Last Call Read online

  But there’s no mirror in the room. Frank lights another cigarette, carrying on with the illusion that she’s human. She sucks smoke in and mouths it toward the ceiling in fat doughnuts. She feels nothing. Absolutely nothing, and that’s the way she wants it.

  The Pryce kids whisper to her like smack whispers to a junkie. Frank swings her feet to the floor and opens the thick books. She spends her night in the mind of a man who binds a boy’s wrists, hands and mouth with duct tape, them makes him watch and listen while he rapes the boy’s sister, front and back, then chokes her to death. Frank spends her night in the head of a man like that and feels nothing.

  It’s almost one in the morning before she thinks to look at a clock. She crashes on the couch and is thickheaded the next day. She leaves work promptly at two. At home, she changes into shorts and starts working out. She’s contemplating dinner, and a couple beers, when Bobby calls.

  “We got a kid shot while he was waiting for the bus, and there are reporters everywhere.”

  “Sure there are. Kids get shot in South Central every day but this one’s a story because it’s four o’clock on a slow news day. I’ll be there as soon I can.”

  Frank hangs up and gets back into the suit she took off less than an hour ago. She repacks her pockets and belt. The holster gets cinched back under her arm.

  “Christ, I do not need this,” she mutters, slamming the front door behind her.

  Traffic is excruciating and she bangs the dashboard, more in time with frustration than the hip-hop booming from her abused speakers. News vans and police cars are still clogging the scene when she arrives. The paramedics are long gone, but the coroner’s people have beaten her to the site. It’s a routine cap and they’ve already released the body. An SID technician is collecting a through-and-through in a scrawl of blood beside the boy. A man weeps behind the tape, encircled by anguished faces trying to comfort him. His nightmare is just beginning, but for Frank the scene is comfortably routine.

  “S’up?” she asks Darcy.

  “Sixteen-year-old black male. Vic’s name is Clyde Payson. He was waiting for the bus with his friends when a male black approached him. They started arguing, got into a fight, and the suspect fired on him. A forty-four. The friends recognized the shooter. Harlan Miller.”

  “Sweet. Let’s get this wrapped with a ribbon. Early Christmas present for the chief, and it’ll get these bastards”—she tosses her head at the reporters—“off our backs. Who’s the guy crying over there?”

  “The kid’s father. He was a couple blocks away at the car wash.”

  “Talk to him yet?”

  “Not too much. He usually gives the kid a ride home from school, but he and his friends were taking the bus to the mall.”

  “Affiliation?”

  When Darcy shakes his head, Frank realizes how long his hair is.

  “Doesn’t appear to be a banger.”

  “Darcy, am I your fucking mother? Can’t you get ever get a haircut without me telling you to?”

  Darcy stares at Frank. Then he spits tobacco just far enough from Frank’s feet to keep it from splattering on her very expensive shoes. He’s not supposed to be chewing at a crime scene.

  “Sure,” he answers without taking his eyes from hers.

  Frank wants to bitch-slap him but has sense enough to know she’s already stepped out of line. She also knows her team’s been carrying her lately. And because they’re good at what they do, she usually cuts them slack. Her job is to field the heat from upstairs so her detectives can do their job, not ride them about chickenshit details like haircuts and chew.

  “Jesus on a fucking pony,” she relents. “What about the suspect? Does he claim?”

  “Rollin’ Forties.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “According to the kid’s friends, the shooter’s seventeen. Goes to school at Crenshaw, lives near there.”

  “Okay.”

  Frank nods and steps to the tape. She gives the reporters a brief rundown, withholding specifics about the shooter and ending with the assurance that there will be more details issued from the Media Relations Section. Done with that, she tracks down the rest of the nine-three squad and calls them in. Lewis and Diego are assigned to run Miller through the databases. Johnnie and Jill help Darcy and Bobby collect statements while memories are fresh.

  At 8:00 pm, Frank and her two primaries sit in Clyde Payson’s living room. His family is gathered around. They can’t understand this. Clyde is a straight-A student at Crenshaw High. He’s already prepping to get into UCLA, where his mother went. He’s not a banger. He’s a star on the basketball team. He wants to play for the NBA. He has a cell phone and uses it to let his parents know where he is, what he’s doing and when he’ll be home. He was just going to the mall to get new clothes for a trip to Georgia. The family is leaving in less than a week to visit relatives Clyde’s never met. He and his youngest sister haven’t flown before and can’t wait to get on the plane. Now Clyde’s on a refrigerated tray in the coroner’s office. The family’s going to a funeral instead of Atlanta. They did everything right. They don’t understand why Clyde was killed.

  Frank’s been doing this almost twenty years and still doesn’t understand. She knows the family never will either. Sense can’t be made of the nonsensical. Like a triage surgeon, all she can do is stem the blood flow, one suspect at a time. Frank and her crew work through the night and into the morning. Harlan Miller is in the wind but Payson’s murder snaps the community from its apathy.

  Almost twenty-four hours after Clyde Payson is gunned down, an anonymous caller drops a dime on Miller, a.k.a. BKilla. The tipster says he’s at the home of another Rollin’ 40s member. Frank organizes backup and they converge on an apartment complex in Crip turf. They bust in on a startled Miller and two homes dripping forty-ouncers at a kitchen table. The three of them scatter like roaches under a light. Given their positions when they walked in, Frank is the first to peel after Miller. Gun drawn, she chases him down a hall into a shaded bedroom. Miller is crawling halfway through a window and Frank yanks him back by his waistband. He thrashes against the windowsill. Afraid she’ll lose him if he slips out of his pants, she holsters the Beretta and wrestles him back through the window. Bobby and Darcy catch up and grab Miller on either side. Panting, Frank lets her boys have him. Miller curses and struggles as they cuff him. While the detectives are catching their breath, he hawks a spitball at Frank. It lands on her leg.

  “Oh, that wasn’t nice,” she says, pulling her trouser leg away from her shin and examining the wad. “Or smart. That’s assaulting an officer, you crab asshole.”

  “Kiss my blue Crip ass,” he challenges. Then adds, “Bulldyke bitch.”

  “Oh-h-h. That wasn’t smart either,” Frank says.

  “Whachu gonna do?” he snarls, dancing from foot to foot. “Hit me? Pull out your big sticks and beat on me?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Frank says. “Let’s go.”

  She starts to clear a path through a cluster of women who have gathered in the bedroom. They chatter like magpies for the cops to leave their house, and Miller calls over their angry voices, “Suck my Crip dick, fucking five-oh cunt.”

  Frank hears the commotion and turns in time to see Darcy shove Miller against the wall. She should have turned around and kept walking out of the room. Instead she joins Darcy. Flapping a hand at the women, she tells Bobby, “Get ‘em outta here.”

  “Aw, come on, Frank. Let’s just go.”

  She whirls on Bobby, ordering. “I said get ‘em out!”

  Her vehemence surprises him as much as it does her. Frank is stepping over a line and knows it, but it feels too good to stop. She’s a runaway train gathering steam. Crossing the room, she plants herself in front of Miller.

  “Uncuff him,” she tells Darcy.

  Darcy does, grinning. Miller rubs his wrists.

  “Hey, punk-ass bitch. You got something to say to me? Hm? I can’t hear you.” When he is silent she smirks. �
��Not so mouthy now, are you?”

  He spits over his shoulder, mumbling into it.

  Frank glances around the room. Seeing Bobby’s cleared it, she steps into Miller’s face. “If you’re gonna say something, be man enough to say it loud enough so I can hear. Or ain’t you got the balls?”

  “I got ‘em,” he says, hefting his crotch. “Right here. More than your dyke ass can handle.”

  “That’s right,” Frank agrees. “You’re too much man for me. That’s why I had to get wit’ your baby sister last night. You know she shaves her pussy smooth like a little girl’s? Got a little mole on the right inside lip. Did you know that? Hm? You ever get some of that? I’ma tell you what—that bitch is a tasty piece a ass, n’mean?”

  Miller bounces from foot to foot. He chews on his lip, killing Frank with his eyes. She pushes him, licking her lips, singsonging, “Yeah, I ate her up like she was a piece a chocolate cake. Then I went and saw yo mama. She went down on me like she was a vulcha. That bitch be old, but she can suck a marble through a straw. She ever do you like—”

  “Shut the fuck up!”

  Miller feigns a lunge, and Frank steps back, laughing. “Wait a minute, little man. I ain’t even finished. Lemme tell you what I done to yo mama with my fo-fo. I put the barrel in her ho-ho.” She makes a twisting motion with her wrist, chuckling. “Turned it nice and slo-slo. Had the bitch beggin’ for mo-mo, screamin’ on the flo-flo. Yeah! Tadow!”

  Frank laughs and Miller breaks for her with a wild roundhouse. Frank’s ready and sidesteps while slamming him into the wall. With her forearm against his Adam’s apple she jams her Beretta between his teeth. In a hot rush she envisions pulling the trigger and leaving nothing of his face but neck bone and a wall stain.

  “I could kill you right now,” she hisses in his ear. “Call it self-defense and not lose a second’s sleep over you. In fact, I’d sleep better. I been cleaning up after shit-scum like you my entire life. Why shouldn’t I blow one more motherfuckin’ puke outta this world? Huh?”

  She shoves the barrel farther down his throat and he gags.

  “You throw up on me you punk-ass son-of-a-bitch and I swear I’ll pull this fucking trigger. How do you like being on this end of the gun, baby killer? Still feel like a big man? You think Clyde Payson liked it? Huh? Huh? Answer me, motherfucker!”

  She bounces his head into the wall and he sputters blood with a garbled response.

  “That’s right, you fucking coward, he probably didn’t like staring into your four-four any more than you like sucking on this Beretta. Or do you like it? I can’t tell. I think you like it, you cock-sucking bitch.”

  The stench of Miller’s piss reaches her nose and Frank looks pointedly at the mess on the floor.

  “At least Payson didn’t piss his pants like a fuckin’ baby. Puke like you, your mother should’ve eaten you at birth.”

  Extracting the Beretta, she drops her arm and slams his head once more. Crying and choking, Miller crumples into his pool of piss. Frank stares in profound disgust, directed more at herself than at Miller. Bobby comes up to re-cuff him and Frank steps aside. The Beretta dangles from her hand.

  “Come on. Let’s go.” Bobby coaxes Miller to his feet. Even after he’s led the boy from the room Frank still doesn’t move.

  Behind her, Darcy asks, “You all right?”

  No, she thinks. Definitely not all right. She turns to face her cop.

  “That was stupid,” she says. “There was no excuse.”

  “Whatever. The fucking punk had it coming.”

  “No. Not whatever. Never whatever. You excuse it once, you’ll excuse it again. Next thing you know, you’re the same fucking scum they are. Only with a badge. No excuses, Darcy. We’re supposed to protect people from shit-birds like Miller, not become them.”

  “Suit yourself.” He shrugs.

  “Go help your partner,” she tells him.

  The room is empty and Frank takes the edge of the bed. She’s got the post-adrenaline shakes, and she’s scared. She could have killed Miller. She wanted to. The tiniest flinch on her part would have spattered that bastard into whatever sorry afterlife he has coming. Frank tastes his blood on her lips and leaps up.

  “Jesus!”

  She paces a short, taut circle, wondering what is wrong with her. When the magpie women enter the room to upbraid her, Frank flees past them. Outside, she is comforted by the relative safety of patrol cars and uniforms. Leaving Darcy and Bobby to process the arrest she heads for the Alibi. She’s still shaky by the time she gets there. Taking a stool, she orders, “Double Chivas, Mac. Make it two.”

  “Ice?”

  She shakes her head. “Neat.”

  “You got it.”

  She swallows the first drink in one shot.

  The evening crowd hasn’t come in yet and Nancy perches on the stool next to her. “Hey,” Frank says, relieved at the distraction. “How you doing?”

  “Good. How about you?”

  “Peachy-keen,” Frank lies. She finishes the second glass and lifts it for a refill.

  Nancy asks, “Are we drinking dinner?”

  “Just the appetizer. I’ll get something in a little bit.”

  But in a little bit Johnnie comes in. She orders Chivas for them both and when Mac pours his drink, Johnnie gripes, “Damn it, how come bartenders are all always called Mac?”

  “Because we’re all Scotch-Irish bastards. MacPeters, MacDougal, MacPhilips. You dumb WASP bastards can’t keep us straight so you call all of us Mac.”

  “To dumb WASP bastards,” Johnnie toasts.

  Mac pours a shot to join in the toast. “To Scotch-Irish bastards.”

  They look at Frank who hasn’t raised her glass.

  “Got something against the Scotch-Irish?” Mac grins.

  “Nope. Just bastards in general.” She changes the subject. “Mac, if you’re such a good Scotch-Irish lad tell me what Chivas means.”

  “Oh.” Mac clutches his chin. “I heard once.”

  “Detective Briggs, any guesses?”

  “Good times ahead,” Johnnie answers.

  Frank shakes her head. “Guess again.” It’s a game she used to play with Noah—three guesses, each sillier than the next, but Johnnie doesn’t know the rules.

  “I don’t know.”

  Frank peers at the amber liquor in her glass. “It’s Gaelic. Means the narrow place.”

  “So?”

  “So nothing.” She sighs. “Never mind.”

  Chapter 13

  Every witness pulls Miller out of the six-pack of photos. In the lineup, each one points and says, “That’s him.” He is bound over and pleads not guilty. Frank apologizes to Bobby as she did to Darcy. Nothing is said of it again, for which Frank is grateful. The calculated violence of her attack on Miller scared her and she just wants to forget it, chalk it up to circumstance and move on.

  The City of Angels obliges her. After a four-year dip, violent crime stats throughout L.A. are climbing to new highs. It’s only May, yet Figueroa already has 58 homicides on the books. It’s a tough enough load for a full squad, and Frank’s shy a man. Her best man.

  Notwithstanding a brutal seventy-hour week, by the end of it Frank sits alone in her office. She has finished combing through the Pryce murder books. She has analyzed crime scene photos, autopsy reports, lab reports completed prior to losing the physical evidence, responding officer and primary detective reports, notes from Noah and canvassing officers, statements from friends, family, neighbors and the woman who found the bodies. Dozens of rap sheets have been read—from Peeping Toms to sadists to child offenders. Everything has been reviewed but the box of interview tapes. They sit in their shoebox, carefully dated and labeled in Noah’s hand. She still can’t bring herself to listen to them, rationalizing that Noah would have documented anything worth hearing. It’s a weak argument but the best she can muster.

  Frank’s made her own extensive notes. Heedless of her exhaustion, she uses these to flesh out the char
t she started at the beginning of her investigation. She fills in the facts to create a physical profile of the perp. Going on the assumption that the man who raped Ladeenia is the same person who killed her makes the perp a male. And he’s a fit male, able to carry the bodies to the dumpsite with ease, and to snap Trevor’s neck like a twig.

  Perpetrators tend to feel more comfortable offending within their own race, so she labels the perp black. For the time being this is supported by the fact that a white or Asian male in a mixed black and Hispanic neighborhood would have been conspicuous and likely noted.

  Race and gender are easy, but before she can construct a psychological description of her perp, she has to classify the type of crime it was. Organized or disorganized. It has elements of both, but on the whole it fits the description of an organized offense.

  Frank starts with what little she can tell from the abduction. Ladeenia’s visit to Cassie’s was spontaneous. If the perp had known about it he wouldn’t have had much time to plan around it, meaning the abduction itself was relatively spontaneous. Spontaneity is characteristic of disorganized offenders, but the abduction itself seems very well organized, not obviously sloppy or chaotic. The perp was able to plan an abduction and carry it off without calling attention to himself. This tells her the offender’s intelligence is at least average, if not higher.

  Snatching two kids from the street in broad daylight is a ballsy move. There are a number of ways he could have done it. One would be to lure them into a vehicle and go off with them. Mrs. Pryce said there’s no way Ladeenia would get into a car with a strange man. Absolutely no way. Frank knew kids were readily swayed, but for a couple reasons she agreed that the perp probably hadn’t used a vehicle.