White Sister (21 page)

"Luther, I can meet with you now. I can set this up so it will be clean, so nobody will know. Put Chooch back on."

A moment later, Chooch was on the line. "Yeah?" he said.

"You know that place where we had dinner after the Servite football game last year?"

"Yeah."

"I'm worried about the department putting a cell phone track on this number, so don't say the name of the restaurant. Meet me there in forty-five minutes. Try to make sure you're not followed and bring Luther."

After I hung up, I headed toward the Valley. I knew there was a
BOLO out on me, and any patrol car that spotted my plate could pick me up. To avoid that, I drove on residential side streets across the Valley, and forty minutes later, pulled into the parking lot at Dupar's on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. I locked my car and went through the back door of the restaurant into a flurry of activity inside the busy kitchen.

"Is the manager here?" I asked a harried waitress who was retrieving orders.

"That guy," she said, pointing out a bald man in his forties, wearing dark slacks and a company shirt with dupar's inscribed over his heart.

I walked up and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and I showed him my badge.

"I'm a police detective," I said, not giving him my name. "I'm working a case undercover and I need to borrow an apron and one of those paper hats. My guy is coming in here in a few minutes."

"This better not turn into some San Diego Denny's-style shootout," he said, warily.

"It's a tax case, all very nonviolent and boring," I assured him.

He crossed the room and grabbed a Dupar's apron off a hook on the wall. Then he handed it to me along with a paper hat. I put them on and looked at myself in the shiny refrigerator door. My theory is that anybody in a restaurant wearing a paper hat and apron, standing next to a tub of dirty dishes, instantly becomes invisible.

"What's your name?" I asked the manager.

"Howie Lent."

"Okay, Howie. Just act normal, don't call attention to me. Everything's gonna be fine."

I pushed through the swinging door of the kitchen, and entered the busy restaurant. It was around nine o'clock Saturday night. The Cineplex up the street had just let out, and there were a lot of kids eating and clowning around in the dining area. I'd chosen Dupar's because there were high partitions, which created difficult sight lines. The din from the customers permeated everything. I took a position beside a serving station and stood there in my paper hat and apron, watching. Nobody paid any attention to me. I kne
w i
f the PSB dicks were serious about picking me up they would have a tail on Luther and Chooch. But I had a way to defeat that.

Ten minutes later Chooch's Cherokee pulled into the parking lot followed by a midnight blue Chrysler PT Cruiser, which I knew was Luther's.

I watched Chooch and Luther enter the crowded restaurant and look around, trying to find me. Like everybody else, they looked right past the guy in the apron and paper hat standing by the bus tray. They found a table, sat down, and waited. If there was a tail, it would come inside soon. I continued to watch the parking lot through the window. After five minutes, I was pretty sure they hadn't been followed. But I still didn't want to take a chance and be wrong. I turned and walked out of the dining area without talking to Luther or Chooch. Once back in the kitchen, I stripped off the apron and handed it to a very relieved Howie Lent and left.

Out in the parking lot, I pulled out a spiral pad, wrote Chooch a note, and put it on his dash. Then I went to the far side of Luther's PT Cruiser and knelt down behind his passenger side rear fender.

Twenty minutes later, Luther and Chooch came out of the restaurant. Both looked at their watches and frowned. This was two meetings in a row I'd missed. Then Luther shook Chooch's hand, they said good-bye, and each headed to his separate car.

As Luther chirped the lock on his PT Cruiser, I stood up.

"Open the back door."

Luther jumped in fright. "Shit!" he said. Then he regained his composure, glared at me, and chirped the key lock again. I opened the door and slid into the backseat while he got behind the wheel.

"Let's go," I said. "Turn right and park anywhere in the middle of the street, on Moorpark. It's right up the hill."

"This ain't workin' for me, Shane."

I didn't answer because, of course, he was right.

Luther pulled out and I saw Chooch's headlights following us. We climbed the hill to Moorpark and pulled to the curb. My son parked behind us, then got out of his Cherokee and climbed into the front seat of the Chrysler. His face was strained as he looked back at me.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi back at ya." I tried to grin, but he wasn't having any.

"I'm gonna make this quick," Luther said. There wasn't any sympathy in his voice. He started right in. "The skull acts as a protective covering or helmet for the soft cells of the brain, which are made of neurons. These neurons form tracts that route through the brain, and those tracts carry messages to the various parts of the brain."

"Luther, I don't need a course in Neurology One-Oh-One. I need to know what her prognosis is."

"Shut up." He was angry and almost took my head off with those two words. "You don't know the first thing about any of this, okay? You think the brain is just a big bowl of gray jelly that we only use like ten percent of. You think since we only use a fraction of it, if Alexa loses a few neurons, what's the big problem? She'll just compensate with what she has left."

"I didn't say that."

"I've been talking to people like you for ten years, man. You don't have to say it. Since she's breathing and has a heartbeat, you think time is gonna heal this."

"And it's not?"

"She's in bad shape, okay?"

"Calm down."

"Right, of course. Calm down. What's got into me here? I'm only sneaking around in the middle of the night, having clandestine medical meetings with the prime suspect in a racially charged cop murder. What am I so upset about?"

"Hey, Luther, Dad didn't do it," Chooch said softly.

"You don't know that," Luther said. "It's bad enough what's going on here medically, but now we've got this other angle
this race thing. I'm talking a load of incoming fire in my community. I'm trying to pay my debt to you, Shane, but do you have any idea how far it is from One Hundred and Sixth Street to the Neurosurgery OR at UCLA?"

"A long way," I said.

"He didn't kill that guy, Luther. I know my dad. He didn't d
o i
t." Chooch's voice was shaking with passion or anger, I couldn't tell which.

It suddenly got very quiet in the car.

Chooch went on. "That means this is an injustice. It doesn't matter what all those people on TV say. Mom didn't shoot that guy and neither did Dad. Is it always just science for you? Don't doctors ever have to deal with what's right and wrong?"

Luther looked over angrily. "I don't need a lecture on ethics from you, Chooch."

"You told me in the restaurant, just a minute ago, that my dad solved Levonda's murder for you and your wife. But you're wrong. He didn't solve it for you. He did it for Levonda. He always says that he's the last one to speak for the dead. That's why he never quits. He was doing it for Levonda, and he kept speaking for her until he caught the guys who killed her. Don't do this for me or for Dad, because it's not about us. It's your turn to step up, man. You need to speak for Alexa."

Luther put his head in his hands and sat very still for a long moment. When he finally looked up, something had changed.

"I'm gonna try," he said. "I'm going to do everything in my power, but I'm not God."

"If anybody can save her, you can," I said.

He shook his head sadly, then handed me the consent form. I signed it and handed it back to him. When I saw his face, I knew I had pushed him too far. Our friendship was close to over.

Chapter
32.

I LEFT THE Acura at Dupar's and drove Chooch's Jeep Cherokee back to the hospital. My eyes stayed on the road, but I could feel the sadness and loss coming off my son in waves as he leaned against the passenger window. I stole a look as we passed under the street light on Ventura Boulevard. His expression reminded me of the bleak looks on the faces of the forgotten boys I'd grown up with at Huntington House.

In all of this, I'd been so consumed with Alexa's betrayal and my own grief over her injury that Vd forgotten Chooch in the process. I'd been giving him orders
be here, do that
counting on his support, but not thinking enough about how this was affecting him. I had been dealing with my pain and ignoring his. "I'm sorry," I finally said. "I apologize, son." "You didn't do anything. You don't need to apologize to me, Dad."

"Yes, I do. You know, Chooch, you're so tall and strong no
w t
hat I forget you're still only a teenager
just eighteen. I think 1 rely on you too much, and I'm sorry."

He sat quietly.

"Sometimes in life, you get dealt bad cards," I went on. "And when you get a bad hand, that's when you get to find out who you really are, because that's when it starts to make sense to compromise your principles and take shortcuts. These last few days, I've been doing some of that. I don't like myself for it, and I especially don't like that it's been falling on you to deal with the backlash. I've been asking you to pick up after me, and that's not right, especially now. So I'm apologizing."

Still, he said nothing and seemed to be guarding his thoughts.

"I want you to know I understand how much there is at stake here for you. It's bad enough what's happening to Alexa, without also losing your respect for me." Again, he said nothing, so I went on. "These last two days, I've been thinking about Sandy. You lost one mom, and now you're having to go through it a second time. We never talk much about Sandy, but it's there, and I know it haunts you."

Then Chooch finally turned to face me. "We didn't talk about her because I never really knew her
two weeks here, a month there. She was so worried I'd find out who she was and what she did for a living, that she never let me see inside her. We never communicated. The best thing she ever did was getting you to take me for those two weeks, five years ago. She knew that I needed your strength and values. I love her for that and I certainly owe her. But I don't really have any fond memories. She was never there." He paused, then said, "Dad, nothing can ever diminish what I feel for you and Alexa. You gave me a real family. You guys are everything to me, and as far as cutting corners? Nobody gets it right all the time. I know that. But even when you're wrong, you know what makes it alright?"

I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

"You never stop worrying about it. You never stop questioning yourself. You taught me how to be a man by being someone I can believe in. So now that I am a man, it's only right for you to lean on me a little."

After a moment, I looked over at him. "We'll get through this together," I whispered.

"I know," he said softly.

We arrived at UCLA Medical Center and I parked in the lot and shut off the engine. We sat in silence for a minute before I finally spoke again.

"Listen, Chooch. I've got to keep on this. Could you help me with something?"

"Sure, Dad. Anything."

"You're always reading Street Beat and those other music magazines, so you know the rap scene pretty well, right?"

"Yeah."

"You ever hear of a record company called Chronic Inc.?"

"It's not a record company. It's a management company like Rush Management, or one of those."

"They have any hot acts? Somebody named Curtis?"

"Curtis Clark. He's big. Does mostly West Coast rap, but years ago he started out doing some very badass street underground. He records for Lethal Force."

"Maluga's company."

"Yeah, but according to the music mags, they're having a feud. Nobody knows what it's about. They got in a screaming match at the Source Awards in Miami when Floor Score won Best New Artist."

I turned to face him. "Floor Score is a band?"

This hit me out of nowhere. I must have looked stunned or my mouth had fallen open, because Chooch said:

"You okay?"

"Yeah. . . . Tell me about Floor Score. I thought it was'a sex act."

"Technically, it's street slang for drugs you find on the ground," he said. "Curtis Clark is the lead guy
the front man."

"What's WYD?"

"WYD stands for Who's Your Daddy. They're a huge label. Lionel Wright owns it. He's also their biggest star. Lionel records under the name Bust A Cap."

My excitement was growing. This was a whole new direction.

"Lionel Wright is the brains behind WYD and he's a marketing genius," Chooch continued. "Besides his rap songs, he's got a Bust A Cap clothing line and Bust A Cap hair products. He's kinda like Sean 'Puffy' Combs. Used to be that Lionel was only in magazines like Rap World and Street Beat. Now he's in every other issue of People. He and WYD have been pirating acts away from Lethal Force."