HEAT FROM THE sun woke me. I yanked my .357 from under my leg and sat bolt upright in my car looking around, looking for a threat, a target.
“Hey, partner, that can’t be good for the old ticker,” Ned said, from his window. He handed me a tall cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup from his vehicle still parked in the same place, and I brought my seat back up, put my gun back under my leg, and popped the lid of the coffee. The lukewarm brew, laden with cream and sugar, tasted wonderful. “Man, did I need this. Thanks … Hey, how did you get coffee when—”
“Gibbs came in to relieve me and Coffman. He ran this coffee over. He’s set up where Coffman was and has the eye on the location. Coffman’s gone home to get some sleep.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You looked like a walking cadaver. You needed the sleep.”
“You’re not kiddin’ about that.”
The neighborhood looked different in the light of day, not nearly as ominous. Most all of the houses sported gang graffiti and wrought-iron bars. None of the cars on the street would sell for more than a couple of hundred dollars, cracked windshields, faded paint, bald tires. A dog with mange stopped to sniff something in the street and kept on going.
I checked my watch, nine o’clock. CPS would be at the house taking custody of Beth. A coward, I didn’t want to tell him. He could find out by driving home. I hated myself for it.
“Okay,” I said, “I got this now. You can take off. Are you and Coffman still coming back in four hours?”
“I’m not leavin’. The banks open at nine—that’s right about now. That asshole Gadd blew his whole wad at the card club. He’s got to be hurtin’ for some cash. I’m not gonna miss out on all the action by going home and sleeping through it, no way. You cover for me now. I’ll sack out.”
“You got it.” I didn’t mind the delay. Maybe with a little more time I could work up the nerve to tell him about last night.
Ned put his seat down and disappeared below the door’s windowsill.
My conscience worked on me like a starving man on a rib bone. I couldn’t let him stay, not without telling him. I had to tell him. “Hey, Ned?”
His head popped back up. “Yeah?”
Gibbs came up on the radio. “Hey, our primary is moving. He’s got one poo-butt with him and they’re getting in the Lincoln.”
Ned readjusted his seat to the “up” position and started his car. “It’s showtime.”
My partner had called it right. Gadd didn’t go on the move that early with the children to go play b-ball. Yet another reprieve, I couldn’t tell Ned about Beth, not now. We needed him for the mobile surveillance. Sure, that was a good enough reason not to. He needed his head in the game.
We followed the Lincoln over to Alameda and straight up toward downtown LA. Gadd turned the same as he did the day before onto 101st Street, eastbound, and then made another hard right into the Jordan Downs housing projects. Gibbs and Ned automatically fell back. I followed them in. The black Lincoln circled around in the side streets almost as if looking for a tail, but his manner was too passive for it. The entire time, Gadd talked with the kid in the car using his hands to emphasise the lesson. The kid just continued to nod.
Gadd pulled up to the basketball courts. The kid jumped out. My heart dropped—he matched the description of Ollie’s nephew, Devon D’Arcy. Tall, chubby, his hair cut in a fade, a Cadillac medallion swinging from a chain around his neck. I’d worked the street long enough to know just by the way D’Arcy carried himself, the way he interacted with his peers, that he was too far gone to recover from his downward spiral into juvenile delinquency. The street had claimed another one. I didn’t know how I’d tell Ollie, but she probably already knew and just couldn’t accept it.
D’Arcy, with a weighted-down pillowcase in hand, met the three other boys on the sidewalk next to a metallic blue Pontiac and a white nondescript minivan. The pillowcase looked like it carried guns. Gadd, in his Lincoln, zoomed off.
For a long moment I didn’t know what to do, follow Gadd or continue the surveillance of the kids who were now armed. Then Gadd helped with the decision; he didn’t go far. He drove down the street, pulled a U-turn, stopped, and watched D’Arcy talk to the other three boys. D’Arcy now busy passing on the plan that Gadd had outlined.
I scrunched down in the seat and picked up the radio mike. “All right, this is it. They met with three other primaries and two vehicles—a white minivan and a metallic blue Pontiac. In a minute, they’re going to be heading out. Stand by, I’ll call which exit they take when they leave the projects. You’re going to have to pick them up. I’ll have to stay in here until they’re out or I’ll burn it. Be advised, our main primary will be following behind at a distance in the Lincoln.”
Gibbs and Ned both clicked their radios in acknowledgment. Even though kids were involved, I couldn’t help but feel the excitement of the thrill of the chase.
D’Arcy talked some more and then reached into the bag and handed out three handguns. He did it right in the open without hesitation, as if totally immune to the law. The three victims, now would-be bank robbers, nodded to what D’Arcy said. All three looked scared to death. D’Arcy finished his instructions and stuck out his fist the same as in preparation to the start of a basketball game. The other three fist-bumped him. They got in the blue Pontiac, started the car, and took off. D’Arcy looked down the block to the Lincoln and gave Gadd the thumbs-up. D’Arcy got in the white minivan and took off following the Pontiac. Gadd waited a minute, started up, and followed the minivan.
Before that moment we didn’t know that Gadd used an intermediary, D’Arcy, to further insulate himself from any crime. But now I’d witnessed his conspiracy as he set his caper in motion. For Gadd, P.C. 182 Conspiracy carried the same penalty as the crime. We could also hang on him the gun charges and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, multiple counts. Sure, we could put him away for all of those. But what I really wanted was to catch him with a gun in his hand and be able to pull a Ned, say to Gadd: “Peekaboo, asshole.” And pull the trigger. The thought of doing it, dropping the hammer on Gadd, made the sweat break out on my forehead and run in my eyes. Or it could have been the horrible summer heat.
Out on Alameda northbound, the blue Pontiac in the lead, followed by the white minivan, then the black Lincoln and then three members of the violent crimes team, stretched out for half a mile intermingled among unsuspecting citizens.
I came up on the radio and asked dispatch to call Coffman at home and to tell him the surveillance was in progress. To tell him that it was going down. A few minutes later dispatch came back up. “Sam three has been notified. He’ll be up on the surveillance in twenty minutes. We’ll keep him advised of your location.”
The conga line of cars wound its way up to the freeway and headed eastbound. They transitioned to the Pomona Freeway. When we crossed the Los Angeles County line, into San Bernardino County, per department policy, I notified dispatch and also told dispatch that we’d soon be out of radio range. Minutes later we got off at Central Avenue and headed south. I broadcast the location in the blind. We could no longer receive dispatch. I just hoped they could hear us.
The Pontiac, minivan, and Lincoln made a slow pass at Chino Merchants bank and continued on for a couple of blocks. Gadd pulled to the side of the curb on Central in a perfect position to watch the robbery go down. Ned came up on the radio. “I’m staying with the primary.” He pulled over a block from Gadd. Ned wanted a piece of Gadd just like I did, only Ned didn’t know the whole truth about Darkman.
The minivan and the Pontiac drove three more blocks, turned onto a side street, and pulled over. D’Arcy stuck his arm out the window of the van and pointed down to the asphalt street. This would be the rendezvous spot to dump the hot Pontiac and change into the white minivan that was not stolen, the van D’Arcy would be waiting in to casually drive away like Joe-citizen.
At that moment, I realized we didn’t have near enough cops to take down all these players. We needed six to ten more cops to do it right.
Ned came up on the radio, thinking the same thing. “Bruno, how are we going to take these guys down without firing a shot?”