THEY CLEARED AND headed toward the precinct. It was still a little early to start back, so instead of taking the freeway they angled north through the district.
Hanson heard Aaron Allen’s Cadillac before he saw it, heard Wardell the DJ from the stolen, cracked, hissing speakers, raving like an evangelist predicting the end of the world, “… that’s right, uh huh! We down here at Fred’s ‘Total Detail’–the detail shop that does it all! An’ we talkin’ to Fred hisself, Detail Fred, my main man here on the Ava-new. I take my ride to Fred, knowin’ he gonna treat me right, an’ I leave with my ride lookin’ good, looking right, impress some young laa-aay-aidees tonight …”
Hanson gave radio their location as he pulled in behind him. He bleeped the siren, but Aaron didn’t even glance up in his rearview mirror.
“How about hitting the overheads,” Hanson said, watching Aaron’s head and shoulders.
“If this goes to court,” Duncan said, “what’s your probable cause for the stop?”
“He’s weaving …”
“I didn’t see it.”
Hanson looked at him and almost rear-ended the Caddy. Duncan turned on the overheads, but the huge, rust-scabbed red car rolled on like a boat in choppy water, shocks destroyed, tires almost flat, the diamond-shaped rear window awash in blue and red light, Wardell yelling over the radio, “… Fred, tell all those people out there listnin’ to Wardell about your Roun’ The Worl’ Detail Special you offerin’ this week.”
“Wardell, we offerin’ a …”
“He was weaving,” Hanson said.
Each time the Caddy hit a pothole, loose wiring in the radio speakers shorted out, cutting Wardell off for a moment.
“How much you chargin’ for that Roun’ the Worl’, Fred?”
Hanson was about to tell radio that they had an “attempt-to-elude,” though the Cadillac hadn’t increased its speed, when it pulled into a dark parking lot in the shadow of an abandoned warehouse.
“Wardell, for one week only, we gonna …”
“Twenty dollars for everything. Right, Fred?”
“Well, uh-huh, that’s …”
“All right! Thank you, Fred. Now let’s go to the B.T. Express an’ ‘I’ll Take You There.’”
The doors of the Caddy flew open and five or maybe six kids bolted into the dark while it was still rolling. Aaron sat behind the wheel, illuminated by the strobing overhead lights of the patrol car, the radio booming out bass.
“Get out of the car,” Hanson said, opening the door, keeping the beam of his flashlight in Aaron’s eyes. Duncan stood just back from the open rear door, hand on his holstered pistol.
The car was full of Twinkies, hundreds of them, some loose and others still in boxes of twenty on the seats and floor, along with half a case of “Annie Greensprings” wine. The smell of marijuana was strong.
Aaron stared out the windshield as if he was alone in deep space, his dilated pupils black and cold as a crippled hawk’s.
“Out of the car.”
He didn’t seem to notice Hanson until he reached in to turn off the ignition.
“Don’t touch my shit, man,” he said, shoving Hanson’s hand away.
Hanson jerked him out of the car in mid-sentence, bounced him off the door and slammed him face down on the trunk.
“You touch me again,” Hanson grunted, bouncing him off the trunk, “you little fuck,” kicking his legs apart, “and I’ll break your hand.”
Duncan handcuffed him and put him in the back of the patrol car. Five Eighty, Zurbo and Neal, drove up as Hanson was running a record check. They looked in the Cadillac and turned off the ignition, killing the radio. Zurbo jingled the ring of keys he’d taken from the Cadillac as they walked back to to Hanson’s car.
“Twinkies and Annie Greensprings,” Zurbo said. “I think that covers all the major food groups. Is he fucked up?”
“He doesn’t even know what town he’s in,” Hanson said. “Hey, we’ll be happy to give you the DWI arrest.”
Zurbo laughed. “No thank you.”
“Two hours of paperwork,” Neal said, leaning down to shine his flashlight at Aaron, “for nothing.”
“Besides, it’s time to go to the club,” Zurbo said. “Maybe we’ll see you there later. It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours to inventory all those stolen Twinkies and log ’em in down at the property room.”
“Twinkies? What Twinkies?”
“Let’s get a picture and go home,” Zurbo said when he’d stopped laughing. “I don’t have one of Aaron.” They turned off all the lights and Hanson took Aaron out of the patrol car.
“What kind of pills you been taking tonight, Aaron?” Neal asked as Hanson walked Aaron to the front of the Caddy.
“I don’t take no dope.”
“You’re free to go,” Hanson said, taking off the handcuffs, “as soon as we get a picture.”
Aaron turned and looked at him, summoning up the will he needed to fight the dope in his system. “Suck my dick, Hanson. You can take me to jail if you got a charge, but you can’t have a picture of me until I’m eighteen,” Aaron said, eyes gleaming in the dark parking lot, as Zurbo put his camera down and walked to the Caddy. “By then I be pimpin’ whores in L.A.,” he said, grabbing his crotch, “white bitches sucking my black cock while I drink Chevis Regal and you still here in the rain writing parking tickets, motherfucker.”
“What’s this for?” Zurbo said, pulling a tire iron from under the seat.
“For changing tires, my man.”
Zurbo put it on the roof.
“You want to be careful of the paint job? My man?”
When Zurbo raked the sharp end of the tire iron along the roof of the Caddy, Aaron pushed past Hanson.
“Don’t you raise your hands to me,” Hanson said, grabbing him by the throat. Aaron’s eyes fluttered, his throat throbbing in Hanson’s grip. He squeezed harder, working his fingers around the windpipe. Aaron swung at him, then Zurbo and Neal were on him, quick and professional. A few moments later Aaron was vomiting on his pants and shoes.
“Come here,” Zurbo told him, taking the tire iron off the roof. He shined the flashlight into his face where undigested bits of red capsules were mixed with the vomit dripping from his nose and down his chin. The sour stink mixed with something else.
“I believe you shit your pants, Aaron,” Neal said.
“Wipe your face off,” Zurbo told him, “with your shirt.
“We’re gonna take your picture, you little motherfucker. I could shoot your ass and say you tried to hit me with this,” he said, hitting the roof of the car with the tire iron. “If you want,” he said, driving the sharp end of the tire iron through the roof.
“Now stand there.”
The flash caught him, his shirt in his hand.
“One more,” Zurbo said. The flash went off, the image of Aaron smiling, his hand at his crotch. What he must have thought was a smile. Aaron never smiled. No one had taught him how to brush his teeth, or ever taken him to a dentist, and he tried to hide his decaying teeth.
Zurbo threw the car keys over the roof of the warehouse, then, looking at Aaron, pulled the tire iron rasping out of the roof of the car.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he said. When Aaron didn’t move, he smashed in the back window. “The windshield’s next,” he said. Aaron began walking, still trying to strut on his shaky legs. “Hunting the Negro with gun and camera,” Zurbo said, putting the lens cap back on. “I’ll give you a copy. Let’s go get a beer.”
Hanson took his citation book off the dash of the patrol car. “Might as well get a couple of movers out of the deal,” he said.
“Street justice,” Zurbo shouted, driving off.
Hanson walked back to the Caddy, watching Aaron pass beneath the street’s only unbroken street light and disappear into the night.
“Didn’t see him weaving?” Hanson asked, glancing back at Duncan. “How about … defective taillight …” he said, smashing it out with his flashlight, “… for ‘probable cause?’”
He wrote a speeding ticket and a “failure to yield” by the flashlight tucked under his arm, and tossed them onto the driver’s seat, big as a sofa, stained and coming apart at the seams. Rust was eating the wheel wells of the enormous old Cadillac, bleeding through the red paint, and chunks of bondo were sloughing off the dented fenders, but the expensive, stolen wire wheels gleamed.
Hanson turned off the flashlight. He tilted his head, listening. Across the lot, something rattled like a cage.
“Pharaoh?” he called.
“All of us in the dark tonight,” Pharaoh’s voice boomed, “but I know you there anyway. Hanson …”
Hanson smiled, the rattle of Pharaoh’s shopping cart fading away. When he slammed the Cadillac door, the radio came on again, Wardell talking as if he’d never even paused for a breath.
“… talking to DeRoin, in the ninth grade at Lincoln,” Wardell said, as Hanson walked away. “How long you been checkin’ out the show, DeRoin? Say what? Get the phone away from your radio so I can hear. … You want to know what Mr. Jones is like?”
Hanson stopped.
“I’ve never actually met the man,” Wardell said, “Personally. The brothers who have met him, well, say his name with great respect. You know what I’m sayin’, DeRoin? Seem like he works all the time. A hard man to get an appointment with. A very powerful individual, they say. But he’ll know you asked about him … here’s that new hit single by the Commodores you requested …”
Hanson walked on to the patrol car, Aaron’s radio pounding behind him. “Zurbo’s right. If it wasn’t for street justice, there wouldn’t be any justice. They’re not scared of the courts. They have to be scared of us.”
“Who cares? Jeopardize my career over a worthless piece of dogshit like him? I didn’t see any of that. If they ask me why not, I was back looking for a property receipt in the trunk. Okay?”
Hanson nodded. “Five Sixty Two’s clear,” he told radio. “Heading for the precinct if there’s no calls waiting.”
Nothing that can’t wait for the graveyard shift. Five Sixty Two on the way in at … eleven fifty seven.
“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way,” Duncan said, “but I asked Sgt. Bendix if I can work some of the other districts. There’s absolutely no negative reflection on you about it.”
Hanson drank quick shots of Bushmills with his beer at the club after work, watching the clock. He’d dreaded the idea of facing Helen after Dana’s death, putting it off until tonight. As he was leaving, he met a couple of the late relief guys coming up the stairs, laughing. Someone, they told him, had set Aaron Allen’s car on fire. “Stole those wire wheels and torched the motherfucker.”
The lights were all on when he drove by Dana’s house. He circled the block twice, trying to think of what he should say to Helen.
“Hi,” he said, when she came to door. She stood, looking at him through the screen. “You’re drunk,” she said. People talked and laughed back in the living room. Classical music was playing.
“It was nice of you to stop, but there’s nothing to say. Dana was very fond of you, but he’s gone now. Goodnight.”
At least, Hanson thought, she waited until he was down the stairs before she closed the door.