with this.
'You gonna become a problem here? I thought you wanted to make it on this department. I'm the guy who has to sign you off probation!'
'Jeez, man. Calm down.'
'Get in there and do it.' He pulled out his sap and held it up, showing it to me. 'You take one punch for the camera and I'll close his show.'
It was an impossible situation. I had no choice but to go ahead, because if it wasn't me, I knew Alonzo would just get somebody else to do it. At least if I was in the I-room I might be able to stop him from killing the guy.
'Okay,' I said, reluctantly.
Alonzo opened the I-room door. Rocky looked up at me with a malevolent stare as I stepped inside, leaving the door unlatched behind me. Then I reached over and quickly uncuffed him. That got his attention.
'Stay where you are,' I said. Alonzo was outside watching this on the monitor. I had to find a way to make it look right, but still keep my partner from killing Rocky with that damn sap.
'I thought I told you to hold it together. What's wrong with you? You stupid or something?' I kept my voice low so it wouldn't record on the surveillance tape.
'Do not talk to me this way,' Rocky said.
'Why not, joto?' I whispered. 'You gonna do something about it? You're nothing but a jugaclor a los bandos. El maricon.'
Chacon exploded up out of the chair and started swinging. I ducked his first shot but caught the second one square in the teeth. It was a clean right, efficiently delivered, and it snapped my head back. Then two or three more combination punches hit me. The guy was lightning-fast. I was trying to cover up, but he was scoring at will. I was getting creamed.
Where the hell is Alonzo? I thought as more blows rained off my shoulders and elbows. He was supposed to be in here after the first punch. just then Rocky caught me on the side of the head with a great left hook, which stunned me. I pawed back at him with a weak right cross that did nothing. Rocky circled right and peppered me with three quick jabs, splitting my lip and bloodying my nose.
'Quien es el joto ahora, flaquito!' Rocky shouted as he circled left, bouncing jabs off my forehead, then delivering a devastating uppercut.
I was getting cut to pieces, so in order to minimize the damage I rushed him and slammed him against the wall, trying to pin his hands to his sides.
At last the door opened and Alonzo came in swinging the sap. He bounced two pounds of leather-wrapped lead off Rocky's head. In an instant the smaller man was down on his knees. Then, before I could intervene, Alonzo kicked him in the stomach and sapped him again. Murder flashed in my huge partner's eyes. He was winding up for a last mighty kill shot when I threw myself at him and knocked him off balance. He swung anyway. The sap whistled through the air but missed both Rocky and me.
'Knock if off! We're code four!' I yelled.
Alonzo finally stopped and looked down at the little Mexican fighter, who was unconscious and prone on the concrete floor.
'That's how we do it Haven Park-style,' Alonzo growled.
'We need to get some EMTs in here,' I said, spitting out droplets of my own blood as I talked.
Ten minutes later Chacon had been revived by paramedics and was sitting up on a bunk in one of the holding cells. He refused to talk, refused to look at us. He had sustained a concussion, but his eyes were pinpoints of hatred.
'Where the hell were you, Al?' I said as the EMTs iced my split lip and put cotton sticks up my bloody nose.
'I thought you needed a little object lesson in how to take an order. When I say to do something, you need to do what I tell you instead of giving me a bunch a guff. You're lucky I didn't pay you back for the sapping you gave me at the restaurant.'
Alonzo held up the videotape of our I-room brawl. 'After we file the assault charges I'm gonna leak this to the Courier and some local TV stations. Let them see what a violent, unstable prick their mayoral candidate is.'
'I'm not sure showing a tape of Rocky taking on two cops twice his size is going to screw him up with his constituents.'
'Yeah? Well, that's why you're stuck down in this shit hole, being retrained by me.'
While I wrote up the assault report, Alonzo sat at the desk next to mine and dialed somebody at the Haven Park Courier. After explaining the situation, he added, 'He's under arrest right now.
This guy committed felonious assaults on two police officers. Yeah, yeah.' He paused and listened a moment before saying, 'You bet. I think I can steal a copy of the tape for you guvs. But I'm looking for a nice clean piece. You gotta stop with all this Rocky Chacon, man-of-the-people propaganda and print what really happened.'
Chapter 18
Roeky contacted a beautiful, raven-haired lawyer named Carmen Ramirez. His abogada was only about twenty-eight but full of Latina pride. At one point I heard her tell Alonzo that even if Haven Parks city attorney filed these assault charges, it wouldn't prevent Rocky from running for mayor, 'in America,' she explained hotly, 'you are still presumed innocent until proven guilty, and a presumed innocent man is not prohibited from running for public office.'
She promised Alonzo she would delay the trial for at least two years and finished by telling my increasingly glum partner that once Rocky was mayor, the whole crooked police department would be out of a job. None of this information did anything to improve Alonzo s demeanor.
Later, I noticed Rocky and his firebrand attorney talking in his cell. Years of police work have made me a pretty good student of body language. When she was alone with him she adopted a more open posture and as they talked, their nonverbal communicators conveyed intimacy. At one point, she leaned forward and touched his arm. It seemed Rocky had something going with his beautiful lawyer.
Carmen Ramirez quickly arranged bail, which for a felony assault in Haven Park was preset at one hundred thousand dollars. Because there was no loss of life involved, a court hearing was not required.
Rocky called Big Kiss, wrote a chcck for ten percent of the bond and kissed our jail goodbye. He was out of the police building one full hour ahead of Alonzo and me.
We finally finished our paperwork at two and when we walked outside into the afternoon sun, ten or fifteen picketers were already out front holding signs that said POLICE
PERSECUTION and FREE ROCKY CHACON.
'Told ya,' I said to Alonzo, who was glaring at the picketers.
He didn't answer, but motioned to our black-and-white. We got in, cleared the station and pretty much blew off the rest of the day watch going code seven at one of the few Anglo-run restaurants in town, called the Coffee Barn. Alonzo said very little to me as we ate and sipped coffee from chipped mugs.
He had not considered the fact that until Rocky was convicted of the felony he could still legally run for mayor. The protestors outside the jail further underlined the fact that Rocky s I-room brawl wasn't going to disqualify him as much as endorse him. It gave Alonzo a lot to think about.
In the stifling silence of this meal, I realized I'd lost a lot of ground with him. It's never a good idea to sap your training officer, even if you're trying to keep him from killing an innocent civilian. As he poked at his greasy hamburger in silence I knew I'd have to find a way to make up the points I'd just lost and I had to come up with a way to do it fast.
At end-of-watch I loitered in front of my locker waiting for Alonzo. I figured I might buy him a few drinks at A Fuego and try to smooth all of this over, but I didn't see him. Somebody on the day watch finally told me Sergeant Bell had left Haven Park to see some people up in L. A.
I grabbed my jacket and walked to my car in the parking area next to the school. I got in and pulled out, heading to the Haven Park Inn, where I was still registered.
I was tired and angry as I climbed the stairs to the second level. My lip was killing me and my nose was
