When I woke my first thought was of suicide. Again. Who would care or even notice? Closing my eyes I wondered if I even had enough drive to get up and look for my pistol. Something wet and rough dragged across my cheek. A big sloppy puppy face looked down at me with anticipation.
“What the fuck do you want?” I asked, Angel stared at me, her tail starting to wag.
“What?” Nothing, just big empty eyes. “Thanks a lot Kelly, what the fuck am I going to do with a dog?” I asked the ceiling.
Pulling myself out of bed, I fried up some eggs, smoked ham, six cloves of garlic, a yellow onion and strips of stale tortillas into a hash. I split the steaming tasty mush with Angel. She wolfed the grub down in three big gulps filling her face wrinkles with egg. Grabbing a dish rag I scrubbed her face clean, “I don’t know what you are, but you sure ain’t no lady.”
I rode out with her smiling face peeking out of my jacket, ears flapping in the wind. It was ungodly early, another strong point against me as pet owner. The only time I got up before noon was when I was in the Marines or the joint, and both places it sure as hell wasn’t willingly. But I had a plan, a way to duck my new best friend, so we hit the dog park. To enter we had to clear a small chain-link sally port. I closed the first gate behind me before opening the gate into the park. Chino Prison had one just like it, only this one had no razor wire or guards with high powered rifles sighted down on me. Across the dying lawn, a group of dog owners sat and stood around a cement picnic table drinking from travel mugs and laughing at some joke I couldn’t hear. They were all young, good-looking squares. Some had tats and piercings, the kind they got to impress the world with how edgy they were. All looked up when I cleared the second gate, smiles faded as if I had farted in church. A cute little blonde gal with spiked hair and army boots looked down, afraid that meeting my eyes might be an invitation for trouble. I was used to this reaction from the straight world. Their style came from ghettos and jails, but God forbid they actually had to meet one of us face to face. Maybe it was fear, maybe I called their street cred into question, or maybe I was an ugly motherfucker who nobody wants around unless they need him. Fuck them and the bitch they rode in on.
I set Angel down, and she immediately ran past a pile of dogs fighting over a stick and over to a huge Rottweiler. Leaping up, she latched her needle teeth onto his upper lip. The big dog tried to shake her off, but she would tumble in the mud, get up and charge again. She made up for her lack of poundage with pure guts and tenacity.
“Bruiser!” A large lady in a faded denim jumpsuit called out to the Rottweiler. “Play nice, or when she gets her size, you’ll wish you had.”
I turned and started to walk away. Angel was cute enough, one of these dog lovers would take her in and I could get on with whatever the fuck I was going to do.
“Are you friends with Kelly?” The big woman called out to me, “Well, I mean you must be, you’re walking her dog.”
“You know Kelly?” I asked, startled to hear her name spoken here.
“Yeah, I know that beautiful girl.” She was smiling openly as she came over to me. “Angel loves my Bruiser. She attacks him like this every morning. Luckily he’s so not alpha.” She talked to me in a comfortable way I wasn’t used to. Like Angel was my ticket into her secret society. “Every morning for the last month Kelly’s brought Angel down to play with my Bruiser. Sometimes we go get a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe down the street. Tell you the truth when I first met Kelly I was hot for her. She told me she didn’t swing that way but I though I might convert her. Men can be such pricks… I mean not you, well maybe you I mean the jury is still out on that one, but you know what I mean.” She was speaking a mile a minute, like a speed freak on the end of an all night jag. But, it turned out Helen was a TV crime writer who drank too much coffee and spent way too much time alone, just her, her keyboard and Bruiser. After it was clear she wasn’t getting into Kelly’s shorts, they had struck up a true friendship. Kell was like that, easy to like, and I don’t ever remember her judging anyone. Once I asked her what she thought about the men who came into the club, the men who got lap dances. She said, “Like my grandma used to say, just people doing people things.”
“Look, I don’t know you from nobody, but do you think you could take Angel. I’m just not up to being, whatever.”
“Where’s Kelly?” Helen’s face dropped, she braced herself for bad news, as if she knew it was coming.
“I don’t know, she’s gone, ok. Can you take the dog or not?”
“Where is Kelly?”
“Fuck, I’ll keep the damn mutt.” Picking up Angel I walked out of the dog park. I could feel Helen’s eyes following me all the way to the street.
After depositing Angel back at my crib I went into Club Xtasy. Parking my bike I noticed the unmarked LAPD car out in front of the bar. I thought about rolling on, but they would want to talk to me sooner or later so it might as well be now. I slipped my.38 into a specially built hidey-hole under the seat of the Norton, the last thing I needed was to have them find an unregistered piece on a registered felon.
Inside the club, Piper came rushing over to me, “It’s Kelly, Mo. Did you hear?” Before I could answer her, a thick-necked, short-haired, butch detective moved in on me. She had on jeans, running shoes and a nylon windbreaker. She was six feet if she was an inch. Big but not soft, she looked as though she lifted weights and hated men, me most of all.
“You Moses McGuire?” she asked, daring me to deny it.
“Yes.” I said in a dead tone. I’d spent enough time with cops to know smiling and saluting them only bought you contempt. The moment she saw me she knew we stood on opposite sides of that thin blue line that most straights don’t even know exists. She could smell the time I’d done.
“Would you mind coming with me?” She asked, but it wasn’t a question so I followed her into the back office. Turaj was there, looking less bold than usual. An older White detective was sitting behind the desk; he had a crew cut, graying hair and sad tired eyes. “Take a seat,” the female detective told me. So I sat facing the White detective, with his partner towering behind me.
“Moses McGuire?” The older detective asked. I nodded yes and he continued in a calm, even voice, “I’m detective Lowrie, that’s Sanchez, would you mind telling us where you were yesterday afternoon?”
“If you tell me what’s going on,” I said. Sanchez smacked the back of my head, not as hard as she wanted, but hard enough to get my attention.
“We ask, you answer. Is that simple enough for you?” Sanchez said, resting her hand on my shoulder. I looked at her hand then coldly up into her eyes.
“Unless your next move is to bust my ass, you better take your hand off me.”
“Or what? I’m not one of your bikini bimbos. I’m not your punch of the week. I’m Detective First-Class Sanchez. You want a dance, then we’ll step out back. No? Afraid a girl might kick your ass?”
“Mary Cruz. I’m sure Mr. McGuire wants to help us out.” Lowrie’s eyes flicked to her hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sure he does, Stan,” she said, clamping her vice grip before removing her hand in a show of mock politeness. Rodney King, the LA uprising, the descent decree and two new Chiefs might have made the LAPD more citizen-sensitive but it hadn’t changed their hearts. Sanchez was a bully who would love nothing better than to play racquetball with my head while her partner held a gun on me. Lowrie looked up at her, shaking his head slowly.
“My partner doesn’t like you. I keep telling her to switch to decaf, but she doesn’t listen,” Lowrie said in friendly tone.
“You the good cop?”
“No, I’m just a tired civil servant who’s been up all night staring at a girl’s brains on a wall and I would like
