Joseph Wambaugh - Hollywood Crows

“That guy almost rolled it,” Dan said.

“Let’s check him out,” said Gert.

She whipped a left and floored it, turning on her light bar. In a moment, the black-and-white had closed on the Jaguar, which pulled over in front of a palatial home halfway up the hill.

Ali Aziz was in the crisis of his life. If the police got him out of his car and spotted the pistol inside his belt, he’d no doubt be arrested for carrying the concealed weapon, even though he had legally purchased the gun several years ago at a gun shop. If he put the loaded pistol on the seat, he’d still have a lot of explaining to do and perhaps be taken to Hollywood Station for further investigation. If he tried to hide it under the seat and they noticed it, he’d be arrested for certain.

In that fateful moment, he even considered telling them the terrible things that Jasmine had said and asking them to accompany him to his home. But he knew that would end with Margot reassuring the cops that everything was fine and that they were in a bitter divorce and custody fight. And the cops would tell him to go home and speak with his lawyer and to the appropriate detectives in the morning. He had learned from experience how the laws of this country worked against people who were trying to do what is right. And in the meantime his son would be left in his bed, weeping in terror, and perhaps from unspeakable harm done to him.

Ali didn’t have time and couldn’t risk it. He decided in that brief moment to get his emotions under control and to run the bluff of his lifetime. Ali Aziz willed a small smile onto his face when the burly woman cop came up on his side of the car while her male partner stood at the passenger side, shining his light in the window.

“In a hurry, are we, sir?” Gert said.

“I am so sorry, Officer,” Ali said. “I am Ali Aziz, proprietor of the Leopard Lounge on Sunset Boulevard. I am in big hurry to the house of my ex-wife to collect my son.”

He gingerly reached into his coat pocket for his wallet while both cops shined their flashlight beams on his left hand. He prayed to god that they would not spot the gun when he removed his license for Gert. He also removed business cards bearing the name of the Hollywood Station captain as well as one from the division captain.

“I am always first to give plenty of my time to the Community Police Advisory Board,” he said. “I give always donations to the holiday party for children. Everyone knows Ali.”

“Just curious,” Gert said. “Why’re you picking up your son at this time of night? Won’t he be asleep?”

“Yes, you are correct,” Ali said. “I work late at the nightclub and this is how I must do. Nicky is going to sleep in my car when I drive with him to my condo.”

Gert Von Braun didn’t like his plastered-on smile and she didn’t like the beads of sweat forming at his hairline. Her blue antenna was sending signals, but the address on his license was up the hill near the top of Mt. Olympus, and everything he said made sense. She looked over the roof of the Jaguar to Dan Applewhite, who shrugged.

“Drive more carefully when you have your son in the car, Mr. Aziz,” she said, handing Ali back his license.

“Yes, yes, Officer,” Ali said. “I shall drive with great care.”

When the cops returned to their black-and-white, Ali drove slowly up the hill to the house on Mt. Olympus.

Margot had received the two-ring warning call from Jasmine twenty-five minutes earlier. It meant that Ali was on his way. The go phone was on vibrate and she didn’t need to answer it. She had been seated naked on the lounge in the darkened master bedroom, on the opposite side of the king-size bed in which Bix Ramstead slept. She got up, went to his side of the bed, and removed his pistol from the holster on the nightstand. She walked back around the bed and out to the terrace through the sliding door that she’d kept open. After she got to the railing, she looked out into the canyon and hurled the throwaway phone into the brush below.

She walked softly to her walk-in closet for a robe and laid it across the lounge. But she would not put it on. Bix had last seen her naked, not that he’d remember. Then she sat back down on the lounge and waited for the sound of a car in front.

Ali Aziz parked in the driveway rather than on the street in case he had to get away fast, with his son in one hand and a gun in the other. He closed the door of the Jaguar quietly and walked to Margot’s door, grateful that the security lights in the garden had not been turned on but there was moonlight. He looked up at the bright, glowing moon.

The door was unlocked and Ali blessed Jasmine for it. He entered, leaving the door open for his fast exit. He’d decided to go straight to Nicky’s room, take him out of bed, and run with him down the stairs and out. Tomorrow, he and his lawyer, with Jasmine’s help-and she would help when he offered her $25,000-would go to the police, as well as to the judge who’d presided over their divorce proceedings. And if there was any justice at all, he would never have to return Nicky to her again. He prayed that the drug-dealing monster had not harmed his son.

There was a light on. The lamp at the top of the staircase on a marble table under the huge mirror that had cost him a fortune. He ascended, turned left, and crept along the hallway to Nicky’s room, finding the door wide open. He stepped inside, but the bed was made and Nicky was gone! What had they done with him? He returned along the hall to the master bedroom. Could Nicky be in bed with them? The double doors were wide open. He adjusted the gun inside his belt so that it was more accessible. A few more quiet steps and he’d be through the double doorway into the master bedroom.

He stood in the doorway. He could hear faint snoring, but it was very dark in there. He took another step forward. There was only one person lying there, sleeping on what he knew to be her side of the bed. Was it Margot? Was she alone in the bedroom? Where was the man? Where was Nicky? He was confused. He took another step inside. And another, his pupils adjusting to the darkness. And then he heard the loudest shout he had ever heard from the lips of Margot Aziz.

“ALI, DON’T SHOOT! PLEASE DON’T SHOOT! DON’T SHOOT!”

“What?” he said. “What? Margot?”

And Ali Aziz saw three fireballs and perhaps heard three explosions, but perhaps not. He was slammed down onto his back by the fireballs. It was a tight pattern fired from a distance of four feet after Margot stepped from behind the closet door and stood between Ali and the bed, crouching slightly and firing two-handed, just as the instructor had shown her at the pistol range. Ali’s chest heaved and began leaking blood, then bubbled from an arterial spurt. His heart stopped almost instantly, pierced by one of the 9-millimeter rounds.

The explosions that smashed Ali Aziz to the floor also brought Bix Ramstead onto the floor, feet first. He leaped from bed and stumbled to his knees, not knowing where he was.

“Bix! Bix!” Margot screamed. “The lights! Turn on the lights!”

But Bix didn’t know where the lights were. Bix was trying to decide where he was, and he wasn’t even sure who was yelling his name. He saw a lamp and reached for it but knocked it from the nightstand.

Margot Aziz did not want light. She had dropped Bix’s pistol onto the floor and, with tissue in her left hand, was feeling around Ali’s waist and in his pockets. But there was no gun! Where was the fucking gun? Working frantically in the darkness, she managed to get her hand under him but it wasn’t there either! Then she accidentally touched his crotch and felt hard metal inside. The gun had slipped down inside his briefs when he’d fallen.

Bix Ramstead figured out that he was in the bedroom of Margot Aziz, and he yelled, “Margot! Where are you! Where’s the light switch!”