Stephen Cannell - On The Grind

"Yeah," I said as I climbed out, "but is this really necessary?"

"The mayor wants it," Alonzo said. "He's a cautious guy. So lets just get it done. That way we all know there's no rats, okay?"

"Okay."

The three of us walked into the station. From the look of the lobby, the swing shift was having a busy night. There were half a dozen tense brown faces — mostly women. Mothers and girlfriends sitting in worn leather chairs, their knees tight together, clutching worn fabric purses, waiting for ugly news about loved ones courtesy of the corrupt Haven Park PD.

I followed Alonzo into Talbot Jones's empty office.

"We're gonna do it in here," he said.

He picked up the phone and dialed an extension. "There should he a guy out there from FSA. That's Electronic Systems Analysts. He's a polygraph operator. Hunt him up and send him hack to Tal's office." After he hung up he said, "Who wants to go first?"

I certainly didn't. I had a wide, dishonest smile that felt like I'd borrowed it from a drugstore Halloween rack. Horace Velario was still staring at me suspiciously.

Alonzo picked up the phone again. "Let's go. Where is the guy? We need to be over in Fleetwood by ten-fifteen." He listened, then said, "You can't be serious!" He slammed clown the phone and left the office without saying anything.

Velario continued to stare at me.

I endured his gaze for almost half a minute. Then I said, "My fly open?"

"You need to know how it is with me and Alonzo," he finally said. "We played high school football together at Long Beach Poly. The press called us Omelet and Toast. I was Omelet. Weak-side linebacker. They called me that 'cause when I hit somebody I scrambled their eggs. Bell was on the strong side and made the toast. We were fucking dangerous. You didn't want what we were dishing out. Between the two of us we logged almost two hundred tackles our senior year."

"That's real nice," I said, tuning him out. My mind was elsewhere, trying to come up with a way to avoid taking the damn polygraph.

"The reason I'm boring you with this shit is you need to know that since then, I never stopped watching Al's back. He looks big and tough, but underneath all that he's got this dumb trusting side, which dickheads always try and take advantage of. When that happens, I scramble up an omelet. My job over the years has been to pick off the bullshitters. Fve been looking at you for two clays now, and I've come to the decision that you're a lying sack a shit."

That got my attention.

"You're the fucking mole," he said.

"You need to stop taking yourself so seriously," I responded. "This isn't the Long Beach Poly defensive backfield."

"I told Alonzo you're the rat, but since he vouched for you with the Avilas, it's in his best interests for you to be okay, so he don't believe me. But I'm still over here covering the weak side, just like always."

"You were there in the orange grove," I said. "He fired a shot at me. If I was the mole, I would have talked."

"I'm not saying you don't have balls, Scully. I'm saying you're a spy."

"You're probably gonna have to prove that."

"I don't gotta prove shit. This fucking poly is gonna do all the proving for me. You fail, you're gonna go outta here feet first."

Just then Alonzo came back through the door. He was pissed, on the verge of losing it, his brown complexion red with anger.

"Fucking guy isn't here!" he shouted at us.

Alonzo pointed at Horace. "Call Tal. Use the WC's office. Tell Captain Jones the polygraph examiner is a no-show. He booked this guy. Have him get on the phone to FSA. He needs to get the man here now. We need to be out the door in twenty minutes."

Horace shot me a hard look, then exited the office.

Alonzo paced around the room fuming. "Fucking civilian agencies. We used to have our own poly guy, but now because of budgets we're subcontracting all this shit out."

Two minutes later Horace was back. "Talbot can't reach ESA. Their phones go straight to voice mail. He says he don't have no personal contact number on the guy they assigned to us."

Alonzo stood in the center of the office for a long moment, then he looked at his watch. "Okay, then we gotta go without it. From here out, we do this as a team. Once it's done, the conspiracy to commit guarantees everybody's silence."

"I'm good with that," I said.

Horace said nothing, but kept his gaze on me.

"Let's go," Alonzo said. "We got no time left."

We headed back to the Escalade and squealed out of the police lot. We hit Lincoln Boulevard chirping rubber.

By the time we arrived, close to a thousand people were gathered in the park. A balmy Southern California night undoubtedly helped Rocky s turnout. The twenty sheriffs from the Vista substation could easily have been overmatched by the crowd, but everybody was in a festive mood.

High school bands from Haven Park and Fleetwood were playing Mexican and American music under the parks sulfurous halogen lights. A large platform had been constructed and was festooned with ROCKY FOR MAYOR signs. Campaign posters depicting the candidate stripped to the waist, fists high, ready to vanquish Haven Parks corrupt politicians were stapled to every available wooden post and palm tree. Volunteers circulated through the crowd selling ROCKY FOR MAYOR T-shirts and baseball caps.

When we pulled in, Alonzo couldn't find a place to park.

"Lookit all this illegal parking," he growled. We oughta get the Avilas over here to tag and drag a few of these rust buckets."

Except we weren't in Haven Park or Fleetwood and Vista was policed by the sheriffs department, which had banned Blue Light from operating inside the city limits.

Finally, in frustration, Alonzo pulled up over a curb and left the Escalade on the grass. He draped his handcuffs over the steering wheel, the universal warning that this was an off-duty cop car, then chirped his locks. Horace and I followed him across the grass toward the bandstand.

A Mexican radio station had supplied a few popular disc jockeys who, along with an assortment of local politicians and minor celebrities, were onstage speaking in both English and Spanish, whipping up the crowd over the loudspeakers.

At that point, a beautiful woman stepped to the microphone and was identified as Anita Juarez from the Haven Park Courier. Oscars second cousin and one of Rocky's girlfriends.

As she began to address the crowd, Alonzo, Horace and I finally reached a spot near the east side of the bandstand. "Can you believe this?" Alonzo said, surveying the large turnout. "This fucking guy wasn't even that good a fighter. They act like the little shit walks on water."

Alonzo told us to wait where we were and went off to do something, leaving Horace and me angrily bumping shoulders in the confined space.

"It's not my fault the polygrapher didn't show," I said into Velario's flat glare. "Get over it."

"You're gonna kill Chacon tonight or I'm gonna drop you like a sack of hammers," he threatened.

"You wanta take a step away? You're on my foot." I shoved him back. He was a big guy, so he didn't move far, but the push definitely pissed him off.

At ten-twenty the mayor of Vista introduced Rocky Chacon. He walked across the podium dressed in slacks and a polo shirt. Kvcn before he spoke, the place went nuts. Me struck his classic fight pose and they screamed even louder.

As this was happening, Alonzo returned. "I found his ride," he shouted oxer the racket. "A five-year-old black Mercedes 220 behind the barrier in the park maintenance area. After lie's finished speaking, follow him over there and keep him in sight. I'll pick you up." Me handed us each a ROCKY FOR MAYOR ball cap that heel bought from a vendor. "Disguise," he said with a grin.