R.T. Dibney acted highly critical of slackers and pranksters now that he was working with super serious Mindy Ling. But she wasn’t impressed by much of anything that R.T. Dibney did or said. She was determined that she’d work another car for the next deployment period.
The first part of their watch was routine. They got a few calls on their MDC and dealt with them. One was a family dispute in southeast Hollywood involving a Latina with eight children, all of them boys. The woman was being driven to near violence by her two oldest, high school dropouts who were not working and didn’t care to try. The yelling in that house had alarmed the neighbors. Their second call involved perennial parking problems everywhere near Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards.
After writing a speeder on Highland Avenue just before sunset, they got their first hotshot call. The RTO’s voice said, “All units in the vicinity and Six-X-Forty-six, see the woman. Prowler there now…”
The address given was close to the area of the previous night’s violent sexual assault, and as with most hotshot calls these days, the designation was code 3. The current chief had initiated this code 3 policy in order to keep other speeding responders, who were not using sirens, from crashing into one other. The cops enjoyed code 3 rides.
“Let’s hit it,” R.T. Dibney said, and Mindy Ling turned on the light bar and, with her usual caution, drove only as fast as she ever did, cutting off the siren when they got close to the address in order to arrive quietly.
When they parked, it was dark enough that lights were on in most of the apartments on the street, and the passing traffic was using headlights.
As Mindy Ling was removing the key, R.T. Dibney said, “I want some real light for this one.”
He reached under the seat for his five-cell flashlight and said, “Hey, this feels lightweight. Where’s the batteries?”
He clicked the switch, then unscrewed the battery cover, and out jumped a very pissed-off lizard. It landed in the lap of Mindy Ling, who screamed and leaped from the car with the lizard right behind her, the reptile hightailing it into the nearest vegetation.
This happened just as the surfer cops were pulling up in front of the apartment building, and Jetsam said, “Maybe this wasn’t a good time for it.”
“I warned you, dude,” Flotsam said. “What if it happened when she was driving?”
“Jolly up, bro,” Jetsam said. “The Oracle always said that doing police work was the most fun we’d ever have in our whole lives.”
“Correction, dude,” said Flotsam. “The Oracle said good police work. This don’t exactly qualify.”
It turned out that whoever had been roaming through the darkened parking area behind the building was long gone, but three cops from the midwatch and four more from Watch 3 had the opportunity of seeing Mindy Ling shaking and sputtering, trying to pull herself together.
R.T. Dibney looked with suspicion at the surfer cops and said, “Somebody put a lizard in my flashlight.”
“Heavens!” said Flotsam.
“Gracious!” said Jetsam.
“Goddamn son of a bitch! I want the name of the asshole that did this!” Mindy Ling said to R.T. Dibney, who’d never heard her swear like this.
“Don’t look at me!” he said. “I didn’t do it to my own flashlight!”
She shivered and looked a bit nauseous as she turned abruptly and headed to the apartment of the person reporting.
R.T. Dibney hung back for a moment and said to the surfer cops, “Whoever did it better not brag about it. Mindy’ll hunt them down and they will die a slow death by chopstick torture. After working with that babe, I am sure that China will eventually rule the world.”
“I think it was a way juvenile prank,” Flotsam said.
“Childish to the max,” Jetsam said.
“I ain’t mad at whoever did it,” R.T. Dibney said. “This incident taught me something important. Mindy Ling is a girl. She’s a real girl, after all. Now I might even start to like her a little bit.”
After a few minutes, Mindy Ling returned, and when all officers were heading for their cars, she said to R.T. Dibney, “You ready to go, or do you wanna stay here and look for your lizard?”
“Hey, it wasn’t my lizard!” R.T. Dibney said, his mustache twitching. “I was the intended victim of this here outrage.”
Jetsam said, “Mindy, don’t, like, go all bleak about your lizard phobia. I know a copper that’s scared of clowns.”
“Dude!” Flotsam said, reddening.
“Get outta my face, you surf rats,” Mindy Ling blurted, storming to her car.
After 6-X-46 had driven away, Jetsam walked to the lushly planted area in front of the apartment building, shined his flashlight beam under a camellia bush, and said, “Bro, you are one lucky reptile. Your travel accommodations sucked, but this is a way cooler ’hood than the one you left behind.”
Business was good at Pablo’s Tacos early that evening. Parking was scarce in the little strip mall on Santa Monica Boulevard, and Malcolm Rojas, who had recently gotten off work at the home improvement center, had to park two blocks away on a residential side street. He knew from his prior visits to the taco stand that cops cruised by regularly and hassled any tweakers who looked like they might be holding or scoring crystal meth or other drugs. Malcolm had never eaten the lard-fried tacos from Pablo’s and seldom ate Mexican fare at all, intent on leaving the Latino part of him back in Boyle Heights.
Still, Malcolm decided maybe he should try smoking a blunt when the anger grew too fierce. Before he got out of his Mustang, he took the box cutter from his pocket and put it under the front seat in case the cops stopped by and started jacking up people. He’d buy a little bit of weed and get out of there fast.
He’d gotten paid today, so he had plenty of money, no thanks to his mother. She was always yammering about him paying room and board now that he was almost twenty years old, as if their apartment was a damn boardinghouse or something. She still had settlement money left from his father’s accidental death, and she was making good tips working part-time at Du-par’s coffee shop in Farmers Market, so he couldn’t understand why he should have to pay her.
It was just like his mother. Everything was all about her. He told her if she’d quit drinking a quart of Jim Beam every other day, she’d have more money, and she told him he was being cruel. Malcolm longed for the day when he could leave her, cut all ties, be his own man. That day would come.
There was nobody hanging around Pablo’s that he’d seen or dealt with in the past. Pablo’s mostly did a takeout business, but there were a few small tables inside, so he decided to sit and wait for a pot dealer to arrive. He needed something to make him feel more in charge of his emotions. He was still troubled about what had happened in the parking garage-troubled, but also more excited than he’d ever been in his entire life.
He’d wanted to come in that bitch’s mouth, that’s what he’d wanted to do, but he’d been too scared. There had been too many cars passing by, and he’d feared that at any minute one of the other residents would drive in. Then he might’ve had to fight for his life. How would that have been? With only a box cutter against a grown man? That’s how Malcolm Rojas saw himself in such an encounter. Fighting for survival against a grown man.
But he didn’t think he’d ever need to do that again. He’d never again let the anger rule him. He’d masturbate or smoke a blunt and everything would be okay.
Yet he’d brought his box cutter from the home improvement store again today. Why did he do that? He didn’t want to think about it now. He just wanted a taste, only something to take the edge off. And if his mother bitched about him smoking it, maybe he’d tell her to go dive in her bottle of Jim Beam and shut the fuck up. Malcolm ordered a cup of coffee and sat down at one of the little tables inside to watch and wait for a dealer to show.