Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

Flotsam concurred, saying, “Yeah, they think their turds should be bronzed and kept in trophy cases, dude.”

“Come to Malibu, bro,” Jetsam said. “Maybe you’ll have a vision too and find your true self.”

Nate stood up then, nodded, and said, “Am I ever glad I came here today. All this time I’ve been buying lottery tickets and stalking talent agents, and the answer was right before my eyes. I just couldn’t see it till you sea slugs dialed me in. It all comes down to a surfboard. The stuff that dreams are made of!”

There was no better time of day in Hollywood than twilight, as far as Ronnie Sinclair was concerned. The way the setting sun blasted through the low-hanging summer smog actually burnished the pollution into garish wine-colored clouds. After which, a scarlet glare was cast over the boulevards announcing to all: This place is unlike any other. Here even the toxic gases are beautiful!

After lunch, followed by a perfunctory visual check to see if there were signs of the homeless encampment springing up again, Ronnie drove them back toward Hollywood Boulevard. Bix Ramstead answered his cell phone and the look on his face startled her.

Bix reddened and whispered into the phone, “I’m working. I can’t talk. I’ll call you later.” He snapped the phone shut and said, “My brother Pete. He’s a pain. Always borrowing money, never paying it back.”

“Yeah, my sister used to be like that till her husband made it big,” Ronnie said, looking at Bix, who was smiling but not with those heavily lashed gray eyes she loved. And she knew he was lying again. That was not brother Pete on the cell call.

“Maybe I oughtta join you guys the next time you go up to Sunset Boulevard for a Mexican dinner,” Bix said abruptly. “With my family gone, I guess I should get out and mix a bit. Gets lonely talking to a dog, even one as smart as Annie.”

“I’ll bet she’s smarter than most of the people we call on every day,” Ronnie said. “I found out that our posse won’t be doing our Mexican thing tonight after all, but if you’re not busy, I’d be glad to meet you there.”

She had never detected a sexual vibe coming her way from Bix Ramstead and she didn’t detect it now when he said, “I might do that. When, right after we go end-of-watch?”

“Okay by me,” she said. “And I’ll pop for it, since I’m a semiprosperous single copper with nobody to spend my money on but me and two goldfish.”

Then another phone call came in, this one on Ronnie’s cell. She picked it up and said, “Officer Sinclair.”

“It’s Nate,” Hollywood Nate said to her. “Can I talk to Bix?”

“Sure,” she said, handing Bix her phone and saying, “It’s Nate.”

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Bix said to him.

Then the smile was gone. His face darkened yet again. His lips turned down and he said, “Yeah, I know the resident at that address.” After a moment he said, “I, uh, I’ll see you back at Hollywood South and we can talk about it. In an hour, okay?”

When he hung up this time, he felt he definitely owed his partner an explanation, so he said to Ronnie, “Just some Hollywood Nate deal. A person on Mount Olympus that I dealt with on a prior call might be a burglary target. Some guy with four-five-nine priors had the resident’s address in his car, or a similar address to that one. It’s just bullshit, I’m sure. It’s nothing.”

The brooding look on his face said that it was not nothing to Bix Ramstead. And Ronnie Sinclair knew that he was lying to her yet again.

Ali Aziz couldn’t eat a bite all day. He mulled over his plan a dozen times and he couldn’t stop sweating. He even used the shower in the dancers’ bathroom and steamed himself clean, letting the hot water pelt his balding dome until it turned pink. He went to the closet in his office and changed into a clean silk shirt. He shaved his face, doused himself with cologne, and flopped onto the leather sofa in his office and tried to nap, but he could not.

He didn’t want food or whiskey or women. He only wanted this torment to be over. He wanted Margot to be gone forever. He wanted to have his son, Nicky, and to take him away from this terrible city, from this terrible, godless country someday. Here, there was no respect, no love, no truth. Everything here was a lie.

Jaime Salgando showed up half an hour early at the Leopard Lounge. When he entered Ali’s office, he said, “Traffic was light for once.”

Ali looked approvingly at Jaime’s double-breasted pinstriped suit, wondering if it was a Hugo Boss. And at his starched white shirt with shooting cuffs and gold links and at his sky blue necktie with a perfect knot, and he said, “This is how gentlemen dress. In my country, in your country, men have respect. In this country, no respect.”

Jaime said, “Thank you,” and sat in the client chair nervously, wanting to get the business finished.

“The girls shall arrive at eight o’clock, like you say,” Ali said.

“Yes, yes,” Jaime said, “that gives us a chance to do our business. I have an acquaintance at a compounding pharmacy who helps me with these unusual orders.”

“What is the meaning of ‘compounding’?”

“They mix a lot of drugs and medications for special prescription orders. This employee is from the village in Mexico where I used to spend my summers. He was able to help me, but it cost me six hundred dollars.”

Ali looked at him, trying to keep his smile in place. He knew that Jaime was lying to him, but he was powerless. Everyone lied to him. By forcing Jaime to come tonight instead of Saturday, he was going to pay a price. Ali took the roll of hundreds from his gold money clip and counted out six bills, placing them on the desk.

“Of course, my brother,” Ali said. “We got to pay for good service always. That is the American way.”

Jaime Salgando picked up the bills and put them in his pocket and withdrew a small pill envelope with his pharmacy’s name on it. He opened it and dropped two green capsules on the desktop, then put the envelope back in his pocket.

Ali nearly panicked. “Two?” he said. “I need two capsules to kill the dog?”

“No, you only need one of these to easily kill a fifty-kilo dog. The other is just in case the dog does not take the bait or if something goes wrong. Then you can try again some other time.”

Ali’s relief was palpable. “You are a smart man, brother,” he said. “Very smart. Yes, is good to have the, how you say, backdown?”

“Backup.”

“Yes, we got the backup now. Very good. Very good.”

“I’d like a drink while I wait for the girls.”

“Yes, yes,” Ali said. “Anything. You want champagne? I got good champagne for special customers.”

“I want a bottle of good champagne brought to the motel,” Jaime said, very businesslike and matter-of-fact. “Make it two bottles. And an ice bucket. And three glasses, of course. But for now I’d like a double shot of tequila. The Patrón Silver that you serve to your special clients.”

“You got it, brother,” Ali said, but now his forced smile had turned grim and produced white lines around his mouth. Ali was starting to loathe Jaime Salgando nearly as much as he loathed the other thieves with whom he was forced to do business. Almost as much as he loathed Leonard Stilwell.

By the time the pharmacist had finished his tequila shooter, there was a knock at the door and Tex entered with Goldie.

“Jaime, you rascal!” Tex drawled. “I’m so glad you could make it tonight!”

“Me too!” Goldie said. “This is just too cool for school!”

Both women giggled when the courtly pharmacist rose and kissed their hands. They were both dressed in black Chanel knockoffs with spaghetti straps, as though for one of their nights on the Sunset Strip. Goldie wore three-inch open-toed heels, but because the pharmacist had special needs, Tex did not wear hers. She wore lizard-skin cowboy boots that she used in her act, and a new snow-white cowboy hat with a rhinestone T across the crown.