Hollywood Station

THIRTEEN

EXCUSE ME, PLEASE, Andrea,” Viktor Chernenko said late in the morning. There were only six detectives in the squad room, the rest being out in the field or in court or, in the case of Hollywood detectives, nonexistent due to the manpower shortage and budget constraints.

“Yes, Viktor?” Andi said, smiling over her coffee cup, fingers still on the computer keyboard.

“I think you are looking very lovely today, Andrea,” Viktor said with his usual diffident smile. “I believe I recognize your most beautiful yellow sweater from the Bananas Republic, where my wife, Maria, shops.”

“Yeah, I bought it there.”

Then he walked back to his cubicle. This was the way with Viktor. He wanted something, but it might take him half a day to get around to asking. On the other hand, nobody ever paid her the compliments that Viktor did when he needed a woman detective for something or other.

Andi was glad to see that Brant Hinkle was still teamed with Viktor, and because of that she’d probably agree to do whatever Viktor got around to requesting. Ever since Brant had arrived, her belief in his possibilities kept increasing. She’d checked him out by now and found that he’d just turned fifty-three, had only been married and divorced once-a rarity among cops these days-had two adult married daughters, and based on his serial number, had about five more years on the Job than she had. In other words, he was a likely prospect. And she knew he was interested by the way he looked at her, but as yet he hadn’t made a move.

Another twenty minutes passed and she was about to go out in the field and call on a couple of witnesses to a so-called attempted murder where a pimp/boyfriend slapped around a whore and fired two shots in her direction when she ran away. Without a doubt, the whore would have changed her mind by now or had it changed for her and all would be forgiven. But Andi needed to go through the motions just in case tomorrow night he murdered her.

“Andrea,” Viktor said when he approached her desk the second time.

“Yes, Viktor.”

“Will you be so kind to help Brant and me? We have a mission for a woman, and as you see, today you are the only woman here.”

“How long will it take?”

“A few hours, and I would be honored to buy your lunch.”

Andi glanced over at Brant Hinkle, who was talking on the phone, wearing little half-glasses as he wrote on a legal pad, and she said, “Okay, Viktor. My damaged hooker can wait.”

Viktor drove east to Glendale with Andi beside him and Brant in the backseat. Viktor was very solicitous, apologizing because the air conditioner didn’t work in their car.

“So okay,” Andi said, “all I have to do is tail this Russian guy from his job at the auto parts store to wherever he eats lunch?”

Viktor said, “We have been told that he always walks to a fast-food place, but there are several that are close by.”

Brant said, “Viktor’s informant says this guy Lidorov is very tail conscious, but he probably won’t be looking for a woman to be on him.”

“And all we do is get a DNA sample?”

“That is all,” Viktor said. “My informant is sometimes reliable, sometimes not.”

“Your evidence for a DNA comparison isn’t all that reliable either,” she said, turning in her seat to look at Brant, who raised his eyebrows as if to say, Viktor is obsessive.

Viktor said, “Andrea, when I did my follow-up investigation and found the cigarette butt in that jewelry store far behind the cabinet, I know in my heart it was left there by the suspect.”

“Even though the victim was too terrified to remember for sure if the guy left the butt or took it with him,” Brant said doubtfully.

“It is an intestines feeling,” Viktor said. “And this Russian in Glendale has two convictions for armed robbery of jewelry stores.”

“I’ve heard you say you’re not sure the man from the jewelry store two-eleven is even a Russian,” Andi said.

Viktor said, “The accent that the store owner heard from the man was different from the woman’s. But everybody is Russian Mafia to people in Hollywood. Actually, Glendale has a very big Armenian population. Many go to the Gulag, where my tip has come from. Criminals from all over former USSR go to the Gulag to drink and dine, including criminals from former Soviet Armenia. But for now, we have this Russian who was a jewel robber in his past life.”

“This isn’t much to go on,” Andi said.

“We have nothing else,” Viktor said. “Except I believe that a theft of mail from a certain mailbox on Gower is where the information about the diamonds was learned about. If only I could get a clue to the mail thief.”

“We can’t stake out every mailbox in the area, Viktor,” Brant said.

“No, Brant, we cannot,” Viktor said. “So that is why I would like to try this thing today. I know it is a far shot.”

They parked on the next block, and Viktor diligently watched the front door of the auto parts store through binoculars while Andi turned in her seat to chat with Brant about how he liked Hollywood so far and where was he on the lieutenant’s list.

Brant was surprised to learn that Andi had a son in the army serving in Afghanistan, and said, “Don’t think I say this to all the ladies, but really, you don’t look old enough.”

“I’m plenty old enough,” she said, hoping she hadn’t blushed. Next thing, she’d be batting her lashes if she didn’t get hold of herself.

“I think Afghanistan’s fairly quiet these days,” he said.

“Last year he was in Iraq,” she said. “I don’t like to think about how I felt during those months.”

Brant was quiet then, feeling very lucky to have daughters living safe lives. He couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have your only child over there in hell. Especially for coppers, whose assertive, in-your-face personality is of absolutely no use in such a situation. To just feel helpless and frightened all the time? He believed it must be extra hard for the parents who are police officers.

Viktor lowered the binoculars, picked up a mug shot from his lap, and said, “It is Lidorov. He is wearing a black shirt and jeans. He has what looks like hair made of patent leather and has a gray mustache and is of medium size. He is walking toward the big mall half a block from the auto parts store.”

Andi was dropped on the east side of the mall and walked inside a minute after Lidorov entered. At first she thought she’d lost him, but heading toward the food court she spotted him.

Lidorov paused before the Greek deli, where two Latino men were making gyros, then moved on to an Italian takeout, where another young Latino was expertly tossing a pizza. Then he settled on Chinese fast food and ordered something in a carton along with a soft drink in a takeout cup. From another Latino.

Andi watched from the Italian side and wondered if chopsticks would be better or worse than forks for the collecting of DNA evidence. But Lidorov shook his head when offered chopsticks and took a plastic fork instead. He sat down at one of three small tables in front of the counter and ate from the carton and sipped his drink and ogled any young women who happened to pass by.

When he got up, she was ready to bus his table for him and scoop up the fork and the drinking straw. But she never got the chance. He took the unfinished carton of food with him along with the cup and strolled back toward the entrance, drinking from the straw. She assumed the fork was in the carton, so now what?

Lidorov went out the door into the sunlight, stretched a little, and strolled right past two perfectly good trash receptacles where he could have dropped the carton and the cup.

Litter, you bastard! Andi thought, following as far as she dared. But since there were few pedestrians on the sidewalk, she crossed over to the other side of the street and waited to be picked up.

When Viktor drove alongside, she got in and said, “Sorry, Viktor. He’s taking his lunch back to the store.”

“Is okay, Andrea,” Viktor said.

“Whoops!” Brant said, looking through the binoculars. “He’s not a litterbug.”

Two minutes later they were parked just east of the little strip mall that housed the auto parts store. Next to the wall in the parking lot was a very tall trash dumpster sitting on a thick concrete slab. All three detectives were standing in front of it with the lid raised.

Viktor and Brant, who were both more than six feet tall, pulled themselves up, their feet off the asphalt, and peered down inside the dumpster.

After getting back down, Viktor said to Andi, “Do you want the news that is good or the news that is not so good?”

“Good,” Andi said.

Brant said, “Looks like they dumped the trash this morning. There’s hardly anything in there. We can see the Chinese takeout carton and the drinking cup and straw.”

“Bad news?”

“We can’t reach it without somebody climbing inside,” Brant said.

“Well, I guess one of you fashion plates is going to get your suit dirty,” Andi said.

“Andrea,” said Viktor, “I am so outside of good shape that I truly do not think I can do it. I am thinking that if I spread my coat over the top here so that you do not mess up the beautiful sweater from Bananas, you could lie down over the top here and reach down and get the fork and the straw?”

“And how do I keep from falling in right on my head?”

“We would each hold you by a leg,” Brant said.

“Oh, you think it’s a good idea too?”

“I swear to you, Andi,” Brant said. “I don’t think I could do it without a ladder. And if we mess around here much longer, somebody’s gonna see us and the element of surprise will be lost. Even if we do get a match, he’ll be long gone, maybe clear back to Russia.”

“My heroes,” Andi said, slipping off her pumps. “Good thing I’m wearing long pants.”

With each man holding a bare foot, Andi was boosted up to the edge of the dumpster, lying across Viktor’s suit coat, and very reluctantly she allowed herself to be lowered upside down until she got hold of the carton and the cup.

“Get me outta here. It stinks,” she said.

When they were back in the car, the fork and drinking straw in a large evidence envelope, Viktor said, “My coat must go to the cleaners. How is your sweater, Andrea?”

“Other than busting a bra strap and bruising my belly and thighs, I’m okay. This lunch better be good, Viktor.”

It was. Viktor took them to a whimsically designed Russian restaurant on Melrose, where they had borscht and black bread and blinis and hot tea in a glass. And even got to hear dreamy Russian violins coming from the sound system, with Viktor acting every inch the host.

“Sometimes they make Ukrainian dishes here,” he told them, as they drank their tea.

“I don’t think I’ll do Pilates tonight,” Andi said. “You guys stretched every muscle in my body.”

“Speaking of muscles, yours are way better developed than mine,” Brant said. “Your legs are buff. I mean, they felt strong when I was holding them.”

That look again. Andi was sure he’d make a move after today’s little exercise. Maybe after they got back to the station and Viktor was otherwise occupied.

“I try to stay in shape in case I’m called on for dumpster diving,” she said. “They should make it an event in the police Olympics.”

When Viktor went to the restroom, Brant said, “Andi, I was wondering if maybe sometime you might like to join me for dinner at a new trendier-than-trendy-ever-gets restaurant called Jade that I’ve been reading about.”

Thinking, At last! she said, “I’d like to have dinner with you, but that’s pretty pricey. I read a review.”

He said, “My daughters’re long past child support and my ex remarried ten years ago, so I’m independently comfortable. But on second thought, maybe I’m too old for a place like Jade.”

“You look younger than I do,” she said.

“Bless you, my child,” Brant said. “So is it a date?”

“Yeah, let’s try it on Thursday to avoid the weekend rush. Wonder how I should dress.”

“Anything you wear would look great,” he said, and dropped his eyes in a shy way after he said it.

Andi thought, Those green eyes! This one’s going to take me to heaven or bust me down to the ground. Her heart was pounding when Viktor returned to the table.

“There is one thing for sure,” Viktor said to them when he gave his credit card to the waiter, “even if Lidorov is not our robber, it will be good to have his DNA profile. He is a violent thief. And a leopard cannot change its freckles.”

It was a different thief, newly seduced by the heady excitement of power and control, who that very afternoon was in the process of committing the second armed robbery of his life. But his chain-smoking companion was not the least bit seduced as they sat in a stolen car in a crowded parking lot, waiting. She wished that his Russian wasn’t hopeless, and that she didn’t have to convey her fears in English.

“I warn you, Cosmo,” Ilya said, looking like a clown to Cosmo in her red wig, wearing big sunglasses. “This is a foolish thing that we do.”

“Dmitri told me is okay.”

“Fuck Dmitri!” Ilya snapped, and Cosmo impulsively backhanded her across the face, regretting it at once.

He said, “Dmitri say that this is what he plan for long time. He say he is looking for someone like me and you to do it. We are lucky, Ilya. Lucky!”

“We get killed!” she said, wiping her eyes with tissue and touching up her mascara.

“We get rich,” he said. “You seen how the man in the jewelry store do when he seen my gun? He piss on his pants. You seen him cry, no? The guards with money do not wish to die. Dmitri say the money is paid back by insurance company. The guards shall see the gun and they shall give the money to me. You going to see.”

Cosmo, now wearing a Dodgers cap and sunglasses, had received the call from Dmitri the afternoon prior. Cosmo had thought it was about the diamonds, and when he showed up at the Gulag just before happy hour, he was sent upstairs to the private office.

Cosmo had not been surprised to see Dmitri sitting feet up, much as he’d seen him last time, again watching porn on his computer screen. But this time it was kiddie porn. When Cosmo entered, Dmitri turned down the sound on the speakers but left the screen on, glancing at it from time to time.

“Did you wish to talk about diamonds?” Cosmo said in English, as always.

“No,” Dmitri said. “But I been giving much thinking about the happen-ink guy Cosmo, who is my friend. I think about how you get the diamonds and how we going to do the deal for the diamonds very soon. I think maybe you ready for bigger job.”

“Yes?” Cosmo said, and Dmitri knew the look. He had him.

“It feels how? Strong? Sexy? Like fuck-ink when you point the gun in the face of a man. Am I correct, Cosmo?”

“Feels okay,” Cosmo said. “Yes, I don’t mind.”

“So, I have a job where you can get big money. Cash. At least one hundred thousand, maybe lot more.”

“Yes?”

“You know the kiosk in the big mall parking lots? The ATM machine kiosk? I know about one. I know exactly when money will come. Exactly.”

“Big armor car?” Cosmo said. “I cannot rob the armor car, Dmitri.”

“No, Cosmo,” Dmitri said. “Only a van. Two guys. They bring money inside a big, how you say, canister? Like soldier in Russia use for ammunition? One man must go behind kiosk, open door with key. Lock self in. Reload machine with nice green bullets from ammunition can.”

“Please, Dmitri, how you know about this?”

“Everyone drink at the Gulag sometime,” Dmitri said, chuckling in that way of his that scared Cosmo. He could imagine Dmitri chuckling like that if he was slitting your eyes.

“These men have guns, Dmitri.”

“Yes, but they be only regular security guard. They are contract out for these deliveries. I know about the two men. They will not die to save money. Insurance will pay anyways. Everybody know that. Nobody lose noth-ink except insurance company. No problem.”

“Two guys, two guns, two keys?”

“Yes, two keys for, how you say, internal security. You must take money before first guy get to kiosk. That is why I think of you. You prove at jewelry store you got lot of guts. And you got woman with big tits.”

“Ilya?”

“Yes. I give you exact day and time. Ilya is there to do business at ATM machine. Ilya know how to distract man who walks from van with money can. Other guy have a habit. Always the same. He wait until partner get to kiosk. Then he get out and come with his key.” Dmitri grinned and said, “One minute all you need, you happen-ink guy. You rock, Cosmo!”

And now here they were, sitting in a busy Hollywood parking lot, waiting in the fifteen-year-old red Mazda that Dmitri’s Georgian bartender had stolen for them with instructions to wipe it clean and abandon it somewhere east of Hollywood.

Ilya had gathered herself now, but every time she turned toward him he saw a hateful glare. He had slapped her around before, but this time it was different. He could smell his stale sweat and the fear on her. He thought she might leave him after this. But if Dmitri was right about how much would be in the can, he would just pay her off and let her go.

He had a passing thought about trying to reduce Dmitri’s fifty percent by saying that the amount of money in the can was far less than advertised. It gave him a thrill to think about that, but it was tempered when he thought of Dmitri’s sinister chuckle. And for all he knew, one of the security guards might be Dmitri’s informer. And might know exactly how much money he was delivering.

Cosmo looked at his Rolex knockoff and said, “Ilya, go to kiosk now.”

The blue Chevy van looked like anything but an armored car, much to Cosmo’s relief. And it sat there a few minutes, just as Dmitri said it would, while the guards looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just shoppers coming and going to the mall stores. Only one woman, a bosomy redhead, was at the ATM machine, looking very frustrated.

Her black purse was beside her on the tray and she took out her cell phone and appeared to be making a call. Then she threw her cell phone into the purse disgustedly and looked around as though she needed… what? She appeared to be trying her ATM card again but failed to make it work and just walked a short distance away, looking toward the electronics store across the parking lot. Maybe for her husband?

One of the guards glanced at the other. This was their last stop of the day and they couldn’t sit there all evening because of one goofy woman. The passenger got out, slid open the door of the van, grabbed the only canister remaining, and slid the door closed. Then he walked from the van to the kiosk, and when he got to the front of it he saw that the red-haired woman was crying.

The six o’clock news would give the security guard’s age as twenty-five. He was an “actor” who had been in Hollywood from Illinois for three years, looking for work and trying to get a SAG card. He had been with the security service for eighteen months. His name was Ethan Munger.

“Are you okay?” Ethan Munger said to Ilya, only pausing for a moment.

She was wiping her cheeks with the tissue and said, “I cannot make the card work.” And when she put the tissue back inside her purse, she pulled out the Raven.25 caliber pistol, one of the cheap street guns that Cosmo had been given by the bartender. Ilya pointed it at the astonished young guard.

The driver of the van keyed his mike, announced the robbery, and jumped out of the van, his pistol drawn. He ran around the back of the van, where Cosmo Betrossian, crouched below a parked car, said, “Drop the gun or die!”

The driver dropped the gun and put his hands in the air, lying facedown when ordered to do so. It was just as Dmitri had promised, no problem.

But Ethan Munger was a problem. The young guard began backing toward the van, unaware that his partner had been disarmed. Ethan Munger had his free hand in the air, the other holding the metal container. And he said, “Lady, you don’t want to do this. Please put that little gun away. It will probably blow up in your face. Just put it away.”

“Drop the can!” Ilya screamed it. And it was all she could do not to burst into tears, she was so scared.

“Just don’t get excited, lady,” the young guard said, still backing up with Ilya coming toward him.

It seemed to Ilya like minutes had passed, but it was only seconds, and she expected to hear sirens because several passing shoppers were looking and a woman was yelling, “Help! Somebody call the police!” Another woman was shouting into her cell phone.

Then Cosmo came running up behind the young security guard with a pistol in each hand. Ethan Munger turned, saw Cosmo, and perhaps from having seen too many Hollywood films or played too many action videos tried to draw his pistol. Cosmo shot the young guard with the other guard’s pistol. Three times in the chest.

Ilya didn’t grab the can. She just put her pistol in her purse and ran screaming back toward the stolen car, the gunfire ringing in her ears. Within a minute, which seemed like ten, Cosmo jerked open the back door of the car and threw the can and two guns inside. And for one terrible moment couldn’t get the old Mazda to start. Cosmo turned the key off, then on again three times, and it started and they sped from the parking lot.

Watch 5 was just loading up their war bags and other equipment when the code 3 hotshot call was given to 6-A-65 of Watch 2. And of course all the midwatch officers started throwing gear into their shops, jumping in, and squealing out of the station parking lot. They headed in the general direction of the robbery but really hoped they’d spot the red Mazda containing a dark-haired man wearing a baseball cap and a red-haired woman on the way. It wasn’t often that there was a robbery and shooting of a security guard to start off their evening.

Benny Brewster and B.M. Driscoll of 6-X-66 were the last midwatch car out of the parking lot, which didn’t surprise Benny. B.M. Driscoll had to run into the station at the last minute to get a bottle of antihistamine tablets from his locker because the early summer Santa Anas were killing him. Benny Brewster just sat and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and thought about how miserably unlucky he had been in losing a heroic cop like Mag Takara and inheriting a hypochondriac whom nobody wanted.

Benny had visited Mag three times in the hospital and called her every day since she’d been home with her parents. He wasn’t sure if her misshapen left cheekbone would ever be rebuilt to look exactly the way it was supposed to look. Mag said that the vision in her left eye was only about sixty percent of what it had been but that it was expected to improve. Mag promised Benny that she was coming back on duty, and he told her sincerely that he longed for the day.

There was still no court date set for the pimp who had assaulted her. Mag had suggested to Benny that with the huge lawsuit filed against the city for internal injuries suffered from the kicks by Officer Turner, maybe some sort of deal was coming down. A deal where the pimp would plea-bargain to county jail time instead of prison hard time, and a settlement would be made with the financially strapped city. Mag said she was very sorry for Turner, who had resigned in lieu of being fired and was awaiting word about whether he would be prosecuted.

“I jist wish I coulda been there, Mag,” Benny said when last they’d talked about it.

Mag had looked at her tall black partner and said, “I’m glad you weren’t, Benny. You’ve got a good career ahead of you. I predicted that to the Oracle first time you worked with me.”

Benny Brewster was still thinking about all of that when B.M. Driscoll finally got in the car and said, “Let’s not roll down the windows unless we have to.” Then he sniffed and blew his nose, taking another tissue from the box that he put on the floor beside the shotgun rack.

Benny started the car and drove slowly from the parking lot, saying disgustedly, “Fucking two-eleven suspects that shot the guard’re probably outta the county by now.”

B.M. Driscoll didn’t respond, only taking off his glasses and cleaning them with a tissue so that he could better read the dosage on the antihistamine bottle.

All that Cosmo Betrossian could think about as he drove away from the scene of the robbery while the young security guard lay dying was the bartender at the Gulag. Cosmo was going to ask Dmitri to torture and kill that Georgian if he and Ilya were not killed themselves in the next few minutes. The stolen Mazda that the bartender assured him was in good working order had stalled at the first traffic light. And as Cosmo sat there grinding and grinding the starter, a police car sped past, light bar flashing and siren screaming, going to the very place from which they had just escaped.

“Let us get out of the car!” Ilya said.

“The money!” Cosmo cried. “We have money!”

“Fuck money,” Ilya said.

The engine almost started, but he flooded it. He waited and tried again and it kicked over, and the Mazda began lurching south on Gower.

Cosmo decided that she was right, that they must get out and flee on foot. “Son of bastard!” he screamed. “I kill fucking Georgian that give me this car!”

“We leave it now?” Ilya said. “Stop, Cosmo.”

Then the idea came to him. “Ilya,” he said, “you know where we be now?”

“Yes, Gower Street,” she said. “Stop the car!”

“No, Ilya. We be almost at the house of the miserable addict Farley.”

Ilya had never been to Farley’s house and could not see the significance of this. “So who gives damn about fucking tweaker? Stop the car! I get out!”

Cosmo realized that he was a block and a half away, that was all. A block and a half. “Ilya, please do not jump out. Farley has little garage! Farley always park his shit car on the street so is easy to push it.”

“Cosmo!” she screamed again. “I am going to kill you or me! Stop this car! Let me out!”

“Two minutes,” he said. “We be at house of Farley. We put this car in garage of Farley. Our money shall be safe. We shall be safe!”

The Mazda bucked and shuddered its way down Gower to the residential street of Farley Ramsdale. Cosmo Betrossian was afraid that the car wouldn’t make the final turn, but it did. And as though the Mazda had a mind and a will, it seemed to throw itself in a last lurching effort up the slightly sloping driveway, where it sputtered and died beside the old bungalow.

Cosmo and Ilya got out quickly, and Cosmo opened the garage door and threw some boxes of junk and an old, rusty bike from the garage into the backyard, making room for the Mazda. Cosmo and Ilya both had to push the car into the garage. Cosmo tucked both pistols inside his belt, grabbed the container of money, and closed the termite-riddled door.

They went to the front door of the bungalow and knocked but got no answer. Cosmo tried the door and found it locked. They went to the back door, where Cosmo slipped the wafer lock with a credit card, and they entered to await the return of their new “partners.”

Cosmo thought that now he had more reason than ever to kill the two tweakers, and that he must do it right after they entered the house. But not with the gun. The neighboring homes were too close. But how? And would Ilya help him?

The canister contained $93,260, all of it in twenty-dollar bills. By the time they had finished counting it, Ilya had smoked half a dozen cigarettes and seemed calm enough, except for her shaking hands. Cosmo began giggling and couldn’t stop.

“Is not so much as Dmitri promised, but I am happy!” Cosmo said. “I am not greedy pig.” That tickled him so much he giggled more. “I must call Dmitri soon.”

“You kill the guard,” Ilya said soberly. “They catch us, we go to the house of death.”

“How can you know he is dead?”

“I saw bullets hit him. Three. Right here.” She touched her chest. “He is dead man.”

“Fucking guy,” Cosmo said, testy now. “He did not give up money. Dmitri say no problem. The guard shall give up money. Not my fault, Ilya.”

Ilya shook her head and lit yet another cigarette, and Cosmo lit a smoke of his own while he stuffed stacks of money back into the can, leaving out eight hundred, which he divided with Ilya, saying, “This make you not so much worried about the house of death, no?”

He took the container back out to the car, wanting to lock it in the trunk, but the ignition key did not work the trunk lock. He cursed the Georgian again and put the container in the backseat of the Mazda and locked the door.

When he returned to the house, Ilya was lying on the battered sofa as though she had a terrible headache. He went over to her and knelt, feeling very aroused.

He said to her, “Ilya, remember how much sex we feel when we rob the diamonds? I feel that much sex now. And you? How would you like to fuck the brains outside my head?”

“If you touch me now, Cosmo,” she said, “I swear I shall shoot the brains outside your head. I swear this by the Holy Virgin.”

Less than a mile away, Farley and Olive sat in Sam’s Pinto, having borrowed it once again, parked by the cybercafé. They saw several tweakers entering and then leaving after having done their Internet business, but they saw no one who they thought might have some decent crystal for purchase.

“Let’s try the taco stand,” Farley said. “We gotta get Sam’s car back to him before it gets dark and pick up our piece of shit. He musta fixed the carburetor by now. One good thing about tweakers, Sam can sit around his kitchen table with my carburetor in a million pieces and he actually enjoys himself. Like a fucking jigsaw puzzle or something. There’s fringe benefits from crystal if you stop and think about it.”

“I’m glad the police cars and ambulances stopped their sirens,” Olive said. “They were giving me a headache.”

She was like a goddamn dog, Farley thought. Supersensitive hearing even when not tweaked. She could sit in a restaurant and hear conversations on the other side of a crowded room. He thought he should figure out a way to use that, the only talent she possessed.

“Something musta happened at one of the stores in the mall,” Farley said. “Maybe some fucking Jew actually charged a fair price. That would cause a bunch of greasers to drop dead of shock and tie up some ambulances.”

He was driving out of the parking lot and turning east when a southbound car at the intersection also turned east and drove in front of him, making Farley slam on his brakes.

“Fuck you!” Farley yelled out the window at the elderly woman driver after he flipped her the bird.

He hadn’t gone half a block when he heard the horn toot behind him. He looked in the mirror and said, “Cops! My fucking luck!”

Benny Brewster said to B.M. Driscoll, “You’re up.”

The older cop wiped his runny nose with Kleenex, pushed his drooping glasses back up, sighed, and said, “I’m really not well enough to be working tonight. I shoulda called in sick.”

Then he got out, approached the car on the driver’s side and saw Farley Ramsdale fumbling in his wallet for his driver’s license. Olive looked toward the policeman on her right and saw Benny Brewster looking in at her and at the inside of the car.

“Hi, Officer,” Olive said.

“Evening,” Benny said.

As B.M. Driscoll was examining his driver’s license, Farley said, “What’s the problem?”

B.M. Driscoll said, “You pulled out of the lot into the traffic lane, causing a car to brake hard and yield. That’s a traffic violation.”

Benny said to Farley, “Sir, how about showing the officer your registration too.”

Farley said, “Aw shit, this ain’t my car. Belongs to a friend, Sam Culhane. My car’s at his house getting fixed by him.”

When he quickly reached over to the glove compartment, Benny’s hand went to his sidearm. There was nothing in the glove box except a flashlight and Sam’s garage opener.

“Tell the officer, Olive,” he said. “This is Sam’s car.”

“That’s right, Officer,” Olive said. “Our car is getting its carburetor redone. Sam has it all over the table like a crossword puzzle.”

“That’ll do,” Farley said to her. Then turning to B.M. Driscoll, he said, “I got a cell here. You can use it and call Sam. I’ll dial him for you. This ain’t a hot car, Officer. Hell, I just live ten blocks from here by the Hollywood Cemetery.”

Benny Brewster looked over the top of the car to his partner and mouthed the word “tweakers.”

Then, while B.M. Driscoll was returning to their car to run a make on Farley Ramsdale and the car’s license number and to write up the traffic citation, Benny decided to screw with the tweakers, saying to Farley, “And if we followed you to your house just to verify you’re who your license says you are, would you invite us inside?”

“Why not?” Farley said.

“Would there be anything in your house that you wouldn’t want us to find?”

“Wait a minute,” Farley said. “Are you talking about searching my house?”

“How many times have you been in jail for drug possession?” Benny asked.

“I been in jail three times,” Olive said. “Once when this guy I used to know made me shoplift some stuff from Sears.”

“Shut the fuck up, Olive,” Farley said. Then to Benny he said, “If you don’t write me the ticket, you can search me and search this car and you can search Olive here and you can come to my house and I’ll prove whatever you want proved, but I ain’t letting you do a fishing expedition by looking in my underwear drawer.”

“Underwear floor, you mean,” Olive said. “Farley always throws his underwear on the floor and I gotta pick them up,” she explained.

“Olive, I’m begging you to shut up,” Farley said.

Benny looked up and saw B.M. Driscoll returning with the citation book and said, “Too late. Looks like the citation’s already written.”

B.M. Driscoll looked over the roof at his tall partner and said, “Mr. Ramsdale has a number of arrests for drug possession and petty theft, don’t you, Mr. Ramsdale?”

“Kid stuff,” Farley mumbled, signing the traffic ticket.

“I didn’t write you for not having a registration,” B.M. Driscoll said. “But tell your friend, Samuel Culhane… where does he live, by the way?”

“On Kingsley,” Olive said. “I don’t know the number.”

B.M. Driscoll nodded at Benny and said, “That checks.” Then to Farley he said, “Have a good evening, Mr. Ramsdale.”

When they were once again on their way to the taco stand to score some ice that Farley now needed desperately, he said to Olive, “You see what happens when you pin a badge on a nigger? That fucking Watusi wanted to go on a fishing expedition in my house.”

“Maybe we shoulda just invited them home to see that you’re a property owner and the stuff on your driver’s license is correct,” Olive said. “And it wouldn’ta mattered if they searched. We got nothing but a glass pipe at home, Farley. That’s why we’re out here. We got no crystal, no nothing at home.”

Farley turned and stared at her until he almost rear-ended a pickup in front of him, then said, “Invite cops home to search? I suppose you’da made coffee for them?”

“If we had any,” she said, nodding. “And if they didn’t write the traffic ticket. It’s always best to be friendly with the police. Being mean will just bring you more trouble.”

“Jesus Christ!” Farley cried. “And then what? Maybe you woulda told them you were going to fuck them both to be friendly? Well, I hope not, Olive. Because making terroristic threats is a felony!”