Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

Ronnie was surprised by how pretty the cocktail waitresses were, and the two girls dancing onstage were knockouts. One of them looked to be part Asian and part white, her glossy hair hanging down nearly to her G-string as she gyrated under strobe lights.

A busty cocktail waitress walked toward the cops, smiled, and said, “Table for two, Officers?”

“I gotta warn you, I don’t like tropical toys in my mai tais,” Bix said, smiling back at her. “Is the boss around?”

“He’s in his office. Just a minute, I’ll tell him you’re here.”

She was gone for a moment, returned, and said, “You can go in.”

Ronnie noticed the cocktail waitress giving Bix the big eye when they squeezed passed her in the narrow corridor leading to the office, but he didn’t seem to notice. Ronnie had decided by now that Bix was the elusive Monogamous Male Cop, a creature she thought was extinct, if it had ever existed in the first place.

Ali Aziz was sitting at his desk, which was covered with file folders, bills, and photos of prospective dancers, most of them topless. He was yelling in Arabic at someone on the phone. When he looked up at them, he forced a polite smile and motioned them to the two client chairs.

Ronnie thought the office was very nice, not at all what she’d expected. The wall coverings were subtle, mostly pale colors that complemented the earth tones in the carpeting, and drapes that concealed the single small window facing the alley. The only bling was on the person of Ali Aziz himself, who wore a creamy silk blazer with a monogrammed pocket, a black shirt and matching black trousers, a gold Rolex, and pinkie rings on both hands. He was middle-aged, balding, swarthy, and wasn’t likely to get invited to the Jonathan Club downtown, she thought. But he’d fit in okay on the Nightclub Committee of the Community Police Advisory Board.

When Ali Aziz hung up the phone, he stood and reached across the desk to shake hands with both cops. He was several inches shorter than Bix and looked up with all of the cordiality he could muster, saying, “Welcome, Officers. I hope there is nothing wrong? We are friends of Hollywood Station. I am knowing your captain well, and each year I give from my heart to the Children’s Holiday Party and the Tip-A-Cop fund-raiser.”

“It’s the same complaint, Mr. Aziz,” Bix said.

“Parking?” With his accent he pronounced it barking .

“Yes, parking.”

“Fucking Mexicans!” Ali Aziz said, then looked at Ronnie and said, “Sorry. I am sorry, Officer. I have so much anger with my Mexicans. I shall fire them. They do that illegal parking. I am sorry for my rude mouth.”

Ronnie shrugged and Bix said, “We wouldn’t like to get anybody fired. We just want your employees to stay out of the parking places belonging to the apartment building across the street. Even though the spots look empty, people who work late hours come home to find your employees’ cars in their spaces.”

“Yes, yes,” Ali said. “The old Russian lady, she is right. She calls me all the time. I have police coming here all the time. I do not mind. I wish for my customers to see the police here. They know this is a respectable club. But I am sorry for you to waste your time. I shall fix this problem. I am going to send flowers to the old Russian lady. Do you need money for anything? I shall give you some cash for the-how you call it?-Pals Program.” He turned the p into a b again.

“No cash,” Bix said, standing up. “If you like, you can make a donation by check to the Police Activity League.”

“I shall do that tomorrow, god willing,” Ali said, standing to shake hands.

Ronnie was looking at the framed photos on a shelf over a big-screen TV. Three were studio shots of a beautiful boy, one taken when he was about two and another when he looked to be about five years old, wearing a suit, white shirt, and necktie in both photos. The third studio photo was of the boy posing next to his mother, he wearing a blazer and tie, she a basic black, V-neck dress with only a string of pearls hanging at her throat. She was a striking beauty, with hair the color of, what? Golden chestnut, maybe, full and heavy hair that any woman would die for.

Ronnie carefully touched the frame and said, “Your family is very beautiful.”

“My little son,” Ali said, smiling genuinely for the first time. “My heart. My life. My little Nicky.”

“Your wife should be in movies,” Ronnie said. “Don’t you think, Bix?”

“Uh-huh,” Bix said, hardly glancing at the photo.

Ali’s smile turned sour then and he said, “We are in a divorce battle.”

“Oh, sorry,” Ronnie said.

“No problem,” Ali said. “I shall obtain my son from her. I have the best divorce lawyer in all Los Angeles.”

They said their good-byes, and when they left the nightclub, Bix said, “So what’s your opinion of Ali Aziz?”

“I wouldn’t wanna work for him,” she said.

“Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth when he’s talking to cops,” Bix said.

“Please,” Ronnie said, “make that nonfat yogurt.”

As they were getting in their car to go end-of-watch, she said, “He won’t be a problem for long. That dude’s so golded up, he’ll probably drown in his pool someday if he goes in the deep end.”

And that’s how their uneventful watch would have ended if they had not driven to the station by way of Sunset Boulevard. Traffic was only moderate that evening, but Sunset was blocked at Vine Street by a confusing flare pattern that a motorist had placed. They saw a black-and-white that had been speeding north on Vine Street come screeching to a stop at the intersection. Bix turned on the light bar and drove west in the eastbound lane, turning south on Vine, and there it was: a major traffic collision.

“The TC must’ve just happened,” Ronnie said, as two cops from Watch 3 were running from their shop to a flattened old Chevy Caprice that had rolled more than once after having been slammed broadside by a two-ton flatbed truck that had blown the traffic light while racing southbound, driven by a teenage driver with a cell phone glued to his ear. The kid was bleeding from facial lacerations and was leaning against a door that was folded like a wallet from the force of the collision.

Bix leaped out and ran to the old car, Ronnie following. And one of the young Watch 3 cops yelled to them, “Two RA’s on the way! There’s a woman and kid in there! They’re bleeding bad and we can’t get them out!”

The other cop, a bigger man, was kicking at the jammed rear door of the Caprice where they saw a child’s head inside, gashed open from the crown to the forehead, blood running across her face from deep channels that had been opened to the bone.

“God!” Ronnie said. “God almighty!”

And she began kicking the door also, after the big cop stopped and drew his baton. He tried using it as a pry, trying to muscle open the door while yelling to his partner, “Get me a tire wrench! Anything to pry with!”

Bix could see through the shattered glass that the Asian woman behind the wheel was dead. Her chest had been crushed by the steering column and she stared lifelessly at the black sky through what was left of the roof.

Ambulance sirens were getting closer and Bix heard several voices shouting, and then he saw something move. He shined his light inside and realized that another child had been in the backseat of the car.

“There’s another kid in there!” he yelled, just as the big cop succeeded in prying the rear door open, and Ronnie saw clearly that the little girl’s shattered skull was attached to her neck only by a few shredded knots of red, slimy tissue.

“God almighty!” she repeated and ran around the car to Bix and the other child he had found, hoping that this one was alive.