On The Grind

Chapter 5

I spent the night at a downtown hotel. The Biltmore on Grand. I can't even remember what the room looked like, I was that upset.

The next morning, I dressed in my charcoal-gray suit, a fresh shirt and tie. I got my Acura out of the parking garage beneath the hotel and loaded all my stuff from home in the trunk and began the short four-mile trip into downtown L. A. where the tiny, one-square-mile, incorporated city of Haven Park was located.

I took the freeway past the City of Commerce with its rail yards and warehouses. On the other side of the freeway were the small, incorporated cities of Maywood and Cudahy. I left them behind, finally getting off on Ortho Street. How fitting, I thought, to be traveling into a criminal cesspool on a street named after a fertilizer. I turned left and, after driving about a mile, took another left on Lincoln Avenue and I was in Haven Park. Only it looked more like a small town in Mexico, or at the very least, a Texas border town. Td read somewhere that the population of Haven Park Was u largely made up of illegal aliens. Thirty thousand Hispanics living in a one-square-mile stucco town.

As I drove down the main drag, I saw nothing but urban sprawl, most of it run-down businesses that had been painted in bright south-of-the-border colors-yellows, greens and oranges. Most of the building signs were in Spanish. I passed the Mendoza Clinica Del Dentista, a yellow one-story building with heavily barred windows. Most people run from a dentist's office, but Dr. Mendoza was worried about people trying to break into his. A huge King Taco on one corner advertised TENEMOS TACOS DE POLLO, and under that was a sign for Mexican ribs.

I passed a string of run-down strip malls and then saw the alabaster-white, wood-sided city hall building coming up on my right. It dominated most of a city block. It had a wooden cupola on each corner and a big weather vane on the roof making it look like a Mafia wedding cake. The city hall and the Haven Park PD shared opposite ends of the large structure.

There was a small glass door right in the center that did not appear to be the main entrance for either the city hall or the police station. There was an open meter right in front, so I parked, got out, fed the slot a quarter, and walked down to the police station. Then I took a short detour around the Haven Park PD side of the building past the fenced and landscaped parking lot. I looked in at the police vehicles parked behind the chain link. It was better rolling stock than we had on the LAPD. There were two or three new Ford Crown Victoria squad ears that were not currently out on patrol. Two new SWAT vans, as well as some EMT trucks, black-and-white station wagons and surveillance vans were parked in random slots. A large black-and-white Vogue motor home that appeared to be a tricked-out mobile command center with two satellite dishes on the roof loomed above the rest. All of it looked less than a year old.

I headed back to the police department's front door, which had HAVEN PARK P. D. stenciled in gold letters above the city seal. Under that it said RICHARD ROSS — CHIEF OF POLICE.

I knew all about Ricky Ross. In fact, I had a tortured history with him that went back ten years to my patrol days on the LAPD when I had partnered with Ross for six months while working in Van Nuys. I was the one who'd gotten him thrown off the LAPD. Back then I was just a few months sober, but Rick Ross was still the chief engineer on the Red-Nose Express. He liked to get liquored up, and on his way home in plainclothes would sometimes pull his sidearm and wave it at people who cut him off on the freeway. This practice earned him the nickname 'Treeway" Ricky Ross.

One night, when I was catching a ride with him, I actually witnessed this behavior and, in an over-the-top moment, saw him accidentally discharge his weapon, barely missing a banker from West Covina. I'd immediately turned Ricky in to Internal Affairs and testified against him at his Board of Rights hearing. He'd claimed he was just removing his backup gun from his covert carry holster and it had accidentally discharged. He caught a huge break and went on suspension for six months, but that only made him worse.

He was drunk all the time after that. His wife finally divorced him. He lost his house and a month later he'd lost his LAPD badge for good. Rick Ross blamed me for all of it. It would seem that this man could be a tough mountain for me to climb if I wanted a job in Haven Park. But I had a way around him.

As I pushed open the door to the police headquarters, I ran smack into a big police sergeant in uniform, another cop that I'd known back on the job in L. A. He was a large, muscle-bound guy with a steroid abusers body named Alonzo Bell. Alonzo was half white, half some other, dark race that he would never exactly identify-Arab or Persian, maybe even Hispanic. Bell is an Anglo name, so he'd probably changed or shortened it, or the complexion came from his mother's side.

Alonzo had been thrown off the LAPD years ago for losing it in an I-room and almost beating to death a gangbanger who'd shot and wounded his partner. The partner survived, but Alonzo s L. A. police career didn't. I remembered him as a giant attitude problem you didn't want to mess with.

"Do I know you?" he asked, seeming to remember me, hard eyes giving me the once-over.

"Shane Scully. How you been, Al?"

"Shane fucking Scully," he said, a smile widening his flat brown features. "Whatta you doing here, dude?"

"Looking for work."

He grinned. "What happened to bring you this far down? You bang the captain's wife?"

"Lost some evidence. Little misdemeanor. But I was running out of road in L. A. anyway. It was better if I just moved on."

His dark features arranged into a frown and then he glanced at the name engraved in gold on the door. I guess he knew about my history with Ricky Ross. But then anyone who was on the LAPD when Ricky got the boot knew the story. After the IA hearing Ross went nuts, and confronted me in the Parker Center garage, where he threatened my life in front of about ten guys. What went on between us until he finally got fired had been pretty ugly.

"You know Rick Ross is the acting chief down here," Alonzo warned.

"Yeah, I heard. Its even on this door." I tapped the gold letters and grinned.

"He's an asshole," Alonzo said matter-of-faetly. "The old chief, Charlie Le Grande, was okay. He just wanted to keep the shit on the sidewalk and off his shoes. But the feds busted him for having criminal ties to Eighteenth Street gang members. He's under indictment. Mayor Bratano appointed Ricky Ross to be our acting chief. Ross was on patrol two weeks ago, next thing you know he's chief. Nobody saw it coming. He's a hemorrhoid with ears."

"Look, Alonzo, I'm kinda down to last chances, and I really want to stay in police work. I didn't know about Ross being acting chief, but this is kind of my last shot. I hear there's ways things can happen down here. Can you help me?"

Alonzo surveyed me carefully for a long moment. "Yeah, maybe," he finally said.

"How do I do it?"

"Go ahead and fill out the paperwork. I'll help you get to the front of the line. C'mon." He walked back inside the building and I followed him.

The interior of the department wasn't art deco. The funky architectural swirls stopped at the front door. Inside it was pure cop shop — pictures of the command structure, a bulletproof glass divider separating the public areas from the police cubicles in back. Alonzo buzzed us through using a plastic key card and we walked down a scuffed, painted hallway.

"We've currently got forty-one active duty patrol cops on the job down here, plus command staff-a few captains and lieutenants," he told me as we walked. "But despite your history with Rick Ross, the timing's great because we're adding people right now, tryin'g to get our numbers up. Reason for the expansion is we just got the contract to police our neighbor city of Fleetwood."

I'd read about the new Haven Park-Fleetwood contract in the Blue Line, the LAPD magazine.

Both cities shared the same population base of illegal immigrants and were roughly the same one square mile in size. Although Fleetwood didn't adjoin Haven Park, it was just one city over, separated by the equally tiny township of Vista, which was policed by the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department. Fleetwood had also been using the county sheriffs as its police force, paying them under contract until about two months ago, when suddenly Enzo Diaz, Fleetwood's Hispanic mayor, asked Cecil Bratano, the Hispanic mayor of Haven Park, if Haven Park's police department would take over the policing duties in Fleetwood.

For reasons of corruption and common profit, Cecil Bratano agreed. The county sheriff's contract was immediately canceled and Haven Park entered into a municipal alliance presided over by both mayors and policed by the Haven Park PD. Hence Haven Park PD's sudden need for more officers.

Alonzo Bell stopped in front of a door marked PERSONNEL RESOURCES.

"The girl in there is Mita Morales-Aztec blood, kinda fat. But she can screw you up and lose your file if she doesn't like you. She likes me, so I'll sprinkle some fuck dust on this deal, and she'll be your buddy."

"Listen, Alonzo, I guess I should tell you I've got a pretty bad write-up on POLITE."

"Don't worry about POLITE. If we dinged guys off this force because of that bullshit, there wouldn't be one cop riding in a Plain Jane down here, including our esteemed acting chief. Just fill out the forms and meet me at Club A Fuego at seven tonight.'

"A Fuego?"

"Yeah, it's a hangout. Big barn-sized bar full of off-duty cops, politicians, drug dealers — everybody goes there. It's where the real business in Haven Park and Fleetwood gets done. There're some people you need to meet. If we get them on your side, it won't matter what Freeway Ricky Ross says. You'll be set."

"Just like that?"

"It's very different down here. Welcome to Haven Park." Then he pushed open the door and introduced me to a stone-faced woman with Aztec features named Mita.