But when she turned again to face him, her eyes were glistening, as they had been last night under the summer moon. All she said was, “If you ever cheat on me, I’ll kill you.”
“Cheat on you?” Aaron cried in relief and elation. “That’s impossible, Sheila! Not only am I mad about you, I’m scared to death of you!”
Prior to getting ready for work that afternoon, Dana decided to take her daughter shopping at Banana Republic and Nordstrom, spending on Pamela most of the money she’d been saving to buy herself a few things at the midsummer sales. Dana loved shopping with Pamela, seeing her so enthusiastic and excited about going away to Cal in September. Of course, Dana’s feelings were mixed. She was proud that Pamela had worked hard and got the grades to be accepted at UC Berkeley, but she worried about her child living in a dorm five hundred miles from her.
When they’d talked about it over lunch during a break from the shopping frenzy, Pamela sensed her mother’s anxiety and said, “Mom, I know you think I might get taken over by radicals from the People’s Republic of Berkeley and turned into a campus terrorist, but not to worry. About eighty percent of my dorm mates will be brainy Asian girls with parents calling three times a day to make sure they’re doing violin practice as well as studying every waking moment. I don’t think there’s much chance of getting into trouble up there. It’ll be all I can do to keep up academically.”
And Dana gazed at her daughter, eighteen years old now, who’d inherited Dana’s wide-set, golden-brown eyes, firm chin, great cheekbones, and lovely long legs. Dana figured she was probably smarter than both her cop mother and lawyer father, who, Dana had to admit, was readily coughing up the money that their daughter needed to get college-bound.
Dana thought that someday she might actually be able to bring herself to a face-to-face with that lying, skirt-chasing asshole, and hear about his new family: a bucks-up wife with two sons of her own. Dana guessed that by now the boys must resent their stepfather for taking control of their trust-fund management, because Dana was sure that he would have. He was that kind of intrusive, controlling lawyer who could never stop beginning every ponderous pronouncement with “At some point in time.” Dana hated that law school redundancy almost as much as she’d hated his philandering. How he’d managed to provide the seed to produce the splendid girl sitting across from her would always be a mystery.
Before they finished their iced tea, Dana’s cell chimed, and when she picked it up, a tremulous voice said, “Officer Vaughn?”
“Yes?” Dana said, not recognizing the caller.
“It’s Naomi Teller? From Ogden Drive?”
“Yes, Naomi,” Dana said. “Thanks for calling. Do you have some information for me?”
“Yes,” Naomi said. “I been thinking about it and I didn’t talk to my mother or dad, but I’d like to talk to you. Could we talk in person? It’s kinda hard to tell it on the phone.”
“I go on duty late this afternoon. I can meet you just after six P.M. Do you want me to come to your house?”
“No. I’ll just tell my mother I’m going up the street to visit my friend Liz, but I’ll meet you at the corner of Sunset and Ogden. I’ll start walking at six o’clock.”
“See you there, honey,” Dana said.
When Dana closed her cell phone, Pamela said, “Who was that?”
“A fourteen-year-old girl whose house got attacked by a prowling rock thrower last night. I think she wants to tell me who it was.”
“Rock thrower?” Pamela said. “I didn’t think you busy LAPD cops had time to be chasing around after rock throwers.”
“This one’s special,” Dana said. “When we were looking for him, he sneaked up on one of our officers and tossed him into a swimming pool before escaping.”
“Really?” Pamela said. “How mad was the cop?”
“You know how your electric toothbrush vibrates?” Dana asked.
At 3 P.M., Dewey Gleason in his Honda, followed by Tristan Hawkins and Jerzy Szarpowicz in a rented van, were at the car gate of the storage facility in Reseda. Dewey punched in his entry code while the office employee looked out the window. The gate buzzed and swung open. Both vehicles drove in, and Dewey stopped at the office, entered, and spoke to a woman he’d come to know as Bessie on other trips he’d made as Bernie Graham.
“Dropping off a van, Bessie,” he said. “We’re coming back later.”
“Okay, Bernie,” she said.
He often gave her small gifts, and this time he brought a few fan magazines to keep her occupied when he pulled out of the storage facility alone in his car.
They proceeded to the storage room, and while Dewey unlocked the door, Tristan drove the van around to the next lane of parking spaces.
While Tristan was gone, Jerzy said to Dewey, “I hope you don’t plan to lock this thing up while we’re inside.”
“Of course I do,” Dewey said. “My wife’ll be with me when we come back tonight. What’s she gonna say if she sees the thing unlocked?”
“I don’t know what she’s gonna say,” Jerzy said, “but you ain’t lockin’ us in there.”
“There’s plenty of air,” Dewey said. “And if you have to take a leak, just do it in there.”
“You ain’t lockin’ us in there,” Jerzy repeated. “Figure out somethin’ else.” And with that, he took the padlock from Dewey’s hand and said, “I’ll hang on to this.”
“Shit!” Dewey said just as Tristan came jogging back from parking the van. He was carrying a flashlight, a roll of duct tape, and rags for the blindfolds.
“What’s the problem?” Tristan said when he saw that they hadn’t yet opened the storage-room door.
“He won’t let me lock you in,” Dewey said. “It’ll look suspicious if I don’t. It could wreck the whole gag.”
“I ain’t gonna be locked in that room,” Jerzy said, “and that’s final.”
“Lemme see that,” Tristan said, indicating the padlock.
Tristan hung the padlock over the metal door staple and closed the door and folded the hasp over it. “There,” he said. “In the dark it’ll look okay. Make sure your old lady’s standin’ behind you when you pretend to be unlockin’ it.”
Then he opened the storage-room door and said to Jerzy, “Come on, dawg, let’s get inside and figure how we’re gonna pull our ambush on this here victim and his woman.”
“This isn’t starting out right,” Dewey said. “This is a bad omen.”
“Fuck your omens,” Jerzy said. “Just do what we say.”
So now Dewey could no longer even pretend that he was in charge. These thugs had taken over. Dewey looked at Jerzy and nodded, forcing himself to think only of the money and of driving away from Hollywood forever. He imagined how he’d be laughing out loud every time he thought of this fat pig being left in Frogtown with nothing but his frustrated partner, his boiling rage, and Eunice Gleason.
There wasn’t a soul at Hollywood Station that day who did not know about the assault on Officer R.T. Dibney the night before. When he came to work, everyone greeted him with a grin, a chuckle, or a wiseass remark. He even saw two Mexican janitors jabbering in Spanish, and one of them waved his arms in a swimming motion while the other cackled hysterically. The Mexican stopped swimming when he saw R.T. Dibney glaring at him.
R.T. Dibney was expecting more of the same after he changed into his uniform, but walking to the roll call room, he got stopped momentarily by the surfer cops, and they didn’t make any wisecracks or swimming jokes.
“Dude, we’re into cruising those westside reporting districts until we catch that prowler,” Flotsam said gravely.
“Thanks,” R.T. Dibney said with some suspicion.
“We’re gonna get him before this deployment period ends, bro,” Jetsam said.
Now R.T. Dibney was even more suspicious. It was one minute from the start of roll call. Why were they out in the hallway, offering this moral support?