She frowned, annoyed. 'I'm Samantha Dolan, you idiot. Get up to speed.'
And this woman wanted to sleep with me.
The Rampart Division station house is a low-slung, brown brick building facing Rampart Street a few blocks west of MacArthur Park, where Joe Pike had first met Karen Garcia.
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We parked in a small lot they have behind the place for officers, then entered the division through the back. This time Dolan didn't tell me to keep my mouth shut and try to look smart. Looking smart would be out of place in a station house anyway.
Dolan badged our way into the Juvenile Section, which was microscopic in size, just four detectives attached to the robbery table in the corner of a dingy room. Where Parker Center and the Robbery-Homicide offices were modern and bright, the detective tables at Rampart seemed faded and small, with outdated furniture that looked as tired as the detectives. Rampart was a high crime area, and the detectives there busted their asses, but the cases rarely made headlines, and no one was lounging around in six-hundred-dollar sport coats waiting to be interviewed on
Dolan zeroed on the youngest detective in the room, badged him, and introduced herself. 'Samantha Dolan. Robbery-Homicide.'
His name was Murray, and his eyebrows went up when she said that.
'I know you, don't I?'
She gave him the smile. 'Sorry, Murray. Don't think we've met. You mean from the TV show? '
Murray couldn't have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. He was clearly impressed. 'Yeah. You're the one they made the show about, right?'
Dolan laughed. She hadn't laughed when I'd mentioned her show, but there you go. 'These Hollywood people, they don't know what being a detective really means. Not like we do.'
Murray smiled wider, and I thought if she told him to roll over and bark, he wouldn't hesitate. 'Well, that was some case you put together. I remember reading about it. Man, you were news.'
'Hey, it's just Robbery-Homicide, you know? We get the hot cases, and the press tags along. No different than what you do here.'
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Dolan didn't look good playing modest, but maybe that was just me.
Murray asked how he could help her, and Dolan said that she wanted to look at an old juvie packet, but she didn't have a court order for it. When Murray looked uneasy about that, she grew serious and leaned toward him. 'Something we got down at Parker Center. Headline case, man. The real stuff.'
Murray nodded, thinking how cool it would be to work the real stuff.
Dolan leaned closer. 'You ever think about putting in for RHD, Murray? We need sharp cops who know how to make the right call.'
Murray wet his lips. 'You think you could put in a word forme?'
Dolan winked at him. 'Well, we're trying to find this kid, you see? So while we're reading his file, maybe you could run a DMV check and call the phone company. See if you can't shag an address for us? '
Murray glanced at the older detectives. 'My supervisor might not like it.'
Dolan looked blank. 'Gee. I guess you shouldn't tell him.'
Murray stared at her a moment longer, then got busy.
I shook my head. 'You're something, all right.'
Dolan considered me, but now she wasn't smiling. 'Something, but not enough.'
'Let it go.'
She raised her hands.
Twenty minutes later we had the file and an interview room, and Murray was making the calls.
Laurence Sobek had been booked seven times from age twelve to age sixteen, twice for shoplifting and four times for pandering. The DOB indicated he would now be in his late twenties. Abel Wozniak was twice the arresting officer, first on the shoplifting charge, then later for the second pandering charge. Sobek's most recent booking photo, taken at age sixteen, showed a thin kid with a wispy mustache, stringy hair, and aggravated acne. He looked timid and cowed.
At the time of his arrests, he had lived with his mother, a
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Mrs. Brasilia Sobek. The record noted that she was divorced, and had not come to pick up her son or meet with the officers any of the seven times.
Dolan scowled. 'Typical.'
Murray interrupted us, knocking once before opening the door. He looked crestfallen.
'Doesn't have a California driver's license and never had one. The phone company never heard of him, either. I'm really sorry about this, Samantha.' He was seeing his chance at the hot stuff fizzle and melt.
'Don't worry about it, bud. You've been a help.'
The booking sheets showed that his mother had lived in an area of South L.A. called Maywood.
I said, 'If she's still alive, maybe we can work through the mother. You think she's still at this address?'
'Easy to find out.'
Dolan made a copy of the booking photo, then used Murray's phone to call the telephone company.
As Dolan called, Murray sidled up to me. 'You really think I got a shot at Robbery-Homicide?'
'Murray, you've got the inside track.'
Three minutes later we knew that Laurence Sobek's mother was still down in Maywood.
We went to see Drusilla Sobek.
Detective Murray was disappointed that he could not tag along.
Drusilla Sobek was a sour woman who lived in a tiny stucco house in a part of Maywood that was mostly illegal aliens come up from Honduras and Ecuador. The illegals often lived eighteen or more to a house, hot-bedding their cots between sub-minimum-wage jobs, and Drusilla didn't like it that they'd taken over the goddamned neighborhood. She made no bones about it, and told us so.
She peered at us heavily from her door, her flat face wrinkled and scowling. She was a large woman who filled the door. 'I don't want to stand here all goddamned day. These
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Mexicans see me here with this door open, they might get ideas.'
I said, 'These folks are from Central America, Mrs. Sobek.'
'Who gives a shit? If it looks like a Mexican and talks like a Mexican, it's a Mexican.'
Dolan said, 'We're trying to find your son, Mrs. Sobek.'
'My son's a faggot whore.'
Just like that.
When she'd first come to the door, Dolan had badged her, but Mrs. Sobek had said we couldn't come in. She said she didn't let in strangers, and I was just as glad. A sour smell came from within her house, and she reeked of body odor. Behind the hygiene curve.
I said, 'Can you give us an address or phone number, please?'
'No.'
'Do you know how we can find him?'
