Street Dreams

28

Let’s go overit again, Decker.”

I threw my head back, squirming in the hard seat, and studied the ceiling’s fluorescent lighting in the interview room. This wasn’t so bad, I rationalized. It gave me empathy with the scumbags that I’d be grilling one day. “What specifically, Detective?”

“You went to Boss’s because…”

“I went to Boss’s because I was looking for Germando El Paso, who often eats the banana pancakes there. I was looking for him because he had outstanding warrants.”

“Traffic warrants.”

“Warrants just the same.”

Brill rubbed his forehead. “And this is what you do on your off-hours? Hunt for dudes with unpaid tickets?”

“I consider it a civic duty.”

His smile was wry. “You need a life.”

“I agree,” I answered. “But that doesn’t change this situation. It was a righteous bust and I did not plant that bag of X on him, no matter what he says.”

“You’ve got no witnesses to back you up.”

“Neither does he.”

“He claims you were with someone.”

“He claims a lot of things.” I looked at the one-way mirror. “Who’s back there?”

Brill followed the direction of my eyes. He wore a black suit and a white shirt. A badly knotted red tie ringed his neck. He had dressed hurriedly. “Someone from the DA… the Loo.”

“Detective or uniform?”

“My Loo.”

“He can come in and ask his own questions, if he wants.”

“Don’t be a smart-ass.”

“Believe me, Detective, I’m not trying to be snide.” I looked at my watch. It was two in the morning. At least, Koby was home sleeping. Thinking about him depressed me. “I’ll start from the beginning-again. I’ll repeat it as many times as you want me to repeat it.”

Brill gave me a hands-up.

I started to talk, then stopped. “Let me start from theverybeginning. This whole thing has its roots in the abandoned baby I pulled out of the garbage a couple of weeks ago. All right?”

“Go on.”

I glanced at the tape recorder in the middle of the Formica table, which was scarred and scratched and held a dirty ashtray. “I found the mother on my own, I’d like to add-”

“Not the time to brag.”

“I’m only mentioning this to show the DA on the other side of the mirror that I am obsessive.”

“Seems to be a family trait,” Brill answered.

“You said it, sir, not I.”

He smiled. “You found the baby; you found the mother.”

“I pulled out the baby; I found the mother.” I readjusted my weight for the millionth time. “So now we’re up to date on that. After I found the mother, I wanted to know about the father-”

“Why?”

“I thought this poor little baby from a retarded mother deserved to know her entire genetic history.”

“Why?”

“Because I became attached to her. I visited her a couple of times in the hospital-on my own. This whole thing didn’t come out of nowhere.”

Brill waited.

I said, “So I went to the mother’s home to interview her about the baby’s father. I did this with Detective Van Horn’s permissionandwith Detective MacGregor’s permission. I visited her on Sunday. I took my father, Lieutenant Decker, along with me because I knew I needed somebody experienced, and Detective Van Horn had gone on vacation. Detective Russ MacGregor, who had been assigned to the case, was away for the weekend.”

“And it was during this discussion that the girl”-Brill flipped through his notes-“Sarah Sanders… she mentioned being gang-raped and her boyfriend was beaten up and thrown into a trash can.”

“Exactly. But because the case was six months old, Lieutenant Decker suggested that I don’t act on my information until I informed Detective MacGregor of this latest development. Which I did.”

“And?”

I smiled. “He thought it could be a fantasy. Still, the girl came in and made a statement. On the off chance that her story might be true, I asked MacGregor if I could look into it. He said that if I wanted to find the father on my own time, he wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

“To find the father, not to solve a six-month-old fantasy crime.”

“Look… sir. I went after Germando because I had heard that he hangs with punks who harass the homeless and jump people in public bathrooms. I looked Germando up. I knew he had an outstanding warrant. I knew I could pull him in on that. Why would I bother planting a bag of ecstasy on him?”

“To make the bust look more righteous.”

“The bag has been nothing but a pain in the neck.”

“But you didn’t know that at the time.”

“I know the Department’s attitude toward rogue cops. Give me a lie detector test if you have doubts.”

“What about this guy Germando claims you were with?”

I looked at my hands.

Brill pointed to the mirror. “They don’t like it when you’re not forthcoming. If you lie about this, no one’s going to believe you about the bag.”

I pursed my lips. “I sent him home.”

“That doesn’t look nice.”

“Why should he get involved?”

“He’s already involved.”

“Ask anyone in the restaurant. We weren’t together more than ten minutes.”

“We did ask people, Decker. And what you said is true. And that in and of itself is suspicious. Ten minutes is more than enough time to buy a baggie.”

I stared in disbelief. “You think he was a dealer?”

“You tell me.”

“Why?” I snapped. “Because he’s black?”

Brill’s face remained flat. “You tell me.”

“He’s a critical-care nurse at Mid-City Peds. We were arranging a date.”

“That can be done on the phone.”

“He just got off shift. He wanted to see me in person. The poor man had been working for almost four days straight. I took one look at him and sent him home to get some sleep.”

“Name?”

I sighed heavily. “Yaakov Kutiel. He was the same guy I was with when I witnessed the hit-and-run.”

Brill was silent.

“He was just walking me to my car.”

“So he’s your boyfriend?”

Not anymore,I thought to myself. “We’ve dated.” I was losing patience. I took a couple of deep breaths. “I didn’t plant the pills. End of story.”

Again he was silent.

“If I were you,” I said, “I’d start thinking about how I could use this boon.”

Brill looked at me.

“Like using the pills to get him to talk about Sarah Sanders’s rape.”

“If it wasn’t fiction.”

“Can’t we at least find out?”

“We?”

It was time to show them I had an ego. “I made the bust. My presence in the room will make him nervous. But you can do all the talking.”

“Gee, thanks, Decker.”

“If he wasn’t the point man in the rape, maybe you can use the pills to get him to flip and tell us who it was.”

“What makes you think he wasn’t the point man?”

I shrugged. “Sarah described the meanest guy as being a white guy with a shaved head. Let’s just put him on the griddle and see how high he jumps.”

Brill got a call on his cell. He stood up, spoke a second, then hung up. “Excuse me.”

I shrugged.

He left the room. I knew they were conferring on the other side of the mirror. Ten minutes later, Lieutenant Mack Stone from Hollywood Detectives came into the room with Brill. Stone was in his mid-fifties, around six-two, with a thick build, fleshy features, and a head of dark, curly hair. He sat across from me, giving me one of those intense looks.

“How’s your arm?”

“My arm?”

“Connor says you have quite an arm.”

“Oh.” He was referring to my position on the LAPD Hollywood Bowling League-women’s division. We made first last year. “Ready to do it again, sir.” After my awful rookie year, I was determined to be ever the good sport.

Stone frowned, the creases on his forehead like wrinkles on a bulldog. Stubby fingers raked through his hair. “Germando El Paso. What do you want with him specifically?”

“I want to see if he was involved in the gang rape.”

“Where’d you get your information about his involvement?”

“A street person.”

“Who?”

I shrugged. “A bag lady, sir.”

“A bag lady?”

“Yes. But before I went after him, I looked him up and made sure I’d have something to hold him on if I caught him. The last thing I wanted was to be hung out to dry. The baggie was a bonus, sir. And it sure as hell explains why he ran from me.”

“He looks like a fast little mother. How’d you run him down?”

“I’m very quick, sir.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t have pulled a gun on him for a traffic warrant.”

“I would never point my weapon at a fleeing traffic violator. That is flagrant misuse of a firearm.”

“How’d you get him down without your gun?”

“I caught up with him and whacked him on the back. He tripped and fell.”

Stone studied my face. “Ever made the list of forty-four?”

I laughed. The list of forty-four was reserved for those officers with the worst civilian complaint records. “Uh, no.”

“Charges against you?”

“None.” I looked at him. “Why? Is El Paso thinking of throwing a brutality charge at me?”

He smiled. “Not by the time we’re done with him.”

“You’re in deep turd, mi amigo,” Brill said. “You’re looking at a felony drug conviction: possession with intent to sell. That’s a lot of jail time. Then, when you combine it with your traffic warrant and your prior drug conviction, I think a case could be made for three strikes.”

El Paso’s pitted, thin face lost color, his ashen cheeks in stark contrast to the black shirt he wore. His legs were housed in a pair of baggy, saggy jeans. His nose and forehead were scraped from his fall, adding more markings to his punk visage. He had tattoos on his hands, tattoos on the back of his neck. I’m sure if he took his shirt off, he’d be a gallery of blue ink.

Three strikes meant a mandatory life term in prison. Germando’s charges didn’t qualify, but he didn’t know that.

“She plant them,” he shouted out.

“No, she didn’t plant them,” Brill said. “You know how we know that?”

Germando didn’t speak.

“We found a witness who was with her.”

“See, I tell you she was with someone. A black man. A dealer-”

“No, he isn’t a dealer,” Brill explained, “but he is her boyfriend.”

“Her boyfriend is a dealer?”

“No, Germando, he’s not a dealer. But being as they’re close, when we get him on the witness stand, whose side do you think he’s going to be on, hmmm?”

Germando grew sullen. “I wan’ my lawyer.”

“Sure,” Brill said. “But before you make the call, I want to tell you a little story. It might help you out if you listen. Might help you out big time.”

El Paso raised his brown eyes to my face, then to Brill.

Justice said, “This story goes back maybe six months ago. A rape,amigo,and notjusta rape. This is a gang rape in the men’s bathroom at MacFerren Park. And not just any gang rape, it’s the gang rape of a retarded girl who was fooling around with her retarded boyfriend. Someone beat the crap out of him, then threw him in the trash can. He was left for dead. Sound familiar?”

His eyes got wide, but he shook his head. “No. I never hurt no one.”

“Nothing like that.”

“I don’t hurt no one.”

“I’m not saying you did. Just that you might have been there.”

“Nah… I no there.”

I said, “We put you in a lineup, Germando. We bring the girl in.” I pointed to his neck. “That tiger on your throat is a pretty obvious calling card.”

“You say she’s retarded.” El Paso rubbed his watery nose. “No one will believe her.”

“I think you’re wrong about that,” I told him. “I think lots of people will believe her.” I leaned across the table and poured him another glass of water. “The point is… are you sure enough to take a chance in front of twelve people who’d love to give a banger twenty to life?”

Brill said, “You want to call your lawyer now?”

Stark silence. We both waited him out.

El Paso said, “Wha’ happens when I call my lawyer?”

“Then we stop talking and you’re charged with felony drug possession,” I told him.

His eyes darted back and forth. “And if I no call him?”

“Then we keep talking,” Brill told him.

“We talk about the story Detective Brill just told you,” I added.

“I never touch that kind of girl. She no right in the head.”

“But you know who we’re talking about,” I said.

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Maybe isn’t a good answer,” Brill told him. “Maybe makes us think you’d say anything to avoid a drug conviction.”

“I hear about it,” El Paso said. “I hear that they do a re-tard. Me? I no interested in the girl. Too ugly.”

“Who did her?” Brill asked.

“Wha’ you give me if I remember good?”

“Up to our lawyers,” Brill said. “I’ve got to present the situation to them. But I can’t present the situation if I don’t know it. That means you have to tell it to me.”

“But once I tell, I have nothin’.”

“You have to trust us,” I said.

El Paso laughed.

“That hurts my feelings,” I said.

“Not as much as you’ dealer boyfrien’ hurt my back.”

“Bah humbug!” I lit a cigarette for him. He took it.

Brill said, “Start talking, Germando. I’m tired.”

“I know. You look like shit.” El Paso gave me a lecherous smile. “Now, you, mama, you lookgood.”

I took his cigarette away. “Germando… ifIcan take you down like I did, those gorillas inside will have you touching your toes in an eye blink. Now be polite and start talking.” I stuck the cigarette back in his mouth, then sat back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.

Brill’s eyes went from my face to El Paso’s ugly mug.

“I don’ do nothin’ to her,” he reiterated. “I just wait at the door till they done.”

“Who did something to her?”

“Maybe Juice Fedek… Pepe Renaldes maybe. I don’ remember. Long time ago.”

I said, “The boy you beat up-”

“I don’ beat up no one,” El Paso stated.

“Someone beat him up,” I said.

“Not me. Maybe the others.”

“Was he alive when you left?”

El Paso shrugged. “I jus’ wait at the door.”

“Where’d you get the bag from?” Brill asked.

“What?”

“The bag of X,” Brill said. “Who’d you buy it from?”

Again El Paso asked for his lawyer. This time, he was adamant. The door to discussion was officially closed and dead-bolted.