Bad Night Is Falling (5 page)

He'd heard them approach from behind, but hadn't let on until they were almost to him.

“Hey, you from someplace, slice?”

The owner of the voice was shorter than the other two. All three were Latinos. The one who'd spoken couldn't have been over five-foot-four, Monk estimated. But he was broad in the upper torso, with thick, sinewy arms the obvious results of a strenuous weight regime.

“I have to be from someplace to be here?” Monk said.

“What you doing here, eh?” another one said, irritated. He was dressed in black jeans and a loose, Borax-white T that had a red skull with a black eyepatch over the right breast. He had a buzz cut and there was a vinelike tattoo crawling upward around his arm from the end of his thumb.

“Yeah,” the third jumped in, “why you got to be so unfriendly?”

“I'm from the Housing Department in Washington,” Monk lied, shifting slightly as two of them edged to his right. “We're doing a survey of the Rancho.”

“What for?” another demanded.

“Find out things.”

“Like what?” the shorter one said.

“All kinds of fascinating stuff.”

The kid in the white T—he was about nineteen—said something in Spanish and the other two had a good laugh. Idly he scratched the side of his cheek with a pointed fingernail. “You gonna ask us some questions?”

“Yeah, we got all kinds of opinions on shit,” the other cracked.

The short one didn't say anything, just stared, his jaw muscles bunching and loosening. “If you're doing a survey, how come you ain't got a notebook or something. How come you dressed like some homey and not in a tie?”

“How come you ask so much?” Monk quipped evenly.

The tallest member of the bunch lurched forward but came up short when Monk didn't flinch. “You some kind of fuckin' undercover hoota, ain't you?” There was fresh beer and stale weed on his breath.

“I told you who I was,” Monk countered. “And if you gentlemen let me do my work, I'd be ever so grateful.”

The loose-limbed one raised his oversized striped crew shirt to reveal a revolver tucked in his thin waistband. “'Sup, huh?” he hissed. The shirt went down, the hands hovering tense at his sides.

Monk had a polymer-case Ultrastar 9mm tucked in an ankle holster, but wanted to use his words to settle this test of manliness. “Look, I didn't come here to cause any uproar. Let me get my work done, and I'm gone.”

“You gonna tear those fucked-up shacks down,” the shorter one said. His head did a quick flick toward the Randolph Center.

“Maybe,” Monk lied again.

“Been in there?” the young man asked.

“Maybe.”

“Could be you hire us to be your bodyguards. It's rough around here,” the one with the one-eyed red skull suggested.

“There's some real criminals roamin' 'round,” the tall one chortled, his gaping mouth displaying discolored teeth set unevenly.

“I'll give it some thought,” Monk replied seriously.

“Yes you will,” the muscular one said with a crisp inflection. He walked past Monk and the other two followed. The one in me striped shirt brought up the rear, managing a baleful scowl mat was both menacing and comical. He was mad-doggin' him with an “I dare you to do something” look.

After the trio had moved along, Monk crossed the tracks and tried to enter the main abandoned building. The door wouldn't budge. He walked around the corner and found a paneless window that had its security grill pried back. He went inside.

Monk found miscellaneous trash, old tires, and stove parts strewn about the spacious room. Incongruously, along one wall hung several engraved plaques that for whatever reason hadn't been removed.

One of the awards was from Mayor Sam Yorty to the Rancho Tajuata Tenants' Association for outstanding work, 1968. Two of the other plaques were from heads of city departments praising the Randolph Center's staff. A fourth was from something called Ingot Ltd. thanking Yorty and the job training center staff for service well done.

The last award was to the training center's executive director, a man named Olin Salter. It was from the then chief of the LAPD, Bill Parker. It read, “In these times of travail, you have stood tall against the hordes.”

Monk lingered over that one, finding it interesting that Parker would have issued a plaque to this Salter. Possibly they'd been friends over a period of time. Parker, the mentor of his redoubtable heir, Daryl Gates, had been a stiffnecked, law-and-order and fundamentalist-values type who recruited white cops from southern cities so as to better keep the negroes down deep in the jungle.

For the chief to acknowledge this Salter, then, the latter must have been a genuine son-of-a-bitch. Despite the honorable name, Parker's plaque cast doubt on the worthiness of the A. Philip Randolph Advancement and Placement Center.

Off in one cleared corner were two filthy sheet-covered mattresses and some used condoms laying about. In another room, the walls had first been spray painted with the Scalp Hunters insignia, then sprayed over by Los Domingos
placas
.

The doors to other parts of the two-story building were locked, and Monk didn't try to force them open. Moving back to the paneless window, he noted it was only this wall that had windows at mid-height. The rest of the room had high, rectangular windows running parallel to the line of the ceiling. Possibly the good directors of the facility had deemed that windows at a normal height would provide the center's apprentices a chance to stare at the outside world, and wish they were somewhere else.

He started back toward the tracks and saw a familiar car drive up from the south, along the gravel swath beyond the cluster of buildings. He stood still as the Crown Victoria parked close. Seguin got out slowly, his face a blank.

“Homey, don't you know me,” the lieutenant said.

“Young blood.” The two shook hands, Monk squinting at Seguin as the sun beat down behind the cop's head. “I hear you're riding herd on this one.”

Seguin put a hand in his trousers pocket, and looked off toward downtown then back at him. “I've had some experience with the Domingos.” He took his hand out, seemingly unsure of what to do with it. “The brass wants this to be their show, Ivan.”

“So much for the social hour.” They both let minutes hang. “So Parker Center needs a winner bad,” Monk observed acidly.

“This ain't for play, man,” Seguin went on. “The Rancho murders have to be solved efficiently and by the police. The mayor and the chief want to show this department has rebuilt itself from the days of disarray and low morale under the previous chief. Captain Reno wants reports every other goddamn day, and he don't mean late, and he don't mean skimpy.”

“That and the mayor is still hot to add more officers to the department,” Monk added. “A check mark on a case like this goes a long way in giving him political cachet to push the council to take money from other parts of the budget to hire more officers.”

Seguin didn't speak.

“But why the heavy bit with me, Marasco?” Monk said peevishly. “The department can't stop me from wandering around the Rancho or talking to whomever I feel like.”

“But you can be compelled to tell Reno information or he could press interference with an ongoing investigation if he tells the command you're stumbling after us.”

“Or pointing out your errors,” Monk chided.

Seguin said sheepishly, “Reno has made it clear I'm not to share any information with you either.”

Both men were aware of the trio of Domingos leaning on a nearby fence, pretending not to be listening to the two men.

“How the hell did Reno find out I'd been hired so fast?” Monk could hear the testiness in his voice.

“I told you, downtown is on this like a sissy on a pogo stick,” Seguin said tersely.

“They been on shit before, Marasco. Why is this time sweatin' you so hard?”

Seguin probed his tongue on the inside of his lower jaw. “I'm bringing this up because we're friends, Ivan. I'm trying to tell you I have no room to move on this. I'm trying to tell you the operating idea here is the Scalp Hunters did it, and that's the nature of things.”

“If you're so sure, then you must have a witness,” Monk speculated.

Seguin didn't respond again.

“All right,” Monk said, “but I'll still earn a little of that fabulous federal salary I'm going to pull down on this if y'all don't mind. And even if you and your boy Reno do.”

“I realize that.”

No words lingered between them for a time, each man alternately looking at one another then somewhere else. “What is it, Marasco? What is it about the Rancho you got such a hard-on for?” Monk finally prodded.

“I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do.”

“Sure,” Monk said unconvincingly. He tried a new tact. “Everything cool at home?”

Seguin's brows descended sharply. “Wrong direction, bloodhound. But let me ask you a question. What do you think about working for a dude like Absalla?”

Monk's shoulders lifted and fell. “He ain't no Father Flanagan, but he does some good.”

“For black folks,” Seguin remarked quickly. “I've seen him on a TV news show where he said just 'cause California was once Mexican, that don't give them any right to come across illegally.”

“He's not the first asshole I've taken a paycheck from,” Monk answered defensively.

“You wouldn't work for a Christian Right nut or Pat Buchanan.”

“Absalla's ignorant, not a hatemonger, Marasco.”

Seguin got his keys out of his pocket, but didn't head toward his car. “You know, Ivan, sometimes I get the impression you think you're above all this. That somehow you move in and out of these”—his hand did a circle in the air as he searched for the words he wanted—“outposts of our city with each one having its own set of village chiefs who have no interest in trying to bring the people together. The eternal seeker, Diogenes with a pistol. A shape-shifter among the company he keeps. But none of us remain unstained, swimming in this muck.”

Monk was hot and embarrassed simultaneously, like a stage magician whose tricks had just been uncovered by some audacious interloper. To recover he said, “If I find that it's members of the Scalp Hunters who did this, I'll be the first one to point the finger. Absalla can't make me hide the truth because I'm black.”

“I'm not questioning your integrity, Ivan.”

“Then what are you questioning?”

“Where does all this take us?”

“You mean you and me, or black and brown folks in general?” Monk felt he was maneuvering on rocky ground with a sliver of a map. “I'm not joining Absalla's mosque or whatever the hell he's selling, Marasco. I took the gig because I found it of interest and, unlike you, I don't pull down a steady income. You know the damn donut shop pretty much covers the overhead. But that also doesn't mean I spread my cheeks for just anybody who flashes me rent money.”

Seguin jingled the keys in his cupped hand and opened the cruiser's door. “You're helping pay a mortgage these days.” He cranked the engine, slamming the Crown Vic into reverse. “Keep your head down, man.” The car righted itself and a chalky plume followed it as Seguin drove away over the gravel.

Monk rubbed the back of his neck and walked back into the Rancho Tajuata. The downtown skyscrapers stood mute and colorless behind him.

Four

“R
ecall criminal judges. Recall criminal judges,” the woman chanted loudly as she marched in front of the Superior Courts on Temple in the afternoon haze.

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Kodama's got to go,” a man wearing tan loafers and an ostentatious NRA button on his suede sport coat joined in with gusto.

At least twenty protestors were spending their lunch hour marching in front of the courthouse. The group consisted mostly of middle-aged and older men and women but there were a few younger ones too. A smattering wore suits, and all of them were white.

Eight stories up, and looking out a hallway window, the judge the placards and enmity were intended for watched the gathered dispassionately. Superior Court Judge Jill Kodama turned from the window, absently gnawing on a triangle of tuna fish sandwich.

“Come on, Judge, you should be back in your chambers,” her bailiff said quietly over her shoulder. “This can only be bad for your indigestion.” His name was Mitchell, and he'd been a sheriff's deputy a little less than four years. He was a tall, dark-haired wheat stacker who must have taken the wrong bus and got stuck in the wicked city.

“I'm alright, I always like to see our democracy at work.” Her lips formed a thin line as she turned back to the window.

“Okay,” Mitchell said reluctantly. “I'm going to grab a bite myself. I'll be back in about forty.”

“No sweat,” she replied as his fading footfalls echoed along the marble corridor. Kodama watched the scene down below for several moments and finally decided she had had enough of the Gumby and Pokey Show. She rounded a corner and into a hallway lined on both sides with waiting people. Kodama encountered Assistant D.A. Jamboni leaving a courtroom.