Chapter 68
I TRIED TO move quickly, but before I could get closer, the young woman threw a quick jab that caught the man right on the nose. I was impressed with the form and the speed of her punch. Then she threw another. The man stumbled back a couple of feet.
I wasn’t quite so worried about the girl’s safety now. Now I had to worry about the man’s.
That’s when she took a step forward and launched a right cross that snapped the man’s head back. Some blood and a tooth fell onto the sidewalk. The young woman stood there in a perfect boxer’s pose with her left fist out in front and her right fist cocked and ready to fire.
The man turned and ran down a gap between two buildings. I was about to consider the incident closed when the girl stormed after him in her high heels. I couldn’t in good conscience let her continue to beat him to a pulp.
I started jogging toward the gap where the man had fled.
I trotted past a crowd of about a dozen gawkers who’d been watching the fight, none of who had the nerve to follow.
When I got to the narrow alley, I was surprised to see that it was simply an access to the building behind the Garden Spot and to the building next to it.
There was no graffiti on the walls. No trash on the ground.
But there was the man now doing his best to evade the woman, who’d punched him several more times.
In a reasonable voice, I called out, “Okay, that’s enough.”
The girl glanced toward me but didn’t cease her attacks. The man was just trying to get away from her at this point. She connected with a punch now and then but mostly he was bopping out of the way.
This time I shouted, “Police! Step away from the man.”
The girl froze mid-punch. She stood up straight, adjusted her flashy dress, and turned toward me. She faced me without concern, like she was meeting a friend at Starbucks.
The man said, “How do I know you’re a cop?”
I didn’t draw a gun or even pull my badge. I just glared at him.
The young woman said, “Oh, she’s a cop all right.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little. Her street smarts and intonation told me she was no dummy.
She mumbled, “Sorry. I figured you for just a nosy tourist at first.”
I eased closer to them. The man was standing about three feet away from me. Blood leaked out of his nose and mouth, and was smeared across his shirt. I noticed a gap in his upper row of teeth. I knew where the missing tooth had gone.
The woman in the glittery dress said, “You going to arrest me?”
I looked toward the man and said, “Do you intend to make a complaint?”
He glared at the woman. He took another few seconds, then slowly shook his head.
“Then probably not.” I looked back at the young woman and said, “I can probably guess what happened.”
She shook her head. “I’m not a prostitute, if that’s what you think.”
I said, “Okay. But I need to know what happened before I just let you two wander off. Why don’t you enlighten me as to what caused this fracas.”
The girl said, “I met this moron at a club last night. I gave him some ZsaZsa. He took it all, then refused to pay me. It was, like, three hundred bucks’ worth.”
“Excuse me. You sold him what?”
Now the man interjected. “She didn’t sell it. She gave it to me.”
“I gave you a sample. That’s just good salesmanship. But you owe me for all the rest of the gummies you gobbled down. If you hadn’t acted so goofy all night and kept telling me you had money back at your shitty hotel, I wouldn’t have given it to you.” She looked like she was going to hit him again.
I said, “You guys are going to have to excuse me. I work in Homicide. I have no idea what ZsaZsa is.”
The man blurted out, “It’s a scam is what it is. It makes you feel great. For about five minutes.”
The girl was much more sedate in her answer. “It’s a synthetic form of marijuana. There is no law against it. And it’s expensive.”
I didn’t have time to get embroiled in a long dispute with these two.
I held up one finger, pulled my phone out, and made a quick call to our Narcotics division.
One quick conversation with a detective confirmed the truth: It wasn’t a crime.
At least not yet. A bill in the California legislature might change that soon. That’s all I needed to know.
I waited until the man was safely out of the alley. I saw him turn at the corner and start to run. I hoped he noticed his tooth on the sidewalk and picked it up on his way.
I turned to the girl. “You seem way too smart to be doing things like this.”
“And you seem way too reasonable to be a cop. Sometimes appearances can be misleading.”
“Why sell that stuff?”
“Like you said, I’m smart. I got one more semester at SF State. But I’m too lazy to get a real job and not tough enough to go to jail. This is a good compromise for now. I’m hoping to land a job in marketing. If not, I’m making pretty good money, at least until they turn this into a crime.”
That was logic I had a hard time refuting.