I DIDN’T GET home until after dark. Booking D’Arcy into LCMC—Los Angeles County Medical Center—took hours. Homicide finally arrived to interview him as I walked out of the jail ward. One of the homicide detectives said to my back as I kept going and didn’t slow down, “Hey, you Bruno Johnson? We need to talk to you. Hold up.” I didn’t care if I talked to anyone else, didn’t think I could for at least a couple of weeks. I ignored him.
The deputy assigned to give me a ride home sensed my mood and didn’t say a word the entire trip. He made the turn onto Nord. Cars filled both sides of my street; many more double parked, leaving only a one-way path for two-way traffic to negotiate through. In my front yard a hundred people or more milled about a fifty-five-gallon drum burning bright with orange and yellow and red flames leaping five feet in the air. Inky black smoke rose into the dark moonless night. Someone used oil to burn in the drum along with the busted-up wooden pallet protruding out the top of the can. More pallets stood tall next to it. A drumfire, what the hell? With the kind of oppressive heat the two-year drought flung upon us day after day—those people in my yard didn’t have brain one. People who’d come to pay their respects, grieving brother officers who gathered together to be with others of their own kind. Some still wore uniform pants and boots with an off-duty holster. Others wore Levi’s and tee shirts with Sam Brown belts. All drank from red plastic cups, beer drawn from two kegs up by the house. At either end of the yard on the sidewalk, a deputy stood with a shotgun cradled in one arm, security, a statement to the type of neighborhood and to let everyone know now was not the time to mess around.
Ned didn’t have a house; he’d been staying at mine. That’s why they all came to Nord.
Everyone went silent when the black-and-white pulled up to let me off. The front door stood open. More people filled the house. Dad stepped out onto the naked stoop. I made my way through the crowd; some of the people I knew, a lot I didn’t. When I passed by, all of them reached out and put a hand on my shoulder or back and mumbled a weak-assed apology. No amount of sorry would help. Nothing would help.
Shadows from the fire danced around, creating a strobe in their faces and reflected in their eyes, deepening the overall sadness. A path in the crowd opened up to reveal Lieutenant Robby Wicks and Sergeant Coffman standing together sharing a pint bottle of Jack.
I approached them, all eyes on me now. A vast emptiness filled my insides. Wicks offered the pint to me. I waved it off. Neither one said anything. Though, I knew exactly what Wicks would say. In a few days after the sharp edge of loss simmered to a bearable heat, he’d take me aside and say, “When you chase violence, sometimes it turns and bites back.” An adage he carried around his back pocket that he thought soothed all ills. In his life maybe.
I spoke first. “I just came home to get my car. Would you have these guys clear cars away from mine so I can get out? I just want to talk to my dad, kiss my daughter, then I’m going back out.”
Coffman said, “Just where the hell you think you’re going tonight?”
“After Gadd.”
Coffman looked to Wicks, waiting for him to tell me no. Wicks held my eyes and said nothing. He tilted back the pint and took on two large gulps. Coffman looked pale, washed out, like a cut rose left out in the sun. He said, “What the hell, Bruno? We’ve got the whole damn department out looking for that asshole. What do you think you’re going to do that they can’t? And you’re a direct participant in what happened. You’re emotionally involved. No way. Department regs says no chance.”
“What am I going to do? I’m going to find him and—and take him down.” In the yard behind me stood too many witnesses to say what I really intended to do to Gadd.
“No you’re not,” Coffman said. “You’re off for two weeks. That’s an order.” This time he didn’t look at Wicks for approval.
Had the ram that Coffman wielded against the door at 11431 Willowbrook not bounced off, Ned and I would’ve been through the window of death in time to brace D’Arcy before he raised the gun. And Ned would still be alive. Even Tiny Tina could’ve taken that flimsy door with the ram, taken it down in one whack.
I lowered my voice and said to Coffman, “Time for you to retire, old man.” Words I knew I’d regret later on. As I passed by him heading to the porch, he took the dead cigar from his mouth and grabbed my arm. The wet smack of the cigar slapped up against my skin. He got right up in my face, angry, his breath hot and musty with tobacco. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that. You’re nothing but a wet-nosed punk, and you will do what I order you to do. You will take the time off.” He lowered his voice. “That thing at Merchants Bank could go a different way. I could tell the truth, put in my report that I ordered you to stand down and you went against a direct order. And, son, that’s a terminating offense.”
I lowered my voice even further, moved in closer almost up to his ear, and whispered, “I heard what you said to Tina Mitchell at the back of the ambulance. Who do you think she’ll back if it comes down to it? Put your papers in, old man, you’re through.”
Coffman staggered back, his tan face going even paler in the firelight, his mouth sagging open. In the shadowy light, he looked cadaverous.
Wicks screwed the cap onto the Jack and tossed it over the top of the crowd of grieving deputies. Someone caught it, pulled it down out of the air. Wicks said to me, “I’m going with you. Just let me get a shotgun and some extra magazines. I’ll meet you by my car in five.”
I looked back at Coffman as he eased down into a sitting position in the grass. I felt bad for having taken him off at the knees, but God damn I loved Ned. And if Coffman stuck around, he’d only get someone else hurt or killed. Even so, the sorrow I felt for Coffman didn’t penetrate that vast emptiness inside me. Only one thing would: putting a bullet in Gadd. I’d give him all six.