The Tin Collector

Chapter 5

SHANE WAS FORCED to wander in the Parker Center garage, looking for his car. It was six A. M. He had started on the top level, which was aboveground, and had moved slowly through the garage, heading down, deeper into the bowels of the parking structure. He had his keys in his right hand. They had been left for him at the OOD's desk in Robbery/Homicide, but the uniform who had driven his car in didn't tell the duty sergeant where in the garage it was parked. The structure was huge, and his bare feet were cold on the concrete floor. As he walked, he could occasionally see flashes of red on his feet Ray's blood. He had stood in it, and it had seeped up, between his toes, staining his skin. After giving his urine sample, he'd been in such a hurry to get out of there and get home, he hadn't remained in the rest room to wash it off.

"Sergeant Scully. Over here," a voice yelled at him; he turned around and looked back. He could see two uniformed officers standing by the elevator. He was six stories down, and the garage was dimly lit by the neon overheads. The two policemen moved out of the darkness toward him. The overhead lighting threw long shadows under their visors, and he could not make out who they were. As they got closer, he realized he had not seen either of them before. It was not unusual for members of the LAPD not to know one another. There were over nine thousand sworn members of the department sprawled over a huge geographic area. From the markings on their uniforms, he could tell that they were both first-year officers policemen I's.

"What is it?" he asked.

They were close enough now for him to see that they were both in their early twenties. Their silver nameplates indicated that the shorter one was Officer K. Kono, the other, Officer D. Drucker. Kono had a wide, flat face and the complexion of a native Hawaiian. Drucker was a bodybuilder. His arms bulged the short sleeves of his Class C uniform shirt. They stood in front of Shane, studying him as if he were roadkill that one of them would eventually be forced to scrape up.

"Whatta you want, Officer?" Shane asked Drucker. "I've had a long night. I wanna get home."

"That Ray's blood on yer feet?" Kono asked. He had no Hawaiian accent. He was pure West Valley, but his voice was shaking with emotion.

"Whatta you guys want?" Shane repeated.

"Why'd you have t'butt in?" Drucker asked. "Who asked you?"

Shane could now see that they were both extremely emotional. They had obviously heard about Ray's death, which was spreading through the department like a raging virus. He speculated that Drucker and Kono must have come in and waited for him in the garage.

"He was killing his wife. He was taking batting practice on her with a baton."

"So you butt in and give him a fucking street divorce," Drucker hissed. A "street divorce" was police slang for any domestic argument that turned into a murder.

"Get outta my way." Shane tried to push past the two cops, but they held their ground and he found himself bumping shoulders with them violently. They weren't about to let him through, so Shane backed up and reevaluated the situation. He didn't have his gun. It had been booked by Homicide as evidence. He was alone in an empty garage. He was barefoot and tired, and his head still ached from where Ray had hit him. The two cops in front of him were jacked up on anger and out of control emotionally. In that moment, he had a flash of how it must feel to run up against enraged, violent cops in a desolate part of the city with no witnesses and no way to prove what really happened. Here he was, a sworn officer, standing in the police garage, yet he was beginning to pump adrenaline and fear for his safety.

"Is this about to turn into something?" he asked softly, glaring at both of them.

"Ray was the real deal, asswipe," Drucker hissed. "You're department afterbirth. Ray knew we had to take this fucking town back a street at a time. Since Rodney King, we've been eating shit and smiling about it. Ray knew that had to change. He knew the war was on, knew what we had to do out there. He understood you can't just stand around while a buncha freeway-dancers put it to ya."

"If you believe that, both you guys need to take a swing through the Academy retraining program."

"Swing on my dick, Tarzan," Kono hissed.

Shane shook his head and smiled. "Okay," he said, "I guess that ends this discussion. Your move."

"This is police headquarters," Drucker said. "This is the Glass House, man. Nothing happens here. But stick around, Scully. There's gonna be some payback."

"Now you're threatening me, Drucker?"

"You killed the best cop to ever ride in this department," Kono said. "Shot him just 'cause he was straightening out his old lady? Okay, it's done. Ray's gone. But we loved him, man, we " He stopped, and Shane thought he saw moisture in the young Hawaiian cop's eyes.

"You two guys need to go home and think this out," Scully said.

"We don't need to think nothin' out," Drucker snapped. "You think it out. We've got someone pulling your card right now. From now on, nobody's gonna take your side. Nobody's got your back, Scully. You're a walk-alone."

"I'm putting you both in for this."

"Have fun," Drucker said, touching the brim of his visor. "Your word against ours. Have a nice morning, asshole." They both turned and walked away. He could hear their footsteps echoing in the concrete darkness. Then a car started, headlights went on, and they pulled past him, going fast. The wind from their black-and-white flapped his sweatshirt as they sped away.

Shane stood alone in the garage; he suddenly felt a shiver of dread come over him. Then he turned and again started looking for his car. He found it way down on U-9, at the back of the garage, on the bottom level. When he looked at the car, something seemed wrong, it seemed lower. He knelt down in the dim light and saw that all four of his tires had been slashed. The black Acura was squatting sadly on its rims.

"Shit," he said, looking at the car. Then he suddenly remembered Chooch. He wondered how he would ever get home in time to get the boy to school.