Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy [33]
A few minutes later we heard the sirens. I looked out the window and saw eight black-and-whites jamming up the streets. Knowing my trigger-happy colleagues craved excitement as much as my lunatic partner and I and might open fire at any moment, I ran down six flights of stairs, through the lobby and out the door of the building. When I hit the long walkway that led down to the street, I threw my hands above my head and yelled, “Police officer, don’t shoot!”
Some of the cops standing by their patrol cars with hardware at the ready recognized me and motioned me to join them. My mind racing with stories to explain the shooting, I ran toward them. Just as I was about to reach the street my half-empty pint of Old Grand Dad slipped out of my waistband and broke on the sidewalk in front of me. At that moment a merciful death was all I wished for. Liquid feces were running down my legs and my career was ruined. I would have to get a job as a security guard for a buck fifty an hour and drink Gallo muscatel. It was all over. Until a tough-looking old patrol sergeant started to laugh. Others joined him as I stood there, mute, lest I increase my culpability. The laughter was getting louder as the old sergeant pulled me aside and whispered “Is there anyone hurt up there, son? Is your partner okay?”
I told him everything was okay, except for some property damage.
“We can handle that,” he said. A group of officers went upstairs to rescue Cosmo and his girlfriend from Snyder, and Snyder from himself.
I was driven back to the station where I took a shower and changed clothes. In the report that was filed, no mention was made of the shotgun blasts (the suspects having been coerced into silence), my bottle, or the shit in my pants. Snyder and I received a commendation and by the perverse logic of the macho mentality my floundering police career was back in full stride.
The Mobil Station where Omar Gonzalez worked was catty-corner from the scene of my past triumph. The place was deserted when I pulled in, so I pulled up to the ethyl pump and served myself. I looked in vain for a Chicano in his late twenties. When my tank was full, I went searching for the attendant and found him under the lube rack working on a car. He turned around to face me, a stocky, affable-looking kid of about twenty. “I’ve got the exact change,” I said, “I know you guys appreciate it.” The kid gave me a pleasant smile as I handed him the money. “By the way,” I said, “is Omar around? I’m a buddy of his.”
The kid looked at me strangely. “Omar ain’t been around for two weeks. He ain’t at the recovery house, either. I don’t know where the hell he is. He gets away with murder ’cause the customers like him. The boss would give me the axe quick if I pulled the shit Omar does.”
“What kind of shit does Omar pull? I asked. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
He screwed up his face into a parody of concentration. “Don’t get me wrong, I like Omar. Everybody does. But he’s always talking this Chicano Activist shit and taking off to hang out at the drug recovery crashpad, leaving me holding the fucking bag and leaving his goddamn car blocking up the station.” The kid pointed to a ten-year-old yellow Plymouth. I was about to throw some more questions at him when a customer pulled in, a good-looking woman in a convertible. He forgot all about me and strode over to the pumps, his face contorted into a wolf grin.
I walked over to check out Omar’s car. I wrote down the license number on my notepad, then looked in the front window. The seats were upholstered in white naugahyde and the brownish matter that was caked in splotches on the driver’s side looked