Earth Angels (20 page)

"And if we spot the car?" Arredondo said.

"Just stake it until all of us get there. If you complete your search area and find nothing, head for Manuel's taco stand. We'll meet there. And stay off the radio unless you have an emergency. I don't want everyone in the Department knowing what we're up to. "

Stepanovich drove them to Hollenbeck Station, where they picked up two more police sedans from a sleepy garage attendant. With little else said, the three men climbed into their cars and drove out of the station lot.

Stepanovich began his search on a dirt road paralleling the freeway near Wabash Avenue. He'd once found a stolen pickup truck used in three drive by shootings here below the freeway. The road was deserted and the air seemed to vibrate with the sound of trucks and cars whizzing by overhead. Near where the road merged with a paved street, he parked and climbed out of his sedan. Using his flashlight to guide him, he walked hesitantly in the darkness to a shallow gully behind some magnolia trees, a place so hidden from cursory view of any passing police patrol car he would have picked it himself for a stash location.

There was nothing in the gully but trash.

Stepanovich, cold and invisible in darkness, returned to the sedan. At the sound of a car backfiring on the freeway he recalled himself in the motor home, trapped among the others as it was being pierced by gunfire. Then Fordyce was looking up at him, taking his hands away from his chest to show his mortal wound.

With the bitter warmth of tears in his throat, Stepanovich reached out to the sedan to steady himself. He shuddered and a sob came from his lips an alien, embarrassing sound. He lifted his hands from the car and slammed them down violently on the fender, stinging his palms. After a moment he took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, took a few deep breaths, and climbed back in the sedan. He sped along streets in his search area like a robot, stopping now and then to make sure the black Chevy wasn't hidden behind trees or shrubbery.

It was two by the time he completed his part of the search. Manuel's taco stand was nearly deserted. He swerved into the small parking lot and pulled his sedan into a space directly between Black's and Arredondo's sedans.

They were prudently sitting at one of the wooden picnic tables behind the stand rather than at the sidewalk tables, where they would be a target for shooters. Stepanovich advanced to the counter and ordered three tacos from Manuel, who prepared the order and placed them in a small gray cardboard tray. Stepanovich made a show of trying to pay, but as he expected, Manuel refused to accept payment and said in Spanish not to insult him. When Stepanovich had brought the tacos to the table and took a seat, he didn't have to ask if the others had found the caper car.

"If it was me," Black said as Stepanovich dug into his first taco, "I'd stash my caper wheels outside the city in Pomona or Bakersfield or Uncle Chuey's garage in Tijuana. On the other hand, if I was a real smart
chongo
, I'd drive the fuckin' car out of town and set a match to it ... or maybe drive it over a cliff."

Arredondo spun the cap off a small bottle of bright red Pio Pico hot sauce and reached across the table for one of Stepanovich's tacos. "A gangbanger would never torch his car," he said, thumbing open the taco and drenching it with Pio Pico.

"I agree," Stepanovich said. "The car is probably still somewhere in East L.A."

Black finished his Coke. "We've looked everywhere."

"If I was a White Fencer and my wheels were hot, I might head out of my own turf to stash," Stepanovich offered.

Black nodded as if he liked the idea. "After killing a cop there's no telling what they might do."

"White Fence has been getting along with the Happy Valley gang for the last few months," Stepanovich said. "That's where I'd go."

After they finished eating, Stepanovich followed the others back to the motor pool, where they dropped off their sedans. They climbed in Stepanovich's car and he took a shortcut down Griffin Avenue to Lincoln Heights. He cruised past Lincoln High School and made a right turn into the area known as Happy Valley: a residential vicinity comprised of older wood-frame dwellings and stucco apartment houses tied together by alleys, sluiceways, and power lines. He shifted down into low gear and steered the police sedan to a winding snail track of a road leading past deteriorating cracker box homes jutting from the hillsides.

Stepanovich drove carefully in the morning darkness stopping three times to check out dark colored Chevrolets. As they climbed, he felt exhaustion creeping up on him, and because the conversation in the car had dwindled to nothing more than a grunt when someone spotted a car, he could tell the others were just as used up as he was.

By four Stepanovich had traversed every street in Happy Valley. The rim of Happy Valley leading to the east had a view of chaparral covered hills separating the valley itself from the teeming suburb of El Sereno, and there he drove beyond the paved street and onto a level dirt road recently formed when earth moving machines had scraped off the crest of the hill. If he remembered correctly, an article in the Los Angeles Times said the road had been built by a developer who'd promised to deliver low cost housing to the city, but had flown to the Cayman Islands with the allocated city housing funds shortly after the grading was completed.

At a wall of high grass marking the end of the road, Stepanovich stopped the car and set the emergency brake. Leaving the headlights and ignition on, he stepped out of the sedan and was met by the aroma of damp earth and grass. To the southwest the lights of the city meshed into a carpet of white dots extending to a bank of downtown high-rise structures. Even farther in the distance, a tiny flashing red light protected the top of the Los Angeles City Hall from being sheared off by low flying aircraft.

"This is where lowriders like to bring their women," Arredondo said, following him out of the sedan with Black. "You know. Lean back on the front seat of the old Chevy and watch the city lights while Concha eats the standing rib roast."

Black yawned. "Inspiration point."

Stepanovich used his flashlight to check the soft dirt of the clearing. There were indentations that could have been made by tires. He stepped a few feet to the end of the cleared area and moved the light slowly along the edge of the grass. The circle of yellow picked up some broken branches on the ground and two heavy indentations that seemed to enter the grass. He leaned down for a closer inspection. "Tire tracks."

Stepanovich kicked the branches aside. The tracks led directly into low chaparral.

Keeping their flashlights trained on the ground in front of them, the three pressed forward, following the path of the tires through the underbrush. In the midst of his exhaustion Stepanovich felt a surge of adrenaline.

Just where the path began to lead downward, it turned behind a wall of cypress trees to a gouge in the earth neatly hidden from view of the street below.

The beams from three flashlights danced on shiny black steel.

"
Hijo
fucking
la
, " Arredondo said in awe.

In the recess was a black Chevrolet with tinted windows. The front bumper had no license plate.

Before approaching the car, Stepanovich and the others circled the Chevrolet, using their flashlights to painstakingly check the ground for clues. This search went on for a long time, but they found absolutely nothing of value: no weapon, no scrap of paper. And because of the heavy brush and dry, sandy sod, not even so much as a footprint.

With the exterior search completed, Stepanovich stepped down into the shallow ditch to get closer to the car.

Black aimed the beam of his flashlight on the trunk. It had three bullet holes. "We hit him."

Noticing that the front passenger window was down a few inches, Stepanovich beamed his flashlight into the interior of the car. There was nothing visible on the seats or the floorboard. He reached into his pocket and took out a ballpoint pen. Carefully, in order to preserve any fingerprints, he touched the pen to the door lock and pushed firmly. The lock made a snap sound and he pulled the door open. Inside, the glove compartment door was open but empty. There was no dust or smudges on the dashboard. He leaned down to the floorboard and used the flashlight to check under the seat. Nothing.

At the corner of the dashboard he located the tiny aluminum strip bearing the vehicle's identification number. Using the pen and a scrap of paper he dug from his trouser pocket, he copied it carefully. Arredondo, who was standing in the doorway watching him, took the paper out of his hand and headed back toward the police sedan.

"It's clean," he said, coming to his feet.

Black was checking the backseat area. "That's a ten four." He said. "Nothing back here either."

As Stepanovich and Black removed both the front and rear seats of the car and continued to search, they heard the distant sound of Arredondo's voice transmitting the car's identification number via the police radio.

With the interior search completed, Stepanovich rounded to the trunk of the Chevrolet. Using a handkerchief, he opened the trunk and held up the lid. The trunk area, including the indentation for the spare tire, was completely empty. "Looks like they cleaned up before they left," he said.

Arredondo returned from the police sedan. "This car is a Hollenbeck stolen taken from Sears and Roebuck parking lot over a year ago. It's a caper car all right."

"Call Sparky's tow," Stepanovich said, "We'll have it towed in for prints."

As Arredondo headed back to the police radio and Black began filling out a vehicle impound report, Stepanovich suddenly felt exhausted, and the steel police issue flashlight he was holding seemed inordinately heavy. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, opened them. Just then he spotted something in the bushes a few feet away and advanced closer to get a better look. It was a spray can of Four Star spray lacquer.

"Looks like the homeboys were sucking some fumes before they did their thing," Black said, joining him.

Stepanovich carefully lifted the aerosol can by its plastic nozzle and carried it to the police sedan. He took a clear plastic bag from the evidence kit in the backseat and dropped the can into it. Using his ballpoint pen, he marked the bag with his initials and the date.

By the time the tow truck arrived, morning light was coloring the sky.

Sparky, the tow truck driver, a fortyish man with a beer barrel, a walrus mustache, and a mask of motor-grease blackheads covering his nose and cheeks, climbed out of the cab. The grayish T-shirt he was wearing bore the words "SOLDIER OF FORTUNE" and a depiction of a human skull wearing a U.S. Army green beret emblazoned across it. "Sorry about Fordyce," he said to Stepanovich.

Stepanovich nodded. "We think this is the car they used in the drive by. Latent prints will meet us at the tow yard. I want it stored in the garage out of sight so the gangbangers won't know we have it."

"Yes sir,"

As Sparky went about attaching a tow chain to the undercarriage of the Chevrolet, Stepanovich noticed that Black and Arredondo, obviously as exhausted as he, were standing at the edge of the slope just staring down into Los Angeles.

Sparky's towing service and vehicle impound yard, the largest in a row of dingy auto salvage businesses lining Mission Road, was protected by a tall chain link gate. Above the entrance a large metal sign read: "SPARKY'S OFFICIAL POLICE TOW." The silver police badge logo on the sign was a crude, hand painted job, as was the lettering on the sign itself. Behind the fence the auto graveyard's oil soaked ground was crowded with red-tagged vehicles, automobile engines on blocks, stacks of axles, transmissions, doors, and hubcaps of all kinds.

As police fingerprint technician Maxine Brown worked on the Chevrolet, Stepanovich, Black, and Arredondo were sitting on oil stained folding chairs eating candy bars and watching. It occurred to Stepanovich that Brown, an obese, coffee skinned woman with wide breasts and an unhealthy paunch, was wearing the same threadbare red sweater and baggy black trousers Stepanovich had seen her in for months. Unfashionable perhaps, but quite practical, he said to himself. Why maintain a large wardrobe to scrutinize blood spattered bathrooms, dingy hallways, and automobiles?

Using a small feather brush, fingerprint powder, and clear tape, she painstakingly moved about the car in an almost automatic pattern. Methodically, without regard for time, she worked her way across the front seat, dusting the dashboard, then, lying prone on the seat for a while with her sweater inched up and revealing abdominal stretch marks, she worked on the steering column itself. Outside the car, she balanced on the running board to do the roof, then dropped heavily to her knees next to the car for the fenders and doors. Working on the bumpers, she maintained a sitting position, dipping dust and brushing with a rapid, sweeping motion like an artist painting sky. She crept sideways on her ample buttocks, working from end to end without regard to either modesty or the fact that she was on sticky, oil stained cement.

By the time she finished, it was after two.

"Somebody wiped this car down real well," she said, coming to her feet. "Scrubbed the heck out of it. I couldn't even come up with a partial."

Stepanovich felt coldness in the pit of his stomach - and seething anger. "So there's nothing?"