An LA Crime Story

Tag: god

Hot Sauce
Omelette Man was Manny Valdez, an East LA native and Homeboy graduate who put hot sauce on everything: eggs, donuts, french fries, ice cream – He kept little packets of the stuff in his car and his desk drawer. It’s what he first noticed about Rhea – her double use of verde and Cholula.
The second thing was the way she alluded to food and sex. Valdez published a little throwaway rag, “The Hollywood Pulse.” It was one of those freebies stacked at the neighborhood stores and eateries that featured blurbs on local events, local politics and food – covering topics like the chorizo at Yucca Meats, traffic on Sunset and the craft fair at Michlortenia Elementary. His aging food reviewer was growing partial to “senior specials” which was a valid market but Valdez wanted to “tart up” the Pulse – make it more hip – to try and get in some new advertisers and more classifieds, which made up the bulk of the bi-weekly paper. He needed a new reviewer and he needed an angle. This Rhea chick might be it. It also looked like she was a low-rent eater – definitely a must.
“A cheap food writer.” He specified.
“Cheap food or cheap writer?” Rhea asked, already let down before she even got the job.
“Both.” Valdez answered.
“How cheap?” Rhea asked, already let down before she even got the job.
“Twenty five cents a word, five to seven hundred words. Bi-monthly reviews but fifty bucks a week for food.
So what? I go to Jitlada and get only 2 things and an egg roll? Catfish is twenty bucks. Prawns, thirty. That’s hardly comprehensive.
“No no. Downgrade. No single item or entree over ten bucks.”
“Ten bucks? Rhea challenged him, “You’re talking three Guisados, or maybe a side of Mee Grob or a family sized payday and a Yoo Hoo at 7-11.” She pointed out.
“Exactly.” Manny was on board; he liked her thinking. Look, you get a couple things are fifteen, that’s OK. Primo thing…I need it to be sexy. Like what you said about the dude and the tamale.”
“I didn’t say anything.” Rhea pulled back. Her radar lit up.
“I heard things.”
“What do you think you heard?”
“A date. Some food. An “encounter”…”
Rhea’s arm shot out fast as she reached over and yanked open the right side of his jacket, looking for a badge. “You Vice?”
“What?” he asked, surprised by the move.
“I haven’t seen you before. Are. You. Vice?”
“No…” Valdez smiled. This was getting interesting, “A little paranoid?” he commented.
“With cause.” She acknowledged.
They were quiet for a minute. Manny spoke first, “So…you interested?”
Rhea wanted the job. It could work out to Thirteen hundred twenty five. It wasn’t much but it was something. Still, “I’m not sure I’ll be any good.” She worried.
“Me either.” Manny agreed. “What the hell, let’s give it a try.”
“Two things …” Rhea hesitated, “There’s some food I just don’t like–“
“Crap–” Valdez thought, this could be bad. “Like what–?”
“Cantaloupe, turkey bacon, soy, kale, veal – on principal – and duck, except Peking.” She told him.
Valdez nodded; that wasn’t too bad. He didn’t like turkey bacon either. “And the second thing?”
“You can’t tell me what to eat.”
“Let’s give it a shot.” Valdez agreed and stuck out his hand.
Rhea shook it.
July 23, 2025
Remains
Rhea followed Sheena along the top rim of the cement embankment that cradled the LA river. It was a little after nine, daylight was almost gone. As they neared the Chavez Bridge, Sheena hesitated above a clutter of debris lumped under the bridge. Sheena’s camp.
“Stay here.” Rhea told Sheena as she scrambled down the bank where the trickle of river water ambled under the bridge. She walked a few yards to the camp remains: a moldy sleeping bag, some squishy old sweat pants, three empty Cheetos bags and an empty can of Progresso Light Pot Pie soup.
A sudden whoosh of air brushed down on her – a Santa Ana gust – that carried on it the smell. Unmistakable. She looked around for a body but she knew it would be a little farther away. She took another whiff then looked up the opposite embankment toward where it came from. A skinny coyote sauntered across the bridge just above. A woman in her twenties followed it, stopping mid-bridge to gaze out and around. It was the same woman who sat on the stone wall overlooking the reservoir. She was still barefoot. Noticing her, Was she homeless? Rhea wondered. Maybe not… she carried an old 35mm camera and an air of cool. The woman looked back at a building just behind her. Then she looked down at Rhea. A look came over her – a hesitant half-smile that pulled Rhea in like a memory.
“Find anything?” Sheena’s voice broke the spell.
Rhea turned. Sheena was about to skitter down the embankment.
“Stay there!” Rhea called up to her. Rhea glanced back up at the woman on the bridge. She was moving on… just another hipster photog, Rhea figured, looking for a moody downtown LA pic.
Rhea scrambled back up the embankment to where Sheena was waiting. “You have somewhere you can stay for a few nights?” she asked her.
“What is it?” Sheena asked, unsure if she wanted to know.
“Probably just a dead dog or racoon. I’ll get animal control to pick it up in the morning. Is there somewhere else you can crash-“
“I’ll find somewhere–“
“Try the shelter on San Pedro–“
Sheena shook her head. Hard.
“They’ve got better security now–” Rhea half-heartedly tried to convince her but Sheena wasn’t having it. Rhea understood – it would take an army of security and the compassion of masses to stem the violence and troubles of the homeless in LA. Rhea dug around in her pockets and gave Sheena all she had, almost seventeen dollars.
“Get some food. And be careful–“
Sheena took the money. Suddenly she grabbed Rhea and hugged her. “You too.” she cautioned then hurried across the street and headed downtown.
Rhea walked across the Chavez Bridge. Below her was the homeless camp. Behind her was the city skyline. A few yards from the boulevard on the northeast side of the bridge was a sagging, shuttered old bar called Domingos. She went around to the back. She checked in trash cans and knee high weeds, sniffing and honing in on a spot behind an old tire.There it was: a rotting dead possum. She backed away then turned around. She was facing the back of the bar. She sniffed; smelling something else. She walked to the bolted back door and put her nose to the edge of it. She sniffed again. She went around to the front. That door was jammed tight with twenty years of grime and a ten dollar lock. Deciding the smell gave her cause, she jimmied it open. The whiff of charred beans kissed her as it escaped the place. She went inside.
The light of an LA night bled through three small curtained windows. Her eyes adjusted to a hazy dimness. There was a bar against one wall, a pool table in the middle of the small room and a closed door in the back. A page of smoke slid out from under it. The door was locked. Three kicks knocked it open. Smoke veiled the room. Rhea walked through it. A blackened stove stood against a burned wall, splattered with the scorched remains of a pot of food that had exploded.
Rhea slid a finger through a layer of wet soot, pitted by drops of water from the ceiling sprinklers that had put out the fire. But they hadn’t put it out fast enough. There was a spent extinguisher on the floor, still in the hand of a dead girl lying there. The girl looked around eleven. Her other arm reached out to two more dead girls, huddled together by the bolted back door. They looked about six and seven. Their arms were around each other. Their eyes were open. Their bodies were splattered with extinguisher foam. Their nostrils were blackened with smoke.
Rhea checked them for a pulse. The youngest girl was still warm.
She pressed the sides of the girl’s mouth open. Her blue lips puckered like a snapdragon. A poof of air slipped out, shimmered, then fluttered away, as though she’d exhaled one last dream.
It made Rhea jump.
Outside, on the cement bank across the river from Domingos, the young photographer dropped to one knee. She braced her elbow on her thigh to steady her lens and snapped off a half dozen pictures of a faint little puff of shimmering light as it rose up into the night sky just above Domingos.
In the blackened kitchen, Rhea checked again for a pulse on the little girl. Nothing. The girl was dead. Rhea took out her phone and snapped a few pics of the three bodies. Then she called the boss.
July 23, 2025
Impossible
In a Little Tokyo office, just 2 blocks from LAPD Headquarters, Dr. Elena Gallows was blending a kale and banana smoothie after a morning kickboxing workout. She stayed fit. She had to. Being a cop therapist wasn’t physical, but it may as well have been. Feeling strong, she was ready to take on the day, even ready to take on the surprise of Detective Rhea Porter knocking on her door. Their first and last session nearly two months ago was testy and when Rhea cut it short and left, Gallows didn’t really expect her back. Rhea looked good, though. Calmer.
“No I don’t. I look like crap.” Rhea answered the shrink’s compliment.
“Here we go.” Gallows thought but Rhea softened.
“Sorry I didn’t make an appointment. Do you have time for me?”
Gallows checked the clock. “I have a hazing-damaged rookie in twenty minutes.” she said then added. “You can have the twenty but it’s not going to be any easier than it was.”
“I don’t care. I just need it to be fast.” Rhea informed her.
“That’s up to you.” Gallows slammed back.
The Doctor gestured to a seat next to a potted orchid. Rhea sat, the orchid caught her eye. It was fake. Gallows prided herself on being healthy and all-natural, yet here she was with a fake orchid. This made the doctor somehow flawed in Rhea’s eyes. It made her opinion matter less. Still, she needed the doctor on her side. She needed the doctor to tell Strickland that she was cured of her need for young men so he’d put her back on the squad.
“Nice orchid.” Rhea smiled.
“Thank you.” Gallows responded. “Ready?”
“Ready.” she told the shrink.
“Let’s start with your sister.” Gallows dove in.
“OK.”
“Do you feel responsible?”
“Oh… we’re starting there.”
“Yep. You want fast. Let’s do it.”
“Ok…” Rhea let out a breath, “Yes.”
“You feel responsible.”
“I am responsible.”
“So you seek out men… young men… who cannot love you to punish yourself.”
“I seek out men who can fuck a lot for a long time because it stops me from thinking about dead kids, missing kids, abducted kids, homeless kids and how there is nothing I can do to stop it.”
“You could start with yourself.”
“No comparison. He wasn’t a kid. He was legal age and I don’t do that anymore, doctor.” Rhea lied, “Not in awhile.
Gallows checked Rhea’s file. “The one you were caught with – Kevin?”
Rhea nodded and pointed out, “”Caught” is a strong word.”
Gallows leaned back. “Correct me Miss Porter.”
Rhea copied her; leaned back too, “… Glimpsed. Noticed.”
“You were suspended. Detective Sergeant Strickland recommended suspending you because… you were noticed?”
“He said it looked bad. To the division.”
“The Exploited Kids Division.” Gallows said, emphasizing “kids”.
“He was eighteen.” Rhea repeated.
“And a pro.” Gallows added.
Rhea opened her hands, gesturing that either she didn’t know or it didn’t matter, then added, “That’s on him.”
Gallows let it go. She had another direction to explore: “Maybe Detective Strickland was also concerned about you.” She told Rhea.
There was no way Rhea was gonna tell a shrink who worked for the force that maybe Strickland had a thing for her; that maybe he was jealous; that maybe he was inappropriately using authority to punish her for his desire. Rhea couldn’t prove any of it and Gallows would take months delving into it. Gallows was a shrink. And shrinks loved shrinking. Better to give her less to shrink about.
“Maybe…” Rhea answered.
“Do you like being a cop?” Gallows asked, changing direction again.
“Yes.” Rhea answered.
“Why?”
“I like busting bad guys.”
“You feel like you’re making a difference?”
“No. I’ve busted forty-two preds in seventeen years. Each time I thought it was going to change things– well, at least slow down the horror. It did not make one bit of difference. Kid trafficking”, she answered, emphasizing ‘kid’, — is a booming business.”
“So… forty-two days out of seventeen years you liked your job?”
“No. I like going to work. I like chasing some bastard down. I like thinking it might be the one who took Aggie. I still like thinking I might find her.”
Gallows checked her file again, “It’s been how long–?”
“Twenty two years. She was five.” they were both quiet for awhile. “There’s a chance.” Rhea affirmed.
“OK. Look, Detective–” Gallows sounded blunt–
“I’m done with them. With younger men.” Rhea interrupted.
Gallows ignored her, “You are not going to get your job back if you don’t stop–“
“I have stopped–” Rhea interrupted.
Gallows carried on, “–if you don’t sop with the boys–“
“Young men.” Rhea corrected her.
Gallows continued, “And you can’t stop until you stop the need to destroy yourself.”
“No–” Rhea shook her head.
“I know this is tough–“
“No no no–” Rhea went on.
“But to do that, we have to get you to a place where you can feel good about yourself and to do that–“
“Don’t say it–” Rhea kept on.
“–like I told you before, you will have to forgive yourself for what happened to your sister.”
Without hesitation, Rhea affirmed, “Not gonna happen.”
“Forgiveness can be powerful.”
Rhea matched her, “My power is guilt.”
Gallows looked at the clock. Time was up. She stood up. So did Rhea. Rhea stuck out her hand, hoping. Gallows hesitated, then shook it. Then she held on and looked Rhea in the eye. “Fridays are good. Before nine or after four thirty. When you’re ready.” Gallows smiled and let go.
Rhea left.
July 23, 2025

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