Hollywood Moon (30 page)

“So you can shoot me?” the young man shouted.

“Nobody wants to shoot you,” Sheila said, approaching closer. “Put the gun down and let’s talk.”

Without breaking stride until he was only thirty feet from the glass doors of the supermarket, the young man said, “I am not
going back to Colombia. They will kill me if I go back. I prefer to die here.”

“Who’s gonna kill you?” Aaron asked.

“There are very bad people in my country who hate me,” the man said. “And they will kill me.”

They had to raise their voices again in order to be heard over louder wails from the baby. The young man was ten feet from
the entrance doors to the supermarket when the car that had been assigned the help call roared into the parking lot, siren
yowling.

“You don’t wanna hurt that baby,” Sheila said. “Is she your baby?”

“No,” the Colombian said. “She is yours.” And abruptly he stopped and shoved the stroller directly at Sheila, who chased it
and caught it just before it tipped over. The young man ran into the supermarket before Aaron’s pistol was clear of the holster.

Within ten minutes, Sergeant Hermann, Sergeant Murillo, and two supervisors from Watch 3 had arrived and got on the air to
call a tactical alert. In another seven minutes, there were twenty-two officers, some from neighboring divisions as well as
a pair of motor cops surrounding the supermarket, with SWAT on the way. And supermarket shoppers, who had not seen the action
taking place outside the market, were baffled when police kept arriving and blocking the exit doors, refusing to let them
leave.

Sergeant Hermann’s car was parked near one of the entrances to the market, and she got on the PA to address all officers,
saying, “The store stays locked down until patrons can be escorted outside!”

Another five minutes passed as more officers arrived, while angry and frustrated customers worked at triggering the opening
device on the glass doors, yelling to the cops outside that they wanted to go home.

When Sergeant Hermann addressed the swell of customers at the door, saying, “Is there a man with a gun inside the store? Are
you being threatened?” a dozen voices, both male and female, began shouting in several languages.

Those speaking English were yelling things like “There’s no gunman in here!” and “Let us outta here!” and “My kids are getting
scared!” and even “My goddamn ice cream’s melting, you assholes!”

While this was going on, Sergeant Murillo and Sheila Montez were interviewing the mother of the baby in Spanish. After each
exchange, Sheila would translate bits and pieces into English for Sergeant Hermann and Aaron Sloane.

Finally, Sheila said, “She’s been dating the guy occasionally for six months. She knows him as Arturo Echeverría. He told
her he’s hunted by members of a drug cartel and has to carry a gun for protection, but she claims she didn’t know it was under
the diaper bag. He doesn’t work at any job as far as she knows, and he doesn’t have friends. He told her he lives alone in
an apartment in Little Armenia, and that’s all she knows about the guy.”

Sergeant Hermann said, “Okay, let’s let the women and kids out, escorted by officers. The men stay inside for now until SWAT
arrives. Sloane and Montez, you two stay by each exit door. You’re the only ones who know what he looks like.”

The plan sounded reasonable, especially since nobody in the store was aware that the police were searching for an armed and
desperate man in their midst. Both Sheila Montez and Mindy Ling got on the PA, Sheila speaking Spanish and Mindy speaking
Mandarin, and told the patrons that women and children would be escorted outside ten at a time, questioned very briefly, and
released.

One of the problems was that in Hollywood (called Babelwood by the cops who worked there) the police had no officers to make
the same announcement in Arabic, Cambodian, Farsi, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Armenian, Thai, or any of the other
languages spoken by the customers inside the supermarket at that moment.

Officers escorted outside the first ten women and kids, and none of those who understood their questions had seen a man with
a gun. Then another ten were escorted out with the same result. Then all hell broke loose.

The man known as Arturo Echeverría, who had been very busy inside that store scurrying around looking for a way out, eventually
finding himself in the storage area behind the meat counters, had decided that it was time to act. And for the first time,
Aaron and Sheila and the other cops at the scene learned that the gun was indeed a real one.

Arturo Echeverría stood behind the mobs of customers at the west exit door, who were hollering and complaining, and he began
firing! The customers heard five explosions behind them that shattered glass displays and ricocheted off concrete floors,
reverberating from one side of the checkout counters to the other.

And then, pandemonium! Some customers crouched or hit the floor, women with children shielded their young ones with their
bodies, and the masses decided, the hell with Sergeant Hermann’s reasonable plan. They charged both exit doors. People screamed,
people fell, people were trampled. And the cops stood helplessly while men, women, and children, shouting in languages the
cops could not understand, stampeded from the store, shoving officers back as they ran from the gunfire. Aaron Sloane and
Sheila Montez tried to visually examine each young man who ran from the supermarket, but it was hopeless.

Many of the men who fled were store employees in white shirts and dark trousers, some wearing aprons and badges, some black
baseball caps with the store’s logo on the front. And some others wore meat-stained white aprons as well as the black baseball
caps. There were half a dozen of them, as panicked as everyone else, and, like everyone else, they scattered when they got
past the first line of cops, running far enough to stop and gather in groups or to duck behind cars in the parking lot or
simply to say in Spanish or Tagolog, “Screw this. I don’t get paid to get shot.” These last few raced for their cars in the
parking lot.

As it turned out, one of those who fled toward the cars was Arturo Echeverría, dressed as a butcher in a long white coat,
a meat-stained apron, and a black baseball cap with the store’s logo on the front. He ran to a car, following behind one of
the store’s butchers, and as soon as the butcher unlocked his car, Arturo Echeverría said to him, “I need a ride,
compadre
.”

When the butcher looked at him and said, “I ain’t never seen you in the store before,” Arturo Echeverría drew the gun from
under his apron and said, “You see me now.
Vámonos
. And do not cry out.”

The terrified butcher drove away with Arturo Echeverría behind him on the floor of the car, promising not to kill the man
if he obeyed orders. The butcher was released at the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Vermont Avenue and was not robbed of
his money or cell phone. The stolen car was later found in a parking lot near LAX, where the hunted man had no doubt flown
out of Los Angeles and possibly the country.

Among the many officers who had responded to the help call that afternoon were Flotsam and Jetsam, who aided in the search
of the building after the stampede of customers and market employees had ended. It was determined that nobody was hiding in
the store and that none of the customers had been hit by gunfire. Some clothing belonging to the night-shift butchers was
missing from a locker, but that was all. And after paramedics had treated several with minor injuries incurred in the stampede,
the surfer cops were standing by their car, chatting with Hollywood Nate and Dana Vaughn, who had also responded to the help
call.

Flotsam said to them, “You know, that was, like, a way cooleo escape. That dude? He deserved his freedom.”

Sergeant Miriam Hermann, who was sweating and tired and feeling her age, was enormously frustrated that the man with a gun
had escaped while she was in charge of the tac alert. And she happened to be walking past the unsuspecting surfer cops at
that precise moment.

Sergeant Hermann froze in her tracks. “What… did… you… say? Repeat that.”

Caught unawares, Flotsam turned. “Oh, hi, Sarge! I was only, like… I was sorta… I was just… just…”

“He was just leaving, Sarge,” Jetsam said, grabbing his partner by the arm as they scurried to their black-and-white.

Watching the events at the shopping center along with hundreds of other spectators was Malcolm Rojas, who’d recently finished
his workday at the home improvement center warehouse. He found it exciting when the SWAT team showed up with all their equipment.
This was like reality TV, and he got so involved in the show that he almost forgot his meeting coming up with Bernie Graham.
Malcolm had decided for sure that either he made some money with Bernie Graham tonight or he was through letting the man string
him along. Part of him didn’t care one way or the other because part of him wanted to quell the feelings that had been growing
inside him all day, feelings that scared and excited him and demanded release.

Something that he’d been realizing more and more was that the stalking of those women was more exciting than the time he had
them in his power. He always thought that the sex was what he wanted, but now he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t gotten any sex
yet, because the bitches were so… so… he didn’t know
what
they were, other than clever and tricky. Stalking them was way better than jerking off, that was for sure. He loved the stalking
part. But he knew he’d have to have sex with one of them sooner or later. Just so he’d know. But
what
would he know? It was all so confusing and frustrating that the rage began to stir within him.

“When was the last time you had a square job?” Tristan wanted to know as he drove to the duplex/office for their meeting.

“I was a hod carrier in El Monte for a couple months,” Jerzy said after he opened his eyes to see if they were getting close
to the east Hollywood neighborhood.

“When was that?”

“I don’t know. Two, three, years ago. What the fuck difference does it make?”

“I worked at a Hollywood dance studio for almost three years,” Tristan said. “I did the books and made all the appointments
and I was learnin’ to become an instructor. I even got all kinds of promises about becomin’ a partner in the business. And
then one day the boss and his wife were gone and the dance studio was taken over by the landlord, and all the promises were
like the shit your momma told you when you were little. About how good life was gonna be. I ain’t had a square job since.”

Jerzy smirked and said, “Yeah, well, you can take your half of the money we’re gonna make and go home to New Orleans and show
your momma what a success her Creole boy is.”

“My momma ain’t in New Orleans,” Tristan said. “And I ain’t no Creole.”

“And you ain’t never been to college like you said, right?”

“Right,” Tristan said.

“I figgered as much,” Jerzy said. “Jist another refugee from Watts. Come to Hollywood after the fuckin’ greaseballs took over
your ghetto.”

“I’m only a thief like you,” Tristan said and then added, “but when we pull off this gag, I’m gettin’ outta the game so I
don’t end up like you.”

“You can never be like me,” Jerzy said. “I’m a white man.”

Tristan and Jerzy rode in silence and arrived at the duplex thirty minutes before their boss was due to arrive. They tried
to slip the front door lock with a credit card but were unsuccessful. Then they walked along the driveway that led to rear
carports and tried to open the bedroom window, finding that it was an old aluminum slider and could be pried open with little
trouble.

Tristan got a screwdriver from the trunk of his car and gave it to Jerzy, who first pried off the screen with his buck knife
and then used the screwdriver to pop open the slider. Then he boosted Tristan up and through the window, and Tristan opened
the door for him. They brought in the six-pack of beer that Jerzy had insisted they buy on this hot summer day and were having
a brew when a black-and-white, fresh from the siege at the supermarket, parked on the street in front.

Tristan peeked out the window and saw two cops, a tall one and another one, both with streaky blond hair, walking toward the
apartment, as though they were expecting trouble.

“Cops!” Tristan said to Jerzy. “Get rid of the buck knife! Sit on the kitchen chair and stay cool, fool!”

Jerzy said, “Fuck! We can’t get away from them! They’re everywhere!” And he shoved the knife inside his boot under the leg
of his Levi’s jeans as Tristan opened the door before the cops reached the front step.

“Hi, Officers,” Tristan said with a smile.

Both cops looked wary, and Flotsam said, “We got a call from a neighbor that somebody climbed in the window here. Was it you?”

“Sure was,” Tristan said brightly. “We lost our key. Come on in. We appreciate that you’re watchin’ out for us.”

Flotsam entered with Jetsam following behind. Tristan noticed that each cop had a hand very close to his pistol, and he said,
“This here is my friend Jerzy. He boosted me in the window. Our friend Mr. Kessler is expectin’ us here.”

“Wait a minute,” Jetsam said. “You mean you don’t live here?”

“Take a look around,” Tristan said. “Nobody lives here. There’s a fridge in the kitchen and a table and two chairs and a fleabag
chair in the livin’ room, but that’s it. There ain’t no more.”

The cops moved their hands away from their pistols but still were looking very cautiously at both men. Jetsam said, “All we
know is you two climbed in the window.”

“Him,” Jerzy said. “My ass is too big to climb in windows.”

“Okay,” Jetsam said, “but until we figure out what’s going on, we’d like to make sure you’re not burglars.” Then he said to
Jerzy, “Stand up.”

Jerzy was used to cops. He stood, moved his hands away from his body, and let Jetsam pat him down. Tristan did the same for
Flotsam. When the cops were through with the frisk, Flotsam said, “Your IDs, please.”