Violent Spring Page 8

  What might have been a smile creased the giant’s face. “Always safety first.”

  Monk waved goodby and got in his car. He drove east on Vernon until he reached Main then swung south along the boulevard. He arrived at 55th Place, then turned east on it and came to a clapboard house, the last known address for Ruben Ursua. The information O’Day had given him had jibed with what he’d learned from Karen Jacobs.

  She’d told him that Ursua had done time in prison, hot car beef, and had worked at the Hi-Life while on parole. According to her, he was moody, distant. He didn’t laugh and joke with the others the way employees do. Yesterday, Monk had called around and produced this address, the same one O’Day provided him this morning. He sat parked in front of the house.

  It was a modest single-family job with peeling brown paint adorned with steel mesh on the windows and a metal screen on the door. Twin anemic columns sprouted from either side of the porch ending in a dilapidated canopy. A beat-to-hell lounge chair decorated the left side of the cracked porch. Angled across the lawn of dirt, dead grass and the walkway, was a grey-primed ’77 Monte Carlo. It was up on floor jacks and the rear wheels and the brake drums were off.

  Monk knocked on the door. Presently, he heard it swing inward. A soft rectangle of light shone through the screen. Whoever stood there didn’t say a word.

  “Is Ruben in?” Monk didn’t offer his license.

  “No,” a woman’s tired voice said.

  “You expect him later?”

  “Shit, I don’t know.” There was another gap, then, “Nice ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You a friend of his?” The voice got more animated.

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “You betchum Red Rider.”

  There was a short burst of either contempt or joy. “What you want me to tell him, man?”

  “Tell him his friends from the Hi-Life say hi.” Monk began to walk away. The screen door opened to reveal a handsome Latina with hard eyes. She couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-one, Monk reasoned.

  “You didn’t work with him there.”

  Monk stopped on the steps, looking back. “How do you know that?”

  “The car, how you dress.” She thrust her head forward as if listening to an invisible voice. “You ain’t the heat and you ain’t no ex-con. That’s the only kind of people Ruben knows.”

  “I’ll keep you guessing for now.” Monk got in his car, the woman still looking at him as he drove away along 55th Place. The Galaxie wound north then west, eventually gliding to a stop at the Oki Dog fast food stand on Pico and Sycamore.

  Pico Boulevard was a sort of Maginot line of the Mid-City area, a buffer of the better-offs against the deprived hordes. South of it, along this stretch, there were the homes and apartments of mostly black working class folks. The populace included quite a few young people, and, as fall-out from the Federal cutbacks in social spending during the 80s, several were members of the Rolling Daltons. Not that Monk laid the entire blame for gangsterism at the feet of men like Reagan and Bush. Still, he had to admit that they had set a fine example as the biggest gangbangers of all with their violent escapades in Grenada, Libya, Panama and Iraq—all while the cities went to hell and the young folk emulated their elders.

  North of Pico the homes and lawns got a little neater, a bit bigger. The demographics shifted from solely black to mixtures including whites and Asians. Some green lawns had signs staked into them announcing this or that armed-response security service. Judiciously placed in the corner of some windows were stickers declaring that the house participated in the Police Watch Program or was a member of a particular block club. Which didn’t mean these neighborhoods didn’t have forays from the residents south of Pico, it just meant they were easier to spot.

  East of the Oki Dog stand, on the northwest corner of Pico and LaBrea, was the Mexican fast food joint, Lucy’s. Every day—and he could see them out there now—brown, black and white men milled about on the curbs in front of the establishment. They whistled and gestured to the drivers of cars and trucks as they sped by on either thoroughfare. But these fellows were no sellers of crack, or aging chickenhawks. Their product was indeed their body, but the market they sought was work as day laborers, or handymen, or movers, or painters, or whatever physical task, whatever payment in cash they could scrounge.

  Men younger and older than Monk who once upon a time in post-’50s America worked in auto plants, attaching bumpers to Chevys, or steel mills, pouring molten rivers of metal. Maybe they worked the swing shift in the old Goodyear plant on Central turning out mountain high piles of tires, or ran a drill press in a factory in South Gate. But the ’90s and the deindustrialized core had little use for semi-skilled workers, displaced now because the factory relocated to a foreign country to take advantage of a home-grown, exploitable labor force. And even the service sector jobs at McDonald’s or the frozen yogurt stand were out of their reach because they just couldn’t take orders from guys too young to date their daughters.

  Monk sat in the enclosed dining area of Oki Dog eating his pastrami sandwich, heavy on the onions and light on the mustard. The stand itself was neutral territory. Gang members, low riders, hip-hoppers and metal heads—there was a recording studio across the street—and beat cops all came to the Oki Dog for at least a weekly repast. Wilshire Division, where Monk was to be in about an hour, was less than two miles away on Venice.

  The patrons came to indulge in such fare as the Oki Dog’s wondrous heaping plate of fries, the spuds cut into long strips with the skins partially left on and served on a paper plate with a few green chili peppers on the side. Or a triple chili cheeseburger and a giant root beer. Maybe even a cholesterol-laden Oki Dog: two hot dogs swarmed in the secret chili, onions and cheese, and garnished with bacon wrapped in a flour burrito.

  Monk ate, ruminating on the case. Two young men in their late teens entered the enclosed area. They were dressed in double breasted suits of some shiny material and each wore bowlers. Scalp Hunters. They were a minor set as far as gangs like the Daltons, the Swans and the Del Nines were concerned. But they weren’t partners to the truce and therefore considered loose cannons by all concerned.

  Each one looked warily from side to side. The taller, beefier one’s gaze settled on Monk for several seconds. Monk returned it with a baleful expression. Eventually he shifted his attention to the one Monk had noticed sitting in the rear booth. He wore the purple colors of a Dalton and had been intent on the three tacos before him. At least when Monk had last looked at him he had. But Monk was sitting with his back to the Dalton, the Scalp Hunters in front of him, standing near the order counter.

  Monk stopped chewing and started calculating. He hadn’t brought his gun and the only way out of the dining area, save a stupid stunt like trying to dive through the picture window, was out the open doorway.

  “Say, homey,” the lanky Scalp Hunter began, talking to the other. “You got any money.”

  The other one, working a toothpick back and forth on the side of his mouth, had his eyes riveted on the back booth. “Naw, sure don’t”

  The first one patted himself down dramatically. Suddenly he stopped, dove a hand into a pocket, and produced a wad of twenties. “Oh yeah, I forgot about my ho’ change.” He flashed a twisted smile and turned to place his order with one of the cooks. Toothpick kept looking past Monk.

  The Dalton strolled past the Scalp Hunters, holding his plate of tacos in one hand. The other was down at his side. Toothpick stepped into the doorway, blocking the Dalton.

  “Why you in such a hurry?” Toothpick said in an unfriendly tone.

  “It ain’t none of your worry,” the Dalton replied.

  “Well, we just wanted you all to know the Scalp Hunters is ready to sign up on this truce thang.”

  “Is that right?” the young Dalton replied skeptically.

  Monk continued to chew, listening, rather than heed his good sense and leave.<
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  “That’s right,” the lanky one said dryly. “But first the Daltons gotta agree to split up they shit.”

  The Dalton put his plate of food on the table where Monk sat. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the two. “Just how you mean that, my brother?”

  “Well if we gonna be all for one and one for all, then y’all should divide that big money of yours up between all the ones that agree to this truce.” He looked at his huskier companion. “That’s only fair, right?”

  The husky one nodded in agreement. He disposed of his first toothpick and inserted another one, which he began to suck on with interest.

  “And just what big money you talking about?” the Rolling Dalton responded. “A lot of them motherfuckers still slangin’ product ain’t down with this truce. The ones that is been puttin’ what little money they got toward legitimate shit for their families.”

  The lanky one grinned and raised his arms skyward in a pantomime of supplication. “Aw, home, we ain’t stupid.”

  “This ain’t no scam, fool. We about tryin’ to do something for our community. About trying to get jobs for these brothers and sisters out here so they don’t have to go knock somebody upside the head. This is a black thing,” he said, his voice rising. “You just about trying to get over,” the Dalton said contemptuously to the two. He picked up his plate and started for the door again.

  Toothpick feinted with a right and delivered a quick left, sinking it into the solar plexus of the Dalton. He must have been expecting they’d try something because he went with the force of the blow, his tacos spilling bright shards of cheese, tomatoes, and ground beef in a cascade of fast food minutiae. The Dalton’s back slammed against the doorjamb and he came up with a foot into the husky one’s groin.

  The big one wasn’t expecting that. He doubled over, holding his crotch. The lanky one’s hand jerked into the space between his head and the Dalton’s. A 17-shot Glock filled his fist and the void.

  “Gat him, gat him, cuz,” the husky one screamed, fighting for his breath.

  A clipped reel, loose on its sprockets, runs in Monk’s mind, pictures his eyes see and his mind interprets in a rapid-fire herky-jerky fashion. His brain tells his hand to launch his plate of fries and half-finished root beer toward the Scalp Hunter with the gun. The food explodes around him, but it doesn’t knock the pistol from his grip. Instead, he turns his attention, and the barrel of the gun, on Monk.

  Monk hurtles forward on aging legs. Too old, too slow. The sick conclusion he’d be dead by the time he reached the Scalp Hunter. Goddamn. The Dalton tackles the lanky one and they go down. An eternity later, Monk covers that precious distance and plows a straight right into the bridge of the nose on the husky one’s face.

  “Fuck.” Blood gushes from his nose like water from a busted hydrant. The younger man grabs Monk in a bear hug, and they rock back against the shell of the booth. Scuffling with him, Monk hears the stand’s owners yelling something about cops and insurance.

  The lanky one is on the ground, a welt swelling under his right eye. He gropes for his lost gun. The Dalton scoops it up where it lies under the table. At the same moment, Monk and his opponent tumble over the bench seat, hit the table and fall to the floor, a tangle of arms and flailing legs.

  “Who’s gonna gat who, motherfucker?” the Rolling Dalton says, pointing the weapon at his lanky opponent’s head.

  Monk is aware of this in the background. A jab lands on his jaw and he grunts in pain. The two latch onto each other, then struggle to their feet. Monk spins around, his back to the Dalton and the other Scalp Hunter. The Dalton extends the Glock to the prone figure before him.

  The kid he’s fighting has raw strength and youth, but his technique is all charge, little deliberation. Monk drops his shoulder, shifts his weight to the balls of his feet and plows his fist into the kid’s side, then follows with a flush clip to the side of his face. He goes down and stays there.

  “No,” Monk shouts, turning his body, breathing heavily through his mouth.

  The Dalton laughs harshly and the gun erupts once. Monk watches the shell jacking from the chamber, falling to the floor into the pile of cheese, lettuce and tomato. The inner city salad. The larger Scalp Hunter, spent but looking up, shifts wide-eyed orbs in that direction.

  The disjointed film in Monk’s mind’s-eye catches and clicks into place, and the scene holds still before him.

  On the floor, the other Scalp Hunter has curled up in the fetal position, a 3-D cut-out superimposed on a worn tile floor representing a universe of the lost hope of young black men just like him. Monk looked at the body then looked up. The Dalton stood, hands akimbo, a wicked smile showing off his uneven teeth.

  “Pussy.” He snarled and kicked at the Scalp Hunter who drew himself up on the ground. A murmur issued from the inert form.

  “Where did you shoot him?” Monk said, trying to decipher the Dalton’s fierce countenance. Monk noticed the Dalton had two tears tattooed in the corner of his right eye, green and luminous against his dusky skin.

  The Rolling Dalton pointed at the floor. A neat hole, singed black around its edges, bore into an area near the top of the young man’s bowler which, oddly, had stayed on his head.

  “You think I’m gonna ride a beef upstate for a chump like this,” the Rolling Dalton spat. Not too far away, the approach of sirens punctuated the air. “I got bigger things to accomplish than dealin’ with this bullshit.” He wiped the gun clean with his T-shirt and tossed it to Monk. “There you go, hero.” He ran out of the dining area and hopped into a ’68 lowered Cougar. The twin carbs spat fuel into the engine, and the car flew east on Pico.

  Presently, two patrol cars arrived. Two sets of LAPD’s finest tumbled onto the cracked sidewalk at the ready, shotguns and 9mm automatics bristling. Monk, the gun on the table of the booth, the clip in his pocket, stood with his hands up in plain sight. The lanky Scalp Hunter sat on the floor, his back against the counter. A look of embarrassment and self-contempt contorted his features. The larger one sat in the booth, his ringing head held in his hands.

  The cops cuffed everyone and told them they’d sort the story out at Wilshire Station. There they threw them together in a holding cell smelling of stale body odors and old fried chicken. Monk told the uniforms he was supposed to meet with Keys and Seguin. One of the cops went away and came back after a few minutes. They took Monk out of the cell and hustled him into an interrogation room he’d been in before. Only the last time it was to watch his friend the lieutenant go to town on a suspected arsonist and murderer.

  Monk sat and yawned and watched his hands swell—he’d managed to add to his bruises with another split knuckle on the left hand—for forty-five minutes before the door to the room opened again. A uniformed policewoman stuck her head through the sliver. “You can go home after we get your statement about what happened at Oki Dog.”

  “What about Keys?”

  “They’re busy.”

  “So am I supposed to come back or what?” he said, irritation surfacing in his voice.

  She lifted a shoulder. “Give your statement to the desk sergeant.” She went away, leaving the door ajar.

  Monk did so and went home, tired, pissed and wrung-out. He and Jill were supposed to go out but he convinced her to come over to watch a rented video instead. Before she arrived, Monk soaked in the tub, then plunged his hands into a pail of hot water and Epsom salts. His entire upper body was one big ache.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Kodama asked, taking off her jacket and heels after entering the apartment.

  Monk sat in his wing chair, staring at nothing, thinking of everything, the plastic bucket of Epsom salts by his feet. Toweling his hands dry, he related his day, blow by literal blow. Afterward he said, “And what’s happening in the world of adjudication, baby?”

  “Compared to kicking the ass of half of L.A.’s population, nothing, dear.” They sat side by side on the batik-covered couch. “Just the usual sentencing of some
poor kid for holding up some other poor working stiff in a 7-Eleven parking lot.”

  Monk rubbed her knee. “Did you bury him under the jail, baby?”

  “Shit. The governor’s cutting the hell out of the budget. These kids who should be going to youth camps where they can at least get some counseling, wind up being sent into prisons with hard-core bastards who only abuse and maim their minds and bodies until they can’t help but be a stone gangster.”

  “Oh you card-carrying, ACLU-supportin’, family-value-destroying, faggot-loving liberal.” Monk shook his head in mock disapproval. “What happened to the kid?”

  Jill took a sip of the tea he’d brewed for them. “I remaindered him to Chino over the objections of the prosecuter, a stiff prick asshole who wants to be the next D.A.”

  “What about you?”

  “Don’t start that.”

  “Look Jill, you’re high profile. A reasonably young—”

  She glared at him.

  “Asian woman jurist who’s been on the cover of national magazines and written articles for The Nation and Newsweek magazine.”

  Jill clasped her hands together and looked heavenward. “Born in a log cabin, studied her law books by candlelight.”

  “Who fights the good fight from the bench. The same bench that sent her parents to the concentration camps.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jill got up and turned on the TV. She got the tape Monk had rented, a comedy about a white CEO who wakes one morning to discover he has become a black welfare mother of four children. It grossed over one-hundred and fifty million at the box office. Jill assessed the dubious fare in her hands. “At least it’s not Point Blank, The Glass Key—”

  “The second version,” Monk amended.

  “The Naked Kiss, Kiss Me Deadly, or those god awful Matt Helm films with Dean Martin. Or any of the other countless crime films you and Dexter have seen at least ten times.”

  Monk drank his tea in silence. Jill crouched down in front of the set, slipping the tape into the VCR on the shelf below it. She was about to click the unit on when a burst of white light exploded in an aura around her head. She moved out of the way and Monk leaned forward.