Street Rules

arrived. Now she was sitting in the Alibi knocking back stouts. Johnnie smacked the table and she thought her crew was probably generating more noise then the rest of the bar combined.

'Blam! Blam! Blam! Just like that. Three in a row! Jesus Christ!'

Frank listened to their bitching with half an ear. She could do her own but didn't. She'd only managed to get to the Estrella's twice this week. Once she'd encountered only Gloria and the kids, the other time it was Claudia alone, but her pager had gone off after only a few minutes. She was tempted just to drag them all down to the station but didn't want push to come to shove. Something told her that might make the family clamp down even harder, and Frank had a new approach she wanted to try. She promised herself more time with them this weekend. Quality time, she thought sarcastically, especially with Tonio.

Diego vacated his chair and Noah slid into it, nudging Frank.

'So where's the doc?'

'Now why would I know that?' she asked.

'Come on,' Noah winked. 'I heard you two went to Santa Barbara last weekend. And you told me you were working,' he chided.

'I did. Worked all day Sunday.'

'I want to know what happened Saturday.'

'No big. Went for a ride, had lunch, saw some flowers. That's it.'

'That's it,' Noah repeated.

'That's it.'

Noah wagged his head. 'I used to have more respect for you, Frank. That woman's hot for you and you're just sniffing flowers.'

Frank smiled slightly at the innuendo, allowed it because it came from No. He was straddling the chair and she leaned close to his ear.

'I know you pride yourself on your match-making skills, buddy, but maybe the girl ain't as interested as you think. Might want to give this one a rest.'

'You mean she's not one with the Amazons?'

'I mean we're just friends. Period.'

'Why? Did you try something?' Noah pushed. 'You know for sure?'

'Sure enough.'

'Ah,' Noah whispered, 'Then no wonder you're hangin' with her. She's safe.'

Frank sat back, folding her arms over her chest. A sharp rejoinder leapt to her tongue but she bit it back, acknowledging instead, 'Maybe that's what I need right now.'

Diego was approaching them, so Noah stood up. Patting Frank on the shoulder, he nodded, 'True, dudess. True.'

The next morning, after punishing her hangover with a grueling workout, Frank headed into town. She caught Gloria and Tonio eating cereal and watching TV with the babies. Claudia and Alicia were in church. Frank asked a few questions and Gloria waved them away like they were gnats. No, Placa didn't have an ulcer. No, she didn't know where her sister went on the bus all the time. No, they didn't know anyone who owned a car with a tan interior. No, they didn't know anyone in the service.

Both of Claudia's children were surly and uncommunicative, until Frank asked Gloria why her brother was making strikes against the LAPD. The question sparked the young woman into a full-blown rage. She slammed her cereal onto the table, spilling most of it onto the floor and demanded Frank leave her house. Frank stayed on the arm of the couch, so Gloria turned her fury on Tonio, ordering him outside in his underwear. Scooping up the babies and dressed only in a sheer nightie, she followed her brother through the front door. Frank sighed, leaving a card near the dripping bowl. There was no one outside and Frank assumed Gloria had gone to a neighbors house. Tonio's bike had been locked to the porch when she came in, now it was gone. She drove around, unsuccessfully trying to find him.

Frank dropped by Lydia's on her way back to the office. She was lucky enough to catch La Reina sitting on the apartment steps with her home girls. They were pissed when Frank told them to leave and Lydia complained, 'Now what you want?'

'Nothing. Just tell me who you know that drives a car with beige or tan carpet on the floor.'

She couldn't think of any Playboys that did. Most of their rides were GTAs anyway, hot cars wired just for a spree then left abandoned. Frank made a note to check the GTAs twenty-four hours prior to Placa's death.

'She ever tell you about any cops?'

'She told me about you once. How you and that black guy used to be real nice to her when she was little. How the black guy always was wantin' her to go to art school.'

'She talk about anybody else? Any other cops?'

Lydia cracked her gum, wagged her head.

'Tell me who she was dealing to.'

'I already tolt you I don't know. She never said nothin' to me about that.'

'I got a lab report says she was handlin' shit right before she died, and she was with you before she died.'

'Well, she musta been playin' with it before she seen me, 'cause I don't know nothin' 'bout no dope.'

'I understand your man's out.'

'Yeah,' she shrugged.

'That's not good news?'

'S'okay.'

Frank almost smiled at her ambivalence. She was beginning to see how this spunky girl would have appealed to Placa. La Reina was a tough kid, not to be underestimated, but she wore her heart on her sleeve.

'Did you love Placa?'

Lydia's head drooped and she mumbled, 'I don't know. She was different from the boys. She was nice to me. She'd treat me respectful like.'

'I knew her since she was this big.'

Frank's hands made a shape the size of a basketball.

'I loved her too,' she said simply, watching amazement grow in Lydia's eyes. Slipping her another business card, she said, 'Call if you think of anything.'

Driving back to the office, a nasty thought skipped around in Frank's head. After she'd read Luis Estrella's lab reports, she'd done some subtle snooping around on Hunt. Going through the old Figueroa news letters, she found the issue profiling Hunt's rodeo exploits. He was a champion team roper and kept a stable of horses in Simi Valley. The article also mentioned John Knowles, Hunt's equally successful teammate in the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and his old partner at Hollywood.

Hunt was a good old boy from up north, an Okie who'd started out with the Fresno PD. He'd hired onto the LAPD at Hollywood, then been demoted to Shootin' Newton after a handful of unsubstantiated unnecessary force charges. His transfer from Newton came after another unfounded charge that he'd beaten a handcuffed prisoner badly enough to send him into ICU, followed by clouded allegations about his and Knowles involvement with a kilo of coke missing from the Newton evidence locker.

She'd snooped around about Knowles too. He was as ugly with his fists as Hunt, and because of it had been busted back to regular patrol. Frank played with the idea that Hunt and Knowles had walked off with the key, and that they were still partners, not in law, but against it. She had a list of things to check — Knowles whereabouts on the night of the Estrella shootings, whether Hunt knew Barracas while he was at Hollywood, what kind of car Knowles drove . . . she knew she was grasping, but it was about all she had to go and oddly enough her leads were all tying in somehow to Hunt and his partner. Even while she told herself that she was working a SWAG, just some wild-ass guess, the evidence continued pointing toward Hunt. So she followed it.

At the station she made coffee, figuring it was time to sweat Tonio hard, make him pop a name or too. She didn't even consider Gloria. Even with kids, she still hadn't mellowed. She was tough, like her sister, and Frank knew she'd relish going against Frank. No matter what Frank did to her, it would be Gloria's personal triumph not to break. Claudia seemed the most afraid and the one who knew the most, but she wasn't breaking either. Tonio was