The Boo Angel

Chapter Three

Paper Rock Scissors

 

If god created this world, he should review his plan.
Goethe, 1820

 

Angel loved to walk along the Venice Beach Boardwalk at any hour of the day or night, yet the odd thing about it was that after arriving in Los Angeles she’d asked to go there almost immediately. When William Taylor had asked her why, Angel simply informed him that the Venice Beach area was someplace she’d always wanted to see. Of course, he’d had other plans. His production company maintained a couple of residences in the Century City area, and these were nice homes set aside for actors and actresses who didn’t already have established homes in the area. And not that anyone would, but these homes were so close to the studio that anyone could easily walk there.

Then again, it seemed no one in LA ever walked anywhere. Ever. ‘It must be a law,’ he thought.

But Angel wasn’t buying into the whole “close to the studio” thing, not by a long shot.

“You live in Beverly Hills and it takes you ten minutes to drive to the studio, right?” she said, still smiling. Always smiling. “I have always lived by the sea,” she explained, “and I doubt it will inconvenience anyone if want to live on the beach in Venice.”

Taylor had learned the hard way; these days he found it somewhat easier to give in on these kinds of peripheral demands, if only because he could then use his own willingness to compromise to his own advantage when and where it counted most: either working on location or shooting on a sound-stage. So…he had given in easily and noted he’d have to get one of his assistants to find her a house on the boardwalk and arrange a rental. And then almost immediately he’d had the assistant get Angel a cell phone…because she could never be found in the little house by the beach…because she was always out walking.

And so one day William Taylor decided to go down to Venice and catch Angel early in the morning, in time for a coffee, and then maybe he’d get to go out with her on one of these long walks she seemed to be taking all the time.

He drove down to her place, a new single family house on Speedway at 26th, and he shook his head in disgust at the overcrowded conditions in the area, and that was before he ran into his first homeless encampment. There was hardly enough space to walk between houses down there, and no yards to speak of, and it felt like every house along the boardwalk was built right out to the limits of its property line, and then went straight up about three stories — or more. Stucco boxes too, all of them, and about the only difference he noted between them was the color of the paint — and most of the paint he thought looked garish and out of place on houses in this price bracket.

He parked in her garage — because of course she refused to drive a car — and walked up to the door that led inside and he found a note taped there.

“Be back by 6:30. Make yourself at home.”

He looked at his watch and sighed. It was already six fifteen…so, he had fifteen minutes to kill…but he also had a more than busy day ahead. He tried the back door and sighed when he realized she hadn’t even locked it, like it just didn’t matter that a couple thousand homeless freaks lived on the beach just a couple hundred yards away! Hell, the sidewalk was swimming in discarded syringes! He scoffed at her carelessness and was about to go inside when he heard an odd sounding car pull right behind his Beemer, so he turned and looked…

“Yup…that figures,” he snarled, looking at her in the passenger seat of a Prius — driven by — a fucking priest! She waved at him before she leaned over and hugged — hugged! — the priest, then she climbed out of the Tree-Hugger-Mobile and came over to him — hugging him too. Only now she smelled like grocery store after-shave, that blue crap that looked like radioactive waste — and smelled worse!

“Ready for some coffee?” she chirped brightly.

“My, aren’t we bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning?!” he said, but then he realized she was wearing surgical scrubs.

“I had a good night,” she added, smiling.

“A good night? Look, pardon my curiosity, but you look like you’ve been on the set of MASH…?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m volunteering over at St. Mark’s.”

“Doing what, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Just helping out, with the sick.”

“The sick?”

“Yeah, William, the sick. And the homeless, people like that…”

“And what are you doing there, Angel, with the sick and the homeless?”

“Just helping out.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure. Whatever you say, kid. So…off to the coffee truck? Pumpkin-spice latte?”

“That sounds good. You lead and I’ll follow,” she said, again sounding very chipper for this time of the morning.

“You must either be a night owl or a real morning person,” he said as they made it to the boardwalk.

“I don’t need a lot of sleep.”

“Lucky you. Some mornings I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

“Maybe you should.”

“What?”

“Sleep until you feel like you don’t need to anymore. You might feel better.”

“And go out of business too, you mean,” he said, chuckling at the thought.

“Can’t hurt to give it a try,” she added. “Now…what was so important it couldn’t wait?”

“The department has finally given us the green light. Next Thursday you’re doing a ride-along with Miss Collins out of Rampart, but the big deal is one of their Public Affairs Officers is going to tail you two throughout the shift, and we’re going to have a crew from CBS riding along. So, we’re…”

“You’re going to film any calls we go out on. Yeah, I can see that being pretty useful. Congratulations. Has anyone done something like this before?”

“No, no one I’m aware of,” Taylor said, grinning. “Took a while, but the mayor stepped in and helped make it happen.”

“That’s quite a responsibility, William,” Angel said, smiling.

“Responsibility? How so?”

“Well, obviously both the department and the city trust you to present an impartial, unbiased account of the evening, but doesn’t that also mean that’s what they expect from the movie?”

“Oh, sure, sure. They’ve all read the book. They know the score. And they know this movie is going to be about as pro-cop as anything any of them could hope for…” Taylor shuddered to a stop as the enormity of the human condition on display out here confronted him. “Jesus Fucking Christ! Look at the tents! There must be hundreds…”

“Closer to two thousand right now,” Angel said, “and more every day.”

“Fuck! No wonder property values around here are dropping like a hot rock!”

She looked at him and smiled. “Yes. Like a very hot rock.”

“Goddamn! Look at that…that guy’s taking a shit, right there in the open! Right there in the fucking bushes!”

“Someone should arrest him, shouldn’t they, William?”

“God damn right they should!”

“So? Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what?”

“Arrest him.”

Taylor shook his head and sighed. “Where’s the truck?”

“All the food trucks are about two blocks — this way,” she said, pointing. “Good breakfast tacos at the place I like to go to.”

“Tacos? For breakfast?”

“It’s the world you live in, William. You’d better get used to it.”

He snarled. “Better to just load ’em all up in airplanes and…”

“And what, William? Push them out the door? Maybe without a parachute?”

“I was going to say fly them back home, but that works too.”

“A lot of people out here were born here, William.”

“Too bad for them. And the rest of us.”

She looked at him and smiled broadly. “What a lovely day,” she sighed as she turned and looked at the sky.

Taylor kept looking at all the tents and at all the squalor, but he turned to her now and then followed her eyes up at the sky. “I hear a Santa Ana is coming this afternoon.”

“A Santa Ana? What’s that?”

“Hot winds come down from the desert and blow out to sea. Gets very windy, lot of dust in the air, and it gets real hot, too.”

“Ooh, I love it when it’s hot out, don’t you?”

“I might…if people weren’t shitting all over the beach. It’s gonna fucking smell like a latrine down here.”

She nodded and smiled, then wrapped her arm in his.

“Jennifer tells me her two meetings with you have been productive,” Taylor said gently, not at all sure what to make of her affections this morning. “How’d you feel about meeting her?”

“She’s very bright, but like you she seems very set in her ways.”

“Like me? How so?”

“Well, for one, she seems to have issues with people, uh, in general.”

He smiled. “Ah. Yes. Well, there is that, but who told…”

“You told me as much, William, once upon a time,” Angel said, sighing as warm breezes came for them. “You don’t remember?”

But just then an obviously scared and more than likely homeless girl walked up to Angel.

“Excuse me please, but are you a doctor?” the emaciated waif said to Angel.

And Angel nodded. “Yes, I am. Are you not feeling well?” William turned and stared at Angel and scowled at her blatant lie as the girl explained that her mother was sick, and that she was “just over there” — while pointing to a tent on the margins of the beach. “Well then, let’s go see what’s wrong,” Angel added as she took the girl’s hand.

But Taylor quickly pulled her aside. “You, like, do know that it’s a felony to impersonate a physician, don’t you?” he admonished. “Just what the Hell do you think you’re doing?”

And Angel stopped and turned to him, the same gentle smile on her face. “I’m not impersonating anything, William. I’m board certified in General Surgery, William, and I completed all the requirements for national certification after I finished my residency at Stanford.”

“You…what?” he cried. “But…I found you in that window, working as a…” he added, dizzy now as confusion tugged at his feet.

“We see what we want to see, William. Or are you telling me now that isn’t always the case?”

“Please,” the girl said, “it’s not much further!”

It was a little three-man tent, bright red but not well ventilated. Flies were buzzing around the vestibule and it was more than apparent that people, a lot of people, had been defecating nearby. The girl opened the tent’s zippered rain-fly and Taylor could see the woman inside…red as a lobster, her skin rolling in sweat…and Angel put on some latex exam gloves before she bent down and crawled inside.

Taylor watched as she performed a complete exam, then she came back out onto the grassy sand.

“Did you bring your phone with you?” Angel asked Taylor.

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m pretty sure that woman has cholera. I need to call EMS and Public Health,” she whispered as she took Taylor’s phone and stepped away so as not to alarm the little girl.

“Is my mommy sick?” she asked William.

Taylor knelt yet instinctively kept his distance. “She might be, yes,” he said, “but we’ll find out soon and see if we can make her all better.”

“Will they take her away,” the little girl said, her eyes starting to fill with tears.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, but I really don’t know much right now.”

“What’s your name?” the girl asked, tears now rolling down her grimy face.

“William, but I’ll tell you a little secret, honey…you can call me Bill,” he said, smiling a little as he looked at the fear in her eyes.

“My name is Gretchen,” she said, her voice cracking a little as she looked down at the sand.

“Taylor, isn’t it?” another voice said, a man’s voice, and William turned to look and see who was asking. “William Taylor, right?” And it was, he saw, the priest from the jazz club in Hamburg! Something Kerrigan, wasn’t it? Andrew? Andrew Kerrigan? Wasn’t that it?

“Father Kerrigan? What on earth?”

“William! Well, imagine finding you down here! You’re the last person I’d expect to find around a place like this!” the priest said as he walked up, holding out his right hand — which Taylor took warmly in his own.

“I’m here with a friend,” Taylor said by way of excuse. “And you? What are you doing in our neck of the woods?”

“I was posted to Loyola Marymount in August, teaching European History as luck would have it. I come down here on my mornings off, just to see if I can lend a hand…”

“Lend a hand?”

“Over at St. Mark’s. Our free clinic there serves the homeless in the neighborhood. And you? Your friend?”

“Long story, Father, and frankly, I’m not really sure I know all the pertinent details yet,” William said, frowning just a little.

“And who is this?” Father Kerrigan said, kneeling down to meet the little girl on her level.

“This is Gretchen,” Taylor said. “We’re looking after her mother just now.”

“Ah, she’s nearby, I take it?”

“In there,” William said, pointing to the red tent. “My friend is calling paramedics now.”

“I doubt they’ll take her, my friend. The system isn’t really set up to cope with the destitute, you know?”

“They’ll take this patient,” Angel said, walking up to William. “Father Kerrigan? Nice to see you down here so early!”

“Angel? You know this man?” the priest said, taking William Taylor by the arm — as he was now standing by Taylor’s side.

“Yes, he’s a friend,” she said, smiling.

“Father Kerrigan,” William added, “is the priest I mentioned talking to in Hamburg the night we met.”

“Really?” Angel said, now beaming. “Now…isn’t that an interesting coincidence?”

“Did you get in touch with the Health Department?” William asked, looking from Angel down to the little girl.

“Yes. The paramedics will coordinate with them when they arrive.”

“Coordinate?” Father Kerrigan kind of moaned. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

“She has cholera,” Angel whispered, “I think,” and Father Kerrigan nodded.

“Understandable,” the priest sighed. “I assumed it was bound to happen down here…sooner or later, anyway.”

Angel nodded. “We’ll need to isolate everyone down here, keep them from mingling on the boardwalk…”

“Good luck with that!” Taylor snarled as he looked at the mass of filth around the encampment…and, he shuddered, at all the piles of hidden excrement lurking just under the sand…

“Well, Father, we were off to get coffee. Would you care to join us?” she said as she pulled off her gloves.

“Coincidence, you said? In Hamburg?” the priest sighed, looking at Angel, then Taylor.

“What?” Angel replied.

“You said my meeting William in Hamburg was a coincidence.”

“Did I?” she said through her smile.

“There are no coincidences,” the priest added, though Angel still smiled at Kerrigan’s bemused expression.

“Am I missing something?” Taylor said, looking at the exchange between the priest and Angel, but then he knelt back down and pulled the little girl close. “How are you feeling, Gretchen? Hungry?”

She shrugged.

“When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

“Yesterday.”

“Well, what would you like for breakfast today?”

Angel and Father Kerrigan stepped back and watched Taylor intently now, for he was acting somewhat out of character for a man who professed to despise humanity…though both were smiling now as they watched him.

The little girl shook her head.

“There’s a place that has tacos for breakfast! Imagine that! Tacos for breakfast! Does that sound good?”

The little girl nodded now — and just the barest hint of a smile appeared.

Father Kerrigan watched in utter amazement as Taylor picked up the little girl and hoisted her to perch on his left shoulder. “Angel? Where’s this taco truck? I’m gonna head down and get an order going.”

“You can see it from here,” Angel said, grinning at the girl. “The one with the red and white awning just past that palm.”

“Got it. What do you want and I’ll pick it up?”

“Migas con avocado y queso,” she said.

“Father? Want to come with me? We can grab a table and talk…”

Kerrigan looked to Angel, who — still stunned by Taylor’s apparent display of kindness for the little girl — simply nodded. “Go ahead,” she added when she saw the priest hesitate a little.

“Alright,” Kerrigan nodded, “we’ll see you there.”

Taylor winced as the extra weight of the girl on his shoulder bit into his left knee, but he carried-on regardless until they made it to the taco stand. “What sounds good to you?” he asked Gretchen.

“Whatever you have,” she said shyly, but then she put an arm around William’s neck and Father Kerrigan watched as Taylor’s heart seemed to melt on the spot. “Father? Do you know what to get?”

“I can handle it, William. You go find a table for us.”

Taylor made to fish his wallet from a pocket and Kerrigan put a stop to that. “My treat today. Remember? You paid for my drinks and whitefish at the club, and…”

“That’s right! And you said you’d get the next one, didn’t you?”

“I did indeed. See? No coincidences!”

Taylor found a table and cleaned it off a bit, then he settled in next to Gretchen and waited, by this point feeling a little hungry, too. Kerrigan arrived with a tray loaded with all kinds of goodies — burritos loaded with scrambled eggs, guacamole, while the loaded hash browns piqued Taylor’s interest right away — then Gretchen asked for one of the tacos with eggs, avocado and cheese. There were a bunch of those, and when Angel arrived everyone unwrapped their food and started eating.

“I forgot drinks,” Father Kerrigan sighed.

“I’ll get them,” William said, standing. “Angel? Coffee or juice?”

“A latte, I think.”

“The pumpkin spice thing?”

“Yes, please.”

“Father? You?”

“The same, I think?”

“Gretchen? How does orange juice sound?”

The little girl nodded and smiled and Taylor smiled with her. “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

“Your mother is going to be fine,” Angel said to her as Taylor walked away, but the change that came over the little girl as he disappeared into the melting crowd was terrifying to watch. She seemed to go catatonic, suddenly appeared almost lifeless — as if she was paralyzed with fear. “What’s wrong, Gretchen?” Angel asked.

“Something is going to happen — to him. I’m afraid now.”

“It will be alright,” Father Kerrigan sighed. “Nothing is going to happen to your mother.”

“I’m afraid for him,” she said again.

“Him? You mean William?” Angel asked. “Why? What do you see, Gretchen?”

But the girl simply shook her head now, yet still she was clearly very much afraid — until William returned with their drinks. And the change that came over the little girl was almost frightening in its intensity.

She latched onto “Bill’s” arm and it looked as if she was holding on for dear life — as if she was more afraid for Taylor than she was for her own mother, and Father Kerrigan watched all this as it unfolded with more than a little passing interest.

And as soon as Gretchen had finished eating her eyes grew heavy; a few minutes later she asked if she could lay down on the bench and “maybe take a little nap?”

“Sure, Honey, you go right ahead,” William said, speaking now in low, soothing, almost fatherly tones. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

‘Not we’ll be right here, but I will be here…’ Father Kerrigan noted as he looked at the exchange between Taylor and the girl, because his mind had wandered back to the conversation at the club in Hamburg, between sets when they ate. Taylor was acting in a way that simply didn’t compute, so the comment suddenly became much more interesting to the priest. Hadn’t Taylor, in effect, abandoned his parents after his brother was killed in that accident? And now, wasn’t this little girl experiencing a certain kind of abandonment? And wasn’t that why Gretchen had so gently attached herself to Taylor? And if so, was Taylor feeling guilt right now, guilt for, in effect, abandoning his own parents? Was he, then, feeling a growing sense of attachment to this little girl as a result? Was he trying to compensate, perhaps? Or was this over-compensation?

More troubling still, Kerrigan felt as he watched Taylor, was where feelings like this might lead. What if the girl’s mother passed away? Would Taylor step in? How would the little girl react if he did?

And as an observer of the human condition for most of his adult life…Father Kerrigan thought Taylor’s comforting the little girl was interesting — if only because he had learned to enjoy watching life rearrange itself from time to time, like a picture-puzzle being knocked off a table and scattering on the floor, then taking shape once again before his eyes — only in new — and often unexpected ways. Could a hole in Taylor’s life be refilled by this little girl? A homeless, abandoned child? Could she rearrange Taylor’s life? Or…would the puzzle remain on the floor, scattered and abandoned?

“William?” Kerrigan spoke quietly now so as not to wake the child. “May I ask you a personal question?”

Taylor looked at the priest, measuring intent in the man’s eyes. “Sure. Go ahead…as long as it’s not too personal.”

Kerrigan smiled. “When we spoke in Hamburg you never mentioned any sort of strong personal attachments. No girlfriends, no wives, in fact no one at all…and I wondered why?”

Taylor leaned back a little, like he was studying a passing cloud or watching a bird fly by, and then he crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think? I mean, even for a priest?”

“Is it?” Father Kerrigan responded, his voice still gentle…if a little insistent. “I would have thought it was a natural enough question, and I certainly meant no offense…”

Taylor looked at the priest, then at Angel — who was stirring her coffee and, apparently, taking no notice of Kerrigan’s question. “I had a girl friend once. At ‘SC.”

“Was it serious?”

Taylor looked away, as if the memory had been chasing him for years and he was afraid it might be gaining on him, but then he nodded. “Yeah. Serious. That’s as good a word as any, I guess.”

“If you don’t mind, could you tell me about her?”

Taylor’s arms seemed to constrict around his chest a little, then he looked down at Gretchen and shook his head in just the slightest way imaginable, like he had re-experienced the deepest regret of his life.

“Freshman year, November. Three games left and we had to win all three if we were going to make a bowl game. I was still a red-shirt, kinda like a rookie and not on the main roster, but one of our linebackers was taken-out in our game against Oregon, so they moved me onto the main squad, the travel squad, and they told me I was going to start against Stanford. It was a big deal, ya know?”

“Yes, I can only imagine.”

“I called the parents to see if they wanted to come to the game but no. Zero interest.” He stopped and took a deep breath — then — oddly enough he closed his eyes. “There was a party, weekend before Thanksgiving — and we were going to Palo Alto the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving so we could have a practice session on their field — but anyway, I went to this party even though as I freshman I wasn’t supposed to. It was at someone’s house in Beverly Hills, that was all I knew.

“So I went with a friend from the team, and besides, I didn’t have a car and needed a ride. House was huge, I mean bigger than anything I’d ever seen before and the back yard was just colossal. Two pools, a tennis court, a back house with a separate patio, and fucking Elton John was playing the piano in the main house. The guy who owned the house owned the label, and he’d gone to ‘SC too and gave this big party for the team every year. The thing is, not everyone was invited, but somehow my name made it on the list and there I was. Man…I felt like a hick, like I had straw in my hair…”

“Kind of imposing? A new experience for you?”

“Yeah, you could say that, but even so I was really self conscious about the whole thing, really way more than uptight. Then this girl takes my hand and takes me to the piano and she asks Elton to play Take Me to the Pilot and I was like — bam! — blown away that this girl had chosen me. Me! And she…knew Elton!”

“Was she pretty?”

“Pretty? Yeah, pretty, but at the same time she was kind of bookish, kind of wonky and exotic at the same time.”

“Ah, yes.”

Taylor nodded. “Anyway, we danced a little but I couldn’t, not really, but she understood and we drifted away from the main party after that, out to the backyard. And we, like, talked. For hours. Turned out it was her dad’s place and he was like the CEO of Universal or something like that, and it was her first year at ‘SC, too.”

“And you’re leaving out the most important part, aren’t you?”

Taylor nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Her family was Jewish.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Did that matter…to you?”

Taylor looked at Father Kerrigan just then, and with tears in his eyes he shook his head slowly, gently. “Tell you the truth, Father, I’d heard about Jews in Social Studies but Montana wasn’t exactly overflowing with anyone that didn’t go to Sunday mass.”

“So? What happened next?”

“I fell in love with her, Father. I mean…all the way. She started coming to games just to watch me, then her old man started coming too. My sophomore year he started taking me to the studio, introducing me to everyone. Her mother began to treat me like I was her own son, and it wasn’t long before I loved her parents as much as I loved my own. We played Texas in the Cotton Bowl that year and got our asses handed to us, and then her family became the glue that held me together. My parents? They never came to a game, never, not once. It was like I didn’t exist, but it didn’t matter because I had these new parents, and they cared for me, they loved me, and they were there for me when things didn’t go right.

“Her father really helped after the Cotton Bowl thing. Like a counselor, like a friend…you need to start planning for life after college, and then life after football…”

“The NFL? Was that a possibility even then?”

“Oh yeah. Coaches talked about it so Mr. Sorensen heard about it, and Debra heard…”

“Sorensen? Ted Sorensen?”

“Yup, the one and only.”

“Holy cow, William… Sorensen ran Hollywood from the 60s through the 80s, and you were dating his daughter?”

William nodded. “We weren’t dating, Father. We were in love and I didn’t mind if anyone knew. She was like my shadow, ya know? Always by my side.”

“And her parents? They didn’t mind that you weren’t Jewish?”

“Not at all. I went to services with them, and more than once, too, and Father, I couldn’t tell any difference except the whole sacrament thing, the wine and the wafers, ya know? Talk about God seemed pretty much the same, too. Not a lot of talk about Jesus, but I guess that goes without saying, huh?”

“I’d say so, yes,” Father Kerrigan said, smiling.

“I played tennis with her mom, golf with her father, I tossed the football with her little brothers every time I went over to their house, and to this day all I remember about that time is a feeling that I belonged there. That I was loved. That this was how families were supposed to be.”

“Not like your family?”

“My parents were cold, Father. I mean…really, really cold. Like…I can’t remember once when either one told me they loved me. Not once. That’s what I mean by cold, ya know? And then here comes Mrs. Sorensen and she’s cooking me all these meals and her father is surrounding me with everything I’d ever need to make it in Hollywood and then there was Debra. To this day when I think of what the word love means I see her…”

“What happened?”

“What happened? I took her home for Christmas my senior year. I wanted to ask her to marry me, and I wanted to ask her with my parents around.”

Kerrigan knew what was going to happen but he let Taylor have his say. “And? What happened?”

“I learned about anti-semitism, Father. And that my parents were raving anti-semites. There was this horrible fight and Frank…”

“Your brother?”

William nodded. “That’s right. And yeah, so, Frank sees what’s going down and gets us out of the house and drives us down to Billings, to the airport, and it was snowing like crazy. Anyway, we got a flight out and Frank took off back to the ranch, and that’s when he got killed, Father. He wasn’t drunk. In fact, he’d only had his driver’s license for about a year. He was just a kid, Father,” William said, weeping openly now. “He was just a kid trying to do the right thing and it killed him. I killed him, and when we found out once we’d made it back to LA it was like I came undone. That’s when I pulled back. From everything. Everyone. Ted couldn’t shake me out of it, neither could Debra or Mrs. Sorensen. I just fell into the fucking black hole and disappeared for a couple of months…”

“Ah, and then the Rose Bowl, and Notre Dame?”

“I went out on that field with nothing but pure Hate in my heart, Father. I went out there to murder anyone who got in my way and I kept at it for the next eight years, until someone with more Hate in their heart took me out in Dallas.”

“And Debra?”

“I’d changed, Father. Into something she didn’t recognize anymore. We let it go at that.”

“And still you love her, don’t you?”

Taylor nodded, bowing his head as if in prayer. “Yeah, of course I do, but we all have our cross to bear, right, Father?”

“Yes. All of us.”

When William finally looked up he noticed that Angel was gone and he looked at Kerrigan, confused. “Where’d she go?”

“I think she realized this was something she probably didn’t need to be in on, William; I think perhaps she went to go make a call about Gretchen’s mother.”

Taylor looked down at the little girl still asleep with her head on his thigh, and absent-mindedly he ran his fingers through her hair. “Who knows, father. Maybe I could have had a little girl, maybe like this little girl.”

“Maybe you still can, William.”

Taylor shook his head. “Not me, Father. There were two people in the world whose love I was sure of, that I knew would last forever. Debra’s and Frank’s. They’re gone now and that as they say is that.”

“But surely Debra isn’t gone. Do you ever hear from her?”

“Every now and then I get a Christmas card, a note on my birthday.”

“Did she ever marry?”

“I have no idea, Father, but the point of all this is that Hatred I talked about. Father? That Hate took over my life. It destroyed everything I loved and that Hate still consumes me.”

“Are you sure, William?” Father Kerrigan said — as he watched William Taylor’s fingers gently running through a starving homeless girl’s filthy hair. “Are you really sure?”

Taylor smiled — just a little. “Father? I’m just going through the motions now, you know? Just breathing, one after another — because that’s all I know how to do.”

“Tell me something, William. If you could ask God for just one thing, what would that one thing be?”

And without hesitation Taylor spoke: “Frank. I’d ask God to go back and take it all back. To let Frank live the life he should have.

Father Kerrigan smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with your heart, William. At least nothing that a sweet little Jewish girl couldn’t fix…”

+++++

Gretchen’s mother had bounced in and out of various private mental health facilities in California and Arizona until what meager funds she had were exhausted, at which point the home she’d been awarded after her divorce was attached to a mental health warrant to pay for continuing treatment at the state psychiatric hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. When the money equal to the value of her house was exhausted she was declared cured and summarily discharged, now homeless, onto the street. Gretchen’s grandmother reluctantly surrendered the little girl back to her mother’s care and almost immediately the two of them took off for La-La-Land, where both had lived before her mother’s most recent hospitalization. Gretchen was, when her mother was discharged from the hospital in Phoenix, seven years old, and the only roof over she’d experienced recently was when she stayed at her grandmother’s house in Scottsdale; she was, however, an expert at setting up and taking down tents — in a hurry — because being homeless meant you never really could stay in one place for very long.

She was holding William Taylor’s hand as her little entourage entered the main campus of the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. Father Kerrigan was still with William and Angel, and one of Taylor’s office assistants was with them now too; he had picked them up and ferried them to Westwood, and now the group walked onto the Medicine floor and Taylor quickly found the nurses’ station.

“I’m looking for Margaret Marlowe,” Taylor said to one of the nurses sitting behind the counter. “Any idea where we could find her?”

“Seven-F,” the nurse said — without looking up or otherwise acknowledging his presence.

“Okay,” he said with a brusque shake of his head.

And they walked down to 7-F to find — an empty room.

So back the little group went to the nurses’ station.

“Uh, sorry, but there’s no one in 7-F,” Taylor growled, and that made the nurse look up from her paperwork.

“Let me see if she’s scheduled for imaging,” the harried woman added as she pulled up a screen on her computer. “Nope, nothing,” the woman said, standing and walking towards the room in a sudden hurry.

Still gone.

The nurse trotted back to her station and called a supervisor, who put out a security alert, but all to no avail. Margaret Marlowe had simply slipped into some clothes and vanished…

Yet Gretchen was unconcerned. “She’ll come back to the beach. You’ll see.”

So William and Angel and Father Kerrigan and the production assistant drove back to Venice Beach, and once they had parked in the garage at Angel’s house William pulled his assistant aside.

“Get me a tent,” he began — as his assistant began taking notes on a spiral notepad, “and something to sleep on. Maybe a cot and an air mattress. A light-weight sleeping bag. Better make sure the tent is big enough for four…”

“Four cots, then?”

“Yeah…better safe than sorry, right?”

“Yessir.”

“Get a bunch of those Yeti coolers and load ’em up with ice and drinks, plastic cups, maybe a table and chairs, and anything else you think we’ll need…”

“Okay. Got it, sir.”

“And Henry? Ask Susan if she could look up Debra Sorensen’s contact information, that’s Ted Sorensen’s daughter. I think she still lives over on Palm or Alpine.”

“You just need a number, or email and social media?”

“Telephone. That’ll do for now.”

“Should I bring…?”

“Where you picked us up earlier.”

“You’re really going to stay down here?”

“Yeah…and oh, before I forget, bring me about five grand in cash. Hundred dollar bills.”

“Yessir.” Henry Gordon was used to his boss’s eccentricities, but even this was a little over the top. Still, Gordon went camping in the Sierras all the time so knew exactly what Taylor needed, and where to get everything. He did not, therefore, go to Wal*Mart.

+++++

“William? Is your leg bothering you?” Father Kerrigan asked as Taylor’s security detail finished helping get the campsite set-up.

“A little.”

“I’m just wondering, but why the tents? Why not stay at Angel’s house?”

“I want to experience what Gretchen has experienced,” Taylor sighed, standing slowly after getting one of the tent’s sun-shades staked out. “I need to understand what it feels like to live like this.”

“You…need to? Why’s that? Have a sequel to Sullivan’s Travels in mind?”

Taylor thought about that for a moment, but then shook his head. “No, not really, but I suppose like everyone else in this town I do love that movie.” He bent over a little and rubbed his left thigh, like he was working out a knot, then he stood again and looked at the huge encampment. “You know, I think My Man Godfrey was a better film, and yes, I know sitting down here with all the comforts of home hardly qualifies, but I feel like I need to do this. To connect with these people, even for a day or two.”

“Kind of put yourself in their shoes?”

“Maybe. Maybe just a little, but I hardly ever think about what these people live like, let alone how they survive…”

“Well, the truth of the matter, William, is that too many of them don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Survive.”

“You mean they just die out here, on the streets?”

Father Kerrigan nodded. “Yes, alone and feeling rather forsaken, I think you might say.”

Taylor turned and looked at the priest then. “What happens to them?”

“The bodies?”

“Yeah.”

“Processed and buried in pauper’s graves, I suppose, though I’ve heard the bodies are simply cremated these days.”

“How many homeless are there, Father?”

“In Los Angeles? Hard to say, really. Some estimates are as low as fifty thousand, but most put the number between sixty and a hundred thousand.”

“What about in the country?”

“Again, William, it’s hard to say. Conservative estimates put the number at around six hundred thousand, but some groups put the number closer to one million. You know, funny story about that. About twenty years ago, back during the second Bush administration, a federal study put the number of homeless in New York City at fifteen thousand, but a few months later a book was published and the authors noted that they’d found more than fifty thousand homeless living in abandoned subway tunnels all around the region. They had power, their own government structures, and the authors also talked to hundreds of children who had never once seen the sun.”

“That’s fucking outrageous, Father…oh, uh, sorry Father…excuse my French.”

Kerrigan shrugged then smiled: “There are all sorts of realities out there, William. More than you know.”

“More than I know,” Taylor whispered as once again he looked around the encampment. “I don’t understand that, Father.”

“Neither do I, William, but it’s a problem that never goes away…the homeless have been with us since David and Jesus walked the streets of Bethlehem.”

“But why here, now? Aren’t we the richest…?”

“We are indeed, but the social safety net that caught these people and stopped their fall into homelessness was abandoned in the 80s and it’s never been replaced, so the numbers grow, year after year…and this,” Kerrigan said with a sweep of his arms, “is the result. No real long term mental health facilities so those people end up here on the street. No prohibitions against predatory lending so homes are taken, and more people fall through the cracks. The list is long, really, but there are simply too many ways to end up here, and literally millions more people are just a few steps away from finding a similar fate.”

“But why, Father?”

“Because no one wants to think about it, William. It’s far easier to turn away from all this than it is to confront the reality that a similar fate awaits anyone if just a few critical missteps are taken. And now, William, I must insist that you get off that leg!”

Taylor nodded. “I know, I know, but somehow…”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, William, and you won’t solve this problem through the lens of a guilty conscience, so let’s find you a chair.”

“This way, sir,” Bill Tucker said. Tucker was Taylor’s Chief of Security and had been summoned by the studio to get down to the beach and assess the situation — Right now! — and he had gathered all available resources to help Taylor get set up down here. Tucker was a retired Navy Seal and had decades of experience in places like Somalia and Afghanistan, so setting up a secure camp on the sand was nothing new to him, but doing so in the middle of LA was, and in the middle of a homeless encampment full of American citizens was even more confusing. In fact, all of Tucker’s men had similar life experiences, and to a man all were equally upset by the sight of so many destitute Americans wandering around the boardwalk area panhandling or begging for handouts, and as his men were well-dressed, filthy children came up and asked for food, reminding many of them of their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Taylor made it to a folding chair and sighed, then he called out for Henry Gordon again. “Hank!”

“Here sir!”

“Good work down here, Hank.”

“Thanks.”

“Bill?”

“Sir?”

“I want to lay on dinner for these people, all of ’em.”

“Yessir?”

“And probably for the next week or so, until I can get something organized with the mayor. I’m going to need you to organize that so we don’t create chaos. Hank? What about Porta-potties? Can we do something along those lines?”

“Not really, sir. They need permits to do that, and if permits are issued that means the city is sanctioning this encampment. The fact of the matter is, sir, that the Sheriff’s Department conducts sweeps down here every month or so…”

“Sweeps?”

“Yup. Officers come down and give the people camped out here a day to clear out, and dozers show up the next morning to scoop up any camp sites that remain…”

“But…where do they go?” Taylor cried, and Gordon shrugged.

“You see the problem now, William,” Father Kerrigan sighed.

“Yeah, Father,” Taylor said, clearly annoyed. “But every problem has a solution.”

Gretchen came up just then and took his hand. “I’m hungry,” the little girl said, and the words seemed to fall on Taylor’s shoulders like an unbearable weight.

“I know you are, sweetheart. What would you like?”

She pointed at the cluster of food trucks parked nearby. “Anything,” she said.

“William?” Father Kerrigan said. “You sit and rest that leg. I’ll take care of this.”

But Taylor shook his head as he stood, then he picked up Gretchen and scooped her up onto his left shoulder again. “Bill, let’s head up and warn the owners of these trucks what’s coming. Hank? Call the mayor and see if he can come down here this evening. Tell him I’ve got a few ideas I’d like to go over with him.”

“Yessir!”

“And once you’ve done that, get me Ted Sorensen on the phone.”

+++++

“I think your proposal her merit, Bill,” Ted Sorensen said — just after the mayor and his entourage left the beach, “and I applaud your sense of drama — or should I say humor. You could not have chosen a better venue, and I do believe His Honor was truly shocked when you told him you’d be sleeping down here for the next week.”

Taylor looked up at the milky sky and nodded. “Ideas started coming to me this afternoon, Ted, because it seems to me now is the time to act. The political will to act is certainly here, and the problem has reached crisis proportions. But Ted, none of the ideas I’ve read about have a snowballs chance in Hell of succeeding.”

“And you think yours does?”

“No, not really, but someone has to make the first move, and that first step is going to have to include thinking outside of the box.”

Sorensen nodded. “The oil companies will never grant access to all that land, however, I think the studios just might do it. The publicity would be enormously helpful, and even the tax implications…”

“How’s Debra?” William Taylor said, interrupting the old man.

Who seemed to hesitate just a little before he began speaking again. “You know, when I watched them carry you off the field in Dallas I knew your career was over, yet I think a part of me expected that you’d call us after that. I hoped you might, anyway.”

“I wanted to, Ted.”

“Oh, how I wish you had.”

“You know I couldn’t do that.”

“Do I?” Sorensen said with a sigh. “You know, I never understood what happened up there. Not really. Debra tried to explain…”

“I was humiliated, sir. Not by what my parents said to your daughter, but by my acquiescence to their hatred. I failed to stand up to them, but at the same time — and who knows, maybe in the same way — I failed to stand up for her. The problem, sir, is that I’ve never felt worthy of her love since that day.”

“And then your brother.”

“Yeah, and then…Frank.”

“And you’ve still not forgiven yourself?”

“I’ll never be able to do that, sir. I’ll never stop hating myself, for my weakness, for my selfishness, for everything else that happened that day — but most all for letting Debra down.”

“She forgave you, but I think you know that.”

Taylor shook his head. “I don’t know why or how, Ted. I really don’t, and I never…”

“Because she loves you,” Sorensen cried, “you silly bastard! Don’t you know that?”

William looked down at his hands, then he looked at the tent where Gretchen lay sleeping. “Is love really that powerful, sir? Can love really endure in the face of so much hatred and neglect?”

“Why don’t you do us both a favor, son? Why don’t you call her and find out?”

+++++

Gretchen’s mother had simply disappeared, but Taylor soon learned from social services that this wasn’t the first time she’d bugged out, and even the little girl seemed to take it all in stride.

“How do you take something like that in stride, Father?” Taylor asked Father Kerrigan the next day.

“You stop feeling disappointment, William, when each fresh round of pain begins to feel a little more pointless.”

“Pointless?”

The priest frowned as he looked at the crowd gathering for their second free dinner, then he turned to face Taylor. “William, what happens when you leave these people? You’ll have filled their stomachs, but what comes after?”

Taylor ignored the evasion and sighed. “I hope I’ll have more answers for you tomorrow morning, so until then I’ll just keep this up…”

“The word’s out, you know? People from Skid Row will start showing up down here this afternoon, and I’ve heard more will be coming from as far away as South Central and Long Beach.”

“I know. By tomorrow the residents around here are going to be major league pissed…”

“Which brings me full circle, William. Why are you doing this? Where are you taking these people?”

“I’m doing it because I can, and I want to help break this cycle of dependence.”

“Indeed,” Father Kerrigan said, but a little voice inside wondered if that was really the case.

“It’s really simple, Father. The City has been trying to “formulate policy” for years, but now their best solution involves building a couple hundred housing units for almost three hundred million bucks. Ya know what, Father? That’s like more than a million bucks a pop, and that’s just absurd. There’s got to be a better way, and I had a, well, let’s just call it a brainstorm and be done with it. I think I have a sort of solution that’s in all our best interests, and I’m going to see if I can’t make it happen.”

Henry Gordon appeared and held up his wrist, pointed to his watch. “Your meeting with Jennifer is in five minutes,” Taylor’s assistant said. “She’s waiting up at the house,” he added, meaning Angel’s beach house — because all his assistants were now working out of the living room there.

Taylor nodded. “You’ll excuse me, Father…”

“That’s alright. I’m done with classes for the day so I’ll stay here with the girl.”

“Thanks,” Taylor said as he took off across the beach; several of the homeless squatters smiled at him as he passed, and a few even waved, but he began to notice that piles of trash left over from all his free meals were scattered all over the beach, creating yet another set of problems to be solved. But why? Why couldn’t they police their own garbage? Was something fundamentally wrong with these people? An image of Sisyphus came to mind and as he looked at fetid taco wrappers blowing across the beach he wondered if he’d embarked on a fool’s errand. ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘I’ll know soon enough.’

Angel and Jennifer Collins were sitting outside on the upper patio located on the building’s large, flat roof, and while Angel was sitting in sunlight, Jennifer was in shade provided by a vine covered trellis. There was a pitcher of limeade on the table and a glass waiting there for him, already running with silvery condensation, and then he noticed the girls were wearing navy t-shirts and yellow gym shorts, both emblazoned with LAPD insignia, and both soggy with gallons of sweat.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Angel said as she made to leave. “I’m sure you both have lots to talk about.”

Taylor sat but tried not to smile. “Thanks. Looks like you could use a shower,” he said to them both, but then he took a sip of limeade and watched Angel as she disappeared down the stairs.

“You know what, Bill?” Collins said, smiling at this little challenge.

“No. What?” he said, clearly annoyed that she’d called him ‘Bill.’

“The truth of the matter is she doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t what?”

“Look like she needs a shower. What do you know about her?”

“Just that she’s got a German passport…” he started to say, then he remembered she’d told him she’d done a surgical residency at Stanford and his brow furrowed. “What are you getting at?” he added.

“The Chief invited her to come down to the academy this morning, and I think he wanted her to follow one of the classes while they did their morning PT, or maybe watch a physical combat class.”

“Yeah. So?”

“You ever seen the run, Bill? At the Academy?”

“The run?”

“Yeah, at the Academy. It’s a meat grinder, Bill. A lot of cadets quit first day because of that run.”

“So?”

“Ever been up to the Academy?”

“Nope.”

“Dodger Stadium, maybe?”

“Not a baseball fan,” he scowled. “Where are you going with this?”

“The Academy is just above the parking lots on the north side of Dodger Stadium, in Elysian Park. There are trails all over that park, Bill. Steep trails. Steep, unpaved trails, and it was 93 degrees up there this morning. And you know what we did, Bill?”

“I suppose you’re going somewhere with this?”

“Yeah Bill, I am. We went for a run, Bill, with an Academy class that’s set to graduate in two weeks. In other words, with a class in top physical shape, Bill. I couldn’t keep up with the slowest cadet, but Angel gets out there and smokes them. Every fucking one of them, Bill. Even the Academy Instructor running with her could barely keep up.”

“Really?”

“Then we went to the combat class. Care to guess what happened?”

“Not really.”

“You ever hear of Koga? Bob Koga?”

“Can’t say that I have, no.”

“LAPD officer back in the 50s, started teaching hand-to-hand. Aikido. Little guy. That kind of thing. He’s been gone a while but a few of the instructors up there were his pupils, and they’re good, Bill. Real good. She watched a short demonstration then one of them asked if she’d like to demonstrate what she’d just learned. She took out the instructor, Bill, in two moves. And she hurt him, too. Then she bends over him and starts a complete medical examination, and you know what?”

“Yeah, she’s a physician.”

“Yeah, Bill, she’s a doc and she can do a mile in under four minutes, then ten minutes later take out a fifth degree black belt in Aikido, and after all that she’s barely sweating…but she’s still smiling, Bill. Smiling like she’s just come in after a little walk in the park.”

Taylor blinked rapidly then cleared his throat. “So…what’s the punch line?”

“I don’t have one, Bill. The department runs a serious background check on anyone that asks to come out on a ride-along and I’ve read all there is on the girl. Her background is perfect. I mean, it’s fucking perfect, and in our business a perfect background check usually raises all kinds of red flags so CID did even more checking. And everything is still fucking perfect.”

“I’m still not sure where you’re going with this, Jennifer.”

“I got nowhere to go, Bill. You found this perfect — perfect! — younger version of me to star in your movie, except she just happens to be a surgeon who also — ta-dah! — also just happens to be a fucking world class athlete,” she said, scowling into her limeade. “And the whole thing feels kind of off to me, Bill. Off, as in weird, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I do. And you’re not the only one, Kiddo.”

“You…when did…why didn’t you say something?”

“Like what? Like you said…she’s perfect for the part and I’m always on the lookout for perfect. What the hell was I supposed to do? Turn my back and walk away?”

“You fucked up, Billy-boy. Big time.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Yeah, you. You shoulda brung us a bottle of Cuervo, ’cause you and I need to get shitfaced…then we need to get to the bottom of this.”

+++++

Gretchen really liked the carne asada tacos at the red and white food truck, and she loved her refried beans, too — and Taylor really enjoyed watching her eat. She wasn’t bored, she wasn’t trying to score points or play him, not like all the wannabe writers working an angle to sell him a screenplay. She was still an innocent — because all the world’s cynicism had yet to grab her by the throat and fill her mind with hate, and even Father Kerrigan seemed to enjoy spending time with her.

When Taylor returned from his meeting with Jennifer the priest had gone back up to LMU for the evening, to the Jesuit residence on the edge of the bluffs that looked out over the Marina — and to the sunsets beyond the Malibu range — but he said he’d drop by tomorrow afternoon after classes.

Taylor was beginning to really like the old priest, too. He was easy to talk to and smart as could be, but it was his insights into the human condition that had impressed him most. Who better to talk to about the true dimensions of homelessness than a priest dialed into liberation theology and who worked in his spare time at a free clinic? Besides, the old man looked the part, like Edmund Gwenn as Santa Claus but dressed like a priest.

The sun had slipped into the sea and now he was sitting outside his tent, Gretchen asleep by his side, and they were sitting in camp chairs by a fire pit. And as he stared into the flickering fire his mind wandered through events of the recent past.

I met a priest, a priest at a jazz club, a jazz club in Hamburg, Germany. Just before I met Angel.

Angel. Sitting in a prostitute’s window. An angel sitting in a prostitute’s window.

Her father’s name? Gabriel Stardust, wasn’t it?

‘Gabriel was an angel’s name, wasn’t it? And her mother? What was that name? Lailah? Just what the hell kind of name is that? Arabic?’ he sighed as he picked up his phone and opened the browser. ‘Let’s see here…’ he said as he entered the name and parsed the results.

‘Lailah — the Hebrew Angel of Night, from the Old Testament’ he said, reading off the information he’d just opened. ‘So Lailah was the only female Angel, right? So, Angel’s father was Gabriel, aka the Archangel, and her mother was Lailah, the Angel of Night. Now…just what the hell does that make her?’

“Uh, excuse me, Mr. Taylor,” Henry Gordon said, “but there’s someone here to see you?”

He hardly reacted — distracted as he was — but when Taylor turned around he saw Debra Sorensen standing there in the firelight, only she was looking at the little girl by his side.

And yet, he sat there — lost — trying to make sense of all the sudden feelings beating the in air over his head. Like vultures, vultures beating the air, waiting for me. I here I am, overwhelmed by my very own Angel of the Night. Was that it? Was Angel…an angel? Or was Debra an Angel, my angel? But what about Guilt? Where was Guilt? Surely there was an Angel of Guilt? Where was he now? What shadows was Guilt lurking in — what fires consumed his wings as he fell? Is that what I feel now, Guilt’s melting wings beating the air as he falls?

He stared at her for what must have been hours, perhaps even days, then he stood and went to her — where, just like any other fallen angel, he fell into the arms of the only woman he would ever love — just as two embers might, lost and drifting among the stars.

+++++

Rampart.

Even the name is vaguely foreboding, but especially so as the name of a police division. In Los Angeles, Rampart Division stands between the western suburbs and South Central — and it was, once upon a time, the moat standing between the slums south of downtown and the western suburbs of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Malibu. In time, as boundaries grew more diffuse and the western neighborhoods less severely segregated, Rampart became less of a mote and more like a cork in a bottle of explosively bubbling waters. These days, ever since the bloody aftermath of the Rodney King riots, Rampart and Southwest have been tasked with keeping the metastases somewhat contained.

The Division morphed over the closing decades of the last century. It grew. More detectives were added so they had to rely less on Central. Patrol districts were tightened, so cops on the street could focus on problem areas, and so back-up units could be dispersed in tighter grids for quicker response times. But there were growing pains. Including a scandal that almost took down the department.

Jennifer Collins spent most of her career working out of Rampart, yet that was just the way she wanted her career to play out. She had, true enough, worked out of Southwest from time to time, but those few occasions had come about because of staffing shortages, not out of choice. She felt at home in Rampart because she knew the rhythms of life there, she knew the streets and she knew the players in the gangs that roamed those streets. Not many people would be willing to admit they could take pride in all that esoteric knowledge, but Jennifer Collins could — and she did.

Gang members knew her as an honest broker, as a good cop. Shopkeepers too regarded Collins as a committed cop interested in stopping crime before it happened, and getting to the bottom of things when she was too late. She usually worked the four to midnight rotation, primetime for robberies and domestic disturbances, and like all experienced cops she understood both types of incidents could rarely be prevented. Most robberies were small-time, opportunistic crimes that involved little or even no planning, while domestics — like all arguments between husbands and wives — seemed to roll gently along at a low boil — until something caused a boil-over. Most bad domestic disturbances happened after dinner on Thursday nights, Thursday being the day before payday and the boil over starting when discussions about past due bills exploded into physical confrontations. As there were way too many poor people in Rampart, explosive Thursdays were guaranteed.

The real payoff from being assigned to just one patrol district, or beat, at least from the perspective of people trying to prevent crime, is that over time you get to know all the bad actors in your area. You get to know which “Stop ‘n Robs” are more than likely to get hit at five in the afternoon and on what days of the week, and to know which apartment buildings have the most violent people living there, and therefore which are more likely to have the worst domestic disturbances.

“It ain’t rocket science!” Jennifer Collins told the rookies she trained from time to time.

Or…was it?

Because in a way it really was rocket science, because for the past thirty years computers had been keeping track of all kinds of information, and because patrol cars were now equipped with data terminals allowing direct computer access to all that information. Because information reflects experience and experience is knowledge and knowledge is power.

And if that ain’t rocket science, what is?

Yet the human engineering inside a patrol car is all wrong, and sometimes dangerously so. You can’t type on a small keyboard in a patrol car racing to respond to a hot call. If you’re typing on that keyboard while stopped on the side of the road someone with evil intent can sneak up behind you while you’re concentrating on the tiny screen. Technologies exist to augment these human-machine interface-engineering deficiencies but they’re costly, yet go back to movies of the not so distant past and you can catch glimpses of spoken interfaces that really could enhance patrol operations. So there are still times, in this age when readily accessible knowledge is easily harnessed power, when getting your hands on that power isn’t as trouble free as it could be. The essential problem is that as a result of this power imbalance a lot of people die. Perhaps…needlessly.

And this remains especially true in Rampart, where needless death is a daily occurrence.

+++++

Rampart Division’s briefing room is large enough to hold the dozens of officers that gather there just before each shift begins. The walls are covered with statistics and charts that illuminate crime stats and trends for each and every patrol district, these stats covering changes day to day and month to month, and some even by time of day. Burglaries, robberies, assaults, criminal mischiefs, and domestic disturbances are highlighted, and gang related incidents are covered, as well. There are other announcements posted on the walls, too…for things like continuing education credits and other personnel matters, and sometimes department events are posted up there for all to see, for things like Academy graduations and, of course, funerals.

Motor-jocks from Traffic sit in on these briefings too, because if not out working a traffic stop or assigned to work an accident, officers on motorcycles can often respond more quickly to a hot call than officers in patrol cars. These motor-heads, as Traffic Division officers are sometimes called, come into the briefing room in their tall riding boots and with their ‘aviator’ styles sunglasses pushed up on their foreheads and go over accident stats pinned to the walls so they might better identify certain areas where they need to focus their efforts during the coming shift, but then they usually head-off and sit in small groups by themselves — and then barely pay attention during the rest of the briefing. Motor-heads think they are God’s gift to women, and when not writing tickets that’s about all they talk about. Well, that…and motorcycles.

Detectives assigned to the shift attend briefings, too, because, oddly enough, if they’re not actively engaged investigating a case they too respond to calls. This makes sense, especially when you consider that most will be assigned to work the follow-up investigation after a major call, and when working a homicide, especially when working a homicide, being among the first on scene is a big advantage, because way too many cases are lost because of disputed chain of evidence questions in court.

On the few occasions when a civilian is allowed to ride along during a shift, the civilian is required to attend briefing, too. These ride alongs happen most often when a new grand jury is seated, as most new members of the jury are patently unfamiliar with police procedures — and most want to learn as much as they can without actually having to go through the academy. The department has good reason to want these jurors as well-versed in proper procedure as possible, so senior officers are assigned to these jurors, and sometimes these ride alongs cover multiple shifts and cover more than one division.

High profile ‘celebrity’ ride alongs aren’t uncommon, but rarely are these ride alongs allowed in Rampart or Southwest, unless there’s an overriding reason why the ride along needs to happen in these areas. Movies with principal photography scheduled to occur in the area, and that have plot lines that revolve around these districts, are the obvious exceptions, and such was the case with the the new William Taylor film, The Beat Goes On. That the film’s protagonist was a working patrol officer still assigned to Rampart might have seemed a little unusual, but there was precedent for that, too. Hollywood was, you see, located just down the street, and to make matters even more obscure, it sometimes felt like half the division was signed up for the next screenwriting class at Cal State LA., so everyone at Rampart felt like they were more than ready to meet this Angel so-and-so.

Then word filtered through the department and, eventually, to the briefing room at Rampart, of her performance on the academy trails around Elysian Park, which was met with a collective shrug — like, so what? She’s a runner, so no big deal. Then word hit about her taking out one of the department’s Koga-trained instructors, and everyone looked up when that one rolled through the room. That wasn’t supposed to happen, because some unknown movie actress certainly wasn’t supposed to be able to pull off something like that.

So by the time Angel was supposed to show up for her ride along with Jennifer Collins, everyone at Rampart was more than a little curious. Then more pieces of the puzzle began quietly slipping into place.

A film crew was going to follow her throughout the shift, starting here in the briefing room. The film crew would be split between a department SUV following Collins’ patrol car, with another photographer actually inside the patrol car, providing complete coverage for a documentary slated to come out just before the film’s general release. And rumor had it the film’s producer, William Taylor, was going to be in the department’s car too, and that a narrator of some sort would be coming along to provide a running play-by-play commentary of the evening.

“Sounds like a clusterfuck to me,” the evening shift sergeant said the day before the ride-along was supposed to happen, yet, by and large, most of the other patrolmen in the division were simply jealous of all the attention Collins was getting — because the book they planned on writing would be much better.

+++++

All eyes were on Angel as she slipped quietly into the briefing room, walking in right behind Jennifer Collins and taking a seat at the table furthest from the shift sergeant’s desk. Then the film crew came in.

Eyes rolled. Cops turned away and a low breaking wave of knowing grumbles swept over the room. Then William Taylor walked into the room, limping along with his cane and as always dressed in his black suit, crisply pressed white shirt adorned with his blazing red bow tie, and just as the wave had already broken, now it was time for the waters to recede, to slide back out to sea. Faces turned to look over the famous producer because, let’s face it, if he could produce one movie about cops he might just as easily produce the novel that each and every one of the officers in that room was planning to write. As one, they all made room for Taylor, and a couple of the cops even asked to see his Super Bowl ring, and so solicitous was this welcome that Taylor felt an immediate sense of gratitude. And, of course, his film crew had already disappeared into the woodwork and was busily capturing the essence of the moment.

Even so, Jennifer Collins was grateful for the distraction.

Angel had, apparently — and much to Jennifer’s annoyance — stopped by the studio and a make-up artist had really gone to town, and Angel now looked like exactly what she was being groomed to be: an A-list movie star at the top of her form. Her blond hair was radiant, the make-up brought out the cobalt pools in her eyes, and human lips had never looked prettier, or poutier. And though she was wearing khaki slacks, a white LAPD polo shirt and a navy blue windbreaker, everyone in the briefing room thought she looked sexy as hell. Everyone, that is, except Jennifer Collins.

Who felt dowdy and somewhat neglected, and not a little jealous of the attention shifting to Angel.

The shift sergeant called the room to order at 1530 and everyone took their seats, steno pads opening and ballpoint pens hovering expectantly, waiting to do battle once again. Roll was called and cars assigned, the day shift sergeant recited his list of crimes and misdemeanors the evening shift needed to know about, and then a detective went over some vague intel about a supposed gang hit that was rumored to be going down around 2100 hours that evening. Target addresses and patrol patterns were adjusted, because if the targeted area was crawling with patrol cars, the hit could — or so went the thinking — be averted.

As Rampart Division is technically part of the Central Bureau, it borders Central Division along its east flank, and Central Division encompasses the downtown CBD, or Central Business District, which on weeknights tends to be relatively quiet. Chinatown is in Central, which is home to one distinct set of gangs, while a large Korean population resides in and around Rampart — with an entirely different group of gangs working this area. On the north side of Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevards, the Northeast Division rides herd on one of the largest concentrations of hispanic gang activity outside of Mexico or El Salvador, but it is also worth noting that within a five mile radius centered on the Rampart Division substation you will find five of the most violent gangs operating in North America. Because Southwest Division, while not technically a part of either Rampart Division or the Central Bureau, forms most of the western border of Rampart Division, and Southwest is home to the Bloods and the Crips — which are the two largest gangs in Los Angeles, and probably in the United States, as well.

Gangs would never have flourished in Los Angeles, or in the United States more generally, without the drug trade, and nothing was more important to the development of these gangs into transnational criminal enterprises than the emergence of ‘crack cocaine’ as a popular street drug in the mid-1980s. When considering the impact of crack cocaine use on the development of street gangs in America, it it important to consider that the two primary effects of crack cocaine use are experiencing feelings of supreme confidence, but then this first euphoric period is followed by brief periods of intense paranoia. These are potent human reactions with deadly implications for police officers.

By the time Angel walked into the briefing room at Rampart on All Hallow’s Eve, crack cocaine had long been endemically established throughout inner city neighborhoods in every large metropolitan area in the United States, and the simple fact of the matter was that the gangs that came of age around Rampart and South Central had long been the primary distribution conduits for both crack and crystal meth in urban areas throughout North America. There was more than anecdotal evidence that this trade truly came of age when these gangs spread by way of higher incarceration rates for Black males, and that the ever expanding prison population in the United States became the prime driving force for the explosive growth of the drug trade. This is euphemistically called the Law of Unintended Consequences by late night comics on television.

It’s also no secret that narcotics addictions are both directly and indirectly responsible for a huge percentage of violent street crime, but so too are other criminal acts against property, principally burglary. Given that gangs still operating out of Los Angeles are now also responsible for heroin and illegal opiate distribution nationwide, is it unrealistic to conclude that most of the reported urban street crime in North America these days can be traced back to street gangs that started in and around South Central Los Angeles?

And was it wrong to think of Rampart as being in the eye of that hurricane?

+++++

Jennifer Collins wasn’t assigned a patrol district that evening; her unit — 2-Zebra-41 — was assigned to float in the area on the north side of MacArthur Park, and with ‘Zebra’ indicating she was on a special detail. Because she had a ride-along her unit would not be assigned primary response status — period. She could back-up other units if absolutely necessary, but her assigned ‘duty’ was to ‘fly the flag’ on major thoroughfares when all other units were tied up on calls. Keeping her passenger ‘safe’ was Jennifer’s primary responsibility, even though all concerned had signed pages and pages of liability waivers. Even so, Angel and Taylor had been strongly advised to consider that ‘things happen out there’ and that they might respond to ‘violent and unpredictable’ incidents during their ride.

The shift sergeant going over assignments for the evening also added that it was Halloween, and so groups of kids would most likely be out on the streets just after sunset, or after 1830 hours. Motor-heads from Traffic would be working ‘speeders’ on the smaller side streets for the first four hours of the shift, then shifting to accident coverage and DUI enforcement until midnight. The sergeant also added, primarily for the benefit of the film crew, that Halloween was falling on a full moon — adding that “crazy shit happens with a full moon” as he grinned. He did not have to add that this was also a Thursday night, and that bad family disturbances would begin to pick up around 2300 hours. Everyone that worked evenings, and that did not routinely have Thursday evenings off, already knew this as a simple fact of life, and yet the sergeant left that information unsaid. Maybe he thought that Halloween falling on the night of a full moon would be entertaining enough, but already the old hands could feel something building in the air. Something kind of like a storm you can’t see yet, a feeling like walking in the woods on a dark night — and then the hair on the back of your neck stands on end.

So, as it happened…as officers left the briefing room and walked out to their patrol cars, the old timers could already feel something lurking out there, and Jennifer Collins felt it, too. As she walked into the parking garage she turned and looked over her shoulder, and when she got to her Ford Explorer she turned her face into the wind and actually sniffed the air — like any hunter might, or any predator.

And, like any good hunter, she thought she understood the predators she sought, and she even thought she knew their territory, their range. She knew predators could run and hide, or that they could turn the tables and begin to stalk the hunter. Worst of all, she remembered, was the silent predator that laid up in the shadows, waiting in stillness with eyes spoiling for a fight.

+++++

Collins checked-out her patrol car, a fairly new black and white Ford Explorer SUV. There was a good supply of road flares and orange traffic cones in back; the Remington 870 pump ‘Riot Gun’ had five rounds of ‘double-ought-buckshot’ up the tube and there was more ammo in the glove box. The data terminal was up and running, and with all her chores marked-off she checked into service with dispatch then turned to the guy in the back seat with the Nikon.

“Okay, here are the rules. Don’t talk when I’m on the radio and don’t get out of the car unless I tell you it’s okay. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Russ Simmons, looking at her on the Z9s folding rear screen, making sure focus was tracking on the cop’s eyes even though he was shooting through the heavy metal grate used to separate prisoners in the back seat from officers up front. He was going to shoot the evening with the 58 Noct, because he wanted to get all the detail possible, even in low light.

Collins turned and looked at Angel. “You have any questions for me, you need to ask ’em when I’m not on the radio or busy on the terminal. Clear?”

“Yes,” Angel said, smiling gently, as she always did. “Are you worried about something?”

“No, not really. Why?”

“You seem agitated, almost angry. I wasn’t expecting that,”

Collins grinned. “I just wish it wasn’t Thursday. Bad shit always comes down in Thursdays…”

“The family disturbances? Is that what you mean?”

“Yeah. That — and it’s Halloween…”

“The full moon?” Angel asked. “What’s with that?”

“You’ve worked in an emergency room, right? Surely you know about full moons…”

Angel looked away for a moment, then shrugged. “I guess I never made the connection. Sergeant Evans said ‘crazy shit’ happens. What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you because of a full moon?”

“Oh, it’s not like it’s just one thing. It’s more like the number of calls, and the types of calls that you get. Like all the crazies come out of the woodwork, if you know what I mean. And everything happens like all of a sudden.”

“Is it that way every time there’s a full moon?”

Collins shook her head. “Probably not, but I have seen statistics that show we get more disturbances, most with, well, crazy people, with…”

“Crazy? You mean diagnosed mental illness?”

Collins nodded. “That’s right, but more often than not undiagnosed. Maybe when some of ’em see the full moon they stop taking their meds…who knows.” She shrugged as she filled out the header on her DAR, or Daily Activity Report form. “God, I hate this fuckin’ paperwork.”

“May I help?” Angel asked.

“Wish you could, but no. It’s all on me tonight.”

“And I’m to wait until you tell me it’s alright to get out of the vehicle, correct? At each stop?”

“Yeah. Look, in case anything goes south on us, you know how to handle a shotgun?”

“If you mean with that 870, yes, I’m familiar with both safety mechanisms. Is a round chambered?”

“No. Do you know how to…”

“Yes, of course.”

“You sure you weren’t a cop in your last life?”

Angel smiled at that question, then she shook her head.

“Well, okay, so we’re just going to putter around for now, head on over to Liechty, uh, that’s the local middle school — about a block away, and we’ll keep an eye on the kids hanging around the playground for a while,” Collins said, pulling out of the station garage and turning left onto Union. She looked in the rearview mirror at the cameraman in the back seat just then: “You guys up for Tommy’s tonight? Our usual mealtime is 1800, uh, six o’clock…”

“Fine by me,” Simmons said, “as long as you don’t mind a car full of methane.”

“Methane?” Angel asked.

“Farts,” Jennifer clarified.

“Ah,” Angel added. “Why methane?”

“You’ve obviously never had a Tommy-burger before, have you?” Simmons said, grinning.

“Not yet,” Angel sighed, “but I keep hearing lots of stories about them.”

“Stories? About Tommy-burgers?” Jennifer said, feigning astonishment. “Don’t tell me, you like In-N-Out Burgers better, right?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Simmons grinned.

“Not if you work Rampart,” Jennifer said — with finality.

The radio chirped then a dispatchers voice came over the speaker: “2-Tom-21, 36-C, 8th and Union, suspect vehicle a white SUV, possible Chevy Tahoe, suspect identified as female, white, 30s, blond hair and known to reporting person.”

“2-Tom-21, code 5.”

“That’s a hit and run about a block away from the middle school with a motorcycle officer en route,” Collins said…

“And there’s a white Tahoe with a blond — right down there,” Angel said, pointing to the right, down Wilshire.

Without thinking Jennifer turned on Wilshire and punched the accelerator and, closing on the white Chevy, she turned on the Ford’s lights and siren. The driver of the Chevy decided to run, and so without warning the chase was on.

“2-Zebra-41 in pursuit of 36c suspect, have vehicle westbound on Wilshire from Union. Start a 27 on Charles Ocean Ocean Tom One, possible 502.”

“502? Simmons asked.

“Under the influence,” Angel said, and Jennifer cast a sidelong glance her way.

The Tahoe turned left on Bonnie Brae but swung wide and slammed into the back of a parked pickup truck — in what turned out to be a massive collision.

“2-Zebra-41, show us out on a major accident with that vehicle, 1700 South Bonnie Brae, start paramedics this location.” Jennifer shook her head then turned to Angel. “Stay here!” she said as she got out of the the Ford and ran up to the wrecked Chevy — but almost immediately she motioned for Angel to come join her, and the plain black Explorer carrying Taylor and the rest of the film crew pulled up seconds later.

Angel and Russ Simmons walked on the sidewalk and then out onto the street, and when Simmons saw the driver he almost lost his lunch. The woman hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt and the airbags had failed to deploy; her face and neck had been crushed by the steering wheel and she was bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose. Taylor and the other photographer walked up, and Simmons seemed surprised when a priest walked up with Taylor.

Angel leaned in and within seconds she was hauling the woman out of the seat and getting her on the pavement. “Her left clavicle is fractured. It’s impinging on the left lobe, maybe the pulmonary artery, and she might bleed out,” she said as she felt around the woman’s chest. “Tell the paramedics to expedite, but this woman is going to need surgery, and fast.” The priest came out into the street and knelt beside the injured woman, taking her hand as he whispered in her ear. Simmons got it all, never missing a beat, and Taylor smiled at the scene as he looked at Angel and Jennifer working side by side.

“2-Zebra-41,” Jennifer barked into the radio clipped to her shoulder lapel, “advise paramedics to expedite, and be advised we’re going to need air EVAC at Wilshire and Bonnie Brae.”

Simmons continued filming, constantly moving and changing angles as medics and motor-heads arrived, and he continued filming as fire trucks and patrol cars blocked traffic for the medevac helicopter, but forty minutes later they were done and he stopped filming as Taylor came over to talk. Collins gave her statement to the Motor-head assigned to work the report and they got back in the Explorer and Collins checked back into service; Taylor and his team then walked over and got in their Ford. Almost immediately the shift sergeant got on the tactical channel and asked Collins to meet him over by the park.

“Well, fuck-a-doodle-do,” she sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Simmons asked.

“Sergeant’s gonna ream me out for getting in a chase with you two in the car. And the thing is, he’s right. I shouldn’t gave done that…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Angel said reassuringly.

And Jennifer was right; the sergeant was pissed and as soon as her window was down he let her know it in no uncertain terms.

But then, the unimaginable happened.

“I spotted the goddamn car,” Angel snarled, “and we were almost right on top of it. Just what the fuck was she supposed to do? Maybe shade it with some harsh language?”

The sergeant didn’t know what to say. No one talked to him like that…no one!

“Look, no one was hurt,” Angel continued, now batting her eyes seductively, “and besides, I was hoping you’d join us at Tommy’s this evening…”

That did it. End of problem.

“Sure,” Sergeant Evans cooed. “I’d like that. You checking out at six?” he asked Collins.

“Yessir,” Jennifer said.

“Okay! Seeya then!”

“Yessir.” Jennifer rolled up her window and cranked up the air conditioning as she drove off, then she turned to Angel. “That was pretty slick, Kid. Well done.”

“You’re welcome,” Angel said, grinning. “Russ? Did you get some good stuff?”

Simmons was chimping his screen, nodding as he looked up at her. “Yeah, yeah man, good shit. Fuckin’ CNN would kill for some of this shit.”

Jennifer sighed, shook her head then looked at her watch. “Man, I gotta give you a heads up,” she said, looking at Angel with a little grin. “Sarge is like a penis on four wheels. He hits up on everyone…”

“Everyone?” Simmons asked, arching his eyebrows rapidly.

“No, no,” Jennifer added, “he like hits up on girls wherever he goes, so, you know, just don’t be too surprised when he comes on to you.”

Angel smiled. “Okay,” she said. “But I think I can handle him.”

“I’m sure you can, just don’t overreact. He’s really kind of pathetic, if you know what I mean.”

Angel shrugged. “I guess some boys never grow up, huh?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Do you think that woman will make it?”

“Maybe. We got blood expanders into her quick enough so her volumes probably didn’t fall off to fast…but the bigger problem will be brain damage.”

“Yeah, that’s one way I’d hate to go,” Collins said. “Dementia, Alzheimer’s, any kind of brain damage. I’d hate to be laid out like that, not really aware of things going on around me. Might as well be dead, I reckon.”

“Not me,” Simmons interrupted. “Just prop my ass up and plug in some pornos. I’ll do just fine, thank you very much.”

Collins rolled her eyes. Angel smiled.

“What’s with the gang hit,” Simmons added. “Does that happen a lot around here?”

“You ever hear of drive-by shootings?” Jennifer said, looking at the photographer in her rear view mirror again.

“Yeah, of course.”

“That’s a gang hit.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it just sounds nicer this way,” Jennifer added.

“How do you find out about things like this?”

Jennifer shrugged. “Undercover operations and snitches, usually. Every now and then I’ll be driving along and someone will flag me down, tell me they’ve heard such and such is going down. Simple as that sometimes, I guess.”

“Snitches?” Simmons said. “Like jailhouse snitches? That kind of intel isn’t reliable, is it?”

“No, that stuff you have to take with a grain of salt, but the snitches we deal with trade information with us out here on the street.”

“Trade? Like what?”

“There information, usually for a favor of some kind or another.”

“Oh?” Angel said, interested now. “Like what kind of favors?”

“You never know, really. It could be as simple as passing along a note to someone in jail to just driving by someone’s house to check on them.”

“You, like, ever take money?” Simmons asked — a little nervously.

And Jennifer shook her head. “Geesh, kid, try to keep the stupid questions to yourself, okay?”

“Stupid?” Angel said, a little defensively. “How so?”

“Well, come on, think about it. If I was taking bribes out here — which, by the way, is a felony — I sure as hell wouldn’t talk to you guys about it. Beyond that, no, I don’t go in for that shit.”

“Do a lot of cops at Rampart still belong to…?” Simmons began.

“That was a long time ago,” Collins cut him off, defensively. “All that’s over with, but you got to think before you talk, man. If there were cops doing that kind of stuff now they sure wouldn’t go around advertising it, and not even to you studio guys, but my general sense is no, there just isn’t that kind of stuff happening around here now. The worst thing happening around here these days is the ongoing war with the Bloods.”

“But didn’t that conflict grow out of the Rampart Scandal,” Simmons asked.

Collins just shook her head. ‘It’s gonna be,’ she thought, ‘a long night…’

+++++

“Did you get all that?” William Taylor asked the cameraman sitting up front.

“Great stuff, Chief, really great! This story’s gonna write itself!” Frank Luntz said, talking over the blasting air conditioner. “Blood ‘n guts and a fuckin’ helicopter! Talk about action! And I got enough of their car in the chase to set up the action…I’m tellin’ ya, Chief…just great stuff! Great!”

Taylor nodded and visibly relaxed, slumping back into the seat.

“I hope that woman survives,” Father Kerrigan added. “She looked in a bad way.”

“Yup, her face was a mess. Angel looked pretty good, though.”

“She always looks good, William.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Uncanny how much she looks like Collins.”

“Uncanny. Yes. Tell me, did you have dinner with Miss Sorensen this week?”

Taylor looked at the priest and hesitated, then he nodded. “Yeah.”

“How’d that go? Nicely, I hope?”

Taylor sighed, if only because he’d been trying not to think about the evening ever since. It had gone ‘nicely’ alright. Almost too nicely. Like Debra had been too agreeable. Too nice, and not at all reluctant to pick up where things had left off — twenty five years ago, and for some reason he’d begun to feel like he was stepping into a trap. “Nice evening, Father.”

“I see,” Kerrigan sighed, more than willing to drop the subject. “Any idea how Angel and this Jennifer Collins are getting on?”

“Pretty good, apparently. You’re sure the Bishop is signed on with you doing the narration for our little documentary?”

“Yes, as I said, your efforts on behalf of the homeless have secured his support,” Kerrigan said, looking at Taylor.

Taylor nodded. “Good…good. You know, you remind me of Edmund Gwenn. You know, the guy who did…”

“Yes, yes, Miracle on 34th Street. I think I’ve heard that before, William.”

“You’ll be perfect, Father. Your voice is just like his. Calming. Yeah, that’s it. Calming.” Taylor looked at his watch and sighed. “Almost time for dinner. I can’t believe she picked Tommy’s. I’ll have heartburn for a week.”

“They only get a few minutes for meals, William, and I understand they must remain available for calls even when eating.”

“Yup, that’s a perfect recipe for heartburn. Damn!”

“I do hope that young woman will be alright,” Kerrigan sighed.

+++++

Collins checked out for their meal at exactly 1800 hours, and as everyone crawled out of their SUV they involuntarily stretched. Moments later the shift sergeant pulled into the lot and parked, then he bounced over and stood beside Angel.

“So glad you could make it,” Angel cooed, batting her eyes coquettishly at this penis on four wheels.

“Wouldn’t have missed this for the world, Ma’am,” Sergeant Dale Evans said, grinning madly. “So? How many Tommy Burgers, and how many chili-cheese fries?”

When everyone had their goo-bombs the group went and stood around the sergeant’s patrol car, putting their food on the hood and roof while they ate and talked. Angel focused her energies on the sergeant, flirting outrageously with him, leading him on in the most perfectly cruel way imaginable — by simply being nice to him…

…and, of course, the cameramen took turns filming this part of the ritual. Cops as human beings was the heart of the story they wanted to tell and, after all, there wasn’t anything more human than chowing down on double chili cheeseburgers loaded with extra onions. Stories were told and captured for posterity, Angel giving her undivided attention to the senior patrol sergeant, hanging breathlessly on his every word as he told ‘war stories’ for the doting civilians.

The cameras panned from Angel to Jennifer and on to the sergeant, lingering on faces and eyes, even capturing passersby on the sidewalk — who stopped and looked at the cops and their weird little entourage, wondering what all the hubbub was about — all while staring into the cameras. Before the confab broke up, however, Jennifer pulled the sergeant aside…

“Any more intel on the hit?” she asked…

…but he shook his head. “No, nothing new.”

“My gut’s bothering me, Sarge. Something’s going down tonight. I can feel it.”

Evans nodded. “Yeah. Me too. I’ve been feeling it all week, like something’s…”

“…been building. Pressure. Like a goddamn volcano.”

“One of the guards at Chico overheard something a few days ago, something about retribution, starting a war, something like that…”

“Jesus, Sarge, why haven’t we…?”

“Because the information wasn’t deemed reliable enough.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Evans sighed, “that about sums up how I feel, too. All I can say, Jenn, is keep your head down, and take care of those civvies. All we need…”

“I hear you, Dale. You be careful, too.”

They nodded then walked to their respective patrol cars, yet Collins paused before she got inside her Ford, standing tall and taking a long, slow look around the intersection — like any good hunter. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, not yet. But — she realized — everything felt wrong. Like there’d been a seismic shift deep inside the earth and suddenly everything was — different — and then the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

“You okay?” Russ Simmons said as he came up to the Explorer’s back door.

Collins raised her face a little and sniffed the air, her eyes darting here and there, then she saw Evans standing outside his patrol car doing the same. Then they looked at one another again and grinned. “Yeah, I’m good,” she said to Simmons, “but I’m going to need a couple of antacid tabs — and soon.”

“Man, I gotta warn you. I’m not real good about holding in farts.”

“You’re not the only one, Ace.”

“Oh boy,” Simmons growled as he folded himself into the back of the SUV, “this is gonna be a real fun evening.”

Sergeant Evans pulled over after Jennifer got behind the wheel, and then, window-to-window, he finished talking on the radio before he turned to Collins. “New intel from CID. Word is the hit is still on, supposedly for around eight to so, and somewhere around Pico Union. I want you to run a racetrack on 6th and Wilshire, just hold the fort and show the flag and for god’s sake stay out of trouble for a change — at least ’til shift change. Okay? Got that?”

Collins shook her head. “Yeah, understood, but Sarge, this doesn’t feel like some kind of hit. It feels bigger than that.”

“Like what, Jenn? Ain’t no Rodney King trial going on? Bloods got no reason to stir up shit…?”

“Maybe something we don’t know about,” she sighed. “Something that broke the truce.”

He curtly shook his head and looked away. “Just keep your eyes open, Jenn. And stay out of trouble,” Evans said as he rolled up his window and drove off.

“What truce is he talking about?” Simmons asked…

…but Collins ignored the question. “Seat belts on?” she chirped. “Okay, let’s hit it,” she said as she turned right out of the lot onto Beverly. Almost immediately a dark red BMW ran the red light at Rampart — right in front of them — and Collins turned on her lights and siren and soon fell in behind the Beemer.

“Okay,” she began, after she’d checked out on the radio, “stay in the car until I come back. It’s a white girl so probably some kid on her way back to BH…”

“BH?” Angel asked.

“Just sit, stay,” Collins said as she stepped out of the Ford, beginning her approach.

Angel studied her; the way she walked — with one hand on her pistol and the other just ahead, free, ready to react. Head just so, listening, ready to react. Walking on the balls of her feet, light, ready to react. “She looks like a cat,” Angel said.

But Simmons was filming now, moving his Nikon from Collins to Angel and back again, even as Collins came back to the Ford. She pulled out her ticket book and began typing on the data terminal, then writing the ticket. “No wants, no CCH,” she sighed, then she turned to Angel. “Okay, you two stay on the curb, but Simmons, no filming faces…got it?”

“Understood,” Simmons replied, and they got out when Collins did, then followed her movements, only from the sidewalk.

It was all very procedural, almost like a scripted or choreographed event, Simmons thought as he focused on the way Jennifer spoke to the driver. He heard phrases like ‘You did this,’ or ‘You did that’…and not ‘I saw you do this or that.’ By doing so, she placed the onus on the driver and removed herself from the drama, placing the blame squarely where the blame belonged, and moments later they were back in the Ford, buckling up again as the BMW drove slowly away.

And only then did Simmons note there was another patrol car parked across the street, in effect backing up Collins without any need for her to ask for backup.

‘That must be where the whole brotherhood thing comes into play,’ he guessed, and when Collins waved at the patrolman across the street the other patrolman waved back before he drove off — and Simmons smiled, because he understood now. ‘They’re not lazy,’ he smiled, thinking about all the times he’d seen cops pulled over in weird spots, ‘they’re just covering each other…’

Then Evans called, asking Collins for her location — but, in effect, telling her to get to her assigned racetrack and STOP putting her passengers at risk.

Collins double-clicked her mic and u-turned for Wilshire, then cleared from the traffic stop.

“That almost looked rehearsed,” Angel said. “Do you…?”

“Follow a script? Yeah, as much as possible. Everything we say on a stop is meant to defuse the emotions of the situation. I mean, let’s face it, when a cop pulls in behind you it triggers the ‘fight or flight’ response that we’re all hard-wired with. Adrenaline starts pumping into the system, but not everyone has a predictable response to adrenaline. For most people, reason and social conditioning kick in; for others its gonna be stop and fight or turn and make a run for it. But once we’re out on the street with the perp we’re exposed and suddenly the tables are turned. We have certain advantages but we’re also vulnerable.” She let that sink in for a moment until she stopped for a red light, then she turned to Angel. “When we pulled in behind the car, what did you look at?”

“The driver.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

Jennifer nodded. “I’m looking at the registration stickers and the trunk.”

“The trunk? You mean the boot?”

“Yeah. I’m looking for any signs there might be someone hiding back there, so when I walk up to the driver no one pops up outta nowhere with a 44 mag. But these days I also look at people on the sidewalk too, anyone who might get pissed at the sight of a cop pulling over someone and decide to have some fun…”

“Jesus,” Simmons whispered. “So everyone is a threat?”

“Potentially, yeah,” Collins said, looking at the photographer in the rearview mirror again. “That’s the reality, but probably more so here in LA because of the heavy concentration of gangbangers. You spend a lot of time out here looking at shoelaces…”

“Shoelaces?” Angel asked.

“Reds and Blues, man, as in flying the colors. Bloods and Crips. Shoelaces are an obvious choice, but you just have to keep up the scan because you have to know who’s around at all times.”

“But you can’t really see that well at night, can you?” Simmons asked.

“It’s not easy,” Jennifer Collins said, “but if you want to stay alive out here you learn, you adapt, and if you don’t, you die.”

+++++

Eight o’clock, or 2000 hours, came and went — and the streets remained quiet. Then Simmons chimed in: “Man, I hate to break it to you, but if I don’t tap a kidney soon I’m gonna have a real problem back here.”

Collins nodded as she flipped on her left turn signal, and a moment later they were parked outside of a neighborhood Burger King. Taylor’s SUV pulled in beside theirs a second later, and everyone bailed out and stretched — and not thirty seconds after that Sergeant Evans pulled-in and parked beside Jennifer’s side with his Explorer.

“Anything new?” she asked as Evans crawled out of his Ford.

He shook his head as he stood on his tiptoes and stretched. “Nothing,” he growled, yawning.

“It’s too quiet,” Collins said. “And I haven’t even seen many kids out ‘Trick-or-treating,'” she added.

Evans nodded. “Yeah, it’s like the word’s out…so everybody’s stayin’ inside.”

“I got time to take a leak?” Simmons asked, and when Collins nodded Taylor and the cameramen bolted for the lobby.

“I better hit the head, too,” Evans said, pausing as Angel walked up. “How are you doing, Ma’am?”

“I’m fine. A little stiff, but otherwise okay.”

“Back in a flash,” Evans said as he too darted inside.

“You need a Coke or anything?” Jennifer asked.

“No, I’m still trying to process that…Tommy Burger…”

Jennifer laughed at that. “Man, I wish Simmons would stop cutting cheese back there…”

“Cutting cheese?”

“Farting. Man, that guy can really let ’em slip out low and slow.” Jennifer looked at Angel just then and could tell she really had no idea what she was talking about, and then she made real eye-contact. ‘Now that’s strange,’ she thought. ‘I can usually read people pretty good just by looking them in the eye, but not her. I can’t tell what she’s feeling…or even…if she’s feeling…’

She heard the guys coming out of the restaurant just then and turned to see they’d each picked up a large soda — and they were all laughing about something, even Evans, when…

…automatic weapons fire, and a lot of it…

“2-Baker-335, 33 — officers taking fire, Olympic and Alvarado…”

“Fuck,” Evans cried as he dropped his drink and ran for his patrol car. “Collins, head to the station, now!”

Then more automatic weapons fire, this time to their east…

“2-Baker-21, officer down at Wood and Union…need an ambulance now,” another officer screamed — and Evans looked at Collins…

“That’s near the station,” Evans said as he looked at Angel, suddenly very concerned for her safety.

Then more heavy weapons fire, south of their location — but this time very close…

“2-Baker-521…were taking fire now too, location 12th and Westlake…Code Six George!”

“Goddammit to fucking hell,” Evans said as he pulled up his mic. “2-Baker-2, notify SWAT, advise 100 we have an all units, all bureaus tactical callout in progress, repeat in-progress, and get me some air over here — FAST!” he screamed, then he turned to Collins: “Jennifer, get on the fuckin’ freeway and head for the beach and get these people out of here and I mean NOW!”

“Excuse me,” Angel said, interrupting Evans. “But this enemy is utilizing classic ambush tactics. Notice how each location is away from a central point? These are diversionary skirmishes, Sergeant Evans, and they are designed to pull your forces away from the intended target.”

“What?” Evans said. “And you know this how?”

“Simple deductive reasoning, Sergeant.”

“Alright, Einstein. So tell me. What’s the target?”

“We are,” Angel said. “More specifically, I’d say that William Taylor is the intended target.”

Jennifer nodded. “That makes sense. Taylor is about the highest value target out here tonight.”

Another burst of heavy weapons fire erupted, and once again this was just to their east and another unit checked in, reporting they were also taking fire now.

“We are being herded,” Angel added. “That’s three attacks to your east, so this enemy wants you to head west.”

Evans sighed: “The closest on-ramp is at 20th and Hoover. Southwest, in other words.”

“We will not make it,” Angel said, now looking directly at Jennifer. “You should head north and east.”

“The 11th Street on-ramp just re-opened, didn’t it?” Jennifer cried.

“Shit, that’s right!” Evans said. “Let’s roll! Jenny…you follow me!”

There are three driveways into the Burger King at Bonnie Brae and West 8th Street near the Rampart Division substation in southwest Los Angeles, and at that point in time several cars and SUVs pulled into that parking lot, immediately and effectively blocking all the exits. Several men, all Bloods, got out of these cars and, Jennifer Collins saw, most were armed with AK-47s or AR-15s, though more than a few carried Remington 870 pump shotguns, and everyone seemed to open fire at once, including Collins.

Angel saw Evans go down first, then the officer driving the other patrol car went down. Jennifer Collins was down on one knee, picking targets with care and shooting accurately, when Angel saw her fall to the pavement. She turned and saw that William Taylor was now down, too, and that Father Kerrigan was kneeling over him with a silver crucifix in hand, then the Bloods got in their cars and trucks and disappeared into the night.

The entire fight had, Angel guessed, lasted less than twenty seconds.

She walked over to William Taylor and listened as Father Kerrigan administered Last Rites, then she walked over to Jennifer Collins, ignoring the onlookers who were already gathering in the shadows.

She knelt and faced Collins, then took the officer’s face in her hands as she looked the fallen in the eye.

“It’s alright now,” the Angel said. “You’re going to be fine. Just don’t fight it, Jennifer. You can let go now, because you’re coming home now.”

Jennifer Collins was aware of the words but she couldn’t breathe now and she knew she was dying. She felt hands on the sides of her face and fought her way back to consciousness and looked up at the Angel, looked into the most stunning blue eyes she had ever known. “Boo!” she just managed to say to the passing memory, laughing just a little as she always had — before blood filled her mouth and as her eyes closed for the last time. One lingering, slightly frothy exhale marked the moment of Jennifer Collins’ passing, yet she left this life with an ever so slight grin on her face.

Angel’s hands remained on Jennifer’s face for a few minutes more, then she stood and walked over to where Father Kerrigan had been kneeling over William Taylor, but the priest was leaning against the SUV now, tears running down his face.

“So many things left undone,” Kerrigan sighed, looking a little lost as Angel walked up to Taylor’s body. She knelt over Taylor and placed her hands on both sides of his face, but she shook her head and stood, looking down at him for a moment before she turned and looked at the priest.

“What did he say to you?” she asked.

“He spoke of his concerns for the little girl…”

“You mean Gretchen?”

“Yes, that’s right, and he had a message he wanted me to pass along to Ted Sorensen, and to Debra. He started to say something about the movie, but he didn’t get…he just didn’t have enough time,” Father Kerrigan said, breaking down again and openly weeping.

She looked around the parking lot and went to Sergeant Evans’ patrol car and got on the radio.

Within minutes dozens of patrol cars and ambulances would arrive at the scene, but Angel walked around the parking lot looking at spent cartridges and angles of fire, committing everything about the scene to memory, then she found Father Kerrigan and returned to stand by him as the first responding patrol cars arrived.

Helicopters were soon overhead; not from the department but loaded with camera crews from several local TV news organizations, and when the priest looked up at them Angel could see the anger and contempt in his eyes and on his face.

“Jackals,” Father Kerrigan muttered — though just barely under his breath.

Angel continued to look at the priest, measuring the anger she witnessed, and she walked by his side as he made his way to Jennifer Collins’ body. The old priest knelt once again, his head bowed in prayer, his entire body shaking.

Then detectives from CID swarmed over the parking lot, taking witness statements from passersby who just happened along at the wrong time before they interviewed Angel and Father Kerrigan. An hour or so later a captain from Central Bureau drove them home…Kerrigan to the Jesuit Residence at Loyola Marymount and Angel to her rented house down on the boardwalk in Venice. She woke Henry Gordon, William’s assistant, and he hadn’t heard the news and quickly came undone, then she walked upstairs and put a few items in a carryon bag and summoned an Über to come pick her up and take her to LAX.

She made an early flight out on Southwest and settled back into her seat, recognizing Jennifer’s house as the Boeing charged the runway and lifted into the clear morning sky. She looked out over the right wing as they climbed to the north, and she spotted two small fires still burning sear Sequoia National Park and the huge fire that had been burning for weeks between Yosemite and Mammoth Lakes, then they were descending over San Jose and the South Bay, lining up to land at SFO. She noted their flight was eight minutes early and sighed.

Coda

Everything not made by God was invented by engineers

attributed to the Royal Navy

Sumner Bacon sat in the conference room, adrift on seas of ambiguity.

This had been one of their most audacious attempts yet, but in the end the entire operation had gone horribly, disastrously wrong. Mr. Richardson had been informed as soon as he made it into the office, but he’d just nodded and disappeared inside his suite, his wheelchair whirring away as he motored down the hallway to his office door.

Bacon had of course already sent emails warning him of events, but there wasn’t all that much to say. Not yet. But this morning’s news was already full of scattered, uncollated reporting, and so far none of it looked good.

William Taylor…killed during what appeared to be a massive, coordinated strike by a criminal gang in South Central Los Angeles, or, much more likely, by an unknown group masquerading as a gang.

Officer Jennifer Collins…killed. Two videographers…killed. And at least two other police officers…killed…and one of these a sergeant close to retirement. And who else might turn up as collateral damage? Was this tally even complete?

And so now the most immediate and pressing concern: was all this death simply the result of poor planning? Had he allowed too much operational flexibility to inform key decisions?

And Sumner Bacon knew that Mr. Richardson disliked poor planning. And that Richardson absolutely abhorred any instance of unnecessary death. And events in South Central overnight were shaping up to have been a complete and total bloodbath.

Bacon looked at his notes then at his watch. ‘Her flight should be on the ground by now,’ he sighed, and as if on cue he heard a helicopter circling the building, then he saw a falling shadow as the aircraft began its descent to the helipad. He watched as the silver and red Callahan Air Transport Bell 412 settled down on the pad outside the wall of glass that lined one corner of the conference room, then he looked at her as she exited the helicopter as she made her way to the side entrance.

He opened the file and red through the outline of the operation once again, killing time now, waiting for her to make it to the conference room…yet just then the intercom on the table chirped.

“Sumner?” Mr. Richardson’s voice came through the box.

“Yessir?”

“I’ll be tied up in here with a Visitor for the time being. We’ll meet you in the lab.” Bacon saw the red warning light blink twice, their prearranged signal for possible Visitor video surveillance, and he sighed.

“Understood,” Bacon said. “I’ll let you know when we start across campus.”

“Thanks.”

Bacon looked at the intercom, and at the blinking red light, then he killed the feed and cut off the blinking light — just as she came into the conference room.

Bacon stood and looked away from her, then he walked over to the glass wall overlooking the vast lawn surrounding the main building. The helicopter was still out there but as he watched the turbines spooled up and it slowly lifted into the air above the campus. Then its nose dropped a little as the ship turned to the north, he assumed heading back to SFO, and as he turned to face her he was still unsure how to proceed.

“I thought we’d decided on picking him up in Stockholm, and that would be the optimal way to make contact,” he said.

Angel looked at the engineer and shook her head. “It was to be my decision, was it not? To determine the best way to make contact? Was that not a part of the test?”

“Yes, it was. Lay out your rationale, please.”

“I determined the optimal approach would make it look like the meeting was simply the result of pure chance. Neither Stockholm nor the jazz club in Hamburg afforded such an opportunity.”

“So…the hooker disguise seemed optimal to you? Seriously?”

“It made me look vulnerable, almost destitute. I was in this way able to best define the power relationship to suit my needs.”

“To suit your needs?” Bacon growled. “What do you mean by that?”

“These needs best suited the objectives of the operation.”

“Indeed? How does Taylor’s death suit the needs of the operation?”

“I have identified a suitable alternative.”

“Have you indeed?” Bacon said as he walked over to examine a tear he’d just seen in her jacket. “Were you shot during the exchange?” he said as he fingered the bullet holes in the fabric.

“Yes, I think so.”

“Let me see.”

She pulled up her tunic and he examined the synthetic polymer mesoderm. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he sighed as he pulled the fabric down again. “We can patch it in the lab before you return to LA. Now, who do you have in mind for secondary contact.”