Earth Angels (16 page)

"It's a different culture."

"It's fucked. That's what it is."

"You don't have to tell me. I grew up here."

Sullivan squeezed his sponge and gray water dribbled into the sink. "You're just as much of a
cholo
as the punks in White Fence."

"Sullivan, you'd do anything to start an argument "

"The gangbangers don't know anything outside their chickenshit little turf and neither do you."

"I know the players."

"I've heard prison guards say the same thing."

"O.K., I'll admit it. I like putting gangbangers in jail. So maybe I'm crazy."

"You can kill a hundred gang shooters tomorrow, and their baby brothers would just take their places. It wouldn't change jack shit." He tossed the sponge in the sink. Reaching behind him, he picked up a bottle of Old Granddad and filled a shot glass. With one hand holding the bar, he threw back the shot quickly, then made a smacking sound. "The idea of stopping gang murders is a dream," he said, dropping the shot glass into soapy water. With a practiced motion he set the Granddad back in its place.

"I still believe in the Department," Stepanovich said.

"The Department? Who are we talking about? The Chief? The slick sleeve who directs traffic at First and Main?"

"Harger. I believe in Harger."

Sullivan smiled wryly and nodded his head. "When I was a kid, I believed in the Lone Ranger and Tonto."

"Harger's a solid guy from what I've seen."

"That's because you haven't seen shit."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Someday you'll start putting in your eight hours without taking everything so serious. You'll be more concerned with where you can score a free lunch than who you're gonna arrest. It'll happen all at once. You'll be begging some mushmouth deputy DA to file a case, or you'll be working overtime to arrest the same mope the ninth or tenth time for the same offense, and all of a sudden you'll hear this little voice in the back of your head. It will say, 'Stepanovich, you're spinning your wheels in this shit.' From then on, until the day you retire you'll see yourself for what you are - a drone, a lackey for that half baked city politician calling himself the chief of police who is a drone for the mayor who is a drone for his rich, thieving friends eating caviar and fucking one another in the ass up in Beverly Hills. Right at that very moment when you realize that you've been breaking your balls to do nothing more than keep Leroy and Chuey from committing burglary in Beverly Hills, you'll change from a hotdog detective to a blue suit burnout. The job won't be interesting any longer, and you'll spend your the rest of your time on the job avoiding all the nastiness you thrived on. You'll hate coming to work, but you'll eat like a king and ... you'll steep better."

"I'll quit first."

Sullivan picked up an ashtray and dumped its contents in a waste can behind the bar. "You'll stay," he said, setting the ashtray back on the bar. "On the other hand, if the job doesn't burn you out, it'll eat you alive." He turned to the others in the place. "Last call, you people. I'm outa here."

Black stopped dancing and swaggered behind the bar. Lifting a case of Budweiser from the cooler and balancing it on his head, he headed toward the front door.

Sullivan glared at him.

"One case of Bud on credit, you baggy eyed fuckhead," Black said on his way out.

Accompanied by Brenda, they adjourned to Fordyce's motor home. At Black's suggestion, they sat around the tiny dinette table and played poker. Brenda, like a dutiful geisha, kibitzed and served beer.

Black began to laugh. "The look on their faces when they got to the bottom of the stairs." He dropped his jaw histrionically. "EEEE Ho Laaaa. " He aimed a simulated shotgun. "Boom! Boom!" He doubled up in a fit of laughter.

The others joined in and the motor home rocked with barracks style, all night drinking male laughter that reminded Stepanovich of Nam.

"You dudes are crazy," Brenda said after the laughter subsided. Lifting a leg and sitting on Arredondo's lap, she took the beer bottle from his hand. "And your boss Bob Harger is crazy too. I know him from when he worked Newton Division. This was before he made sergeant. "

"How was he?" Black asked with a leer. Everyone laughed.

"I don't talk about the men I ... date. How would you like me talking about all of you?"

"C'mon, Brenda," Arredondo said. "We'll never say anything."

"He used to come over to my house."

"That doesn't answer the question," Arredondo said.

"Lieutenant Harger is a very visual person," she said with a wry smile. "He used to bring his Polaroid and take pictures. He would set the timer and then jump on the bed and we would he doing it. I still have some of the shots. He has a cute butt."

"The man likes exposure!" Black shouted into the din of laughter.

During what was left of the night, the cops continued the poker game and drank heavily. Brenda, who seemed pleased at having been invited to the gathering, either listened in awe as the detectives recounted the shooting over and over again, served beer, or administered efficient blowjobs to whoever led her to the semi privacy of the upper bunk at the rear of the motor home. Perhaps because Black and Arredondo made two trips each, no one noticed that Stepanovich hadn't availed himself.

As the sun was coming up, everyone was at that point of inebriation where every utterance sounded profound and utter nonsense was defended as perfectly logical.

"We need some fucking T shirts that say CRASH," Arredondo said.

Stepanovich, who'd folded his cards earlier, sat in the passenger seat with his eyes closed, thinking of Gloria. He had considered leaving more than once during the long night, but he didn't want to be the one to break up the party.

"Belt buckles," Fordyce said, slurring his words. "I know a guy who makes specialty belt buckles."

Black guzzled beer and belched. "Silk jackets. That's what we need. Black ones with CRASH written on the back." Everyone laughed.

Arredondo finished his beer and tossed the empty can into a cardboard box. "We're outa beer. No mas cervesa."

Fordyce climbed behind the wheel. "I know a place that's open," he said, starting the engine and slamming the car into gear. The motor home lurched as he steered over a curb and into the street and past dingy warehouses and loading docks.

"How about a medallion?" Brenda said proudly. "I like medallions. Like the ones from that place that advertises on TV. They make 'em to order."

"What the fuck you talking about?" Black said.

Brenda sipped beer. "You guys remember the Lone Wolf? The TV detective? He would solve the case and leave this wolf medallion. It was pure silver."

"How do you know it was pure silver?" Black said.

"Do you always have to be such a jerk?"

"Yeah," Arredondo said, "at the end of the show some whipdick would find the medallion and hold it up and say: 'It's the sign of the Lone Wolf.' "

Black popped another beer. "If I was the whipdick who found it, I'd just shove it in my pocket and shag ass to the nearest pawnshop."

"We need some fucking medallions," Fordyce said. His eyes were rimmed with red.

Black belched loudly. "I got your medallions hanging."

"Keep your eyes on the road, amigo."

Brenda moved to Stepanovich and sat heavily on his lap. "Why are you so quiet tonight?" Smelling her cheap perfume, he shrugged.

"Brenda's got a pair of medallions," Fordyce said.

Black shoved open the door and tossed out an empty. "Fuck the Los Angeles Police Department right in its dirty ass."

"If it wasn't for the police department you'd be shoveling shit on a farm," Arredondo said, discovering one last beer in a six-pack container. He popped open the can. "You wouldn't be shit."

"And you'd be right there working for me, homeboy.

"Where are we going?" Brenda said as they reached the Fourth Street Bridge.

As they crossed it, someone suggested tattoos. Though later Stepanovich was unable to remember whether it had been before or after they stopped at a liquor store and purchased more beer and a quart of whiskey, he was relatively certain it was Black who came up with the idea.

"We need some homeboy tattoos," he said.

Popping fresh cans of beer, they weaved past a backdrop of narrow, sooty streets lined with factory buildings and brick front flophouses to the very pit of Los Angeles: Main Street. Lying in the shadow of L.A. City Hall, the street was lined with secondhand clothing stores, peep shows, fruit bars, grimy fast food outlets, and shoeshine stands. A mixture of ex cons, elderly poor, sickly winos, bag ladies, Mexican illegal aliens, and Marines on weekend leave from Camp Twenty Nine Palms to roll queers, wandered up and down the street killing time.

Fordyce parked in a no parking zone directly in front of a tattoo parlor he said he remembered from his first year on the job when he'd walked the Main Street police beat accompanied by a training officer. The tattoo parlor was a fading, hutlike structure interposed between an abandoned movie theater and a dingy cocktail lounge called The Circus. Stepanovich and the others popped cans of beer as they climbed out of the motor home and barged into the place, the walls were covered with colorful tattoo size designs, and there was an overpowering medicinal smell.

"You guys cops?" said the owner, an intimidated tattoo artist with a ragged goatee and a pack of smokes rolled up in the sleeve of his dingy T shirt. His face, the only part of visible skin that wasn't tattooed, was etched with lines. Stepanovich's sixth sense told him he was an ex convict.

Black emitted a beer belch. "That's right, my man. We're the men from CRASH, so dig out some nice fresh needles."

"And women," Brenda said.

"Huh?"

"CRASH," Black said. "You’ve heard of the FBI and the CIA? Well, that ain't diddly squat compared to CRASH Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums. We kill gangbangers."

"We knock their dicks in the dirt," Fordyce said.

"Whether they like it or not," Arredondo added.

The men laughed. The tattoo artist said his name was Slim and recited the prices for tattoos.

"This is really stupid," said Brenda, downing a can of beer.

Black negotiated price as Fordyce, like an art connoisseur, took his time scanning the walls for an appropriate tattoo.

Because Stepanovich was drunk, he had trouble focusing on the various tattoos. One in a frame and much larger than the others depicted a smiling human skeleton waving a checkered racing flag. The inscription below the flag read: "THE WINNER." Probably because he was drunk, he suddenly had an overpowering sense of déjà vu. He felt as if he'd seen the tattoo on the wrists of a thousand people he'd arrested.

Fordyce pointed to a design. "Here it is."

Slim lifted the design from the wall and the others gathered around. It was a three dimensional crucifix, the kind favored by East L.A. gang members. Everyone readily agreed it was the perfect unit logo. As Slim readied needle and ink, Black, stripping off his shirt, insisted on being the first to be tattooed.

"I want a tattoo on my butt," Brenda said.

To Stepanovich it seemed they were in the stuffy parlor for an eternity.

****

TWELVE

That evening, Stepanovich woke up in his apartment lying fully clothed on his mattress.

He craned his neck to look at the clock radio. It was after ten and his bladder was full. Coming to his feet, he walked to the bathroom to relieve himself. At a dull ache throbbing from his ankle, he looked down. Then he held it up to the mirror on the back of the door. There, in an area he remembered that the tattoo artist had shaved with an electric razor, was a swollen, scabby green tattoo: the letters CRASH above a three-dimensional Latin crucifix.

Hazy, lightheaded from the beer and whiskey, he staggered back to bed. Lying there with his mouth dry and his ankle aching, he tried to remember how he'd gotten home. His mind wandered through a boozy haze to the image of Brenda lying nude from the waist down on a long table as Slim worked on her alabaster right buttock with his electric needle/Black, shirtless and tattooed, unashamedly pissing on the sidewalk in front of the place/Fordyce passed out on the floor of the motor home/Arredondo walking around the tattoo parlor in his underwear with beer cans in both hands.

Later, to ease his growling stomach, Stepanovich made his way into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was empty except for a head of lettuce and a tomato. Using two heels of bread he found in the bread drawer, he prepared a tomato and lettuce sandwich with lots of mayonnaise. He gobbled down the vegetarian repast in a few bites, then returned to bed.

He slept fitfully for what was left of the night and awoke the next morning with a vivid picture of Greenie holding a bloody towel to his wife's head. He rubbed his eyes for a long time, as though to massage the thought away. Then remembering that it was Gloria's day off, he climbed out of bed and picked up the phone. The other end of the line clicked and he listened as a tape recording of Gloria's voice asked him to leave a message. At the sound of the tone, he recited his name and phone number, and set the receiver down. Then, realizing he was nearly late for work, he showered quickly and dressed.