MOSAICS: A Thriller (5 page)

Oscar flipped his unlit cigarette up and down with his lips, thinking. “What if it didn’t get deep enough because your guy didn’t apply enough pressure?”

Satish shook his head. “The pressure is measured by the bruising. Our guy pulled to kill.”

Oscar sucked on his unlit cig, then leaned across the desk and gave me a brotherly slap on the shoulder. “Asshole,” he said. “Should’ve left this one to Satish. Let him
puzzle over it for another six months, then you come back, as fresh as a quartered chicken.”

The
door to the lieutenant’s office clicked and we all turned. Silence filled with anticipation fell over the room. Hands buried in pockets, Gomez shook his head. “Just got a call from the UCLA Med Center. They pronounced him dead at two-twenty-six. Michael Jackson is dead, guys.”

Oscar’s mustache swallowed the smile on his face.
“Wow. The King of Chicken Hawks left us. I bet all those child molestation victims will come forward, now.”

Jo Kertrud, another seasoned detective who’d been
with the RHD since the early ‘nineties, said, “Who knows. Maybe one of them just did.”

The LT waited for the general murmur to subside. “Heart attack, they think, but you know the drill, guys. Mayamoto and Garrison—let’s have you two go to the hospital and talk to the docs. I want you to report back immediately after. Next two on the callboard stand by.”

He bobbed his head, looked around if there were any questions. There weren’t, and he retreated back into his office. We shuffled back to our spots, all except Satish, who detoured to the vending machines in the hallway. Katie Cheng was sitting on my partner’s desk, casually fiddling with the strangulation props. She was a young Chinese-American officer permanently loaned to our division. She helped us deal with the estimated five thousand Chinese who lived in L.A. and didn’t speak much English beyond hello and thank you. Katie loved the homicide table so much that even when she wasn’t needed as a translator she kept herself busy doing desk work for us dicks.

“
Wow,” she commented. “Jackson was going to turn fifty-one next month. Gee, I grew up with his songs.”

I stared at the paper in her
hand. It bore the warm, acidic smell of fresh-out-of-the-printer ink. “What’s up, Katie?”

She blinked. “Oh. Sorry
. This is for you and your partner.” She handed me the printout, together with a whiff of body lotion and mint chewing gum.

*  *  *

Satish slid inside the Charger. “Where are we going?”

“Vernon Motel
on Fifty-six. Couple blocks west of South Fig.” I whipped the car up the One-Ten ramp, merging into the steady flow of traffic. I had a Glock 17 tucked in my waistband holster and a five-inch M327 revolver for backup. I was wearing a tie and dress shoes as the brass gods demanded, and my badge, all polished and shiny, was safely stowed into my wallet. Little uncomfortable in the shoes, and already sweaty in the nice shirt, but other than that, I made one hell of an RHD dick. Satish wasn’t too bad either.

Not that anybody cared. In South Central what most people
care about is survival. A ghetto of dilapidated apartment buildings, body shops, liquor stores, and cinder-block walls decorated in layers of graffiti, South Central has always been ruled by the Main Street Crips, the Hoovers, and their various street factions. Summers get pretty damned hot in this part of town. 

“So, what’s the deal in South L.A.?”
Satish asked.

“Katie
found the guy who did the mosaic art on Amy Liu’s back patio. The work was done two months ago. Guy’s got no priors, but his nephew, who helped with the mosaic, is a Eighteenth Street with a tail. Ricardo Vargas, age nineteen.” 

Satish tapped the car window. “A gang homeboy with a record. Interesting. What did he serve for?”

“Fly-by shooting when he was fifteen. Shot a guy in the face to prove to his gang he was a man. His prize was a ten-dollar bill—that’s all the vic had in his wallet. Been on parole since last January. His uncle’s trying to keep him off the street by having him help out in his handyman business. They redid Amy Liu’s back patio last March. Uncle claims he’s been keeping an eye on the boy and he’s clean.”

“I’m sure his
Eighteenth Street pals are keeping an eye on him, too.”

Half an hour later, w
e left our vehicle and stepped into the sweltering heat of the small parking lot of a dingy, hot-sheet motel. By the street, skinny palm trees bowed under the sun. A man in a wheelchair peered at us from the sidewalk, his weathered face caked with layers of street life.

“Bro,” he ca
lled. We ignored him. “Hey, bro!” He wheeled toward us across the parking lot. “I got information for you. You uh… you got a buck or two?”

Satish dipped a hand in his pants’ pocket and fished out a card. “We don’t handle information. Here’s the number to call.”

Black fingers gingerly reached out to pluck the card. He stared at it, not too troubled by the fact that he was holding it upside down, then gave us a toothless grin and turned his wheelchair around.

Satish
sighed. “Cashed out. My last buck went into the vending machine at Parker.”

“A buc
k for a bag of stinkin’ Cheetos.” I turned my pockets inside out, found a crumpled dollar, and walked back to exchange it for another toothless grin. I got a
God-bless
as an extra bonus.

“There’s a reason it’s called City of Angels,” Satish said.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Only angels around here ain’t got wings and ain’t wearing white, either.”

I
glanced at the two story-building spread out along the three sides of the inner court: pink, chafed stucco, tears of rust and bird droppings, green doors alternating to dark sliding windows, and the lingering smells of sweat, dog urine, and tired humanity. A maid in pink scrubs came out of an open door on the second floor, dumped a heap of dirty laundry into her cart, sent a disapproving glare at the wheelchair, now on the other side of the street, then vanished back inside.

“Luxurious place,” I commented.

Satish tipped his head toward the lobby. “Parole doesn’t make you rich.” He adjusted his belt and holster, put a hand on the door, and gave me a stern eye. “Now, the guy being a parolee and all, we have some leeway. Still, I’d like to talk to him alive.”

I flashed him my most innocent smile.

The lobby was as dingy and gray as the outside. Under our shoes, linoleum tiles popped with old grease stains. Yellowed photos of the Rose Parade randomly decorated the walls. The frames were all crooked and looked like they hadn’t been straightened since the ’94 earthquake. A full ashtray sat beside a brass plate claiming that smoking wasn’t allowed. Stale coffee percolated on a Formica countertop covered in blotches of maple syrup and jam. A radio blabbered in Spanish from somewhere at the back of the office.

I hit the brass bell on the counter. An annoyed voice replied, “We’re full.”

I flipped my badge wallet and held it up. “Try again, dude.”

Bored eyes
came forward from the back door and squinted at the badge. They rolled unhappily in their orbs and disappeared again. Papers rustled, drawers closed, the radio shut up. I inhaled, but didn’t smell anything alarming other than rusty pipes, tobacco wads, and the lingering tang of refried beans.

The eyes came in full view under a strip of forehead beaded with sweat. Black brows shot up with a pinch of a
nxiety. “The place is clean,” the man said, wobbling to the counter. “And my papers are all in order.” He made a vague gesture toward the back.

I propped m
y elbows on the counter. “You the manager here?”

He brushed a nervous finger along
the sides of a mustache that had seen blacker days. “Yes, sir.”

“We’re looki
ng for a man named Ricky Vargas,” I said.

The manager’s
shoulders relaxed, his brows came down a notch. “Never heard of him.”

Satish pul
led out the mug shot. “Never seen him either?”

I rapped the countertop. “You know, maybe we should take a look at those papers you mentioned—”

“No.” He pointed at the photo. “Him—He goes by Ralph. Owes me a full month.”

“He in?”

His eyes darted back and forth between us. “You make him pay, yes?”

Sat and I exchanged a quick glance. “Get the key and take us to his room.”

“I can’t leave the desk! I have to answer the phone, and—”

I patted my holster. “I hope you have a good locksmith, then.”

His face swelled up like a puffer fish. “One second.” He sank back in his chair, swiveled it around to a cabinet drawer and retrieved the key from one of the drawers.

We followed him outside through the back door. The sun glistened
off the car roofs parked in the court. Two kids were playing hopscotch in the driveway of the adjacent apartment building. Everything else was as still as a postcard.   

I scanned the windows of the upper floor as we filed up the stairs. “Do the rooms have back doors?”

The manager shook his head. “Windows and fire stairs. And smoke detectors. All compliant, eh? All in order.” His words turned into wheezing as he huffed up the stairs. “Your friends, last time they came, they reported this and that, and safety hazards, and—”

“They’re not our friends. Which door?”

He lifted his
first
chin and pointed ahead. “Room two-eighteen.”

We covered the sides of the door. Satish banged once. We heard nothing. I inhaled. “With goods,” I confirmed. I flattened
myself on the hinge side and drew my Glock. Satish banged again.

A feeble “Yeah?”
percolated through the door.

“Management.”

There were steps, padding over carpet. Something dropped. Then more steps, away from the door this time.

Satish beckoned
to the manager. “Hey, I hear a moan inside, don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“The door,” I growled. “You want it to go bang?”

The man fumbled with the key in the lock. As soon as the lock clicked I kicked the door and yelled the customary “Freeze, asshole!” A draft from the open window at the back of the room made the curtains billow. On top of the fridge, the
microwave’s door hung open and yawned a familiar reek of burnt plastic. A heap of bed covers was piled on the floor, and the mattress still smelled of human heat and the last remnants of crack smoke. A lamp had fallen off the side table.

I ran to the window, Sat checked the bathroom.

“Careful with the TV,” the manager mumbled over short breaths. “I just replaced it. And no messing with the carpet. Blood especially—”

A square had been cut out of the window screen. I leaned
out and spotted the asshole running down the emergency ladder.

“Fire stairs!” I yelled. Man runs, cops split. I holstered the Glock and climbed
out on the windowsill. The drop was about twelve feet—not worth the risk. To my right, the metal frame of the fire escape rattled with Vargas’s steps. I grasped the lintel with one hand, reached for the railing with the other, and swung over. Pain shot up my spine. I ignored it.

Feet dangling, I grasped the top banister with bot
h hands, pulled myself up, hopped onto the fire escape and started down the stairs, the wall behind me radiating heat like a nervous animal. I cussed the dress shoes and fucking business attire.

Vargas jumped down the last flight, landed on a heap of abandoned tires, and vanished in
to a narrow alley lined with corrugated metal sheets and the slashed skeleton of an old couch. I jumped over the railing and leaped after him, following his adrenaline trail over the reek of urine and trash bins, the sky above me lined with cables and rusty clotheslines. 

Pain gnawed my lower back
. I ground my teeth and kept pursuit.

Vargas climbed over a fence, tripped on landing, scrambled back up, spotted Satish at the end of the road, and double
d back across the street. A red Nissan was pulling to the curb. The driver barely had the time to unbuckle before Vargas opened the driver’s door, yanked him off the wheel and shoved him to the ground. He didn’t get very far after that. Pain hammering through my chest, I pounced from behind and brought him down, face eating the pavement and Glock pressed against the back of his head.

“Don’t shoot,” he squealed.

I swallowed, barrel unmoving.

The pain was making me blind with rage.

I clutched Vargas’s arms with my left hand and blocked his lower body with my right knee and leg. Satish came from behind and snapped the cuffs around one of his wrists.

“Track,” he said.

I shifted. Vargas slowly peeled his face off the pavement. Blood crept down his nose. “Tell ’im not to shoot. I ain’t done nothin’, man…”

I step
ped aside and leaned against the fence, breathing heavily, waiting for the pain to ebb off.