You Can Die Trying (29 page)

“And the part of the picture we’re missing is what? As if I couldn’t guess,” Kupchak said.

“Only the vast majority of people you’re supposed to be serving down here. That’s all,” Gunner said.

“So I exaggerated a little. There are good, law-abiding citizens in this community, sure. We see ’em all the time. But we see the other kind more. And mistaking one kind for the other can get a cop killed faster than anything else I know. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

“Goddamn straight,” somebody at the next table agreed.

“So you assume the worst about everybody, just to be on the safe side,” Gunner said. “Is that it?”

“You’d better believe it. I told you, Gunner: This is war. And the enemy in this war wears a million disguises and comes at you from a thousand different directions. You can’t make it down here giving people the benefit of the doubt, all right? You
can’t.
You can get yourself blown away trying that Mr. Nice Guy shit down here.”

“How about just being human? Is that a safe proposition, or are you asking for trouble there, too?”

“Anything we do out here is asking for trouble. That’s my whole point. You want to be a human being first, and a cop second? Fine. That’s your privilege. But they’ll be pinning all your medals to a dead man’s chest later, friend. Believe it.”

A rumble of assent rolled throughout the room, and at last Gunner understood the futility of the argument he was engaged in. Kupchak’s view of the world had been set in stone years ago, and there wasn’t a power on earth strong enough to change it now. Basically, Gunner thought, the policeman’s lament wasn’t much different from Dancing Fred’s, as the homeless black man had expressed it that night at the Popeye’s Fried Chicken stand:The world was cold; life was dangerous; and all you had to do to meet a sudden end was have the audacity to attempt to survive it all.

“You can die tryin’,” Fred had said sadly.

Abruptly, Gunner tossed back the last of his drink and stood up. “It was nice talking to you, Kupchak. It’s been enlightening, to say the least.”

“What happened, Gunner? I hurt your feelings?” Kupchak asked him, remaining seated.

Gunner simply grinned at him and walked away.

“Hey! Don’t be a stranger, now!” Kupchak called after him, watching the black man wind his way through the muttering crowd to the door. “Drop in again any time, huh?”

Tickled by his own sarcasm, Kupchak started laughing, causing several people in the house to erupt right along with him.

By the time Gunner reached his car outside, there wasn’t a single cop in McQueen’s who wasn’t having the time of their life at his expense.

The next day, Gunner found himself parked out in front of Davey’s Market again.

As usual, he was supposed to be watching out for the three pint-sized holy terrors who had been vandalizing David Huong’s establishment, but today his eyes were all over the place, his mind wandering.

He should have never had that talk with Harry Kupchak.

The things he had learned at that table in McQueen’s he would have preferred not to know. It was the kind of harsh reality that made a man wonder why the world was still turning, when the immeasurable weight of mankind’s love for self-destruction should have stopped it in its tracks eons ago. Kupchak was only one cop, it was true, but Gunner had little doubt the policeman’s views were shared not only by his friends at McQueen’s, but by many of his fellow Southwest officers, as well. All you had to do was watch the latter in action to know that.

And Danny Kubo had died trying to warn Gunner that more of the same were on the way.

It wasn’t a heartwarming thought, if you were one of the “good” black people cops like Kupchak had such a difficult time acknowledging. It meant that you had to prove more than your mere innocence when you were unfortunate enough to come up against them; you had to prove your worth as a human being first, before anything else. Because the system in which they operated had taught them to question not only your good intentions but your right to be considered their equal, as well. Along with all the amusing names they liked to use for you came any number of misconceptions, and all you had to do to get along with them was dispel those misconceptions one by one, time and time again.

While the hell that was their daily bread out on the street kept reinforcing all their fears and prejudices against you.

The description “no-win” seemed to fit this situation to a T, Gunner thought.

Someday, he tried to reassure himself, the LAPD and the black community would find a way to break the vicious cycle that was pulling them further and further apart with every passing day. All the finger pointing would stop and the healing process would begin. It was not inconceivable. But in the meantime, there would only be a continuation of what Harry Kupchak had accurately described as a war, and everyone involved would lose. Some would lose a son, some a daughter; others, a partner or a friend. Almost no one would be spared.

It was insane.

“I thought that was you,” Claudia Lovejoy suddenly said.

Gunner looked up, startled, to see that she was standing on the sidewalk beside his car, staring at him. Her late-model Honda Accord had somehow snuck up behind him and parked, a few car lengths down on the same side of the street.

“I was driving by, and I saw the car. And I thought, if you’d seen me, and I didn’t stop …” She shrugged, as if she thought that would make her explanation seem more plausible. “I just didn’t want to seem rude, that’s all.”

“I see,” Gunner said.

“Maybe I should have just kept going.”

She’d caught the pained expression on his face before he could turn it away from her.

“No. Not at all.”

“But you look like you’re working.”

He showed her a shrug of his own, careful not to put too much annoyance in it. “Some kids have been giving Davey over there a hard time lately, so I told him I’d keep an eye out for them when I could. It’s just something to do, really.” He looked back across the street at the market again, afraid to keep giving her his undivided attention. She looked as beautiful as ever.

She stared at the back of his head for a moment, then said, “You look good.”

“Thanks. So do you.” He’d turned his eyes toward her, but that was all.

“I haven’t been very kind to you lately, have I?”

“Claudia …”

“No. No. It’s true. That message I left with Mickey the other day …”

“Forget about it. I was being hardheaded, and you were just tired of dealing with it. You did what you had to do. It’s okay.”

“No. It isn’t.” She waited patiently for Gunner to finally turn around again. “Okay, I mean. In fact, it’s been far from that, you want to know the truth.”

She showed him a thin smile and a shrug.

“So welcome to the club,” Gunner said.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Look. This is your party, remember? Any time you want to call it off, you can.”

“I know. And I want to. But …” She shook her head. “Not just yet. I still need a little more time.”

Trying his best not to sound bitter, Gunner said, “We
all
need a little more time, Claudia.”

She was behind the Honda’s wheel by the time regret fully set in. He watched the car pull off in his rearview mirror and then followed its course with his eyes as it vanished down the street ahead of him, making every light. Without thinking, he fired the Cobra up and started to go after her, to demand some explanation for the scene she’d just cast him in, but the sound of his own name being shouted in the street brought him quickly back to his senses.

He killed the car’s ignition and looked off to his left just in time to see a trio of young boys in laceless sneakers and bright-colored clothes cross 108th Street on the dead run, leaving a furious and frantic David Huong in their wake. Huong was standing out in the street in front of his market, screaming and gesturing at Gunner to give chase, forcing southbound traffic on Avalon to bob and weave its way around him.

Gunner grabbed his keys and took off running, flying after Huong’s little tormentors like a dog yapping after a mailman. The kids were almost two full blocks ahead of him at the start, but his stride was much greater than theirs and he made up ground on them easily. They fled east on 107th Street, trying to lose him, but it didn’t do them any good. He was on his own turf now, only houses from his home, and there was no way he was going to lose any race being run in his own backyard.

By the time the three boys reached McKinley Avenue, imploring each other on through the labored breathing of foot soldiers at boot camp, all Gunner had to do was decide which one he wanted to scare the shit out of. The one taking up the rear would have been easy pickings, of course, but the investigator went for the smaller kid in the middle of the pack, instead. He clamped a hand around the boy’s bony neck and just reeled him in, leaving the remaining pair to make good their escape. They waited until they were far out of reach to stop and look back at him, then showed him the middle finger of their right hands and laughed, daring him to do something about it.

The oldest of the two couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and already they knew how to tell a man to go fuck himself without even saying a word.

Meanwhile, the friend they’d left behind was giving Gunner all he could handle, screaming at the top of his lungs and clawing at the black man’s hands with both of his own, trying to break Gunner’s grip on his neck. He kept shouting the same thing over and over again, like a talking doll stuck on a single recorded phrase: “I didn’t do nothin’! I didn’t do nothin’!”

“I’m going to kill you,” Gunner told him, shaking him out like a wet rag doll just to wear him down a little. “I’m going to walk you over to the freeway and throw your ass down over the side. Come on.”

He started dragging the kid back toward Avalon Boulevard and the Harbor Freeway far beyond.

The boy struggled against him frantically, making one last, great effort to save himself, but Gunner remained unfazed. As Avalon loomed closer and closer, the little man finally broke into tears and went limp in Gunner’s hands, certain that his life was over.

“I’m going to drop you on a blue car,” Gunner said casually, watching for the kid’s reaction. “That okay with you? Blue?”

The boy just kept crying. He had a smooth brown complexion and a handsome, unmarked face, and tears were cutting a swath through the thin film of grime on his cheeks. He was just a baby, six, maybe seven years old, but he was already making plans for his own funeral, like his buddies were down the street. They just didn’t know it, yet.

“But I didn’t do nothin’,” the little man sobbed, forcing the words out between sniffles.

“Yes you did, goddamnit!”

Gunner stopped walking and snatched him around, ending the game. “You fucked up! You went in that store and jacked it up, just like you did the last time! Don’t lie about it!”

“But it was Pee Cee—” He started to point a finger at one of his accomplices hovering in the distance.

“Fuck Pee Cee! You went in there with him, didn’t you? That makes you just as guilty as he is. You let him talk you into doing something stupid, sweet pea, that’s
your
problem, not his.”

“But—”

“What’s your name?”

The kid was rubbing his eyes now, trying to pretend he didn’t hear the question. “Huh?”

“You heard me. Your name.”

The kid kept on rubbing his eyes, his head down, and said, “Gaylon.” He had done everything possible to make the name unintelligible.

“Gaylon what?”

“Gaylon Brown.”

“How old are you, Gaylon Brown?”

“Six.”

“Six, huh? Well, let me tell you something. A six-year-old man has no business letting anybody tell them what to do. You understand? You’re too old to be somebody else’s punk.”

“Punk?”

“That’s right. Punk. You know what a punk is? A punk is somebody who does shit he knows he shouldn’t do just because he sees one of his homeboys doing it. Like this Pee Cee, for instance. You do everything Pee Cee tells you to do?”

Gaylon Brown shook his head emphatically.

“Bullshit. Yes you do. Don’t lie. You’re his punk.”

“I ain’t nobody’s punk!”

“Did he come back here to help you? Did he run to your mother or father to get help? Hell no. He didn’t do shit. He’s standing over there right now, just waiting to see what I’m going to do to you. You think he’s your friend? Shit.…”

Gunner shook his head and laughed.

“It’s like this, Gaylon Brown. I’m going to let you go—this time,” Gunner said. “But I’m going to be watching you. You understand what I’m saying? I’m going to be
watching you.
And if I ever see you messing up again—jacking up somebody’s market, or snatching somebody’s purse—
whatever
—I’m going to take you over to the freeway. And I’m going to throw your sorry little ass down onto the fast lane, in front of a big blue Oldsmobile. So help me God. You believe that, Gaylon Brown?”

The kid nodded his head, trying to keep from crying again.

“All right, then. Raise.” Gunner released his grip on the little boy’s neck.

Gaylon Brown started running and didn’t look back until he was safely among his friends again, too far away to be concerned about Gunner ever reclaiming him. When the trio of boys broke out laughing and raised their middle fingers skyward in salute to him, like miniature musketeers proudly crossing swords in defiance of the king, Gunner wasn’t much surprised.

But neither was he amused.

Walking slowly back to his car, he considered Gaylon Brown’s mistake. The poor kid had thought he was bluffing, because the freeway threat was so outrageous. He’d assumed because that part of Gunner’s act was hollow, all the rest of it had to be, as well. What he didn’t know was how much of Lendell Washington Gunner had just seen in him, or how much his relationship to his friend Pee Cee reminded the investigator of the bond Washington had allegedly had with his cousin, Noah Ford.

And Gaylon Brown certainly didn’t know what a pain in the ass Gunner could be, once he decided to make a perfect stranger’s business his own.