He closes his mouth then, and he nods right there where he is on the carpet.
We have a deal.
“Good.” I uncuff him and nod toward the bathroom. “Now get your kit and fix up a quarter dose, so you’re not completely dope sick when they question you.”
His eyes bug out at that. He can’t believe I’m serious.
I am.
3
The drop goes smoothly. Augie needs one more pep talk to go over the details again, to get them sealed up tight in his brain, and then we go through the front doors and he gets taken into custody. They’ll jail him in Firestone Park Station because it’s where I bring him. I have better links to people here than the Lynwood jail, and besides, they’re having some construction issues anyway. When the detectives are ready for Augie, he’ll be in a chair answering questions about what he knows and how he knows it. He’s not likely to be the most reliable key witness, given his past convictions and drug use, but if I do what I need to do with the gun, it will all work out by the time he gets to County Jail and gets PCed.
I check with the desk about the shooting. I’m still half expecting it not to be true, if I’m honest. To my surprise, Lucrecia A. Lucero, a.k.a. Lu-Lu, a.k.a. Scrappy, was indeed shot last night at approximately 2120 hours, outside her mother’s residence. She caught three rounds. It was good aim, and her shooter was close, but it wasn’t the best aim. She lived, just like a cucaracha. She’s at St. Francis now, status: stable. The deputy on desk duty let me know that she went in with a tourniquet on her. It saved her life.
I ask if I can head back to the bullpen and leave a note for Montero, one of the detectives I know (not sure what their rotation is, or if he’ll be assigned, but it’s worth a shot to cover my ass), and I get told that’s fine. My note details what I know regarding Augie’s statement, that my parolee confessed it to me, and I brought him in on a parole violation as well as to give an official statement. However, since one of my other parolees may have been directly involved in this shooting, I write that I felt it was incumbent upon me to go check up on him with patrol. When I’m done writing, I head back to the front and request a unit.
It takes about twenty minutes to get cleared from above, so I use that time to sit and think about how I’m about to go into Wizard and Dreamer’s place to hide that gun a few minutes before finding it there with my sheriff counterpart. If both suspects are there when it happens, okay, they go straight into custody, but that potentially complicates the plant. If they’re not there, it’s easier to plant, and then maybe I find it on my search because I’m a pro.
And with that in mind, I’m in enforcement mode now. Before I walked Augie in, I switched to my ballistic vest and a marked raid jacket to keep things going high-speed, but also because it is very easy to conceal the .38 pistol under my vest, where it is both accessible and secured.
“Petrilla?”
In front of me is a muscular deputy in the tan uniform they’ve all got. He must be six-foot, two hundred. He’s a black, but he says my name like it’s Spanish: the double l as a stupid y.
“Petrillo,” I say as I stand. “It’s Italian, and it’s got an o on the end of it.”
“Oh, right.” His name tag says JACKSON on it. “What’d I say?”
I give him a look that means: You know what you said. “You said it wrong.”
“I got you.” He looks at me. “Petrillo.”
I smile when he pronounces it rightly to show him he did better, but it’s more out of relief that I don’t have to sort him out. We shake hands. Jackson’s got a shaved head that looks like a shiny piece of rock you’d never want to get hit with, and a hand that swallows mine up when we shake.
I say. “So, you got a partner coming along with us?”
He says, “No, he’s got a case review thing. It’s just us.”
“That’s fine,” I say, and as I turn, I motion for him to follow.
We walk out together. From two minutes of talking to him, I gather that he’s fresh off Central Jail duty in downtown, and new to these streets, which is just my good luck.
* * *
It’s getting toward nine and the clouds have burned off. What’s left is a sky that looks dirty-river-blue. I park on Virginia, across the street and five houses before Wizard’s residence. Jackson parks behind me. I exit my vehicle. Jackson follows, one hand on his gun and one at his side. I slow my pace, allowing him to walk side by side with me. He’s eyes up on the street, looking left and right as we cross. We mean business, and the neighborhood knows it. I feel someone looking at us, but there’s no one else on the street.
The closer I get, the more I anticipate seeing her, and I feel queasy. She does this to me.
Across the sidewalk, there’s a low chain-link fence with a gate blocking the driveway. It’s on rollers. Behind it is what’s left of a yard. I approach the gate and open it without hesitation. Jackson can tell I’ve been here before. We go straight up the walkway and I knock my knock on the front door. We wait.
A plane sails overhead on its way to LAX. The door doesn’t have a spy hole in it, but vertical shades in the window next to it shake and then a voice from the other side says, “Who is it?”
To my relief, it’s Angela. It’s been a week since last I saw her.
I clear my throat. “Parole search!”
Two locks unbolt, and she fumbles with the one on the handle before it turns. She’s nervous, I think. I wonder if she knows what her cousin and her boyfriend got up to last night. I think it unlikely, because she’s a good girl, but anything is possible. I’ve seen enough by now to know that. As the door swings open, Jackson rocks back slightly on his heels when he sees Angela standing there in front of us, the soft yellow light hanging above the kitchen table shining through her curls. She’s a ten and he knows it.
She’s five-six and a former local track star (hurdles).
Every time I see her, I think: She’s better than this. She doesn’t deserve this place. I can save her from it.
Her hair is wet (from the shower, or a bath?). She’s wearing a Lynwood High T-shirt, loose white sweatpants, no shoes. Her toenails are painted silver and black.
She works at Tom’s Burgers most days, and attends night school for her nursing certificate for elderly care.
Jackson doesn’t know any of that. He just knows she’s a knockout living with a couple of gangster scumbags.
“Agent Petrillo,” she says, gathering her wet hair into a ponytail. “What is it you need today?”
She heard me say search before she opened the door, but now she can see my hand is on my holstered weapon.
I say, “Is anyone else home?”
“No,” she says. “Just me.”
More relief: it’s the best-case scenario for doing what I need to do. I let go of my sidearm.
I say, “We are here to do a parole search.”
She steps back from the door. I go first. Jackson walks in behind me and shuts the door.
Angela has seen searches like this before. She’s used to the fact that parolees do not have private space. This is the third such search I’ve conducted since Wizard was released for his conviction of assault with a deadly weapon (ADW) months ago. However, Angela’s eyes are wary this time. Never have I brought a deputy with me to do it. She moves to sit at the nearest place at the table, one where a textbook sits open next to a bowl of unfinished cereal.