RONNIE WASN’T SURE how she felt about working at the CRO. It surely wasn’t police work, and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d felt when her mother and father and married sister had ganged up on her. It had happened when she’d mentioned her new job to them during a family dinner at her parents’ home in Manhattan Beach, where her father owned and operated a successful plumbing-supply business.
“I don’t even like what they call us,” Ronnie said to them.
“Crows?” her mother said. “That’s cute.”
“How would you like to be called a crow?” Ronnie said.
“I’m too old to appreciate it,” her mother said. “But on you it’s cute.”
Ronnie had felt exceptionally tired that evening, and while her mother and her sister Stephanie were preparing a dinner of roasted halibut and wild rice, Ronnie was sprawled on the sofa with her niece Sarah sitting on her stomach. She’d tried without much success to enjoy a glass of pinot while Sarah prattled on, bouncing incessantly.
After the meal, Ronnie’s mother urged her just to relax and listen to her mom’s favorite Sting CDs and her father’s Tony Bennett albums while the others tidied up. She should have been suspicious of the extra solicitude. Then they all entered the living room and sat down, her mother and sister with a glass of wine each, her father with a beer. And they started in on her.
“The Community Relations Office is where you belong, Ronnie,” her father began. “You should stay there until you make sergeant. It’s a good stepping-stone and there’s no reason for you to leave.”
Her mother said, “You’ve done your share of dangerous work, honey.”
Stephanie said, “Do a year or two as a community relations officer, study, and get promoted. I know you think being a street cop is more fun, but you gotta think of the future.”
Her sister had assured her own future by marrying a computer geek who made three million dollars from selling his start-up company and investing it in another computer business, which was soaring.
“What is this, an intervention?” Ronnie said. “When did you all decide to do good-cop, bad-cop on me?”
“We’ve been talking about you, it’s true,” her mother said. “We know you’re not thrilled with your new job, but you’re smart. You can climb the ladder and end up-”
“In a safe desk job somewhere,” Ronnie said, ruefully. “Build them a desk and they will sit, right?”
Stephanie, who bore a family resemblance to her older sister, said, “I’ll never understand your fascination with being a cop anyway. What’s it got you except two failed marriages to other cops?”
“But they were both Sinclairs, so I didn’t even have to change my driver’s license,” Ronnie said with a smirk, pissed off as she always was when Sanctimonious Stephanie spouted off about Ronnie’s bad choices. Both Sinclair husbands had fooled Ronnie at first, but she felt she hadn’t gotten enough credit for dumping each of them quickly, as soon as she discovered that one was a secret drinker and the other a philanderer.
“Give your new job a chance,” her father said.
“You might start liking it,” her sister said. “Making your own hours to suit your own schedule.”
“And I could quit worrying about you,” her mother said.
After that evening, Ronnie decided to give it all she had at the CRO, especially since the sergeant had teamed her with an experienced senior lead officer, Bix Ramstead, to whom Ronnie had been drawn instantly.
Forty-five-year-old Bix Ramstead was thirteen years her senior, on both the Job and the calendar. At six foot one, he was fit and good-looking, with a warm and kindly smile. He had a head full of curls the color of pewter, and smoky gray eyes, and though Ronnie had never dated a man his age, she would have jumped at a chance with Bix. Except that he was married with two children he adored, a sixteen-year-old girl named Janie, and Patrick, who was twelve. Their photos were on his desk and he talked of them often, worrying about whether he’d have enough for their college tuition when the time came. Because of that, he worked as much overtime as he could, and the citizens in his area liked him.
When Ronnie had mentioned Bix to Cat, she’d said, “Yeah, I was teamed with him a few times, maybe six years ago, when he was working patrol. A complicated guy who never wanted to make sergeant. Not as much fun as some of the gunfighters when you’re working the streets. Back then I was always happier with carnivores than with grazers, but I don’t need kick-ass partners anymore. Now he’d probably suit me fine. Plus, he’s very cute.”
When Ronnie said it was too bad that Bix was married, Cat said, “He’s a little too old for you, and besides, didn’t you learn your lesson marrying two cops? I learned from marrying one. Do like me and look for a rich attorney next time. Hang out in lawyer-infested bars. Shysters are all over the place, like Starbucks cups.”
The first appointment Ronnie took with Bix Ramstead was at “The Birds,” as the cops referred to the Doheny Estates, in 6-A-31’s area. It was late morning as they cruised up the hills, surrounded by seven-figure homes on streets named Warbler Way, Robin Drive, Nightingale Drive, Thrush Way, and Skylark Drive. Many movie and rock stars owned high-dollar houses in the Hollywood Hills, some of them serving as occasional homes when their owners were in L.A. Many had great open views, some were on secluded properties. The showbiz residents were fearful of stalkers, burglars, and paparazzi.
“Occasionally, we do burglary walk-throughs,” Bix Ramstead explained to Ronnie while they drove the streets. “We just point out all the vulnerable places that need protection.”
“Quality of life,” Ronnie said, repeating the CRO mantra.
“You got it,” Bix said with a grin. “The quality-of-life calls we get up here in the hills are a bit different from the quality-of-life calls in East Hollywood, you’ll notice.”
Ronnie looked at the luxury surrounding her and said, “Their quality is a lot different from my quality, for sure.” She was silent for a moment, then said, “We still look like police officers, still think like police officers, but we aren’t doing police work.”
Bix Ramstead said to her, “When I was a cop, I spoke as a cop, I understood as a cop, I thought as a cop. But when I became a Crow, I put aside cop-ish things.”
“Who’s line is that?” Ronnie said.
“St. Paul to the Corinthians. More or less.” Then he said, “This is a good job, Ronnie. You’ll see. Don’t fight it.”
The call to the Community Relations Office that had come from The Birds was from a drummer in a rock band who was definitely on his way down. At one time he’d been hot and mentioned in the same breath with Tommy Lee, but internal dissension between the singer and the lead guitarist, who wrote their material, had broken up the group. The drummer lived with a singer whose career had taken a similar dive. She was known on the Strip as a very bad drinker whose cocaine addiction had gotten her arrested twice.
When they rang the bell, Bix said to Ronnie, “Look for Scarface. He’s an icon.”
“Who?” Ronnie said.
It took the rocker a minute to come to the door, and when he did, he looked pale and puzzled. His ginger ringlets hung in his face. He had a week’s growth of whiskers, and the wispy, dark soul patch under his lip was plastered with dried food. He wore a “Metallica” T-shirt and battered designer jeans that Ronnie figured had cost more than the best dress she owned. His arms were covered with full-sleeve tatts and he appeared malnourished.
“Oh, yeah, thanks for coming,” he said, stepping back in bare feet, obviously just recalling that he’d called the police the day before.
When they entered, Ronnie saw his singer girlfriend sprawled in a huge wicker chair inside a garden room just off the foyer. She was listening trancelike to speakers built into the walls on each side of the chair. Ronnie figured it was her voice on the CD singing unintelligible lyrics. Behind her on the wall was a framed one-sheet movie poster of Scarface, starring Al Pacino.
The rocker didn’t invite them in any farther than the foyer, and Bix Ramstead said, “How can we help you?”
“We’re scared of getting trapped in a fire,” the rocker said, scratching his ribs and his back, even his crotch for a moment, until he remembered that one of the cops was a woman. “It’s the pap. They come around with scopes and watch us from vacant property on the hilltop. And they smoke up there. We’re scared they’ll start a brush fire. Can you chase them away?”
“Are there any up there now, or do you not know?” Bix asked.
“I don’t know. We see them watching us. Always watching.”
“We’ll take a drive up the hill and check it out,” Bix said.
“Stop back and let us know,” the rocker said.
“Sure, we’ll be back in a little bit.”
When they got in their car and drove up the hill, Ronnie said, “He’s a poster boy for ‘Just Say No.’ He’s thirty years old, going on eighty. And speaking of posters, how did you know Scarface would be there?”
“Rocker plus cocaine plus Hollywood equals Scarface,” Bix said. “The cocaine set loves that movie, especially that dopey scene where Al Pacino’s so buzzed he falls face-first into a snowdrift of coke. You can usually find Scarface somewhere in all their cribs.”
Ronnie said, “The first time I drove up to the Hollywood Hills, I saw these homes and figured these were the kind of people who listen to music I never hear on K-Rock. Now I find out there’re people here who download tunes from Headbanger’s Heaven.”
“Big bucks don’t change human nature,” Bix said.
He didn’t waste much time on the paparazzi search. Bix drove to the area where homes had not yet been built on the steeper slopes, looked around perfunctorily, then drove back down to the rocker’s address and parked in front, where the man was waiting for them in the doorway.
“Well?” the rocker said.
“You were right,” Bix said. “There were four of them. They had telephoto cameras on tripods. And there were three more driving up while we were talking to the other four. You’re a very popular target, it seems.”
“What’d you tell them?” the rocker asked anxiously.
“I told them that I know they’re just doing their jobs but that there could be serious repercussions for stalking famous people.”
“I understand they gotta make a living,” the rocker said.
“I reassured them that you understand. That celebrities like you need them and they need you. A reciprocal arrangement, so to speak.”
“Yeah, exactly,” the rocker said. “Just so they don’t start a fire. That’s all we’re worried about.”
“They promised me that there’d be no smoking up there in the future unless it was done in their van with cigarettes extinguished in the ashtray.”
“They had a van?” the rocker said with a little smile.
“Yes, sir,” Bix said. “They come prepared for someone like you.” Then he added, “And your lady, of course.”
The rocker’s smile widened and he said, “Yeah, because of the pap, she’s afraid to get in the Jacuzzi without wearing something.”
“The price of fame,” Bix said, nodding sympathetically.
“Well, thanks, Officers,” the rocker said. “Anything I can do for you, let me know. We played a gig one time for the Highway Patrol.”
“We’ll keep that in mind, sir,” Bix said. “We’d be thrilled to hear you play.”
When they were driving back down toward Sunset Boulevard, Bix said to Ronnie, “We get a lot of those. I never tell them the truth. They’re miserable enough in their failed lives without finding out that there’s no paparazzi. That nobody gives a shit anymore.”
Hollywood Nate was supposed to be doing similar CRO work that day, but he took a drive up into the Hollywood Hills on his own, to a neighborhood farther east. On an impulse, he cruised up to Mt. Olympus, sipping a cup of Starbucks latte as he remembered the young woman with butterscotch hair. He hadn’t been able to forget her since the day he wrote down her license plate number at Farmers Market.
Nate parked a block from her home on her very winding street. It was obvious that on her side of the street, there was a good city view. He told himself that he wasn’t going to sit there long, only long enough to finish the latte.
Hollywood Nate couldn’t understand why he was there in the first place. That is, until he remembered the way she’d moved. Like an athlete, or a dancer, maybe. And the way her hair itself had danced when she’d turned abruptly. He couldn’t forget that either. In fact, he was ashamed of himself for doing this, but as long as nobody would ever know, what the hell. He just wanted to see her one more time, to see if she measured up to the image in his memory.
Then Nate thought, What am I, a high-school kid? And he tossed the empty cup on the floor of the car, started the engine, and was just about to head back down, when the garage door opened and the red Beemer backed out. The car turned and drove down the hill with Hollywood Nate Weiss following behind, but far enough to be out of mirror range.
Nate’s heart started pumping faster and he knew it wasn’t the caffeine. He’d never done anything like this before, had never had the memory of a beautiful woman affect him in this way. Hollywood Nate Weiss had never had to pursue any woman, not in his entire life. And it made him think, I’ve turned into a goddamn stalker! Now Nate was experiencing something altogether unique for him. Not just shame, but a trace of self-loathing had entered his consciousness.
He said aloud, “Fuck this!” and was about to abandon this silliness when they were a few blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. But then he saw her car rolling through a boulevard stop without so much as a tap on the brake pedal.
Suddenly, Nate Weiss was no longer in charge. Something took him over. It was like he was watching himself on a movie screen. Without completely willing it, Nate stepped on the accelerator and got close behind her, turning on the light bar and tooting his horn until she glanced at her rearview mirror, pulled over, and parked.
When he got to her driver’s-side window, she looked at him with amber eyes that matched her hair and said, “Ditzy Margot didn’t come to a complete stop back there, did she?”
Her cotton jersey that stretched tight over her cleavage was a raspberry shade. Her skirt was eggshell white and was halfway up her suntanned thighs. Those thighs! She was an athlete or a dancer, he just knew it.
Nate’s hand trembled when he took her driver’s license, and his voice was unsteady when he said, “Yes, ma’am, you ran the stop sign without even trying to stop. Your brake lights didn’t glow at all.”
“Damn!” she said. “I’ve got so much on my mind. I’m sorry.”
He read the driver’s license: Margot Aziz, date of birth 4-13-77. She was six years younger than Nate, yet he felt like a schoolboy again. Stalling for time in order to pull himself together, he said, “Could I see your registration, ma’am?”
She reached into the glove box for the leather packet containing the owner’s manuals, removed the registration and insurance card, handed them to Nate, and said, “Please don’t call me ma’am, Officer. I recently turned thirty, as you see, and I’m feeling ancient. Call me Margot.”
Her lipstick was a creamy raspberry to match her jersey, and her perfect teeth were probably whiter than nature intended. Nate blurted, “I won’t call you ma’am if you don’t call me Officer. My name is Nate Weiss.”
She had him and she knew it. The smile widened and she said, “Do you patrol this area all the time, Nate?”
“Actually, I’m what the other cops call a Crow. I work the Community Relations Office. I don’t do regular patrol.”
“You don’t look like a crow,” Margot Aziz said. “More like an eagle, I would say.”
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d blushed, but his face felt hot. He said, “Yeah, I do have a bit of a beak, don’t I?”
“No, my husband has a beak,” she said. “Your nose is barely aquiline. It’s very strong and manly. Actually, quite…beautiful.”
He wasn’t even aware that he’d handed her back her license and registration. “Well,” he said, “drive carefully.”
Before he could turn to leave, she said, “Nate, what does a Crow do?”
He said, “We deal with quality-of-life issues so that the officers on patrol don’t have to. You know, stuff like chronic-noise complaints, graffiti, homeless encampments up near where you live. Stuff like that.”
“Homeless encampments!” she cried, like calling a winning Bingo. “This is an amazing coincidence because I was going to call Hollywood Station about that very thing. I can see them from my patio. They make noise up there and they light campfires. It’s terrible. How lucky to run into you like this. Sometime I’d like you to come by my house and let me point them out. Maybe you can do something about it.”
“Sure!” Nate said. “Absolutely. When, today?”
“Not today, Nate,” she said quickly. “Can I have your phone number?”
“Of course,” Nate said, reaching for his business cards. “I can come and talk to you-and to your husband-anytime up to eight P.M., when I usually go home.”
“My husband and I are separated, in the middle of a divorce,” Margot Aziz said. “You’ll just be talking to me when you come.”
Nate Weiss couldn’t give her the card fast enough. He had ordered a custom-made business card with the Hollywood sign across the front of it, alongside an LAPD badge. And under that was his name, serial number, and the city phone number he’d been assigned by the CRO sergeant.
He hesitated for only a few seconds, then wrote his private cell number on the back of the card and said to Margot Aziz, “It might be better for you to call me on my cell. Sometimes we don’t pick up the calls on our city line right away, but I always pick up my private cell.”
“Good,” she said. “Let’s keep it personal, Nate.” And she showed that gleaming smile again, then turned her head to look for eastbound traffic. Her amazing hair caught another sunbeam and danced for Nate Weiss. And she drove away.
A few minutes after he was back in his car, Nate thought, That Hills bunny just flirted her way out of a ticket that I was never going to write in the first place, and I feel like a chump. Separated from her husband? She’ll show that card to him tonight over dinner and they’ll both have a laugh. On Nate Weiss!
Then he thought about her surname, Aziz. Some kind of Middle East name. She was married to an Arab, maybe. It didn’t feel good for a Jewish cop to think of this fantastic woman married to a rich Arab. Nate Weiss wondered how that might have happened.
After leaving Hollywood Nate, Margot Aziz drove to a nightclub called the Leopard Lounge on Sunset Boulevard. It was a strip club but topless only, so liquor could be sold. Her estranged husband also owned a totally nude strip club, but in that one, no alcoholic beverages were allowed by the state. In that nightclub, Ali Aziz had to make money from hugely overpriced soft drinks, minimums, and cover charges. He spent most of his time in the Leopard Lounge but frequently drove to the other club to pick up the cash from his manager.
Margot had made a phone call to be sure that Ali would not be at the Leopard Lounge at this time of day, and she avoided the Mexican employees preparing for the early-evening business, heading for the dressing room. It was not a typical strip club with dim lights and dark colors. Not like Ali’s totally nude nightclub, which had faux-leather banquettes, faux-granite columns, and faux-walnut soffits. That one was claustrophobic, with nude prints in gilded frames that Ali thought would provoke fantasies and erections. Margot had been in that kind of strip club often enough.
She’d designed the Leopard Lounge interior herself, despite her husband’s complaints about how much money she was spending. This one featured woven-leather chairs surrounding the stage, with terra-cotta walls and a sandy tile pattern cutting through chocolate brown carpeting that Ali had insisted on because he’d gotten it cheap. This club had a more open feeling, more inviting to female patrons. At least that was Margot’s intent when she did the interior design.
She opened the dressing-room door without knocking, and a lovely Amerasian, twenty-five years old, wearing a terry robe and sitting at the makeup table applying eyeliner, looked up.
“What time’s he coming back, Jasmine?” Margot asked.
She walked up behind the young woman and swept Jasmine’s long black hair onto one of her surgically enhanced breasts, whose nipples and areolas were rouged. Then she massaged the dancer’s neck and shoulders, kissing the right shoulder lightly.
“About seven, seven-thirty,” Jasmine said, placing her delicate fingers over Margot’s. “Not so hard,” she said. “I strained my shoulder on that goddamn pole last night.” Then she asked, “Have any luck with your friend? Will he be visiting again soon?”
“Not as soon as I’d like,” Margot said, stopping the shoulder rub and sitting on a chair next to the makeup table. “He gets attacks of remorse. I think I can pull him out of it, but how soon, I can’t say.”
“Shit!” Jasmine said.
“Don’t be discouraged,” Margot said. “I had a lucky break today.”
“Yeah, what kinda break?” Jasmine said listlessly.
“A cop stopped me for a ticket,” Margot said. “Of course he didn’t write it. A handsome, horny cop with no wedding ring on his finger.”
“So what? It’s not too hard for someone like you to talk a cop out of a ticket. I’ve done it myself.”
“There was something about this one,” Margot said. “I think it could work with him.”
“A substitute?”
“If a second-stringer is needed,” Margot said. “But let’s not give up on our number-one draft pick. He’s perfect.”
“Did today’s cop try to make a date?”
“I have his cell number,” Margot said. “If we need it.”
“Tell me something about your husband that I gotta know,” Jasmine said.
“What’s that?”
“Does that fucking Arab asshole ever get enough blow jobs?”