Deadly Lullaby (26 page)

“Yeah?”

“How are you doing, my son?”

“Knee deep in an investigation.”

“Hey, great, good, uhh, tell me, where exactly are you?”

“On the 10 approaching the La Cienega exit, why do—”

“Great! You are close by. Say, how would you like to make some extra pocket money this afternoon?”

“…”

“Leo, you there?”

“Yeah, I'm here. I was just rendered momentarily speechless by what's goin' on in your voice. What's wrong? And don't give me a single fucking syllable of bullshit.”

“Well, uh, see, to be honest, you know, completely forthright and all, I—”

“All right, now I know something's wrong. I was a kid the last time you beat around the bush like that, the time you ended up telling me to find Lorraine because you were in jail.”

“Yeah? Which time was that?”

“What the
fuck
is wrong?”

“Okay,
all right,
Jesus…Listen, I am in a bit of a situation here and need your help.”

“What kind of
situation
?”

“Me and Chief are in a, uh,
place of business
in the strip mall at La Brea and Beverly, and there are two men who will most certainly attempt to inflict great harm upon us if we come out. What I—”

“Wait a second….Place of business, huh? In the strip mall at La Brea and Beverly, huh?”

“Yes.”

“You know, I patrolled that strip mall when I was in Central Division. Back then I remember a HoneyBaked Ham was on one corner, because I ate there a lot. And I know it had a dry cleaner, too, and, I think, maybe, a dentist's office. But what I definitely remember is there was a
bank
on the other corner. You wouldn't just happen to be inside that bank, would you?”

“You, uh, really want the truth?”

“No.”

“I did not think you would, so—”

“What I meant was,
no,
I'm not going to help you.”

“Leo.”

“Goodbye.”

“Hey, you want me to go back to prison?!”

“You really want the truth?”

“
That
is not funny.”

“I didn't intend it to be. You told me you were done with the Life, that you were retiring. And here you are robbin' a goddamn
bank
! Old man, you deserve to go back to prison, one with a padded cell.”

“We did
not
rob this bank!”

“If you were soliciting donations for Jerry's Kids, something tells me you wouldn't need my help.”

“All right, all right, whether we robbed it or not is in the eye of the beholder. We—”

“Ah, holy—”

“Listen, damn it! We roughed up one of these punks' friends in here, the bank owner, a money launderer who skimmed a ton of dough from my client. They appeared out of the blue, and they are hoods, fucking
cholos,
man, real badasses. One just made a call from his cell, and for all I know a fucking gang is going to be here any minute. If someone does not clear that lot peacefully, we will have no choice but to shoot it out with them out there. People are going to die, maybe even some innocent people. You want that on your conscience?”

“Don't even
try
to run that hypocritical game on me.”

“The only point I am trying to get across to you is, hey, where is a cop when you really need one?”

“Call Tarasov.”

“And have him send his animals over here? They will show up with assault weapons and flamethrowers and—”

“
Flame
throwers?”

“Oh, uh, forget I said that….Look, all I am saying is Tarasov's guys will light up the whole neighborhood, then your SWAT Nazis will respond and my ass will be meat. We need a soft touch here, son, not a sledgehammer. We need a
badge
to show up and move these assholes along without a fight. Just hold them for three minutes and then I am—”

“And what if they start shooting? I told you before to never ask for my help again. I can't keep pulling your ass out of the fire. And to top it all off, you lied to me today. You canceled our lunch because you said your girlfriend was
sick.
”

“Leo, c'mon, you expect me to tell you—”

Click.

“Babe,” Chief says from the CCTV monitor, “the spic must've been calling a locksmith, 'cause—”

“Locksmith,” I say, numb from the conversation with my son, unable to pull my eyes away from the cellphone in my hand.

“Yeah,
locksmith.
A locksmith just pulled up in a van.”

“Now I am thinking we would be better off if they called cops….Shit, you can never find a cop when—”

“Babe, god
dammit.
” Chief jumps from his chair, strides toward me. “Pull yourself together.” He stops within two feet of me, puts his hands on his hips. “The fuckin'
locksmith
is talkin' to the fuckin' guy with the mustache, who's pointing to the fuckin' alley. They're gonna open one a the doors any minute, prob'ly the back one. It would be good to come up with some sort'a
plan
before they break in. You know, Babe, a
plan
? Hopefully one that don't end up with us gettin' our asses
killed
?”

I look at him. “Got any ideas?”

“Do I—” He glares at the carpet, massages his neck, strides back to the monitor, leans in to it, his palms flat on the desk. “All right,” he says, looking up at me again, his eyes no longer stressed; they are determined now, calm. “It's game time, man. Mustache is comin' to the front door and the guy wearin' the sport coat and the locksmith's walkin' 'round back.”

This statement yanks me back to the here and now. A plan percolates from the back of my brain to the frontal lobe. Taking a deep breath, I withdraw the .22 revolver from my belt, study it, look into Ovando's office at his rolled-up corpse. Thinking,
Yeah, this
might
work,
I say to Chief, “Unroll Errol's corpse from the carpet and drag it out here in the lobby.” I pull out my Colt .45 1911 semiautomatic, a model with a chrome finish, and rack the slide. “You take the front, I take the back. Just before my guys walk in the back door, I will signal you to let your guy in the front.” I backhand sweat from my brow. “Chief, listen, man: If you shoot before I do, the noise will alert my two targets. And our goal is to shoot all three with the same weapon.” I show him my Colt. “This one.”

He squints, shakes his head. “Why?”

“Ballistics. We want to make it appear that Ovando killed these three guys.”

“Ahh,” he says.

“So disable your guy somehow, wrestle him to the floor, whatever, before I pop my guys at the backdoor. Then I will walk up here to take care of yours. If our timing is off much at all, we are fucked.”

Police dispatch traffic bombards my thoughts through the headphone jacked into my right ear:

A female dispatcher with a soothing African voice:
“7
Adam 18,
what's your 20? Over.”

A male voice, low and gravelly, bored:
“18 here.
Venice and Cloverdale. We're just 10-8 from lunch. Over.”

“Roger the 10-8
.
We have a 311 reported at the corner of Venice and Lomita
.
Suspect fled east on foot on Venice in a khaki raincoat and white boxer shorts with pink hearts on them.
Over.”

Indecent exposure, Christ, a fucking wienie-wagger…

Laughs from Unit 18:
“10-11
this
for us: Pink…hearts…on…white…boxers?”

A laugh from dispatch:
“10-4:
Pink hearts on white boxers, you received loud and clear. Intercept the suspect, then meet the complainant on the corner, the woman in the white sundress, Code 2.
Over.”

No action reported at the bank at La Brea and Beverly…yet.

My handheld radio rests next to the almost empty tumbler of tequila on the bar top before me. Said bar top is located inside the Karma Lounge on Beverly Boulevard, barely three minutes from the bank. The Karma's a former neighborhood joint trying hard to be high-end—nothing but premium booze behind the glammed-up bar, the glass-and-chrome liquor racks lit up with recessed blue lights, framed poster-sized photos of runway models on the walls….The bartender almost stroked out when I crashed through the door in abject rage four minutes ago, throwing up his hands in surrender, his eyes wide, probably making me for a piped-up stickup artist. He slumped against the bar and patted his chest in relief when I badged him, apologizing to
me
for freaking out so much, saying the place was empty, that he was off guard…Turned out the barkeep's name is Igor Fedenkov, a handsome guy about my age, dark, slicked-back hair, trim beard, gentle eyes. Igor waved me to a seat at the empty bar. “We're cop-friendly, dude. Cops eat and drink on the house.”

Now Igor's nowhere in sight.

He poured me my drink—a tumbler of tequila, neat, no salt—took a stab at small talk, then disappeared, apparently deciding it was best to leave me the fuck alone. Perceptive people, bartenders: Before you finish your first drink the best ones have read your mood more accurately than your most intimate lover.

“7 Adam 20, come in.”

“20 here, bring it
on
.”

“There's a 390 at the Taco Bell at Venice and La Brea. The manager's waitin' outside. Over.”

“Roger, 10-97 in three minutes
.
Over.”

A drunk in a restaurant causing a disturbance…

When will shit hit the fan at the bank?

Could be any second. Might take an hour or two.

I drain my glass. “Igor?! Get me another tequila, man.”

Igor pops through the curtain, smiling. He pours the tequila. “How 'bout a glass of water?”

I shake my head. “Corona.”

He nods, pulls the bottle from the cooler, pops the top, says, “Glass?” and gives me a quick bow of the head when I decline the offer.

Poof,
he's gone again.

More radio traffic streams through my ear: a 480, a hit-and-run, on Duncan…a 30-ringer, an activated burglar alarm, in Wilshire Center…

When will shit hit the fan at the bank
?

Quit worrying about it.

It'll happen when it happens.

There are so many unquantifiable variables to factor into a crime in progress that it's impossible to predict within a degree of statistical reliability when law enforcement will detect it.

A sip of tequila, followed by a hit of beer.

Put aside, for the moment, the degree of alertness of any witness who might be in the vicinity of the bank at La Brea and Beverly. Put aside the degree to which any alert witness in the vicinity is willing to report the crime in progress. Put aside the possibility that uniformed patrol officers or roaming detectives might happen upon the scene and observe something suspicious. All these variables, and others, constitute what is technically known in law enforcement circles as “Dumb Fuckin' Luck.”

Dumb Fuckin' Luck is inherently incalculable and, therefore, unquantifiable.

A sip of tequila, a hit of beer.

The most important factor that has little to do with Dumb Fuckin' Luck, though equally unquantifiable, is the degree of skill and experience of the criminal(s) involved in the commission of the crime in progress; obviously, the more skilled and experienced the criminal, the more likely he or she is to get away from the scene of the crime undetected.

Jack Barzi—aka Chief—is a criminal I know little about.

The old thug, I know: the skill-and-experience factor is one that cuts distinctly in his favor. He's been in tight jams before and walked scot-free from all but two. Bottom line is the sonofabitch knows how to take care of himself.

Then why do I feel guilty for not helping him?

A sip of tequila, followed by a gulp of beer.

There I was in my cruiser, investigating the murder of a young woman, a young woman whose mother found solace in my vow to bring her daughter's killer to justice. Then this frantic SOS call comes in from my sociopathic father, pleading with me to divert from the aforementioned mission of justice to go on a mission for him, a mission of distinct
in
justice.

Who the hell could switch gears that fast? It'd be like throwing a speeding Formula One race car in reverse.

A sip of tequila, a hit of beer.

Why the hell should I help him anyway? He left me to be raised by a wolf when I was a kid. Hell, worse than a wolf; mama wolves, at least, nurture their pups.

But what if he gets busted at the bank?

Or worse, shit—what if he gets whacked?

Damn it, why do I feel so—

“All units, all units,
repeat
,
all
units, shots fired at the Keystone Community Bank at La Brea and Beverly, probable 211. Code 3.”

It's happening.

There's this primordial eruption inside me, a DNA-fueled surge of adrenaline, compelling me to bolt to the bank to rescue my father….There's nothing you can do, damn it….Not now, not now…

Sirens…a river of turbulent radio chatter between mobile units and their supervisors at Wilshire Division HQ…chatter between choppers and their ground controllers…tequila…SWAT chatter…EMS vehicles called…tequila…then, finally, a broadcast from the first uniform at the scene to his watch commander:

“7 Adam 14 to 7-10. I'm 10-97. Over.”

“Roger the 10-97, 14. What's the situation?
Over.”

“Ahh, a 211 that went down maybe, oh, ten minutes ago? The wit who called in the shots was in the HoneyBaked Ham at the other corner of the strip mall, ran outside and said he saw nobody flee the bank. So, uh, no known suspects—no live ones, anyway. I'm inside the bank now and we got
definite
10-54s here. Some have'ta be perps, considering the weapons within their…”

…and I hear little else after the 10-54 designations—dead bodies.