~ THIRTEEN ~

Nothing in her personal life had changed, but there was zero possibility Josie would work late that night. A baby had died and for some inexplicable reason her kid had become so much more vulnerable. It was stupid because Ashley’s death didn’t affect David or her family. Her fear was irrational, but the job had made her that way. She’d seen too many dead babies, too many evil human beings willing to hurt and kill for no reason. Random malevolence was scary stuff, so she’d come home earlier tonight to be with her son. By tomorrow the apprehension would pass and she’d be able to work again.

Jake had a late meeting in the district attorney’s office and when he called to tell his mother she’d probably have to sleep over again, he was surprised but sounded happy to hear Josie’s voice.

“Have you looked in the spare bedroom yet?” he asked after she told him David had been fed, bathed, and put to bed by his mother. Mrs. Corsino had stayed a few minutes trying to be pleasant and making an effort to communicate with her daughter-in-law, but Josie wasn’t in the mood for conversation, so the older woman reluctantly said good night and went home.

“No, why would I,” she answered, suspiciously. Josie wondered what he and Nonna had conspired to do that would piss her off this time.

“Go upstairs and tell me what you think. I’ll wait.”

She did and opened the door next to David’s. It had been their junk room, an extra bedroom that had never had any real purpose. Most of the old furniture and all the boxes were gone. In the middle of the room was a shiny black baby grand piano, a small couch that had been in the downstairs den against the wall, and two empty bookcases.

“Holy shit,” she said too loud, and put her hand over her mouth thinking David might have heard her, but no sound came from his room. She turned off the light, closed the door, and went to the master bedroom where she picked up the receiver near her side of the bed.

“Where did that come from? Can we afford something that expensive?”

He laughed and said, “I had it delivered this morning, after mom and I cleaned the room and no we can’t afford it, but I bought it on time, a hundred and fifty bucks a month for the rest of our lives. Do you like it?”

“I love it, but I can’t play. What does David think? Has he tried it yet?”

“He did, great sound. He loves it too. Mom and I were hoping you’d be home after he went to bed; otherwise, he’d spoil our surprise.”

Josie couldn’t remember the last time she felt this good about her mother-in-law. Nonna and even Jake had never supported David’s piano lessons, complained he was too young and needed to be outdoors more. Buying a piano was something Josie alone had been determined to do.

“What made you and your mom have this change of heart about lessons?” She had to ask.

“Guess I felt guilty about not putting him in those special classes without discussing it with you first.”

She didn’t pursue his explanation for this sudden turnaround, but when Josie hung up, her suspicious nature kicked in and she wondered what the real cost of this Steinway was eventually going to be.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night. She got up twice to check on her son for no particular reason. The second time, she found Jake still dressed in his business suit standing near the bunk bed watching the boy.

“When did you get home?” she asked, after he gave her a long, I’ve-really-missed-you kiss.

“About an hour ago, had some work to finish downstairs. Are you really okay with the piano?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

David wiggled onto his other side. She turned to leave and motioned for Jake to follow.

They went to their bedroom, made love, and Josie was finally able to shut down her thoughts and fall asleep.

The next morning, Nonna didn’t come, so Josie could spend time alone with her son helping him get ready for school, making breakfast and waving as the bus pulled away from the corner. She would be late for work but didn’t care. Life would get back to normal by tonight . . . anyway her idea of normal. The anxiety had eased, and she was once again thinking about Superman’s killer and the irritating possibility of another dirty cop.

TOMIC WAS waiting in the Hollywood narcotics office when Josie arrived. Vern had been subpoenaed back to court and would probably be there for the rest of the week. He took Maddy, so she could observe and learn the proper way to testify. She had two cases in court at the end of the week where she’d found rock cocaine in suspects’ pockets while working patrol and she would have to testify too. Josie and Tomic would team up again until they returned.

Before she could sit at her desk, Lieutenant Watts, who couldn’t see into the squad room but must have heard her voice, shouted for her to come into his office. She shrugged at Tomic who made a fist with his right hand, pretending it was a puppet and whispered, “It’s Howdy Doody time.”

“Yes, sir?” she asked, and at the lieutenant’s request closed the door behind her.

He pointed at the chair in front of his desk. He was sitting behind the desk and still hadn’t looked up at her.

She sat and waited until he finished writing before repeating, “Yes, sir?”

Curtis and Donny and some of the Venice squad must have arrived. The activity and volume of noise outside the lieutenant’s door had increased. Watts stared at the door. She knew he’d never admit the raucous cop banter annoyed him because he wanted to be accepted as one of them, but they had already decided, in a lot of significant ways, he wasn’t and never would be.

“I’m worried about the Hollywood squad,” he said, sighing and leaning back in his chair. “There’s just too much smoke.”

“Sorry, what?” Josie asked, genuinely confused.

“Gilbert or whatever you call him . . . Too Tall, he’s an addict and a thief; Art has disappeared; Tomic is accused of stealing heroin, not to mention his informant . . . what’s his name, Kent, is killed right after the two of you meet with him. There’s more but . . . a lot of smoke.”

“So what are you trying to say? You think Larry Tomic and I are dirty because Too Tall was an addict and tried to frame my partner.” She was angry, but her voice was calm and strong. “You should know informants get killed all the time. Kent knew it. He even joked about us taking out a life insurance policy on him.”

“Look, Corsino, I’m not accusing you or Tomic of anything. I just want you to know people are talking about how much corruption has touched your Hollywood squad. You have a potentially promising career and we don’t want you to get caught up in the mire of what may or may not be going on in there,” he said, pointing at the closed door.

“We?”

“Captain Clark and I were discussing the possibility of promoting you to Detective III to fill a position in the administrative unit. You’d have to take the oral exam, of course, but you’re the best candidate in the division. This promotion would be a stepping-stone, make you eligible in a year to take the lieutenant’s test. Just think about it,” he said, before she could respond.

Josie wanted to tell him what unnatural thing to do with his admin position but instinctively kept that thought to herself. She had dreamed of becoming a Detective III in the Hollywood squad and filling Behan’s job. She would have jumped at that offer, but also recognized ambition was her Achilles heel. She was savvy enough in department politics to realize turning down this offer would be stupid and deadly for her future in Narcotics division.

The most disappointing aspect of the admin job was leaving the field. The position was attractive because it meant regular hours to be home with her family and maybe even eliminate the need for Nonna’s presence and influence in their daily lives. The bigger picture was she loved narcotics street enforcement but wanted to be a lieutenant too . . . eventually, come back here, take Watts’s job and do it the right way.

“Okay, thank you, I’ll think about it,” she said, getting up. “Is that all, sir?”

Now he looked directly at her and said, “Yes, but keep your eyes open and don’t wait too long to make your decision, Corsino. Any taint of dishonesty or unsavory behavior will ruin your chances for what could be an exceptional opportunity.”

Threat received and understood, she thought, returning to the squad room where conversation stopped, and all eyes were on her.

She shook her head and mouthed the word, “later.”

“Oh, come on,” Curtis whined, and whispered, “Outside?”

They gathered their utility bags and other gear as if they were leaving to work the streets. In the parking lot, as they loaded up their cars, Josie told them everything that had been discussed in the lieutenant’s office including the offer of a promotion.

Donny congratulated her, but Tomic and Curtis stood silent.

“You think it’s a bad move?” Josie asked Tomic.

“No, I think it’s a great opportunity but for all the wrong reasons. They want you out of here. That’s for sure.”

“You’ll go crazy in an office,” Curtis said. “But on the other hand, as soon as a three spot opens up in the field, you can go for it, transfer back to an enforcement squad . . . maybe here. You got scary tactics, lady, but you’d be a great boss and I’d work for you anytime,” he said, grinning.

“Thanks, Curtis . . . I think. Why would they want me out of here, Tomic?”

“Damned if I know, but I recognize shit when I smell it. Captain Clark hates your guts because you made him look like the fool he is, and our lieutenant isn’t exactly the mentoring type. The only person he ever thinks of promoting is himself, so why are they making you an offer you can’t refuse?”

“I can do admin stuff but I’m not that good. There are a dozen detectives at my rank who would be better,” she said and gently punched Donny’s arm. “You would be better.”

“Probably,” Donny said matter-of-factly.

Josie smirked and said, “We have time to figure this out before I have to give him my answer. Until then, don’t taint me with your unsavory behavior.”

They looked at each other and then at her with quizzical expressions at first that seemed to ask, “was that a joke?” followed by “did-you-just-insult-us?” scowls. She smiled but didn’t bother to explain. Thin skins didn’t survive in this squad, so she figured her comments would be cast off as some sort of indiscernible girl humor.

Curtis and Donny got into their car to begin the daily prowl, searching the streets for Hollywood’s abundant drug dealers. Tomic told Josie he wanted to break their similar routine and find Art first. Josie agreed because she guessed the missing detective might have information about Butch and her instincts told her Superman’s skinny blue-haired ex-lover was the key to who had killed their informant. She also hoped Butch might give them a clue to Raven’s identity, the alpha bird and likely contact for all that missing cocaine Kent was supposed to have delivered to his bevy of feathered friends. If it was another dirty cop, the Hollywood squad needed to find and arrest that person to prove all those corruption red flags were wrong.

Before his arrest and termination, Too Tall was looking for the missing cocaine and Butch. He might have discovered something that would help them find Butch who was hiding not only from the police but from his benefactor Abby Morrison. Art had always been Too Tall’s shadow and like a human sponge, unobtrusively absorbed everything he saw or heard. If his partner knew something, Art did too, but Josie was certain that unlike Too Tall, he was timid and could be bullied.

She believed it would have been understandable if Too Tall had refused to talk to them but strange that Art had disappeared and wouldn’t contact anyone in the department. He hadn’t been accused of anything, but his job was in jeopardy not only because he knew and ignored Too Tall’s addiction but because of his unexplained lengthy absence. Most likely he would get fired, but he’d earned a pension, a small one; nevertheless, it was there to claim. Josie wondered why he didn’t just resign or retire, take his monthly check and go away. The whole disappearing act didn’t make sense to her.

The client address on the dry-cleaning bill Tomic found in Art’s desk was in Venice on a street close to the canals. That area had been populated by beat generation diehards, hippies, college professors, and left-wing radicals who couldn’t quite let go of the minimalist lifestyle demanded by the anti-war and other revolutionary movements.

Real estate developers were steadily and quietly buying up the dilapidated buildings along the canals and researching ways to clean the stagnant smelly water. There was talk about reviving the neighborhood with expensive, trendy homes or condominiums. Garage apartments and rent-controlled housing would soon be things of the past.

Josie had lived near this place during a lengthy undercover assignment earlier in her career. It was the hub of counterculture activism. She always figured that proximity to the ocean and the prospect of clean canals would inevitably destroy the funky Venice she knew and loved. It would eventually evolve taking with it the last remnants of life from the fifties, sixties, and seventies, those tumultuous, outrageous decades of change unlike any others. To her surprise, it made her a little sad.

“That’s the one,” Tomic said, pointing at a duplex set back from the street as he parked his car about a half block away. “The right side is his place. Piece of crap car in front is registered to him.”

She saw a silver Toyota in the driveway and all the curtains were closed in that unit.

“So how do you want to do this?” Josie asked.

“The usual, I’ll knock, and you grab him when he runs out the back.”

“No reason to change a perfect plan.”

The yard wasn’t fenced so Josie could easily work her way behind the property next door and wait by the back door where she could intercept Art’s escape. The canal ran directly behind the duplex and the rancid smell cautioned it had become the watery grave of human waste and other nasty garbage. As she looked around, Josie thought the neglected broken sidewalks, piles of debris in every yard, and out of control shrubs and weeds completed the picture of a place where someone had a vested interest in making it uninhabitable for current residents.

After a few minutes, she began to worry. She hadn’t heard the usual banging on the front door, no shouting or panicky dash out the back. What was Tomic doing, she wondered, and was about to move around to the front of the house when the screen door opened slowly. Art was holding it for her to enter.

“Hi, Josie, come in,” he said as if the last week had never happened.

Tomic was standing behind him beside an older blonde woman who had her long thick hair loosely braided and hanging down her back. Art stepped aside, allowing Josie to enter and she followed him into the living room. The woman’s name was Kit. She owned the house and the four big dogs that ignored everyone but their mistress. They sat around her like a security force, daring anyone to reach in and attempt to touch her. Art hovered behind her chair almost as if she were a shield. He was wearing a faded blue T-shirt and sweatpants, socks but no shoes, and his normally neatly trimmed hair was shaggy and seemed a lot grayer than the last time Josie had seen it. She thought he looked weary and older.

There was ample seating in the small but uncluttered room. The place reminded Josie of those houses where she’d hung out during her undercover days. There were always plenty of chairs for comrades or fellow activists to sit and endlessly debate “the marvelous foursome”: Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao. She always viewed those discussions as political masturbation—made them feel great for a while but otherwise a pointless and self-indulgent exercise that could never lead to what they wanted, the equivalent of sex or better yet, love, which in their case translated to the violent overthrow of the United States government.

Kit offered drinks and went into the kitchen, followed by the dogs and Josie. There was no chance Josie would leave this woman or Art alone in a room before she or Tomic had a chance to look for weapons. She relaxed a little because the couple appeared to be very much at ease. Kit even joked about finally getting Art to leave the house now that he had been found.

“Why was he afraid to leave?” Josie asked, helping her take glasses out of the cupboard. The dogs, two German shepherds, a rottweiler, and some breed of white shaggy terrier, must have decided she wasn’t a threat and rubbed gently against Josie’s legs as she moved around the kitchen.

“He really won’t talk about it, but anybody can see he’s scared shitless about something,” Kit said.

Josie had a gut feeling Kit, who came across as uncomplicated, maybe a touch simple, wasn’t telling the truth. She guessed the woman was in her late forties or fifties. She was heavyset and wore baggy lounging pants and a man’s dress shirt. She had very pale skin, didn’t wear makeup, had a nonchalant almost careless manner, and seemed to Josie more like a mother or confidante than a lover to Art.

“How do you know him?”

Kit snorted a quick laugh and said, “He came here in uniform one night years ago after I called the police. I thought I heard a prowler. There wasn’t one, but we hit it off and we’ve been friends ever since.” She poured lemonade in four glasses and handed two of them to Josie, adding, “My place has become his refuge.”

“Refuge from what?”

“This time? Who knows, but whatever it is, he’s scared. I can tell you that much,” Kit said, picking up the other two glasses and leading the way back into the living room.

The two men were sitting side by side on the couch now. Their conversation seemed intense, not loud but angry. They looked up at the same time and stopped talking.

“What?” she asked the two expressionless faces staring at her and gave Tomic one of the glasses.

He put the drink on the coffee table and stood. “Let’s get out of here, Corsino,” he said.

“No way, sit down and tell me what’s going on.”

His lips tightened and then came the Tomic sneer, his go-to reaction when he knew she wasn’t allowing him to boss her around. “We’re wasting our time with this asshole,” he mumbled and sat on the edge of the couch with his arms crossed, glaring at her.

“What did you tell him, Art?” she asked.

Art glanced at Kit who was sitting on a card-table chair she’d moved closer to him. Her expression was frozen in a fake smile, so he turned to Josie.

“I didn’t do anything,” he whined, avoiding eye contact with her. “I told him Too Tall might’ve been taking money from the Testas.”

“Might’ve been taking money?” Josie asked incredulously. “Stop bullshitting. You know he took money . . . to do what?”

“Give Abby a heads-up on vice raids . . . drug busts, that kind of stuff,” he answered timidly.

“What’d you say to Tomic just now that pissed him off?” she asked, looking at her partner.

Art took a deep breath and said, “His warrant last month at Cozy’s on Melrose, that’s a Testa place. They knew we were coming.”

Josie remembered serving that search warrant. They had buys inside the club. It was almost a guarantee they’d find cocaine but came up dry, not a speck of rock or white powder, not even a dirty razor blade or rolled-up dollar bill.

“How much did they move before we got there?”

“About . . . twenty kilos,” Art said hesitantly.

“No wonder you’re pissed,” Josie said, turning to Tomic who was visibly on low boil. They all knew that would have been the largest cocaine seizure a narcotics field enforcement unit had ever made, probably more than any of the major violator squads had come up with this year.

“Maybe you didn’t rat us out, asshole, but you knew what your partner was doing and didn’t say or do anything to stop him,” Tomic said.

Josie could tell it was tormenting him not to swoop down on Art and beat twenty-kilos worth of satisfaction out of the frightened little man.

“They woulda killed me. Look what she did to your snitch,” Art blurted out.

“You know for a fact the Testas killed Superman?” Josie asked.

“That’s what Gilbert told me . . . Abby had Kent taken out.”

“Too Tall told you he knew Abby killed my snitch?” Tomic repeated with more than a hint of skepticism.

Art nodded and said, “If they find me, I’m a dead man too.”

“Why? What else are they afraid you’ll blab?” Tomic asked.

“I know they got a contract on that blue-haired little creep,” Art said, his voice growing stronger.

“Butch?”

“Don’t remember his name. Whatever reason Too Tall gave you for finding him was a lie. He was helping the Testas. They wanted their coke and a pound of flesh.”

“Was Too Tall dealing for the Testas . . . is he Raven?” Josie asked.

Art had a puzzled expression and finally shook his head and said, “Nah, he got paid for information, that’s all. He’s a hype, needs money to buy heroin . . . anything he can’t steal.”

“Is there another cop working for the family?” she asked.

“How should I know. They got judges and city councilmen. I’m guessing buying another cop’s no big deal.”

Suddenly Josie had an urge to hit him. It was a big deal. Art and his partner had tarnished all of them. In the public’s mind . . . hell, in the department brass’s mind, it was never just one or two bad cops. The rest of us had to know or should’ve known, she thought, and any compassion she might’ve felt for this pathetic soon-to-be ex-cop was gone. She would do her best to see him and his partner behind bars.

Josie put the handcuffs on Art because she knew Tomic hated doing it. He was squeamish about arresting other police officers, even this one who had cost him his moment of glory. She wasn’t. In her opinion, dirty cops were like any other criminal, only worse. Respect and preferential treatment belonged to the warriors, not the imposters.

Art seemed almost relieved when he realized he was being arrested. He was willing to give up everything he knew about his ex-partner’s criminal activities and was smart enough to figure out he’d probably get immunity for providing the district attorney with “bigger fish.” He led them to a floor safe in Kit’s bedroom, removed a notebook, and gave it to Josie. True to his fastidious nature, he’d kept a detailed accounting of everything Too Tall had done for Abby. Josie thumbed through pages filled with dates, times, payments, and copious notes, his insurance policy, he claimed, in the event Too Tall or the Testas threatened him.

The notebook documented Art’s accusations and it was enough with his signed statement to temporarily put him behind bars as an accessory. However, Josie was fairly certain the DA wouldn’t file charges on anybody including Too Tall or Abby based solely on what Art had given her. It was a start, but she knew they’d have to find independent corroborating evidence. Until then, Art would be safely tucked away in a Central Jail cell isolated from other prisoners so the Testas couldn’t get to him.