Vertical Coffin

Chapter 7

There were seven of us wedged in a back booth at the Pew and Cue on Barham Boulevard, four blocks north of Forest Lawn Drive. It was an hour after the service. We were supposed to be Emo's "tights"-the guys who loved him most. Two were fellow motorcycle officers, Darren Zook and Dave Brill. Next to them, were Gary and Mike Nightingale from SEB. The Nightingale brothers were on the sheriff's Special Weapons Team that had been at Hidden Ranch Road. Their expressions were grave, carved from granite. I remembered the mission board I'd seen on the side of the truck. Gary was a long gun, Mike his spotter. In the corner was a deputy named Christine Bell and, across from her, Sonny Lopez. I sat at the end.

The Pew and Cue was small, dark, and crowded. Wooden tables and straight-backed wood pews lined the room. The barroom adjoined a pool hall, but none of our little group of mourners was shooting eight ball. We were there to drink and brood. Alexa had driven Chooch home. I was going to catch a ride back to Venice with Gary Nightingale who, it turned out, lived less than a mile from me.

Emo's last backup, Dave Brill, was pounding down scotch shooters, leading choir practice, telling an Emo war story. "There was this time in the hills," he was saying, "him and me, up there cruising the twisties on Angeles Crest. We'd been riding for hours and were both getting sorta iron-assed, so we decide to go ten-ninety and crib for a while. So Emo turns and rides down this dirt road. We round a corner and, lo and behold, here's this fucking meth lab and fifteen armed shitheads with Harleys doing a drug deal outside a beat-up motor home. And I think, That's it, we're dust.' Y'know? But Emo just looks at these stringy haired SOBs, gets off his bike, walks up, smiles, and starts pitching them tickets to the Sheriff's Inner City Fundraiser, the kid's concert thing. Acting like that's the only reason we rode down there in the first place. These guys don't know if they're busted or not. But it's only ten bucks a ticket, so they figure it's cheaper than the grief they're gonna get shooting two deputies. Sold 'em two hundred dollars worth. Then Emo, he turns to this one ink-strewn asshole with an eye patch and he says, 'Hey, partner, this concert is gonna be Barry Manilow and elevator music. You guys are probably into bands like Tool or Rage Against the Machine, and won't go. But ya want, you can donate your ticket back. That way, we can send extra kids to the concert.' Then one by one, all of these guys are giving their tickets back. We ride out of there with two hundred dollars cash and we still got all the fucking concert tickets. Come back with twenty cops an hour later, hook 'em all up. The guy was amazing."

The stories went on like that. Little by little, they were working the ache of Emo's passing out of their souls.

Gary and Mike Nightingale started talking about the shootout. "That guy, Vincent Smiley," Gary said, "it really sucks when these suicides ain't got the balls to just do it. Gotta get us to fire the bullet for 'em. He can't do the Dutch, so he dumps Emo to get a shoot-out going. What bullshit."

Darren Zook got up to go to the bathroom. He wandered into the pool room, which is where the restroom arrow said the men's can was. I was drinking beers, trying to be part of this, but not finding much solace either. War stories about dead cop buddies never made me feel better. I was thinking instead of Emo at the Rock Store, leaning over the table with Chooch, both of them drawing football plays in water with their fingers.

Then I remembered Sonny had told me that Emo coached a Pop Warner team. Pop Warner was tackle football for kids in the nine-to fifteen-year-old age brackets.

"Who's gonna take over and coach his football team?" I asked, as a thought tickled the back of my brain.

"My kid plays on that team," Christine Bell said. "Sonny, you helped him coach, you should do it."

"Not me." Sonny Lopez slowly brought his head up. He'd been looking down into his beer, as if the answer to life was floating in there. "I coach blocking and tackling, that's my thing. Emo was running some kind of Veer offense. I wouldn't know a tight-end from a chorus boy. You need somebody who understands that offense."

"Somebody'11 step up," Brill said, emotion bending his voice. "Emo had friends, man. People were always standin' in line t'carry that man's flag."

Darren Zook came back to the table. His face was tight, his black skin stretched white around his jaw. "Those fucking guys are in there," he whispered, pointing to the pool hall.

"What guys?" Christine asked, but everybody else at the table knew. SRT had come here, just like us, because it was the closest bar to Forest Lawn.

Darren turned and started towards the poolroom. I scrambled out of the booth, grabbed his arm, and spun him around.

"Whatta you doing?" I said.

"I got some things to say to those assholes," he snarled.

"No you don't. Sit down."

"Hey, fuck you. Who are you anyway? You came on one ride with us. You're blue, we're tan. You're not even in our tribe."

He yanked his arm away from me and started into the pool hall. I looked over at the booth. Four sheriff's deputies all sitting there trying to decide if they wanted to stop it or join it.

"This is no good," I said softly. Then I turned and followed Darren into the poolroom.

There were two SRT commandos shooting a rack on the far side of the room. The other four members were in a booth drinking. Brady Cagel must not like hanging with his troops, because he wasn't around. I looked over and saw Darren Zook by the cue rack, carefully selecting a weapon. He was making a big deal out of running his hand over the stick, checking it for cracks. Then he pulled it down and headed toward the six SRT agents. I cut between pool tables and intercepted him.

"Darren, you're drunk. This ain't it," I said, holding one hand against his chest. Now the SRT agents looked up and saw us for the first time.

"Hey Billy," Gordon Grundy, a big, square-headed federal SWAT commando said, "Yer fucking moolie's back." All the feds looked up at us. The vibe was so nasty that the four civilians playing pool at the next table laid their cues down on the green felt and just walked out of the bar. On the way they passed the four sheriffs from our table, who now stood in the threshold: Brill, the Nightingale brothers, even Christine Bell.

"Here come the rent-a-cops," a stocky, Hispanic fireplug fed in a black suit said. I thought his name was Ignacio Rosano. He stood, and as he did, three other feds rose with him. Now everybody was on their feet.

"Let's cool down," I said. "We don't need this, guys."

"Get the fuck outta here, Scully," Zook said. Then, without warning, he pushed me hard to the right and swung the pool cue. It hit Rosano on the shoulder and bounced up hard, into his throat, landing with a loud THWACK.

The dance was on.

Bar fights, like bad parties, are no fun and hard to remember afterwards.

I paired up with Billy Greenridge. He was a SWAT-trained commando about my same height, and had good moves. I tried my Brazilian jujitsu, but he was fast and I couldn't take him to the ground. We traded right hands. I caught the first few body shots on my elbows, then one slipped through and cracked a rib. This is not the way police officers are trained to behave, I whined to myself as I covered up. Then I saw his square jaw loom into view-a clean shot. I swung hard, but he spun and I missed, catching his shoulder and throwing myself badly off balance in the process. Out of the corner of my eye I saw people wheeling and trading punches. Darren and one of the SRT guys were doing some kind of Quo Vadis thing with pool cues. Christine Bell seemed hard pressed to find an opponent. The feds kept ignoring her, turning away and going for one of the guys, until she stepped up and kicked Grundy between the legs and brought him down like a bag of sand.

The worst part of this fight was that it was so stupid. Our side was also going to be shamefully easy to identify afterwards, all in our nice police dress uniforms, complete with name plates.

Two of the feds were now lying on the floor. As I turned to find a new opponent, I caught it from behind with a pool cue. The next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees under the table trying to remember what continent I was on. That's when one of the feds put me out of my misery. I caught a shiny, black brogan with the right side of my head. I was done. Down for the count. Gone. Oh well.