L.A. Boneyard (32 page)

L.A. BONEYARD
271

“Then why did you marry her?”

“Better to marry than to burn.”

David bristled. “Don’t you dare quote scripture to me.”

Again the shrug. Jairo popped back to his feet and saluted David. “Off to the trenches. Try to think kind thoughts of me.”

“Get some sleep before you go out again,” David said. He thought of something. “Hold on, before you go. How are you at gun recognition?”

“I know my way around a few. Why?”

David pulled up the image of Degrasses and his unknown firearm. “Recognize this?”

Jairo leaned over David’s shoulder, his breath warm in David’s ear. “Yeah, I think... if I’m right, it’s an Mk 46 Mod 0, same type they found on that dead banger last week.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Military use them. SOCOM, the Marines...” Jairo switched his attention to David, who was close enough to see the narrow pores of Jairo’s skin. “Who is this guy?”

“He may be the one who supplied the Avenues with their weapons. I also suspect he’s behind this trafficking ring.”

“Marine?”

“
Ex
-Marine. But he probably used his connections to get the weapons in.”

“Ain’t it enough that the terrorists are trying to get our weapons, we have to be supplying bangers to light up the

‘hoods?”

“Money knows few limitations.”

“It’s way too late to get that heavy.” Jairo straightened. “I’m going home.”

“Don’t come back till morning. And that’s an order Detective.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Saturday, 10:45 AM, Cove Avenue, Silver Lake, Los Angeles
Chris spent the morning feverishly cleaning the house.

Sergeant followed him around, unsure what was going on, but knowing something was up. Finally at eleven Chris collapsed onto a kitchen chair. He rubbed his sweating face with the sleeve of his sodden T-shirt. He still had to go shopping for tonight. David might be taking him out to dinner, but he fully intended to bring him back here after. What would happen then Chris refused to think about. To think about it would make it seem like he was planning something.

Like what? David’s seduction? From the vibes coming off of David every time they were in the same room, it wouldn’t take any effort on Chris’s part to get David into bed. His imagination was all too ready to envision those fireworks. He spent most of the morning hard, which made cleaning uncomfortable.

Finally he put his tools away, showered, tweezed and tweaked himself to perfection and headed out to Samborra’s, Des’s boutique in Beverly Hills. He hurried in, and barely waited for Des to finish up with a customer when he grabbed him and hauled him to the back of the store.

“You gotta help me.”

“Yeah, sure. What—”

“David’s taking me out to dinner tonight. I have to be ready.”

“Aha, it’s like that is it? ‘Bout time you two stopped this nonsense.”

“Whatever,” Chris snapped. “Just get me something that will knock his socks off.”

274 P.A. Brown

Des eyed him critically. “Honey, you could show up in a sackcloth and you’d knock him over with a feather. He is so hot for you—”

“Des.”

“Okay, okay. Geez Mary Alice, you need to get laid in the worst way.”

“You think?”

Des just shook his hairless head and rolled his eyes. “Come with me, Des is going to make one fine peacock out of you.

Nobody, man or woman, is going to be able to resist you.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” Chris patted his short, spiky hair. “Oh shit, I need a cut. Can you get Jules to come in and do me?”

“Honey, for me Jules would fly to the moon.”

“He only has to come to Beverly Hills before five.”

Des sniffed. “That’s not much of a challenge.”

Three hours later Chris walked out laden down with packages and a new cut. He walked with a springy step and nodded at everyone he passed. Very few nodded back. This was Beverly Hills, after all.

He didn’t care. He was going to see David tonight.

Saturday, 11:55 AM, Northeast Community Police Station, San
Fernando Road, Los Angeles

David had been at his desk for hours, watching the time crawl by. Jairo had called earlier to tell him he was on his way to Drew for a noon meet with his mystery informant. He swore up and down to David’s questions that he had indeed gone home the night before and slept. “You want to call my wife and check up on me? I feel fine,” he said to David’s probing questions.

David had almost forbidden the young detective from going off on his own, but if it kept Jairo out of his hair one more day, then what was the harm? Jairo had proved himself a capable officer. He could take care of himself.

L.A. BONEYARD
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His landline rang. He picked it up. It was Captain Fredericks. “Get in my office now, Laine.”

David closed his system down, and made his way to his Captain’s office, wondering what was up. Fredericks never sounded happy, but this time he was clearly angry.

“Yes, sir,” he said even before he had shut the door behind him. He faced Fredericks across his oak desk.

“I just got off the phone with Men’s Central. Seems one of yours just went dancing on the blacktop with another inmate.

Sorry, he didn’t make it.”

David’s mouth went dry. He had two incarcerated there.

Which one? “Who?” he asked.

“A Valerian Mikalenko. Yours?”

“Yes sir, he was. He was giving us names of people involved in the human trafficking ring we recently uncovered.”

“A CI?”

“Not officially, sir. He signed a deal Ms. DeSoto drew up.”

“I’d hazard a guess someone uncovered him.”

“Yes, sir. How did it happen?”

“The usual. Beef in the yard, next thing you know it breaks up, but there’s one body doesn’t get up to join the rest.

Homemade shank from the kitchen.”

“What about my other buster?”

“Who might that be?” Fredericks asked, furrowing his brow.

“The doctor, Sevchuk. The one who turned Mikalenko.”

“No word on him—”

“I need to check. We have to protect him now. He’s our last tie...” David met Frederick’s gaze and frowned. “They know who did it?”

“Some little tweaker from Glassel Park. An Avenues soldier, I guess. At least that’s the affiliation we know about. He’d just been booked in on a weapon’s charge this morning.”

David felt ice invade his gut. “Avenues? From Drew Street?”

276 P.A. Brown

“You got something going on down there, Laine? I know you and your new partner caught the gangbanger 187 last week.

This involved?”

“I don’t know, sir. I do know Detective Hernandez was working on some leads in the area.”

“Where is Hernandez now?”

“I don’t know sir. He said he was going to meet someone down on Drew...”

“And he doesn’t know the case has been compromised?”

Fredericks looked even more thunderous, if such a thing was possible. “I suggest you talk to your partner and reel him in.

Get him out of there, Laine.”

“Yes sir.”

“Take a couple of cage cars with you.” Frederick picked up his phone. “I’ll call down to Central and get them to put the doctor in ad seg.”

David returned to his desk and tried Jairo’s cell. Out of service. That wasn’t good. Jairo was too good a cop to turn his cell off while out on a call, unless he suspected it would break his cover. He checked. Jairo hadn’t taken a rover with him, either. Next, he put in a call for a couple of uniformed teams to join him on Drew. One call went to Konstatinov, who readily agreed to meet David with his shop partner. Then he signed out his own unmarked, checking to see if Jairo had signed out a car this morning. He hadn’t, which meant he had taken his own wheels. Probably to blend better. A Crown Vic would stand out down there as much as a black and white cage car.

David beat the two unis to Drew. David quickly scanned the street but there was no sign of the white Firehawk. He called a third unit down to look for it. He parked his car outside the empty lot that had once been the Satellite house, the major drug center in this neighborhood, demolished by the city. Scraps of paper clustered around a scarred Eucalyptus tree, and the smell of smoke, and garbage, and car exhaust lingered in the air.

David could have sworn he smelled fire crackers. The street was empty, but he could feel eyes watching him. The open air drug market the street usually hosted had been interrupted by their L.A. BONEYARD
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arrival. He thought of the automatic rifle they’d recovered earlier, and the Mk 46 Jairo had IDed Degrasses carrying. His spine twitched, as he thought of how many of those watchers were armed. Before exiting his vehicle he strapped on a vest.

He huddled around his car with the six uniformed patrol officers, and briefed them on what he knew. “Detective Jairo Hernandez was en route to this location for a noon meeting with an informant. I don’t have a location for the meet, just Drew Street.”

“Lots of alleys and backyards,” a graying sergeant said.

Beside him Konstatinov nodded grimly.

“We will find him, Detective,” Konstatinov said.

“So let’s quit jawing and do it,” his partner said, adjusting his belt and slapping his hands on his legs.

A crowd had gathered. Blank and angry faces watched the police fan out and begin their search. Rotting fence boards were ripped down and flashlights shone into darkened crawl ways.

The restless crowd followed them down the street. A few of the bolder ones shouted obscenities at them.

“Hey
pendejo
, go home. This our hood.”

David knew it was a useless gesture, but he strode out to confront the growing mob.

“We’re looking for someone. A detective who came out here this morning to meet with someone—”

“Yeah, a buster. You know what we do to busters.”

David eyed the hulking Latino with prison tats up and down his bulging arms. From his gray pallor, and bulked up form, David knew he’d only just been released. He got right up in the guy’s face, and was gratified to find he was looking down at him.

“You know who we’re looking for? You better tell us if you do, or I will come down on you like white on rice.”

“Oh, 5-0 don’t scare me.
Chucha de tu madre
—!”

David took another step closer and poked the homie in the chest, forcing him to retreat. “You listen, and you listen good,
278 P.A. Brown

because I will not repeat myself. Go home. Stay in your crib until someone tells you hibernation is over.” Another poke.

“Do not get in my face again.”

David spun around and left the stunned man, hoping he wasn’t armed.

Behind another run down, scarred building, David ducked out of the alley, when he spotted a footprint in the dirt beside a torn chain link fence. It looked like the imprint of a boot. Jairo had been wearing his Tony Lamas the last time David had seen him. He peered through the fence. Here the yard, for lack of a better word, though David had seen greener parking lots, was packed with cigarette butts and used condoms. More bootprints and one discarded nitrile glove. He crouched down and studied the glove. Nothing amiss about it. No blood. It was just there, where it shouldn’t be. Was it Jairo’s?

David donned his own and picked the glove up. Behind him Konstatinov approached. He saw what David had found.

“Is that the Detective’s?”

“No idea. Could be.” David pointed at the house they were behind. It was a one story structure with a sagging step and one broken, duct-taped window. A chromed out Oldsmobile sat on four flat tires, weeds growing through the engine block, the front window starred. A doorless fridge and a rusted out bicycle crowded between broken Olde English forties, Night Train and cheap tequila bottles. The back door of the house was shut, but dirt and dust on the porch had recently been disturbed. David could see footprints leading into the building, too scuffed to tell if they were from boot heels. He signaled to Konstatinov and his partner to follow. Hand on his Smith & Wesson, he edged up the stairs sideways, trying to present as small a target as possible. At the first window he pressed his face to the glass and tried to make out the interior. All he could see was more decay, and junk strewn through the filthy living room, devoid of any furniture except a threadbare sofa.

“Is that loudmouth still out front?” he asked Konstatinov who nodded. “Bring him back here. Cuff him if you have to.”

“Yes, sir.”

L.A. BONEYARD
279

The homie came willingly enough. But then a smart man didn’t argue with a pair of angry cops, with guns, and by now all the officers were getting their blood up. One of their own was in danger.

“Who owns this place?”

“This dump?” The homie threw off Konstatinov’s hand and folded his arms over his chest, missing the tension his move generated. Konstatinov caught David’s eye and shook his blond head. The homie had been patted down for weapons. “Don’t know.”

“Who lives here, then.”

“Don’t—”

David was back in his face, so close he could smell the guy’s hot sour breath, and see the details of the small teardrop tattoo under his right eye. His face was cadaverous, and marked with broken pustules. He would have stepped back, but Konstatinov blocked his way. His face grew pale and tight.

“Police brutality. I’m gonna call the ACLU on your ass.

Chinga a tu madre
—”

“Tell me who lives here and you can go fuck my mother.

Who lives here
?”

“Celio Garza, everyone calls him
Podrido
.”

“He
eme, ese
?”

The guy gave him a look that said “Get real, this is Drew Street. ‘Course he’s a banger.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. He an Avenues?” David leaned closer.

He could have counted the pores on the man’s sweating face.

“What’s his affiliation? Who jumped him in?”

“Yeah, he
Avenida, ese
.”

“Was he around earlier today? Here? With another man?”

With his fear spiking, David swung the homie around and slammed him face first against the wooden door. He jerked the tattooed arms behind him and pulled out his cuffs. “Do you tell me what I need to know, or do I put these on you?”