Kind of Blue (37 page)

She gripped both ends of the handkerchief and pulled tight. “I just heard one little thing.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it was?”

She stuffed the handkerchief in her pocket. “All right then. I spend a lot of time in my backyard, tending to my roses. An alley runs behind my backyard and there’s an old sofa there. A low element hangs back there sometimes. Boys and girls, smoking marijuana and putting God knows what kind of poison into their bodies.

“About a month ago, I was out there in the early evening. I heard two youngsters who were out on the sofa, gabbing.”

“Exactly what did they say?”

“I heard one of them say something like, ‘If there’d been a reward for the Chinaman, Water Nose might have dimed off the fool.’”

“Who’s Water Nose?”

“I have no idea.”

“Anything else you hear?”

“Just enough to know they were talking about the man who killed that Oriental grocer last year.”

“Bae Soo Sung? Who ran the store at Fifty-fourth at Figueroa?”

“Yes. That’s who they were talking about.”

“Do you know who those kids were?”

“No idea. I usually make it a point to go right inside when they start gathering there.”

“Ever call the police on them?”

“It’s safer to just go inside and close my back window. I don’t want those boys doing anything to my car, my house, or to me.”

“Could you tell their race by their voices?”

“African-American. Definitely not a Spanish voice.”

We talked for a few more minutes, and I handed her my card. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

I drove back to Felony Special, pulled up a chair in front of a computer, and checked CalGangs—a statewide law enforcement gang file—but was unable to find a Water Nose. I then walked across the squad room to the gang unit and opened a green metal filing cabinet—known as the
Moniker File—which contained the names of thousands of gang members, and included their address, street names, tattoos, and gang affiliation. But, again, I couldn’t find a listing for Water Nose. Finally, I called the Southeast watch commander and asked for the cell number of Chester Pinson, the gang sergeant who’d given me some background on Reginald Fuqua.

I called and told Pinson about my interview with Sweet Maxine. “You know a Water Nose? I can’t find him in the system.”

“I know every O.G., banger, and pooh butt in this division,” Pinson said. “But I never heard of a Water Nose.”

“If you haven’t heard of him, maybe he doesn’t exist.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’ll tell my guys tonight to jam some of these gangsters and see if they can ID this guy. And I’ll put the word out to some of my snitches.”

“If you find anything, call me. I don’t care what time.”

I returned to the squad room and spent the next few hours typing up the notes I had taken from Pardo’s murder book, compiling a chrono, and putting together my own murder book for part two of my investigation into Latisha’s murder. At ten, I left the station, stopped for some shabushabu and a Sapporo in Little Tokyo, and headed home.

My ringing phone woke me the next morning.

“One of my snitches has something for you.” I recognized the voice. It was Chester Pinson.

“You’re working early on a weekend, Sarge.”

“I need the overtime. Got two kids in high school. I’m saving for college. Anyway, I’m sure Felony Special will authorize it.”

“They will, but hold off.” I told him to wait until the end of the D.P.—the twenty-eight-day deployment or pay period—until he called Duffy.

“Why?”

“It’s a long story. So where do you want to meet?”

“Southeast.”

“I’ll head right over.”

“Not so fast, homeboy,” Pinson said. “With my snitch, you play you pay.”

“Okay,” I said, laughing. “On my way in, I’ll stop by the ATM.”

I parked behind the bland, blocky Southeast Division station on 108th Street and crossed the squad room. Pinson and his snitch, a stocky black man in his early thirties with long, filthy dreadlocks, waited for me in a corner interview room.

“This is Vernon Tilly,” Pinson said to me, nodding toward the snitch.

“Let’s get right to it,” I said, sitting on a metal chair across from Tilly. “Who’s this Water Nose?”

Tilly grinned sheepishly—revealing a few missing lower teeth—and rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers. “First, I need some remumeration,” he said, mispronouncing the word.

“Vernon, Vernon, Vernon,” Pinson said, as if he were mildly scolding a child. “You know it don’t work that way. Tell us what you know. We’ll evaluate the information. Then we’ll pay you what it’s worth.”

“It not about the coin,” Tilly said, sounding indignant. “My moms need medicine for her glaucoma, and I gotta pay for it. If it weren’t for that, I’d be jawin’ with y’all for free. They takin’ a life these days for nuttin’. I ain’t wit’ dat. So I just tryin’ to be a good citizen. Help make my ’hood a better place.”

“We’re both well aware of how seriously you take your civic responsibilities,” Pinson said, giving me a surreptitious wink.

Tilly tugged on a dread and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “This is on the down-low, right?”

“Always,” Pinson said. “And I can vouch for Detective Levine. He won’t reveal where he got the information.”

“Aiight,” Tilly said.

“Now be a good citizen and tell us who Water Nose is.”

“They ain’t no Water Nose.”

“That’s not what you told me on the phone,” Pinson said, irritated.

“That ain’t his street name,” Tilly said.

“Look,” Pinson said. “It
is
his street name. We know that because a confidential informant told us. We want to find out who Water Nose is. And we want to find out where he lives.”

“They don’t call him that.”

“You’re full of shit,” Pinson said.

I leaned over and patted Tilly on the knee. “Vernon, take your time. We’ve got all morning. Tell us what you know about the guy we’re calling Water Nose.”

“What a nose.”

“What?” I said.

“What a nose.”

Pinson impatiently drummed his fingers on a thigh.

“This is beginning to sound like
Whose on First
,” I said. Leaning forward, I studied Tilly for a moment. “So you’re saying his name is not Water Nose.”

“That what I tryin’ to tell you.”

“His name is What A Nose?” I asked, astonished. I had never heard a nickname like that before.

Tilly nodded excitedly and shouted, “Yes!”

“I assume he has a large nose,” I said.

“He do. He got a big monsta nose. It wide. It long. It
ugly
.”

“Unbelievable,” Pinson said. “I never thought I’d need a white boy to translate Ebonics for me.”

I turned to Pinson and whispered, “My informant thought they said Water Nose, so I didn’t get a computer hit.”

“Tell us a little bit about this What A Nose,” Pinson said to Tilly.

“I don’t mean to dog the dude out, but he a big dummy,” Tilly said.

“He’s slow?” I asked.

Tilly tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Not much here.”

“Does he live on the southside?”

“Yeah.”

“You know where?” I asked.

“Naw.”

“What’s his set?”

“Five Deuce Hoover.”

“What’s his real name?” Pinson said.

“Don’t know that.”

“Does he know who killed that Korean grocer last year or the woman who was a witness?”

“You tole me you just wanted me to ID What A Nose,” Tilly said. “And I ID him for you. I don’t know nuttin’ about what he see or hear. That ain’t my bidness.”

When the interview was over, I handed Tilly forty dollars.

Tilly stared at the cash, frowning, and said, “Ain’t you a little light?”

“What the hell,” I said, peeling off another twenty.

After we escorted Tilly out the door, I said. “His good citizen line was a load of horseshit. But what about him using the money to buy medicine for his mom’s glaucoma. Is that for real?”

Pinson flashed me an are-you-kidding look. “Ash, you been away from the southside too long. His mom died three years ago.”

• • •

“Don’t even need the computer for this one,” Pinson said, opening the metal drawer of the Southeast’s Moniker File. Flipping through a few cards, he immediately located What A Nose. He was a twenty-four-year-old gangbanger named Earnest Dupray who had been arrested a half dozen times and served three years at Tracy for robbing a gas station with a toy gun. He had a misspelled tattoo on his throat: Fuc It, which made it easy for police to identify him after the robbery.

Dupray lived in a tumbledown South Central duplex, with the address spray painted below the front window, next to an auto repair shop on a smoggy stretch of South Broadway lined with liquor stores and laundromats. At the door, Pinson and I could hear a cartoon blaring from the television.

“That’s the gangbanger acid test,” I said, knocking on the door. “If a kid over the age of twelve is still watching cartoons, he’s a banger.”

A few seconds later, Dupray, who was wearing boxer shorts and a red FUBU sweatshirt, opened the door and stared dully at us.

I immediately understood the provenance of his street name. His nose was long, wide, and aquiline—resembling an eagle’s beak more than a nose—and probably had been broken a few times because it had several switchbacks, like a mountain road. The FUC IT tattoo on the side of his neck was clearly visible in large block letters.

I flashed my badge and introduced Pinson and myself.

Dupray continued to stare into space, eyes unfocused, breathing through his mouth.

“Can we come in, Earnest?” I asked.

Dupray shrugged and we followed him into the living room, which contained a ripped vinyl chair with the upholstery spilling out, a stained throw rug over the cement slab floor, and a few plastic milk crates, which I figured were used for chairs. There were no curtains on the windows, just silver foil taped to the glass.

Dupray dropped into his chair, reached for a can of Schlitz malt liquor on the floor, took a long pull, and was immediately engrossed in a
Blue’s Clues
cartoon that was blaring from the television.

Pinson and I dragged milk crates across the floor and sat across from Dupray.

“Must be an interesting episode,” I said, jerking a thumb toward the television.

Dupray nodded, without taking his eyes off the screen.

I reached over and shut off the television.

“Hey,” Dupray whined. “Gotta watch my ’toons.”

“We’re investigating a homicide, Earnest,” I said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”

“Ain’t no thang,” Dupray said. “I got nothin’ to hide.”

“About a year ago, a Korean man who owned a grocery store at Fifty-fourth and Figueroa was killed,” I said. “We know that you were a witness.”

“How you know that?” he asked, looking genuinely surprised.

“I’m a homicide detective. I know a lot of things about you. Now I want you to tell me what you saw that afternoon.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll have to arrest you for withholding information from a detective,” I said, bluffing. “And book you into county jail, where they don’t show cartoons in the cell blocks.”

Dupray scratched his nose with a knuckle and swigged his Schlitz. “If I help you, will you help me?”

“How?” I said.

“I been lookin’ for a job around here, but nobody want to hire me. I think they prejudice against bruthas.”

“In South Central?” Pinson said, incredulous.

“Tha’s right.”

“Maybe it has something to do with
that
,” Pinson said, pointing to the FUC IT tattoo on his neck. “You get rid of that, and we’ll talk about getting you a job.”

Dupray rubbed his neck and stared out the window.

“Let’s get back to what we were talking about,” I said. “Can you tell us about the afternoon of the shooting?”

“Do I have to?” Dupray asked, still staring at the blank television screen.

I nodded somberly. “Yes you do.”

“All right then,” Dupray said, mouth open, with a blank, bovine expression. “What you want, again?”

“We want to know what you saw?”

“I seen a few things.”

“Can you recount your activities that afternoon?” Pinson said.

Dupray bit his lower lip, his forehead furrowed in intense concentration, and said, “Five.”

“What do you mean, five?” I asked.

“You ask me to count my activities that afternoon. I watch TV. I smoke some bud. I get a burger and fries at Jack in the Box. I walk down to the thrifty store across from that market to buy myself a belt. That five things I did.”

I suppressed a smile. “Actually, Earnest, that’s only four things, not five. But we said to
re
count your activities, not count. That means tell us what you did that afternoon.”

“I just did.”

“Okay,” I said. “What did you see when you got to the thrift shop?”

“I saw a guy with a cartoon mask comin’ up on the chink’s store. Had a rod in his hand.”

I exchanged a glance with Pinson. This was consistent with what Latisha—who had seen a man in a Shrek mask—had told me.

“Automatic or revolver?”

“Automatic.

“Shiny or dull finish?”

“Shiny.”

“Did you see what kind of car he’d been driving?”

“Didn’t see no car.”

“What did you do then?”

“I knew trouble coming down. So I beat feet.”

“Can you describe the man with the gun?”

“I just did.”

“Was he tall or short?”

“Can’t rightly remember.”

“Slender or stocky.”

“Too long ago.”

“What race?”

“No race. The dude was like walking.”

“Was he black, white, Hispanic?”

“Seemed black to me.”

“Any tattoos?”

“Homie’s wearing a tight T-shirt.” He tapped his fingers on his upper arm. “But I could see right under the sleeve that the dude had a big C and a big K, with the C crossed out.”

Pinson and I exchanged a glance. We knew this meant the shooter was a member of a Blood set. CK is a common graffiti in Blood neighborhoods. It means Crip Killer. And the
C
s are usually crossed out with big
X
s.