“We got him!” Tristan said, getting into the queue of cars that were waiting for the stalled car to move. Three Latinos who looked like gardeners got out of the car and pushed it to the curb.
Tristan drove past the traffic snarl just in time to see Jakob Kessler’s car pull into a wide driveway, and when the gate opened, it continued under the upscale apartment building into the parking garage.
And that was when he heard a horn tooting behind him and looked up to see a light bar flashing.
“Shit!” he said and pulled over.
A moment later he was looking into the face of Dana Vaughn, while Hollywood Nate walked up on the passenger side of the car.
“License and registration, please,” Dana said to Tristan.
“Did I do something wrong, Officer?” Tristan asked, deciding whether to show his real license or the bogus license he’d used to rent the van.
“Nothing except blow a red light and make a left turn against oncoming traffic that almost caused a head-on collision as well as a couple rear-enders. You were very lucky.”
Tristan decided not to fuck with this bitch, so he gave her his legitimate driver’s license and reached into the glove box for his registration. That’s when Hollywood Nate made his presence known by coming right up to Jerzy and peering over his shoulder into the glove compartment as Tristan removed the registration and handed it to Dana.
“It’ll be a few minutes, Mr. Hawkins,” Dana said. Returning to the car, she checked on Tristan for wants and warrants, ready to write the citation for the red light and the left turn.
Hollywood Nate was looking at the tatted-out, surly-looking fat guy in the passenger seat, trying to decide whether to bother getting these two out of the car for a little more intensive investigation.
Then he saw the driver with the dreads turn to him with a pained expression and say, “Officer, I’m real sorry about what I done back there. I’m sure your partner is checking to see if I got any traffic warrants, but I don’t. I’m really a safe driver, but my father died yesterday and I was thinkin’ about Daddy and… well, it’s not an excuse, but that’s what happened. I wonder if you could gimme a break and only write me for just one thing instead of two?”
Nate leaned down and looked at Tristan’s Mr. Sincerity expression and said, “Tell you what, have your friend drive.”
“Good idea,” Tristan said, nudging Jerzy.
“Okay by me,” Jerzy said.
Nate said, “I’ll tell my partner about it.” Then to Jerzy, “And as long as you’re gonna do the driving, let’s just make sure your license is up to date.”
Jerzy shook his head in disgust as he pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and gave Hollywood Nate his legitimate driver’s license.
“You wouldn’t have any tickets out there that you haven’t paid, would you?” Nate said, looking at the unpronounceable name and the photo on the license.
“I’m sure you’re gonna check to see,” Jerzy said in resignation.
After Nate had walked back to the black-and-white to have Dana run the passenger for wants and warrants along with the driver, Jerzy said to Tristan, “Well, a lotta fuckin’ good that done you.”
“You ain’t got no traffic warrants out there, do you?” Tristan said.
Jerzy said, “I did have, but I cleared it up last month. Cost me over four hundred bucks. Otherwise my ass’d be in the Hollywood jail tonight thanks to you and this dumb fuckin’ Mission Impossible shit you got me into.”
When Dana and Hollywood Nate were back on either side of the car, Dana said, “My partner told me about your recent tragedy, so I only cited you for failing to stop for the red light. And you’d better get your right taillight fixed. Sign here.”
After Tristan scrawled his name on the citation, Dana tore off his copy, handed it to him, and said, “Now you can switch seats.”
Both cops took a good look at Tristan and Jerzy when they got out of the car, walked around the front of it, and traded places. Jerzy was inked, but not sleeved-out with jailhouse tatts. Their movements and gaits did not indicate recent booze or drug use, so Nate gave Dana a your-call gesture.
“Our sympathies to your family,” Dana said to Tristan and then winked at Nate before walking back to their shop.
While Jerzy was driving away, Tristan said, “We got the crib scoped out, even if it did cost me a traffic ticket.”
“Do the rest of your spy chase on your own time,” Jerzy said. “And by the way, neither of those cops believed for one minute about old Daddy. They used that to get my license and check me out for warrants, thanks to your big mouth.”
“A little more inconvenience for you got me only one violation to pay for instead of two,” Tristan said. “It was worth it, wood.”
“Where is your old man, by the way?” Jerzy asked. “Alive or dead?”
“I never met him,” Tristan said.
“Does your momma know which one he was?” Jerzy asked.
“Don’t woof on my momma,” Tristan warned.
That evening, shortly after most of the midwatch teams were getting ready for code 7, an eighteen-year-old Marine from Camp Pendleton was having a conversation with a street prostitute on the Santa Monica Boulevard track. That was a street normally used for unusual sexual encounters. There were always older gay men cruising in cars, looking for younger men walking. And the women, or those who appeared to be women, were usually transsexuals, either pre-op or post-op, or drag queens-some of who were obviously men-and a few others who could pass.
Whenever potential tricks would ask gender questions before closing the deal, the trannies and dragons would almost always say, “I’m a woman trapped in a man’s body” to reassure the tricks that it wasn’t really the same as a gay experience. A few of the dragons looked quite plausible, and even quite attractive, as women.
The Marine, whose name was Timothy Ronald Thatcher, had managed to hook up with one of the latter. The dragon was a slender, green-eyed, caramel blonde whose street name was Melissa Price. But in a prior life in a suburb of Denver, he was Samuel Allen Danforth, nicknamed “Sad” because of his initials and because of his loneliness as a bullied gay boy. In his high school yearbook, he’d said he was “going to Hollywood for a new and happy life where he would never be Sad again.”
It was later learned by police that Melissa Price was lively and chatty and well liked by the other hookers who worked the Santa Monica track. Melissa had a tiny two-room apartment in Thai Town, where all tricks were taken. Friendly competitors of Melissa Price later told homicide investigators that after striking an acceptable deal with a john, Melissa would say, “Okay, darling, your Price is right, and she’s all yours.” Melissa Price, aka Samuel Allen Danforth, had been selling sex for a little over two months before meeting Timothy Ronald Thatcher, who was seven months younger.
Timothy Thatcher had come to Hollywood early in the evening with two other Marines, who were old enough to drink in the nightclubs on Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. Young Timothy had asked to borrow the ten-year-old Dodge sedan belonging to one of the older Marines, saying he was “going out onto the boulevard to get me a hot woman.”
The owner of the Dodge later told police that “as a joke on him” they suggested that Timothy Thatcher try cruising Santa Monica Boulevard, thinking he would notice that the hookers on the street had shaving bumps. One of the two older Marines later told police that he believed that Timothy Thatcher was probably a virgin and was trying to prove something to his senior companions.
Under subsequent intense questioning by military investigators, both older Marines stuck to their story and swore that they didn’t know there was an M9 USMC-issue, semi automatic pistol in the car. They claimed that PFC Timothy Thatcher must have put it there as protection for his first trip to Los Angeles. LAPD investigators believed that one of the older Marines, who had easy access to the sidearm, probably brought the pistol along, but their suspicions could never be proven.