Ballard squeezed some Visine drops into her eyes, which were red from the salt water. After that she was good to go. She went into the break room to brew a double-shot espresso on the Keurig. She would be operating now and through the night on less than three hours of sleep. She needed to start stacking caffeine. She kept her eye on the wall clock because she wanted to time her arrival in the detective bureau at shortly before four p.m., when she knew the lead detective in the CAPs unit would also be watching the clock, getting ready to split for the weekend.
She had at least fifteen minutes to kill, so she went upstairs to the offices of the buy-bust team next to the vice unit. Major Narcotics was located downtown but each division operated its own street-level drug squad that moved nimbly and was responsive to citizen complaints about drug-dealing hot spots. Ballard had limited connections to the officers assigned to the unit, so she went in cold-calling. The duty sergeant took the information she had on Cynthia Haddel’s boyfriend/drug pimp. The name Cynthia’s father had given Ballard was someone the sergeant said was already on their radar as a small-time dealer who worked the Hollywood club scene. What made Ballard feel bad was that he said that the guy had a girlfriend working—and selling for him—in just about every hot spot in the division. She left the office, wondering if Haddel had known that or had believed she was the only one.
At 3:50 p.m. Ballard entered the detective bureau and looked for a spot to use as a work base. She saw that the desk she had used the night before was still empty and she thought maybe the detective who owned it had left early or was on the four-tens schedule and off Fridays. As she took the spot, she scanned the bureau and her eyes settled on the four-desk pod that comprised the CAPs unit. She saw all the desks were empty except for Maxine Rowland’s, the unit lead. It looked like she was packing her briefcase for the weekend.
Ballard sauntered over, timing it perfectly.
“Hey, Max,” she said.
“Renée,” Rowland responded. “You’re early. You have court?”
“No, I came in early to clean up some work. I owe you a case from last night but the Dancers thing blew up and everything got pushed sideways.”
“I get it. What’s the case?”
“An abduction and assault. The victim is a transgender biological male, found circling the drain in a parking lot on the Santa Monica stroll. She’s in a coma at Hollywood Pres.”
“Shit.”
Rowland just saw her exit to the weekend blocked. And that was what Ballard was counting on.
“Was there a sexual assault?” Rowland asked.
Ballard could tell what she was thinking: push this onto the sexual assault unit.
“Most likely but the victim lost consciousness before being interviewed,” she said.
“Shit,” Rowland said again.
“Look, I just came in to start the paper on it. I was also thinking I’d have time before my shift to make some calls. Why don’t you get out of here and let me run with it? I’m on tomorrow, too, so I could take it through the weekend and get back with you next week.”
“You sure? If it’s a bad beat, I don’t want to part-time it.”
“I won’t. I’ll work it. I haven’t been able to follow up on anything off the late show in a long while. There are some leads here. You recall anything lately with brass knuckles?”
Rowland thought for a moment and then shook her head.
“Brass knuckles … No.”
“What about an abduction off the stroll? She was taken somewhere and bound, then taken back. Could’ve been a couple days.”
“It’s not ringing any bells but you need to go up to talk to vice.”
“I know. It was my next stop if you let me run with it. What about the ‘upside-down house’? That mean anything to you?”
“How do you mean?”
“She said it. To the patrol cops. She momentarily regained consciousness while they were waiting for the RA. She said she had been attacked at the upside-down house.”
“Sorry. Never heard of it.”
“Okay, anything else on your plate like this? Somebody grabbed on the stroll?”
“I’ll have to think, but I can’t remember anything right now.”
“I’ll run it through the box, see what comes up.”
“So you’re sure you’ll take it? I can call a couple of my guys back in. They won’t be happy but those are the breaks.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. You go home. Don’t call anybody in. If you want, I’ll send you updates over the weekend.”
“Tell you the truth, I can wait till Monday. Going up to Santa Barbara for the weekend with my kids. The less I have to worry about, the better.”
“You got it.”
“Don’t fuck me on this, Renée.”
“Hey, I’m telling you I won’t.”
“Good.”
“Have a nice weekend.”
Rowland was always blunt and Ballard took no offense. Something about working sex cases had taken subtlety out of her personality.
Ballard left her there to finish packing up and went back to the second floor, this time ducking into the vice unit. Like the buy-bust guys, the vice cops kept odd hours, and there was never a guarantee that anyone would be in the unit. She entered and leaned over the counter to look into the alcove where the sergeants sat. She got lucky. Pistol Pete Mendez was at one of the desks, eating a sandwich. He was the only one there.
“Ballard, what do you want?” he asked. “Come around.”
It was his usual gruff greeting. Ballard reached over the half door to where she knew the lock switch was located and let herself in. She went into the alcove and pulled out the chair opposite Mendez’s desk.
“Ramón Gutierrez,” she said. “I’m working follow-up on that case. You guys hear anything about it last night?”
“Not a peep,” Mendez said. “But we were working East Hollywood and that’s a whole different kettle of fish from the dragon walk.”
“Right. When was the last time you were over there on Santa Monica?”
“Been about a month because things have been pretty tame there. But it’s like cockroaches. You can fumigate but they always come back.”
“You heard anything about a bad actor picking up pros and hurting them?”
“Not in a long while.”
“Ramone was worked over with brass knuckles. The guy was also a biter.”
“We get our fair share of biters but nothing comes to mind with brass knuckles. Is your he-she going to make it?”
“That remains to be seen. Still in a coma at Hollywood Pres for now, but they’ll be moving her down to County as soon as they realize they don’t have a paying customer.”
“That’s the way it goes. Her?”
“Yeah, her. You have a file on Ramona I could borrow?”
“Yeah, I’ll get it for you. But it’s under Ramón Gutierrez, last I checked. What else you got?”
“You ever heard of a place called the upside-down house? Ramona said it to the blue suiters who first responded to the call.”
Like Rowland, Mendez thought about it and then shook his head.
“Not that we know about here,” he said. “There’s an underground bondage club called Vertigo. Moves around to different locations.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” Ballard said. “Vertigo means dizzy, not upside-down. Plus I don’t think this was a club thing. It’s deeper than that. This victim’s lucky to be alive.”