Get used to it.' He cleared his throat, then looked at Rafie. 'We need some answers. Let's start with what were you doing at the Oasis Awards? What piece of brain-dead thinking led you to go down there and attack a building full of gang-bangers?'
Of course, there wasn't much I could tell him. I still couldn't get my head around the idea that the department wanted to charge me with this rapper's murder. I was thinking Chief Ramsey was probably just trying to jack me up and take me off the street until this whole, sad, Alexa-Slade media circus settled down.
But Rafie surprised me. 'We've been given permission by the D. A., to make you Queen for a Day on the Slade hit.'
What he was talking about was something called a proffer of immunity. Cops called it Queen for a Day because it allowed a suspect to confess to a crime and at the same time get immunity from the very crime he was confessing to. In return, he had to put the hat on somebody else an accomplice. I didn't see how it fit. I had no accomplice to roll over on.
'That last e-mail on the computer reads like a blackmail attempt by Slade on Alexa,' Rafie said, sensing my confusion. 'Here's how we think it went down. Slade says to Alexa, gimme money, or a promotion, or whatever it was he was looking for. The e-mail says 'If I don't get what I want, I go to the Old Man.' Which is you! But rather than get shaken down by a piece of shit like Slade, Alexa decides to go to you and see if she can beg forgiveness. The two of you find a way to come to grips with her adultery and finally decide to dust him off to keep him quiet so he doesn't embarrass you and ruin Alexa.' The room was quiet after he finished. Tommy scuffed his feet.
'You guys need to get over to CAA and see if you can find an agent to represent this,' I said angrily.
Rafie went on, 'The department is getting mauled by all these black activists in the media. Ramsey really wants it to go away. So here's the deal: You roll over and put the hat on Alexa for the Slade hit and the D. A. will give you immunity on that murder and kick this rap awards thing down to involuntary manslaughter. You end up doing a nickel in the State Pen and come out in time for your forty-fifth birthday.'
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just sat there staring at him.
'Shane, we're just trying to find an easy way out of this for everybody,' Rafie continued. 'Alexa isn't gonna make it. I called the hospital and talked to a doc on the neurosurgery ward. She's scheduled for an operation in a few hours but they don't have much hope she's gonna make it. So if you want this deal, I suggest you make it before she checks out. Once she's gone, everything comes off the table. Not even this asshole we got for a D. A. will grant you immunity against a dead accomplice.'
'Get out of here, Rafie,' I said softly. 'You too, Tommy.'
As Rafie turned off the tape, Tommy looked over at him. 'I told you he wouldn't go for it.' Then he turned to me. 'We didn't want to make that pitch any more than you liked hearing it. We were ordered to by… by people.'
'Right. The Powers That Be.'
He nodded, and turned to Rafie. 'Let's get out of here. I need a shower.'
The door lock buzzed and they left. I sat on the bed feeling lower than I ever had in my life. There was nobody to turn to. Nobody.
Who cared? Only Chooch and he was just an eighteen-year-old kid who had more than he could deal with already. He was outside and I was in. I could only talk to him through bulletproof Lucite.
I sat in the stark, white room and wondered how I would get out of this, knowing all the while that I probably wouldn't.
Chapter 48
They woke me again at two A. M.
Rafie and Tommy were back inside my cell with two sheriff's deputies, everybody in a big hurry to get moving.
'Come on, we're going for a ride,' they said, as I started rubbing my eyes.
'Where?'
'You've been cleared by the docs here. You're getting booked at MCJ.'
Ten minutes later I was back in cuffs, rolling down the corridor in the wheelchair, heading toward the elevator.
Rafie told me the thirteenth floor had booked fifteen people from the El Rey riot tonight. The rest were over at the Men's Central Jail. Because of all the celebrities involved, there was press roaming everywhere. In the lobby, on the first floor. They were even sharking around in the parking lot, writing down license plate numbers. To defeat them, the deputies had cleared the fire stairs and locked the interior doors for the three minutes it would take to transport me to the loading dock. I was pulled out of the wheelchair by Tommy Sepulveda and stood up next to the fire door on thirteen. I felt ten feet tall and a foot wide as I wobbled there lightheaded and confused. Tommy looked tired and frustrated as he studied me.
'You okay?' he asked.
'You really care?'
'Yep, I do. I feel terrible about this, Shane. We both do. Tell us how to play it differently and still keep our jobs, and that's what we'll do.'
'How was / supposed to play it, Tom? My wife is shot and maybe dying.'
'I know,' he said sadly. 'It all sucks.'
Rafie came up the stairs after checking the eleventh-floor door, and motioned us forward. 'Okay, let's go.'
We walked down thirteen flights and took a supply corridor out of the hospital to the rear loading dock, where their Crown Vic was parked. A light rain was falling. Rafie led me across the dock, down the steps. He pushed me into the back of the car and then climbed in beside me. The handcuffs were rubbing my wrists raw, but I decided not to complain. I just wanted to get this over with. Tommy got behind the wheel, and with the windshield wipers clacking, off we went, zipping quietly around the side of the hospital, tires humming on the wet pavement. The parking lot at the front of the hospital was full of TV trucks. All seven local news channels and some cable and wire services were camped out waiting for a glimpse of me in handcuffs. My life had gone from bad to worse.
The drive across town was quick because there was no traffic at this hour in the morning. We got up on the freeway where the tires sang loudly in the rain cuts on the pavement as we flew along. The downtown horizon glowed a dull orange in the distance, the strange coloring caused by low clouds over L. A. that were up-lit by powerful yellow street lights. As we rolled down Sixth Street, the Police Administration Building loomed ahead.
'Turn right on San Pedro,' Rafie instructed from the backseat. 'Let's not go past the front of PAB. The press is still all over out there.'
Tommy turned onto San Pedro and made a radio call to the jail, telling them we were seconds away. Then we pulled up to the rear of Parker Center and stopped outside the chain-link fence at the back entrance to the MCJ.
While the windshield wipers metronomed, Tommy blinked his lights for security, and after a second the electric gate opened. The car passed through the narrow driveway and pulled into an empty metal caged area where the gray jail buses were staged each morning to transport prisoners to court. A trustee wearing a purple jumpsuit pulled the gate closed behind us and locked it, securing us inside the chain-link box. There was an opening to the right of the car that led up ten steps to a sally port. The wire-enclosed pathway bent left and led to the booking area at the back of the jail. I'd been here hundreds of times, but it looked different to me now. Foreboding and dangerous.
Rafie again triggered his radio mike. 'This is D-Nine to MCJ Central. We're in the pen with the prisoner. Send out some custodial officers and make sure the booking area is clear.'
'Roger that,' a voice answered.
Minutes later, two police custodial officers in blue LAPD-like uniforms came out of the cement block booking shed and approached inside the wire-enclosed walkway.
Jail custodians were not sworn police officers, but were trained at the Police Academy in jail tactics only. They carried no weapons and had spent no time on the street. They were strictly custodial specialists. Both men
