Moist (10 page)

Only city buses drove by instead of floral floats as Don sat on the steps of Parker Center and ate a big greasy hamburger with Detective Flores and a couple of uniformed officers.

Other LAPD personnel stood in line at the roach coach waiting for their food. Don felt great. It was great to be a police officer. Great to be out there making the world a better place. Great to be eating this big gloppy burger in the sun with his comrades. Don knew that tonight he'd have to have a green salad and maybe a little sashimi to counteract the effects of this gutbomb, but that was a small price to pay for the absolutely glorious way he felt right here, right now.

Don dipped his fries into a little paper cup of ketchup and mused. He imagined Esteban Sola stripped of his toupee and wearing a bright orange LA County Jail jumpsuit. Don
relished the image of Esteban standing, bent and cuffed, ready to be deported to a Mexican jail. For too long Don had watched as Esteban had strutted and preened and lorded it over people. It was raw arrogance and nothing pissed Don off more than that. That's why he'd targeted Esteban, made it his personal mission to bring that motherfucking Juarez wetback down.

Don slurped his diet root beer. He turned to Flores.

“That evidence delivered yet?”

Flores looked up, his mouth packed with
carne asada
burrito, and shook his head. No.

“Well, I can't wait all day. I'm gonna make some calls and find out where this thing is.”

Don crumpled his gutbomb wrapper and arced it into the trash. He wiped his hands on his pants like a man and headed back into the building.

. . .

Don drove the dirty brown Caprice out of Parker Center. He didn't understand why the UC cars always had to be dirty brown Chevrolets. Parked in a line in the LAPD parking lot they looked like giant piles of dog crap. What kind of message did that send? Why not have the detectives zipping around LA in BMWs or a Lincoln Town Car or something? The shit brown was just as recognizable to the crumbs as a black-and-white, it didn't fool anyone, so why not mix it up? Driving one of these cars gave Don an understanding of why some detectives were on the take. It was not esteem-building. Sitting behind the wheel of a big stinking turd, who wouldn't consider collecting a little extra cash now and then?

Don didn't understand where this delivery guy could've
gone. He'd called United Pathology and gotten a list of all of the scheduled stops. The guy hadn't gone to a single one. So, like the good detective he was, Don was going to hit the streets and investigate. Anything was better than sitting around the office writing for Flores' gas to begin.

. . .

Larga never knew what to wear to these sessions. He felt uncomfortable wearing jeans because she made him take them all the way off. Something about constricting the blood flow to the prostate. The prostate needing oxygen to make more of that slimy stuff it made. Shorts? Shorts just seemed so gay. Larga stood naked in front of the mirror. He turned sideways and saw his big gut sagging outward in profile. Perhaps sweatpants. Larga dug through his closet and pulled out a matching nylon jogging suit, the kind that fat guys in New Jersey wear when they're driving their Camaros around in the afternoon. He'd bought it when he'd decided to take up jogging. He'd worn it once.

. . .

Don pulled up in front of United Pathology. A big building full of dead stuff. Even though he'd seen hundreds of dead bodies, something about this building gave him the creeps. Maybe it was because when Don found the bodies they were still people. Even a corpse has personality. Personal effects. A life lived and lost. Here, in the pathology lab, it was reduced to tissue, fluids, samples. No life. No character. The last thing Don wanted was some Poindexter poking around his body
when he was dead. Hopefully you really are dead when you're dead. Don entered the building.

. . .

Morris sat in front of the computer waiting for a Web site to open. It took a fucking ice age to load, and when it was done it was the same old thing. Morris had been to several sites offering “free” photos, and all of them had demanded a credit card number as “proof” that the viewer was over twenty-one. As if a teenager couldn't get a credit card. As if someone under twenty-one shouldn't be allowed to look at pornography.
Shit,
Morris thought,
I've been banging the beaver since I was fifteen.
It was a very annoying way to spend the afternoon.

Morris looked up as some dude in a sports coat came in. The guy smiled and flashed a badge. He didn't do it fast like they do in the movies. He held it out a really long time, as if Morris was too stupid to read.

“Hey.”

The police dude cleared his throat.

“Hi. I'm looking for a piece of evidence. It was supposed to be delivered to Parker Center today.”

“You mean the arm?”

“Yes.”

“It should be there already.”

“It's not.”

Morris looked at the guy, then he looked at his screen. Spunk.com had loaded and, shit, it was gay porn. Morris tried to click the page off, but it was still loading and just hung there, literally. Morris started to sweat. He impulsively punched the button and just turned the monitor off.

“Well, it should be any minute.”

“It's not there.”

“It should be.”

“I know it should be, but it isn't. That's why I'm here.”

“It'll get there.”

“Where is it?”

“Is it important?”

“Yes.”

“Then it'll get there.”

Don cleared his throat.

“It's not there.”

Morris wondered why this guy was so dense.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to tell me where it is.”

Morris shrugged.

“Dude, I don't know.”

The police guy leaned in, acting all heavy and pissed off. He reached around and turned the monitor back on.

“What're you doin', man?”

“Where's the arm?”

“En route.”

“En route to where?”

“Parker Center.”

“But it's not at Parker Center.”

“Right. It's en route.”

The monitor came back on with several graphic and revealing images of male-on-male intercourse. Morris began to squirm.

“Oh, man, that's not what I wanted.”

The cop guy smiled like he had something on Morris.

“Who has the arm?”

“Bob.”

Morris clicked the image away. This time it disappeared.

“Where's Bob?”

“Fuck if I know, man. He should be at Parker Center.”

. . .

Bob sat in the front seat as Norberto drove. Esteban and Martin were in back. Amado had decided to remain at the safe house; his favorite
telenovela
was about to come on and he didn't want to miss it.

“Turn right here.”

Bob was directing them to Maura's office. It was in a nondescript box of a building.

Bob was sweating. He was starting to have some doubts about the whole deal. Second thoughts. Third thoughts. Fourth and fifth thoughts. On the one hand he was excited to be on this adventure.
You don't really know how boring your life is
, he thought,
until adventure comes conking you in the head and stuffing you in a trunk
.

But on the other hand Bob knew that he was not a bad guy. He wasn't a thief or a murderer and he didn't really want to become one.

By the sixth thought, he had rationalized it. He was going to be all right. He wasn't going to kill anyone. He was only playing his part in an unfolding drama. How could he judge it? It was just beginning.

The seventh thought, however, was just like the second.
If I don't do what they say, they'll kill me. They might kill me anyway.
That was eight.

“You can park in the lot behind the building. She validates.”

“Not if you really break up with her.”

Bob considered that.

“Right.”

Bob got out of the car and entered the building. Bob thought about what he'd say to Maura. He wished he was angry. Really fucking pissed off. Wished that he could scream and call her a bitch, throw something, break a plate or knock over a table . . . you know, make a good show of it. But Bob wasn't in the mood. In fact, the more he thought about breaking up with her, the happier he became. He'd been stuck in this boring bohemian lifestyle for so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to be excited by other possibilities. It was a great big world, and here he'd been sitting on the couch watching TV, drinking beer, and sending e-mails to his friends. What had he been thinking? Now he was a new man with a new career, a dangerous and exciting one, and perhaps, a new woman in his life. A fiery, voluptuous Latina who could teach him Spanish and make him her sex slave all at the same time. He was practically giddy.

Bob bounded up the stairs to Maura's office.

. . .

Esteban was worried. How much time did they have to pull this off? Would it even work? He knew that as long as the cops didn't have Amado's arm or Amado—figuring that a man missing an arm would be as much circumstantial evidence as an arm missing a man—they couldn't build a case.
Without either there was no way they could tie Carlo's murder to him, it would be over.
Terminara.
But when he thought about it, that seemed so
flojo.
Better to take it one step further. Give them some kind of clue that would have them chasing their tails for months if not years. A real
“¡Qué te jodas!”
right in the fucking face of the
federales
. Let the
jalapeños
know who's boss. That, he thought, would be
mejor
. Better than
mejor
, it would be
la puta madre
.

Suddenly Norberto turned from the front and nudged Esteban.

“Mira.”

Esteban followed Norberto's gaze and watched as a plump gringo in a track suit climbed out of a Saab.

“El es un poco gordo como Amado.”

“Cierto.”

Norberto reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy sap. Martin started squirming.

“I don't know, guys, maybe this is a bad idea.”

Esteban glared at Martin. He watched as the
jodiendo gringo
withered right in front of him.

“Creo que el niño se ha meado en los pantalones.”

Norberto laughed.

“Qué lástima.”

Martin sat up and pointed at Norberto.

“Don't think I can't understand what you guys are saying, because I do. Mostly.”

Esteban growled.

“Understand this. We need an arm. El Gordo has an arm.
¿Entiendes?
”

Martin nodded.

Norberto and Esteban climbed out of the car.

. . .

Max Larga woke up to the gentle rocking of a car in traffic. It was dark and his head was throbbing. He didn't remember much. He was on his way to his appointment and then he woke up in the trunk of a car. What the hell was going on? Why was he in a trunk? You don't just dump someone in a trunk. This was not how civilized people behaved, he was sure of that. Not that he was uncomfortable, it was a spacious trunk.

Larga decided he needed to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. He began to kick the trunk lid as hard as he could. It didn't take long before he got tired of that—it didn't seem to be making much difference. So he felt around in the trunk for something hard. He came up with a tire iron and began to pound that against the frame, the hood, whatever made the loudest noise.

Larga felt a sense of triumph when the car finally slowed to a stop. He heard the driver's side door open. He couldn't wait, he was going to give them hell. You can't just put Max Larga in the trunk of your car and not answer for it.

The trunk lid was thrown open. Larga was temporarily blinded by the light, but he could distinctly see a Mexican man with a ponytail swinging a baseball bat right at his head.

. . .

Don was annoyed. He wasn't getting anywhere. He'd called Flores at Parker Center. There was no sign of Bob, the delivery guy, or the arm. He'd called UCLA, where Bob was scheduled to drop some tissue samples for the medical students. Nothing. Don knew something was wrong . . . but what?

“Tell me, does Bob take drugs?”

Morris squirmed.

“I don't know.”

“Of course you know.”

“You can't expect me to be a narc, man.”

“So he does do drugs. Is that what you're saying?”

Morris clammed up.

“You're not going to tell me?”

“I got nothing to say until my lawyer gets here.”

“But you're not under arrest.”

That made Morris think.

“Did you do something that might lead to your arrest?”

“No.”

“Then just answer the question.”

Don watched as the kid worked it out in his brain, replaying in his mind some lawyer show that he'd seen on television, trying to remember how it ended. Don had seen this countless times in interview rooms and crime scenes. Once a crumb even asked him if he remembered a
Columbo
episode. As if Don was patterning his line of questions after a TV show. Don still hadn't decided whether all these cop shows and lawyer shows had made his job easier or more difficult. People seemed to think that what he did was more glamorous, which definitely helped when he went out on a date.

“Does Bob have a drug problem?”

“Dude, I don't think it's a problem.”

“But he does puff the occasional joint.”

“Maybe. He likes beer. I know that.”

“So do you think he's at a bar?”

Morris scratched his head.

“Maybe. He was pretty crabby when he came in this morning.”