Violent Spring Page 18

  “Hello,” Monk said, answering it on the third ring.

  “Ivan, this is Ray, man.”

  “Long time no see, brother.”

  “Yeah, well, we ain’t got time for traveling down memory lane.”

  Before he could proceed, Monk said. “We have to meet but I—”

  Smith cut him off. “You be around on Sunday, about this time.” The line disconnected.

  Diaz sat ramrod straight in the plastic chair in front of the window with the slats. A pair of binoculars on a fixed tripod was to his left. To his right sat Agent-in-Charge Keys at a steel table. On the table was a telephone, a monitoring device which had a wire leading to a cassette recorder, and a pair of headphones. Keys leaned away from the desk and fiddled with one of his silver cufflinks.

  “Ray Smith has made contact,” Keys said.

  “Time to drop the hammer,” Diaz commented sardonically.

  Keys picked up the phone’s handset and punched out a number. After a moment, he spoke. “Bazeco, this is Keys. I need for you and Roberts, and Haller in another car, to be stationed around Monk’s apartment by,” he looked at his watch, “six o’clock tomorrow morning.” He listened, then said, “That’s right, Lieutenant Seguin is known to Monk and might be spotted. Agent Diaz and I will be in another car. We’ll all use channel three for all communications. See you then.”

  Diaz raised his hand in the air, made a closed fist and brought it down like he was pulling a weight. They both grinned.

  The phone’s bell jangled the dark of two A.M. Monk, positioning himself onto his back, picked it up on the fourth ring. “Monk.” Kodama put a hand on his stomach and continued to sleep.

  “It’s time to get going.”

  Monk came fully awake. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Be down in front in three minutes.”

  Monk rushed out of the bed, not bothering to hang up the phone. Kodama stirred in the bed but didn’t rise. He got into a pair of loose fitting Dockers and a flannel shirt. He reached for his harness in the closet, thought better of it, and opened one of the drawers of his dresser. Down below a tangle of boxer shorts and socks, he found his ankle rig and the small .38—a Smith & Wesson Bodyguard revolver with a hidden hammer—and strapped that on. He got into his worn and comfortable Blacktop tennis shoes and a windbreaker.

  Furiously, he scratched out two lines in his notepad to Kodama which read: “I’m off to the races. Love you always.” He tore out the sheet and placed it on the nightstand. He slipped the notepad into his back pocket and went downstairs. At the curb, its motor running, was a four-door Chevy Caprice with fender skirts. At the wheel was an individual who had the hood of his sweat jacket pulled over his head. Rising out of the car on the passenger side was somebody Monk knew. Once.

  “Yo, blood, get in,” Ray Smith said to Monk as the latter hurtled into the car.

  Monk got in behind the driver as the car pulled away from the curb. He looked back and saw a car round a corner. It was trying to look casual, but considering the lack of traffic this time of the morning, it couldn’t help but stand out. Monk jerked his thumb alongside of his face. “I think that’s a FBI car back there.”

  “I know,” the hooded driver replied.

  The way he said it, so calm and self-assured, Monk felt a knot of apprehension twisting his stomach. He couldn’t sit by and let them start shooting at the Feds. No matter how much he despised Keys.

  The driver took the car another mile east and then pulled to the curb. The car that had been following discreedy behind them also pulled to the curb. Monk looked toward the two men in the front seats, but they didn’t turn around. He could imagine either Keys or Diaz—it had to be those two back there—on their car phone calling around to wake up the other members of the task force and try to get them in position. “Don’t you two think we ought to get moving?”

  “In a minute,” the driver spat out, turning slightly in profile. His purple hood the mark of an inner city Druid.

  A phone rang and it took Monk a moment to realize it was in the car he was sitting in.

  The driver picked it up, listened, then said, “Okay, count ten, then go.” He handed it to Smith and in ten seconds, left the curb at great velocity. Monk looked back and could see the other car following suit. The hooded driver took a hard right down a narrow street and as they passed a darkened alleyway, another car emerged behind them. Monk could see that it too was similar in shape to the Caprice. In the dark of the night, a duplicate of the one he was riding in. They took another turn and then zoomed along behind a row of industrial buildings.

  Presently, the faux Caprice, which must have been traveling parallel to their course, shot out of a side street and rejoined them. The two cars did a sort of exaggerated figure-eight down the street, each car weaving in and out of the space the other occupied. By now they were in Culver City and the Caprice Monk was in took another sharp turn and plowed to a stop in a darkened parking lot near the Denny’s close to the Fox Hills Mall.

  “Move,” the driver commanded and the three exited on a run. Somebody emerged from the building’s shadows, and they got in the Caprice and whipped off. Monk was herded between the building and a concrete wall. They all crouched down into the ebony recess afforded by the wall.

  Minutes elapsed as Monk could hear the screech of tires and the pounding of V-8 engines swallowed up by the city. He felt a hand pulling on his upper arm, and he stood with the driver and Ray Smith by his side.

  “Pretty smart, huh?” Ray Smith enthused.

  Monk looked at Smith but couldn’t see anything but indistinct features, a reflection of the distance between the two who had been through junior and senior high school together. “What’s the game plan now?” Monk said.

  The driver extended his arm and pointed. “Over there.” He led the way through the gloom and the trio came to a late model Ford Bronco parked behind a series of industrial trash containers. They entered the vehicle and wound over to Slauson Avenue and headed east, Monk again riding in the rear.

  Getting close to Western Avenue, Smith said to the driver. “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Let’s get some grub over at the Golden Ox.”

  “Okay,” the driver responded.

  He turned right on Western and traveled several blocks until he got to Gage and pulled into the drive-through of the all-night burger stand. The Bronco came to rest alongside a yellow plastic silhouette of an ox. The menu of the establishment, which included such nouvelle junk cuisine as chili cheese fries with blue cheese, and a pastrami burger with spinach and dill, was delineated on the cut-out in neat, precise script. The microphone was in the head of the ox.

  “What do you want, Ivan?” Smith turned in his seat to look at him.

  “Coffee, three creams and one sugar.”

  The driver gave their orders, and they pulled in behind a cab that was also waiting for its order at the front of the drive-through. Monk stared at the hack of Smith’s head. He’d been taken aback a moment ago. It was the first time he’d gotten a good look at him.

  Smith’s once-handsome face was now drawn and of a greyish pallor. The folds under his eyes were puffy, and the eyes themselves were cloudy, seemingly unfocused. He looked ten years older than Monk yet he was actually younger by almost a year. The cab moved off, and they slid to the window in the Bronco.

  The driver turned slightly to look at Monk. It was the Rolling Dalton who had the skirmish with the two Scalp Hunters at the Oki Dog stand. Under the lighted carport, Monk could see the tattoos of the two tears in the corner of his right eye. Did it mean he was always sad, or that his sorrow was only a surface job?

  “Heard you handled yourself with a couple of bums.”

  Bums was the belittling term the Daltons used when describing Scalp Hunters. “How’d you hear about that?” Monk said to the driver.

  He smiled, his teeth yellow and wolfish in profile. “The young brother who plays the video games in the Hi-Life.”

  “One of yo
ur lookouts.” Monk was aware of the sharp tone in his voice.

  The driver turned back in his seat to look out the windshield. “Something like that.”

  Their food arrived, and the Bronco pulled over to the parking lot. The driver killed the engine. They ate and Monk sipped his coffee in silence. He didn’t know how to play it. There was no way for him to think too far ahead, plot out his moves. It was reassuring that they had demonstrated such good planning in outwitting Keys. It meant clarity and organization. It meant people who could be reasoned with. But there was always a wild card.

  “Look here, Monk,” Ray Smith began while washing down the remains of his double cheeseburger with a root beer. “What can happen in the way of some ducats on this thing?”

  “You mean how much money can you wrangle out of it, Ray?”

  The driver’s hood remained looking straight ahead, but Monk imagined his eyes taking in Smith in a sidelong glance.

  Smith said, “You need to talk to Crosshairs. I’m the one that can get you there.”

  “What exactly are you to the Daltons, Ray? You’re too old to be running with them.”

  Smith spun his head around. “I’m one of the ones who helped get the truce going, blood.”

  “You set the meeting ’tween us and the Swans, Ray. That ain’t the same thing as makin’ the truce,” the driver corrected.

  Smith dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. “Whatever. Fact is Monk needs to talk to Crosshairs and I know where to find him.”

  “I bet a lot of people know where to find him,” Monk said. “And you got it wrong, Ray. I want to talk to his cousin, Conrad James. If Crosshairs can get me to him, fine. Otherwise, if one of you knows where to find Conrad, that’s cool, too.”

  The driver’s hood moved slightly to the right. “Look man, Ray’s got his thing, we got ours.”

  “Ours?” Monk said.

  “The truce that me and some of the OGs from the Daltons help put together with the Swans and the Del Nines. Brothers and sisters done had it with bangin’, home. Your boy from SOMA and Perry and all them ain’t got us in mind when they set they shit up.”

  Monk leaned forward. “So what do you want to do?”

  The young man turned around to look full into Monk’s face. “What I want to do is reach those brothers that still be bangin’ and get them to stop. Black man on black man and we all goin’ down the sewer. I don’t give a fuck ’bout Ray and you and all your old times together.” He paused, swallowing some fries. “I do a favor for you, you do something for us. It’s like that.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “Get us a grant from SOMA. Or at least get us a meeting with somebody there who will listen to us. Somebody who won’t chump us off. Get us something to get a leg up so we can start some small businesses and do some more reachin’ out to others still in the life.”

  Monk essayed, “Don’t you have enough drug money to do that?”

  “Don’t believe everything your cop buddies tell you. Every gangbanger ain’t rollin’ in dough. And some of them don’t live long enough to be eligible to vote.”

  “I promise I’ll do what I can. I’ll get you a meeting.” He hoped that was a promise he could keep.

  “See that you do more than talk,” Smith said.

  “Excuse me, Ray?” Monk snarled. “For damn near ten years now you been nothing but one long disappointment to all your friends. You got nerve telling me to be responsible.”

  “Is it my fault I’ve had rough times?”

  “Times you made.”

  “Say fellas, I’d love to sit here all night and hear this shit, but we gotta be steppin’,” the driver said. He started the Bronco and they again headed east along Slauson. At Budlong, the vehicle made a right and continued along the street until it reached 76th. They made a left and came to rest in front of a house with a peaked roof.

  “Who are we meeting?”

  “Nobody yet, Mr. Detective. I gotta set things up.”

  “Yeah, smart boy,” Smith said. “Mad-T’s gotta go back and meet with the others now that you said you gonna play square and all.”

  “Yeah, so?” Monk said, getting edgy.

  Mad-T, the urban prophet in knitted gredelin, pointed at Smith. “He’s your babysitter until I get back.”

  “He couldn’t watch a dog pee,” Monk said between gritted teeth. “What the hell you mean I’ve got to be watched?”

  Mad-T shot back, “This ain’t no play, private eye. Ray knows you, he spoke for you, he’s gotta be responsible for you. I take back what we agreed on and we’ll see.”

  Smith and the hooded Dalton got out of the car. Briefly, Monk considered telling them to fuck themselves and walk away from it. Waiting around in some gang crash pad with Ray Smith was not a must-do activity high on his list. But what choice did he really have? Conrad James may have part of the answer. But since he wasn’t likely to get him on the phone, Monk got out of the car and followed the two up to the house.

  Mad-T unlocked the door to the house. It looked like many other working-class homes that comprised the housing stock of South Central Los Angeles. The trio entered. Smith brought the lights on and Monk surveyed the room he stood in. Various pieces of furniture, encompassing the styles of the ’40s through the ’70s, made up the design of the living room. A widescreen TV dominated the room along with a scarred coffee table strewn with empty malt liquor cans and the refuse of fast food meals.

  “Gee, guys, this the club house?”

  “There’s food in the ’fridge, and the roof don’t leak.” Mad-T moved back to the door. “Sit tight. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.” He left, closing the door behind him quietly.

  Monk checked the time. It was three-thirty. He looked at Smith. “You don’t mind if I take the couch, do you?”

  “Always on guard, huh?”

  “That’s something you wouldn’t know about.”

  “How come you got such a tight jaw for me, Ivan? We used to be down for each other.”

  “That was about three or four thousand dollars ago, Ray. Before you fucked up your life with cocaine and washed out all the bridges your friends tried to build for you.”

  Smith sat on the arm of the couch, “Hey, man, I admit I made some mistakes. Sure, I borrowed money I didn’t mean to pay back. But that was then. I’ve been clean for more than a year now.”

  “But you’re still hustling, Ray. Still working any angle you can to make a dollar.”

  Smith leaped up from the arm of the couch, shouting. “Like you so noble working for them Koreans.”

  “It’s an honest buck,” Monk said defensively.

  Smith snorted loudly. “Shit, who you foolin’.” He started to head toward another room, then turned around. “You asked me why I was hangin’ with the Daltons. Well, I wasn’t always fucked up on dope or running from the consequences of my last scam. I actually did some gang intervention work for the city for a while. Some of these kids got to really trust me.” He stepped closer to Monk. “Until I fell back into the pipe and almost caused the death of a young brother by letting the wrong word slip. It was a Scalp Hunter so none of the other gangs cared. But I did. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t go on in life looking for the next high.”

  “So this is your way of making up for lost time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, but you called Tina looking for money.”

  Smith bowed and spread his hands. “It was a hustle, but for a good cause. You might say I was fundraising in the only way I knew how for the truce.” He went into another room and closed the door.

  Monk mapped out the remaining parts of the house. Past the living room was what had been the dining room. In it was a futon with quilts on it and a mattress with only a dirty sheet. Two end tables were in the room and on one of them sat a lamp minus its shade. On the other was an old-fashioned dial telephone.

  The kitchen was spotless and the refrigerator was well-stocked, if lacking robustness in its fare. There were cold cuts,
processed cheese slices, commercial half-pint tubs of potato and macaroni salads, candy bars, sodas and cans of beer and malt liquor. The cupboards held dishes and glasses and an assortment of canned goods. The windows were barred and the back door was of solid wood and triple locked.

  Off of the kitchen was a back bedroom which had a mattress on the floor, a portable radio and various posters of rap artists taped to its wall. Connected to that room was a bathroom tiled in old-fashioned ceramic like the ones in his mother’s house. The door leading out of there led to another room which seemed to be the study, for lack of a better term.

  There were various chairs in various stages of disintegration about the room. It also had a large drafting table populated with writing pads and loose pieces of paper. There was a bookshelf which contained a stack of comic books, some shotgun shells, an ashtray with reefer butts, a couple of watch caps, a green-tinged braided gold chain, a fake skull with a candle stuck in it, a book about gangster rap and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Revolution a la hip-hop.

  Monk looked at the papers on the drafting table. It was an outline showing the prominent gang members in favor of the truce, those that were against it, and a lengthy discourse on the next phases of the truce.

  The door from this room led into the room that Smith was in. The detective retraced his steps and went back into the front room, carrying the outline.

  He removed the quilts from the futon and took off his windbreaker, shirt and shoes. Monk lay on the sagging couch, covering himself with the quilt. Fatigue overtook him while he read the outline. It included a series of ideas for micro enterprises and there were passages urging those members who’d made their money illegally to take what they had left and put it into legitimate concerns. There was even some thought given to what kind of structure they envisioned to run these businesses. Top down management versus more worker-owned or something in between. Monk’s eyes closed.

  In the still of the early morning, his mind reeled off images of the people and incidents involved in the case. Names and locations floated in Monk’s brain. Some of them were stacked in a small file on his colonial desk. The others were kept in a mile-high chamber. It didn’t worry him that the structure was brimming with files. What worried him was losing the one key he had to opening the massive containment tank. And the key was in the basement of the SOMA offices.