Street Rules

He shoved the car into drive, hunching over the wheel. Finally he turned to his boss.

'You can't mean a cop?'

'Why not?'

'No way. No sir,' he insisted adamantly.

'Just calm down for a minute. Don't get squeamish on me. Tell me how long that family's been dealing.'

Bobby heaved one of his gargantuan shoulders, 'Forever. So?'

'So when was the last time any one of them got busted?'

'It's been a long time,' he admitted. 'So you're talking about a shakedown.'

'It's possible. It fits. Like Claudia claiming you brought donuts. It wasn't you or Nook. But Alicia said some cop brought donuts. Why? Who? Why would she say that? Why all the LAPD strikes all of a sudden? I mean there's always been some, but why this sudden proliferation at Tonio's hand? And it would absolutely explain why they're not talking, not retaliating, why they're afraid.'

'I don't like it,' Bobby maintained.

'I'm not asking you to like it; I'm asking you to consider it. Shit, I don't like it either, but this isn't lifting a bottle of Scotch or a leather jacket. It's not even lifting eight pounds of coke from a locker, man, it's murder. Wholesale murder.'

'Maybe,' Bobby corrected, as Frank always did when her men mistook supposition for fact.

'Maybe,' she agreed. 'That's all I'm saying. It's a possibility. And we shouldn't look the other way because we don't like what we see.'

'Isn't that being kind of hypocritical?'

'What do you mean?' Frank asked carefully.

'We looked the other way on Willie Larkin.'

Frank took in an iron works shop and the metal recycling center next door. They passed a body shop, then a sunroof and alarm store before she answered, 'That was different and you know it.'

A small-time hustler, Larkin'd been working the block since he could walk. His felony charges used more ink than the editorial section of the Sunday Times and at nineteen he'd already danced on two murder raps. One was an old bag lady, Crazy Sadie. She only weighed 90 pounds with all her clothes on, but Larkin had strangled her because she wouldn't give up her Walkman. The second charge he'd waltzed on was the shooting of Travis Jones. Larkin and his homes were hanging out at JayZ's poolhall while eight year-old Travis pedaled slowly down the street. One of the homes bet Larkin couldn't shoot the bike out from under him and Larkin bet a bottle of Olde English that he could. He took aim with his .44 and the boy went down, shot through his femoral artery. Larkin looked around for high-fives while the kid bled to death in the street. The homes who'd bet the 40-ouncer reneged and Larkin beat the shit out of him.

Eighteen months later the owner of JayZ's called in a 240, assault in progress. Sergeant Eric Venedez was first on the scene. By the time he got there Larkin and his wrestling companion had put away their knives, but both were still in flight after pounding 40s all day, and thought Venedez looked like some fun standing there all alone.

Witnesses claimed Venedez approached the men first. Venedez said they came to him. After a short, confusing scuffle, the outcome was a DOG, Larkin's foe turned ally 'dead on ground'. Witnesses said Venedez shot without provocation. Venedez said Larkins's buddy pulled a gun. No one in the bar had seen him with a gun, only a knife, but backup units and Nine-three detectives found a stainless steel .38 next to him. Everyone in Figueroa knew Venedez carried a stainless steel .38 drop gun and even the boots knew why. Venedez' frequent and vociferous rationale was, 'I'm not about to let twelve people who aren't even smart enough to get out of jury duty second- guess what I should or shouldn't do out there. My ass is on the line, not theirs.'

Venedez carried his luck with him that day, but Larkin left his at home with his brains. When he was patted down for his ride to the station, they found a 9mm on him, a 9mm he should have ditched the minute he saw Venedez pull his. Yet there it was, Venedez' defense riding in Larkin's waistband. Not one cop, Frank included, asked Venedez where his backup piece was. After inconclusive ballistics tests and autopsy findings came in, and not withstanding that no one in the bar had seen the dead man with a .38, Larkin went to the bing for a mandatory twenty-five.

In Larkin's case, the law was absent while justice stepped forward. Larkin killed in cold-blood; Venedez had killed in self-defense. Larkin belonged in jail; Venedez didn't. The logic was simple and Frank had succumbed to it, but not happily. Despite it's frequent and egregious errors, Frank believed in the system as a whole. Because homicide was the ultimate offense, she wasn't against bending the rules now and then to close a case. But no matter how justified Larkin's setup was, it dismayed her that she could so easily leap to the other side of the law.

'Looks like a double-standard to me,' Bobby argued softly.

'Then you're looking at it wrong. Venedez is one of the best uniforms we have. He does good work out there. What happened that day was an accident, but he'd have been left twisting in the wind for it. Whoever's bumping off the Estrellas isn't doing it by accident. This is cold, it's calculated, and it's deliberate. And where's it going to stop?'

'I still think you're barking up the wrong tree,' Bobby muttered.

Sipping around his braking and accelerating, Frank countered, 'Maybe, Picasso. But in case you haven't noticed, we're running out of trees to bark at.'

They were working south on Hoover, toward Compton.

They were obviously in Blood territory, because the project wall on Frank's right dripped, 'Bompton Krip Killas' in bright red paint. Frank considered the rash of anti-LAPD graffiti in Tonio's hood.

'Just play with it for a sec. Assume for the sake of argument that we're looking for a cop. Where do we start?'

'Damn,' Bobby swore his strongest oath.

'Where do you start?' Frank repeated patiently.

'I don't know. Surveillance?' her detective said reluctantly.

Frank hoisted an eyebrow.

'On your spare time, Nook's, or mine?'

'All right. We bug the house. Put in a camera.'

'Possible, but improbable. Unless we did it illegally.'

Bobby took a sideways glance at his lieutenant.

'It wouldn't be admissible anyway, so who'd know if we did it off the record.'

'Off the record,' Frank smirked. 'You're starting to sound like a reporter. If you were shaking them down would you be going to their house all the time?'

'Risky,' he conceded, his teeth sinking into the query. Frank knew once he bit down on it Bobby wouldn't let go until he'd thrashed out every possible answer. He was like a pit bull.

'Get Narco in on it,' he suggested.

'What if it is Narco? We don't know that. We still haven't looked too closely at Barracas. I gotta get his file. Maybe he's got some sticky fingers here. And that courier service. What the hell kind of front is that? Did you subpoena his IRS records yet?'

Bobby shook his head.

'We don't get Narco on this. Too risky. Next plan?'

Bobby negotiated a maze of blocks that had once been a proud neighborhood. Now the houses were crumbling and disintegrating. Trash spilled from them, blowing from yard to yard. Cracked, uprooted sidewalks glinted with broken glass.

A weedy lot with burned furniture and bullet-pocked appliances had become the local dump.

'How about we bust a move on Claudia and her kids? Hit them with what you know. Or what you think you know.'

'Now you sound like a cop,' Frank praised. 'But let's not do anything yet. In fact don't even mention it to Nook. Just think about it. Kick it around some while I run with it a little, okay?'

'You're the boss.'