there was an old motor cop there ahead of me, standing next to his bike and looking at the animal. The motor cop was one of those dinosaurs whose partners probably have to chew his food for him. One of those old saddle-sore vets that everyone calls Boots when they don’t know his name. And then another two radio cars rolled up. And when I called in what had happened and asked for animal control to come and deal with it, the RTO conferred with somebody and came back saying there were no animal control people available, and told me we were authorized to shoot the animal.”

“Did you?” Britney asked. “Did you shoot the baby deer?”

“I looked at that fawn, at the terror and pain in its eyes and I wanted to put it out of its misery,” Della said. “Hollywood Nate was also there, and a unit from Watch Three, and nobody could shoot the fawn, not even the old motor cop, who I figured would just step up and show us what wusses we were. One of the coppers from Watch Three was a real shit magnet who worked gangs in Southeast, down where schoolkids don’t have earthquake drills, they have drive-by drills. Anyway, he’d been in three righteous gunfights down there where he killed a couple of guys, but even he couldn’t shoot the deer. Fortunately, the poor little thing went into shock and died.”

“I kinda like that story, though,” Britney said.

“Whadda you like about it?”

“That the LAPD gunfighters couldn’t shoot a baby deer. Somehow that makes me sorta proud. Know what I mean?”

Della smiled at her young partner again and said, “Okay, we’re coming up on the lovers’ lane here. It’s a piece of land that goes out a ways. The coppers call it Point Peter Puffer.”

Then they spotted a car in the darkness and Della switched off her headlights and turned down the radio and let their car drift closer. It was a white Honda Civic, and it was bouncing and rocking like the hydraulic-aided, tricked-out lowriders that parade up and down Ventura Boulevard in the Valley.

Della said, “They’re not doing dope at the moment, that’s for sure. But maybe they smoked some to prime the pump, and maybe we can find what’s left there in Daddy’s car. Wanna check them out?”

“Sure,” Britney said. “I’m good to go.”

Della let the black-and-white roll into the parking area as close as she could without alerting them. She parked and they got out quietly, leaving their car doors open, and approached in the darkness, Della on the driver’s side and Britney on the passenger side. They looked over the roof at each other, turned on their streamlights and jerked open the doors.

Britney said, “Get outta the car!” And she shone her light onto the couple in the backseat.

Della saw the situation first and said, “She can’t.”

The amorous couple was not in Daddy’s car. A sweating middle-aged man was on top, his pants pushed down around his ankles. The woman on her back underneath him didn’t look as frightened as he did. In fact, Britney later remembered seeing what she thought was sadness in the woman’s face. When the man sat straight up, the rookie saw that the woman had no legs, only scarred stumps ending six inches higher than where her knees should have been.

Della looked over the roof of the Honda at her startled partner to see how she was going to handle this one.

Britney decided fast and simply mumbled, “Sorry.” And closed the car door, retreating quickly to the black-and-white with Della following.

When they drove away, Britney said, “I don’t think I wanna know her story.”

Della said, “I’m gonna enjoy being your FTO, kiddo. You’ve got what they can’t teach at the academy-good old common sense.”

“There was nothing else to say, was there?” Britney asked.

Della said, “No, but a lotta male coppers woulda tried. The more macho they are, the more they can fuck things up.”

At that very moment a pair of seriously macho cops were hoping to assist in an attempt to serve a warrant for murder on a Mexican national from the Arellano-Félix cartel, who was supposedly living in southeast Hollywood on one of the residential streets near Beverly Boulevard. A snitch had supplied information that the fugitive, whose name was Jaime Soto Aguilar, was hiding out with a woman who owned a house in that vicinity, but as to which house, or even which street, the informant could not say. A detective had gone to roll call and requested that all units make a note of the license number and location of any very old cars in restored condition that might be parked in that neighborhood, because Aguilar was a car nut who couldn’t resist restoring classic cars. The detective said they’d follow up on any car leads as time permitted. The fugitive’s description was given along with information that he had a tattoo of a rattlesnake with dripping fangs coiled around his neck.

Flotsam and Jetsam had listened with interest during roll call, especially about the car, because they had recently noticed a restored Chevrolet Malibu cruising around that area, and a guy who looked Latino was driving it. After noticing the apple-green eye-catcher, they’d discussed how cool it would be to drive a car named after their surfing beach.

When they were not answering calls on that very warm and windless late summer evening, the surfer cops covered every residential street in that vicinity on both sides of Beverly Boulevard. And when the full moon was rising high over Hollywood, they spotted the apple-green Malibu parked on a street that was jammed with other parked cars. Flotsam and Jetsam put their sun-streaked heads together and cooked up a scheme that would require some assistance. Jetsam requested that 6-X-66 meet 6-X-32 in a certain alley off Beverly Boulevard.

When Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo showed up and the two black-and-whites were parked side by side, Flotsam said, “Post up and keep an eye on that bitchin’ Malibu. The owner of that cherry ride’s gotta be in a house real close to it. And the owner might just be Aguilar. The license plate don’t mean shit. It’s registered to some chick named Johnson in Pomona.”

“Where’re you beach rats going in the meantime?” Nate wanted to know.

Jetsam said, “To collect some noisy junk.” Then Flotsam dropped it into gear and off they went.

Snuffy Salcedo said to Hollywood Nate, “This is stupid. If they’re so sure the car belongs to Aguilar, why don’t they request a stakeout?”

“Because the chances are so remote that it’s Aguilar’s, nobody would do it,” Nate said.

“Then why’re we doing it?” Snuffy said. “We were told just to write down license numbers and locations if we saw a restored car.”

“Based on my experience, it pays to indulge them,” Nate said. “Somehow, Neptune or whoever the surfer god is bestows crazy blessings on those two. Besides, my curiosity is killing me, isn’t yours? Noisy junk?”

When the surfer cops returned to the alley in twenty minutes, they had the backseat of their shop, as well as the trunk, loaded with empty cans of all sizes, along with two battered old metal trash cans.

“What the fuck?” Snuffy Salcedo said when he got a look at their cargo.

“We are stupendously grateful for Chinese restaurants,” Flotsam said. “You hardly ever find metal trash cans these days.”

“And food cans galore,” Jetsam said cheerfully.

Flotsam said to Snuffy Salcedo, “Dude, can you drive like Jimmie Johnson?”

Snuffy looked to Nate in utter puzzlement before he turned and said to Flotsam, “What?”

“They work in mysterious ways, partner,” Nate explained to Snuffy. “Let’s do what they want and see where it goes.”

Flotsam said to Snuffy, “Anyways, dude, try to drive like Jimmie Johnson tonight, okay? We want you to go to the top of the street and come screaming down till you’re almost opposite that pristine machine, and then lock ’em up. All four wheels. We wanna hear that rubber scream like a whore for a hundred-dollar tip.”

“And what will you two be doing in the meantime, pray tell?” Hollywood Nate asked.

Flotsam said, “Me and my pard, we’re gonna be dumping the trash cans full of junk onto the street and, like, making more noise than Chinese fucking New Year.”

“If the guy that owns that Malibu ain’t boning his old lady, he’s gonna run to his ride, to see if it’s in pieces all over the street,” Jetsam explained.

“Even if he is boning his old lady, he’s gonna pull right outta her and run to his ride,” Flotsam said. “He can find a bitch anywheres, but where’s he gonna find a mint Malibu like that one?”

Snuffy looked at Nate again and said, “Know what? On a night this hot, everybody in a no-A/C neighborhood’s got their windows open. Maybe it’s me being back in Hollywood where anything can happen, but this is so loopy I think it might work.”

Ten minutes later, Snuffy Salcedo was parked at the north end of the block, revving the engine of the Crown Vic. When he received a flashlight signal from the other end of the block, he floored it, and the black-and-white roared south until he was twenty yards from where the Malibu was parked and then he stood on the brakes.

The wheels locked up and the car’s rear end started sliding until Snuffy got off the brakes and sped past the Malibu and the waiting surfer cops, each of whom was holding overhead a metal trash can full of junk. Snuffy could hear the explosive crash of cans and other metal before he drove into the alley to conceal the radio car.

Flotsam, Jetsam, and Nate hid between houses and behind cars, and within a minute, people were running out of their houses to see which car had been smashed in the collision. Several car owners scurried to see if they still had fenders intact, but only one man, shirtless and barefoot, ran straight to the Malibu.

He was checking the driver’s side of the car when he was lit by flashlight beams and a tall blond cop said to him, “Dude, I don’t know if you speak English, but if you even fart too loud, I’m gonna blow the eye right outta that rattlesnake.”

A shorter blond cop said to him, “No, go ahead and rabbit. I love the smell of gunsmoke in the evening.”

Snuffy Salcedo came running back from the alley with tobacco juice dripping down his chin as the fugitive was being handcuffed.

Jetsam said, “Read him his rights in Spanish, bro.”

Snuffy Salcedo told Jaime Soto Aguilar in Spanish of his Miranda rights, and when he was finished, the fugitive made one brief comment to Snuffy in Spanish.

“What’d he say?” Flotsam asked.

Snuffy replied, “He said he thinks he’s gonna have a heart attack.”

“Bitchin’!” Flotsam said. “Tell him we never made a cardiac arrest.”

“Do they rehearse this shit?” Snuffy Salcedo asked Hollywood Nate.

“They don’t have to,” said Nate. “They’re in lockstep. I think they were Siamese twins separated at birth and raised apart. Probably by jackals.”

During the ride to Hollywood Station with the fugitive handcuffed in the backseat of their shop, Jetsam said to his partner, “Bro, do you think this is, like, unusual enough to qualify for a pizza from Sergeant Murillo? Or does it have to be more like Hollywood weird? Like, more in the freak-show mold?”

While the surfer cops were locking up first prize for the Hollywood moon award, 6-X-46 was down from the Hollywood Hills, and Della Ravelle was still lecturing her probationer in the ways of women in police work.

As she drove east on Santa Monica Boulevard, Della said, “I can talk a lot about common sense, Britney. It’s a good copper’s most valuable trait. Things’re gonna be a whole lot better for you on this Job than they were for women like me back in the day. When I was a boot, the old guys never got tired of playing little tricks on us. Like when I worked Central, I can remember a time when a couple of OGs had me do a pat-down search on a base-head down on skid row who was wearing spandex. After I patted her down and told them she’s clean, my P3 said, ‘Good job. I’m gonna write a comment card on you.’ Then when I wasn’t looking one of the other OGs, a former SWAT guy who thought he was Mr. Tactical and smoked cigarettes in his teeth instead of his lips, puts his hideout gun on the ground and says, ‘You missed this, rookie. She had it tucked under her crotch.’ ”

Britney said, “What’d you do then?”

“For a few seconds I almost panicked, but then my common sense kicked in and I said, ‘No, sir. She was wearing spandex and there were no bulges on her except the ones nature gave her.’ The OGs had a laugh and I was a step closer to acceptance.”

“I try to never forget that it’s still a man’s world out here,” Britney said.

“Yes, but it’s lots better now,” Della said. “I won’t even try to tell you about the sexual harassment we used to put up with. And there were always the goddamn tricks. After a woman boot would search under the seats in her shop before she hit the streets, an OG would invariably drop a bag of rocks or some other kind of dope under the backseat and say, ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you, baby girl? You missed this.’ It got so lame after a while that even they got tired of it. But we had to live with it till they did.”

“How’d you finally win the OGs over?”

“By trying to be a better cop than they were without them noticing. And by always staying a woman and making them respect that. I’ve seen women on this Job trying to become one of the boys, but that never works out. And women have to deal with the impostor syndrome. That’s where the woman copper starts to fear that the boss is gonna find out how unqualified she truly is. She starts to believe that she’s only faking competence, because every second she’s being scrutinized, way more than the men are, and it starts working on her self-esteem. It’s like the actor’s syndrome, but it’s all internal bullshit. You are competent and you don’t have to fear anything except the people out here who can hurt you. And that’s a healthy fear to have.”

“You were right, Della,” Britney Small said. “I never learned this kind of stuff from Rupert Tong.”

Della said, “I’m sure you’ve already learned on your own that when you meet men away from the Job and they find out you’re a cop, they all get a doofus grin and say, ‘Can you handcuff me?’ I hate that shit. I just tell them, ‘Get outta my face, asshole.’ ”

“You’re right!” Britney said. “That already happened to me when I went out to a club with a couple of civilian girlfriends. Lame, isn’t it?”

“You’re way lucky to be here in Hollywood for your probation,” Della said. “I remember the first time I found a gun after transferring here. Of course, guns recovered on radio calls don’t count, only observation guns. So one night on Hollywood Boulevard when the beat officers and a midwatch unit were jamming some Rolling Sixties gangsters who came up from Watts, I spotted this brother bopping along the Walk of Fame, pretending to be a tourist watching Tickle Me Elmo posing for pictures. But I saw that when he sauntered past one of the Rolling Sixties, he tried to take a little two-inch wheel gun from one of the bangers who hadn’t been patted down yet. I drew down on him and yelled for him to freeze and get down on his belly, and when everything settled and they were all proned out, I recovered my first obs gun here in Hollywood Division. And the sergeant we called the Oracle showed me off around the station and told everyone how I’d caught a gangster dumping a strap, and the watch commander wrote me an attagirl, and it was pretty cool. Of course it wasn’t a big burner, but size does not matter when it comes to guns.”

Britney said, “I’ve got a couple of classmates who’re doing their probation in Central Division. After hearing you describe it, I’m real glad I caught Hollywood, believe me.”

Della was silent for a moment, remembering how it had been back then, remembering the smell of skid row, the fluffy acrid miasma. And then she said, “I truly hated being a boot down there. The smell of shit and piss and rotting flesh and general decay was everywhere in those days. It got into the fabric of our uniforms. People had lots of scabies. You could grab someone and your hands would slip right off their wrists. I got scabies twice from searching skid row hookers. They were like itchy fleabites. They get on your arms, your thighs, and your stomach. Good thing I never got them on my gizmo.”

“Gross!” Britney said.

“And the guys enjoyed it when I had to search the obese ones who liked to hide crack under their humongous breasts. Their tits would be sticky. The guys would say, ‘Sticky boobs hide crack.’ Once I was searching this monstrous woman in a muumuu who was so fat they claimed she’d flipped a bus bench. And I thought I found a stash in the rolls of fat around her middle. But when I dug it out, it turned out to be an Oreo cookie and some Doritos she was keeping there to snack on. The guys really enjoyed watching me running like mad to a faucet to clean up.”

“Disgusting!” Britney said.

Still reminiscing, Della said, “That wasn’t even the real bad stuff. Once we found a dead baby in a backpack. It had blue eyes.”

Della stopped talking then and they rode in silence. Della broke the silence when she said, “So whadda you think we should do about code seven tonight? My dad sent me three hundred bucks for my birthday, so I’ll treat. We can do sushi on Melrose or a spicy chicken salad in Thai Town or maybe some rice and lamb in Little Armenia. No noshing on manly burritos and burgers for the girls of Six-X-Forty-six. Sound good, partner?”

“Can we wait awhile?” Britney said. “For some reason, I don’t seem to have an appetite right now.”

A trap that had been set by the narks two weeks earlier prompted a radio call on that night of the Hollywood moon that made Britney Small the talk of the station for days to come. A tip from a citizen had led narcotics detectives to the backyard of a vacant house that had been in foreclosure for a number of months. A local Realtor happened to be checking out the property one afternoon and he recognized a large number of cannabis plants on one neat little patch of ground in that overgrown backyard. The Realtor phoned the office of the narcotics detectives, who were housed a block from the main police station, and had a chat with a detective there.

The resourceful detectives not only confiscated the marijuana but they left a note pinned to an olive tree in that yard. The note said, “Sorry about your grow. Call if you’d care to negotiate.” They left a cell number used for situations like this and were happily surprised when a call came in the very next day. The caller offered $500, no questions asked, for the return of the plants. A female undercover cop met the pot grower by the parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl, and after the grower made his offer in person, he was arrested by other narks watching the action through binoculars.

The marijuana cultivator was a two-striker who wanted to deal and was eager to give up associates and fellow dealers. He offered the narks information about a male nurse of an anesthesiologist in Venice who had a shaky medical license. The nurse resided in an apartment building in the Las Palmas neighborhood, where he provided his client list-consisting of many drag queens and transsexuals-with forged prescriptions supposedly written from a medical office in Culver City.

One of the things that the two-striker had said, resulting in a search warrant, was, “The quack’s nurse writes enough scrips in there to smoke out every dragon and trannie in Hollywood.” And hoping to curry favor he added, “But he’s bipolar and mega-goony most of the time, so watch out. I’ve been told he might have a gun in there.”

Two teams of narks and their D3 had intended to serve the warrant on the night of the full moon. The nurse was supposed to be at home with his lover, a post-op transsexual called Molly Black, who had been Marvin Black in another life and whose last surgery had completed the gender transformation. At the last minute, one of the teams of narks was pulled away for the arrest of another prescription drug dealer whom they’d been trying to get for months. The three remaining detectives needed a backup team, so they put in the call for a patrol unit to meet them on Las Palmas Avenue. The call was given to 6-X-46 of the midwatch.

Britney Small was excited about this one and wondered if the full moon was going to produce something weird enough for them to win the pizza prize. Also, she’d never been on a forced-entry raid of any kind, and she was stoked when the detectives asked her and Della to accompany them to the third-floor apartment. Their D3 decided to watch the outside window in case evidence came flying out. The entry team wanted women officers with them because of the post-op tranny in there. She was now officially a woman and would have to be searched by a woman.

After they were quickly briefed near Las Palmas Avenue under the white glow of the full moon, they were ready. The two narks who were making entry wore LAPD raid jackets, and the younger one carried a metal ram, the first one that Britney had ever seen.

The older nark said, “No more kicking doors for me. I kicked clear through a plywood panel last year and tore my Achilles tendon.”

The younger of the narks, who Britney thought was pretty cute, kept smiling at her, and Della whispered, “Watch out for him. He’s got a rep. A real vampire, and he likes fresh, young blood.”

After they entered the building and ran up the staircase, Britney was pleased to see that she was not as winded as the narks, and certainly not as winded as Della Ravelle, who was toting the shotgun just in case the rumor was true about the nurse being strapped. They hurried along the darkened corridor to the apartment, and the two narks stood in front of the door with the ram at the ready.

Della angled on the left side of the door and Britney on the right. On the preplanned signal, which was a simple nod to Britney, she was to bang on the door with her baton and give the command. She was surprised how hard her heart was pounding.

Della shone her light onto the door so that the younger nark could accurately slam the ram right next to the dead-bolt lock. Della held the shotgun muzzle up, and Britney had her pistol drawn and muzzle down against her right thigh, with her adrenaline peaking.

The older detective on the left of the ram nodded to Britney, who yelled, “Police! Open the door!”

They heard what sounded like a feminine scream from inside and high-pitched voices yelling to each other and footsteps scurrying. The detective didn’t hesitate and slammed the ram once against the heavy door, but it didn’t budge. And then the moment occurred that made both detectives actually burst out in roars of laughter before the young one rammed the door a second time.

The door crashed open and the nurse and his tranny lover were caught throwing bags of prescription drugs out the window, where the D3 ran around catching them like a Dodgers center fielder. Lots more detective snickering continued all during the arrest, and even Della Ravelle tried in vain to control her own giggles. It had all been triggered by a moment that won for Britney Small a consolation-prize burrito from Sergeant Murillo for an unforgettable moment on the night of the Hollywood moon. All of Hollywood Station talked about it for days.

When Della Ravelle saw that the battering ram hit six inches higher than the dead-bolt lock on the first attempt at forced entry, she had shouted to the detective, “Lower! Lower!”

But it was Britney Small, in a fever of high-pitched excitement, who had instantly obeyed that command from her FTO. She dropped her voice a few octaves, gamely trying for baritone, and repeated, “Police! Open the door!”