descended the stairs and opened the back door of the car. Everyone wore the same cut-from-granite expression. No one engaged my eyes.
'Hang in there,' Rafie said, as I was pulled out of the back of the car.
I looked back at Figueroa and Sepulveda. We had shared space on the fifth floor of this building for almost a year, their desks only a few feet from mine. Now a cavern of distrust loomed between us. But I wasn't mad at them. They were as compromised as I was.
'Would you guys call Glen Gustafson and tell him I need his help fast? If he can come down here tonight it would really help.'
Rafie and Tommy exchanged a look. 'You really gonna use that liar?' Tommy said, surprised. 'Even for a lawyer, he's roadkill.'
'That's why I want him.'
'Can't do it, Shane,' Rafie said. 'We're on this side now, you're over there.' That pretty much covered it.
The custody officers removed my cuffs and gave them back to Rafie. Then I was led down the chain-link corridor into the jail area.
The booking shed was painted in ugly, contrasting colors, creamy yellow with a bilious green trim. In front of me were five booking windows that looked a lot like teller stations at a bank, complete with bullet-resistant acrylic glass. I was led up to the first station and the lone booking officer inside nodded at me.
'Empty your pockets and take off your belt and shoelaces. Leave all your money and personal effects on the counter, comb included.'
I did as instructed, then asked through the scratched glass, 'When is my bail being set, and when am I being arraigned?'
'No bail. Not tonight.'
'Bail gets set automatically when you're booked,' I reminded him.
'Except when the D. A. puts a hold on you. He's going before a judge on a bail deviation hearing at your arraignment, which, right now, is scheduled for Tuesday at nine a. M.'
He put my possessions, including my badge, wallet, and both empty, clip-on holsters, into a cellophane bag and counted my money, laying it on the counter, getting ready for me to sign off on it.
I started to panic. If my arraignment was Tuesday, I was stuck here until then. I needed to get out, now. I needed to be at UCLA by ten a. M. I couldn't remember what I had done in the El Rey Theatre, but since they were charging me under the Felony Murder Rule, the witnesses and videotapes obviously couldn't get me for shooting that rapper straight off. The standard bail cap for all homicides is one million dollars. More than I had. But I had a plan on how to get it knocked down. I'd been hoping to hire a criminal defense attorney named Glen 'Gunner' Gustafson. Twice I'd testified against clients of his whom I'd arrested. Both times during the cross Gunner had shredded me on the stand, attacking my choice of words and recollections, creating the impression I was impeaching myself even though I wasn't. He was brutal but damned effective. I was hoping Gustafson could get the charge knocked down to involuntary manslaughter or even wrongful death. That would depress the bail to a figure I could handle. Bail on lower weight felonies were usually in the hundred-thousand-dollar range.
Bondsmen will traditionally take 10 percent of the bond in cash and a guaranteed appraisal on your house or other personal property as collateral for the rest. I had about ten grand in the bank that would cover the lower bond. There was no way I could see to get our house appraised before eight a. M.
I signed for my possessions and was moved back over to the booking area where I was instructed to sit at a small wooden desk with a night-shift WC named Patrick Collins. I watched Collins fill out the booking sheet, charging me with first degree 187, which was a joke. Then he led me to the fingerprinting area to be photographed and printed. Just as on the thirteenth floor, all the sleeping drunks and bystanders had been cleared out of the downstairs holding cells. The rooms were empty as they rolled my prints electronically and shot the mugs.
'I need to talk to my attorney,' I said.
'It's pretty late,' Collins said. 'Let's get you settled, then we'll see if anybody's up to take your call.'
He led me to the first-floor elevator. 'We're putting you on the Walk of Fame,' referring to A-block, which was a corridor of single occupancy cells where celebs like OJ, Robert Blake, and Robert Downey were all held in isolation before their arraignments. Afterwards they were transferred to the Iso unit in the main jail at the Twin Towers two blocks away. A-block at Men's Central Jail contained ten cells, and unlike the large dormitories situated on the second floor, none of these cells had pay phones inside.
We took the elevator up and I was led down the hall past the sleeping figures of men locked in large, twenty-man barred rooms. As I passed one dormitory, I noticed a man dressed in a silk shirt and shiny leather pants. His scowling face looked familiar.
'I smell bacon burnin',' the man said malevolently as I passed. I was closed inside my isolation cell before I realized who he was. Stacy Maluga's bodyguard, Insane Wayne Watkins. He was locked up in his Oasis Awards glitter clothes, looking like he wanted to tear my head off. Worse still, he was only twenty feet away. Almost close enough to do it.
Chapter 49
I was in cell A-5. It was small and contained only a bed, a sink, and a steel toilet. The bars were painted the same cream color as the floor. I sat on the thinly padded, red vinyl mattress and tried to sort this out. I knew I had to recapture my memory of what happened inside the El Rey Theatre, so I started with my last recollection. I pictured myself back inside Chooch's Jeep, parked on the street outside, and tried to walk myself through it a step at a time.
I remembered watching the black Chevy Impala SS slide by my parking place, its darkened windows vibrating gangsta rap. I tracked my progress, as I followed the black, four-door Chevy down the alley behind the theater. This time, my memory continued on beyond where it had stopped before and I remembered the fat gangster dressed in black, wearing chrome shades. Mister something… Smith. With the gaudy yellow crocs. Crocodile Smith. I remembered Krunk and the other one Little Poison and the two younger bangers. In my mind's eye I watched as those four scaled the fence and knocked on the back door. I remembered Stacy, or someone who looked a lot like her, letting them inside. A lot of pieces were starting to return. The VIP room. Walking down the glass-walled corridor to meet Lionel Wright in the sound booth. A big guy in a tan Kufi hat. Elijah Mustafa from the Fruit of Islam. Then I recalled Louis Maluga bracing me in the crowded lobby, threatening my life while the gorgeous woman I assumed was Sable Miller stood nearby and watched, waiting to see what would happen. But there the memories abruptly ended. I still couldn't fathom what I had done that led to the riot.
I needed to get the custodial officer so I could make a phone call. I stood and started tapping on the bars with my wedding ring the only piece of jewelry the booking sergeant let me keep.
'Stop that racket or I come down there an' put a foot up yer ass,' a sleepy voice from another cell growled.
After a minute, Sgt. Patrick Collins arrived and looked in at me. 'Shhh!' he hissed. 'One riot a night oughta be enough for anybody.'
'There's no phone inside this cell.'
'It's three a. M. No attorney's gonna talk to you until morning.'
'Hey, Patrick, that's just not your decision to make. I got a right to phone calls twenty-four hours a day, no exceptions. Read the jail manual.'
'It's great havin' a cop in here, so we don't forget the real important stuff,' he complained.
But he took out his keys, opened the cell, and led me down the hall. The big holding dorm that housed twenty sleeping prisoners was dimly lit by night-lights, but even in the faint glow, I saw Insane Wayne standing at the bars glaring, dressed to thrill in silk and leather.
'You best look out, motherfucker,' he growled as I passed. 'Bad shit be coming.'
'Don't talk to him,' Sgt. Collins ordered.
'That's a threat,' I said. 'Aren't you going to do something about it?'
Collins didn't respond and pulled me farther down the corridor to a large shower room with a wire mesh door. He opened the door, pushed me inside, then shut and locked me in. There was a phone on the wall outside with a
