The Renegades: A Charlie Hood Novel by T. Jefferson Parker

Author:T. Jefferson Parker [Parker, T. Jefferson]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Suspense, det_police, Fiction
ISBN: 0525950958
Google: _hNCB8-5JeAC
Amazon: B004I1JQI4
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Published: 2009-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

23

Hood picked up a Friday graveyard patrol shift for some OT but mainly just to drive. It was a solo run and the minutes dragged but the hours flew.

After clocking off shift at five-fifty Saturday morning he drove his Camaro up to Bakersfield and stood awhile by Allison Murrieta’s grave. It was her birthday and she would have been thirty-three. Hood reflected that she had had big appetites and never apologized for them. These were largely why she was no longer among the living. But he hadn’t come here to analyze her or to affix blame, only to pay respect and to remember the way she carried herself through this world. He could still taste her breath.

When he was done he drove back to L.A.

Sunday morning at six Hood’s old boss on the Bulldogs called. His name was Bill Marlon and he was still running the homicide show out of LASD headquarters in Monterey Park.

“Charlie, get yourself to Fifth and San Pedro.”

“Skid Row.”

“ASAP.”

“What’s this about?”

“Your old friend Kick.”

Hood made it quickly in the light Sunday morning traffic. He drove into the shadows of the downtown buildings, made his way into the forbidding darkness of Skid Row. To Hood this was the worst of L.A., a twenty-four-seven bazaar of drug use and narcotics deals and prostitution, often conducted in Porta Potties set up for the homeless, who gathered here for services. He knew it was one of the only places in Southern California where rival gangs could be found buying and selling drugs side by side, violence suspended for the fast dollars. There was heroin on Broadway, crack on Fifth at Crocker or Main. Addicts, dealers, hookers, hustlers, gangsters, the homeless, the hopeless, the insane. All here, thought Hood, the Devil’s arcade. Or a fifty-square-block party, if your idea of a party is crack and sex in a Porta Potti.

He found a place off San Pedro to park. Up ahead near the intersection of Fifth he could see three LAPD Central Division units with their lights flashing, a coroner’s van, a Fire and Rescue truck and a couple of unmarked police and sheriff units.

When he got near the corner he saw two men wheeling a shrouded body into the back of the coroner’s van. A small, ragged crowd had gathered. Marlon was talking to two LAPD sergeants. He thanked them and pulled Hood aside and they stood in the doorway of a shabby office building that was closed on Sundays.

“That’s Kick with the body snatchers,” said Marlon. “Deon Miller. He was walking down Fifth, apparently alone. A black Silverado pickup stopped beside him, the driver got out and shotgunned him. All of this according to the one witness, a Guatemalan dishwasher who rents a room with friends on Los Angeles Street. He was on his way to work.”

Hood watched the coroner’s van roll away, no lights or sirens for this vehicle, just death on wheels. “Did the dishwasher get a look at the driver?”

“White or light Hispanic male, tall. He wore a cowboy hat and dark bandana over his face.

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