Sleepless. Part 21

Hounds was fiddling with Park's watch; he looked at her.

"Because I got a tip."

She sealed the envelope, looked at something on her computer monitor, tapped a b.u.t.ton a few times, frowned, and rubbed her eyes.

"You picked him up before?"

Hounds buckled the watch on his wrist.

"Yeah. Another tip."

"And he got cut loose because?"

"f.u.c.k do I know? What's it say?"

She tapped the screen.

"Says because you blew Miranda. Someone still cares about Miranda."

He looked at Park.

"a.s.shole, did we card you last time? Honestly, did we? I can't even f.u.c.king remember."

He flipped over the badge folder hanging from his neck and displayed a Miranda card with frayed edges.

"But check this out. Call me nostalgic."

He looked at the reserve officer.

"He's someone's snitch. What the f.u.c.k do I know what they want? They want it to look like a bust is what they want. What they put there for why the charge doesn't stick, f.u.c.k do I care."

She rubbed at a visibly knotted muscle in her neck.

"Looks bad on your record, not following procedure."

Hounds adjusted his sungla.s.ses.

"Hey, part-timer, f.u.c.k you."

She stopped rubbing her neck.

"Excuse me?"

"Excuse you what the f.u.c.k. I care, my record? f.u.c.k you. I care about I do my job. I'm, you know what, I'm past my f.u.c.king twenty, lady; think I give a s.h.i.+t what some f.u.c.ker wanting to talk to this piece of s.h.i.+t does to my record with his whatever the f.u.c.k sleight of hand trying to cover his tracks? I don't. I don't give a f.u.c.k. Someone calls on the radio, says, 'Pick the f.u.c.ker up,' I pick the f.u.c.ker up."

The reserve rocked back in her chair and wiped sweat from under her chin.

"Hey, a.s.shole."

Hounds smiled at Park.

"Here it comes, man, about to get my comeuppance."

The reserve settled her hand on the b.u.t.t of her sidearm.

"Comeuppance this, a.s.shole. I'm f.u.c.king dying. I haven't slept in like two weeks. I'm running my brain on Diet c.o.ke and NoDoz and chocolate-covered coffee beans. I'm not so far along that my hormones have gone off the rails, so I'm also on the f.u.c.king rag. I got no kids, and my husband, a f.u.c.king cop who I thought I might understand better if I became a reserve, left me for a younger model three f.u.c.king years ago. Now, the job, it's the only thing I got in my life that I give a s.h.i.+t about. And at the end of next week my captain says he's gonna have to put me on unpaid leave because I'm losing it. So I'm gonna go home and die alone."

She leaned forward, hand still resting on her weapon.

"You think I give a f.u.c.k if I die in jail, or get popped myself, if before I go I can shoot some big shot f.u.c.king d.i.c.khead detective like my ex?"

She stared at Hounds.

Hounds took off his sungla.s.ses and looked at the reserve.

"I'm sorry for your troubles."

Her lips thinned, she took her hand from her gun, and she wiped her eyes.

"Yeah, well, we all got something on our minds."

Hounds put his sungla.s.ses back on.

"Yes, we do."

She leaned forward and rested her fingers on the keyboard.

"What charge?"

Hounds picked at the peeling decal on the front of the faded black XXL Metallica T-s.h.i.+rt stretched over his chest.

"Resisting. And threatening a public o."

She clacked a few keys.

"Code sixty-nine and seventy-one it is. You want to do a report?"

"f.u.c.k no. He stays inside for more than a couple days I'll write something up. Pen an epic about him he stays inside."

She nodded.

"I get it. Okay. Bring him around."

Hounds grabbed Park by the elbow and led him over to a steel door.

"Time to go wait for your girlfriend, whoever the h.e.l.l it is."

The skinny black man on the bench raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I know you. I know you? Yeah, I do."

Hounds kicked the bench.

"a.s.shole, you got something to say?"

The man shook his head.

"Thought I know the man is all."

Hounds took Park by the shoulder and spun him around.

"This a.s.shole?"

"Yeah-hm, that a.s.shole."

"You know him?"

The man dropped his head to the side and squinted.

"I know you?"

Standing there in the West Los Angeles Community Police Station on Butler Avenue, roughly five miles from his home, a station he'd patrolled out of for his first six months on the job, Park looked directly at the man and nodded.

"Yeah, you know me."

The man grinned.

"I thought as much, I did. What was it?"

Park looked at Hounds, looked back at the man.

"I ripped you off once."

The man's eyes got big.

"Bulls.h.i.+t?"

"No, no bulls.h.i.+t. I sold you some dope, went light on the weight."

The man shook his head.

"I bought dope from a white guy?"

He raised his shoulders high and dropped them, sighing.

"See, that right there a reason to stay off the s.h.i.+t. How high a man gotta be to buy off a white guy? Like it a mystery a white guy gonna rip you off?"

"Just business."

"s.h.i.+t, just business to you. I don't get high, I'm like to go rob or kill someone. An now you in here for resisting, nice white dope dealer like you."

Park closed his eyes for a moment, thinking about a big red b.u.t.ton he could push to stop all this, just pause everything around him and allow him to walk away from it, back home.

He opened his eyes.

"We all make mistakes."

The man opened his mouth wide, showing a junkie's rotted teeth, and laughed.

"Ain't that the truth. Ain't it, though. All make mistakes. And then some, I tell you. Yeah, I thought I know you. Wasn't where I thought it was from, but I thought so. All make mistakes. Yeah, we do."

Hounds kicked the bench again, shutting off the skinny black man's laughter.

"That's it, that's where you know him from?"

The man shrugged with his whole body again, his chains jingling.

"He's the expert. He say that was where it was, why I got a reason to disbelieve him?"

Hounds turned to the door.

"Should have known."

The reserve put her finger on a b.u.t.ton.

"Did you think they were gonna know each other from when they were in the CIA together?"

She hit the b.u.t.ton and a buzzer sounded.

Hounds pulled the door open.

"Just like to know why this a.s.shole gets the treatment. He ain't a regular a.s.shole is all I'm saying. Right, a.s.shole?"

Park didn't say anything.

The skinny black man was laughing again.

"All make mistakes. Yeah-hm, we do. We do."

Holding the door open, Hounds jerked his chin at the man.

"What's laughing boy up for?"

The reserve drank from a can of Diet c.o.ke, drained it.

"Killed his family. His grandma and two sisters he was living with."

She took another can from a desk drawer and opened it.