Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Moon

He fell silent then until Marjorie said, “And tell the machine what you regret now that she’s gone.”

That’s when Nate’s eyes welled and he finally said, “That the only time our lips ever touched was when I was trying to breathe life into her, and that I never said ‘honey’ right back at her, because she would’ve chuckled in that special way of hers, and that… that… she died all… all alone out there. Under that… fucking… Hollywood… moon.”

Then he wiped his eyes, stood abruptly, and said, “Thank you, Marjorie. The reading is over, and I don’t think I’d ever give me the role in whatever play you’re directing. I think I’d like to go to the station now. And may I say thank you for the loan of your pretend machine. I was able to talk to it more easily than to any of the humanoids around here.”

The body of Malcolm Rojas was released to his grieving mother after the postmortem, and though his mother would never believe in his guilt, both of the women he’d attacked identified their assailant from photos taken in life and in death.

The body of Jerzy Szarpowicz was cremated at the request of a brother in Arkansas, and the ashes were returned home by FedEx.

Of course, Hollywood Nate and everyone else at the station knew rather soon that Dewey Gleason and Tristan Hawkins would be charged with numerous counts of grand theft, forgery, and other property crimes. But despite three deaths having occurred at the crime scene, including the first-degree murder of a police officer, the District Attorney’s Office had not yet decided how to finally charge the two defendants. Although they were principals in immediate flight after the commission of felonies, their particular felonies did not meet the test for charging murder in the first degree of a peace officer. In fact, since neither defendant had personally used a firearm or other deadly weapon, even a charge of second-degree murder seemed a waste of taxpayer money. It was especially problematic for prosecutors that Ruben Malcolm Rojas was a wanted sexual psychopath and killer who had burst onto the scene and triggered the tragic events. Both defendants claimed that they were only trying to get away from him, not from the police, and fled in panic after Jerzy Szarpowicz, who they had not known was armed, began firing.

On the day following their arrest, just after TV footage of the suspects had been shown on local channels, a landlord in Frogtown called detectives at Hollywood Station to report that he’d rented an apartment to the one identified on the news as Dewey Gleason. That led to the discovery of the bed, chains, padlock, duct tape, and the rest. In hopes of striking a good plea bargain, the prisoners competed vigorously to reveal more information on each other as low-level confidence men. Up until then, neither arrestee had mentioned the kidnapping, but now each decided to amend his confession upon being confronted with the new Frogtown evidence. This occurred the day after the detectives had succeeded in marrying them to their former, less complex admissions.

Then both Dewey Gleason and Tristan Hawkins had to tell their versions of the kidnapping of Eunice Gleason, insisting that no one had any intention of harming Eunice, who Dewey maintained was the ringleader of their posse but not known by her low-level employees and bogus kidnappers. According to them, it was all an elaborate scam for Dewey Gleason to get some of the money from his ruthless wife, money that was rightfully his.

“It was just us little scammers trying to scam the big boss” was how Dewey put it to the detectives. “And it all went sideways.”

The Public Defenders Office and a court-appointed criminal lawyer argued that both clients were hardly more than identity-stealing scalawags whose confidence scheme directed at their boss, Eunice Gleason, had gone awry and resulted in a terrible but unforeseen tragedy not of their making. After conversations with jailhouse lawyers concerning prison overcrowding, coupled with their relatively innocuous arrest records and eager cooperation, Dewey Gleason became more sanguine, convinced that he would not serve more than eight years, and Tristan Hawkins less, considering their time served before sentencing and good behavior in prison.

It was pointed out to Dewey during an attorney visit that Symbionese Liberation Army urban terrorist Kathleen Soliah, aka Sara Jane Olson, who’d been a fugitive for twenty-four years until her capture in 1999, hadn’t served much longer than that, even though her gang had murdered a woman in a bank robbery and planted explosives under two LAPD police cars with intent to murder the officers. Dewey felt much more confident after that particular jailhouse chat.

In fact, during the last interview he had with D2 Viktor Chernenko, a Ukrainian immigrant famous at Hollywood Station for mangling American idioms, Dewey said to the hulking, moon-faced detective, “Someday the fortune that my wife stashed somewhere is gonna be found. And when it is, I’m putting in a claim for it.”

“That is the fruit of your criminal enterprise,” Viktor Chernenko replied. “I do not think you will be successful.”

“We both worked as honest people for years,” Dewey lied. “Nobody can prove which of the money is dirty and which is clean. So okay, maybe I’ll give up some of it to Uncle Sam and retire on the rest.”

Viktor Chernenko arched his bushy brows and said, “If I were you, my friend, I would not count my ducklings before they quack.”

Hollywood Nate was welcomed back warmly at his first roll call with hugs and quiet words of sympathy and encouragement. Perhaps because of Nate’s return and the memories it evoked, roll call was subdued despite the efforts of Sergeant Lee Murillo to inject a bit of levity from time to time.

Nate was to have worked with R.T. Dibney that night, but R.T. had unexpectedly requested a special day off for reasons that some cops guessed had to do with a certain waitress that he’d been sniffing around. It was R.T. Dibney who’d introduced Aaron Sloane to the Iranian jewelers Eddie and Freddie, who’d sold Aaron a real diamond ring, not a $200 zircon like the one that R.T. Dibney bought from them to trick his wife. Aaron’s ring cost nearly $4,000, but the Iranians swore that Aaron was getting it at a fifty percent police discount.

Sheila Montez had not worn the ring to Hollywood Station yet because she and Aaron were afraid that one of them would get transferred per Department policy as soon as word got out that they were to be wed in December. They wanted to work together for as long as they could. But Sheila would wear it when they visited his parents or hers, and they’d admire it every night before going to sleep, when they would talk excitedly about buying a house in Encino now that the real-estate market had almost bottomed out.

With R.T. Dibney gone for the night, Sergeant Murillo asked Hollywood Nate if he’d mind helping out at the front desk with the regular desk officer from Watch 3, and Nate said he wouldn’t mind at all. Sergeant Murillo noticed that Nate’s eyes had lost their old luster, and it worried him. He met with Sergeant Hermann in the sergeants’ room and asked her what she thought the Oracle would’ve done to help restore their troubled cop.

Sergeant Hermann said she’d think about it, and an hour later she said to Nate, “How about a cuppa joe at Seven-Eleven?”

Hollywood Nate was a Starbucks man but he said okay, and they rode in the sergeant’s car to the mini-mall, where Sergeant Hermann bought the coffee and looked longingly at the sweets but patted her size 38 Sam Browne and shook her head sadly.

“Want a goody to dunk?” she asked.

“No, thanks,” Nate said listlessly.

“Look at you,” she said. “You don’t have to count calories and fat grams. You still working out?”