Los’s Long Day in LA – By R.L. Merrill #3
“Los. Carlos. Morales. Carlos Berend Jiménez Morales.”
The cop frowned deeper, and then wrote his name on a card. “ Berend? Oh. Kay. Birthdate?”
“Uh, December thirteenth, ninety-two. Ninety-three? No, ninety-two. Sorry.”
They wrote that down, and then looked him over in his ripped olive pants and dirty black short-sleeved dress shirt. He’d forgotten to bring something that would hide his tattoos from his abuela, but for once she hadn’t given him shit for branding himself.
“You got anything in your pockets?”
Los pulled out his pants pockets in front. “Only my broken phone in back.”
They tilted their head. “Pull up your shirt. Let me see your waistband. Turn around.”
He did as told and turned in a circle.
He heard them suck in a breath.
“You’ve got more cuts on your back, and there’s blood on your pants. Seems those fire boys were having too much fun fucking with you to do their jobs. There’s first-aid in my shop. Hold on, let me call this in.”
They clicked on their radio, and he heard them give his information to dispatch.
Their radio was too low for him to hear the response.
The cop lowered their voice and stepped a few feet away, keeping an eye on Los as they waited for information.
Then they pulled out their phone, glanced down at it, and back at Los with eyebrows raised.
Los wasn’t comforted by the look on their face when they returned.
“I’m going to need to take you in.”
Oh no. Los’s knees buckled, and his chin quivered as he frantically tried to explain himself. “Officer… I’m sorry, I swear. I know you have no reason to believe me, no sé el numéro de telefono de la casa de mi Abuela, they’re in my phone. I?—”
“Whoa, calm down. I’m not arresting you. You need to sit down for a second, you just lost all the color in your face.”
The cop grabbed him by the arm, and Los stiffened, afraid he was going to let his whole fucking band down by getting tossed in jail. But instead, the officer led him over to a bench and guided him to sit down.
“Can you put your head between your knees? You look like you’re going to pass out on me.”
“Officer, I?—”
“Just breathe. We’ll figure this out.” They patted his shoulder, taking care not to touch the spots with scrapes. “You speak Spanish well.”
“Thank you.” Los bent over and took a few deep breaths while concentrating on the pressure of their hand on his back.
“Two weeks after I finished my field training,” they began, the warm tone of their deep voice hypnotic.
It got Los out of his body long enough to recover from his freak-out, “I went to Arizona with some of the guys in my academy class. We went river rafting, which should have been a blast, but the dumbasses flipped our raft. I got swept into a crevice between some rocks and was wedged in there so tight, I couldn’t breathe. It got dark. I couldn’t yell.
“A deputy finally came by on the shore. I managed to get my hand out and wave it around. The guy pulled me out, asked me for my ID, and I realized all my shit was now at the bottom of the river, and my ‘buddies’ were nowhere to be found. The fucking guy accused me of being an illegal and threw me in county, wouldn’t take my badge number, didn’t even get me medical attention.
He was such a dick. When my brother showed up—he’s LASD—he read the guy the riot act for locking up his sister.
The guy fell all over himself apologizing. ”
Sister . Okay, she/they maybe? “What’s the moral of that story?” Los asked, finally breathing normally. “Don’t go to Arizona?”
She laughed. “Maybe. Or maybe I just tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when I can. Now, can you walk? The sooner I get you to the department, we can try to find your friends?—”
“I gotta get to The Bowl. What time is it?”
“It’s noon. Come on. Let’s get you taken care of, Mr. Morales.”
“It’s Los,” he said, not wanting anything to do with the Morales name at the moment.
She smiled and put a hand on his back to guide him down the path toward her patrol car. “Los. I’m Angela.”
Los stopped in his tracks. “You are an angel,” he mooned. “You saved me.”
“Whatever…” She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”
His skin was stinging in several places, and he was going to feel beat up later. Hopefully adrenaline would carry him through.
“So, you a treasure hunter? Conspiracy theorist?”
He groaned, and she chuckled. “Morales family lore. Abuelo Lorenzo would tell us wild stories about the Morales treasure, and, like, the time his father saw a Japanese plane get shot down near Silver Lake during WWII, but that Hollywood covered it up for the government and said it was a movie stunt?—”
“I heard that one from my grandpa. My mom’s Japanese, and her grandpa was sent with his family to the internment camp at Tule Lake.
They lost everything. When they got out, they moved back to LA and started over.
But the Midori family had all kinds of stories about what really happened back then.
The Salvadors weren’t much better with their wild tales.
Hard to tell what’s real and what’s bullshit. ”
“I haven’t been here in a while, between the band being on tour and COVID before that… I felt bad. My cousin was all excited. This stuff is important to him. I thought I’d humor him.” He shook his head. “When I see him next…”
“You could have been really hurt. You’re lucky I got a call from a concerned Karen about people digging in the park, or who knows how long you would have been down there.”
Los swallowed hard. “Never thought I’d be grateful for a Karen.”
“Huh. And your cousin bailed on you. Man. When I’m off duty, I’ll hold him while you flog him with a wet noodle.”
Los laughed for the first time all day. “Deal.”
When they reached her SUV, she opened up the back door. “Sorry, them’s the rules.”
Los held up his hands and climbed inside. “No problem. I’m just grateful you didn’t have those fire guys take me to the psychiatric hospital.”
“I thought about it,” she said, before she closed the door and climbed into the front, calling into the station. “Eleven-Lincoln-Ninety-Five, code four at Elysian Park. Transporting subject to station.”
“Ten-Four.”
She pulled out of the parking lot, turned onto Academy Road, and, as they drove past the park entrance, Los saw Chuy walking with José.
Cabrón. He wasn’t about to point them out to Angela, though.
She was being cool, but she might not be so kind to his cousin, who actually had been digging in the park.
Then Los realized what she’d said. “Wait. You thought about the psych hospital?”
She chuckled. “Yeah, but then I figured out you were just having a good old-fashioned panic attack. I might’ve, too, if I fell in the ground. Were there spiders?”
“ So many fucking spiders, dude. It was the dark, though. I hate the dark.”
“Uh-huh, imagination goes wild in the dark. You ever have anxiety like that before?”
“Not… like that. My therapist—yeah, I go to therapy; I’ve got sleep issues—she’s helping me deal with it. Childhood wasn’t a picnic.”
“That’s cool,” she said, and he believed it was genuine. “Childhood trauma kicks your ass in many ways. Not everyone is brave enough to tackle their problems head-on. Most people would just take sleeping pills.”
“No way. I don’t take drugs no more.”
She glanced in the rearview. “But you’re a rock star.”
“Yeah,” he said, recognizing the sarcasm in her voice. “Our band has been through some shit. We all quit a long time ago. Drink, yes. Sometimes. But no drugs.”
“Eleven-Lincoln-Ninety-Five, four-fifteen at Akbar. Two suspects unarmed, having verbal on the street, both three-eleven.”
“Eleven-Lincoln-Ninety-Five show me responding.”
Angela gave the SUV a little more gas and turned onto Riverside and then Rowena.
“How do you even remember what all of those numbers mean?”
She laughed. “It’s drilled into us at the academy and in field training. Four-fifteen, disturbance. Three-eleven, indecent exposure.”
“Wow. Sounds like a party.”
She shook her head and took another tight corner. “It’s probably like how you remember what chords to play when you’re onstage, yeah?”
Los opened his mouth and closed it. “I didn’t say I played guitar. Wait. You’ve heard of my band?”
“Maybe.”
He grinned. Maybe this day could turn around after all. Maybe he wouldn’t be spending the night in jail.
“Muscle memory. Can’t remember numbers, can’t read worth shit, but music and hands-on stuff I can do. Fix stuff, make stuff. Probably would have become a mechanic like my father if I hadn’t met my bandmates.”
“I’m shit at math too, but I can remember sequences of numbers.” She took the curve from Hyperion to Fountain a little fast.“I can memorize stuff pretty—oh, fucking Hellen Mirren of God.”
Los snorted and was about to ask what was happening when she came to a screeching halt in front of?—
“I remember this place! Akbar. I got kicked out when I was like thirteen.”
She burst out laughing. “How the hell did you get in here at thirteen?”
He grinned. “Some drag queen told the bouncer I was her kid.”
Angela climbed out, and Los took a second to admire the confident set to her broad shoulders.
She had a powerful physique, like a smaller version of rugby player Ilona Maher, only shorter.
Hot. Very hot. Especially since she might not be throwing him in jail.
That definitely upped her hotness factor.
She opened his door. “Stay by the car, would ya? My AC sucks. Don’t want you to suffocate in this beast.”
“Thank you. If anyone comes after you with tweezers or a curling iron, I got your back.”
“Noted.” She raised an eyebrow and strolled into battle.
Two persons were having a heated but not physical discussion in front of the bar. One… performer? Was wearing a green silk kimono, and the other was barefoot in a pair of gray sweatpants. Both were absolutely ripped.