Hollywood Crows (21 page)

As he was driving home that night, he remembered what his first field training officer had said to him when he was a boot, fresh out of the academy: “Son, that badge can get you pussy, but pussy can get your badge.”

Jasmine was scowling when she stormed out of the dancers’ bathroom into the dressing room, wearing only her yellow G-string and red stiletto heels. She put her throwaway go cell in her locker, where she kept her street clothes.

One of the stage-sharing dancers that evening, a broad-shouldered redhead called Tex, was sitting in a recliner, looking at photos in a fan magazine. Tex was top heavy from saline overload and was wearing a G-string, a cowboy hat, a short sequined cowgirl vest, and white cowboy boots.

Tex said, “What’s wrong, Jasmine? Boyfriend trouble?”

“Yeah, boyfriend trouble,” Jasmine said, her face darkened by rage and frustration.

“If we could invent a vibrator with a twenty-word set of responses, we’d never need them,” Tex said. “What is he, a gambler, an addict, or a boozer?”

“This guy’s definitely not a boozer,” Jasmine said. “Which is too fucking bad.”

Tex was about to ask what Jasmine meant by that, when Ali Aziz popped his head in the door without knocking, and said, “Jasmine, I got to see you.”

“My next set’s coming up, Ali,” Jasmine said.

Ali was dressed for the evening in a blue double-breasted, raw-silk blazer, a blue silk tie, and a white shirt with monogrammed cuffs. He said, “Tex can take your set. Come.”

Tex rolled her eyes and said, “This job sucks in more ways than one.”

When Jasmine entered the office, Ali closed and locked the door, sat in his desk chair, and poured himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s. Jasmine stood and waited. Lately, he’d call her in there just to rant, especially if he’d been drinking, so maybe if she was very lucky, it wasn’t for a hummer after all.

“Fucking bitch!” he said. “Cunt bitch!”

It could only be one person he was talking about. “Margot?” she said.

“Fucking bitch!” he said. “She don’t do nothing my lawyer says. Nothing I say. She always tries to keep my Nicky away from me. She only gives him to me when the judge makes her. She requires me to spend lawyer money for everything. Every week more lawyer money. Fucking bitch!”

Ali took a big gulp of Jack and said, “You have been knowing her for three years. You helped her to decorate this place. You are her friend. I need for you to be my friend. I need for you to help me more.”

“Help you even more?” Jasmine said.

“Watch out for my Nicky. The house will be in the close of escrow soon and she will move to a condo. That is what she says to my lawyer. But now I want you to watch.”

“Ali,” Jasmine said, “I already am sort of watching out for Nicky, just like you said for me to do. Sort of. But I only get to see Margot, what? Once a week? She lives on Mount Olympus. I live in Thai Town. Jesus, Ali, gimme a break.”

“She says to me that she is going to take Nicky away from California when the house is finish with the escrow and the divorce is over. She says to me that her lawyer is going to make this happen. She says to me that she has a boyfriend and this is none of my business. She says to me all of this on the phone yesterday. I am going insane, Jasmine! My Nicky! He is my life!”

“Okay, Ali, I’ll tell you something I didn’t wanna mention. The last time I phoned her, I was sure she was all weirded out on something. Probably coke. And Nicky was there, because she yelled at him real mean.”

Suddenly, Ali Aziz started sobbing boozily and pulled a red handkerchief from the pocket of his blazer.

Jasmine watched and waited, and before he stopped she said, “I guess I could pay her a personal visit twice a week. Maybe take her some of the Chinese cookies she loves. I might be able to find out if the boyfriend’s staying at the house. And maybe I could ask her straight out if she’s doing coke again.”

Ali stopped weeping then and said, “I ask her, I beg her, I say, ‘Please, Margot, whatever happens, do not go back into the life of cocaine. You must take care of our Nicky.’ When I first met her, she was spending all her money on cocaine. A beautiful, young dancer who was doing so much cocaine. Soon I was more than her boss. I was her friend and she quit the cocaine. Then pretty soon I was her husband.”

“Yeah, you told me,” Jasmine said, thinking how she hated taking the last set. But now she’d have to take it for Tex while she listened to this shit for the hundredth time.

“Jasmine, I want for you to see Margot and to tell me what is what. I shall pay for it. Do not worry, I shall pay you for the time you use. I must know what is in her head. Is she truly wishing to take my Nicky away to a different state? Maybe to do cocaine again with this new man? Without my Nicky I shall die, Jasmine!”

“I’ll do what I can, Ali,” Jasmine said. Then she added, “Tell me, Ali, what happens to your situation if Margot dies?”

“Margot die? God willing!” Ali said. “I shall have my son then. But do not think that I can make such a thing happen. I am a businessman. I am a loving father. I am no killer.”

“Of course you’re not,” Jasmine said. “But I’m curious about your deal with her. About how you got all your holdings so tangled up with her.”

“Fucking lawyer! Fucking accountant!” Ali said. “I got rid of them, but too late. They said to me I can escape from taxes if she is on the deeds and licenses for certain things. Stupid bastards! Now I must suffer for it.”

“What if you die?” Jasmine said. “Who gets your piece of the money and property?”

“You talk too much of death, Jasmine,” Ali said suspiciously.

“You want me to spy for you? Okay, but I gotta know what’s going on. I don’t wanna be part of any violent plots.”

“No! No violence!” Ali said quickly. “I am not a violent man!”

“So tell me, when you die, who gets all your wealth?”

“Nicky, of course. My lawyer is, how you say, executor. But all goes to Nicky. I weep to think of my Nicky with no daddy and only his bitch cunt mother to take care of him.”

“It’s hard for me to figure how a smart businessman like you married without a prenup in the first place,” she said.

Ali said, “You did not know her when she was a young girl. The most beautiful dancer in all Los Angeles. A young girl with eyes that make you go dizzy. So smart she could make me act stupid. She always refuse to give me the blow job. She refuse to even give me kisses more than a few times. She made me to believe she is a virgin. She made me so stupid I run out and buy her a very big diamond ring. She still will not give me sex even one time. I say we sign a business contract and we get married. She say to me no marriage with a business contract. I was the most stupid man in Los Angeles because she made my brain sick. I make her my wife. No contract, no nothing. Two years after that, I listen to my stupid lawyer and stupid accountant, who get her name mixed up in everything. I save some tax money, but look where I arrive to today!”

Jasmine grinned then and said, “How were the blow jobs after all that?”

“Okay,” he said. “But not like the ones you give to me.”

“If you were to die, it’d be real nice to be Nicky’s mother,” Jasmine said. “There’d be ways his mother could cut into Nicky’s fortune.”

“Why do you talk like that, Jasmine?” Ali said. “Stop! You make me feel sick.”

“I’m only saying what you must be thinking,” Jasmine said. “If I’m going into the spy business in the middle of a very bitter divorce involving… how many millions?”

“Please, Jasmine, stop now!” Ali said.

“I’m just saying. I just have to be careful what I’m getting into, is all. She might have very bad friends who could see the tremendous advantage to her if you would pass away suddenly. And as your agent I might find myself in serious trouble. Whadda you know about this new boyfriend, for example?”

Ali was holding his head in his hands now, getting a headache. “Nothing. I know nothing.”

“How do you know he’s not some coke dealer from her younger days? How do you know what the two of them are scheming about? He might be a very dangerous man.”

“I beg you to stop,” Ali said.

“I just hope it all works out for you, Ali,” Jasmine said. “For your son’s sake.”

Ali said, “When Nicky is older, I think he shall see his mother is a cunt bitch. And he shall want to come and live with Daddy. That is what my new lawyer says. He tells me I must have very much patience.”

“Okay, I’ll do more undercover work for you, Ali, but I’ll need serious compensation for it.”

“Yes, yes,” Ali said. “If she is doing cocaine with this man, you must tell me very fast. Then I can tell my lawyer and we maybe can go to the judge to get back my son. This country have very insane laws.”

“You mean I might have to give a deposition or something?” Jasmine said. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“I shall pay you, Jasmine,” Ali said. “You shall not be sorry.”

“To betray my friend?” Jasmine said. “And to maybe run the risk of her new pal finding out about it? That’s gotta be worth a lot.”

“I shall pay you plenty,” Ali said. “Nicky is my life.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Jasmine said.

“Thank you, Jasmine, thank you,” Ali Aziz said. “Now, please come here and make me feel like a man once more.”

“Not again,” Jasmine muttered but nevertheless got down on her knees in front of Ali’s chair while he unzipped his fly, wishing he’d taken Viagra.

T
HE FOLLOWING MONDAY AFTERNOON
, an extraordinary photo was taken by Officer Tony Silva in Laurel Canyon. A drunken porn producer in a Ferrari, coming from an all-day shoot at his studio on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley, swerved head-on into a pair of eucalyptus trees, doing damage to the front end of his car but not activating the air bag.

The Crow had just dealt with another in the endless complaints about peeping paparazzi from one of the second-rate actors who lived in a rented house in the hills, when he came upon the accident, which a nearby resident had called in. However, Tony Silva was the second cop to arrive, the first being Officer F.X. Mulroney.

The LAPD motorcycle was parked twenty feet behind the Ferrari, whose engine was still running, and the driver, who would later blow an astonishing .37 on the Breathalyzer, was casting panicky looks over his left shoulder. The porn producer was concentrating on what he thought was the road in front of him but was really open space between the two trees, where his car was wedged and immobile.

With his decades of experience in such matters, F.X. Mulroney immediately understood that as far as this motorist was concerned, he was still negotiating the curves on the canyon road, no doubt with double vision. And by the time Tony Silva got out of the CRO’s Ford Explorer, F.X. Mulroney had already been at it for a while and was short of breath from his “pursuit” of the Ferrari.

Tony Silva later said that with a video camera he could have had himself a huge hit on the Internet, but all he had was his cell-phone camera. The grainy still photos he shot were of F.X. Mulroney, in full motor cop regalia, running in place beside the Ferrari, his black boots pumping up and down while he shouted, “Pull over! Pull that fucking car over!” to the porn producer, who was gunning the engine and looking back, desperate to speed away from the relentless motor cop who, as in a dream — or in his case, a nightmare — seemed to be pursuing him on foot!

“I don’t wanna have to shoot ya!” F.X. Mulroney yelled. “Pull to the curb and turn off your engine!” Then, as always, F.X. Mulroney went totally over the top and yelled, “Watch out for the woman and baby! Pull right! Pull right!”

For a moment the high-performance engine revved to full rpm, the wheels turning sharply, and this allowed the car to climb a foot or so up the trunk of the larger of the eucalyptus trees, tires smoking, engine roaring. But then it settled back down, coughing, sputtering, and dying when the engine finally blew.

F.X. Mulroney noticed Officer Tony Silva for the first time then, but he couldn’t speak. He had to bend forward with his hands on his knees to catch his breath after such a long “chase.” Then F.X. stood tall, removed his mirrored aviator sunglasses, and said to the camera, “Am I glad this asshole finally pulled over. I was just about outta gas.”

The porn producer looked up at the old motor cop standing beside his car. And with eyes at half-mast, he opened the door and said, “My compliments, Officer. I thought I lost you a couple times, but you caught me fair and square.”

Ronnie felt that Bix Ramstead had seemed different for most of the day. He was uneasy, agitated, nervous. They’d spent several hours knocking on doors, dealing with the myriad calls from the constant complainers who were so well known at the Community Relations Office. It was tedious work, and on past occasions Bix had seemed temperamentally perfect for the assignment. But not today. He wasn’t as patient as usual. His practiced responses didn’t seem as sincere. He looked at his watch when people were pouring out their troubles, most of which the cops could do nothing about. The fact was, the callers were lonely and wanted attention from officialdom, but all they had were the Crows from Hollywood South.

On the last call they did together, Ronnie and Bix were standing in the kitchen of an eighty-year-old white-stucco bungalow, listening to the complaint of an elderly Salvadoran immigrant whose children hadn’t been to visit her in three months. Her English was good enough that they came to understand that her life was being made miserable by her next-door neighbor’s frequent yard sales, which attracted a bad element who threw trash on her property and urinated in her driveway in broad daylight.

When she stopped long enough to answer the phone in her bedroom, Bix went to the sink and helped himself to a glass of water. In the corner of the kitchen he spotted a mouse in a glue trap. The mouse, firmly stuck by its belly, feet, and legs, looked up with eyes both frightened and sad, as though the creature knew it was hopeless.

Ronnie heard Bix Ramstead say to the mouse, “Sorry, buddy, I’d help you if I could, but I can’t even help myself.”