Stephen Cannell - Vigilante

“Marcia, please confirm my opinion and tell Detective Scully that it’s not obstructing justice for us to interview a volunteering witness,” Nash said.

“That’s right, because he sought us out,” Marcia explained, still favoring me with her smile. “He’s in the Evergreen gang and hates cops. There’s no way he would ever have talked to you to begin with, so nobody obstructed anything. As a matter of fact, we didn’t obstruct; we instructed him to talk with you.”

“This isn’t going to work like it did in Miami and Atlanta,” I said to Nash. “I don’t intend to stand back while you investigate my homicide behind my back. I’ll file so much paper you’ll think you’re in a ticker tape parade.”

“We’ve broken no laws,” Nash said.

“I assume you paid him for the witness interview?” I replied. Since neither Nix nor Marcia denied it, I knew I had guessed right. “If we ever want to use this wit in court, the defense attorney will challenge his statement, calling it paid-for testimony. That violates the statute on dissuasion of evidence.” I was on pretty thin ice with this argument, and from their expressions I could tell we all knew it.

“If you’re talking about Criminal Statute 136.1, that only deals with dissuasion through intimidation,” Marcia said. “But I’m pretty certain you already know that.”

I’d lost that round. Time to move on.

“Why don’t I get back to you later on the legal stuff. So where is he? Produce the witness.”

Nix nodded to a man in a V-TV windbreaker standing a few feet away, who opened the rear door of the production van. A moment later a tough-looking gang-tattooed vato wearing baggy jeans and a Pendleton shirt buttoned at the throat jumped down from inside the van. It was the same guy we’d seen Nash interviewing down the street as we’d pulled up.

“Meet Edwin Chavaria,” Nash said, introducing this obvious thug. “He likes to go by ‘Chava.’ Just to save you the trouble I had Marcia call a friend of hers downtown. We found out that Chava has a criminal record but no outstanding warrants. I’m sure you’ll probably want to run him yourself, but he’s trying to cooperate, so you should cut him some slack.”

Now Nash was explaining my job to me. “Chava,” Nash continued, “Detective Scully is going to ask you some of the same questions we just asked. It’s perfectly safe to cooperate with him as we agreed.” Treating me like a guest at my own party.

The banger didn’t say anything but held my gaze insolently.

“Come with me,” I said. “We’ll talk over there.” I pointed to a spot across the street.

“I ain’t going over there with you. You wanta talk, chota, we talk here or not at all.” He shot Nash a look. That little glance for approval told me they’d agreed to this provision in advance.

Just then, a slender, freckled woman with a mop of curly red hair, dressed in a work shirt, Birkenstocks, and jeans motioned at two cameramen who shifted HD cams up onto their shoulders and started flipping switches. Power lights blinked on. They were hot and rolling.

“I’m not doing my interview as a segment for your show,” I said.

“Can’t say I blame you.” Nash smiled sympathetically. Then he turned to the freckled woman, who seemed to be in charge of the crew. “Laura, we’ve already done our piece with Chava. It’s your call of course, but the police always prefer to conduct their business in private. Whatta ya say?”

The slender woman seemed to consider this as if it were actually her decision and not his, in spite of the fact it was actually mine. Then she motioned the cameras down.

“This is Laura Burke, my producer,” Nix explained. “You’ll get to know her shortly. Laura runs this traveling circus from transpo and equipment rental to music and postproduction. We all do pretty much what Laura wants around here.” Nash was smiling at his no-nonsense producer, who was clocking me with brown Rottweiler eyes. “Go find a nice spot to chat,” Nash suggested. “Why don’t you try the other side of the white van. We’ll wait here.”

Chava shrugged, so I led him off. I wasn’t about to go where Nash instructed, but Chava came to an abrupt halt on the far side of the production van. “This is far enough,” he said. “I don’t gotta do nothin’ you say. If you wanna talk to me, we do it here.”

Since we were out of earshot of Nash and the TV crew I decided to give in on this point and took a digital tape recorder out of my pocket, slated it verbally with the time and date, along with Chava’s full name and address.

Edwin Chavaria’s eyes were alive with anger. I was the hated chota, and he was determined to hold his ground. The big E on the right side of his neck and the two teardrop tattoos under his eyes marked him as an Evergreen street killer.

“Let’s hear it,” I said, holding the tape recorder between us.

He just glowered. I shut off the tape so I wouldn’t record what came next.

“Listen, Chava, I’m nowhere near as good a guy as Nash told you. Actually, I’m sort of a raging shithead. My word is worth nothing. Get me angry and I’ll dig up some open paper on you. I don’t care if it’s just an unpaid ticket, I’ll find a way to slam your ass in jail.”

He took a long moment just to let me know he wasn’t worried.

“You should lighten up, malandro, ” he finally said, then took a breath and nodded, so I restarted the tape. After a moment, he began slowly telling his story. It sounded rehearsed.

“Last night, me and some a my boys was sittin’ on lawn chairs in the front yard of my cousin’s place over on Savannah Street,” he began. “We was blazin’ up sticks, y’know, gettin’ mellow. Little later, my posse gets up and goes inside for beer and to play videos. I’m sittin’ alone on my chair out there enjoyin’ my mota when this short, really mega-fat chick rolls up inna truck and parks across the street in front a the house where that woman got capped.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t wear no fuckin’ watch. I use my phone and it was inside. Eight, nine, how do I know?” I nodded and he went on. “So this chica gets out, walks up, and bangs on the fuckin’ door with her fist. Even from across the street I can see this is one very pissed-off puta fea. Minute later, that Lita person, she opens up. Next, these two bitches start screamin’ at each other. Shit gets real loud. So loud, I could even hear what they was sayin’ from all the way across the street.”

“Tell me.”

“The fat one screams, ‘I want my motherfuckin’ ceiling fan back!’ and the little one, Lita, she tells her to fuck off and it ain’t her place no more, so it ain’t her fan ’cause it was like an attached fixture or some such shit and goes with the apartment. They screamin’ at each other over this stupid ceiling fan. Nobody about to give nobody no play. Then the short fat bitch grabs the little one an’ they all up in each other’s shit, pullin’ hair and stuff. Lita knees the fat one inna pussy and before she can get upright slams the door in her face. Then the fat one screams, ‘I’ll get you, bitch!’ and waddles back to her truck, revs the engine, and squeals out. That’s it.”

“What kind of truck was it?”

“I don’t know-Ford, Chevy. I wasn’t payin’ no attention, but I got a plate.” He smiled at me, showing two gold teeth.

“Would you mind giving me the tag number?”

He hesitated for a long time to show me what a retazo macizo he was. He finally reached into his pocket and handed me a slip of paper with the tag number 3-T-S-G-4-5-5 written on it.

Then he said, “Since I just made your whole fucking case, how ’bout you kick somethin’ down, homes?”