Cops were the last thing Mickey needed, but two L.A. police officers rose from the golf cart to intercept him. Suddenly one of them leaped behind the cart and drew his revolver.
“Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” he yelled.
His partner did the same thing and both of them pointed their weapons at Mickey. Mickey was so surprised that for a moment he didn’t understand what they were talking about. Then he felt Trinley’s gun in his hands and dropped it like a hot potato.
“Put your hands on your head!”
Mickey complied and the officers came around and cuffed him.
“I need to make a phone call,” Mickey said. He sure hadn’t expected Trinley to get results this fast.
“Too bad, hotshot. We’ve all got problems.”
“But this is important—“
He was about to say, it’s about the petroplague, but held his tongue. If he revealed too much, Christina and River might wind up in the same fix he found himself in. They ought to allow him a phone call at the station. He’d call River then.
For the second time that month, Mickey had his Miranda rights read to him. The words were the same, but everything else about the situation was distressingly different. Chaining River to a government building in the carnival atmosphere of a civil rights protest was a hell of a lot more fun than getting sent up for murder, or whatever Trinley had persuaded them to charge him with.
One of the cops, a steely-eyed thirty-something with several days of unshaven stubble on his chin, nudged Mickey into the golf cart.
“Sit down and don’t stand up,” he said, locking Mickey to the awning. “This isn’t a Disney ride.”
LAPD was taking him downtown in a golf cart. It was plain ridiculous. How could anybody take them seriously? He was mildly curious to see what silly improvisation they’d have to pull next.
Just as Mickey had done with the X-car, the cop steered the electric cart around and through the blocked streets. They were heading east toward downtown. An extraordinary number of people milled about on the streets. Many were carrying bags or dragging wheeled suitcases, a wary look in their eyes. Mickey discerned that few were traveling alone. The wanderers were assorted into groups, most likely for protection, like ancient tribesmen in a primitive world. When they saw the LAPD uniforms, people called out. Some complained, some cursed, others pleaded for help. The two cops pretended not to hear them, but Mickey saw the driver’s knuckles whiten and his partner’s right hand slip down to his holster.
The edgy, post-apocalyptic scene brought home to him how the thin veneer of civilization was breaking down. Even without a big quake, time was running out for Los Angeles.
“This is where you get off.”
They had arrived at a Metro station, the Wilshire/Western stop on the purple line. The plaza above ground was patrolled by National Guardsmen with rifles slung over their shoulders. One of the cops separated Mickey from the golf cart and twisted his arms painfully tight behind his back to guide him into the shiny, polished steel cube that covered the elevator to the subway. They rode it down to the station level where the cop spoke briefly to a guard and they were waved through to the escalator, which wasn’t moving. Mickey climbed down the stairs, trying not to stumble with his head pushed forward and his arms tied behind. The air rising from the subway smelled of sweat.
The subway platform was a scene of bedlam. Nearly all the people wore uniforms of some kind: LAPD, military, transit cops, EMS. Two ambulance stretchers bearing motionless bodies, one with an IV bag suspended above it, stood unattended a few feet from the track. The cop prodded Mickey down the platform toward what would be the end of the subway train when it arrived. There, one of the support pillars was wrapped with a simple small-link chain. Handcuffed to this makeshift security device were three other prisoners awaiting transport. Mickey made the group a foursome, one for each face of the pillar, like fish on a stringer. The officer who arrested him disappeared back toward the entrance.
“That ain’t how they supposed to do it,” one of the other men said. “They ain’t supposed to let us be.”
A clock on the wall said it was almost twenty past. In forty minutes, River would briefly turn on her phone, hoping to hear from him. It appeared Mickey wouldn’t be making that call. He tried to sit down and was able to rest his buttocks on the tile floor but this lifted his arms toward his head, which was painful. For the next half hour, he alternated between uncomfortable sitting and standing. When the guy locked next to him urinated against the pillar and a trickle flowed in his direction, Mickey stayed on his feet.
“Here come the train,” the chatty one said almost an hour after Mickey was left at the station.
A rush of wind and flash of headlights heralded the train’s arrival. The pillar blocked most of his view of the ensuing activity on the platform. Apparently the prisoner transfer was a low-priority task; by the time a cop came to release the four men, everyone else was already on board. The escort uncuffed one of Mickey’s hands and then locked it into the cuff of the guy behind him. In this way all four prisoners were secured into a small chain gang and loaded into the subway car.
The train stopped at each station, and by the time they reached the purple line terminus at Union Station, the accused had increased in number to ten. Mickey was fourth in line as they were led upstairs.
“It’s less than a mile walk,” said the police officer who met the train. “You’ll get something to eat and drink when you arrive if don’t give me any shit on the way.”
The area around L.A.’s county jail hub was not pleasant for walking, but at least they didn’t have to dodge moving traffic on the multilane streets as they passed one shuttered bail bonds operation after another. The hulking, windowless twin towers of the county correctional facility sucked the hope from Mickey’s soul.
I don’t want to go in there.
They passed through a barred gate at the perimeter of the expansive complex and were led into the inmate reception center.
At least this building has windows.
He knew from experience that police stations, like hospital ERs, were disorderly as a rule. But the scene that confronted him proved the criminal justice system in L.A. was stressed beyond its limits—and breaking. Inmates were locked to everything that didn’t move. Uniformed officers were nowhere to be seen. The room reeked of urine. Posters on the walls delineated prisoners’ rights and standard intake procedures, such as DNA testing and a medical exam for each man. But clearly none of the standard procedures was being followed. Men hollered for food and water.
The cop who brought them from the subway locked one of the inmates in Mickey’s chain to the post of a molded plastic chair, and got the hell out. Mickey wondered how the prisoners would be identified, how they would be booked and charged.
As he surveyed the abandoned human flotsam around him, he had the chilling sensation that they’d been left here to die.