T Parker - The Renegades

“I like it longer,” he said, pointing at her hair with a fried fillet of cod.

“Thanks, Shay. Finish your lunch.”

He nodded and gave her an arch stare.

After delivering Eichrodt to the county jail that evening, Hood and Ariel had dinner at the Pacific Dining Car and drinks at the Edison. This would have cost Hood the day’s pay but Ariel insisted on paying half, and she talked her way into a good table at the Edison on what turned out to be a very busy night.

She sipped an appletini and stared off into the crowd but she didn’t seem to focus on anything.

“You did a good thing today, Charlie. We’ll reconsider the case against Eichrodt. With Laws dead and Draper under suspicion we might have to delay or dismiss. That could lead us to charges against Draper. With the kind of detail Eichrodt was giving us today, I think a jury would believe him. I did. Mostly.”

“Good you asked him whether Laws and Draper had their guns out on the approach,” Hood said. “That’s important.”

“It sure got my attention. If the deputies really believed they’d pulled over a double murderer with a truck full of drug money, they’d have had their guns out and ready. That’s when I thought-this guy might be telling the truth.”

“And Rosen can lay down a medical foundation for the recovery,” Hood said. “He’s musty and kind and believable.”

It was Hood’s turn to stare off at the people in the bar, and consider what he was doing. Six months ago he had helped to bust a fellow deputy, and failed to help a reckless woman stay alive. He had voluntarily left L.A. for Antelope Valley, where he had hoped for quieter days and time to reflect. But now he was IA and deep into a cold case involving murdered drug couriers, suspect deputies, mysterious piles of money and a machine-gunned partner. Hood felt like a wrecking ball.

“What?” said Ariel.

“I used to like being a deputy.”

“You still should. You’re a good one.”

Hood wondered if that could be true. “In Anbar I got myself hated for chasing some soldiers who murdered a family for no good reason. There were some bad reasons. Now, back here, I spend half my time ruining the lives of my own men. Ariel, I signed up to throw the bad guys in jail.”

“But they come in all shapes and sizes. And, sometimes, uniforms.”

“I don’t feel sorry for them. Or for myself. What I’m saying is I want to be part of a team I believe in. I want it real clear-us and them. Us and them. I want to believe in us. I want to be on our side. Simple.”

“Simple hardly ever works.” She leaned forward and tapped her glass to Hood’s. “Charlie, if I could pick one guy they could clone into thousands of cops and deputies, it would be you. You’re honest and smart and you give a damn. There isn’t much more.”

“A thousand Hoods. Scary.”

“But we only get one of you. And to be honest, I’m very happy to be the woman sitting across from you in this bar. Glad to be in the same molecule with you, Hood-one little atom to another.”

She gave him her small, thrifty smile and he saw the glimmer in her eyes. He looked into them. What he saw thrilled him: someone singular, irreplaceable, beautiful.

“You’re going to make me blubber,” he said.

“We have napkins.”

Hood smiled back and sipped his drink. An old man came across the room toward them. He walked slowly with an ornately carved cane. His hair was white and neat and his eyes were clear. His suit was expensive and well tailored. When he got to their table he stopped and put both hands on the cane and looked down at Ariel, then at Hood.

“It is good to see two young people who are happy,” he said. “Enjoy every sandwich.” He nodded and slowly walked away.

“What a nice thing to say,” said Ariel. She flushed and the color was still on her fair cheeks. Her dark hair shined and she looked brilliant.

“Charlie, you know I love to drive. Name something you like to do.”

“I drive a lot, too. Not racing. Just driving and watching out the windows. I drive hours and hours and hours for work, then I drive more. Then I dream about driving. Then I wake up and drive again.”

“Why?”

“I’m looking for something that got away.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Where did it get away from?”

“Inside. I actually felt it go. So I weighed myself and I was a pound and a half lighter. But you know how bathroom scales are.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No, I’m really not.”

She studied Hood with her level gaze, her legal assessment look. Then she pulled her chair closer and put her hand inside his jacket and over his heart.

“Something’s left in there, Charlie. You didn’t get completely cleaned out.”

Hood lowered his face to hers, touched her temple with his nose, breathed in. She turned and brushed his lips with hers.

“Let’s drive,” he said.

Hood drove the Camaro over to Sunset, then headed up into the Hollywood Hills. He passed the turnout where Allison Murrieta had taken him last summer and he tried to postpone the memory of her for just a moment, but this was a new thing for him and he felt disloyal. He found another overlook, a little farther up. He parked the car and left the engine idling and the defroster on low. Below them the dark flanks of the hillsides cut shapes in the city lights, and above them a cloud drifted, quiet as a ghost, over the moon. The stars glimmered in the sharp March night.

“Let’s continue that kiss, Hood.”

They continued it. Even with the defroster on, the windows fogged up and Hood had to turn the air conditioner on also to get them clear again. He pawed blindly at the controls with one outstretched arm, the other still wrapped around Ariel, their lips locked in a passion for the ages. He felt like a teenager.

Much later Hood drove back down out of the hills to Ariel’s car, still in a downtown lot near the Edison. He stood by her El Camino as she let herself in.

“Come to my place,” he said.

“Could you replace a hot outlaw with an atom-splitting lawyer?”

“You can’t replace anybody with anybody.”

“Not tonight.”

“Does someone else have that honor?”

“Once upon a time.”

“He was lucky.”

“He’s no longer with us. Or, is he?”

“I understand that question. I’m sorry.”

“That’s enough. That’s adequate. That was a good kiss.”

That Friday night Hood followed Draper’s M5 three or four cars back from Venice to Cudahy, then dropped even farther behind when the streets narrowed. The windows of the BMW were tinted dark, and the most Hood could see of the driver was a profile and a flash of blond as he made a turn. Hood knew Cudahy as a rough little city, a backwater of gangs and drug trafficking and bureaucratic corruption, once patrolled by LASD, now patrolled by a police department with a poor reputation.

He also knew that one of Cudahy’s criminal fixtures, a heavy named Hector Avalos, was found shot to death last week just a few miles from here, dumped on a side street in South Gate. But Hood knew that Avalos was a Cudahy homie all the way, had done his time in County and Corcoran, and was widely suspected of running narcotics out of this complex. Hood had heard the rumors of dogfighting. Avalos was tight with the city government. There was a big funeral for him but from what Hood had heard, nobody from city hall showed up.

From a curbside two blocks away he saw men depart the shadows and escort Draper’s car off the street and into what looked like a large warehouse. Hood heard the boom of the rolling metal door when it closed. The men were gone. He drove around the block once and parked out of sight down the dark avenue, and waited.