Riptide

“We ain’t rich enough for rent-a-cops, so we’re outta luck?” The shout came from one of the two guys directly behind her.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Casey answered.

“It’s what you’re thinkin’, man.”

“You cops don’t give a shit about us,” his friend chimed in. “You don’t even live in the neighborhood.”

Someone from the top row called out, “They live in Simi Valley with all the other fascists!”

“How ’bout it, Porky,” yelled the first guy, the one who’d touched her hair, “you live in these parts?”

His friend echoed the question. “Yeah, Porky, what say you? Huh? What say you? ”

The word “Porky” excited the other malcontents scattered throughout the audience. They started to chant the word. Casey shifted his weight, his face reddening.

“Porky… Porky… Porky…”

The hippies were getting into it, too. For them it would always be 1968.

Sandra waved her arms as if semaphoring. “Let the officer speak.” Her plea quieted the crowd for the moment.

Casey cited the department’s COMPSTAT figures to explain that violent crime rates had actually declined in Pacific Area. A woman with a reedy voice shrieked that the cops were cooking the books. She’d seen an article about it in the L.A. Reader.

“No one is fudging any numbers,” Casey said. “Our area commanders are just as concerned about safety as you are. They’ve seen a significant, ongoing downtrend in crimes across the board, especially violent crimes-”

The pair behind Jennifer started stamping on the bleachers.

“No way, man, my nephew was shot just last week!”

“Cops want us shot! More of us get killed, easier it is for white folks to move in and take over!”

“What d’ya say ’bout that, Porky?”

“Porky… Porky… Porky…”

Casey gave up and yielded the floor to Draper, who didn’t look happy about it.

Draper was smart enough not to compete with the crowd. He stood facing them in cold silence until the commotion died away. In the unflattering overhead light his face looked more sallow than usual, his eyes lost in dark hollows. He seemed to unman the noisier elements of the audience.

“Sandra Price is right,” he began, speaking softly enough that people were obliged to stay quiet if they wanted to hear. “There are three unsolved homicides in this division. The most recent was on Centinela Avenue in Mar Vista. That one happened on Monday night.”

He was talking about the Diaz killing. Jennifer thought of the bloated tongue, the bloodshot eyes.

“The other two occurred seven months and eighteen months ago, respectively. We believe they were so- called stranger homicides, meaning the victims didn’t know their assailants. Those are the most difficult cases to clear. In the same time period we’ve had three other homicides in Pacific Area, and solved them all. We-”

“You didn’t solve nothing!” screamed someone in the top row. “You rigged them scenes. You put cases on them people!”

“You framed those brothers!” another man shouted.

Instantly the kids behind Jennifer were on their feet, shouting, “Frame, frame, frame!” They stamped on the bench where she was seated, their heavy sneakers slamming down on both sides of her. “Frame, frame, frame!”

Chaos rippled through the stands. Other chants broke out, a babble of slogans competing with each other. The man in gray dreadlocks repeated his war cry: “Right on!” The sweatshirted figure swayed frantically, clutching his knees.

Jennifer eyed the exit, estimating her distance to the door. She wasn’t sure she dared leave. The men behind her might follow. She could be safer in here…unless a riot broke out…

Above the hubbub rose a long earsplitting shriek: “An-ar-chy!!!”

The shrieker was a young woman strategically positioned in the middle row, directly opposite the dais, who rose to her feet and unzipped her nylon jacket. She wore nothing underneath. Her bare breasts, several sizes too large for her, sprang into view. She shrugged off the jacket, let it fall, and stood topless, arms raised. “An-ar-chy! An-ar-chy!!!”

The crowd burst into whistles and hoots. The photographer, no longer bored, snapped off a rapid series of shots.

Lady Godiva had made the scene.

Draper and Casey exchanged a glance, shrugged, and walked off the dais and out of the room with as much dignity as possible. As Casey passed Jennifer’s seat, he nodded to her almost imperceptibly. Draper didn’t look her way at all. Then they were out the door, pursued by the topless anarchist’s screams.

Jennifer knew why they hadn’t openly acknowledged her. In this crowd it wasn’t safe to be pegged as a friend of the police.

With the enemy no longer in the building, the protesters lost their enthusiasm. Sandra Price had given up trying to speak. She looked sad and disgusted.

Jennifer felt likewise. And for the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel good about living in Venice.

nineteen

The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex dive a few blocks from the high school. Sandra must have chosen it solely for its proximity. Certainly it wasn’t the atmosphere, which consisted of drunken men playing pool while mariachi music blared through tinny ceiling speakers.

Jennifer wasn’t complaining. She’d expected Sandra to beg off their meeting after the debacle in the gym. But the woman was resilient. She dismissed her disappointment with a shrug. “Some nights are asshole nights. Goes with the territory.”

It was her only comment about the evening until she and Jennifer were seated at a corner table, dipping blue corn chips into a bowl of salsa.

“What a piss-poor excuse for a rally,” Sandra said, contemplating the undipped chip in her hand as if it were a tarot card. “Piss-fucking-poor.”

“It might not have been so bad without the exhibitionist,” Jennifer offered.

“Hell, no. She saved the day. Served as a release valve for the tension. I’m honestly grateful to her.”

“You expected her to show up, I guess.”

“Yeah, she’s always there. I’ve probably seen her titties more times than her boyfriend has. They’re real, too.”

“How would you know?”

“I asked her once. She offered to let me cop a feel. What the hell, I took her up on it. There’s no silicone in those funbags.”

Jennifer laughed. Sandra reminded her of Maura, only in a socially conscious edition. Both women were brassy and loud and unconcerned with anyone’s opinion. They would probably hate each other’s guts. She remembered a passage in Sandra’s speech about gentrification as a symptom of capitalism run amok. Yes, she and Maura definitely would not see eye to eye.

“It’s too bad Draper got drowned out,” Jennifer said. “He could have connected with them, if they’d given him a chance.” She wasn’t so sure about Casey.

Sandra pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The cops were part of the problem, too.”

“How so?”

“They could have been more diplomatic. What was that crap about the crime rates going down in Venice?”

“Most crimes are down-”