The Cocaine Chronicles Part 18

He replayed last night in his mind. He'd come home, tired and anxious to get in the house, and totally s.p.a.ced, leaving his tenor in the car. That wasn't like him or any horn player, but too late now. He sat down and turned on the TV, hoping he wasn't going to see his Camaro in one of those car chases the city had become famous for.

When Lisa got home, he was still sitting in front of the TV, watching the news, but there were no stolen car reports and no news from the police.

"Hi, baby," Lisa said. She was carrying a bag from the Lotus Blossom Chinese takeout. "You hungry?" She set the bag down on the kitchen table and walked over to Bobby.

She was in her Century City law-office outfit-skirt, blouse, half heels, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She sat on the arm of Bobby's chair and kissed him lightly on the lips, then let herself slip over the arm onto his lap.

"What's the matter?"

"Somebody stole my car."

"Oh, baby, and you just had it serviced and waxed."

"Tell me. But it gets worse."

"What?"

"My horn was in the car."

"Oh no, did you report it?"

Bobby pushed her off him. "Of course I f.u.c.king reported it."

Lisa held up her hands. "Okay, okay."

Bobby sighed. "I'm sorry, babe, but you know what the chances are of getting back a stolen car in L.A.?" Especially that car. Bobby had read somewhere that Camaros, even older ones, were popular among car thieves. By now it was probably stripped clean at a chop shop, and somebody was trying to figure out how to put the saxophone together.

For as long as he could remember-at least since high school-Bobby had wanted a Camaro. He could never afford a new one, and good used ones were hard to come by. Then one afternoon, driving back from the store, he'd found this one parked on a side street with a "For Sale" sign in the window. A blue Camaro Sport. One owner, all the service records, and the car looked like it had hardly been driven more than to the store. Now it was gone.

He took Lisa's Toyota to the gig, after dredging up a tenor from a former student who wasn't sure he wanted to pursue jazz anymore. Bobby had helped him pick out the horn so it was a good one, but it wasn't Bobby's old Zoot Sims model he'd bought from a guy on the street in New York.

After the second set, he was standing in the parking lot behind Gino's with the ba.s.s player, a tall thin guy who played good and didn't care anything about singers. They watched a tan Ford Taurus pull in, and two guys in rumpled suits got out and came over.

The ba.s.s player cupped the joint in his hand and started walking toward the club. "Cops, man."

"Are you Robert Ware?" the older of the two asked Bobby. The younger one watched the ba.s.s player walk away.

"Yeah. Is this about my car?" Bobby was wary. They didn't usually send detectives out for stolen cars.

"I'm afraid so," the older cop said, casually showing Bobby his ID. He looked at Bobby for what seemed like a long time. "We found traces of cocaine in your car, Mr. Ware."

"No, that's not mine," Bobby said. "I'm not into c.o.ke."

The younger cop nodded, smiling knowingly at Bobby.

"No, seriously, man. c.o.ke is not my thing." He held up his cigarette. "This is it for me."

The older cop took out a small notebook and flipped through some pages. "Do you know a Raymond Morales? Hispanic male, twenty-nine years old."

"No."

"You didn't let him borrow your car?"

"Borrow my car ... What are you talking about? I don't loan my car to anyone. Ask my girlfriend."

"We did. She told us where to find you."

They all turned and looked as the side door opened and the ba.s.s player peeked out. "Hey, man, we're on."

"Listen," Bobby said, "can you guys wait a bit? We have the last set to do and then we can talk."

The two cops looked at each other and shrugged. The older one said, pointing across the street, "We'll be at Denny's."

"Cool," Bobby said. "You did find the car, right?"

The younger cop looked at him and smiled again. "Oh yeah."

Bobby found them in a back booth drinking coffee and eating pie. He sat his horn on the floor, slid in next to the younger cop, and ordered coffee.

"So? What's the deal on my car? When can I get it back? Was there much damage?"

The two cops glanced at each other. "There was some damage," the younger one said.

"Oh f.u.c.k," Bobby said, loudly enough that a couple in the next booth turned and looked. "I knew it. Totaled, stripped, or what?"

"Bullet holes," the younger cop said.

"What?"

"Mr. Ware," the older cop began, "your car was involved in a high-speed chase early this morning. Raymond Morales was driving. He apparently ran out of gas. He emerged from your car with a weapon and fired on the pursuing officers. They returned fire and Mr. Morales was shot at the scene."

"Jesus," Bobby said. He sat stunned, not knowing what to say.

"The driver's side door has holes, the window was shattered, and there were several bullets lodged in the seat."

"Is he ...?"

Both cops nodded.

"I'm sorry," Bobby said, wondering about Raymond Morales.

"It happens," the younger cop said.

"Your girlfriend said you reported there was a saxophone in the car?"

"Yeah, that's right."

"We didn't find it."

Bobby looked at both of them. "What do you mean, you didn't find it?"

"Wasn't in the car," the younger one said.

They talked some more without giving up much information about the incident or when he could get his car back. The older cop gave Bobby his card and said they'd be in touch. They left Bobby to finish his coffee and think about Raymond Morales.

Two days later Bobby got a call from the older cop. Lloyd Foster, Bobby remembered from the business card. "We're done," Foster said. "You can pick up your car tomorrow morning."

"Anything new?" Bobby asked.

"Like what?" When Bobby couldn't think of what to ask, Foster said, "See you in the morning."

Bobby was prepared for the worst when he arrived at the impound garage. Foster and the younger cop were waiting for him. Bobby was surprised to see the car mostly intact. The entire driver's side window was gone. The techs had cleaned it out, Foster told him. When he opened the door, he saw the small round holes in the seats where the bullets had lodged.

There were dark spots on the seat-blood stains that hadn't been entirely erased-and there was a strange smell Bobby couldn't place. He looked at the two cops.

Foster shrugged. "Techs use all kinds of compounds, liquids to secure evidence. It'll go away eventually."

Bobby walked around the car. On the pa.s.senger door there were some minor dents and paint sc.r.a.pings from when Morales had sideswiped a car or a telephone pole or something else in his attempt to get away.

"Why didn't he just, you know, give up, instead of trying to shoot it out?"

The two cops exchanged glances and shrugged.

They handed him some papers to sign to release the car and gave him copies. Then they watched him get in the car and adjust the seat. Morales must have been short-the seat was closer to the wheel than Bobby kept it. He nodded at them, backed the car out of the garage, and drove off. In the rearview mirror, he caught them watching him till he turned the corner.

He pulled into the first gas station and filled up. He used the Yellow Pages to find a gla.s.s repair shop and jotted down the address of two not far away. Ed's Auto Gla.s.s was the first.

"We can do it while you wait," the man at the desk said. "What happened? Somebody try to break into your car?"

"Something like that," Bobby said. "It was stolen."

"Wow, and you got it back. Lucky," he said, sliding a clipboard across the counter so Bobby could initial the estimate form. "Give me an hour."

Bobby went for a walk, bought a c.o.ke at a convenience store, and smoked, thinking about Raymond Morales dying in his car. He pictured the car, out of gas, skidding to a stop, Morales throwing the door open, hiding behind it, firing at the cops, the gla.s.s shattering, bullets embedding in the seat, and then falling backwards as a bullet struck him in the chest. He couldn't get the vision out of his mind. All for some cocaine. How much? What was it worth? His life?

He got home before Lisa and examined the car's interior inch by inch, not knowing what he was looking for but unable to let it go. He felt under both seats, up in the springs, in the channel the seat slid back and forth on. He even lay under it with a flashlight, knowing the cops had already done this but not trusting their thoroughness.

He opened the hatch, raised the flap where the spare tire was kept, took the tire out and felt around the compartment, shined the flash everywhere, but it was no go. The car was clean.

The only evidence of the incident were the holes in the seat and the dark stain. Raymond Morales's blood.

"Hey, you got it back," Lisa said, getting out of her car. Bobby hadn't even heard her drive up.

"Yeah." He shut the hatch and locked it, as Lisa walked all around the car.

"Looks okay," she said.

He nodded and shrugged at her look. "No horn." He opened the driver's side door and showed her the bullet holes in the seat, the dark stain.

She just stared. "Jesus, kind of spooky, isn't it?"

Bobby got on Lisa's computer and went to the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Timeswebsite to check on obituaries. He skimmed through starting with the date after his car was stolen and found it five days after:

Raymond Morales, 19742004. Beloved son of AngelaMorales. Survivors include his sister Gabriela. A memorialservice will be held Wednesday, May 15 at ...

Bobby jotted down the date and time and glared at the photo of Raymond Morales, obviously taken a few years before his death. It was almost like a high school yearbook photo. Just a nice looking kid, three years younger than Bobby. He told himself he was only going out of curiosity, maybe to see if someone had any information about the horn, but he knew it was more than that.

He drove into Inglewood Park Cemetery and found the site easily. There were at least thirty or more tricked-out lowrider cars and a single limo parked along the curb. A plain tan sedan Bobby recognized as Foster's car was also there.

Bobby parked as close as he could and got out. A ways in on the lawn, among the hundreds of tombstones, he saw the small crowd gathered around the grave site. Foster and the younger cop were standing behind the fringe of mourners. Foster turned as Bobby walked up.

"Interesting," he said to Bobby. His younger partner turned and smiled.

"What are you guys doing here?" Bobby asked.

"Routine," Foster said. "We know Morales ran with some of these dudes. We're just compiling some information." Foster looked at him. "What about you? Car spooking you?" This made the other cop smile again.

Several of the young guys turned and glared at Bobby and the two cops. They were all slicked-back hair, ponytails, sungla.s.ses, sharply creased chinos, and black shirts. A couple started moving toward them but were held back by others. Bobby moved away to stand alone.

At the center of the gathering, two women sat by the casket as the priest finished. Bobby guessed they were the mother and sister. The younger woman raised her eyes briefly and looked at Bobby, then touched her mother's hand.

Bobby turned to look back at the cops as they walked toward their car. He took a deep breath and wondered if this was such a good idea. As the service ended and started to break up, the young guys walked past, stared at him curiously with hate in their eyes, and went to their cars. Soon the loud sound of souped-up engines and gla.s.s-pack m.u.f.flers filled the air.

Bobby stood still, hands clasped in front of him, not sure what to do next, when Raymond Morales's mother and sister walked by. The sister looked at Bobby strangely as her mother stopped and also looked at Bobby.

"You were a friend of my son's?" she asked, studying his face.

"Well, no, not really," Bobby said, surprised that she spoke to him. "I, ah ..."

"High school," the sister said. "Taft High School. I know you. Bobby Ware."

"Yes," Bobby said, taken aback.

"I'm Gabriela." She smiled briefly. "You played a saxophone solo at the school a.s.sembly. I was a freshman when you were a senior."

Bobby let his mind travel back ten years. He'd been in the marching band and the jazz ensemble, and he had played at the senior a.s.sembly. "Well, yes. I didn't think anybody remembered that."