Authors: Joseph Wambaugh
Jonas said, "You got no shame in your game. So, okay, maybe I'll call your bluff. Maybe I will take my paintings back. But you're still gonna come up with something for all you and that bitch put me through. Now where's Megan at?"
It took Nigel a moment, but he could think of nothing to say except the truth: "I don't know. She didn't say where she was going."
"I think she did," Jonas said. "Your twitchy eye tells me you're lying. And I think she got more money outta you. But me? I got shit for all I went through. You and that cunt thought you could jist hoop my flow and kick me to the curb, didn't ya?"
Nigel opened the expansion band on his wristwatch, tossed it on the desk, and said, "Here, this is a Rolex. Take it. And I've got about a hundred dollars in my wallet. May I get it for you?"
"Yeah, get it," Jonas said.
Nigel reached into his pocket and removed his wallet, tossing it onto the desk next to the Rolex.
Jonas put the wallet and the watch in the pocket of his jeans and said, "The paintings're worth a lotta money, ain't they?"
Nigel sighed and paused and finally said, "Yes."
"I knew you didn't wanna give them back to me. How much're they worth?"
"Thirty thousand, maybe more," Nigel said. "You can get that much from any art dealer in L
. A
. Take them with you and go. Please go."
"Now we're finally getting at the truth," Jonas said. "So let's have all of it, you fucking pole climber. Where did Megan say she was going to?"
And that did it. Nigel Wickland decided that he was at the end of this night's terrible journey. There was nowhere else to verbally run and hide. He concluded that drug-crazed paranoia trumps logic and lie and everything in between. So he summoned courage born of despair and said, "I've got about three hundred dollars in the petty cash drawer. You can have that, too. May I get it?"
"Get it," Jonas said.
"The drawer's locked," Nigel said.
"Get the key," Jonas said.
Nigel opened a papier-mache box on his desk, removed a desk key, and unlocked the middle drawer with hands so sweaty he almost dropped the key. Then he opened the drawer and said, "Here it is."
Jonas didn't see the Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter pistol until it was halfway out of the drawer. Then he took a wild swing with the knife and cut Nigel across the mouth, opening up a grotesque smile from the corner of his mouth to his ear. Then a flash and explosion blinded and deafened Jonas for a moment. Nigel had fired a roun
d n
ext to Jonas's face that missed by inches. Jonas dropped the knife and fell onto Nigel's lap, grappling for the gun.
The desk chair overturned and both bodies hit the floor, Nigel screaming and Jonas screaming, as each had hold of the pistol. Then Nigel closed his bloody mouth over his assailant's ear and bit down, grinding the gristle, and Jonas screamed louder than ever. Then it was a test of strength as four hands tried to wrest the pistol free.
Drugs had reduced Jonas's strength by half, but he was much younger, so the struggle was even. They moaned and grunted and growled and occasionally sobbed as they lay face-to-face on the floor. Then, for a brief second when the gun muzzle was pointed up toward the face of Nigel Wickland, Jonas Claymore got a finger through the trigger guard.
The explosion inches from his head made Jonas's ears ring, and the blowback from the muzzle blast hit him in the face. The smell of cordite penetrated his brain, and the 9-millimeter slug penetrated the brain of Nigel Wickland after first passing through his twitching left eye, and that ended the struggle.
Jonas looked at the art dealer in horror, at the macabre bloody smile and the mangled, oozing orbit that would never twitch again; and at the skull fragment lying on the floor beside Nigel's head. He got to his feet, so weak he almost collapsed. Then he turned and ran to the storage room in panic, looking for a button to open the siding door so he could escape. He couldn't find it and then realized that, since the door had opened when the van pulled up to it, there must be a remote control inside the vehicle.
He opened the van door and saw the remote button and was about to push it and run to his car, when a single thought knifed through the panic. The paintings in the blankets, his paintings, were worth $30,000 anywhere! Nigel Wickland had said so. But he couldn't carry them in his VW, so he ran to the body, keeping his eyes averted as he rummaged through the dead man's pockets unti
l h
e found the key ring. He picked up the bloody knife and the pistol, both of which bore his fingerprints, and he ran back to the storeroom, opening the passenger door of the van and throwing the weapons onto the passenger seat.
Then he covered the pictures in the mover's blankets and placed both of them on the floor in the cargo section. He closed the door and, getting behind the wheel, pressed the button on the remote device attached to the visor. He felt a burst of elation when the storage room door slid open.
"I'm gonna make it!" Jonas said aloud, and he drove out of the storage room into the alley and headed toward the safety of his apartment in Thai Town.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven.
SIX-X-THIRTY-Two was cruising westbound on Sunset Boulevard when Jetsam said, "While I was off, I got thinking about the Wedgie Bandit. You know the apartments by Ivar and Franklin? The white building with all the palm trees in front?"
"Yeah, I think I know which one you're talking about."
"I got thinking that the Wedgie Bandit lives in that building. That's why he strikes more in the vicinity of the library. He don't have to run so far to get home. I worked out a plan."
"What's that?"
"The next time we hear any kind of call about a four-fifteen man anywhere near the library, we haul ass straight for that apartment building. If anything jumps off, we're ready. I'm about the only copper at Hollywood Station who can ID him."
"You can ID the back of him," Flotsam reminded his partner. "He left you in the dust when he shifted to his fourth gear."
"The doofus can run," Jetsam had to admit. "But next time I'm gonna catch him. Losing that guy feels like a stain on my career. I gotta make it right."
"Okay, dude," Flotsam said. Six-X-Thirty-two is gonna be the unit to catch the Wedgie Bandit. If we do, you think the sarge will buy us a pizza?"
Viv Daley said to Georgie Adams, who was the driver in 6-X-76, "Don't rock the boat, Gypsy. I ate the world's hottest curry last night and my stomach's still reeling from the abuse. That's the last time I date a Thai guy in Thai Town."
Georgie Adams said, "Most Thai guys are no taller than me, sis. Didn't you two look funny together?"
"No, I got to enjoy the top of his head after looking at it all night. He had bad hair plugs, and pretty soon I started counting the hairs in each plug when I didn't know what he was talking about. He has a really strong accent, but he's rich and it was a lot nicer than my last date, with a class-action lawyer who pops up on Channel Five every other day with an offer to make you rich. But no more dinners in the Thai guy's 'hood."
"Why would you date a trial lawyer that advertises on TV?" "We all kiss a frog at least once in our lives."
"Frogs, yes, cobras, no," Georgie said.
She turned the rearview mirror to check her lipstick and Georgie said, "Why do you always have to do that when I'm driving in heavy traffic?"
"You're getting very territorial for a Gypsy boy, aren't you?" Viv said.
Georgie was silent for a moment and then said, "Well, if you're dating short people with bad hair plugs, not to mention slithery trial lawyers, maybe you oughtta do something semiworthwhile for a change and go with me to the track next week. I got a few hundred bucks burning a hole in my checking account."
Viv turned to Georgie with a hint of a smile and finally said, "Okay, it's a date, if you promise to look in your crystal ball like a good Gypsy and pick a couple of winners for us."
A horny businessman on his way home to West L
. A
. from downtown almost sideswiped 6-X-46. His problem was that he wa
s o
gling the streetwalkers who emerged after dark on the east Sunset Boulevard track. Two of the hookers were black and one was white, and they were dressed for duty in tank tops, short skirts or shorts, and leggings or nosebleed stilettos.
"This one's for momma at home with the kiddies," Della Ravelle said to Britney Small when she turned on the red-and-blues and honked him to the curb.
To explain his erratic driving he said to Della, "I'm sorry, Officer. Something blew in my eye."
After she'd written the citation and he was gone, Della said to Britney, "It's another kind of blowing he's interested in. We mighta saved him from a flaming STD, which would be hard to explain to the little missus."
Britney said, "Have you noticed how quiet things have been all week? Hardly any code-three calls."
"That's okay for an old lady like me," Della said. "But I know what follows quiet times. Remember where you work, kiddo."
Britney giggled and said, "Right, I almost forgot. This is fucking Hollywood."
Jonas Claymore was coming down fast from the methamphetamine frenzy, but there was still plenty of residue paranoia. He was in the number-one eastbound lane on Hollywood Boulevard, passing Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and he looked over at Barney the Dinosaur, who was talking to the Incredible Hulk, and both street characters seemed to be looking at him.
Narks! he thought. They're undercover cops. Then he saw Spider-Man say something to Darth Vader, and he was sure they were pointing at him. They were all fucking narks. He suddenly got so terrified he began panting. They wanted him for murder! They wanted to execute him! There were two cars in front of him stopped by heavy traffic at Hollywood and Highland, even though the traffic light was green.
Jonas looked toward Grauman's again. Now Batman was looking at him. Then a second Batman walked to the curb, and he was looking also. And pointing. They were all narks! Jonas Claymore pulled the van out into the westbound lane right at the oncoming traffic and sidewiped the rear fender of a Prius that had swerved just in time to avoid a head-on crash. Jonas kept driving eastbound and just failed to make the yellow light, and when the Wickland Gallery van roared into the busy intersecion, all north and southbound traffic had to screech to a stop, causing two whiplashing rear-enders and lots of horns blowing and a huge traffic snarl. But Jonas Claymore was past the famous intersection, and the stream of traffic had thinned, and there were no more narks dressed as Street Characters staring and pointing at him. He was heading home. He had escaped them all.
Six-X-Thirty-two was waiting to turn right onto Hollywood Boulevard from Vine Street when the Wickland Gallery van drove past, heading eastbound.
"Whoa!" Flotsam said. "That's the van that Nate and me checked out the first night you were off."
Jetsam said, "What was wrong with it?"
"Turns out nothing," Flotsam said. "The guy driving was a nephew of the owner, but the way I got it from Nate, he shouldn't be driving it anymore. Wanna check it out, dude?"
"Go for it, bro," Jetsam said. "Nothing else to do."
Flotsam sped around the traffic until he was behind the van and then turned on his red-and-blue wigwags and beeped his horn. The van kept going. Then he flicked the switch and hit the siren.
Jonas Claymore had been seeing so many hallucinatory cops everywhere he looked that he almost didn't recognize real ones. Then he heard the yowl of the siren and he looked in his sideview mirror. Now he was sure of it. They were onto him. They wer
e s
talking him. They were going to kill him! He jammed the pedal to the floor and pulled out into the number-one westbound lane, causing all oncoming traffic to swerve right.
Jetsam keyed the hand mike and said, "Six-X-ray-Thirty-two requesting a clear frequency! We're in pursuit!"
After that, he gave the make, model, and color of the van, including the California license plate number. And then, over the din from the wind rushing through their open windows and the yelps of the siren and the RTO's squawking radio voice repeating the streets and direction of travel that Jetsam was yelling into the mike, Flotsam hollered to his partner: "Tell them it's got Wickland Gallery on the side of the van! I want Nate and Viv and Georgie to know who it is!"
The black-and-white Crown Vic suddenly skidded at Hollywood and Bronson after braking for the driver of a Toyota who they figured had to be deaf. And after the radio car got straightened out, Jetsam yelled into the mike, "Cargo van has Wickland Gallery printed on the side panels!"
When the RTO at Communications Division repeated that information, Hollywood Nate, who was already racing toward the pursuit, said to Snuffy Salcedo, "Hey! That's the van I checked out when you were off getting the nose job. Man, there's something going on with that guy."
Six-X-Seventy-six was one of the many units coming from several directions, all hoping to intercept the pursuit vehicle. The driver, Georgie Adams, said to his partner, Viv Daley, "Yo, sis! I think that's the van our boy Jonas Claymore was driving when Nate and Flotsam jammed him, wasn't it?"
Viv Daley cinched her seatbelt a bit tighter and said, "If it's him, I can't wait to hear his explanation this time. Hit it, Gypsy!"