On the Grind (2009) (5 page)

"I saw some South Side Crip graffiti here and in Fleetwood," I shouted across the table at him. "If Eighteenth Street Locos run this town, why are Crips tagging walls?"

"The blacks used to run this place till all the illegal aliens moved in and pushed em out. Now they're trying to reclaim their old corners. It could get ugly. We have our orders straight from Mayor Bratano s office to shut these blacks down. We hook em and book 'em, the city court cooks 'em. The idea is to keep Haven Park and Fleetwood safe for Eighteenth Street business."

"You kidding me? You're running this street gang's interference?"

"We got our own culture down here. It's called cafeteria policing. Everything is laid out on a big buffet table, cops get to pass by and just fill their trays. You probably heard that the starting pay scale is low," he yelled, smiling as he said it.

"Yeah. Fifty-five grand."

"Don't let it bother you, dude," Alonzo said with a laugh. "If you're in the cafeteria line, you can make more money than a crooked banker. We got millions of scams. Last month, one of our damn patrol officers who was just a fucking two-striper, took home twenty-five hundred in kickbacks in two weeks. Get in the cafeteria line, brother. Fill your tray. You won't be sorry."

"You're shitting me."

"It's like Mexico. Haven Park's a Third World city with a whore's mentality. Everything that gets paid flows upstream. Everybody gets a taste as it goes by. Crooks kick up to cops, everybody kicks up to city hall and the mayor. Protection, bribery, tow tickets, the works. The two brothers who own A Fuego are Manny and Hector Avila. They also own Blue Light lowing, which has the exclusive tow truck contract for Haven Park and Fleetwood. That contract is worth a fortune."

"What is?" I shouted baek. "Towing ears?"

"The cops boot a car, its a two-hundred-dollar impound. The Avilas give a third of that to the mayor and kick back ten percent to the cop who writes the ticket. If a blue writes ten towing tickets a day, you can get an envelope from the Avilas with two hundred bucks in it at the end of your shift. If you stay on it, at the end of a five-day week its an extra grand. After a year, you got fifty G's. This shit can add up, and that's just the tow truck stuff. There's lots of other ways to make up for the low starting pay."

The mariachi CD ended and for a moment A Fuego quieted down and people stopped shouting at each other. It occurred to me that all the noise would make it impossible to record a conversation in here.

In that momentary lull of the music I asked, "You can get ten cars towed in a day?" It surprised me because it seemed like a lot.

"Depends on how committed you are. Some guys can do it. The dumb bolupos who live down here are mostly undocumented. Haven Park and Fleetwood are full of fruit pickers, scared of their shadows. They pay the two hundred to get their car back or we auction their rust buckets off and get our cut out of the sale. Gardeners and maintenance guys are the best targets 'cause they need their trucks to work. Show me a fucking Chevy pickup with a leaf blower and I'll own the fucker. I towed this one asshole six times in two months. He finally moved. Hated to see that brown boy go." Alonzo took a gulp of his beer and smiled sadly.

Then a new tape started and we were back to screaming at each other. It went on like that. He detailed the scams, explaining the ways a cop could make extra money in Haven Park. He told me about health code and fire department tickets on Mexican restaurants or any other food business. They would threaten to close kitchens or shops unless they got paid cash. There was a protection scam being run in Fleetwood. Gang money came in envelopes distributed by the watch commanders--weekly payoffs for letting 18th Street Locos have their run of both towns.

"But if you put something on your tray you gotta remember to only take half and kick the rest up to the guy above you. A piece of everything else has to end up in Mayor Cecil Bratano's pocket. And you gotta get in with the Avilas," Alonzo told me. "If they want you on the PD, you're on."

"No matter what Ricky Ross says?"

"Ricky's just a lushed-up paper-pusher who Mayor Bratano picked because he can't find his ass with either hand. The real power on the job are Hector and Manny Avila. They kick back big to the mayor. That's why they got the exclusive towing contract. They run the political machine and most of the graft in both cities."

"I'm surprised you can get away with all this," I said. "Especially after all the bad publicity Maywood and Cudahy got in the newspapers for police and government corruption."

"What was going on in Maywood and Cudahy was small-time b
. S
. compared to this."

He grinned as he looked up and spotted somebody. "Hector and Manny just got here. Lemme bring these guys over. Say the right shit and before you know it, you're gonna be riding in a new Plain Jane, policing the great cities of Haven Park and Fleetwood."

Chapter
8

Alonzo got up from the table and greeted a middle-aged dark wiry guy with a Brillo Pad mustache who, after leaning in and listening for a minute, turned and waved an arm at another guy with the same wire-brush hair. There was a strong family resemblance, but the second man was older and heavier. His hair and mustache were steel gray. After a moment, Alonzo led them both over and made room for them on his side of the upholstered booth. The Avilas sat down and studied me carefully across the wooden table.

"Hector and Manny Avila, meet an old friend just off the LAPD, Shane Scully," Alonzo said, his voice rising above the escalating mariachi music.

"Como se?" Manny said.

"A viente," I replied.

He smiled. "Hcibla espanol."

"Si, poquito. Es necesario para la policia en Los Angeles"

"BuenaManny said. Then he turned and smiled at his stone
-
faced older brother.

"Shane had some problems on the LAPD. He got caught fixing a case, taking money, screwing the suspect, la bonita, chica de cinema ." Alonzo Bell grinned.

It was pretty obvious somebody in Haven Park had gone ahead and accessed my POLITE file. Except down here my bad deeds sewed as a recommendation, because Manny smiled and said, "This is not such a big problem."

"We checked around," Alonzo continued. "Shane has already tried a bunch of other police agencies, but with that felony case
-
tampering beef, nobody will put him on. He really wants to stay in law enforcement. He gets the picture. He knows how to sing from the hymnal."

"You have Alonzo swearing for you. You have a very good compadre," Manny Avila said. Hector still hadn't said anything. He just studied me aggressively.

"I've got some problems with Rick Ross," I said. "He probably isn't going to want me on the force."

Manny made a dismissive gesture with his hand as if that was of no concern. "Ross es abadesa," he said. "A worthless pimp. You need not worry about the feelings of such a man."

"That's good to know," I said.

"If you have our friend Alonzo speaking for you, there is little more to say," Manny yelled over the music. Then he grinned at Alonzo and put a familiar hand on his shoulder, a gesture of friendship. "If Alonzo is telling us that you are a good man, the
n c
onsider it done."

"That's what I'm saying." Alonzo smiled.

Suddenly Hector, the older, more serious brother, spoke for the first time. "You must know that from this point on, things will be expected of you. There are rules, things that must happen. Alonzo can explain, but you must realize these rules cannot be broken. Comprende?"

"I understand."

"Money will have to change hands," Hector said. "When you do well, then others must also do well."

"Pair enough," I said.

"Okay. Then tomorrow you will go and see Captain Talbot Jones. He will accept your application." They both shook my hand.

"Welcome to the Haven Park PD," Manny Avila said, and just like that I'd made the worst police department in America.

I drank beer with Alonzo and met half a dozen guys on the force, including Talbot Jones. He was a huge, glowering presence. A black cop who Alonzo told me later had been thrown off L
. A
. Vice for excessive violence. Talbot Jones was a patrol captain and Haven Park's acting deputy chief.

I ended up drinking a few too many Heinekens by the end of the evening. Alonzo and I left A Fuego at a little past midnight. When I went to the curb outside where I'd left my Acura, it was gone.

"I left it right here," I said. "What happened to my ride?"

"Got towed. Sorry about that." Alonzo grinned.

"I was parked legally. This street isn't posted. What's the deal?"

"Welcome to Haven Park," he said, still smiling.

It was the third time today somebody had told me that.

Chapter
9

Alonzo dropped me at the Haven Park Inn and instructed me to show up around nine A
. M
. at the station, where Talbot Jones would take care of me. "By then, the Avilas will have the whole deal rigged," Alonzo said before driving off.

After he left, I went to my room and fell onto the bed with my clothes on, looking at the cracked brown ceiling. I could smell grease in the upholstery and curtains. Somebody had been cooking tacos over a hibachi in here. It had been a long but eventful day. I didn't know what lay ahead, but I was definitely in the cafeteria line.

I slept fitfully. I heard gunshots and sirens once about two A
. M
. and woke up, not sure exactly where they were coming from. It sounded like a good-sized police response not too far away. I stayed awake until five, and then slipped into a restless sleep.

In my dream I was at the L
. A
. Police Academy in Elysian Park, holding my recruit gear in a small canvas bag, dressed in jean
s a
nd an LAPD sweatshirt. I was very exeited because I had just been accepted on the department and, with my arrival at the academy, had finally found an identity I could believe in.

"This is going to be bitchin'," I said to the guy standing next to me. I could hardly wait to get started.

When
I
woke up at seven I could barely face the grim prospect of starting work on the Haven Park PD.

I arrived at city hall after a short walk of two and a half blocks down Pacific Avenue. I felt dirty even though I had taken a shower. The heavy glass door with the police department seal and Ricky Ross's name in gold letters greeted me. I pushed it open and entered. I stated why I was there and was led by a civilian employee down a long corridor decorated with old black
-
and-white photos of Haven Park arrests dating back to the forties.

She showed me into Talbot Jones's office. He was in a captain's uniform this morning, seated behind a large mahogany desk. The office was typical of a deputy chief. Plaques everywhere, pictures of the captain shaking hands with politicians and business leaders. I saw one photo of Jones with Ricky Ross, who was a skinny, dweeby-looking guy with thin sandy blond hair styled in a comb
-
over. He looked innocent enough, but you couldn't fool me. I'd seen violence flare behind those hazel eyes.

There was also the mandatory Haven Park Little League photo. This particular team was sponsored by Big Kiss Bail Bonds. Two coaches were holding up a KISS JAIL GOODBYE sign behind a bunch of grinning ten-year-olds. I wondered how many of these players would grow up to one day need the services of their Little
League sponsor.

There were several pictures of a short but compactly built
Hispanic man who seemed to favor white Panama hats. I knew from pictures I'd seen of him in the L
. A
. paper that this was Haven Park's mayor, His Honor Cecil Bratano.

"Scully, huh?" Talbot said in a deep baritone after I reintroduced myself. He seemed to have forgotten we'd met each other at A Fuego the previous night. He glanced down at a computer printout on his desk. "Says here you got jammed up in L
. A
."

"Misunderstanding," I said.

"Let's not sling a lot of bullshit at each other, okay? I've got your IA package right here in front of me. You left a long slimy trail on the sidewalk over there."

"If you say so, Captain." I was not sure how to play the gu
y.
I needed this job. He was a big, imposing, six-foot four-inch, muscle-bound ass-kicker. One of those black guys who can project simmering anger without saying a word. Since he'd been thrown off the L
. A
. cops for beating up street people while on the Vice squad, I really didn't think my IA record should scare him off. He flipped through my application. "You know the score down here?" he said, not even looking up.

"Alonzo Bell told me a lot of it last night. I'm not a troublemaker, Captain. I know how to go along to get along."

He grunted, said nothing, as he continued to peruse my application for a long minute more.

"Your app says you were a marksman on the LAPD gun range and were current on all of your field expediency ratings before you resigned. That right?"