'Then where's your wallet? Levinson says you don't have one. If you're a cop, then you obviously know it's mandated that all LAPD personnel carry their creds and a firearm at all times, on duty as well as off. Since you don't have either, as far as I'm concerned, that makes you a lying shitball.'
'No… I am a cop. I left my house so fast tonight I didn't remember to grab my badge case out of my desk.'
'Or here's a better one,' he said. 'You learned while doing your last prison stretch that it's better not to carry ID when you're out capering so if you get caught, we can't run you or match you up to your old priors.'
'I'm a police officer.'
'You don't look like a police officer,' he said, studying my still-bleeding forehead, torn jeans, and flip-flops. 'You look like a guy out on a hot prowl who just came in second in an ass-kicking contest.'
'My name is Shane Scully. Call my captain at Homicide Special.'
'Right. We'll do that right after we notify the governor,' he growled.
'You better do it now, Sergeant. I'm telling you I'm a homicide detective working out of Parker Center.'
'No kidding.' He pointed at Jack. 'Then explain why your buddy over there did a B and E on the MIG building forty minutes ago.'
'What's the MIG building?' I asked.
'Mesa Investment Group. He set off all the silent alarms. We chased him on his motorcycle. Then, we lost him for about thirty minutes, and when he turns up again he's with you in the park. Start there.'
'My wife is Alexa Scully. She's head of the LAPD Central Detective Bureau,' I said. 'I'll give you her number. You need to call her.'
Before he could deal with that, another cop stuck his head in through the open back door and spoke to Sergeant Acosta.
'Sal, we just ran the other guy. Jack Straw has two outstanding warrants for federal bank robbery.'
'He has what?' I said, astonished.
'Take both these humps to Mens Central Jail. Book Straw on the federal felonies and book this guy, whoever he is, as a John Doe material witness, until I can check his story or figure out something else.'
Then a supervisors car pulled up, and finally a cop I knew stepped out. He was a tall blond lieutenant named Gordon Moon. I used to play basketball with him when I was in Devonshire Division.
'Lieutenant Moon,' I called out. He walked over to the squad car and looked in at me.
'Scully?' he said, with a puzzled look on his face. 'What happened to your head? What're you doin' in there?'
'You know this guy?' Acosta said.
Moon opened the door and pulled me out. 'Yeah.'
'Don't tell me, he's really a cop,' Acosta said. 'I was just gonna transport him to MCJ.'
'I sure wouldn't do that,' Moon replied. 'He's in Homicide at the Glass House. What's the deal? What's going on here? Why's his head bleeding?'
Acosta ran through the basics of what had just happened. When he was finished, the lieutenant assured him again that I was who I said I was.
They took the cuffs off and one of the cops administered some first aid. I pressed a gauze pad on my reopened cut.
'Shit, man. Carry your fucking creds, why don't you?' Acosta said as I got the bleeding under control. I could see a worried frown on his face as he silently reviewed the violence his troops had already done.
'I'm taking back control of my arrestee,' I said angrily.
'I'm sorry, you're what?' Acosta said.
'You heard me. Straw is my bust. I had him in custody when you guys blew in and fucked up my collar.'
The squad of blues were all standing in a huddle around us, waiting to see how their sergeant was going to deal with this.
'Lieutenant Moon, I'm working Straw as a confidential informant on a big homicide case,' I said. 'It's imperative I retain control of my CI. I also want my car returned to me immediately.'
Moon looked at Acosta. 'What do you say, Sarge?' He grinned sheepishly. 'The man really is in Homicide Special. His wife runs the entire Detective Division. I was you, I'd back off.'
I handed Acosta the keys to the BMW, gave him the tag number, and told him where it was. A patrolman sprinted up the street and five minutes later returned with Alexa's car, parking it near where we stood.
Jack still didn't know what was going on. He was peering out the back window of the squad car parked next to us, mouthing questions at me that I didn't bother to answer.
Ten minutes later, he was pulled from the backseat of the X-ear and put into the front seat of Alexa's BMW, still with his hands cuffed behind him.
'Whose cuffs are those?' I asked.
'Mine,' a uniformed patrolman said.
'Give me the key and your business card. I'll have them returned in the morning.'
After he gave them to me, I climbed behind the wheel. Jack started grinning despite the fact that he was bleeding from four nasty-looking lumps on his head. His bullshit gold-boxed tooth had somehow managed to survive the conflict.
'This is very slick, dude,' he said as I pulled away.
'Shut up, Jack.'
'Totally mint,' he added. 'Can we take these cuffs off now? That asshole cop put them on way too tight.'
I didn't answer him. I didn't even look over. Then I remembered something I'd seen in the La Cienega Park playground a few weeks ago. I drove ten or twelve blocks and pulled into the parking lot that adjoined the park. It was just a half a mile west of Park La Brea. I pulled Jack out of the car.
'Where we going? What re you doin', dude?'
'You're a fugitive from the FBI?' I snarled. 'I've been running around for two days with a fucking bank robber?'
'Look… it's not as bad as it sounds,' he said.
But it was.
In fact, it was much worse.
Chapter 28
I dragged Jack across the park and over to the children's play area, and stood him next to the twelve-foot- long metal teeter-totter. Then I reached under and checked the bar fastening that hooked the teeter-totter to its base. It was still broken.
I'd been to this park two weeks earlier on a field interview and had watched some kids unbolt the seat plank on this piece of equipment. They had put it across a five-foot-high metal brace on the jungle gym a few yards away. They were using it to go way up in the air. It was dangerous, so I'd reported it to the Department of Recreation and Parks as soon as I left. But like everything else with this budget crunch, it had yet to be fixed.
Since it hadn't been repaired, I pulled the twelve-foot-long aluminum plank off and carried it over to the jungle-gym brace, setting it across the top just as those kids had done. Then I grabbed Jack, pulled one end down, undid his cuffs, and redid them by looping the chain through the metal support under the seat.
'What the fuck is this?' he shrieked. 'Whatta you doing?'
'Not the right question, Jack. The correct question is, what are you doing?'
'I was solving the case, asshole.'
'I told you we needed to go slow with those Mesa guys, but you go ahead and pull a black-bag job on their office anyway. Don't you ever listen to anybody?'
I saw him trying to come up with a way to play me.
Tin screwing around with you for two days, and all the time you're a federal bank fugitive? When did that happen? I thought you just got released. What'd you do, hit a bank up by Soledad on your way out of town?'
'I was broke. I needed cash. I had a disguise,' he protested. 'But they made me with a bank cam because of
