End of Watch (2 page)

“Oh, sorry. NAME is the National Association of Medical Examiners. I’m leaving early to see some friends and do some shopping. What are you laughing about?”

Frank was still smiling, shaking her head at the floor. “What are the odds?”

“The odds of what?”

“The odds that I’d be in New York this weekend, too.”

“You’re going to New York?”

“Yep.”

“What for?”

“Take care of some business. Stuff I should have taken care of twenty years ago.”

“Like what.”

“More apologies, kind of. Amends. Very late amends. I don’t suppose you’d let me buy you a cup of hot chocolate at Rockefeller Center? Tell you all about it if you were interested.”

Gail looked dubious. “We’ll see. Why don’t you call me?”

“Same cell phone number?”

“Yes.” Gail actually chuckled. “It hasn’t been
that
long. And I’ll be staying at the Crowne Plaza. In Times Square. You can always leave a message for me there.”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“You don’t have a room?”

“Nah. It’s New York. I’m not too worried.”

Gail nodded. All the fight had left her. She looked soft. Touchable. Frank wanted to stroke her cheek, just for a second, but sensed the timing was wrong.

“If I don’t hear from you, I hope you have a great trip. It’s a helluva city.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.”

They lingered by the door. Gail offered a small but earnest smile. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

Frank returned the shy smile. “I’ll call you. Be safe.”

“Always the cop.”

Frank chuckled. “I can’t change
everything.”

“I hope not,” Gail said. “So much of you is wonderful. I’ll see you.”

Instead of walking Gail to her car and watching her drive off, Frank closed the door and leaned against it. The smile crept back onto her face.

Frank got to work Friday morning well before the rest of the LAPD’s Ninety-third Homicide Squad. Her detectives trailed in around six—-Johnny hungover, Darcy and Diego mute, Lewis and Jill cackling about
Survivor
and Bobby teasing the women, “You don’t get enough on-the-job reality?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to clean up the shit on TV,” Lewis shot back.

“Amen,” Jill said, and the women high-fived each other.

“All right, let’s get started. Fubar’s going to be on call while I’m gone. Hopefully it’ll be quiet. Looks like there’s some rain coming in and killers don’t like getting wet. Bobby’s lead while I’m gone. Got any questions, ask him first. Bobby, run what you have to by Fubar, but try and keep it to a minimum or else you’ll confuse him and he’ll start making shit up. I’ll have my phone with me so call if you need to. Jill, I want to read the Fuentes sixty-day on the airplane. Got it?”

“Got it.” The redhead sighed. Johnny and Jill were chronically late with their sixty-day follow-up reports and Frank was tired of taking Foubarelle’s heat for them.

“Johnny, I want—”

He raised a hand to stop her. “I know, I know. Valenzuela and Brown.”

“And Acufia. That’s only a week late.”

Johnny didn’t even protest and Frank hurt just looking at him.

He had gone through a department-ordered rehab and done pretty well for about a month afterward. Then he came in one morning with the bleary-eyed shakes, but Frank was in rough shape herself at the time and couldn’t say much. She warned him that he was running out of chances. She kicked herself for being a hypocrite, but after she went to her first couple AA meetings she tried to get Johnny to go with her. He wouldn’t. Said he didn’t want to become a Bible-thumper.

“Oh, man,” she argued. “It’s not like that. Got nothing to do with banging Bibles. It’s like
Cheers,
only in reverse. Everyone knows your name but they’re sober. Come on. Won’t kill you to check it out.”

“Man, I had to do AA in rehab. I’m not into it. I’d rather be drinking than sittin’ around talkin’ about it. You go to meetings for both of us and I’ll go drink for both of us.”

Frank didn’t argue. She couldn’t have gone six months ago either—she hadn’t been kicked hard enough yet. “All right. You know where I am if you change your mind.”

“Yeah.” He flapped a hand at her, managing the semblance of a cocky, old Johnny grin. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

She grinned back. “Neither did I. But let me tell you. Beats eating a bullet.”

Johnny had stared oddly at her before she’d walked away.

The phone on Bobby’s desk rang and he answered. Everyone listened to see if they’d caught a case, but the big, black detective said in his shier-than-a-virgin-on-her-wedding-night voice, “Yeah, all right. Around eight or so.” Rejoining the group, he offered, “That was Irie. Says he has a good tip.”

“Yeah,” Jill said of Bobby’s informant. “And he wants a twenty in his pocket before the liquor store opens.”

After the meeting Frank said to Bobby, “Let me know when you’re going to talk to Irie. I want to ride with you, stop and talk to that clerk at the Circle Jerk.”

“Roger that.”

Frank tied up loose ends, talked to the duty sergeant and met with her captain until Bobby tracked her down, asking if she was ready.

She nodded. “Let’s roll.”

He checked out a muddy unmarked and Frank opened the door to see empty cups and cans and Burger King bags all over the floor.

She told him, “Go see who had this signed out last.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, uh-oh’s right. Fuckin’ pigs.”

Bobby came back a minute later and handed Frank a scrap of paper.

Getting in on the passenger side she read the names, grunting, “Figures.”

“Ha ha.” Bobby chuckled, turning onto Vermont. “Remember when you found Nook taking naps when he was supposed to be knocking?”

Frank grinned. Watching a muscled young man loping along the sidewalk, she answered, “That was a while back, huh?”

A brand new LT, she’d inherited two old-timers who refused to change their ways. Nook was one of them. When she found out he was taking a nap every afternoon in a shaded lot she had Bobby and Noah sneak the jack out of his car. Later, after Nook parked and was snoring in the backseat, under a blanket no less, the three of them quietly jacked his vehicle onto blocks. After they’d slunk back to their car, Frank raised him on the radio. Through binoculars she saw Nook lurch from the backseat, fall out the rear door and stand staring in amazement. Frank kept calling him and he finally reached inside for the radio, answering that he had a flat and that someone had taken the damn jack out of the car.

“Tell me where you are,” she responded. “I’ve got a jack.”

“No, no!” Nook cried, pacing around his car. “There’s no spare either!”

“Well, I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

Nook stalled. “Repeat. You’re breaking up.” Frank repeated and he said, “Oh, it’s okay. I got a cab here. We’ll let the garage take care of this. What’s your twenty?”

Instead of answering she approached on foot.

Nook was asking into his radio, “Do you copy?”

“I copy,” she said, stepping into the shade.

Nook whirled. He stammered, “I just went into the store and when I came out—”

Frank held up a hand. “No more naps, Nook. Clear?”

“I just—”

“Clear?”

He shook his head and sighed. “Clear.”

“Good. Here.” She tossed him the jack.

His mouth dropped. “I was gonna call the garage.”

“Garage is busy,” she’d said, walking back to her car. “When you get it down meet us at Denker and Sixty-ninth.”

“Oh, man.” Bobby was still laughing. “That was a good one.”

Frank nodded, missing Noah and wishing her old partner were here to laugh with them. They pulled into the Circle K and talked to a clerk. They worked him a solid half-hour but he maintained he didn’t see the shooting that happened twenty feet away from him.

Back in the car, Frank said, “Keep an eye on him. Give him time.”

“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “Time enough to have someone
he
loves get shot. Then we’ll see how eager he is to talk.”

“Oo-oo, Picasso. Your cynicism’s showing.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Wish you were.”

“Then it’s not cynicism. It’s the truth.”

“How can I argue with a double major in art and philosophy?”

On the corner of Slauson they found Irie hawking bags of oranges. He looked older than Moses—his skin, his hair, his clothes, all gray. His pants and shirt were frayed but clean and he wore gleaming white Reeboks. They made a show of pulling the old man over to the car. A couple dudes in a passing car hissed at them.

“Irie,” Frank chided. “S’up wid dem shoes, mon?”

Without even thinking about it, Frank slid into Irie’s vernacular—habit from years of dealing with people, from adopting their accents and dialect to help break down the huge wall between cop and civilian.

“Ya like dem?” Irie bragged in his thick patois. “I foun’ dem. Four pair, lyin’ in de street! Dem fit good, too! I keep two, give dem rest away.” Irie’s face was a topo map of wrinkles and old wounds. He rubbed a raised keloid on his cheekbone and said, “Ya wan’ we talk ‘bou’ my feets or I tell ya somet’ing ya migh’ wanna know?”

Bobby asked, “What do you have?”

The CI leaned against the car and squinted at the cops. “Fidelio Ramirez,” he enunciated. ” ‘Im de one.”

“Him the one what?” Frank asked.

” ‘Im de one shoot Oscar Fuentes.”

Bobby wrote the name down. “Where can we find this Ramirez?”

With a shrug Irie told them, “Dat ya problem dere. Street say ‘im run away to Mexico, but ‘im used to be livin’ with ‘is girl on Fif-eight Street.”

“How’d you hear it was Ramirez?”

“Ya can’t fuh to axe me dat,” Irie snorted. “Chuh! I gots protec’ meself. Ya know dat.”

“Does Ramirez have any other names?”

“Mebbe Cuco.”

“Cuco,” Bobby repeated. “What else?”

“Why fuh ya axe what else? I fuh gotta fin’ ‘im and han’cuff ‘im and bring ‘im in fuh ya? Chuh!”

Bobby gave Frank a sheepish look. “Do you have a twenty?”

Frowning, Frank pulled a Jackson from the wallet in her back pocket. She slipped the bill to Irie, asking, “Irie, mon, how old you is?”

Tapping the fat scar under his eye, he calculated, “‘Bout fif-tree, fif-fo’. Why fuh you axe?”

She shrugged. “You been ‘round a long time. Known you since I was a rookie.”

“Fuh true.” He grinned. “A long time.”

“All dat time and I’m still not for sure why you do this.”

Irie flashed pink palms. “Fuh be good ci’zen. Fuh do right ting.”

“Right,” she responded. “Of course.”

Grinning, Irie stepped back. “Ya have good day, office’s. Irie be tankin’ you.”

“Dat bwoy.” Frank shook her head as they drove off. ” ‘Im I fuh shuh n’unerstan’.”

Bobby asked, “You want to try and find Ramirez?”

Frank flipped her wrist over. “Naw, you better take me back. Been joy-ridin’ long enough.”

“Roger that.”

Saturday, 8 Jan 05—LAX

Alrighty then. Waiting to board my flight. Didn’t write yesterday
—
didn’t have time
—
so will write for twenty minutes today. Mary says if I found the time to drink I can find the time to go to meetings. Or write. Or whatever damn thing Fm supposed to be doing.

At any rate, here I am in the thumping, thriving heart of LAX. Haven’t flown since the extradition to Miami. Not looking forward to sitting with my knees on my chin for five hours but Fm glad Fm getting this over with.

Gotta love this place. It’s like a separate universe, got every race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation,
etc.
Can find every manner of relationship here
—
there’s a creep that looks like a pedophile by the women’s restroom, next to a girlfriend crying against her boyfriend. In front of them a toddler’s banging into his grandmother’s legs, the guy walking past could be a hit man, an adulterer, an extortionist or a guy who loves his wife and sells copy machines. Or a terrorist. You never know. And this is just one terminal. Incredible place.

There’s the boarding announcement. I’ll finish this on the plane.

Here we go. Fat guy on his laptop to my left, old lady reading on my right. Me stuck in the middle. Only five hours. And then what? Tonight won’t be so bad. I’ll find a room in Canarsie
—
they gotta be cheap in Canarsie. Not exactly a tourist mecca
—
and get a good night’s sleep. That’s one thing about being sober. Tm sleeping again. Took a while. First couple weeks were pretty rocky but now it’s good. Pretty sweet to wake up rested instead of hungover. Td forgotten what that was like.

So tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I’ll take care of business then I have the afternoon free until my nine o’clock flight home. I hope Gail takes me up on Rockefeller Center. She probably won’t, probably too much, too soon. Besides, she came to New York for a convention and to hang out with friends. She can see me anytime.

Look at me. I got Sunday over with before it’s even started. What happened to “one day at a time”? Still Saturday, far as I know. Oh, great. Here comes the stewardess with the booze trolley. “I’ll have three Scotches and a can of club soda, please. Oh, and don’t go too far away with that thing.”

That’s what I wanted to say, but it came out “Coffee. Black.”

The fat guy got a Budweiser and of course I had to pass it to him. The can was cold and wet like it just came out of a cooler. I wanted to rip it open, guzzle it down and pass it on like nothing had happened. I wonder how much alcohol they stock for a five-hour morning flight. Probably not enough to keep me going once I got started. That’s the thing. Mary says you have to think the drink through
—
think that first drink all the way through to the end. One would be nice, two would be lovely and three even better, but how many would be enough? There’s no such thing as enough. One drink doesn’t even begin to satisfy the craving, just kicks it into overdrive and sets up the desire for more. More and more and more, world without end, amen. This is getting me nowhere.