L.A. Confrontational Page 8

  Silence greeted my question. I panicked. “Jesse, are you all right?” I turned on the interior light and could see her in the rearview mirror sitting upright in the back seat, a angry gaze in her eyes. As we approached I-40, I turned onto Frontage Road, and cruised into the back end of a busy Lowe’s parking area and killed the lights. I jumped out of the car just as she emerged from the back door and attempted to catch me with a right hook. I caught her hand balled into a fist. I slowly brought her arms down and wrapped mine around her. After about 30 seconds. I could feel the tension release in her body and the distant gaze dissipate from her eyes. As she recovered, I let go of her arms and she reached around and held me close, her head dropping to my shoulder. She smelled of sweet lavender and her soft, short blonde bangs tickled my nostrils. I didn’t move.

  We released each other, her face only inches from mine. The urge to feel and taste her lips and tongue overwhelmed me. I peered into her hazel eyes “Did you have one of your spells?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. They were shooting at us.”

  “Yeah, they’re nice guys.” I led her by the hand to the front of the car and opened the door so she could crawl into the front seat. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  She saw my concern and smiled. “I’m fine now, really.”

  I got in and started the car. She reached over and grabbed my right arm. “I heard what he said. You know this Junky? He’s the one that has Sarah?”

  “Yeah, I know him. Every cop in L.A. knows him.” I sighed. “We have a history.” I drove to my apartment and parked the Chrysler in the neighboring apartment’s lot. We walked to my place, got my car, and drove to my office. Would Joey try to track me down or leave the violence up to Junky? Regardless, Jesse needed to be safely out of town in case there were any violent repercussions.

  I told Jesse about Junky on the drive to the office. “I had been on the force for about a year when we busted him the first time. We had an airtight case but his lawyer had him out in three days. Being inexperienced and naïve about how things worked, I believed you built up your case against a criminal and they went to jail. We had clear evidence of his running drugs and prostitution rings all across the city, plus a lot of circumstantial evidence he or his employees had killed women who thought they could sever their professional relationship with him.”

  “And you’re going to L.A. to confront this guy?” She sounded worried.

  “I don’t have a choice. He has Sarah.”

  “Why not just contact the police?”

  “I don’t trust the police. The visit needs to be a surprise. If Junky gets wind of what I’m after they’ll kill Sarah and then come after me.” We reached my building and after checking the street, we left the car and hustled inside to my office. I pulled down the window shades and turned on a desk lamp. It had an adjustable glass cover that tilted away from the windows to reduce the potential of our shadows being visible from the outside.

  Jesse leaned over with her hands resting on the desk. “You have anything to drink in here?”

  I reached into my desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniels, and filled each glass with a healthy shot. We sat on my small sofa. The booze lubricated my gut, settled my nerves, and loosened my tongue. I told her most of the rest of the story.

  “It wasn’t until several years after Junky’s first bust that I suspected my fellow cops were involved in the prostitution ring. I anticipated some pay offs and corruption, but not the depth of the conspiracy committed by my partner and his cohorts.”

  “Couldn’t you go to your supervisor or someone at a higher level and report your suspicions?”

  “Not really. They had enough brass on the take to head off any investigation attempt. I wanted to bust these crooked cops, but I was afraid of losing my job, my life, and the lives of my wife and kid.”

  Jesse sipped her drink and stared right at me. “Did you take any bribes?”

  “No, but by not saying anything I was an accessory. As the pressure mounted, my consumption of booze increased after work just so I could go home and sleep for a few hours. Drinking waged an increasingly intense war on my conscience. It corrupted my sense of morality, and contributed to my failure as a husband and father.”

  “What happened to your family?”

  “During my suspension and while the investigation proceeded, my wife resigned her job with the medical examiner’s office and disappeared with my daughter. The marriage was pretty much dead by then, and my indictment proved to be the nails in the shut coffin. Being around the law enforcement community, Joanne knew what to expect. Despite my destructive habits and outward indifference, my kid means the world to me. Joanne sensed the danger and got our daughter out of there.”

  Jesse nodded. “Smart woman. So what happened next?”

  “After the case leaked to the media and became a public embarrassment to the department, Internal Affairs arrived to investigate. A dozen cops, me included, received temporary suspensions while the investigation proceeded. I dreaded being interrogated knowing the other cops would exact vengeance if they suspected me of whistle blowing. I hadn’t told anyone about what I knew, but several of the cops were suspicious.”

  I glanced at Jesse as we sipped our drinks, but her blank expression revealed nothing about what she thought about me. No one knew the entire story, not even my ex-wife. The pressure to unload the story had been building inside for so long.

  “Have you spoken to her? I mean your daughter.”

  “Not in over a year.”

  Jesse nodded sympathetically. “Go on.”

  “Despite being hurt and embarrassed, my dad stepped in and helped me hire a lawyer.”

  “Why was he embarrassed?”

  “He’s a former cop and he just assumed I was guilty.”

  “How sad. So what did you do?”

  “I stayed home with a new security system and reinforced locks on the doors and windows. My Smith & Wesson became my new mate, replacing my wife on the pillow next to me. Peeking through the window shades, I occasionally saw fellow officers drive by in their private vehicles. To leave the house, I snuck out through the backyard or called a cab and dashed to the curb. Like in the movie Serpico, I was convinced someone had rigged my car with a bomb.”

  “You must have been terrified. But they didn’t kill you.”

  “Despite the official warning placed on us not to communicate with each other, I called my partner after a few weeks and described the hell my life had become. I should have won an Oscar for my role as the innocent bystander. Benny promised relief and within a week, the harassing phone calls and daily drive-bys stopped. My partner had explained to the other suspended cops that I didn’t know enough to implicate any of them and they were actually drawing attention to themselves by harassing an honest cop. I appreciated my partner running interference for me, but I never forgave him for putting my family in such danger.”

  “So, eventually you had to testify.”

  “My deposition provided little detail to Internal Affairs. I maintained an aura of ignorance and responded to the cross-examination without misstep. In the end, most of the cops were acquitted due to a lack of evidence. I suspected I.A. never put much effort into the investigation given the number of cops involved and the possibility the bribes had reached higher levels in the bureaucracy. After nearly six months of investigation, three cops, having been particularly careless, were fired for professional indiscretion. Someone had to take the fall to prevent the media from paying too much attention to the waste of taxpayer’s money. Four months later, I sold the house and resigned after a six-year career.”

  We sat quietly for a long time. The confession had exhausted me. Jesse studied me for a moment. “So how did you end up in Albuquerque?”

  “I didn’t know where to go. I grew up in Phoenix, but it was too close to L.A. My wife and daughter were gone and my Arizona family had abandoned me. I knew Andy had quit his job as a deputy sheriff with L.A. County and moved back to New Mexico.
He invited me to visit, so I packed up the car with what little I had left and departed for Albuquerque. I stayed with Andy for a few months and he gave me work assisting him with some cases. He never asked for a dime, even though I had some money after making a small profit on the house. Eventually, I rented an apartment and landed a few cases on my own; mostly from wives or husbands who wanted me to determine whether their spouses were cheating.”

  “Where are your wife and daughter?”

  “Not sure exactly, but I suspect Joanne is in Vegas. Her sister lives there.”

  She started to ask another question, but I interrupted. “Please Jesse, I’d feel a lot better with you back in Santa Fe.”

  She nodded and stood up. “I do need to go.” She walked over and opened the door. She stopped and turned to me. “I like you, Arch. You’re a nice guy.”

  “I like you too, Jesse.” She gave me an inscrutable smile guys find hard to interpret. The kind that maybe represented a heartfelt declaration of attraction or also could have been dismissed as a “thanks for your efforts.” Just about the time I marshaled the courage for a clever retort, she was out the office door. The tenderness had lasted for only a blissful second, but it meant something, didn’t it? I locked my office door and hurried after her.

  I stopped her at the building doorway to scan the street. It looked clear, but as we exited, I kept one hand on the gun in my belt and one hand on her arm, ready to move us quickly if I saw a car coming down the street at this time of the night. Her admission that she liked me triggered my false bravado.

  We stopped at her car. “You okay to drive?”

  “I’ll be fine.” She smiled and opened her eyes wide to reassure me.

  She opened her car door as I scanned the street. She turned to me. “Be careful in L.A.” She gave me a quick peck on the lips and drove off.

  Chapter 12

  A rush hour traffic jam on the I-10 just before the Santa Monica Freeway welcomed me back to the City of Angels. Finally, I arrived at the airport to drop off my car and pick up a rental as a precaution. My ex-colleagues might recognize my conspicuous bright yellow New Mexico license plate with “UCLA” followed by “88”, my number for three years of varsity football.

  I returned to the terminal to find a payphone near the baggage claim area. I dialed the number for the LAPD Pacific Station in Culver City where my ex-partner Benny McAllister had been reassigned after his acquittal in the scandal. My watch read 5:15 p.m. Benny worked the day shift and most likely had departed—I didn’t intend to speak to him, but needed to determine if he’d left for the day. He didn’t need to know about my arrival in L.A. until later that evening. The dispatcher informed me Officer McAllister was no longer on duty. I thanked her and hung up.

  At the first island in front of the terminal, I caught the shuttle bus to the Enterprise car rental facility, where I picked a Cadillac DTS. The car was big enough to seat the entire UCLA offensive line, and also had an eight-cylinder engine should a fast getaway be necessary.

  I headed north on Sepulveda before turning west onto Lincoln and into Playa Del Rey. The parking lot of Outlaws featured an enormous marquee of an art deco cowboy, presumably of the law breaking variety, leaning back and hoisting a frosted mug overloaded with beer suds. The cowboy hovered above me as I headed for the wooden stairs and deck as darkness descended upon the coast. A thick fog settled in, chilling the air. The ocean smell was comforting, but the cold humidity, so rare in my new desert home, penetrated my light jacket and sent me indoors with the other patrons.

  I checked for Benny in the dimly lit main bar and in The Library, a room where groups ate dinner at tables surrounded by bookshelf-lined walls filled with the classics.

  With no sign of my ex-partner, I settled on a bar stool and ordered a Pyramid. Jeanie, the cute, plump bartender flashed a smile. Did she remember me from the old days?

  Despite my recent absence, a similar cast of characters assembled at the bar. A man with dark shades wearing a blue wool sweater under a camel-haired coat sat across from me. Without checking, I knew his seeing-eye dog was nestled at the man’s feet, his butt against the bar and his body lying forward through the legs of the barstool. Gordy, an old friend of Benny’s, had owned and operated Gordon’s Market, a small grocery across the street from the bar. His gray hair had thinned considerably and he wore ragged pants the color of a California tangerine. His wife had passed away and without her guidance, getting dressed must have been like playing fashion Russian roulette.

  After about an hour, a stool opened up next to Gordy. As I sat, Gordy’s head tilted toward me.

  “Hello Gordy.”

  “Hmm, I recognize the voice. Don’t tell me.” He hesitated as if his memory was trying to catch up with his hearing. “Well keep talking, damnit. I can’t guess if you’re silent.”

  “You mean my aura isn’t strong enough for you to recognize me, you old coot?”

  Gordy smiled. “Arch? Arch Caldwell, is that you?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Where you been?”

  “Albuquerque.”

  “Isn’t that on the other side of Arizona in Mexico?” Gordy broke out in a low rumbling laughter that fell into a hacking cough. He never had much patience for geographically- challenged people and he let anyone in the bar know if they slipped up. His blindness gave him carte blanche when it came to being rude, especially with complete strangers. People said things in front of Gordy, they wouldn’t have said in the presence of a person with full sight. It was a strange phenomenon, the blindness created a sense of security, as if the lack of vision dulled the other senses. Well positioned in his store or on a stool in the bar, he became a listening post, picking up individual conversations normally buried in the aural layers reverberating in a crowded room.

  He had been a great source of tips during my LAPD days.

  Gordy recovered and took a sip of his beer. “What you doin’ here?”

  “I’m looking for Benny.”

  He tilted his head in my direction. “He know you lookin’ for him?”

  “Not yet. I just got into town.”

  “Haven’t talked to him tonight. Might’ve gone home.”

  “It would be a first if he went home before stopping at Outlaws.”

  Gordy threw his head back, letting out a short snort. “Aint it the truth, Arch.”

  His bottle of Budweiser had a few sips of beer left. I motioned to Jeanie. “Can I get another Bud here for my friend Gordy?”

  She nodded, dove into the silver ice chest, and came out with the familiar red bottle delivered open with a smack on the wood in front of Gordy. He guzzled what remained in the old bottle, which Jeanie promptly removed.

  “Mighty kind of you, Arch.” I tapped his bottle with my empty one, prompting me to order another Pyramid.

  After taking a healthy swig, Gordy turned slightly, his face angled toward me. “You got a bum deal, Arch.”

  “How’s that Gordy?”

  “You was implicated in that scandal, but I know for a fact you wasn’t guilty of anything.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I know these things.” He tapped his forehead just above the sunglasses.

  “Yeah, well you’re right most of the time. There was never anything wrong with your hearing or memory.”

  He nodded, leaned toward my beer, and took an exaggerated sniff. “You drinking wheat beer now?”

  “Sure. You still smelling beer for a living, Gordy?”

  Gordy had made a lot of money over the years betting visitors he could guess what kind of beer they were drinking. That would encourage the strangers to silently order one of the more obscure brands. With his keen sense of smell, and memory of the hundred or so beers served in the joint, he could guess the correct beer 99% of the time with just one sniff. It provided good entertainment and Gordy enjoyed impressing the gullible participants with his skills as he separated them from their money. The bolder losers challenged Gordy, thinking it was
a scam, but a quick removal of those shades convinced any doubter. Gordy’s eyes resembled pool cue balls—the empty white sheen of a man who had not seen the light of day in an entire lifetime.

  I always wondered why Gordy’s keen senses did not apply to taste, since he now chose to drink Bud rather than any of the many varieties of beer available. Perhaps he wasn’t willing to spend the extra buck.

  Gordy’s advanced olfactory senses impressed me. Having similar skills made Andy Lujan such a good detective. He used to guess the brand of colognes and perfumes of customers passing our table while we dined in a restaurant. Feelings of sorrow and loss drifted past like small clouds crossing in front of the sun.

  Gordy’s eyebrows arched upwards. “You okay, Arch?”

  “Sure, Gordy. Just thinking about all the good times here in L.A.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  We drank in silence until I finished my beer. “Let me give you my phone number Gordy, just in case you see Benny.”

  “Sure, Arch.” He pulled a black smartphone out of his pants and slid it on the bar in front of me. “Just state your name followed by your number. It will be saved automatically in my contact list.”

  “You getting all high-tech on me, Gordy?”

  “Unfortunately, some of us with disabilities have to rely on such gadgets. You’re lucky.”

  “Everybody’s got some kind of disability, Gordy. You’ve adapted better than most.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Arch.” He tipped his bottle towards mine and I toasted him with my empty one.

  I followed his instructions and entered my name and number before placing the smartphone on the bar on front of him with a soft clunk so he knew it was there. He nodded and returned the phone to his pants pocket.

  I left Gordy with another Bud and headed back to my car around 9:00 p.m. Gordy would alert Benny of my return should he arrive later, but he was a happy-hour drinker and rarely visited at this hour. For most cops then and now, happy hour provided a daily transition from the law enforcement mentality that consumed us before we headed home to family, a lover, or an empty apartment. After Benny’s three kids graduated and moved away, he tried to return home to his wife at a reasonable hour. Despite being a crooked, mediocre cop, he’d been a committed husband and father.