I finally finished briefing Daryl Sippleman-the captain from the 77th assigned to coordinate the search for Li’l Eight-Duffy, and the two detectives from the Force Investigation Division, who asked me a series of softball questions. I had shot and killed Rip and shot at and missed Li’l Eight, who was still on the loose. I told Sippleman how the woman from Watts had set me up, how Rip and Li’l Eight were waiting for me. He said his detectives would hook her up for conspiracy to kill a police officer and try to put together a case against her.
I was too ashamed to admit to them what Rip and Li’l Eight had planned to do to me. I just told the detectives they taped me up and were going to execute me. Because the shooting was clearly a case of self-defense, I was not put on administrative leave.
When Duffy and I finally left the house, he followed me to my car and slammed his fist into an open palm. “I told you to stay away from that Patton case. I ordered you to stay away. Didn’t I?”
I shrugged.
“You didn’t listen and you almost got yourself killed.”
I rubbed my wrists, which were still sore.
“You going to finally listen to me? You going to back off this case now?”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t our case anymore. South Bureau Homicide’s got it. You fuck with me on this again, Ash, and you’re going to regret it. I’ll call I.A. myself and report you for violating department policy. You can’t poach on another division’s case just ’cause you’ve got a beef to settle. You understand me?”
I nodded.
“When you got the lead, you should’ve let the department investigate it. No more flying solo. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“I cut my San Diego trip short. All night I was calling you. Now I see why you didn’t get back to me. I’m putting you back on call tomorrow night. You got too much fucking time on your hands.”
“You promised me I couldn’t go back on call until Monday. I’ve still got a lot of paperwork to finish up.”
Duffy shook his head. “I changed my mind. Tomorrow night. End of discussion. So how’re you feeling?”
“I may be out a Zegna suit. I think that duct tape ruined my pants.”
“Listen, Ash, you got to be careful. That one gangster got away. You want a unit outside your building?”
“I can’t live like that. Anyway, I’m sure this guy’s laying low.”
“So you think Li’l Eight’s your guy?”
“At least I know Rip isn’t.”
“You don’t know for sure that Li’l Eight was involved. Right?”
“Not for sure.”
“He may have just wanted to put the hurt to a cop. And it sounds like that gal you jammed who put you on to Rip and Li’l Eight may’ve been blowing smoke up your ass-just to get you off her back.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Because all you can do is wait for Captain Sippleman to find Li’l Eight. Let him do his job.”
I drove back downtown and returned to my loft. Grabbing a bottle of ale out of the refrigerator, I took a few long pulls and walked to a back window. I could see in the distance a patch of the Los Angeles River, encased in high cement banks, the shallow water slick and black, glimmering under a full moon, trickling to the sea. Pushing myself away from the window, I downed the rest of the ale, hoping it would calm my nerves. It had been a long time since I had felt like this: heart pounding, pulse racing, a quicksilver mood shifting from sudden exultation to anger. Exultation because I had escaped death and was alive. Anger because someone just tried to kill me. This was how I felt when I was a soldier, after a firefight, returning from a night patrol.
I had been shot at numerous times then, and when I was a young patrolman I had a few close calls. But I felt much more rattled now. Maybe it was the humiliation; maybe I’m just getting too old for this shit. After downing my ale, I was still anxious and jittery. I knew another ale would just give me a headache. One of my patrol partners at Pacific called me “The Two Brew Hebrew” because I rarely ordered a third when we went drinking after our shift. Occasionally I did, but I paid for it the next morning. I told him that the stereotype about Jews being unable to tolerate much alcohol was true. My Uncle Benny once quipped that Jews don’t drink because it interferes with their suffering. But I read a more scientific explanation somewhere that Jews have a genetic mutation that increases the levels of a toxic chemical when they drink, which brings on headaches and nausea.
I jogged down the steps, climbed into my car, pulled onto the freeway, and headed toward the ocean. Fifteen minutes later I was crouching beside a window, in a stand of oleander, that offered me a clear view of Nicole reading on her living room sofa. I surveyed the room, decorated in an expensive, eclectic style, with gleaming hardwood floors, an intricately woven Persian rug, hammered-copper wall sconces and Art Nouveau floor lamps flanking the sofa. I circled the house, and when I was sure her boyfriend was not lurking about, I rang the bell.
“Who is it?” she called out.
“I’m collecting money for the Chabad Chanukah fund.”
When she opened the door, she scowled at me, her face set in an expression of tight, pinched disapproval. “I thought I already told you not to come by here, that I’ll contact you when I want to see you.”
She tried to slam the door, but I pushed it open, and edged her out of the way with my shoulder. “I decided I don’t like that plan.”
“I’ve got a boyfriend, remember? So that’s the way it’s got to be.” She leaned toward me and sniffed. “You’re drunk.”
“Not really.”
She pointed to the door. “Get out.”
I gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her hard.
She wriggled free and stepped back. “What’s with you tonight?”
“Two guys just tried to kill me.”
She slumped onto the sofa, looking stunned.
“Well I’m one for two. One down. One to go.”
“What happened?”
Ignoring her question, I fell onto the sofa, kissing her, working my way down her neck to the base of her throat.
She looked up at me, eyes half closed. “I can see I’m not going to have to whup you upside the head tonight.”
“Somebody,” I said, “already did that for you.”
A gust of wind rustling the oleander woke me. I reached for the Beretta. Gripping the gun, I realized where I was. Nicole was asleep, her hair splayed on the pillow as if she was floating underwater. I checked the digital clock on the end table: 7:05.
I dressed quietly and left without waking her.
When I entered the squad room, a half dozen detectives immediately surrounded me and volunteered to search for Li’l Eight. They may not have liked me, but if someone tries to kill a cop, everyone closes ranks.
“I appreciate the offer,” I said, “but the Seventy-seventh is all over it. They’re hunting this guy down. But I’ll let you know if I need you.”
When I returned with a cup of coffee, Ortiz strolled over. “You need some backup, homes. Let me ride with you. At least until my partner gets back from vacation.”
“I appreciate the offer,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I need you.”
Ortiz stood up and straightened his pants. “Let me pass along some advice my grandfather used to give me. It’s an old Mexican saying: All your friends are false; all your enemies are real.”
I fingered Ortiz’s frayed, antiquated corduroy sports coat and said, “Let me pass along some advice my grandfather used to give me: Dress British, think Yiddish.”
When Ortiz walked off, chuckling, I called Captain Sippleman. “Any luck in tracking down Li’l Eight?”
“Jesus, Ash, it’s been less than twenty-four hours. Give us a chance.”
“When you get him into custody, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know as soon as possible.”
“Will do. And don’t worry. We’ll get him. I sent out a state-wide BOLO. And every watch commander on every shift in every division in the city knows we’re looking for this clown. As you know, a lot of these gangsters are too stupid to leave the ’hood. So I also gave an extra heads up to all our South Central patrol captains and Sheriff’s department stations on the southside. They know this guy’s a number one priority target.”
I wanted to track down Li’l Eight myself, stick the barrel of my gun in his face, and pull the fucking trigger. But after my last attempt at going solo and almost getting killed, I decided that the 77th had a better chance of finding him and taking him into custody, than I did. They had the patrol officers scouring South Central, the gang officers with snitches, the vice cops making arrests and picking up scuttlebutt on the street.
Duffy wandered by and sat on the edge of my desk. “Have you seen the paper this morning?”
I shook my head.
“The Times has got a big spread on the Wegland dirty cop story. TV and radio is chasing. I’ve been sending calls all morning to Press Relations.”
“They get any of it right?”
“About half right. Not much more you can do. Let Captain Sippleman do his thing. Fortunately, you’re back on call tonight, so the problem of you fucking around with the Patton case has been solved.”
“How about a few more days? There’re some things I need to do on Relovich because-”
“I already told you this is nonnegotiable,” Duffy said, walking off.
I closed my eyes and slumped at my desk, unable to concentrate, unable to keep my thoughts from drifting back to yesterday, when I was taped up, helpless, frightened. I blinked hard a few times. My head began to pound. I shook out three Tylenol and swallowed them with the dregs of my coffee.
A secretary from the captain’s office called out across the room, “Ash, a cop from Metro is on the line. I’m transferring him to you.”
I could feel my pulse quicken. Metro is the department’s elite patrol unit. Maybe one of the Metro guys scooped up Li’l Eight. I grabbed the phone.
“Detective Levine, this is Dan Freed from the Times. I’m doing a follow-up on the Relovich murder. I’m trying to get some background on Wegland and Patowski and put together-”
“What kind of shit are you trying to pull? You identified yourself as a Metro cop.”
“I never said I was a cop. I just said I was from Metro. I’m on the L.A. Times Metro staff.”
“Don’t play dumb. That’s a bullshit con job and you know it. Call Press Relations,” I said, slamming down the phone.
When I returned to my loft that evening, I was in a nasty mood. I popped open a beer and collapsed on the overstuffed chair by the window. The sun was red and low on the horizon, seeping through the venetian blinds and casting stripes on the polished concrete floor. I drank another beer, stared into space, and angrily thought about how Rip and Li’l Eight had humiliated me.
I fell asleep in the chair, and when I awoke, I checked my digital alarm clock: 6:10. Sitting up, I grabbed my remote control, flipped on ESPN, and distractedly watched a darts tournament, feeling dazed and half-asleep. After staring at the screen for about fifteen minutes, I spotted on top of the television the DVD of the Bae Soo Sung robbery-murder that Tommy Pardo had given me. I had seen it before, but the last time was almost a year ago, so I decided to watch it again.
I slipped the disk into the DVD player and studied the soundless black-and-white security video of a stocky guy in a baggy T-shirt wearing a Shrek mask and black gloves who burst through the front door waving a pistol. Sung raised his hands above his head and stepped away from the counter. Shrek yelled something to Sung. Sung nodded and waved his palms, as if to placate Shrek. He stuffed the bills from the register into a paper bag. Shrek grabbed the bag and headed for the door. But instead of walking out, he spun around, extended the barrel toward Sung. That terrified expression in Sung’s eyes had haunted me since I had first seen it: in an instant he knew he had only a few seconds left to live; he knew he’d never see his wife and children again. Shrek pulled the trigger. A dark rosette burst from Sung’s chest, and he fell to the ground.
For the next twenty minutes, I rewound and played the tape several times, but I didn’t see anything that I hadn’t spotted before. I padded off to the kitchen, made myself a cup of coffee, and brought it back to my bed. Sipping the coffee, sitting on the edge of the bed, I played the tape again. When Shrek grabbed the bag of cash with his left hand, I dropped my cup, spilling the coffee on my bed.
Staring at the screen, I was unable to move. I could hear a loud rushing noise, like the roar of the surf. I felt disoriented, like I was underwater, unsure of where the surface was, not knowing whether to swim up or down.
I jumped to my feet and shouted, “Damn! That’s it!”
Quickly rewinding the tape, I froze the image of Shrek grabbing the bag. I crouched a few inches from the television and studied the screen.
When Shrek had entered the store, his left hand was in his pocket. He only removed it to grab the cash bag. In that split second when he pulled his hand out of the pocket and gripped the cash bag I saw something that stunned me.
Two fingers of the left glove flapped a bit, as if there was nothing inside.
The shooter was missing two fingers-his ring finger and the pinkie.
I knew someone missing two fingers. He’d planned to rape me and kill me.
Lil’ Eight.