Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

“Okay, but you still wanna meet me there in your neighborhood rather than right here?”

“By Mount Olympus sign, Leonard.”

Leonard felt the four President Grants in his pocket and thought, if he could smoke a little rock, this whole thing might clear up in his mind. Maybe then he could figure out what this goat fucker was really up to.

“I’ll come here when you call me,” Leonard said to Ali Aziz, using the desk notepad to write down the number of his throwaway cell phone. “By the way, what’s the address?”

When Ali recited his Mt. Olympus street and house number, Leonard wrote it down on a second notebook sheet.

“No, Leonard,” Ali said, watching him. “You write down the wrong number. Last two are not correct numbers.”

Leonard showed Ali his knowing smile and said, “That’s a little trick I learned from Whitey Dawson. “I always subtract two from the last pair of numbers in the address of a job I’m gonna be working. That way, I don’t have to memorize nothing. Guys forget stuff when they gotta memorize things. If the cops stop me and find the address, it ain’t gonna mean shit to them.”

“Very clever, Leonard,” Ali said. “I think you are a clever man.”

“You gotta do your homework,” Leonard Stilwell said, thinking about the rock he’d be smoking that night. Figuring he had lots of time to see his Fijian neighbor and learn how the hell to pick a lock.

LATE THAT DAY, after the Homeless Outreach had been concluded and the hills behind the Hollywood Bowl were encampment free for the time being, Ronnie kept her appointment with the surfer cops. She arrived with Hollywood Nate at 4 P.M. and parked in front of an auto body repair business in East Hollywood that was ostensibly diminishing the quality-of-life for a few hundred Hispanic people at the other end of their shared alley. Bix Ramstead was at the station catching up on paperwork and “constant caller” phone messages that he’d been postponing. It was estimated that about 30 percent of all CRO complaints were from the same callers.

The surfer cops were already there, standing by Flotsam’s pickup truck in their normal street attire of T-shirts and jeans.

“Thanks for coming,” Flotsam said, glancing uneasily at Nate, whose expression said to him, Are you an innocent bystander, or what?

“So why don’t you come in with us and make sure I do it right,” Ronnie said to the surfers.

Jetsam followed Ronnie inside, and Flotsam trailed, whispering to Nate, “The game’s afoot, dude. He think he’s Holmes, but I ain’t no Dr. Watson.”

The proprietor of Stan’s Body Shop was not an Arab, not an Iranian, nor an immigrant from any foreign country. He was a fifty-year-old white Anglo native of Los Angeles named Stan Hooper, and he was very surprised to see two cops in uniform and two other guys who looked like cops enter his place of business.

Ronnie said, “Good afternoon, sir. We’re from Hollywood Division Community Relations Office. Here’s my card.”

While Stan Hooper looked at the card, she said, “We have a complaint from residents at the other end of the alley that cars from your shop are often blocking the alley early in the morning, and apartment residents can’t get their cars out when they need to go to work. In fact, I noticed three cars parked there now with barely enough room for a VW Bug to squeeze by.”

Stan Hooper wiped the grease from his hands and said, “We’ll move them right away, Officer. I’m sorry. This place is too small for us but it’s all we can afford right now. I’m looking for more space. I try to keep the alley clear, but sometimes customers park there before I can tell them not to.”

“Business must be good,” Ronnie said, looking toward the open door leading into the main room, where body work was in progress on a white Lexus SUV that was taped and primered.

“Too good, but I shouldn’t complain,” he said, looking at the surfers, wondering why it took four cops to deliver the warning. “I don’t want no tickets. I won’t let it happen again.”

Jetsam said, “Nice rides you got in there.” And he strolled into the large open area, where the work was being done.

“He’s one of our officers,” Ronnie said to Stan Hooper. “He likes cars.”

Stan Hooper followed Jetsam into the work bay and said, “Two of those are for sale. My customer said I could sell them if someone wants to buy. I wouldn’t take no commission if an officer from Hollywood Station wanted one of them. The Mercedes is really nice and the price is pretty good.”

The surfer cop began writing down license numbers and VIN numbers, and Stan Hooper said, “Something wrong, Officer?”

Jetsam said, “We got a few reports about hot SUVs being repainted and having license plates switched. It’s just routine.”

“I never been in trouble in my life!” Stan Hooper said. “You can check. I got a reputation with insurance companies for doing honest work at an honest price, and we specialize in SUVs. We can even straighten bent frames if they’re not too bad. Insurance companies refer SUV owners to us all the time.”

At this point the other three cops knew that Jetsam was just trying to save face when he said, “I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of the owners of the SUVs. Do you know them personally?”

“I know two of them from way back. I’ve worked on their cars for ten, fifteen years. The other two I don’t know. One’s an old guy, lives in Los Feliz district. The other’s a woman. Drop-dead gorgeous. Lives in Hollywood Hills somewheres. One of my guys drove her home.”

“Are any of your workers from the Middle East? Arabs maybe?”

“Arabs? No. Three’re Mexican, two’re Salvadoran. One’s an Okie. That’s about it.”

Jetsam looked sheepishly at the other cops, and Stan Hooper said, “The woman customer has a name that sounds like maybe an Arab name, but she’s American. Her SUV was full of old magazines and newspapers written in a Middle East language. They were laying around the shop last time I looked. I wish she’d come and pay me and pick up her car, but she hopes I can sell it for her.”

Stan Hooper handed the repair estimates to Ronnie, who glanced at them perfunctorily just to help Jetsam gracefully exit, and she saw the name Margot Aziz.

“Aziz,” she said. “Would this customer be related to Ali Aziz who owns a nightclub on Sunset?”

“You got me,” Stan Hooper said, shrugging.

Hollywood Nate suddenly got very interested. He looked over Ronnie’s shoulder and saw the familiar address on the work order, and he memorized the phone number.

“How much does the lady want for the SUV?” Nate asked casually.

“It’s three years old but has very low mileage. It had some body damage but nothing major. Somebody smacked into her in the parking lot at Farmers Market, she said. She’ll take twenty-eight.”

“Twenty-eight thousand,” Nate said. “That’s a little high, isn’t it?”

“Maybe she’ll come down,” Stan Hooper said.

“Keep the alley clear, please,” Ronnie said, turning toward the door.

When the four cops were back outside, Ronnie said, “A Mercedes SUV? And you recently bought a Mustang, I believe. Are you on the take, Nate?”

“Nice ride. I always admired these Mercedes SUVs.”

“See you guys,” Ronnie said. “I’ll leave you to run license and VIN numbers if you wanna stay on this case.”

When the surfer cops got back in Flotsam’s pickup to drive to Hollywood Station, Flotsam said, “Dude, I know Ronnie rocks your libido, but this kinda move ain’t gonna help you become a Crow.”

Jetsam said, “At least I got it right about the Arabic newspaper.”