Authors: Joseph Wambaugh
The troops all cheered and whistled, and then he said, "Tonight we have a full moon. A Hollywood moon, and as you know, that makes citizens do all kinds of strange things. For you new people, that also means that I buy a large pizza with the works for the team that brings in the weirdest story at end-of-watch. Okay, let's hit the bricks."
Everyone gathered their gear and each cop touched the Oracle's picture for luck before heading for the kit room and then the parking lot.
The sizzle of the Santa Anas on the boulevards generated rays of heat rising from the blacktop and left people scratching their bone-dry skin and dabbing moisturizer on their lips. After the feverish glow of twilight, and well before the Hollywood moon rose in the sky, a call came into Communications Division from east Hollywood that set a tone for the evening. Despite the immigrant mix in the area that made the school district a Tower of Babel, there were not many African American households within the geographic boundaries of Hollywood Division. The "shots fired" radio call took them to the cottage of a black family who were not African Americans but recent immigrants from the Dominican Republic.
When 6-X-32 pulled up in front of the cottage of the person reporting, Jetsam unlocked the shotgun and took it with him to the door. He was followed by Flotsam, who was driving that evening.
The call had come from a Dominican neighbor of a Salvadoran family from whose house the gunshot had emanated. The person reporting was a Dominican woman who worked as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant on Western Avenue, and she was waiting for them. She was middle-aged and looked to the surfer cops like she ate too many of her restaurant's gorditas. Although she was only five feet tall, she easily outweighed Flotsam, who towered over her.
"I hear somebody fire a gun," she said. "Een there!" And she pointed to the ramshackle residence next door.
By then, 6-X-66 had squealed to a stop, and Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo jumped out to back up the surfer cops.
Snuffy spoke briefly to the woman in Spanish and was told that she did not know the Salvadoran family, who were recent arrivals to the neighborhood. She thought there was a mother, and a man who might or might not be the father, and at least six children, maybe more. They all lived in the two-bedroom rented bungalow, which was owned by the same slumlord who owned the house of the Dominicans. And then she added that there was also a very old abuelita living there.
"A grandma ?" Hollywood Nate asked, and Snuffy nodded. "There's a big houseful of people in that little crib," Snuffy said.
Before the surfer cops got to the front porch of the Salvadorans, a team from Watch 3 arrived to cover the back door. Just then, a detective car pulled up in front, and the night-watch detective, Compassionate Charlie Gilford, got out, wearing a food-stained tan cotton blazer and sucking his teeth, as usual. He was wanting an entry for his log in order to prove that he did leave the station from time to time to assist the bluesuits, and not just to grab a free meal at places where a plate of greasy fare was a full pop to coppers on the beat and half price to anyone else with a badge.
Nate always thought that one of the great mysteries of Hollywood was how the lazy detective--who took the night-watch assignment only to avoid the real work of handling a daytime caseload--could always manage to find a new necktie that was even uglier than the last one he wore. The base color of this one was uncertain because of the swirl and patterns of garish clashing colors snaking over the entire tie, but it was a cinch to hide salsa stains. Nate figured that Charlie showed up only because he had heard the hotshot call, being a few blocks away leeching freebie tostadas by badging the boss at the local taco shop.
When Compassionate Charlie was halfway between the car and the house, he saw that he'd arrived too soon. The uniformed coppers hadn't made entry and secured the situation yet, so he stayed where he was instead of walking into a potentially dangerous incident.
Jetsam angled off at one side of the screen door and tapped on it with the muzzle of the Remington 870 shotgun. Flotsam held his Glock down by his right leg.
"Police!" Jetsam yelled. "Anybody inside, step out now with your hands on your head!"
The inside door opened slowly and seven Salvadoran children
,
most of them in T-shirts and shorts, emerged onto the porch with their hands on their heads. They ranged in age from about four to thirteen. Three of the youngest were crying and the older ones were plenty scared. The one who looked about thirteen had his hair buzzed down to the scalp and was already wearing wannabe gang rags: a plaid flannel shirt and a baggy pair of denim shorts that extended well below the knees and were hanging halfway off his butt. He was apparently trying to connect as a junior with one of the gangs in the area, possibly the Salvadoran's Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS-13, the largest gang in the world.
"What happened in there?" Flotsam asked him.
"My big brother got shot," said the boy in good English.
"Who shot him?" Jetsam asked, his shotgun held at a ready angle across his chest.
"I don't wanna say," the boy said.
"Where is he?" Flotsam asked.
"He ain't here," the boy said. "He got in his car and went to the hospital."
"Where was he hit?" Flotsam asked, figuring it was probably a gang drive-by.
"Here," the boy said, taking a hand down and touching his left buttock.
"How old is he?" Flotsam asked.
"Eighteen," said the kid. "Can I take my hands off my head now?"
Flotsam nodded and said, "Which hospital did he go to?"
"I dunno," the kid said. "He was really mad and swearing and everything, so he didn't wanna talk to nobody."
"Is your mother home?" Flotsam asked.
"No, she's at work."
"Did one of you shoot him?" Jetsam asked.
"None of us kids," the boy said.
"Then who shot him?" Jetsam asked.
This time the kid burst into tears and shook his head. "I can't tell you," he said, looking toward the bungalow.
"Is the shooter in the house?" Flotsam asked, elevating the muzzle of his pistol, ready for anything.
"Uh-huh," the kid said, and now he really started bawling.
Hollywood Nate and Snuffy Salcedo, along with a second team from Watch 3, deployed near the front porch with their pistols drawn. Flotsam said to them, "The shooter's inside."
Then Flotsam and Jetsam quickly gestured for all of the kids to move from the porch and onto the tiny patch of grass that passed for a lawn. Flotsam nodded to his partner, who nodded back, and Jetsam entered the bungalow quickly with the stock of the shotgun tucked against his hip, followed by Flotsam.
Jetsam yelled, "Police officers! Step out of the bedroom with your hands on your head!"
No answer, but they could hear the television going.
Flotsam crouched, his pistol extended in both hands and moved out of the kill zone. He said, "Now, goddamnit! Come out now!" Still no answer.
Jetsam advanced in a semicrouch. The gloom of twilight made it hard to see clearly into the darkened bedroom where the television was playing, but they could hear Spanish-speaking voices delivering their melodramatic lines with lots of intensity and plenty of volume. But that was all they heard.
"Come out!" Flotsam ordered again.
Jetsam, his back to the wall and still inching forward, craned his neck, and peering around the doorjamb, he found the shooter.
She was sitting where she always sat, on a lumpy Barcalounger with her legs up, intently watching an old TV that sat on top of a chest of drawers. The antenna wire ran from the TV set to the window, where presumably it led to a roof antenna.
A rusty old .32 caliber revolver was lying on a table beside her, next to a telephone.
Jetsam said, "Bro, get in here and check this out!"
Then he entered the tiny room, moving quickly to the table, and picked up the revolver, with Flotsam right behind him.
She hardly looked at them but seemed to concentrate harder on the program, where a shirtless man on a tropical beach at night was kissing a voluptuous woman who sighed and said, "'Carlos, Carlos, mi amor!" He answered with, "'Isabel, mi vida!"
"Dude," Flotsam said. "She's like, a hundred years old."
As it turned out, he wasn't far off. At first glance, she seemed mummified. The ancient Salvadoran woman was the color of mocha coffee with curdled cream. Her hair, what there was of it, was a patch of colorless frizz. Her milky eyes were sunken deep within their sockets, and her eyelids looked like crumpled tissue paper. Her crusty lips hung open, baring blackened gums and a few amber teeth. She wore a faded cotton dress large enough for two of her, and fuzzy Donald Duck bedroom slippers. Her bare arms and legs were brittle sticks, and her crinkling flesh was parchment-dry and looked too delicate to withstand the slightest human touch.
Jetsam said, "Bro, what we got here is the fiber oldster of Hollywood."
"E Ingles?" Flotsam said to her. "EUHabla Ingles?"
The old woman glanced at him with her milky eyes and shook her head and went back to watching television.
"Get Snuffy in here," Jetsam yelled to the cops now milling around on the front porch.
After a moment Snuffy Salcedo entered the bedroom, looked at the woman, and said to the surfer cops, "Are you kidding me?"
Then he squatted beside the Barcalounger and talked to her. She answered softly in a surprisingly strong voice but never took her eyes off the television program while Snuffy delivered a series of questions.
After she gave a few short answers to him, Snuffy said to Flotsa
m a
nd Jetsam and Hollywood Nate, "Her name's Irma Beltran. She's the great-grandmother of the kids, and she thinks she's either ninety-eight or ninety-nine years old, she can't remember which. But she's having a big party here on her hundredth birthday and there's gonna be pupusas and curtido and tres leches birthday cake. And we're all invited."
Flotsam and Jetsam looked at each other, and Jetsam said to Snuffy, "Ask her who shot the kid."
"I already did."
"Don't keep us in suspense, dude," Flotsam said.
"She shot him," Snuffy said.
"Maybe she's covering for somebody," Jetsam said hopefully. "Maybe for the kids' father?"
"She's very definite," Snuffy said. "She shot him."
"Ask her if it was an accident," Flotsam said. "I'll bet it was an accident."
Snuffy spoke to her again and listened to her answer and said, "Nope. She said she shot him on purpose." Then, enjoying the surfer cops' discomfort, Snuffy said, "Want me to read her the Miranda rights? A felony bust will look good on your recap."
Ignoring the wisecrack, Jetsam said, "Ask her why she shot him."
"I already did," said Snuffy. "She shot him because he wouldn't stop talking on the phone when she's trying to watch her favorite novela."
After a moment of deliberation, Flotsam said, "So what're we gonna do with her?"
"This is one shooter I ain't handcuffing," Jetsam said. "You touch her and she might crumble into pieces. Maybe into powder. You'll need a dustpan to pick her up. Maybe we better call a supervisor."
"Aw, shit!" Flotsam said. "Ask her if maybe she was just sorta trying to scare him away from her telephone and cranked one of
f s
orta in his general direction, and it sorta accidentally nailed him in the ass."
Snuffy Salcedo spoke to her again and listened to her answer, and then turned to the other cops and said, "She says she always hits what she aims at. And would the big policeman please move away from the television set because she thinks Carlos is very handsome and this is a really good part."
Flotsam stepped aside so Irma Beltran could see what Carlos was going to do now that he had Isabel lying helpless on the sand in a swoon from his blazing kisses. Isabel's right breast was partially exposed now and that even got Jetsam engrossed in the program.
Then Flotsam said to his partner, "Keep your mind in the game, dude, and pay attention here. We got a Hollywood moon coming up tonight, so maybe she caught an early lunar vibe and this ain't all her fault. Think of a graceful way outta this so we don't gotta move her from that chair."
Hollywood Nate said, "Just book the gun. The kid probably went to the ER at Hollywood Pres. By now he's chill. I bet he'll sign off that the old lady capped him by accident, or maybe you can suggest that he did it himself while practicing his quick draw. And you might remind him to stop using the phone when Granny Oakley's watching her soap operas."
Just then, Compassionate Charlie Gilford sauntered into the crowded little bedroom, and said, "What's taking you guys so long?" When he saw Irma Beltran, he froze and said, "What the fuck's Norman Bates's momma doing here?"
"She's the shooter," Flotsam said. "It was an accident, though. She thought the gun was the TV remote. It could happen to anyone."
"Put her back in the fruit cellar!" Compassionate Charlie said with a shiver of distaste.
"We think the victim's at Hollywood Pres," Flotsam said to the detective. "He's her great-grandson. Butt shot is all. No biggie." They were interrupted when a copper from Watch 3 came int
o t
he crowded room and said, "Breaking news. The oldest of the kids just told us his great-grandma's a hundred and three years old."