Hollywood Hills

TWENTY-THREE

Jonas Claymore did not like the bunk, the food, or his cellmate in the Hollywood Station jail, where he spent the night. The cellmate was a Latino with a vicious-looking scar that ran from the bridge of his nose across his jaw to his throat. He was fully inked out with gang tatts, and he snored so noisily that Jonas couldn’t have slept even if he hadn’t been jonesing.

Jonas had tried to reach Megan on the phone an hour after he was booked, but she did not answer his cell. He wasn’t sure if they’d impounded his car or left it locked in the strip-mall parking lot as he had begged them to do, but either way the cell might still be in the car. The disloyal bitch had probably bailed the second she’d seen the cops pull into the lot. She could’ve run into Pablo’s and warned him, but no, all she’d thought of was herself. She didn’t care that he was in a place where a guy looked up his ass like a plumber inspecting a drainpipe. Jonas decided then to just give her a few Franklins when he saw her next and kick her out of his apartment along with her fucking cat.

The next morning Jonas learned that he’d be taken by sheriff’s deputies to arraignment at Division 30 of the Criminal Courts Building downtown on Temple Street, but he would have to spend another night in the Hollywood jail while the paperwork was being done. He was outraged.

Megan Burke’s night had been slightly better than Jonas Claymore’s. The perks she’d bought from Wilbur had helped her get a few hours’ sleep all curled up with Cuddles, who seemed overjoyed to be sleeping on the bed with her mistress in the place that Jonas previously claimed. In the morning the calico cat crawled up on the pillow and purred happily while Megan stroked her, and they stayed like that until Megan decided that Cuddles needed her breakfast.

She knew there’d be hell to pay when Jonas got out of jail, so she made several calls and was told that his bail would be set later, or he might be given an OR release before day’s end. She was told to call back in the afternoon for further information. Instead, she began calling motels with ads that said pets were welcome.

Megan packed what clothes were worth packing along with enough cat food for a few days, and by 1 P.M., a Sikh taxi driver was helping her carry her suitcase, a carrier containing Cuddles, and two large objects wrapped in mover’s blankets. Those he had to strap to the luggage rack. She took the Sikh’s cell phone number and promised him a $100 tip if he would pick her up whenever she called him and take her and her possessions to a destination in Beverly Hills and then to LAX. She said to be sure to bring the same taxi with the luggage rack for the bundles.

Before Megan left Jonas Claymore’s apartment for the last time, she wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table. It said, “You told me there would be an 80–20 split and that the 80 % was for the brains. I agree. Here is your 20 %, less the $500 that I gave you last night.” She left $1,900 on the kitchen table beside the note, along with her apartment key and his cell phone.

Hollywood Nate woke earlier than usual that day, probably because he had the Wickland Gallery on his mind. He phoned and Ruth answered.

He said, “This is Officer Weiss at Hollywood Division, LAPD. I had occasion to question someone in a Wickland Gallery cargo van the night before last, and we need to know if your van was stolen.”

Ruth said, “Oh, that must’ve been Mr. Wickland’s nephew. He borrowed it and left it in east Hollywood. We had to pick it up yesterday morning.”

“That explains it,” Nate said. “Is his name Jonas Claymore?”

“Reginald something,” Ruth said. “He’s a bit of a black sheep, according to Mr. Wickland. Is he in trouble?”

“He was arrested for possession of a controlled substance,” Nate said. “For some reason he’s denying ever being in the van. We’re not sure why. It’s possible that he was using it to do drug deals or for some other illegal activity.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ruth said. “That may explain why he just abandoned the van on the street the way he did. Mr. Wickland’s gone to the bank. I’ll tell him when he gets back, but I don’t think he’s going to drive over there and bail him out.”

“Okay, thanks,” Nate said. “At least I know now that he didn’t steal the van from you.”

When Nate got to work, he told all of the midwatch officers who knew about the Wickland Gallery van what he’d learned.

“I figured it was nothing,” Georgie Adams said. “Just some little ass-wipe taking advantage of his uncle.”

Nigel had to endure an in-person meeting to convince the bank manager that neither a bunco artist nor an extortionist was victimizing him, and that he had a good and legitmate reason for needing such a large amount of cash. He was told that he could pick up the $100,000 the next afternoon after 1 P.M. That withdrawal had wiped out Nigel’s savings account and put his commercial account in grave jeopardy. He planned to call his European art auctioneer to find out if he could get a wire transfer of some advance money as soon as the paintings were received over there.

When he got back, Ruth said, “The LAPD called. Your nephew got himself arrested for drug possession. You can call Officer Weiss at Hollywood Station if you’re interested.”

“What?”

“Yes, it appears that he was stopped in our van on the evening you loaned it to him and now they have him on a drug charge.”

“Did they give his name?”

Ruth smiled quizzically and said, “Don’t you know your own nephew’s name?”

Nigel said, “He might have used an alias.”

“You said that his name is Reginald, but they have him under the name of Jonas Claymore.”

“That’s him,” Nigel said. “He’s using his father’s name. Always in trouble, that boy.” He entered his office and closed the door behind him.

Forty minutes later his cell phone rang.

“It’s Valerie,” Megan said. She was in her motel room, lying on the bed with Cuddles, who seemed excited by their new surroundings.

“I’ll have it tomorrow, sometime after two P.M.,” Nigel said.

“Why not today?”

“You can’t walk into a bank and draw out that kind of money unless you’re superrich. That money is all I have. I’m penniless now.”

“You’ll be okay when you sell the paintings,” Megan said. “They’re very valuable, according to Mr. Dibble.”

“Yes, dear Mr. Dibble.” Then he said, “Is your partner still in the dark about our bonus arrangement?”

“He’s very much in the dark,” Megan said. “He believes the paintings are yours and he doesn’t even know the name Sammy Brueger. He’s a brain-dead addict, to tell you the truth.”

“Will he be accompanying you here tomorrow when you bring the paintings?”

“Of course not.”

“Just wondering,” Nigel said, trying to decide how he could use the information he’d just learned from Ruth. Her crime partner was in jail. Would she be alone? Was violence still an option? Could he possibly eliminate both of the thieves?

“But I will have protection,” Megan said as though telepathic. “There will be someone delivering me and the paintings and waiting for me outside. You’ll be able to see him.”

“My dear girl,” Nigel said. “I am not a dangerous man. You have nothing to fear.”

“I’m going to be with a gentleman in a turban,” Megan said, “who looks like he could easily cut the throat of anyone who tried to hurt me. But first he would call the police immediately if I didn’t walk out of your gallery wearing a happy face.”

Raleigh Dibble couldn’t bear it any longer. He pulled the Brueger Mercedes out of the garage and drove to Beverly Hills late that afternoon. Another day was almost over, and still no call from Nigel Wickland. His suspicion that Nigel was secretly dealing with the thieves was overwhelming now, and his nerves were in tatters. He dressed in his best sport coat over somewhat threadbare gabardine trousers with a white dress shirt and necktie. He arrived at the Wickland Gallery thirty minutes before closing and was met by Ruth, who was turning out the painting lights over some of the more valuable consignment pieces.

“May I help you?” she said.

“I need to see Mr. Wickland,” he said. “My name is Raleigh Dibble.”

Ruth smiled and said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Dibble, I remember you. Sorry, but Mr. Wickland left early today.”

“Really?” Raleigh said. “I talked to him today and he didn’t say he was leaving.”

Ruth looked at Raleigh and said, “I don’t recall taking a call from you today for Mr. Wickland.”

“I called him on his cell,” Raleigh said, trying a convivial smile. “I’m a personal friend.”

Ruth looked doubtful until Raleigh rattled off Nigel’s cell phone number. Then she said, “Sorry. It’s just that so many people seem to want to talk personally to Mr. Wickland these days.”

“I know how it is,” Raleigh said. “We’re working together on an estate sale for my aunt, and I’m dealing with some of the same people.” Then he took a wild shot and said, “I guess the fellow came in yesterday that I’ve been working with? Or was it today? Anyway, I told the gentleman to come and speak with Nigel personally and bring a couple of the estate’s paintings. Did he arrive?”

“Nobody brought any paintings in yesterday or today,” Ruth said.

“Oh,” Raleigh said, feeling that maybe he had it wrong after all. “Didn’t someone come and ask to see Nigel privately?”

“Not a gentleman,” Ruth said. “Only a young lady yesterday. I don’t know if she was from the estate or not.”

“I see,” Raleigh said, and now he was sure it was hopeless. Nigel would be furious when he found out that he was pumping this employee for information. He made a last feeble attempt and said apologetically, “I guess it wasn’t my client, unless the young lady happened to bring some paintings here with her.”

Ruth laughed and said, “Dear me, no. The poor little thing was lucky she could carry her purse let alone any paintings. She was so frail.”

Raleigh looked away quickly and felt that sensation again, the blood rushing to his head and ice cubes in the gut. He said, “Was she a very young woman with dark hair?”

“Yes, she was so adorable in her little candy-striped dress,” Ruth said. “I guess she’s also working with you on this estate sale?”

After a long pause Raleigh said, “Yes, she’s the granddaughter of my aunt. Everybody’s trying to get in on the money from the family art collection.”

“I know what you mean,” Ruth said.

“I’ll give Nigel a call after I get home,” Raleigh said. “Thanks.”

Raleigh genuinely feared he might go the way of Marty Brueger as he drove up into the Hollywood Hills. He was almost hyperventilating as he neared home and had to practice normal breathing and tell himself to stay calm. At last he understood all of it. The theft of the van was not a random act at all! It was part of the carefully planned scheme of Nigel Wickland. Valerie, or whatever her name was, and her companion thief were part of Nigel’s conspiracy from the beginning. Nigel had induced Raleigh to allow the theft and reproduction of the million-dollar paintings. But for all Raleigh knew, they might be worth $2 million. Or $3 million! And then Nigel had hired a pair of young criminals to help him remove Raleigh from the conspiracy.

Nigel would eventually tell Raleigh that it’s a terrible tragedy but the thieves apparently did not intend to ever call him again. It was such a simple but brilliant scheme, and he, Raleigh Dibble, was the dupe. The fall guy. The patsy. The fool. The thing that made it so diabolical was the trick with the van keys. Nigel had banked on Raleigh not looking for the keys, which Nigel said he left in the van. Nigel knew that Raleigh would not search for the keys, not inside a gate-guarded estate. And it had worked beautifully by allowing Nigel to shift the fault for the van theft to Raleigh.

What would Nigel have done if Raleigh had found the keys and brought them into the house? Well, that, too, was explainable. In that eventuality, Nigel’s young crime partners probably had a spare key, and Nigel would have covered their escape by claiming that they must’ve hot-wired the van. But that wouldn’t have been quite as neat. That might have thrown up a red flag for Raleigh. No, it had all worked perfectly, just the way Nigel had planned it.

Raleigh wondered where Nigel had found frail little Valerie. So vulnerable, so delicate, so young, so ruthless! Raleigh remembered how she’d kissed his cheek before she’d departed and asked if he’d like to meet at a bistro, and how that gesture had touched his heart. When Raleigh pulled into the Bruegers’ five-car garage, tears were streaming down his cheeks.

Raleigh let himself into the foyer, turned off the burglar alarm, and recalled that Leona Brueger had informed him that because of the burglaries in the Hollywood Hills, she now kept a handgun in her bedroom. He was going to find that gun. He was going to visit Nigel Wickland tomorrow, and the backstabbing sissy was going to bring those paintings back. Those paintings were returning home where they belonged, one way or the other.

Raleigh searched the master bedroom for more than an hour before he found the gun in a hatbox in the closet. It was a nickel-plated, snub-nosed.38 caliber revolver, and it was loaded.

Nigel returned to the Wickland Gallery at closing time, and Ruth said, “Oh, Nigel, you’re back. I thought you had left for the day. There was a Mr. Dibble here insisting to see you. When I tried to find out what it was all about, he was vague and said something about an estate sale you’re working on.”

Nigel scratched his chin, trying to stay composed, and said, “Dibble? Would it be Raleigh Dibble?”

“Yes, that’s him,” Ruth said.

“He’s a fool,” Nigel said. “He completely overestimates the value of everything. Did he say if he was coming back?”

“No,” Ruth said, “but he seemed eager to know if anyone had come here in the last few days with some paintings for you. Of course I told him no.”

So that was it! Raleigh suspected that the thief had brought the paintings and been paid, and that he was being double-crossed! Nigel said casually to Ruth, “Yes, the estate sale. I didn’t mention it to you because it’s all part of his inflated personal appraisal of art that he knows nothing about. He’s not worth a moment of my time.”

“He claimed he was a personal friend,” Ruth said. “He knew your cell number.”

This was getting uncomfortable and Nigel wanted to end it. “He asked for my mobile number when we spoke, and in a weak moment I gave it to him. A personal friend? Never.”

With that, Nigel entered his office and debated whether or not to phone and chastise Raleigh for coming and grilling Ruth because of his own uncontrollable paranoia. But he decided to let it be. Raleigh would eventually have to accept that the thieves must have disposed of the paintings themselves. What else could he think?

Because her employer had ended the discussion abruptly, Ruth hadn’t bothered to mention all of her conversation with Raleigh Dibble. She thought about telling him of Raleigh Dibble’s peculiar interest when she’d casually mentioned the only visitor who had insisted on seeing Nigel yesterday-the girl in the candy-striped dress. She decided to forget about it. After all, Nigel said the man and his estate sale was of no interest to him.

It was not a night of a Hollywood moon, but if it had been, the pizza might have gone to 6-X-46. During the first hour of their watch, Della Ravelle and Britney Small got a call to a popular bar and grill on north Vermont Avenue, where a drunk was causing a disturbance.

It was one of the older chop houses with the red imitation leather and walnut paneling that previous generations loved so much. A sixty-something hostess with a retro bouffant hairdo, wearing an inappropriate sheath dress with spaghetti straps, was standing at a tall table in the foyer taking reservations.

She put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone when the cops entered, and said, “In the bar.”

Britney started in until Della grabbed her arm and said, “Wait a minute. Let’s first find out what we’re walking into.”

When the hostess finished taking the dinner reservation, Della said, “What’s the disturbance all about?”

The hostess said, “There’s a crazy man in there, buying two drinks at a time and pouring every other one into a vase.”

“That’s it?” Della said. “That’s the disturbance?”

“He’s frightening customers,” the hostess said. “Several people left the bar because of him. And he’s disturbing the bartender.”

“Is he ranting and raving and talking gibberish or something like that?” Della asked.

“No,” the hostess said. “But he seems to be talking to himself.”

“Quietly?” Della asked. “There’s no law against that.”

“Maybe not, but it’s scary,” the hostess said.

“Okay,” Della said. “Let’s have a look, partner.” When they were walking to the bar, Della whispered to Britney, “Remember, we don’t hassle loony tunes if they’re peaceful. This is fucking Hollywood.”

Their eyes had to adjust when they got inside the barroom. It was one of those very dark, formerly elegant barrooms, where after a martini or two, the aging patrons could appear to each other the way they used to be and not the way they currently were. They saw that the hostess was right. He’d scared everyone away. He was seated on a stool at the far end of an old mahogany bar complete with a dented but shiny brass rail several inches from the floor.

The bartender looked at the cops and moved his eyes toward the lone customer, who had two bucket glasses in front of him. He was not old, but he was older than Della. She figured him for about fifty. He was losing his hair but it was mostly dark with only sprinkles of gray. He was getting a soft roll around his middle that his yellow golf shirt didn’t hide, but Della thought he wasn’t a bad-looking guy. In fact, he reminded her in some ways of her second husband, even to the arching heavy eyebrows. He looked to be talking softly to himself and he appeared boozy enough that he should not drive home.

Della said sotto to Britney. “You’re contact, I’m cover. Go for it.”

Britney walked up behind the man and said, “Evening, sir.”

He didn’t turn around, but said, “Evening.”

“What’re you doing, sir?” Britney asked.

“Having a drink,” he said.

It was so dark in the bar that she couldn’t clearly see the object on his lap, so she said, “Why don’t you put that vase up on the bar. It makes police officers nervous when people have strange items in their hands. You can understand that, can’t you?”

He picked it up carefully with both hands and put it on the bar, saying, “It isn’t a vase. It’s an urn.”

“An urn?”

“Yes,” he said, and for the first time turned on the stool and looked at Britney.

“Have you been pouring drinks into it?” she asked.

“Yes, a few. I don’t think it’s against the law, is it?”

Britney turned to look at Della and said, “Not that I know of, sir, but it’s scaring the customers because it’s so… unusual. Would you please tell me why you’re pouring drinks into the urn and talking to yourself?”

“I’m not talking to myself,” he said. “I’m talking to my dad. He’s in there.”

“I see,” Britney said. “That urn contains your dad’s ashes?”

“Yes,” he said. “Digby G. Randolph was a great father and a wonderful man. This was just about his favorite restaurant. He asked me to come here from time to time and have a drink for him.”

“But you had the idea to give a drink to him, is that what you’re saying?”

“Exactly. I’m buying a few drinks for my dad.”

“And when you’re talking, you’re not talking to yourself?”

“I’m talking to my dad. I know he can hear me.”

Britney turned toward Della and then back to the son of Digby G. Randolph and said, “Are you driving tonight?”

“No,” he said, “I came by taxi. I live in a condo at Sunset and Genesee.”

“Okay, Mr. Randolph,” Britney said. “I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight. The bartender thinks so, too. I’m going to ask the hostess to call you a cab, and then you and your dad can finish that last drink and go home, okay? And the next time you come here, I’d like you and your dad to take the dark corner table. Just put him on the chair beside you and whisper softly, and I don’t think anyone will bother you. Do not belly-up to the bar with your dad anymore, okay?”

“I’ll do what you say, Officer,” the son of Digby G. Randolph said, “but Dad so liked to stand at the bar with his foot on the rail.”

“I understand that, sir,” Britney said. “But he had feet then. I’d like you to do it my way from now on.”

“I will accede to your request, Officer,” said the son of Digby G. Randolph, opening the lid of the urn and giving the last of the Jack Daniel’s to his dad.

There was a reunion that night in unit 6-X-66. Hollywood Nate got Snuffy Salcedo back, complete with a bandage across his nose and a plastic noseguard. It made him look to Nate the movie buff like Lee Marvin with his false nose in Cat Ballou.

“Glad to be back?” Nate asked.

Snuffy said, “Yeah, my mother gets to kicking my ass after I been laying around the house too long, wounded warrior or not. She thinks idleness invites the devil.”

Hollywood Nate was being extra solicitous and was doing the driving. “Let’s not do anything heroic tonight,” Snuffy said. “I’d like to just sit back and be the scribe. I don’t wanna bump the beak before it’s healed.”

“Is it gonna look better when the bandage comes off?” Nate asked.

“It can’t look worse than it’s looked all my life,” Snuffy said.

“Dude, I didn’t think you were ever coming back,” Flotsam said to Jetsam, on duty together in unit 6-X-32 for the first time since the battle at Goth House.

“Bro, I learned a few things about neck injuries,” Jetsam said. “I learned you don’t wanna have one. They hurt.”

Flotsam had insisted on driving so that Jetsam didn’t have to do too much craning at intersections. In fact, he was so solicitous that Jetsam finally said, “Bro, I ain’t an invalid.”

“I missed my li’l pard,” Flotsam said. “Of course, Hollywood Nate’s a cool dude, but he don’t know shit about the beach and briny. After a while I couldn’t think of what to talk about.”

The surfer cops had taken a crime report just after dark from a Gallup, New Mexico, tourist who had had her purse picked while she was taking photos of the marble-and-brass stars on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. They drove to the station to get a DR number on the report as required, and to have it signed by a supervisor, but they didn’t find Sergeant Murillo in the sergeant’s room. The troops, especially the surfer cops, always tried to avoid the nitpicking watch commander.

Jetsam said to Flotsam, “I hate taking our report to the kinda guy that would wear a ring on his index finger and make us call him ‘His Excellency’ if he had his way.”

Flotsam said, “If he’s in there, let’s hold the report till later and get Murillo to sign it.”

But at that moment Lieutenant O’Reilly wasn’t in his office and Sergeant Murillo was, so Flotsam and Jetsam thought it was safe to enter.

“What’s the air like?” Sergeant Murillo asked, meaning the airwaves.

“Quiet,” Jetsam said. “A few calls going out to south-end units, and a prowler call in the Hollywood Hills that turned out to be a raccoon.”

Much to the surfer cops’ consternation, the watch commander swept into the room just then, but not with his usual look of intensity and purpose. He was actually smiling. In fact, he was unable to contain his excitement.

He said to Sergeant Murillo, “The captain’s finished with the citizens meeting at the Community Relations Office and he wants me to join him for code seven at El Cholo.”

“I’m surprised he still has an appetite,” Sergeant Murillo said, trying to concentrate on the report that the surfer cops had handed to him.

“Yeah,” Flotsam agreed. “There ain’t been a rational citizen walk into the Hollywood Crows Office since Hitler was still hanging wallpaper.”

Ignoring both surfer cops, Lieutenant O’Reilly said to Sergeant Murillo, “The captain said he loves the green corn tamales at El Cholo. Tell me, are green tamales different from regular tamales?”

Sergeant Murillo looked up from the report and said, deadpan, “How would I know, Lieutenant?”

The young watch commander, who was nothing if not politically correct, was disconcerted by the sergeant’s unexpected reply and said, “I just… well, I assumed…”

“That I’m Mexican?” Sergeant Murillo said.

“Well, your name and you… you look Hispanic, sort of, and I thought you would know Hispanic food.”

“What’s a Hispanic look like? And what in the world is Hispanic food?” Sergeant Murillo said, and now the surfer cops were grinning like hyenas, watching the lieutenant squirm and sputter.

“Damn, Murillo, you know what I mean,” the watch commander said, genuinely angry that his sergeant was showing him up like this in front of two officers, especially these two.

Jetsam only made things worse when he said artlessly to the watch commander, “The sarge is just hacking on you, sir. He does that to us all the time. One time he pretended he was giving us serious roll call training and he goes, ‘Listen up. Orders from the bureau commander. Officers are forbidden to wear any off-duty clothing that reveals body ink portraying one of our female senators doing fellatio on the president of the United States.’ ” Jetsam chuckled and said, “He keeps our morale up with funny stuff like that.”

Lieutenant O’Reilly stared icily at Jetsam for a long moment and said, “Yes, I’m certain you would find something like that amusing.”

Sergeant Murillo winked at the surfer cops and said to the watch commander, “Okay, Lieutenant, I confess, I’m Mexican. Or at least my grandparents are. And I can promise you that El Cholo’s green tamales will make the captain as happy as a drunken mariachi on Cinco de Mayo. You can order yourself a margarita manqué, and by the end of the meal you two will be real compadres.”

Lieutenant O’Reilly noticed that the surfer cops were smiling fondly at their smart-ass sergeant, and it made the lieutenant angrier. He redirected his pique toward Flotsam, saying, “Don’t any of the sergeants around this station ever tell you people that gelled-up surfer hairstyles are unfit for police officers?”

Flotsam looked down at the watch commander, whose nose almost touched the tall cop’s badge number, and he stopped smiling.

Jetsam again tried a show of goodwill and said, “Actually, sir, only the barneys wear gel or hairspray on the beach. The real kahunas go au naturel, so to speak.”

That made the lieutenant turn on Jetsam and say, “I also think the so-called sun streaks in your hair look like highlighting. It’s vaguely effeminate for male police officers to highlight their hair. Didn’t Sergeant Murillo ever mention that to you?”

Neither surfer cop was smiling now, and both were shooting hate beams at the watch commander, when Sergeant Murillo stood up and said to them, “Okay, we’re through here. You can go back to work.”

Flotsam and Jetsam were grim and silent when they strode across the parking lot to their shop. After they were in the car, Flotsam said, “Dude, I think we should drop by Yerevan Tow Service. I got an idea.”

Jetsam, who was angrily alliterative, said, “I hope it’s a real brain bleacher, bro, cuz I got, like, the image of that slithering snarky slime-sucker stuck in my cerebrum. Feel me?”

“I feel ya, dude,” Flotsam said.

Yerevan Tow Service was known to many of the cops at Hollywood Station as a kind of outlaw one-man tow service that picked up scraps that LAPD’s official tow garages left behind or couldn’t handle. Sarkis, the owner, was a happy-go-lucky Armenian, always eager to impound any vehicles at the scene of traffic collisions or radio calls, which he picked up on his police scanner.

He usually had some of his wife’s stuffed grape leaves in his tow truck, and on a couple of occasions he shared them with the surfer cops. And one night he was rewarded for his generosity. On that occasion, 6-X-32 had stopped Sarkis while he was in his private car, driving home from a bar in Little Armenia, absolutely hammered.

As soon as Flotsam and Jetsam saw whom they’d stopped, Flotsam said to Sarkis, “Dude, when you get your swill on, try to remember, it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

They locked up Sarkis’s five-year-old Lincoln and drove him home in their black-and-white. Sarkis tried to invite them into his house for some leftover shish kebab, but Jetsam said to him, “We gotta get back to our beat, bro, but we got your marker. Someday we may need to collect on it.”

And now was the time. Sarkis was working late at his tow garage and was happy to see his LAPD friends. He was good at bodywork and had been reassembling a damaged Ford pickup with junkyard parts. After hugs and greetings, he listened intently to what Flotsam and Jetsam had to say about a major problem at Hollywood Station.

Thirty minutes before Lieutenant O’Reilly left his office to join the captain at El Cholo, 6-X-32 received a confidential cell phone message from one of the desk officers at Hollywood Station. It concerned the approximate arrival time for the watch commander’s code 7 rendezvous with the station captain.

Lieutenant O’Reilly had a marvelous time at El Cholo that evening, going well over the allotted time for his code 7 meal break. He told the captain of the many things wrong with the personnel at Hollywood Station. He was especially critical of the midwatch troops, who worked from 5:15 P.M. until 4 A.M. four days a week. He admitted that the officers liked the four-ten shift, but he had many reasons for why the watch hours were inefficient. He said that he wished they could go back to the old eight-hour-and-forty-five-minute work shift five days a week, because efficiency trumped morale. And he told the captain how he wished he had more authority when it came to overtime being granted. He had a strong belief that many officers were padding the books with phony “greenies,” as they called the OT slips, and he was planning to put a stop to it. He said that he was working on ways to make supervisors-and he mentioned Sergeant Murillo by name-more responsive to orders and roll call training from the bureau level and less attuned to all of the petty gripes and special requests from the officers on his watch, especially certain officers who flouted good discipline.

All in all, he was wrecking the captain’s dinner of green corn tamales, and his boss wished it were possible to get drunk on virgin margaritas so this eager beaver could pass out on the table or something.

After their meal break, Lieutenant O’Reilly thanked the captain excessively for buying him the tamales and they said their good-byes outside El Cholo’s front entrance. And then Lieutenant O’Reilly walked to his car, which he’d had to park on Eleventh Street just east of Western Avenue because of the crowded restaurant parking lot. He had his keys in his hand, preparing to unlock the door, when he saw that he couldn’t.

The front door on the driver’s side was gone. He stopped and stared at the inside of his car in disbelief, only to discover that the door on the passenger side was also missing. The bolts and hinges on each side had been attacked and the doors… were… gone.

Lieutenant O’Reilly put in a code 2 call for a patrol unit to assist, and the first to arrive was 6-X-32. The surfer cops bailed out and ran to their watch commander with gusto.

“Your doors ain’t here, Lieutenant!” Flotsam cried. “What happened?”

“How the hell would I know what happened?” Lieutenant O’Reilly said. “I can’t believe this!”

“Those car strippers stop at nothing!” Jetsam cried. “Musta been those rotten little Eighteenth Streeters.”

Two other midwatch units arrived very fast, and Snuffy Salcedo got out of the car and started snapping photos of the watch commander’s car with his camera phone.

“Stop that!” Lieutenant O’Reilly yelled at him. “Broadcast a code four. We’ve got enough people here. I don’t want anyone else seeing this goddamn travesty.”

While Hollywood Nate was broadcasting a code 4, indicating that there was sufficient help at the scene, Lieutenant O’Reilly began searching the street and sidewalk with his flashlight, looking for evidence of the vandals’ identity. He knew that this was no ordinary crime of malicious mischief, and he suspected that slackers from Hollywood Station had done this to humilate him. The midwatch cops at the scene were fascinated, watching the way Lieutenant O’Reilly circled the wounded police vehicle like a predator wary of dangerous prey. His eyes were bulging and his face looked like a tomato about to explode.

Flotsam said sotto to Snuffy Salcedo, “Dude, I think the lieutenant’s gone to dizzyland. This here outrage should not go unpunished.”

Jetsam said sotto to Snuffy Salcedo, “Bro, these are perilous times we live in. Nobody’s safe no more.”

Snuffy Salcedo listened to the surfer cops and whispered something to Hollywood Nate, something he’d asked before. “Are you telling me these two don’t rehearse this shit?”

“Maybe some of it,” Nate conceded in a whisper of his own. “They’re sort of the Gilbert and Sullivan of Hollywood Station. They write and sometimes star in their little asphalt operettas.”

“This looks to me like somebody’s idea of a prank!” Lieutenant O’Reilly said after his search for evidence turned up nothing. “I want this unit taken to the parking lot and dusted for prints. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“Let’s glove up, partner,” Flotsam said, taking latex gloves from his pocket.

“You won’t need to,” Lieutenant O’Reilly said to Jetsam. “I want you to drive me to the station right this minute.”

“Roger that, sir,” Jetsam said.

“And you drive my unit in,” Lieutenant O’Reilly said to Flotsam, handing him the keys. “Book anything you find in my car that even remotely might be evidence. A matchstick, a chewing gum wrapper, anything. I want the bastards that did this, and I’m going to get them.”

“I’m on it, sir,” Flotsam said. “I’ll do a diligent search for clues. We sure wouldn’t want the doors to turn up at a swap meet or maybe in an L.A. Times story.”

Jetsam opened the passenger door on 6-X-32’s shop for the watch commander to get in, but Lieutenant O’Reilly paused and showed all present a grimace of a smile. He probably thought it showed self-confidence and was intimidating, but Hollywood Nate thought it looked like the other contenders’ smiles on the night they lost the Oscar to Kate Winslet.

When Jetsam got behind the wheel, he said, “If this does happen to get in the news, don’t let it embarrass you, Lieutenant. It’s not your fault. This is fucking Hollywood.”

Flotsam enjoyed driving a car with no front doors, and he decided to take Hollywood Boulevard so that he could cruise past Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and give the tourists a show. When he was stopped for traffic directly in front of Grauman’s forecourt, a clutch of tourists with cameras ran to the curb and started snapping photos of the doorless police car.

Flotsam waved and yelled, “Tough town! Last week somebody stole my front fenders!”