Last Breath

9

“Man,” Tanner said, “she is really a hard case.”

Deputy Leonard Chang glanced at him from the passenger seat of the Chevrolet Caprice. The slums of Walnut Park blurred past in the slanting light of late afternoon. It was only four o’clock, but in January the days ended early.

“I take it,” Chang said, “you’re talking about Osborn again?”

Tanner saw the look on his partner’s face-a blend of irritation and boredom. He tried to justify himself. “She gets to me,” he managed.

“I noticed.”

“Okay, so I’m hot for her. I mean, come on, she’s got the whole package.”

“With that kind of sweet talk, you can sweep her right off her feet.”

“I didn’t mean… When I say ‘the whole package,’ I’m talking brains, guts, attitude.”

“And looks.”

“Well, yeah. But not just looks. I’m not that shallow.”

“You’re not?”

“Well, I can be, but in this case there’s more to it.”

“Think she knows that?”

“Hell, sure she knows. I’ve told her how I feel.”

“Have you?”

“What are you, my shrink? I’ve asked her out-seventeen times by her count. I turn on the charm every time I see her.”

“Maybe you should turn off the charm and just be, you know, a regular guy.”

Tanner reflected on this. “It’s an idea.”

“Hardly original, but I’ll take the credit anyway.”

“Thing is, I’m not sure I can be just, you know, regular. When I’m around a woman, it’s like I’ve got to prove something. Like being just me isn’t good enough. Shit.” He chuckled. “You really are my shrink.”

“I’m charging a hundred bucks an hour, partner. Pony up.” Chang paused. “There might be another reason she’s not going for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Maybe-well, maybe it’s because you’re SWAT.”

Tanner glanced at him, incredulous. “You kidding? SWAT is an asset, man, as you ought to know.” Chang was a member of Tanner’s SWAT call-up team. “Haven’t you ever used it for a pickup line?” Tanner dropped his voice an octave and intoned, “Yeah, baby, I’m a cop, all right-and I’m on the SWAT team. We go after the real bad guys.”

Chang was laughing. “Hell, with a line like that, what do you need Osborn for?”

“Guess I don’t,” Tanner said.

“So forget her.”

Tanner nodded. It was good advice, and he abided by it for all of thirty seconds before he turned to Chang. “Why’d you say that anyway? About SWAT?”

“I thought the plan was to forget her.”

“I’m just curious. I mean, who ever heard of a cop who’s got a problem with SWAT?”

“Some cops do.”

Tanner steered the Chevy Caprice onto Wilmington Avenue. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind. It’s not important.”

“The hell it isn’t.” Tanner was getting ticked off now. He pulled up to a curb, parking the patrol car, and pivoted in his seat to face Chang. “What are you trying to tell me anyhow?”

Chang found a stick of gum in his pocket and took his time about unwrapping it and putting it into his mouth. Finally he answered, speaking around a wad of Bubblicious. “She came out of Harbor Division, didn’t she?”

“So what?”

The radio crackled with a priority call, but it was nowhere near their location and another unit took it.

“Come on. Rick,” Chang said. “Don’t you remember what went down in Harbor two, three years ago? The warehouse thing?”

“Oh,” Tanner said slowly. “Yeah.”

“She might have been there. Might have seen it.”

“I never thought of that.”

“That’s why I’m the brains here. Now let’s cruise, okay?”

Tanner nodded and pulled away from the curb, thinking.

The warehouse thing was one of the worst failures in the history of LAPD Metro’s D Platoon-the SWAT team. Three bank robbers armed with automatic rifles had been pursued into an industrial district outside of Long Beach, at the western edge of Harbor Division. Trapped, they took refuge inside a warehouse. But they didn’t go in alone. En route from the bank they carjacked a station wagon after crashing their van into an embankment. The four people in the wagon-father, mother, two kids-became hostages. The family of four went into the warehouse too.

It was a standoff. Classic hostage-barricade situation. Negotiations failed. Shots were heard inside the warehouse. There was fear that the hostages were being killed. SWAT went in.

The robbers, still heavily armed, put up massive resistance. When the firefight ended, two SWAT officers lay wounded, and the three bad guys lay dead.

And the family…

Dead. All four.

They had died in the cross fire. Some nonlethal wounds had been inflicted by the robbers. But the fatal bullets had all been fired by D Platoon guns.

During the aftermath, almost every cop in Harbor Division had been at the scene. It was highly likely that C.J. Osborn saw the damage, up close and personal. She would have been new to the force back then, still a “boot”-a rookie. Her training officer would have explained to her that the robbers used the hostages as human shields, that it wasn’t the cops’ fault. But maybe she hadn’t bought it. And why should she?

Tanner had heard all the same excuses back then, and he hadn’t bought any of them either.

It was SWAT’s job to keep people alive. But who could believe it, after the fiasco at the warehouse? Only the same people who thought the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team had done an A-1 job at Waco.

“You think that’s it?” Tanner asked quietly, sobered by the thought.

“Man, I don’t know.” Chang smacked the gum. “It’s a theory, that’s all. If you really care, ask her.”

“I just might.”

“Good for you. And if it all works out, I want to be best man at the ceremony.”

“Give me a break. I mean, I’m serious about her, but… not that serious.” Tanner frowned. “Am I?”

Chang settled back in his seat. “You’re pretty slow sometimes, you know that? You don’t even know what’s going on in your own mind.”

“But you do, I guess? You can read me?”

“Like an open book, partner.” Chang laced his fingers behind his head and grinned through the wad of gum. “Like an open book.”