L A Woman

We had no more than reached the office when Sergeant Vick Best opened the door without knocking and said, “I wish you guys would just stick to acting.”

“What?” I said.

He sat down, blew out a lungful of air and said, “There’s some folks coming over to talk to you, be here in about ten minutes.”

“What folks?”

“Let’s just say when I ran the name you gave me, I got all kinds of bells and sirens and whistles and the Sheriff got a call from Washington.

Hondo said, “This is about Ajax Berenko?”

“Uh-huh. At least partially.”

“So what did you turn up?”

“All I got was a big red page that said Restricted Access. I couldn’t even see his driver’s license info.”

“Well, crap,” I said.

Vick got up to leave and Hondo took out his phone and pulled up the photo. “Vick, take a look at this.”

Vick looked, “It’s a tag.”

I said, “We know.”

Vick said, “Then why’d you ask?”

Hondo said, “We found it under a bench at Laurel and Sunset. We’re pretty sure it was written in blood.”

Vick held up his index finger in a Wait, I think I remember, move, then said, “There was a murder happened there a couple months ago. Ten or twelve shooters chased some guy all over the county. One of them finally hit him with a couple of rounds, but the guy made it to near where you found this before they caught up with him and finished the job.”

“Was it gang related?” I asked.

“Not if I remember right. The victim

was a white male.”

Hondo said, “You know who he was?”

“Not off the top of my head. I remember it got a lot less news than I would have thought, and I know the LAPD had some feds come in and take over the case.”

“The FBI?” I said.

“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone ever said who they were.”

Hondo said, “Think you could find out?”

“I’ll call some friends with LAPD and see what they remember, but maybe you can ask these folks coming over to visit, see if they know.”

“I will,” Hondo said. He added as an afterthought, “If I send you this image, could you have your Gangs Unit see if they can decipher it?”

“Well sure, Hondo. I don’t have anything else to do with my time but run down information for you two.”

“Now Sergeant Vick,” I said, “Don’t be testy. We have a little surprise for you.” I went to the closet and got a bag, the last bag since Hondo ate the other one while spending the night at the office, of Julio’s chips.

I turned around and he snatched the bag from my hands and put it behind his back. “What about the salsa?” He said.

I sighed, putting a lot of martyrdom in it, and went to the little fridge and pulled out the last of the Julio’s salsa and gave it to him. “Now, doesn’t that make it all better?” I said.