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I finally decided that no matter how stupid the idea made me feel, I’d feel a lot more stupid if I was right and never checked it out. I went in.
The quickest way I could think of to check on the idea of a guilty insider was to look at the duty roster for the day the riot broke out. If somebody in the command structure on that day was even remotely suspicious or out of the ordinary, I had a starting place.
The documents were supposed to be a matter of public record. I just had to ask. So here I was filling out the forms.
When I was done I handed them to a young man in a small cubicle. He looked me over suspiciously, glanced at the forms, and disappeared.
I waited. There were no magazines to look at—not even a copy of True Crime.
After about ten minutes the suspicious young man came back and pointed back the way he came. “Sergeant Brandon will see you,” he said. I started down the hall. I looked back once, halfway. The young man was still watching me. Probably afraid I was going to steal a slab of linoleum from the floor.
The law says the department has to let the public see any documents they ask for, within reason. There’s no law that says it has to make it easy. That was lucky for Sergeant Brandon. If it was illegal to be a pain in the ass, Sergeant Brandon would be doing hard time at San Quentin.
Apparently the suspicious young man and Brandon had figured out I was an ex-cop. Easy enough: a quick glance at my driver’s license, then a check with computerized records. Out pops the file of Billy Knight, formerly of the LAPD.
And unless there was always spittle foaming on his lips and his face was always bright red, I’d have to say that something about ex-cops requesting documents made Sergeant Brandon especially mad.
He started right off with a snarl. “Didn’t they teach you at the Academy it’s illegal to investigate without proper credentials?”
“You should cut down on salt,” I told him. “Maybe lose a few pounds. Otherwise you’re looking at a stroke.”
I think the color he turned is called vermilion. Until now I had only seen it in crayon boxes.
I thought he was going to pop or at least stand on his chair and call my mother names. But he surprised me.
Sergeant Brandon got up and left.
I waited half an hour before I decided he wasn’t coming back. I was really making a lot of new friends on my trip.
I stood up and looked around the cubicle. There was a file cabinet. It was locked. There was a desk with three drawers. They were locked, too. There was no lock on the telephone, but I couldn’t think of anybody I wanted to call.
He’d have to come back someday, unless I had driven him into early retirement. I couldn’t wait
too long—I was already getting hungry.
I had just decided to come back tomorrow—and tomorrow and tomorrow—when there was a slight, delicate throat-clearing sound behind me. I turned.
A very proper-looking young woman in uniform stood in the doorway. Her light-brown hair was in a bun and she held a manila envelope in her hand. “Mr. Knight?”
I don’t know where these impulses come from, but I very badly wanted to say, “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” I fought the urge down and settled for, “That’s me.”
She gave me a very proper one-eighth inch of smile and slapped the envelope into my hand.
“Sergeant Brandon said to give this to you.” She turned and tick-tacked off down the hall in her regulation shoes.
For a moment I worried that it might have been too easy, but when I gave myself credit for waiting patiently for half an hour I felt better. I got my driver’s license from the receptionist and headed out.
Chapter Eighteen
I really was hungry, and in a way that only seems to happen in L.A., I was hungry for something very specific. Nothing else would do, no matter how delicious. If somebody had waved filet mignon and lobster under my nose I would have pushed past on the run. It wasn’t a great treat, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
I’m not proud of it, but all I could think of was a chili-cheese dog from Pink’s. Maybe it was the force of Sergeant Whitt’s personality.
As I drove I thought about what I might have in the envelope, and what I might do with it. Every time I got hold of a really good thought, my stomach growled.
But it came down to this: the duty roster would tell me who in the high command had been in a position to act—or refrain from acting—when the riot broke out. After that, I could check on who actually had, or hadn’t.
Of course, I would have to eat first. A chili-cheese dog. Maybe two. Two sounded about right—man-sized, but not greedy.
