“What did you see?” the Oracle asked.

“I hear car doors slam. I hear a man scream. Loud. I hear shouts. Curses. A man screams more. I run out. I see a young white man kicking a black man on the ground. Kick kick kick. Curses and kicks. I see other white men grab the young man and pull him away. The black man continues the screams. Plenty of screams. I see handcuffs. I know these are policemen. I know they come to this block to arrest the women of the street. That is my report.”

“There will be some investigators coming to talk to you,” the Oracle said, leaving the liquor store.

Budgie and one vice car were gone. Four vice cops and two cars were still there. The young cop who had been pacing when the Oracle arrived walked up to him and said, “I know I’m in trouble here, Sarge. I know there’s a civilian witness.”

“Maybe you want to call the Protective League’s hotline and get lawyered up before making any statements,” the Oracle said.

“I will,” the vice cop said.

“What’s your name, son?” the Oracle asked. “I can’t remember anybody’s name anymore.”

“Turner,” he said. “Rob Turner. I never worked your watch when I was in patrol.”

“Rob,” the Oracle said, “I don’t want you making any statements to me. Call the League. You have rights, so don’t be afraid to exercise them.”

It was obvious that Turner trusted the Oracle by reputation, and he said, “I only want you to know… everybody to know… that when I arrived, that fucking pimp was sitting on her with his hands down inside her pants. That beautiful girl, her face was a horrible sight. I want all the coppers to know what I saw when I arrived. And that I’m not sorry for anything except losing my badge. I’m real sorry about that.”

“That’s enough talking, son,” the Oracle said. “Go sit in your car and get your thoughts together. Get lawyered up. You’ve got a long night ahead of you.”

When the Oracle returned to his car to make his notifications, he saw Fausto and Benny Brewster parked across the street, talking to a vice cop. They looked grim. Fausto crossed the street, coming toward him, and the Oracle hoped this wasn’t going to be an I-told-you-so, because he wasn’t in the mood, not a bit.

But all Fausto said to him before he and Benny Brewster left the scene was “This is a crummy job, Merv.”

The Oracle opened a packet of antacid tablets, and said, “Old dogs like you and me, Fausto? It’s all we got. Semper cop.”

ELEVEN

EARLY THAT MORNING Mag Takara underwent surgery at Cedars-Sinai to reconstruct facial bones, with more surgeries to follow, the immediate concern being to save the vision in her left eye. After being booked into the prison ward at USCMC, the pimp, Reginald Clinton Walker, also went under the knife, to have his ruptured spleen removed. Walker would be charged with felony assault because of the great bodily injury suffered by Officer Takara, but of course the serious charge of felony assault on a police officer could not be alleged in this case.

There wasn’t a cop on the midwatch who didn’t think that the felony assault and the pimping allegation wouldn’t be the subject of plea bargain negotiations, but both the area captain and the patrol captain vowed that they’d do all they could to keep the DA onboard for a vigorous felony prosecution. However, a caveat was added, because as soon as Walker filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the LAPD and the city for having his spleen destroyed, who could say what the outcome would be?

That afternoon, an hour before midwatch roll call, the floor nurse at Cedars saw a tall man in T-shirt and jeans with a dark suntan and bleached streaky hair enter the ward, carrying an enormous bouquet of red and yellow roses. Sitting outside the room of Officer Mag Takara were her mother, father, and two younger sisters, who were crying.

The nurse said, “Are those for Officer Takara, by chance?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought so,” she said. “You’re the fourth. But she can’t see anybody today except immediate family. They’re waiting outside her room for her to have her dressing changed. You can talk to them if you like.”

“I don’t wanna bother them,” he said.

“The flowers are beautiful. Do you want me to take them?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just put them in her room when you get a chance.”

“Is there a card?”

“I forgot,” he said. “No, no card.”

“Shall I tell her who brought them?”

“Just tell her… tell her that when she’s feeling better, she should have her family take her to the beach.”

“The beach?”

“Yeah. The ocean is a great healer. You can tell her that if you want.”

At midwatch roll call the lieutenant was present, along with three sergeants, including the Oracle. He got the job of explaining what had happened and having it make sense, as though that were possible. The cops were demoralized by the events on Sunset Boulevard the night before, and they were angry, and all the supervisors knew it.

When he was asked to be the one to talk about it, the Oracle said to the lieutenant, “In his memoir, T. E. Lawrence of Arabia said old and wise means tired and disappointed. He didn’t live long enough to know how right he was.”

At 5:30 P.M. the Oracle, sitting next to the lieutenant, popped a couple of antacid tablets and said to the assembly of cops in the roll-call room, “The latest report is that Mag is resting and alert. There doesn’t appear to be any brain damage, and the surgeon in charge says that they’re optimistic about restoring vision in her eye. At least most of the vision.”

The room was as quiet as the Oracle had ever heard it, until Budgie Polk, her voice quavering, said, “Will she look… the same, do they think?”

“She has great surgeons taking care of her. I’m sure she’ll look fine. Eventually.”

Fausto, who was sitting next to Budgie, said, “Is she coming back to work after she’s well?”

“It’s too soon to say,” the Oracle said. “That will depend on her. On how she feels after everything.”

“She’ll come back,” Fausto said. “She picked up a grenade, didn’t she?”

Budgie started to say something else but couldn’t. Fausto patted her hand for a second.

The Oracle said, “The detectives and our captains have promised that the pimp will go to the joint for this, if they can help it.”

B.M. Driscoll said, “Maybe they can’t help it. I’m sure he’s got half a dozen shysters emptying his bedpan right this minute. He’ll make more money from a lawsuit than he could make from every whore on Sunset.”

“Yeah, our activist mayor and his handpicked, cop-hating police commissioner will be all over this one,” Jetsam said. “And we’ll hear from the keepers of the consent decree. No doubt.”

Before the Oracle could answer, Flotsam said, “I suppose the race card will be played here. Dealt from the bottom of the deck, as usual.”

That’s what the lieutenant hadn’t wanted, the issue of race entering what he knew would be a heated exchange today. But race affected everything in Los Angeles from top to bottom, including the LAPD, and he knew that too.

Looking very uncomfortable, the lieutenant said, “It’s true that the media and the activists and others might have a field day with this. A white cop kicking the guts out of a black arrestee. They’ll want Officer Turner not just fired but prosecuted, and maybe he will be. And you’ll hear accusations that this proves we’re all racists.”

“I got somethin’ to say about it, Lieutenant.”

Conversation stopped then. Benny Brewster, the former partner of Mag Takara, the only black cop on the midwatch and in the room except for a night-watch sergeant sitting on the lieutenant’s right, had something to say about what? The race card? White on black? The lieutenant was very uncomfortable. He didn’t need this snarky shit.

Every eye was on Benny Brewster, who said, “If it was me that got there first instead of Turner and seen what he seen, I’d be in jail. ’Cause I’da pulled my nine and emptied the magazine into that pimp. So I’d be in jail now. That’s all I got to say.”