“I didn’t lie.”
“You never read me my rights, but you said you did.”
“You’re wrong.”
What I was saying was another lie. I knew all too well that I had neglected to inform him of his rights on the day of his capture.
“If you say so,” he said.
“I say so.”
Because I wanted to make sure Haines was convicted, I had told several lies on the witness stand, something I hadn’t done before or since. Haines’s sworn version of his capture was the truth, but the jury had thought he was the liar. They hadn’t believed that I had threatened to murder him, and that I had come close to doing so more than once, because I had denied doing any such thing.
“Are we done here?”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “You said the man directing your attack had tattoos. Can you describe them? Or better yet, can you draw them?”
“Why are you interested?”
“Humor me.”
I thought for a few moments and then took a pen to my piece of paper. “One of the tattoos looked like a red A,” I said, “or an inverted V with a line running well beyond the edges. The red figure stood out because it was surrounded by a circle of black.”
The Weatherman nodded and said, “Typical poseur. That red A is a symbol for anarchy. But what self-respecting anarchist would advertise in such a way?”
I was busy trying to draw the other tattoo, but wasn’t having the success that Detective Nguyen had. “There were a lot of squiggles in the second tattoo,” I said. “They were coming out of an eye, or a circle.”
Haines looked at my drawing, gave it some thought, and then extended his hand and asked, “May I?”
I gave him my pen, although that went against prison rules. He changed my design, making my lines look more like elongated Zs, and asked, “Did it look more like that?”
When I nodded he said, “Black sun.”
“What’s a black sun?”
“There are old and new meanings. In ancient times it meant one thing, but the Nazis made it something else. Today it’s usually viewed as an antisun, or burned-out sun. Some think of it as a black hole.”
“So it’s more of your chaos?”
“Not mine; the world’s chaos.”
“My visits with you are always so uplifting.”
“I feel the same way. Same time and same place next month? We have so much yet to talk about.”
I called for the CO, and from outside our cage he put out a call on his walkie-talkie to summon the rest of Haines’s escort.
While we waited Haines said, “I am glad you survived the attack. You should know that I will put the word out that you are to be unharmed.”
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“It’s not a favor. When you die, I want it to be by my hand.”
“Great minds think alike. When your judgment day comes, when the death juice is flowing into your veins, I’ll be the guy waving bye-bye to you.”
Haines’s entourage showed up. He backed up to the door and extended his hands through the slot so that his hardware could be reattached. While he was being cuffed, he faced me with a taunting smile.
“Detective?” he said.
“What?”
“Under current circumstances, it is difficult for me to practice my vocation in a professional manner. I have no access to a computer and I’m even denied such rudimentary essentials as a thermometer or barometer, not to mention a weather meter or wind speed meter, but despite all of those limitations I try and keep up with our state’s weather patterns. Necessity being the mother of invention, I have managed to find ways of perpetuating my craft even from the confines of my cage.”
“Is there a point to all of this?”
“If not a point, there is at least a weather forecast. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
“Thanks so much for that rhyme. I’ll be sure to keep my yacht in the harbor tomorrow.”
“A Santa Ana condition is forming in the Los Angeles area, Detective. I can feel it stirring in my gut. Strong, dry winds are coming. They’ll start tomorrow, but just wait until the day after tomorrow. That’s when you’ll really feel those killer winds blow.”
He paused, perhaps remembering his days as a television weatherman and the need for occasional dramatic effect. “That’s when all hell will break loose, Detective.”
CHAPTER 15:
The Weatherman’s forecast kept intruding into my thoughts on the flight back to LA. When I landed at LAX at one forty-five, it felt as if I’d been away for a week instead of a very long morning. The day promised to get a lot longer. I had an afternoon funeral to attend.
Seth is always happy to look after Sirius, but I never like imposing longer than necessary. Besides, I wanted company for the drive, so I swung by Sherman Oaks and picked Sirius up. At least I wouldn’t have to change for the funeral. I was already wearing a dark blazer and gray pants.
I called Seth’s cell number, but he didn’t pick up. Maybe he was on a spirit quest, but it was more likely he was at a client’s house. I left a message telling him not to be worried when he found his charge missing. When I opened Seth’s gate to the backyard, Sirius gave me a hero’s welcome.
“Just what I needed,” I said, “a dog-hair coat.”
Methinks I protest too much. I had welcomed him into my arms; his hairs had followed. I stopped inside my house to grab my electric razor, and then the two of us set out on our road trip. The hoped-for smooth sailing didn’t materialize, as the 134 was already tight with commuters. In LA, all roads lead to gridlock. When the 134 merged with I-210, it wasn’t quite a parking lot but the traffic was moving slowly enough for me to leisurely shave. One highway patrol officer I know describes the LA morning commute as the “cosmetics interchange.” MPG doesn’t stand for miles per gallon, he says, but makeup per gallon. The afternoon commute isn’t any better, but beautifying isn’t the concern-everyone just wants to get the hell out of Dodge.
Traffic opened up once I passed Glendale, and I kept a heavy foot on the accelerator. The Eleventh Commandment among law enforcement is “Thou shalt not give a ticket to a fellow cop,” which means that if you have a badge, you can speed with impunity whenever pressed for time. However, getting stopped for speeding isn’t a pleasant experience even if you are a cop; you escape the ticket but not the aggrieved sighs that come with wasting another officer’s time. Because of that, I was about as watchful as your average speeder and spent as much time watching out for CHP as I did the road.
I traveled along a route made famous by the Jack Benny Program. Benny’s series aired before my time, but my father used to always laugh whenever repeating the route called out by the show’s train conductor: “Anaheim, Azusa, Cuuuuu-ca-mon-gaaaa.” In reality there was never such a train route, but the cities are real enough. Apparently, no matter what the situation at the depot, Cucamonga was the punch line. My father said that sometimes a whole skit would take place between conductors announcing Cuca and concluding with monga. Many years after the show last aired, my father was still laughing about Cuuuuu-ca-mon-gaaaa, and because his funny bone was tickled, so was mine.
Seeing the turnoff sign to Rancho Cucamonga, I remembered my father and said, “Cuuuuu-ca-mon-gaaaa.” Sirius seemed to find that amusing and encouraged me with some tail wagging. “Cuuuuu-ca-mon-gaaaa,” I said again, stretching out the word for about half a minute.
Sirius tried working me to do another encore, but with Hollywood sincerity I said, “No, really, I can’t.” My father had been dead for a dozen years, but I was still getting a kick out of the punch line that had brought him such pleasure. Of course Jack Benny and my father probably wouldn’t have even recognized Rancho Cucamonga in its present incarnation. It had been known for its orange groves for much of the twentieth century, but that was before the Los Angeles borders spread north, south, and east. Now I was willing to bet there wasn’t a single citrus grove left in town. The former sleepy hamlet was now approaching big city status and had a population of more than a hundred sixty thousand and counting.