“Say, buddy, I’m glad I bumped into you. Let’s go to the Chinaman’s.”
Crane smiled stingily and stepped back. “Thanks, Russ, but I just ate at home, and I’ve got to pick up an arrest report I left in the briefing room…Maybe we can make the Chinaman’s together later in the week.”
Rucker’s twinkling eyes, and the rare expression of serenity on his otherwise uptight face since the Shetani invasion, surprised and threatened Crane.
“Leo, I have big news, so get the report and at least have tea at the Chinaman’s.”
Crane seized Rucker’s hand and shook it. “You sonuvagun! You and Opal are going to get married after all.”
Rucker shook his head. “No, Leo. Nothing close to that dream with your aunt yet. We have to talk about this news. I’ll wait for you in the car.”
Crane nodded and went into the building. Rucker went to his Lincoln, parked nearby.
On the way to the restaurant, Rucker told Crane about Leon’s beating and his visit to his home. Within five minutes, Rucker and Crane sat down in a red leather booth at the rear of the restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard. A black couple were the only other patrons in the dimly lit stillness.
A sweet-faced Chinese waitress took Rucker’s order for his three-times-a-week favorite, egg foo yung. Crane ordered tea and fidgeted.
“An hour ago, I ID’d the ass kicker who controls our problem hookers. Of course, after Leon supplied his moniker.”
Crane managed to smile. “That’s great, Russ. Who is he?”
Rucker leaned forward. “His moniker is Shetani. That’s Swahili for ‘Satan.’ He has lived up to that tag in New York since his early teens as Albert Spires. He did a stint in the nuthouse, and his arrest record includes Murder One and arson. We’ve got to hit this bad sonuvabitch and his whores soon and hard.”
Crane fought to control the muscles of his face from twitching with Rucker’s face so close. “Any idea as to our point of attack, Russ? Maybe he’s got outstanding warrants at the New York State or federal level.”
Rucker shook his head. “I checked. He’s clean…Point of attack? Any pimp with a stable that big is bound to have a sour defectee on the turn down the road. Maybe she’ll help us make a pandering case against him. He and his stable are all junkies. After we find out where he lives, et cetera, perhaps we can nail him on heroin possession. This guy’s setup is vulnerable to a number of points of attack.”
Rucker took a sip of water. “I also found out the identity of Shetani’s bottom whore. Guess who?”
There was a long silence as Crane closed his eyes to conceal his shock. Crane opened his eyes and said, “Is she a blonde?”
“Yeah,” Rucker said. “That’s Petra, that statuesque snow-blonde with the aristocratic bearing who none of us can bust.”
Crane stiffened and felt a familiar nausea in his belly pit. He knew that always signaled a panic attack. He knew he’d feel terror that death was imminent or that he would lose control of his mind and become a raving lunatic. His head roared so loudly he had to half read Rucker’s lips as he went on.
“The lieutenant will give us the extra personnel to kick off a comprehensive investigation. For now, Leo, we have to discover our best point of attack.”
Crane’s face glowed like a phosphorescent mask in the gloom as he stood up. “Yeah, Russ, it looks good for us for a change. Excuse me,” Crane said before he moved away for the restroom, past the waitress coming with their orders.
Crane went into a toilet stall and locked the door. He collapsed to his knees, his heart galloping madly from the terror of dying. He rested his head on the toilet seat and vomited until his guts dry-locked. He clung to the toilet-bowl base for the three minutes the attack lasted. He struggled to his feet. He went to rinse his face with cold water. He snorted coke and squared his shoulders. He inhaled and exhaled deeply several times before he stepped out into the cozy murk of the restaurant. He went to the table and sat down. He managed somehow to calmly sip his tea, chitchat, and watch Rucker devour his favorite food.
Rucker dropped Crane back at the station in time to begin his newly assigned 3:00-to-11:00-p.m. shift. He drove from the station lot toward the downtown criminal-courts building. He remembered the night he arrested Pee Wee Smith, the thieving hooker. He thought about the insane eyes of her slain New York pimp, Big Cat Jackson.
Rucker parked his car and entered the criminal-courts building. He went into a courtroom where the coroner’s inquest into Big Cat’s death was to be held. The hearing officer made brief orientation remarks about the case to four women and three men drawn from the county jury pool to hear witnesses.
Rucker and several neighbors who had seen the entire scenario gave brief testimony. The hearing officer declared the death of Jackson as justifiable homicide.
Rucker left the courtroom with a vision of the Jackson shooting haunting him all the way back to Hollywood. He was then bothered by the high degree of discord in Crane’s normally harmonious and fluid body lingo in the restaurant. And there was the possibility that the bruise on the cheek of Crane’s wife, Millie, was real, rather than a trick of light and shadow. Then he thought the unthinkable. Was Crane in such a tensioned state that he would beat up Millie?
Rucker drove the Lincoln down the street where the Cranes resided. A block away from their house, he spotted Millie, in a bright-red halter dress, watering the lawn.
He parked in front of the house. Millie glanced at him through dark glasses, over her shoulder, as he left the car. He approached her.
“Hi, Russ,” she said, too cheerfully, and moved away.
He pursued her as he said, “How are you, Millie?” He faced her and saw she had a blackened left eye socket and a lumpy bruise on her left cheek.
“I’m all right, Russ,” she mumbled, and averted her eyes. “How about a glass of lemonade,” she said in a breaking voice as she dropped the hose and moved quickly toward the front door.
Rucker followed. He paused to turn off the water hose at the front of the house before he entered the living room.
He sat on the sofa for a moment before she brought two glasses of lemonade on a tray. She placed the tray on a coffee table before them, and sat beside him. They took a sip of lemonade.
“Millie, you’ve always been able to talk to me. What’s wrong?” he said gently.
She threw her plump but tiny hands into the air. “Everything!” she cried out, and burst into tears.
Rucker took her into his arms. “Easy, now. Control yourself. Tell me about everything. You’ll feel better.”
Sobbing racked her for a long moment before she blubbered, “Leo hates me because I’m fat and ugly. He ignores me and screams at me for the smallest things. He’s fooling around with someone.”
Rucker rubbed her back. “Oh, Millie, please, don’t let your imagination run wild. You and Leo are strong Catholics. He loves you, Millie. You’re wrong. Leo is just job-stressed and off-center. All cops get frazzled occasionally. I’m sure this unhappiness is temporary.”
She stubbornly shook her head. “I tell you he’s involved with another woman and my misery is permanent,” she uttered, in a voice so full of despair that Rucker was jolted.
“How can you be sure about another woman?” he asked softly.
She leapt to her feet and wrung her hands. “Now, look, your precious Leo is guilty, whether you can accept it or not. I found lipstick stains on his clothes.” She ripped off her sunglasses, pointed to her bruises, and exclaimed, “He did this because he’s guilty and I told him so.”
Rucker stood. “Millie, Leo has physical contact with women suspects all the time. On occasion, he struggles with them before making arrests.”
She heehawed hysterically and clapped her hands. “Very good! You’d say anything to defend your friend.”
Rucker moved toward the open front door. “Millie, you’re too upset today to reason with. I’ll call you later in the week,” he said firmly.
He went down the walkway to enter
his car. She followed and stuck her head inside. “I didn’t say exactly where the filthy slut he’s got left those lipstick stains.”
Rucker said wearily, “Where, Millie?”
She spat it out. “On the fly of his trousers and on his underwear.”
Rucker leaned in to pat her wrists. “Please, Millie, stop tearing yourself apart. I’m on your side.”
She burst into fresh tears and half whispered, “I will…but Leo is on an express train to hell, Russ. I’ll show you. I’ll be right back.” She turned and hurried into the house.
In a moment, she returned. She held out a plastic syringe and a glassine bag in her palm. Rucker took it and stuck an index finger into the nearly empty glassine bag. He touched his tongue to his finger. He said, “It’s coke. Where did you find this?”
She said, “I was cleaning out the closet. It was in the toe of one of Leo’s shoes.”
Rucker said, “He’s been shooting coke…Let’s keep my visit with you today just between us, okay?”
She nodded.
He said, “Put this back in the shoe, and don’t say anything about it.”
She took it and said, “I won’t,” and turned away.
—
Rucker pulled the Lincoln down the street. His face was a hard mask of determination as he drove toward Hollywood Station.
He would turn the Crane case over to Bleeson and the department Division of Internal Affairs. He pulled his car into the station lot and keyed off the engine. He sat watching young uniformed cops and detectives entering and exiting the building. He felt a pang of sympathy for Crane and Millie. He remembered the brilliant summer day, twelve years before, when the rookie detective Leo Crane was assigned to the 77th Division in South Central L.A. He had liked Crane immediately. A month later, the green youngster became his partner. He had admired his courage, intelligence, and absolute honesty. He was sure it was a friendship that would last forever when both of them were transferred to Hollywood Division.
Rucker rolled up the car’s windows, got out, and locked it. Like his father, he had faithfully followed the department’s rules and procedures from the start of his career.
Now he moved into the building and walked toward Bleeson’s office. He told himself that he couldn’t let his affection for Crane interfere with his duty and responsibility as an honest, by-the-book cop.
He halted ten feet from Bleeson’s office at a water cooler. He stood there trembling, staring at Bleeson’s name stenciled on his office door. “Leo, you dumb sonuvabitch!” he screamed in a whisper. Suddenly he remembered his raging love for Opal Lenski, Crane’s aunt. He knew there was a fifty-fifty chance they would marry one day. He couldn’t throw Crane to the wolves of Internal Affairs.
Rucker almost visibly recoiled when the gargantuan Bleeson popped out of his office.
“Good afternoon, Russell. Did you want to see me?” he said as he paused in front of Rucker.
“No, Lieutenant, I’m getting a refill,” Rucker said lightly as he bent over to drink from the fountain.
Bleeson smiled and went down the corridor. Rucker immediately left the station. He drove to an agency whose rental cars were mostly in the older-but-roadworthy category. He left his Lincoln on the lot and drove away in a ’76 dark-blue Buick sedan. He parked it in his garage.
He put on his house slippers and sat down in shirtsleeves in his living-room recliner. At twilight, he had decided how he would address himself to the explosive Crane turn of events. He would surveil Crane himself. Hopefully, he thought as he remembered Crane’s almost empty coke bag, he would catch him dead-bang dirty after he scored. Then he could force him, under an assumed name, to kick his coke addiction on an outpatient basis at one of the rehab centers.
Rucker heaved a sigh. Bypassing Bleeson and Internal Affairs would be risky to the extreme. He realized that, if detected in his role, he would face disgrace and the destruction of his career and reputation. He also realized that coke banger Crane would be unpredictable and difficult to protect, and to free from his coke trap.
He went upstairs to shower and dress for the street. He covered his silvery mop with one of his father’s old golf caps. He drove down Sunset, determined to help his friend no matter what the risk.
It was a balmy summer night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Disgusted, Pee Wee Smith had not taken off a good score since her arrival. She was trick poison in a skintight red minidress and matching high heels. Her huge sable eyes flashed in her cute face as they sought connection with drivers of cars moving past her. She had turned a few white tricks, working the perimeter of the black ghetto. But she was a superstar of pocket larceny and didn’t like to screw for her money.
She stopped for coffee in a café, deserted except for a waitress, to rest her aching feet. She was on her second cup when she heard the door open behind her. She sensed a presence near her back. She started to turn her head. She was startled and then surprised by a high-yellow trick trapper.
“Guess who?” the girl said in a reedy voice as she placed her palms over Pee Wee’s eyes.
“Oh, shoot, Bianca, who else but you with that rapper,” Pee Wee said as she slapped her hands away.
Bianca laughed and sat down beside Pee Wee at the counter. The waitress took her order for coffee.
“Girl, how long have you been in this lousy boondock?” Pee Wee asked as she eye-swept Bianca’s curves, sausaged in white blouse and short shorts.
“Two weeks too long. I’m splitting back to the city and Daddy this week.”
Pee Wee leaned toward her to say something, but she didn’t until the approaching waitress delivered Bianca’s coffee and departed.
“I haven’t stung for any respectable bread since I came here three days ago. How about you?”
Bianca darted a glance at a pair of black teenagers who stopped to ogle the girls through the café’s plate glass.
“One fair sting is all I took off,” Bianca replied as the boys moved on.
They sipped coffee and smoked cigarettes in a long silence before Bianca looked at her watch. She put coins on the counter and stood.
“Wee, it’s nice to run into you. I got to split to turn what’s gotta be the only C-note trick on this side of town. Be careful, Wee.”
“It was good to see you, Bianca. Good luck,” Pee Wee said as Bianca turned and went to the sidewalk.
Pee Wee placed a dollar on the counter. She freshened her makeup in a compact mirror. She left the café and walked toward the trick run at a busy intersection down the street.
“Hey, Wee, wait!”
Pee Wee stopped and turned to see Bianca hurrying down the sidewalk toward her.
“Wee, that C-note trick of mine carries heavy bread. I can’t take it off alone—he keeps his wallet pocket locked with safety pins. It hit me after I split that you could creep on him while he sucks my pussy. You in?”
“What kinda dude is he, and what kinda bread is he luggin’?” Pee Wee said, with eyes asparkle.
He’s a sixtyish German ex-con thug and stickup man who owns a plumbing business. I admit cracking his pants safe ain’t to be considered a piece of cake. He keeps a dagger on his leg. But, shit, he’s gotta have six to eight grand in that leather. Wee, let’s try the motherfucker. Fifty-fifty.”
Pee Wee took her arm. “Let’s go,” she said, and she and Bianca hurried down the street.
They entered a sparsely furnished kitchenette off an alley a block away. Bianca glanced at her watch. “We’ve got a few minutes before he shows.”
Pee Wee looked about the room. “Where does he put his pants?”
Bianca tossed her head toward a battered couch near the foot of the four-poster brass bed. They sat on the side of the bed.
“Is that closet crowded?” Pee Wee asked as she stared at the closet door to the left of the couch.
“It’s empty. This is just a trick crib. I live in a hotel. Girl, I’m sorry about Big Cat…Is Shetani treating you right?”
A frown flicked across Pee Wee’
s face. “Yeah, sure.” She paused to laugh. “I’ve been sending him long bread. So, naturally, he sweet-talks on the phone and keeps my medicine comin’ on time.” She went on, “I’m gonna be his bottom woman. That’s gotta be any day. He’s gonna fire that white bitch Petra, if he ain’t already. He copped me on that promise.”
Bianca said, “That’s great, Wee.”
Pee Wee got up and went into the bathroom. She looked at an open window above the commode. She would be able to slide through it to the alley in a flash, she thought.
“Nice big split window for us, ain’t it, Wee?” Bianca said.
Pee Wee placed a hand on the teenager’s shoulder. “Bianca, I ain’t tryin’ to be hipper than you or nothin’, but I’m twenty-eight and been on the fast track since I was fifteen. Keep your body and voice loose when I creep on the sucker. Otherwise, he could wake up…”
She reached into her bosom and took out a tiny .22-caliber automatic. Pee Wee went on, “I don’t give up no sting bread, and I don’t wanna shoot no white man in Wisconsin. So, baby, please be cool and loose. I’ll know his head is between your legs when you moan. By the way, you can split out the door after me if he goes to the bathroom. I’ll meet you at Third and Vine to lay your end of the score on you.”
Bianca said, “Don’t worry, Wee. I’ll play it right.”
Pee Wee concealed herself in the closet.
Shortly, the elderly trick arrived, with suck lust aglitter in his blue eyes.
“Sweetie Franz, I got so hot waiting for you, I can fry an egg on my pussy,” Bianca crooned as she extended her palm.
He placed a C-note bill in it and dropped his massive frame onto the couch.
“Yah, I’m very hot myself. How is your mudder?”
She bent to kiss the top of his graying blond head. “She was fine when I stopped by after I finished cleaning for one of my ladies in Whitefish Bay.”
She sat on the foot of the bed, facing him, and slipped off her short shorts. She jackknifed her legs to display her pouted vulva, nesting in a curly jungle of auburn bush.